What I’m Reading, February 16, 2015

Posted on February 16, 2015 by wellsdc

The Tragedy of the American Military, James Fallows, The Atlantic, January/February 2015

This has become the way we assume the American military will be discussed by politicians and in the press: Overblown, limitless praise, absent the caveats or public skepticism we would apply to other American institutions, especially ones that run on taxpayer money. A somber moment to reflect on sacrifice. Then everyone except the few people in uniform getting on with their workaday concerns.

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This reverent but disengaged attitude toward the military—we love the troops, but we’d rather not think about them—has become so familiar that we assume it is the American norm. But it is not. When Dwight D. Eisenhower, as a five-star general and the supreme commander, led what may have in fact been the finest fighting force in the history of the world, he did not describe it in that puffed-up way. On the eve of the D-Day invasion, he warned his troops, “Your task will not be an easy one,” because “your enemy is well-trained, well-equipped, and battle-hardened.” As president, Eisenhower’s most famous statement about the military was his warning in his farewell address of what could happen if its political influence grew unchecked.

At the end of World War II, nearly 10 percent of the entire U.S. population was on active military duty—which meant most able-bodied men of a certain age (plus the small number of women allowed to serve). Through the decade after World War II, when so many American families had at least one member in uniform, political and journalistic references were admiring but not awestruck. Most Americans were familiar enough with the military to respect it while being sharply aware of its shortcomings, as they were with the school system, their religion, and other important and fallible institutions.

Now the American military is exotic territory to most of the American public. As a comparison: A handful of Americans live on farms, but there are many more of them than serve in all branches of the military. (Well over 4 million people live on the country’s 2.1 million farms. The U.S. military has about 1.4 million people on active duty and another 850,000 in the reserves.) The other 310 million–plus Americans “honor” their stalwart farmers, but generally don’t know them. So too with the military. Many more young Americans will study abroad this year than will enlist in the military—nearly 300,000 students overseas, versus well under 200,000 new recruits. As a country, America has been at war nonstop for the past 13 years. As a public, it has not. A total of about 2.5 million Americans, roughly three-quarters of 1 percent, served in Iraq or Afghanistan at any point in the post-9/11 years, many of them more than once.

The Surprising Thing People Who Resist Authority Have in Common, Krystnell Storr, Science.Mic, January 14, 2015 Continue reading →

Heroes

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Posted on January 26, 2015 by wellsdc

We are not Spartans.

We are not Romans.

We are not Nazis.

We are not some military society who worships war and glorifies battle as some great heroic ideal and spawns generations of warriors. In America, mothers don’t tell their sons and husbands to come home with their shields or carried upon them. Or a least they damned well shouldn’t.

We are a free people, we are Americans. For us there should be nothing glorious about war.

We should honor the soldier, certainly, but we should honor the peacemakers to a far greater degree.

As I’ve said here and elsewhere more times than I can count: war is a dirty horrible business and make no mistake about it. War should be the last resort, when all else has failed and the very safety of liberty is endangered.

War is hell. War is violent and terrible and immoral. Certainly there may be acts of heroism and valor in war, but there are also endless acts of craven cowardice and ignorant stupidity and wanton violence and vicious cruelty – just as in any other human endeavor. War should always be a last resort, embarked upon only under the most dire of necessity and not some goddamned glorious spectacle.

We go to war because we have to, and for no other reason.

While it’s certainly true that, as Orwell and Churchill both said, the nation sleeps snug in its bed only because rough men stand ready to do violence on its behalf, to paint us all as generic “heroes” leaches the word of meaning and power and diminishes those acts that truly are heroic and worthy of great respect.

But it’s much, much worse than that.

To paint all veterans as heroes, superior above other citizens, worthy of worship and compulsory respect, gives lie to the equality of democracy and makes such status enviable.

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[T]his national hero worship compels the dull-witted and the small and mean to join up for all the wrong reasons.

There is little worse in the ranks, and nothing worse – absolutely nothing – in the officer corps, than those who want to be heroes.

We’ve all encountered them, those of us who served. The commanders and the lieutenants and the majors who practice their Medal of Honor acceptance speech in front of the shaving mirror each morning, the one that begins, “Thank you Mr. President, I’m sorry all my men were killed, but I’m grateful to accept this award on their behalf…” We’ve all served under the senior NCO who dreamed of a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart and the tales of glory he would tell to the doe-eyed girls back home who would then coo over his manly scars and jump ready and eager into bed with a hero.

Those are the kind of people who get other soldiers killed.

They’re not there to defend the country, the oath means nothing to them, they crave only glory and the admiration of a grateful nation.

Worst of all, writ large, this idea makes war itself desirable, for only in such a crucible can heroism be forged.

And then war becomes the norm instead of the exception.

– Jim Wright, “How The Heroes Die”

What I’m Reading, January 9, 2015

Posted on January 9, 2015 by wellsdc

The Great Draft Dodge, James Kitfield, National Journal, December 13, 2014

During the Vietnam War, an average of 950,000 men annually had entered the military through conscription, according to a report by the nonprofit Human Resources Research Organization. The Nixon administration’s decision to turn off that spigot at a moment of defeat and vulnerability for the military was seen by uniformed leaders as a betrayal and as a purely political maneuver, designed to quell antiwar protests that had begun on college campuses with the burning of draft cards, and had spread throughout the country. If that was the plan, it worked: By eliminating the duty to serve, the shift to an all-volunteer force succeeded so spectacularly in pacifying antiwar sentiment that few observers at the time worried at what cost.

Critics of American Sniper Chris Kyle Threatened with Violence and Rape Fantasies, Hrafnkell Haraldsson, PoliticusUSA, January 4th, 2015 Continue reading →

What I’m Reading, April 16, 2014

Posted on April 16, 2014 by wellsdc

By Novis-M (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons The irresponsibly stupid and dangerous camouflage patterns of the U.S. military, David W. Brown, The Week, January 22, 2013

When the Marine Corps selected a digital pattern for its combat uniform in 2002, the U.S. military as a whole seemed to fracture, with each branch wandering aimlessly in a bizarre search for sartorial identity. It’s been a long, strange trip since. So let’s take a brief look at the camouflage patterns of the U.S. military, and the sorry stories of their adoptions.

If You Don’t Like “Rape Culture” Then Focus For A Minute On Sex and Status, Soraya Chemaly, Huffington Post, April 7, 2014

The idea that we live with a culture that promotes rape is anathema to people who a) don’t want to believe it because, when you start to really think about it, it’s awful and scary and defies reason; b) live in communities filled with words used to deny, promote or camouflage sexual assault or c) are people who have power and benefit, in multiple, intersecting ways, from the status quo.

“Status” is the operative word. If you don’t like the words “rape culture” or you are uncomfortable with the idea that men rape women (and that is the vast preponderance of cases) in huge numbers, here is a different way to think about this: People with higher status are entitled to rape and abuse people with lower status in society.

Fear of becoming a racial minority makes white Americans more conservative: study, Scott Kaufman, The Raw Story, April 10, 2014 (h/t LGM)

Two researchers from the Department of Psychology and Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University demonstrated that the more white Americans know about the changing demographics of the United States, the more likely they are to endorse conservative policy positions.

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Maureen Craig and Jennifer Richeson conducted three studies in which white Americans were presented with information about the racial demographic shifts that have led the U.S. Census Bureau to project that “racial minority groups will make up a majority of the U.S. national population in 2042, effectively creating a so-called ‘majority-minority’ nation.”

The result was that, “[d]espite being self-identified political independents, respondents who were asked about the [majority-minority] racial shift reported being somewhat more conservative than did respondents” who were asked the less salient question about Hispanics being roughly equally to African-Americans.

AA and Rehab Culture Have Shockingly Low Success Rates, Dr. Lance Dodes, Zachary Dodes, AlterNet, April 2, 2014

Twelve-step programs hold a privileged place in our culture as well. The legions of “anonymous” members who comprise these groups are helped in their proselytizing mission by hit TV shows such as “Intervention,” which preaches the gospel of recovery. “Going to rehab” is likewise a common refrain in music and fi lm, where it is almost always uncritically presented as the one true hope for beating addiction. AA and rehab have even been codified into our legal system: court-mandated attendance, which began in the late 1980s, is today a staple of drug-crime policy. Every year, our state and federal governments spend over $15 billion on substance-abuse treatment for addicts, the vast majority of which are based on 12-step programs. There is only one problem: these programs almost always fail.

Peer-reviewed studies peg the success rate of AA somewhere between 5 and 10 percent. That is, about one of every fifteen people who enter these programs is able to become and stay sober. In 2006, one of the most prestigious scientific research organizations in the world, the Cochrane Collaboration, conducted a review of the many studies conducted between 1966 and 2005 and reached a stunning conclusion: “No experimental studies unequivocally demonstrated the effectiveness of AA” in treating alcoholism. This group reached the same conclusion about professional AA-oriented treatment (12-step facilitation therapy, or TSF), which is the core of virtually every alcoholism-rehabilitation program in the country.

Photo credit: By Novis-M (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

U.S. Combat Deaths at Zero in March 2014, Suicide Rate Still Rising

Posted on April 2, 2014 by wellsdc

March 2014 was the first month in more than ten years in which no U.S. troops died in combat. This moving photo was posted to Imgur last night:

The good news was quickly followed, however, by a reminder of how far we have to go:

The number of suicides by American servicemembers exceeded the number of combat deaths in 2012, and the suicide rate has continued to rise since then. The number of suicides may have started outpacing combat deaths as far back as 2008. Continue reading →

Bombers and Bake Sales, Postmodern Edition

Posted on June 14, 2012 by wellsdc

I was always sort of a fan of the bumper sticker that addressed perceived funding disparities between defense (i.e. war) and education.

It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.

Now, in honor of the U.S. Army’s 237th anniversary, we have the Cupcake Tank:

It’s the U.S. Army’s 237th anniversary, and what better way to celebrate than with food?

Admittedly, the military and gourmet chow don’t go hand in hand. Hard to imagine partygoers munching on MREs, hardtack and cream chipped beef on toast (known to some as “#$%@ on a shingle”).

So imagine our surprise when the folks at Georgetown Cupcake, the cupcakery featured on the TLC series “DC Cupcakes,” dropped by the Pentagon this morning to show Army brass their latest creation – a one-ton, life-size Army tank made up of 5,000 cupcakes and at least 200 pounds of camouflage fondant. Not only that, but the tank can shoot actual cupcakes from its cannon!

Yes, it fires cupcakes.

Estimates of the total cupcakeage range from 3,000 to 6,500 total cupcakes. It appears that no tax dollars went into creating this delicious monstrosity, so funding for more bombers is probably safe. If purchased by the dozen from the donating business establishment, the cupcake content of this tank alone would have a street value between $7,250 and $15,708.33.

Meanwhile, In New York City:

U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno cuts a cake marking the Army’s 237th anniversary on June 14, 2012 in Times Square in New York City. Odierno was joined by fellow Army troops as he swore in 16 new recruits in a ceremony celebrating the Army’s birthday. ”Cake Boss” reality show Buddy Valastro (R), helped Odierno cut the 500 pound cake in the shape of a tank, which Valastro said took 8 of his staff three days to prepare for the event. Photo: John Moore, Getty Images / 2012 Getty Images (via Houston Chronicle)

I’m not even going to try to guess what that cost.

Belated Memorial Day Tirade

Posted on June 1, 2012 by wellsdc

Memorial Day was observed on Monday, May 28. I was in Mexico at the time, paying for things in pesos and generally contributing nothing to the U.S. economy. Specifically, I was in Cancún, in a part of Mexico never once invaded, occupied, or wrested away from Mexico by the U.S. I’ve spent two 4th of July holidays abroad (Belarus and Spain, long story), but this was my first Memorial Day outside my home country.

I don’t usually make a big thing out of Memorial Day. I try to take a moment to appreciate the sacrifice others have made, sometimes in noble causes and sometimes not so much, that I don’t have the cojones to make. Typically, though, I find the holiday to be yet another opportunity for unabashed and shameless jingoism.

As we dive head first into what is likely to be an absurdly acrimonious election season, I expect to hear a great deal of rah-rah patriotism out of the Republican party, combined with accusations of Democrats hating the troops, blah blah blah. It’s worth a reminder of what Republicans really think of the troops.

Delegates to the Republican National Convention found a new way to take a jab at Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s Vietnam service record: by sporting adhesive bandages with small purple hearts on them.

Morton Blackwell, a prominent Virginia delegate, has been handing out the heart-covered bandages to delegates, who’ve worn them on their chins, cheeks, the backs of their hands and other places.

I am referring, of course, to the 2004 Republican National Convention. Continue reading →

Cryptic Philosopher

Phlogiston on the Flame of Foolishness

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