mumbleypeg
04-12-2006, 08:54
Slowly bubbling up from the left: Rational thought! I saw this at The New Republic the last 3 paragraphs indicate a surprising bit of clarity, in a review of a book by Cindy Sheehan.
Don't stop at the first paragraph or you'll want to strangle me.
THE LEFT'S MILITARY HATRED.
Military Offensive
by Rob Anderson
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 04.12.06
10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military
Edited by Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
(The New Press, 128 pp., $14.95)
The book is organized into ten different chapters, with each laying out one reason why Americans should not enlist. Cindy Sheehan, the antiwar activist who had a 58 percent approval rating among Democrats as of August 2005, wrote the book's introduction and one of its more obvious chapters: Don't join the military because "[y]ou may be killed." Invoking our founding fathers, Sheehan writes, "We the people, especially the moms, of America need to wake up and realize that wars are seldom fought to preserve our freedom and democracy, but rather to make rich people richer and powerful people even more powerful. We need to stop allowing the war machine to eat our children and spit out money." Those who join the military, Sheehan believes, are only enabling our "reckless and greedy leaders." If Americans stop enlisting, we can "force our government to bring our troops home from Iraq now before ... [we] invade Iran or Syria."
How does Sheehan propose America face its increasing national security threats? "We need to demand that our leaders use their words to solve problems. We need to demand that other nations use their words, too." It's a point that strikes at the heart of the book's fatal flaw--and at the fatal flaw with liberal anti-military sentiment: Sure, it'd be nice if we could "demand" that world leaders use words "to solve problems." But if the Sudanese government were so enthralled with diplomacy, would it be slowly obliterating an entire portion of its own population? And if the president of Iran valued words above all else, would he be so worried about building a nuclear arsenal?
Of all groups, liberals especially should know that protecting human rights, promoting democracy, and ending genocide are ends to strive for on a global scale. The means, of course, should not usually be military; and in a perfect world, they would never be. Moreover, if the Iraq war has proven anything, it is that we are not always capable of fulfilling our role as a completely moral force abroad. But sometimes, as in the Balkans seven years ago, as in Darfur today, we have no choice but to try. It is for those moments in particular that liberals should want to fix and strengthen the military, not tear it down. And if the authors of 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military think that effort unpatriotic, they can count me a traitor.
http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=w060410&s=anderson041206
Don't stop at the first paragraph or you'll want to strangle me.
THE LEFT'S MILITARY HATRED.
Military Offensive
by Rob Anderson
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 04.12.06
10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military
Edited by Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
(The New Press, 128 pp., $14.95)
The book is organized into ten different chapters, with each laying out one reason why Americans should not enlist. Cindy Sheehan, the antiwar activist who had a 58 percent approval rating among Democrats as of August 2005, wrote the book's introduction and one of its more obvious chapters: Don't join the military because "[y]ou may be killed." Invoking our founding fathers, Sheehan writes, "We the people, especially the moms, of America need to wake up and realize that wars are seldom fought to preserve our freedom and democracy, but rather to make rich people richer and powerful people even more powerful. We need to stop allowing the war machine to eat our children and spit out money." Those who join the military, Sheehan believes, are only enabling our "reckless and greedy leaders." If Americans stop enlisting, we can "force our government to bring our troops home from Iraq now before ... [we] invade Iran or Syria."
How does Sheehan propose America face its increasing national security threats? "We need to demand that our leaders use their words to solve problems. We need to demand that other nations use their words, too." It's a point that strikes at the heart of the book's fatal flaw--and at the fatal flaw with liberal anti-military sentiment: Sure, it'd be nice if we could "demand" that world leaders use words "to solve problems." But if the Sudanese government were so enthralled with diplomacy, would it be slowly obliterating an entire portion of its own population? And if the president of Iran valued words above all else, would he be so worried about building a nuclear arsenal?
Of all groups, liberals especially should know that protecting human rights, promoting democracy, and ending genocide are ends to strive for on a global scale. The means, of course, should not usually be military; and in a perfect world, they would never be. Moreover, if the Iraq war has proven anything, it is that we are not always capable of fulfilling our role as a completely moral force abroad. But sometimes, as in the Balkans seven years ago, as in Darfur today, we have no choice but to try. It is for those moments in particular that liberals should want to fix and strengthen the military, not tear it down. And if the authors of 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military think that effort unpatriotic, they can count me a traitor.
http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=w060410&s=anderson041206