Posted on 01/23/2005 5:13:14 PM PST by Cornpone
Americans have been betrayed. Sooner or later, Americans will realize that they have been led to defeat in a pointless war by political leaders whom they inattentively trusted. They have been misinformed by a sycophantic corporate media too mindful of advertising revenues to risk reporting truths branded unpatriotic by the propagandistic slogan, "you are with us or against us."
What happens when Americans wake up to their betrayal? It is too late to be rescued from catastrophe in Iraq, but perhaps if Americans can understand how such a grand mistake was made they can avoid repeating it. In a forthcoming book from Oxford University Press, "The New American Militarism," Andrew J. Bacevich writes that we can avoid future disasters by understanding how our doctrines went wrong and by returning to the precepts laid down by our Founding Fathers, men of infinitely more wisdom than those currently holding reins of power.
Bacevich, a West Point graduate, Vietnam veteran and soldier for 23 years, is a true conservative. He is an expert on US military strategy and a professor at Boston University. He describes how civilian strategists—especially Albert Wohlstetter and Andrew Marshall—not military leaders, transformed a strategy of deterrence that regarded war as a last resort into a strategy of naked aggression. The resulting "marriage of a militaristic cast of mind with utopian ends" has "committed the United States to waging an open-ended war on a global scale."
The greatest threat to the United States is not terrorists but the neoconservative belief, to which President Bush is firmly committed, that American security and well-being depend on U.S. global hegemony and impressing U.S. values on the rest of the world. This belief resonates with a patriotic public. Bacevich writes, "in the aftermath of a century filled to overflowing with evidence pointing to the limited utility of armed force and the dangers inherent in relying excessively on military power, the American people have persuaded themselves that their best prospect for safety and salvation lies with the sword."
If Americans persist in these misconceptions, America will "share the fate of all those who in ages past have looked to war and military power to fulfill their destiny. We will rob future generations of their rightful inheritance. We will wreak havoc abroad. We will endanger our security at home. We will risk the forfeiture of all that we prize."
Bacevich understands that the problem is not how to deal with terrorism but how to deal with the hubris, laden with catastrophe, that America is God's instrument for bringing history to its predetermined destination. Being assigned such an exalted role creates the delusion that America's virtue is unquestionable and its use of preemptive coercion is infallible, delusion that led to the "cakewalk war" that would entrench democracy in the Middle East and have the troops home in 90 days.
American hubris, which flows so freely from President Bush's mouth, explains why half the U.S. population yawns over the U.S. slaughter of Iraqi civilians and communist-style torture of Iraqi prisoners. The "cakewalk war" is now almost two years old and has claimed 10 percent of the U.S. occupation force as casualties. Yet, the delusion persists that the United States is prevailing in Iraq.
The new American militarism would be inconceivable, Bacevich writes, "were it not for the support offered by several tens of millions of evangelicals." Books written about "militant Islam" could equally describe militant evangelical Christianity. How did a Christian doctrine of love and peace become an apology for war?
Bacevich explains that evangelicals, aghast at Vietnam era protests of America's war against "godless communism," turned to the military as the repository of traditional American virtues. For evangelicals, endtimes doctrines converged eschatology with national security. Prophecies merged America's fate with Israel's. Islam inherited the role of godless communism and became the target of the war against evil. America emerged with the "same immensely elastic permission to use force previously accorded to Israel."
America's security and the well-being of the world are threatened by America's unwarranted belief in the efficacy of force. War is ungovernable: "The shattered reputations of generals and statesmen who presumed to bring it under control litter the 20th century. On those rare occasions when war has yielded a seemingly decisive outcome, as in 1918 or 1945, it has done so only after exacting a staggering price from victor and vanquished alike. Even then, in resolving one set of problems, 'good' wars have fostered resentments or created temptations, leading as often as not to further conflict."
The new American militarism has abandoned the Founding Fathers, deserted the Constitution, and unrestrained the executive. War is a first resort. Militarism is inconsistent with globalism and with American ideals. It will end in abject failure.
The world is a vast place. The United States has demonstrated that it cannot impose its will on a tiny part known as Iraq. American realism may yet reassert itself, dispel the fog of delusion, cleanse the body politic of the Jacobin spirit and lead the world by good example. But this happy outcome will require regime change in the United States.
Do you think anybody was talking about the Holocaust as a reason to fight WWII? Was anybody in the North talking about abolishing slavery as a reason to fight the civil war?
The fact is, when you are successful history remembers you kindly. We MUST succeed in Iraq. If we do, people won't remember the Weapons of Mass Destruction stuff (unless liberals are that successful at revising history).
They have been misinformed by a sycophantic corporate media too mindful of advertising revenues to risk reporting truths branded unpatriotic by the propagandistic slogan, "you are with us or against us."
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Is this Half Wit referring to the MSM?!!! All I have to say is at least it wasn't 72 Virgins that look like Janet Reno and Helen Thomas!!
The latest in talking points.
I know I just love the fact that our soldiers are taking hostages for ransom or just hacking off their captives heads and selling the dvds over on ebayislam for big dollars.
Yep, if you succeed - even if you broke a few rule or fudged a few numbers... if the result is expanded freedom and liberty - only the intellectually dishonest would attempt to spin the truth to make a crime out of an act of compassion.
Only if liberals get there way, and manufacture a defeat!
I give them credit for persistence -- they never give up.
But they don't understand the mettle of the American people, and all freedom-loving people around the world.
Never mind that Islam had declared war on US in the 80s, that doesn't count.
..."... Islam inherited the role of godless communism and became the target of the war against evil."...
Is it just me .. or has anybody else noticed the number of stories from all over the place regarding what a horrible mistake Iraq has been ..??
And .. always it includes the "facts" that we were betrayed (ala Gore), or we were misled (ala Kennedy/Kerry).
To me it appears these people are just trying to set themselves in a position to say "I told you so" if the elections in Iraq should go bad.
Oh yes, America will mourn Saddam's passing. That's one basic fact that they can't spin, this is a dictator that truly deserved what he got.
He's been off the reservation since 9/11 and, like another economist by the name of Paul (Krugman), has come unhinged in his criticisms of Bush.
He's actually a conservative columnist and a member of the Hoover Institute. He mist vbe one of those Buchanan conservatives.
I hate blanket criticisms.
Read the Podhoretz article "The War against World War IV."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1326828/posts
then read this again.
I think Paul Craig Roberts is remembering history the way he wants, not as it actually happened. Besides the big ones, US Military force was also essential in a number of smaller ones, including Panama and Grenada. When we go into a country to promote freedom and democracy, we will be supported by the people and be able to withdraw without a qualm. If we go into a country for reasons of realpolitik and to suppress the population, we will, in time, lose. Roberts makes it seem that we are on some kind of rampage. We aren't. The targets are carefully chosen, as was Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq is nothing like Vietnam, nor will it be.
"America's security and the well-being of the world are threatened by America's unwarranted belief in the efficacy of force. War is ungovernable: "The shattered reputations of generals and statesmen who presumed to bring it under control litter the 20th century. On those rare occasions when war has yielded a seemingly decisive outcome, as in 1918 or 1945, it has done so only after exacting a staggering price from victor and vanquished alike. Even then, in resolving one set of problems, 'good' wars have fostered resentments or created temptations, leading as often as not to further conflict."
"Americans have been betrayed."
Yes, stopping that UN scam Oil for rotten food, was a real big bad betrayal. Forcing that dictator good old Saddam into a 'pit' was betrayal big time.
I've been wondering what happened to Roberts, because reading him has been like watching someone get sick and keep going downhill.
Although I disagreed with the authors premise, I was following his logic until I got to this quote.
I stopped reading at that point......sorry.
So a guy writes a book.
Another guy writes an article promoting a book.
Americans stampede to buy the book from an unknown promoted by another unknown. I realize they have "credentials", but the ordinary American doesn't recognize either of these two.
Americans read it cover to cover.
Suddenly Americans cry uncle and retreat? They scream, "Bush Betrayed this Country!"
And Bush is the one with "Hubris"? ;-)
Only if liberals get there way, and manufacture a defeat!
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