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Afghanistan war, Andrew Bacevich, army, battle, Breach of Trust, casualties, Chris Hedges, conflict, Dexter Filkins, Gore Vidal, Government, Iraq War, Journalism, Los Angeles Times, Memorial Day, Military, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, politics, War
Questioner: I have a bumper stick on my car that says, “War is not the answer”… But of course the question is, if war is not the answer, what is the answer?
Andrew Bacevich: I’m actually a conservative. Look… let me cut to the chase: as a Catholic, I believe in original sin. I think that we are, in our nature, fundamentally flawed. And that peace, probably, is beyond our capacity to achieve. Therefore, to my mind, a more modest goal is more realistic: to minimize the occurrence of war, except in those circumstances when the highest values are at risk and there is no alternative but to resort to violence in order to defend those ideals. And even then, always, always, always to be cognizant of the fact that war occurs in the realm of chance, and that the consequences that will stem from war will defy your imagination.
So, therefore, one needs to be extraordinarily cautious, careful, and wary. And… especially since the end of the Cold War, we as a people — and in particular our political leaders in Washington — have entirely lost sight of these historical realities. They’re far too casual about going to war; they’re oblivious to the adverse consequences. They work on the most optimistic assumptions — that it’s going to be easy, that it’s going to be cheap, that once you achieve some goal you set for yourself, all other problems will vanish.
And so, from a conservative’s perspective, I say, “No, there’s no reason to think along those terms.” And therefore, we should be cautious, and again minimize rather than expect to eliminate armed conflict.
__________
West Point graduate, Vietnam War veteran, and Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich, speaking during the Q&A portion of a recent panel on how the wounded come back from war. Below, watch a short clip of Bacevich testifying before Congress in 2009.
In 2010, Bacevich wrote a morally flawless piece in the Los Angeles Times that was published on Memorial Day, three years to the month of his son’s death while serving in Afghanistan. Bacevich summoned Americans to regard that day not as a holiday heralding the start of summer, but as a moment in which we solemnly memorialize fellow citizens who have come home draped in American flags. Let the article’s penultimate paragraph detonate in your mind:
How exactly did we get ourselves in such a fix, engaged in never-ending wars that we cannot win and cannot afford? Is the ineptitude of our generals the problem? Or is it the folly of our elected rulers? Or could it perhaps be our own lazy inattention? Rather than contemplating the reality of what American wars, past or present, have wrought, we choose to look away, preferring the beach, the ballgame and the prospect of another summer.
This issue of how our society processes its role in armed conflict, and armed conflict’s role in world affairs, is becoming something of a preoccupation of mine. Now that a half dozen of my friends have seen deployments and my brother-in-law has been awarded a Purple Heart for his service in Afghanistan, I have come to see their valor as fundamentally travestied by the quixotic missions for which they bravely sacrificed. More embarrassing, however, is the craven egotism of a society which has sacrificed nothing for the cause, leaving the immediate burden to a mercenary army and the bill to generations who were not alive when the war began.
As someone born the year the Cold War ended, I’ve now lived half my life as a citizen of “a country at war,” and I can remember skimming (when I was thirteen) Gore Vidal’s 2002 anti-imperial polemic Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. I loathed almost every page of Vidal’s cynical, careless screed, but I loved the title. It was so prescient, though the war’s peace would materialize most conspicuously in the minds of a civilian populace of which I am a part.
In the next week, I am going to publish a short reflection on Sebastian Junger’s tour de force WAR. In the meantime, I recommend watching Bacevich on how the wounded come home as well as reading his searing book Breach of Trust. If you are looking for more journalistic takes on our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, check out Dexter Filkin’s The Forever War or Chris Hedges’s War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning.
cindybruchman said:
Really enjoyed this article. I will check out your book selections. Did you happen to read Jon Krakauer’s ‘Where Men Win Glory’? I liked it.
jrbenjamin said:
I have not read it, though I like some of Krakauer’s books. Will check it out. Thanks for the nice words.
dliw canis said:
Reblogged this on dliwcanis.
navigator1965 said:
An insightful post, J.R. As for the craven egotism of a society which has sacrificed nothing and has foisted the bill onto a future generation, I cannot help but concur.
It occurs to me that one might be similarly critical of socialist countries that have financed their “just” and “caring” societies on the similar debt slavery of future generations. Whatever would Solon the Wise think of us?
If I may be permitted to build upon Christopher Lasch’s work, I interpret the former as being indicative of a culture of masculine narcissism, and the later as cultures of feminine narcissism.
jrbenjamin said:
Hmmm, I’m not sure in what sense the masculine and feminine distinction holds, though I’m not familiar with Lasch’s work.
jrbenjamin said:
That said, I do see the parallel you’re drawing with the economics of some forms of socialism.
robakers said:
Thank them for their service, and thank you for your thoughts on Memorial Day. I fully agree.
rhchatlien said:
One thing that disturbs me is the blatant glorification of war and militarism that goes on all the time in this culture. Most people seem completely unaware of it. They see it as “honoring the troops,” when I think it’s a fairly concerted effort to make nonstop war tolerable to us in a way that it never was a generation ago.
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tedrey said:
I agree with the need “to minimize the occurrence of war, except in those circumstances when the highest values are at risk and there is no alternative but to resort to violence in order to defend those ideals.” But is this the case with the seemingly endless American wars of our generation? What “highest values” do they represent? To much of the world they seem pretty self-serving. Just asking.
(And how are you doing? It’s been a while.)
mstair said:
“Peacemaking brings out the best of human conduct. It displays behavior, ascribed by all human cultures, as most virtuous. It uses the practices of patience, long-suffering, empathy, acceptance, tolerance, fairness, honesty, respect, humility, and compromise.
Considering these criteria, it is easy to conclude that the primary human catalysts of civilization’s changes would not be called “sons of God.” Human history, including the history of Christianity, owes the majority of its changes to the results of war. The human species occasionally chooses “peace for a season” to interrupt the pain of death and destruction, but inevitably returns to the practice of division and war. When we behave innately, we cannot be called sons of God. ”
Excerpt From: Mike Stair. “Be Attitudinal.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/fBu8y.l