[Welcome Andrew Bacevich, and Chris Hedges. As a reminder, please take off-topic discussions to a different thread. thanks - bev]
War, as Andrew Bacevich knows, is a poison. It is a poison that nations and groups must at times ingest to ensure their survival. But, like any poison, it can kill you just as surely as the disease it is meant to eradicate. The poison of war, he argues in The Limits of Power, courses unchecked through the body politic of the United States. He argues, as does his intellectual mentor the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, that just because we have the capacity to wage war we do not have the right to wage war. He warns us of the dangerous self-delusion that tells us we are on a providential mission to save the rest of the world from itself, to implant our virtues – which we see as superior to all other virtues — on others, and that we have a right to do this by force. This self-delusion, he writes, has corrupted Republicans and Democrats.
Barack Obama and those around him embrace, as does John McCain, the folly of the “war on terror.” The Obama administration may want to shift the emphasis of this war to Afghanistan rather than Iraq, but this is a difference in strategy not policy. By clinging to Iraq and expanding the war in Afghanistan the poison will continue in deadly doses. Bacevich warns us that these wars of occupation are doomed to failure. We cannot afford them. The rash of foreclosures, the mounting job losses, the collapse of banks and the financial services industry, the poverty that is ripping apart the working class, our crumbling infrastructure and the killings of hapless Afghans in wedding parties and Iraqis by our iron fragmentation bombs are neatly interwoven. These events form a perfect circle. The costly forms of death we dispense on one side of the globe are hollowing us out from the inside at home.
The “war on terror” is an absurd war against a tactic. It posits the idea of perpetual, or what is now called “generational,” war. It has no discernable end. There is no way to define victory. It is, in metaphysical terms, a war against evil, and evil, as Bacevich writes, will always be with us. The most destructive evils, however, are not those that are externalized. The most destructive are those that are internal. These hidden evils, often defined as virtues, are unleashed by our hubris, self-delusion and ignorance. Evil masquerading as good is evil in its deadliest form.
America’s most dangerous enemies are not, in the end, Islamic radicals but those who promote the perverted ideology of national security that, as Bacevich writes, is “our surrogate religion.” If we continue to believe that we can expand our wars and go deeper into debt to maintain an unsustainable level of consumption, we will dynamite the foundations of our society.
“The Big Lies are not the pledge of tax cuts, universal health care, family values restored, or a world rendered peaceful through forceful demonstrations of American leadership,” Bacevich writes in hi book. “The Big Lies are the truths that remain unspoken: that freedom has an underside; that nations, like households, must ultimately live within their means; that history’s purpose, the subject of so many confident pronouncements, remains inscrutable. Above all, there is this: Power is finite. Politicians pass over matters such as these in silence. As a consequence, the absence of self-awareness that forms such an enduring element of the American character persists.”
The Limits of Power is an extraordinary book that combines insightful analysis about our national security state, our decline as a nation and imperial power, the wars we are now waging and the moral consequences of our refusal to confront our decline. I finished it this afternoon on the way back from the Miami Book Festival and cannot praise it or its author too highly.
Related posts:
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- FDL Book Salon Welcomes Jurgen Todenhofer, Why Do You Kill?: The Untold Story of the Iraqi Resistance
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes Bradley Graham, By His Own Rules: The Ambitions, Successes and Ultimate Failures of Donald Rumsfeld
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes William Greider, Come Home America
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes Scott Page: The Difference
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Andrew, Welcome to the Lake.
Chris, Thank you for Hosting today’s Book Salon.
I would like to open the discussion by asking Professor Bacevich about his reference to the historian Charles Maier’s terms “the empire of production” and “the empire of consumption.” Maier uses these terms to describe our move from a manufacturing society to a consumer society, a society that lives on borrowed money and debts and profligate consumption. Given the current collapse of “the empire of consumption” what age are we entering now? And can we continue to live in self-delusion given the mounting job losses, accelerating business closures, collapse of banks and investment houses and millions of pending foreclosures?
Hello — this is Andrew Bacevich
Andrew welcome. I haven’t finished the book yet, but found it very thought provoking. Thanks for joining us.
Sort of piggy-backing off of Chris Hedges’ question, I wanted to ask about the way you define “freedom” in the book. It seems to be a very loaded word, that at once captures US ideology but also hides economic imperialism for which the ideology is just a convenient mask.
To what degree would it be better to unpack this mask?
Welcome Andrew, and thank you Chris.
I saw Molly Bingham and Steve Connors last night, whose documentary — Meeting Resistance — is an extraordinary conversation with members if the Iraqi resistance about why they are firing guns at US soldiers.
When I heard the film was being made, I thought “I can’t wait to hear what these people say.” I figured there would be a lot of people like me. But nobody will distribute it, the BBC and Channel 4 have both turned it down.
It just chokes me that with all this nation building we’re doing over there, nobody cares what the Iraqis have to say in all of this. I do not understand this, and cannot conceive of it as anything other than being motivated by collective massive national guilt.
Welcome to FDL Professor Bacevich and Chris Hedges. Thank you for spending this afternoon with us.
I have not had the opportunity to read the book, but have to ask, how do we change the country from the jingoist speeches combined with the “all fear all the time” framing of the last seven plus years?
Having grown up in the age of ‘duck and cover’ I find the fear-mongering of the “War On Terrah” as ludicrous yet seemingly rational and intelligent people continue to spout the nonsense.
Chris —
First of all, thank you for moderating this exchange. I owe you a cup of coffee — or something stronger — please don’t hesitate to collect when you are next in Boston.
Your first questions are good ones.
I’d say that we have entered an age that blends conspicuous consumption with corporate capitalism run amok and imperial overstretch. In short, the problem we face has multiple dimensions and won’t be easily fixed just because we are about to install a young, charismatic, and very smart president in the White House. One of the points I try to make in the book is that our predicament is in many ways a cultural one — we’ll need to change the culture to get out of this mess.
Chris, as Andrew answers the question, how was the Miami Book Festival?
I wonder if anyone in the current media climate can cut through to the heart of what this “War on Terror” is all about. So many different sides from the Neocons to the Blackwaters to Dick Cheney – each with an agenda. Can the truth ever get out?
On the meaning of freedom: I hesitate to offer a definition. We live in a pluralist society so no one definition can possibly satisfy everyone. I believe, however, that any meaningful understanding of freedom has to be tethered to truth. The citizen reduced to consumer does not satisfy that standard.
.
Isn’t wanting everyone to be the same a sense of how inferior the Bushies feel? Isn’t it a wish to be the in group with no out groups?
Now if Bush had provided us with good government he would have had a better case.
Welcome Andrew Bacevich & Chris Hedges.
Chris you were great at the Miami Book Fair; saw you on cspan2. Also, your “War Is a Force …” is certainly the best book I read in 06, and very high up on my all time list. Thank you so much for helping me understand why others are addicted to such horrible business.
Andrew,
I look forward to reading your book. But tell me something I don’t know. From Chris’s introduction and from your visit on Rachel’s show, most of what you say seems pretty self-evident. What makes the truths unspoken? Why is it that countries behave like the roadrunner cartoon, running full speed off the edge of the cliff?
Andrew, in your view, has Obama embraced the GWOT because it was politically expedient or is he seriously advocating its continuance? Will he give it a new name?
Book Fairs are great becuase as an author who spends a lot of time writing alone you get to socialize with people who also lead your peculiar life style and love books and great writing. I am glad you saw the panel on cspan 2. I will take you up Andrew on the ocffee, but wanted to ask about the national security state as “our surrogate religion” and how we can effectively challenege this religion given that it sweepa across the political spectrum.
9/11 Scared Bush so he assumed power more power than he should have but he also gave vent to hunger. The Hunger for oil, the Hunger to spy on Americans who might oppose him war is now not the reason for doing something it is the excuse.
Hunger for oil drove Bush to invade Iraq which had nothing to do with 9/11.
Ossama the reason for this war is now an after thought Iraq has the most troops, money, attention etc.
The Hunger makes Bush want to drink the poison more, classic addict behavior of a person in denial.
Welcome, Andrew and Chris;
Andrew, in what particulars does does America distinguish itself from any other over-the-hill empire in history?
It is most ironic, to me, that the battle for America’s soul, domestically, has, quite likely, been lost precisely as the Founders feared it would be, and tried to set up protections around. They were aware, even if the average American is not, that history does have some lessons for those who have the luxury of regarding it as ‘history’, and the willingness to consider learning from the errors of others …
As to the hysteria for war, rational discussion is precluded because it is immediately suggesated that ANY questioning of the apriori ‘belief’ is an assault upon the ‘grunts’ or soldiers, rather than a mature and reasonable concern about the true ‘cost’ or eventual ‘consequence’.
Have you been finding much positive reception for your ideas among the movers and shakers?
One of the things I say to diffuse the idea that we need a “war” on terror is that in the 40 years since 1968, worldwide, fewer than 20,000 people have died from terrorism. (Excluding terrorism associated with war, of course.) Why would anyone think “war” was the appropriate response to such isolated incidents?
Another thing I noticed after 9/11 was that the least scared people were like me, residents of Manhattan. People in the Midwest were much more fearful. Why is that? I once asked a man from Minneapolis at a large dinner table why he was worried about terrorism, and he thought I’d insulted him.
What is the war on terror “about”?
My own view is this: the object of the exercise is to transform the Greater Middle East, thereby ensuring that this part of the world will no longer breed terrorists intent on killing us while also ensuring our access to strategically critical resources.
My guess is that different members of the administration entertained different meanings of “transformation.” For Cheney / Rumsfeld, transformation probably implied dominion or hegemony. For Bush / Wolfowitz, it probably meant something closer to the removal of tyrants and the export of democracy — pacification rather than dominion.
Regardless, the intent was to use American power — hard and soft — to bring about big change expected to be conducive to our interests.
Because the Bush administration both failed to understand the region of the world they set out to change and wildly overstated American power this scheme never had a chance of succeeding.
Andrew, if we do not withdraw from Iraq will this lead eventually to the collapse of the mission? And how do you think it will collapse? Will is fall apart when the security of the green zone can no longer be maintained? Or will be just be worn down through attrition as the Soviets were in Afghanistan?
o m g – the line in the intro speaks volumes to me…. ” America’s enemies are not the radical islamists but…….”
I don’t think this is true. I would say rather that the mindset that created the one created the other, the idea that we could engage in unnecessary wars and practice laissez-faire capitalism and do both without consequences, that the Bush Administration was not limited to the dictates of reality because it created its own.
Is it tactic or, as John Yoo in his torture memo used it, pretext for assumption and retention of extra-Constitutional powers?
Whether Obama will embrace or junk the Global War on Terror as the organizing principle of US national security policy is certainly one of the $64 questions of the next six months.
The repudiation of the Iraq War that was at the center of his campaign early on made me hopeful that he’d junk the entire Bush approach to foreign policy.
Of late, I’m less hopeful — the promises to send more troops to Afghanistan strike me as simple-minded at best, more likely outright stupid.
what part of the wot plan from this admin has to do with establishing a christian foothold in the region?
How would you advise him on Afghanistan? And do you assume he is being now advised by the military?
I’ve come to believe that American Exceptionalism is the root of all evils.
Once you decide that you’re God’s new Chosen People, self-awareness becomes very difficult.
We need to shed our sense of uniqueness and our sense of entitlement. We need to become a normal nation.
Of course, that’s akin to saying that we should abandon our identity — which isn’t likely to happen.
Hence, my pessimism.
Hooman Majd on cspan2 sez Obama is getting bad advice on Iran.
When you say “intent on killing us”…. is this is true, and “we” are there helping ourselves to “their” resources, at will… why wouldn’t they want to kill “us”.
And of course the “us” that is the target of this animus are the “extractors” who descend upon a country, occupy parts of it, exploit local labor, import even cheaper labor, pollute the land, usually install a puppet who makes / lets it all happen.
Why is resisting this type of hegemony even called terrorism?
Aloha, Andrew and Chris!
That is definitely the $64 question… I was disturbed by today’s vote by the Iraqi Cabinet (27-1)in favor of The SOFA… Do you think we should even follow the SOFA’s extension until 31 DEC 11 or follow through with Obama’s 16 month withdrawal policy? What do you recommend for Afghanistan? More blue helmets?
woooooooooo – true indeed… the fact that he’s loaded up with clintonites doesn’t bode well to me… looks like a DLC meeting but he’s forgotten the netroots gave him his victory imo…
tanks.
America needs to disabuse itself of the notion that it has rights to anything, anywhere and can “take it” any way it wishes… because we are numero uno of the world. Bad idea and the world doesn’t buy it. Only the corrupt ones out there who are collaborators.
Andrew, Niebuhr, who I admire as deeply as you do, did not to my mind grasp the nature of violence or understand the importance of race in American society. He wrote in Moral Man and Immoral Society that violence, when employed swiftly, could bring about justice. I take a darker view of violence, seeing it as always corrupting and always leading to unseen and unintended consequences. I wondered how you looked at Niebuhr’s writings on violence?
That is an understatement… Ritter, Blix, amongst others have clearly pointed out the sexed up Intel that Cheney etal have foisted on the IAEA…!
Chris –
If Obama persists in the GWOT — persistence is likely to mean gradual draw-down from Iraq combined with an intensified military effort in Afghanistan / Pakistan — then collapse will come when the army and the Marine Corps finally fall apart. That this has not already occurred is a tribute to the remarkable durability of the force. But that durability has limits. Once the services begin to deteriorate, the GWOT will be unsustainable.
Ding ding ding. Been thinking that myself for quite some time now.
One of the reasons the war metallity is so compelling for the elite is that it is extremely profitable for the few and a most excellent way to waylay the wealth of the nation.
Eisenhower spoke of the MIC, which he ar first, term the Military-Industrial-Congressionional Complex.
Would it not be interseting to learn just how much our ‘representataives’
may be ‘making’ in their support of our recent ‘adventures’?
Andrew, when you say fall apart do you mean refusal to take orders or do you mean a breakdown in command in control?
It was so interesting to see that the other night on Rachel Maddow’s show to hear you point out the the GWOT was a law-enforcement operation, not a military one. It’s a shame that all the draft-dodging nitwits in PNAC had to get their war on and had such low regard for law enforcement and its’ capabilities. The repubicans essentially used that as talking point against John Kerry in 2004, but as with many other things, he was 100% correct.
We might have saved thousands of lives and billions of dollars if the republicans had not decided to play “Quien es mas Macho” instead of pursuing and adult sober foreign policy.
Keep up the good work!
America has be outstanding in taking the entire world economy into the toilet. We are exceptional in that and our hubris.
Exceptionalism is completely undeserved on almost any other metric which counts, such as “freedom of the press”… literacy, infant mortality, longevity and the list goes on. We exceed in greed and schemes to make greedy people even richer. No place like America for the greedy.
Advice on Afghanistan: pay attention to history. Effective governance has never been exercised from Kabul. Local tribal leaders have always run the place. That should be okay with us so long as AQ is denied sanctuary. We should provide incentives to local leaders so that they will see it in their interest to keep AQ out.
What constitutes a normal nation? Do you have any examples or models?
andrew? from #23
what part of the wot plan from this admin has to do with establishing a christian foothold in the region? in your opinion?
must have been lost. :)
Normal nations don’t have bases in 178 other countries for starters.
Signs of the services falling apart will include the following:
Junior officers and career NCOs bailing out in large numbers (some evidence that this has already begun).
Reenlistment rates falling (this is not happening — very large re-up bonuses have been a factor).
Problems of indiscipline — AWOLs, drugs, malingering
Collective resistance — small units refusing to go on missions
I blame Wall Street for a lot of what has happened but European and Asian banks were happy to go along for the ride, and as I like to say they could do the math and see it made no sense too. And as we are seeing, China’s trade and currency policies were not sustainable either. What is so frustrating about the current economic mess is that it was so avoidable and the American financial community could have done so much to avoid it.
PNAC spelled out the game plan loud and clear for US domination. Do you think that Obama would have been allowed to win if he was not in agreement with the policies?
Great introductory post. Sounds like a must read to me.
Andrew, you argue in the book that powerful forces within the national security state — you mention U.S. Central Command, the navy’s Fifth fleet and those who profit from weapon’s contracts worth tens of billions of dollars — will make achieving energy independence remote if not impossible. Does this not raise the very real possiblity that, with the depletion of fossil fuels and no alternative energy to turn to, our country will simply grind to a halt?
Normal nations pay their bills.
Becoming a normal nation means having imports and exports in some sort of rough balance.
It means having a federal government that, genuine emergencies apart, is solvent.
It means not asserting prerogatives — such as the Bush Doctrine of preventive war — that are (rightly) denied to all others.
It means giving up on the delusion that we grasp history’s purpose and have a God-given responsibility to bring history to its intended destination.
war is great for business but hell on individuals… the MIC must be obeyed – they seem to have unlimited resources to fuel their agenda and an echo chamber in neocon and rightwing think tanks..
andrew from #17
Another thing I noticed after 9/11 was that the least scared people were like me, residents of Manhattan. People in the Midwest were much more fearful. Why is that? I once asked a man from Minneapolis at a large dinner table why he was worried about terrorism, and he thought I’d insulted him
Oh dear!
Andrew, that sounds positively un-American.
;~D
And I have no problem retrenching. But I think it is important to keep in mind that our withdrawal from many areas would create power vacuums and instability. So yes, let us pull back but let us do it maybe thinking about it a little.
As for Afghanistan, if we withdraw from Iraq, we will have sufficient forces to increase numbers in Afghanistan and no this will not break the Army and Marines. It is the commitments to Iraq that have been screwing things up in terms of troop rotations. The questions are (as they always are) what do we want out of Afghanistan, what can we do there, and what are we willing to live with. We do not want it to become a staging area for al Qaeda again but given its tribalism and deep conservatism we aren’t going to turn it into a budding democracy either. So we need to figure out what our bottomline is and pursue that.
Chris –
The market can’t solve all of our problems but it can solve some of them. As the fossil fuel crisis worsens (costs plus environmental degradation) entrepreneurs will seize the moment to create alternative sources of energy. Won’t be neat, pretty, or cheap, but I don’t expect the country to grind to a halt. I do expect the country we end up with to look a lot different from the one we have now.
Andrew, the honor code lies at the heart of a cadet’s relationship to his or her fellow cadets and professors and officers at the U.S. Militray Academy you attended. You are very critical of the senior leadership of the military, including generals like Tommy Franks. How does the moral corruption take place given that it begins with such a rigid moral code and ends in such moral squalor? Chris
Funny — within six months after 9/11 I had the impression that fear had pretty much dissipated everywhere except in Washington. Whenever Bush made some remark about the nation being “at war,” I sensed that apart from people in the military and those living inside the Beltway, no one knew what he was talking about.
no, sir. the muslim hoard is about to capture kansas. that is our problem.
# 23?
To follow on from Chris’s question re moral authority, are you concerned about the apparently growing number of Christianists in our military?
I have found some of the anecdotal information about the AFA and/or people like Gen. Boykin to be a bit chilling.
Has a war actually been declared? Terror is not a country, so how does Bush have all of his so called war powers?
It will take us 2-4 years to work through the current financial crisis. Beyond that we have both global warming and peak energy to confront. There will probably be crises that develop that aren’t even on our screens at the moment. In short I see emergencies being with us for the rest of this century so I think normalcy in our life times is out.
Heard a # today, that it would take something like 4% of GDP to get to Kyoto in 20 years. That’s entirely doable and wouldn’t even be noticed. The U.S. spent a lot (my guess is more as a % of GDP but haven’t worked out the figures) on inefficient pollution command & control in the 1970s, a period when the economy was on the ropes for other reasons. But in retrospect it was absorbed without hardly an eyeblink.
So, basically we are not going to do certain things because we’ve thought it through, we shall do those things only because we’ve no choice.
What we do not do with deliberation, we shall leave to the clever to profit from or exploit, suggesting that demagogeury will, oft times, hold sway, until the final collapse …
In the meantime we may expect global climate change to continue, unabated, unacknowledged and unprepared for.
Chris –
The honor code to which officers subscribe is very real — and yet very limited.
Outright corruption — people being on the take — is relatively rare. So too is blatant lying.
But there is a subtler form of corruption that comes from being “loyal” to an institution such as the army and from wanting to get ahead in that institution. That’s the corruption that suppresses any inclination for critical thinking or for speaking candidly regardless of the personal consequences.
The military profession rewards courage of a certain type and is intolerant of other types of courage.
executive authority and money from the congress. we gave it to him.
AF Christianists are truly frightening, especially considering what a large role the AF plays in “modern” warfare. Shock n awe n all that. You know, you gotta keep bombing those wedding & funeral parties.
Exhibit One: Charles Swift.
Andrew, you raise the difference between moral courage and physical courage. Physical courage is seen quite often on a battlefield, moral courage (defying your comrades and the group to defend a moral principle) very rarely. Does not a rigid structure that places an emphasis on loyalty slowly weed out those with moral courage? My guess is that many cadets are quite idealistic and those that cling to these ideals have a harder and harder time making their way up the chain of command. Is this a correct assumption?
It is an honor to have someone here with the depth of understanding and experience of Dr. Bacevich.
When so much of what you describe is either very corrupt or serious over-reach/intrusion or addiction to way, do you have suggestions that we, as intelligent citizenry, should be doing?
“moral courage (defying your comrades and the group to defend a moral principle) very rarely.”
On what is this based?
do you have a question for the doc?
Conservative Protestant evangelicals in the military.
Hard to get a handle on this. Although I’m confident that they are overrepresented, I don’t have any current data.
It seems clear that the administration of the Air Force Academy a couple years back had all but turned the academy into a parachurch. The scandal that resulted was salutary, I expect.
There’s nothing wrong with certain groups being overrepresented in the military as long as the senior leadership sets a command climate that avoids favoritism and prevents discrimination.
andrew? 70 and 23 please.
The difference now is that we don’t have 20 years we have 8 or less before a lot of climate change become irrevocable. We have no policy to get there, the rest of the industrial world that signed up to Kyoto has been fudging on it, and developing countries led by China and India have no interest in it at all. The worst consequences of global warming will come because although concerted action could have mitigated or eliminated them it was never undertaken.
I’m not sure it is “on topic” but I have the idea that, despite the problems of the “Christianists” (which, by the way I do not think is anything new in the military) that the troops are much much better than we were in Vietnam. I base this on both the recruitment standards and the training that they receive.
So all is lost.
I have seen no evidence that this is true. Maybe someone else does. But the AF Academy has been plagued by recurrent sex, cheating, and religious scandals so offhand whatever is broke there is still broke.
agreed. not the troops fault. they are just paid to do a job. i get that.
Chris —
You’ve put your finger on an important point. Obviously, there are exceptions, but I would suggest that the more senior the cohort of officers the less likely you are to find people who are capable of critical thinking and who also possess the courage to speak forthrightly.
To some degree, this may be inevitable — the idealists fall by the way, the careerists gradually rise to the top.
But to some degree, it reflects deficiencies in the reigning ethos of the officer corps.
Andrew, Comradeship, which J. Glenn Gray writes about so lucidly, is a powerful force that makes it difficult for soldiers to defy the collective in wartime, especially when the survival of the group depends on solidarity. Those who do defy the group — for example Serbs who decried the activities of their own during the war in Bosnia — are swiftly ostracized and branded as traitors. Your quote from Franks when Bush asks his opinion and he says he thinks what Cheney thought, thinks and will think seems to me an example of a man who, while he may perform well on a battlefield, has lost all ability to make moral judgements. Moral choice means the ability to be self-critical. I wonder if the structure of the military makes it partiocularly hard for those who have moral courage and independence to advance. All corporations and institutions seek to silence individual voices, I just wonder if the military is perhaps plagued by poor leadership becuase it does this more efficently.
We may have to consider that.
How shall we manifest our humanity if such is the lnescapable conclusion of our days?
I get asked this with some frequency. My answer — which I know many will see as inadequate — is this: model what it means to be a good citizen, thereby influencing those around you. I think that’s the most any of us can do as individuals.
Joining late. Appreciate the sensibility I am reading. The patriarchal style of governments including our own — based on competition and power, rather than a feminine paradigm shift to partnership and cooperation, seems at the root of war and its threat.
This is more yang vs. yin stuff than downright gender distinctions. But re that, I am very alarmed to hear so much of the repression and scapegoating of women, learning more and more of the horrors of say Aghanistan’s Taliban history of treatment of women, and the present demoralizing treatment of women by reactionary religious groups, more and more getting more reactionary and more regressively repressive.
The inhumane punishment of women sexual victims who are accused of bringing shame on the family (blaming the victim to the nth degree), as well as rape as an increased and horrifying tool of war. And misogynistic acting out in our own military, despite increasing numbers of women joining up.
Also, outside the military, corporate structure is power and control, anti-feminist principles of the common good.
Re the bail out… the corporate leadership is so narcissistic … they seem incapable of seeing justice in terms of their entire corporate “family” or the “family of man and woman.”
Welcome Andrew and Chris, and thanks for coming.
The NYT Magazine today has an “exit interview” with Condi Rice, which turns out to be less credible than the bogus interview that surfaced in the spoof NYT about a week ago. You’d never know she was in meetings to choreograph torture, understood the duplicity in the WMD scam, or deliberately helped prolong the Israeli incursion into Lebanon to give the IMF time to roll up Hezbollah, etc. She’s still talking as though the Bush Admin has been given a great boost to democracy all over the world.
How do you evaluate her claims (and her role generally)?
Andrew, you write that the professional military has become an extension of the imperial presidency, that the American people have become removed from the conduct of war. How do private contracting firms like Blackwater exacerbate this problem?
i like it. spoken as a politician.
Shit happens and there are consequences to bad decisions. Even for people who create their own reality, the other one comes back eventually to bite. Physical processes like global warming and peak energy don’t care if we are nice and cuddly or stupid and greedy. If we don’t address them in real ways, they will occur, end of story.
Thanks. It gets down to a modest proposal, doesn’t it? I do not mind a modest future for my grandson, but I do mind corruption and war.
I’ve been thinking about this recently.
When I think back on my time as a cadet at West Point roughly 40 years ago, two things strike me. First, I did not get a very good education. Second, I was subjected to a remarkably comprehensive and effective process of socialization intended to inculcate a very specific set of values.
you got your answer. do what you think is right.
This seems like a great opportunity to sound you out on everybody’s heroic general David Petraeus. Any thoughts?
Not worth evaluating. She was an utter failure as national security adviser and is the least consequential secretary of state since Cordell Hull spent World War II being ignored by FDR.
Dr Bacevich, what are your thoughts on the almost total disconnect between the majority of Americans and the military? In John Schaeffer’s “Keeping the Faith” he recounts his friends expressing their dismay when his son joined the Marine Corps. Neither he, or anyone her knew, had any connection with anyone in the service. Do you think that universal service, military or otherwise, might re-involve our nation in the issues we are discussing?
you have been brainwashed, sir. looks like you came out with your mind in tact. good fer you.
Great question, and it’s not just the contracting, but the distancing — guys in bunkers in Virginia directing unmanned aerial bombers as this hit suspected hideouts in Pakistan or Afghanistan only to discover they’ve killed 50 people in a wedding party – but there’s no personal accountability.
Sample of one, but perhaps illustrative. I have an army major efriend, 40ish. Works in the pentagon (was a Rumsfeld gofer for a time). We were eintroduced in 2004 by a mutual friend, who was a high school classmate of his, because he hated the Iraq war, and she thought we could have good econversations, which was true for awhile. But my increasing criticism of U.S. actions finally got on his nerves, and he accused me of antiamericanism, and of not understanding dedicating oneself to a higher cause. In other words, his rational dissent from his job (”cause”) only goes so far, but then his emotional attachment to what the RCs would term a “calling” overwhelmed him.
Very smart, savvy, and politically sophisticated. His achievements in Iraq are real but less significant (and probably less permanent) than the current conventional wisdom suggests. A failure, in my mind, in his inability or refusal to face up to the defects of the GWOT as a basis for policy.
I guess that’s one of the reasons I asked about the definition of freedom. We voided the good parts of our exceptionalism–as limited as they were–long ago. Calling our neocolonialism “freedom” treats it as exceptionalism and allows people to avoid seeing that it’s nothing more than hegemony prettied up anymore.
Andrew and other Lake dwellers:
Steve Clemons here weighing in from Germany. I just gave a set of speeches in Europe about the implications of the “Obama Bubble” we are all in now. There’s an Obama bubble in the U.S. — but also internationally. Bubbles can be useful at times in helping to generate a new ecosystem of possibilities. In infrastructure terms, we have had railway, highway, IT bubbles that generated overcapacity and then when the bubble burst — we still had a different infrastructure and more options. Obama’s bubble may prove to be of a similar sort — giving us the time with other global players to re-write a global social contract if you will and reorder our institutional relationship with the world.
Do you see much evidence yet that Obama and his team are ready to change the strategic game plan for the U.S.? Get off the track we are on?
When I hear characterizations of Iraq as the “bad war” and Afghanistan as the “good war”, I worry that Obama and many of his team just aren’t there. I sense you agree with that.
But would appreciate any insights.
Not a hell of a lot different than an arc light, ya think?
Condi Rice will always be known as a great credit to her shoes.
If you think war is bad, then you want as many USians disconnected from the military as possible.
You and I have had this discussion.
I find it distressing. The “support the troops” rhetoric generally makes me want to puke. I find it phony in the extreme. We should support the troops in ways more meaningful than fastening a bumper sticker to our SUVs. A good place to start would be to ensure that the troops are not subjected to abuse as they have been in recent years.
Roger that
how to do that , sir?
Andrew, what novel do you think best captures the reality of war and why?
Support the troops should mean, “bring them home”. Anything else is a lie.
My own view of Petraeus is a lot harsher. He was a political general who lucked into most of the decrease of violence in Iraq, took credit for it anyway, but never exploited it to fulfill the raison d’être of the surge which was a political settlement.
andrew, what flower do you think captures the reality of war and why?
There was a great interview on antiwar.com a couple of weeks ago on the profound moral costs of increasingly fighting war at a distance with no contact with the consequences and no accountability. (I’ll not be able to find it to link. Sorry.) But you need go no farther than read any book about UK bombing German cities to smithereens or US firebombing of Tokyo during WWII to figure it out. Here’s a good place to start: Among the Dead Cities—The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan by A.C. Grayling
One woman columnist said that to win the election, the Dems had to drop their soul off at a pawn shop. I know my hardline left friends feel disenfranchised and bitter and outside the Obama bubble. Can we get America’s “soul” out of the pawn shop?
Can the majority of Americans break through so many sedimentary layers of denial — processing the horror and grotesque betrayals of our leadership in all branches, of the corruption and wrongheadedness and incompetence of American imperialism … and the ruling class so many, many times sacrificing the non-ruling class’s children, of all countries, for their own financial aggrandizement.
Steve –
I’m waiting to see who he appoints to senior national security positions.
Will Kerry or Clinton as Sec State suggest that we are en route to “changing the way Washington works”? I don’t think so.
But that aside, the man is going to be mightily constrained by institutional and fiscal considerations — not to mention the fact that his election doesn’t change realities in Iran, Pakistan, the West Bank, etc.
I do wish the new president well, but he will almost inevitably disappoint those who view his election as evidence of deliverance.
Try
In Pharaoh’s Army: Memories of the Lost War
by Tobias Wollf
Late Thoughts on an Old War: The Legacy of Vietnam
by Philip D. Beidler
What do you expect… “good” soldiers are meant to take orders and not think.
Thanks. I do not know these works, which is saying a lot given how much reading on war I have done. I will get them. Chris
Thanks Andy — I’ll be linking this exchange you’ve had here at FireDogLake over at the Washington Note as well.
Thanks for your leadership and common sense on national security policy.
The imperialist-owned corporate media passes out the kool-aid for imperialism.
Petraeus has been stating since 2007 that there is no military solution in Iraq.
There is a summary of how bad the Afghanistan situation is for Nato soldiers, that is being held back from the public. Have you heard anything about it?
Well, I’ve got several favorites:
James Salter, The Hunters
Evelyn Waugh’s WWII trilogy
Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
James Jones, From Here to Eternity
For the most part, I like those that offer the greatest insight on what it means to be a soldier — which means avoiding all sorts of commonplace cliches.
Wolff wrote “A Boys Life”
Phil teaches at Alabama and his book has a particularly relevant chapter about this war
BTW, neither of these are novels.
I see no Obama bubble. There is an Obama honeymoon which likely will prove short. So far he has surrounded himself with Clintonistas in foreign policy and DLCers and neoliberals on the economy. Given his support of the bailout and the FISA Amendments Act, things do not look good, not as bad as Bush or McCain, but not good.
Conceptually, no, though I’ve walked through/around the craters and we were always in a jungle, not in towns pretending to distinguish civilian from “military” targets. I think our “toys” are more frightening now and the temmptation to use them stronger — unless we confront the issues Andrew is addressing.
We need to develop a number system (like that old joke about telling jokes in prison: they don’t tell the joke they just call out the number & everyone laughs) for long standing back & forths to truncate repetition.
Pick up “Whistle” the third in the Jones trilogy. It’s about the wounded from Guadalcanal in the VA hospital in Memphis.
No, I have not heard of anything being held back. Seems to me that there’s all sorts of evidence that things in Afghanistan are going poorly so I’m not sure I understand the point of trying to suppress information that confirms that impression.
Gotcha. 52’s strikes were more often in the boonies but I saw My Tho pretty much disintegrated from arty and air strikes.
There’s also Robert Graves’ memoir: Good bye to All That. Not a novel, but gets into the guts of WWI.
Thank you both, Andrew and Chris, for spending time with us and the very thoughtful discussion. Come back please with any updates, commentary, or suggestions. My best.
Ha, I’ve been trying to lay low.
Thank you for the invitation to participate. Dinner’s waiting so I’ll sign off.
I noticed. Didn’t intentionally scratch old sore. Was a thoughtless conditioned reflex. Sorry.
Thank you for your time this afternoon Professor Bacevich.
bush is not only in denial, he’s also up the creek.
Book:
Peeling the Onion by Günter Grass
WWII German Army defeat and survival.
Not at all. Now sanders snarky comment to the prof. . . .
Thanks much, Andrew, for answering our questions, and thanks to Chris for an excellent intro.
Those who haven’t bought the book yet, it’s available here:
Feeling disenfranchised from discussion. Ah well.
thank you, sir come back again. pls bring more answers if you can. :)
Andrew, thank you for stopping by the Lake today and discussing your new book.
Chris, Thank you for Hosting today’s great Book Salon.
Everyone, if you haven’t read the book yet, this is a must buy book, there is a link above.
Thanks all.
Andrew, I have not read the Salter but like very much the other three, especially the Jones and the Waugh. My top picks would also include the monumental Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman (the greatest and most important Russian novel of the 20th century), History: A Novel by Elsa Morante because it powerfully captures the plight of the weak and powerless in wartime and the great novel on the Balkan war Life in the Tomb by Stratis Myrivilis.
Thanks. Signing off. Chris
For ordinary soldiers, it has to be daisies since this is what so many end up pushing. For generals and political leaders, it would have to be stinkweed for obvious reasons.
Kind of a dialogue between Hedges & Bacevich, n’est pas? But still interesting.
Poppies, not only the Flanders Field type, have to play a big role in modern militaries.
Seems to me many of the Book Salon’s are like that.
Does everyone here know that Andrew’s son was killed in Iraq?
Yes.
Oh, no. I did not know that. Somehow we should have been informed. One wouldn’t have wanted to ask any Qs or express any opinions that would step on his emotions.
year and a half ago, i think. spring of 2007.
Eh oui, un certain manque de s’engager dans une conversation plus générale et démocratique. Je crois que j’aurais dû s’attendre à cela mais j’étais un peu déçu quand même.
I don’t think he would have wanted to stifle anyone.
Just a side note to interested FDLers: “All Quiet on the Western Front” was published in 1929 and became one of the books on the “burn” list of the National Socialists (Nazis).
Its author eventually emmigrated to the US after, IIRC, spending WWII in Switzerland.
The “Western Front” tells of German soldiers in WWI in the trenches, commanded from a distance by martinettes who really know nothing of the kind of war their men fight.
If you see his interview at Bill Moyers website (check the archives), it is raised there.
I have watched both parts of the interview several times and gleaned more with each viewing; what he says is dense and important and well worth re-viewing for those of us who have the option of online viewing during some portions of the day.
Probably won’t be able to get to this book until the holidays, but this thread has been helpful. Thx Chris and Prof. Bacevitch. (And egregious.)
Also, Lew Ayers starred in the film:
Interesting; I’d had no idea.
It is a powerful story, and a powerful movie.
Prefessor Bacevich,
I read your book a few weeks ago I and I found it really thought provoking.
However it didn’t seem to me that you had a solution for getting the American people to change their expectations. While I completely agree with your criticisms on our current foreign policy, I find myself constantly frustrated by the innate jingoism of most Americans who not only oppose any restraint on our foreign policy objectives but find the thought of cutting our military budget tantamount to treason.
If we assume that Obama truly wanted to embrace this new vision for the “city on the hill” how could he ever get the American people to support him without being crucified by his opponents? As you point out in the book, Jimmy Carter tried to affect some of the changes that you support and was demonized for his efforts. His “cross of malaise” speech is a cautionary tale for any politician today.
It seems to me that the greatest challenge in American politics isn’t speaking truth to power. It’s speaking truth to the American people because they show little interest in knowing what the truth is.