So That Security and Liberty May Prosper Together

Americans like to bitch about how "The Government" spends the tax money of We The People. In our arguments we prop up straw men to shout about: Funding the National Endowment for the Arts, Tobacco or Ethanol subsidies, studies about trivialities like global climate change, etc. Yet we very rarely get around to taking on the Number One problem, the bottomless pit into which we throw trillions of dollars and insist on thinking of it as a tool of statecraft.

Yes, I refer to the military.

Every decade or so some pol steps up and makes a stand against this bomber or tank or ship, declaring it wasteful and unnecessary. Good for that vox clamantis in deserto, but until Feb. 1, 2010, I am fundamentally unaware of anyone who has the moxie to claim, as Andrew J. Bacevich does in "The American Conservative", that,

Since 1945, the United States military has devoted itself to the proposition that, Hiroshima notwithstanding, war still works—that, despite the advent of nuclear weapons, organized violence directed by a professional military elite remains politically purposeful. From the time U.S. forces entered Korea in 1950 to the time they entered Iraq in 2003, the officer corps attempted repeatedly to demonstrate the validity of this hypothesis.

He's referring to war working as statecraft, a tool to end some conflict or another. As in our current efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite all evidence to the contrary. Bacevich goes on:

Three times in the last 60 years, U.S. forces have achieved an approximation of unambiguous victory—operational success translating more or less directly into political success. The first such episode, long since forgotten, occurred in 1965 when Lyndon Johnson intervened in the Dominican Republic. The second occurred in 1983, when American troops, making short work of a battalion of Cuban construction workers, liberated Granada. The third occurred in 1989 when G.I.’s stormed the former American protectorate of Panama, toppling the government of long-time CIA asset Manuel Noriega.

He's not talking trash about "the troops". He's talking about results. The efficacy of the theoretical strategy of deploying troops to "win" something as nebulous as a "War On Terror". In plain speech, such a plan is analogous to nailing Jell-o to a tree.

Yet the current crop of "conservative" voices routinely demand that We "support the troops" by not uttering a single negative word about the deeply flawed mission. They castigate the president for being soft and spineless. The current darling of the GOP, Sarah Palin, is openly criticizing the president for not invading Iran. In what twisted world view are those things conservative? How is endless occupational military engagement with no clear victory to achieve a conservative virtue?

Imagine for one minute that We The People had resoundingly said No! to the proposed invasion of Iraq for specious, trumped up reasons. Imagine that we had thought rather than reacted in the wake of 9/11. (Imagine that my coworker had not called me a traitor for disagreeing with such a fallacious rush to war.) We would still have:

- $1.05 trillion dollars (which over 10 years could have provided funding for 1,490,431 elementary school teachers, or 30,839,695 people with Health Care, or 108,327,139 Homes with Renewable Electricity)
- 3,469 living US soldiers
- 27,790 unwounded US soldiers

Ponder that. Those lives are irreplaceable. For the cost of 7 years of war with no discernible goal ("Ending terror"? Please...) We The People could have outfitted pretty much every single U.S. home with the means of generating its own electricity. Just how much dead dinosaur juice consumption or coal burning does that avoid? Which one gets us out of conflict with the Middle East? Which of those solutions is conservative? Which one provides a return on invested capital?

Please note that the cost of the current wars is not analogous to the cost of having a military. It is above and beyond the cost of maintaining and effective military. Using said military for dubious results is expensive and not in the slightest conservative.

Eisenhower was right:

We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

and right about this, too:

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

and once more:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Read the entire speech and recall what conservatism used to sound like. Remember what war looked like to a warrior rather than a glory-addled chicken-hawk. Remember that we were warned, and we ignored that warning. Remember that our leaders, both elected and corporate, prefer that we remain afraid of bogeymen so that the military machine remains showered with money, our money, and that the exchange for that false sense of security is money not spent on making America better.