It’s rather amazing how the New York Times covers ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza. Today’s NYT features an article (in my email newsfeed) that talks about the “war” on Hamas and identifies the key issue as the hostages and their return. From this article, you’d never know Gaza has been reduced to rubble in a bombing campaign equivalent to seven Hiroshima atomic bombs. You’d never know that more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, but that the likely number of killed is probably twice or three times that. You’d never know the Israeli government’s plan is to kill or push out all the Palestinians in Gaza, a “final solution” to the Gaza problem. You’d never know the main victims of Israel’s “war” have been innocent women and children in Gaza.
And while the NYT does mention starvation and the spread of diseases, it provides no estimate for the number of Palestinians killed as a result of Israel’s blockade.
Also, the NYT mentions that Israeli’s latest invasion may endanger the hostages. Nothing is said about endangering the lives of Palestinians in Gaza. Basically, all those who live in Gaza are treated as Hamas, as terrorists, who must either be killed or removed.
This is your “paper of record,” America, with all the news that’s fit to print.
Here’s what appeared in my news feed from the NYT. Judge for yourself:
WAR RETURNS TO GAZA
After an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Saturday. Amir Cohen/Reuters
Over the weekend, Israel decided to call in military reservists and escalate the war in the Gaza Strip again.
The news reflects a sharp turn of events. Earlier this year, Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire. That deal held for months, during which Israel halted operations in Gaza and Hamas handed over some Israeli hostages. But the cease-fire ended in March. Now, it seems the war is truly returning.
Why escalate now?
Israel has pressured Hamas to return all of the remaining hostages, especially the 24 who officials believe are still alive. Officials also say that Hamas must disarm as part of any future deal. But Hamas has refused. Before it makes further concessions, it wants the war over and Israel out of Gaza.
Israel hopes escalation will get Hamas to capitulate and return all of the hostages — while giving its troops a chance to destroy the group’s remaining infrastructure.
What is Israel’s plan?
The generals are calling up tens of thousands of reservists to expand operations in Gaza. They plan to occupy the region, forcibly relocate Palestinians in affected areas and oversee aid distribution.
Israel has blocked all aid, including food and medicine, from entering the territory for more than two months. (Some aid workers are accused of participating in the Oct. 7 attacks, The Times explained, and a lawsuit claims that Hamas skimmed $1 billion in U.N. aid. But the blockade has led to starvation and the spread of diseases, as The Times documented.) With direct control, Israel says, it will allow distribution to resume.
Will the plan work?
Israeli leaders say that military pressure secured the release of hostages before. They hope to replicate that success. Critics argue that Israel has by now exhausted its ability to pressure Hamas with force. They worry more fighting will put the surviving hostages at risk. — German Lopez
Language and repetition of the same is so important. We hear about the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Pentagon budget and we think little of it. The DoD, of course, used to be called the Department of War until 1947, a far more telling and accurate name, and there wasn’t a Pentagon until we built one during World War II. In the old days, the Army fought the Navy for which service would get more money in the War Budget, with the Navy usually winning as America sought to control the seas as a means of dominating trade and “intercourse” among nations.
Those were more honest times when retired generals like Smedley Butler wrote in the 1930s that he’d served as a “gangster” for capitalism. Butler was a Marine who was twice awarded the Medal of Honor, so it wasn’t easy for the imperialists to smear him, though they certainly tried (as they did to David M. Shoup, another Marine Corps general and Medal of Honor recipient who turned against the Vietnam War in the 1960s).
Anyhow, I just saw at Antiwar.com that President Trump is proposing a $1.01 trillion budget for the Pentagon for FY2026, a 13% increase in imperial spending. Trump, of course, is proud of reaching the Trillion Dollar threshold. Big numbers have always appealed to him.
It doesn’t seem to matter who is president, whether it’s Biden or Trump, Democrat or Republican, when it comes to the Department of Empire and its bloated imperial budget. For that is what it is, a budget that seeks to sustain and enlarge America’s imperial domain. If you add other costs related to imperial dominance, such as interest on the national debt due to war spending, VA costs, nuclear weapons, and the like, the true imperial budget soars toward $1.7 trillion yearly.
No matter. A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.
The Pentagon tries to disguise the enormous waste of this imperial budget by speaking of it as an “investment,” but imagine an “investment” that you’re involved in which fails seven audits in a row. How likely would you be to see this as anything other than theft?
Dwight D. Eisenhower had it right in 1953 when he spoke of military spending as a theft from those who hunger. Ike’s words are almost never heard today inside the Washington Beltway. It’s worth reflecting upon them again as America’s leaders boast of trillion-dollar war budgets:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children… This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
To them, the right lessons; to everyone else, the wrong ones
We just marked the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. Did American officials learn anything from the disastrous Vietnam War?
Saigon, April 1975
Of course they did. Just not the lessons you’d have wished they’d learned.
So, what did they learn?
They learned that wars can indeed last forever, but that Vietnam wasn’t the best “forever war” for the military-industrial complex because it became deeply unpopular and was disrupting cohesion within the military itself. The best forever wars are open-ended “wars” like the global war on terror. And perhaps a “new Cold War” with Russia and/or China. Wars that don’t involve the deployment of over half a million men (unless that “new” Cold War turns hot).
They learned to control the narrative. No more journalists traveling freely in war zones as in the 1960s in Vietnam. Journalists are now most often embedded in U.S. military units. Embedded reporters, dependent on the military for access and protection, know what they can and can’t say, even as they tend to sympathize with the troops they’re with.
They learned that forced conscription via a draft doesn’t work well for unpopular wars. So they transformed the military into an “all-volunteer” force. Draftees may well be resentful, rightly so, but volunteers? Too bad—they volunteered for this.
Along with “volunteers,” they learned to indoctrinate U.S. troops to be “warriors” and “warfighters” rather than citizen-soldiers. Warriors exist to fight wars, so shut up and blast away.
They learned to keep the American people isolated from war and its deadly effects. Recall that under Bush/Cheney, Americans weren’t even allowed to see flag-draped caskets. During Vietnam, war was in America’s living rooms during dinner, complete with body counts. Coverage of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere was sanitized, almost bloodlessly so.
They learned never to talk of sacrifice (except by those volunteer warriors) by the American people. Taxes aren’t raised in the name of war. There are no war bond drives. America’s leaders tell the rest of us to enjoy life, to visit Disney and to go shopping, while “our” warriors fight overseas.
Together with those “lessons,” they continue to preach “peace through strength,” attacking those who truly seek peace as misguided (at best) and treasonous (at worst). As ever, they tend to attack those who’d dare criticize the U.S. military as ungrateful backstabbers. And of course they consistently obscure the truth of how poorly wars like Iraq and Afghanistan were going while holding no one in the upper echelons responsible and accountable for rampant corruption and disastrous endings.
All these “lessons” ensured that Vietnam wouldn’t be the last example of hubris, folly, and atrocity, and indeed it hasn’t been. Until the right lessons are learned, expect future repeats, tragic variations on a theme of Vietnam.
“Fighting a war to fix something works about as good as going to a whorehouse to get rid of a clap.” — Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead
I read Norman Mailer’s fine book about World War II, “The Naked and the Dead,” several years ago, though I’d forgotten the quote above until I ran across it again in an article by Andrew Bacevich at Harper’s in 2009.
Bacevich’s article was titled “The War We Can’t Win,” in which he critiqued and rejected President Barack Obama’s decision to “surge” in Afghanistan. As Bacevich wrote back in 2009:
What is it about Afghanistan, possessing next to nothing, that the United States requires, that justified such lavish attention? In Washington, this question goes not only unanswered but unasked. Among Democrats and Republicans alike, with few exceptions, Afghanistan’s importance is simply assumed—much the way fifty years ago otherwise intelligent people simply assumed that the United States had a vital interest in ensuring the survival of South Vietnam. Today, as then, the assumption does not stand up to even casual scrutiny.
Bacevich was right, of course. And once America pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021, we were encouraged to forget about it, just as we were encouraged to forget about Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975.
If it doesn’t matter much to the U.S. when we lose wars, doesn’t that suggest the wars meant little to begin with? That there never truly were vital matters of national interest at stake?
The same was true of the Iraq War, as Bacevich describes it in the same article for Harper’s. This war, Bacevich writes, was “utterly needless” as “no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction [were] found, no ties between Saddam Hussein and the [9/11] jihadists established, no democratic transformation of the Islamic world set into motion, no road to peace in Jerusalem discovered in downtown Baghdad,” yet the U.S. was nevertheless hyping the success of the “surge” there from 2007 and how it should be applied to Afghanistan, an example of obtuseness and self-delusion that Bacevich said “is nothing short of obscene.”
He was right, of course, as both surges proved as fragile and reversible as weasel-worded General David Petraeus hinted they would be. Petraeus might be America’s best example of Grima Wormtongue from “The Lord of the Rings,” though of course there’s a lot of competition for that honor.
Bacevich, a retired Army colonel, political scientist, and Vietnam War veteran, criticizes U.S. leaders for their “failure of imagination,” for their crusading zeal, for their hubris, and for their tendency to substitute technique for sound strategy. He is right about all this, but someone always profits from war. Somebody always wins. And so perhaps the best way to understand these wars is to focus on the winners.
So, who won these wars? Certainly, the military-industrial complex won them. Every war, winning or losing, wise or unwise, strengthens the MIC by expanding its budgetary authority and scope of action. Military contractors, the merchants of death, especially profit from war, notably long “stalemated” ones like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
In a short video clip, Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange explained the purpose of the Afghan War which, as Bacevich mentions above, is inexplicable in terms of U.S. national interest:
A vast money-laundering operation that enriches oligarchs who profit from war, death, and mayhem: it makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? Note too how Assange explains that the ultimate purpose here is to make war permanent, to make it normal, to make it unremarkable, even to make it the height of sanity.
This has happened and is happening. Today, Iraq and Afghanistan are largely forgotten in the U.S. and Europe. New fears are focused on bigger fish: Russia and/or China, even as the U.S. pummels Yemen. Few Western leaders are talking about peace; Europe is fixated on Russia even as America is more concerned with pivoting to Asia and doing the bidding of Israel in the Middle East.
And so the money-laundering continues.
A lesson here is to follow the money, especially when wars seem strategically stupid, because the people and forces in charge aren’t stupid—their priorities are just far different from our priorities.
And this is something Bacevich catches in a different context as he explains that the costs of war are not borne “by the people who inhabit the leafy neighborhoods of northwest Washington, who lunch at the Palm or the Metropolitan Club and school their kids at Sidwell Friends.” Indeed not. The costs are borne by the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and so on, as well as those U.S. troops who get caught waging these wars, and who likely come from small towns in Alabama and Texas and similar rural areas.
I recently checked in with HAL 9000, actually ChatGPT and DeepSeek, to see what AI says about my writing on military policy. I’ll let ChatGPT go first:
William Astore, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and historian, has emerged as a prominent voice critiquing America’s militaristic culture and its pervasive influence on domestic and foreign policy. Through his essays on platforms like TomDispatch and Truthdig, Astore offers a candid examination of how militarism has become deeply embedded in American society, often to its detriment.
The Militarization of American Society
Astore argues that the United States has transitioned from a nation with a military to a militarized nation. He contends that this shift is not marked by overt displays of military power but by a subtle, pervasive presence of militaristic values in everyday life. This includes the normalization of war, the glorification of military service, and the integration of military imagery into civilian spaces. He warns that such normalization desensitizes the public to the realities of war and erodes democratic values.
The Business of War
In his critique of the military-industrial complex, Astore highlights how war has become a profitable enterprise for a select few. He references General Smedley Butler’s assertion that “war is a racket,” emphasizing that the true beneficiaries of war are often corporations and political elites, rather than the general populace. Astore suggests that this profit-driven approach to war leads to prolonged conflicts with little regard for their human or financial costs.
The Disconnect Between Military and Society
Astore points out the growing divide between the military and civilian sectors. He notes that the all-volunteer force, while composed of individuals who choose to serve, often does so out of limited economic opportunities rather than a deep-seated desire to fight. This creates a situation where the broader public remains detached from the consequences of war, leading to a lack of accountability and understanding.
A Call for Reflection and Change
Throughout his writings, Astore advocates for a return to a more restrained and reflective approach to military engagement. He urges Americans to critically assess the true costs of war and to reconsider the glorification of militarism in public life. By fostering a more informed and engaged citizenry, Astore believes the U.S. can move towards a foreign policy that prioritizes diplomacy and peace over conflict.
Astore’s insights challenge readers to confront the complexities of American militarism and its implications for both domestic society and international relations. His work serves as a reminder of the importance of maintaining a vigilant and informed public to ensure that the nation’s military endeavors align with its democratic ideals.
*****
That’s a fair assessment, I’d say. I do believe America is too war- and profit-driven, too adulatory toward the military, and also too disconnected from the grim realities of war. And I have called for a recommitment to and renewal of diplomacy. A “vigilant and informed public” is exactly what Ike called for in 1961 when he said that only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry could keep the military-industrial-congressional complex in check. I suppose that’s why the MICC works to keep Americans isolated from and ignorant about war. The last thing the MICC wants is alert and knowledgeable citizens who challenge it.
HAL 9000 (from the movie “2001”)
Let’s turn to DeepSeek and its summary, which isn’t quite as comprehensive as ChatGPT:
William Astore, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and historian, is a vocal critic of U.S. military policy and militarism. His key arguments include:
Excessive Militarization. Astore argues that the U.S. has become overly reliant on military solutions to geopolitical problems, leading to endless wars and bloated defense budgets. He critiques the “military-industrial complex” (a term popularized by Eisenhower) for perpetuating this cycle.
Militarism in Society. He highlights how militarism has seeped into American culture, with the glorification of the military. pervasive defense contracting, and the influence of retired generals in media and politics.
Failed Wars & Lack of Accountability. Astore condemns U.S. interventions (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan) as costly failures, driven by hubris and flawed assumptions, with little accountability for policymakers.
Erosion of Democracy. He warns that unchecked militarism undermines democratic values, as vast resources are diverted to the military while domestic needs (education, healthcare, infrastructure) are neglected.
Need for Reform. Astore advocates for a more restrained foreign policy, reduced defense spending, and greater public skepticism toward military leaders and war propaganda.
*****
Again, I think that’s a fair summary. I like the emphasis on lack of accountability. So-called experts are never called to account for advocating for disastrous wars; indeed, they’re usually promoted to higher positions. You can never go wrong by going “strong,” at least rhetorically. The worst thing in America is to argue for diplomacy and peace and being proven right, for you were right “for the wrong reasons,” i.e. sure, Iraq and Afghanistan were disastrous wars that killed, wounded, and displaced millions, but it would have been pusillanimous and “weak” of America not to slap around a few countries in the aftermath of 9/11. So put on your “big boy” warrior fatigues and start kicking ass, because that’s what real Americans do.
It’s interesting that AI programs probably wouldn’t write that last sentence but they can “write” sober and rational prose rather effectively.
ChatGPT and DeepSeek can be useful tools, I think, if used judiciously. I worry, however, about AI programs being used for decision-making, especially decisions related to life and death in war. So, for example, I’ve read about AI programs being used for target selection in places like Gaza. Just what we need—ever-more automated death.
During World War II, the Nazi system of extermination camps was fairly efficient. Relatively small death camps like Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka killed an astonishing number of people, more than 1.6 million and nearly all Jews, quickly and efficiently. If there were a Nazi DOGE, I suppose these death camps may have won “efficiency” awards from it. They stripped the incoming victims of all their valuables and then killed virtually all of them. The loot stolen by the SS was then distributed, again fairly efficiently.
Yet, conducting a genocide, a mass murder, a horrendous atrocity, efficiently is nothing to praise. Right?
Today, America doesn’t need a government that wages wars more efficiently around the globe. We don’t need more efficient genocidal nuclear ICBMs. We don’t need more efficient weapons delivery to Israel so that Gaza can be leveled and its people murdered or displaced from their land.
What we need is an effective government that does the right thing.
The DOGE associated with Elon Musk can’t seem to recognize that you can’t do a wrong thing the right way. If you’re doing a wrong thing, you must stop doing it. Period.
Genocidal nuclear missiles are wrong. Stop building them.
Genocide in Gaza is wrong. Stop supplying Israel with weapons.
Waging war for peace is wrong. Stop doing it.
That said, efficiency does have some relevance. Consider the Pentagon. It has failed seven audits in a row. It is grossly inefficient even as it continues to be ineffective. How do you rein in a vast government bureaucracy that lacks both efficiency and effectiveness?
You don’t do it by rewarding it with more money. But that’s exactly what President Trump, Elon Musk, and Congress are doing. They all seek a trillion dollar war budget. They all want the Pentagon to grow and then grow some more.
If a sprawling bureaucracy is out of control, you must cut its budget in a big way, forcing it to confront its own waste, fraud, abuse, and related forms of corruption. That said, efficiency is again less important than effectiveness. Is the Pentagon effectively defending America? If not, how do you make it more effective?
Pentagon misadventures around the world are making Americans less safe. Incessant warfare is strengthening authoritarianism and militarism in America while weakening democracy and hollowing out infrastructure and finances.
A more effective Pentagon is one that would focus strictly on defending America proper while upholding the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law. After achieving that, one could then focus on efficiency. A Pentagon budget cut roughly in half would lead to a more effective defense of America. A much smaller Pentagon budget could then be more easily audited, leading to greater efficiency.
Committing murderous wrongs in an efficient way is nothing to celebrate. Didn’t the Nazis already provide us with the most horrifying example of this?
Replacing an older suicide vest with a newer one is not a sound plan
We are losing the struggle for the heart and soul of our country.
That much is apparent by the government’s embrace of genocide in Gaza, its boasts of trillion dollar war budgets, and its pride in global weapons sales, which the U.S. dominates (more than 40% of the global arms trade consists of weapons made in the USA).
I’ve been involved in efforts to criticize America’s “merchants of death” and to challenge America’s love affair with the military-industrial complex (MIC), but seemingly nothing we say or do changes the abusive and sociopathic power structure in DC. I suppose that’s none too surprising, given the power of the MICIMATT and the persuasiveness of propaganda.
Still, we must persist in these efforts, bringing a positive message, which I think should focus on the revival of democracy by reinvesting in America while rejecting militarism and restoring peace. Peace should be America’s normal, not war and constant preparations for the same. Yet “peace” seems to be the hardest word, one that’s rarely spoken in the halls of power.
Anyhow, in 2022 I wrote the following email to likeminded colleagues; I hope it’s worth sharing. As I think about it, three years later, I marvel at the death of idealism in America and the triumph of militarism. When more than half of the federal government’s discretionary spending goes to the military and weaponry, despite the Pentagon’s failure to pass audit after audit for seven years running, we must conclude we are one sick society.
The question is: How do we restore ourselves to health? Because I for one do not believe that war is the health of the state.
*****
Written in 2022 to colleagues seeking to reform the military-industrial complex (MIC).
When I was a college student in the early 1980s, and in Air Force ROTC, I wrote against the Reagan “defense” buildup. Caspar Weinberger, he of the “Cap the knife” handle for cost-cutting, became “Cap the ladle” as Reagan’s SecDef, ladling money in huge amounts to the Pentagon. History is repeating itself again as the Biden administration prepares to ladle $813 billion (and more) to the Pentagon.
How do we stop this? Of course, we must recognize (as I’m sure we all do) what we’re up against. Both political parties are pro-military and, in the main, pro-war. Our economy is based on a militarized Keynesianism and our culture is increasingly militarized. Mainstream Democrats, seemingly forever afraid of being labeled “weak” on defense, are at pains to be more pro-military than the Republicans. Biden, in Poland, echoed the words of Obama and other past presidents, declaring the U.S. military to be “the finest fighting force” in history. Think about that boast. Think about how Biden added that the nation owes the troops big. This is a sign of a sick culture.
Ike gave his MIC speech in 1961, and for 61 years the MIC has been winning. Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early ‘90s, the MIC held its own; after 9/11, it went into warp speed and is accelerating. To cite Scotty from Star Trek: “And at Warp 10, we’re going nowhere mighty fast.”
We need a reformation of our institutions; we need a restoration of our democracy; we need a reaffirmation of the U.S. Constitution; we need to remember who we are, or perhaps who we want to be, as a people.
Do we really want to be the world’s largest dealer of arms? Do we really want to spend a trillion or more dollars, each and every year, on wars and weapons, more than the next dozen or so countries combined, most of which are allies of ours? (“Yes” is seemingly the answer here, for both Democrats and Republicans.) Is that really the best way to serve the American people? Humanity itself?
Consider plans to “invest” in “modernizing” America’s nuclear triad. (Notice the words used here by the MIC.) What does this really mean? To me, it means we plan on spending nearly $2 trillion over the next 30 years to replace an older suicide vest with a newer one, except this suicide vest will take out humanity itself, as well as most other life forms on our planet.
As Ike said in 1953, “This is not a way of life at all … it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
We will need the broadest possible coalition to tackle this outrage against civilization and humanity. That’s why I applaud these efforts, even as I encourage all of us to enlist and recruit more people to join our ranks.
My father enlisted in the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935 to do his bit for his family and his nation. He fought forest fires in Oregon and later became a firefighter after serving in the Army during World War II. That was the last formally declared war that America fought. It was arguably the last morally justifiable war this country has fought, waged by citizens who donned a uniform, not “warriors” who are told that the nation owes them big.
In “It’s A Wonderful Life,” Jimmy Stewart, a true war hero, played a man who never fought in WW2, who stayed at home and helped ordinary people even as his younger brother Harry went off to war and earned the Medal of Honor. Yet the movie doesn’t celebrate Harry’s war heroism; it celebrates the nobility, decency, and humility of George Bailey.
How do we get back to that America? The America from before the MIC, that celebrated decency and kindness and humanitarianism?
Yes, I know. It’s just a Frank Capra movie, and America has never been a perfect shining city. All I’m saying is we need more of that spirit if we are to prevail.
I was going through old notes and came across emails written to me from 2009 in response to an article I wrote for TomDispatch about militarism in America and its many dangers. (When I tell readers that I often learn as much from them as they do from me, I mean it.)
Without further ado, four “letters” from readers, vintage 2009:
I enjoyed very much your article on patriots and the flag. Out here in Wyoming we get a real dose of it. It bothers me a great deal to see political candidates wrap themselves in the flag and even use the flag as advertising items. Many people have a flag on their driveway that hangs there until it falls apart and they are proclaiming they are patriots. I served in the army and the Wyoming National Guard and I feel that I do not need my motives scrutinized. I feel that my saying “bring the troops home” is supporting them and not wanting any other young people maimed or killed should speak for itself. Keep up the good work.
The next letter highlighted the “cult of hyper-patriotism” that Bush/Cheney in particular were cultivating:
Suffice it to say that you have touched on a number of issues that I strongly agree with. The cult of hyper-patriotism that seems to have sprung up since the early to mid 80s seems to sucking the marrow from America’s bones, rather than strengthening and replenishing it. Too many of our fellow citizens are only familiar with the first half of Carl Schurz’s quote: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
Another reader, an Army veteran, questioned all the “thank you for your service” hoopla:
I cannot say how we arrived at the point we are today, regarding some of the issues you raised, but we have reached a point that I think is not right. And, unfortunately, raising questions about this draws rapid condemnation.
The extra thing, that your article did not mention, which I find unsettling, is that we seem to have become a citizenry of gestures, rather than resolve (and Gary Cooper was all about being resolute). As if plastering the trunk lid of one’s car with yellow ribbon magnets and ‘Freedom isn’t free’ stickers is somehow just as valid as actually serving the country. As if the ostentatious example of thanking soldiers one coincidentally meets in the airport for their service makes up for staying home oneself. I volunteered and served my three years in the Army (and didn’t like military life at all, so left when my enlistment was up), but can’t imagine why anyone would thank me for simply doing my duty, and without knowing whether I did my duty well.
In one of my favorite letters, a reader noted the melding of sports and the military along with Hollywood’s predilection for big men with even bigger guns:
I just read your essay “What Happened to Gary Cooper” on Middle East Online and loved it. As a screenwriter in California, I’m often in meetings where some twenty something “exec” speaks lovingly about big men with big guns. I try to steer the discussion to a different kind of hero, the reluctant kind that solve their problems with keen insight instead of quick trigger fingers. I’m sure you can imagine how those suggestions are treated.
And also, as a former professional football player and lifelong sports fan, I’m also very interested in the melding of military and sports cultures. Watch an NFL game and it’s readily apparent. Pregame shows with military guards, monstrous flags, reverential tributes to the troops overseas, etc.
And always the flyovers! A few years back I was at an Angels World Series game with a friend. A stealth bomber thundered overhead right before the first pitch and the crowd went wild. My friend said he had tears in his eyes, and I said, just think how many tears are shed by the people whose countries those things flyover every single day. He thought I was joking. I wasn’t.
These reader comments from 2009 could have been made yesterday—or today. Steroidal displays of hyper-patriotism and exotic weaponry continue apace in allegedly peace-loving America as the president boasts of trillion-dollar war budgets.
A final comment from another reader:
I served in the US Coast Guard back when it wasn’t fashionable to be in the military. I remember having garbage thrown at me from passing cars when on liberty from the Academy. I don’t desire a return to those days but I firmly believe that the pendulum has gone too far the other way.
I love my country as much as anyone but I really wish that they’d stop singing ‘God Bless America’ during the 7th inning stretch and replace it with “America the Beautiful”, prefereably all verses but at least the first two. For the past 8 years, I’ve been moved to tears when singing te second verse as it ends,
“America! America! God mend thine ev’ry flaw;
Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law! “
We could use a bit more self control.
These comments come from men who at first glance might be seen as “conservative” or even as “deplorable” by some sectors of society. This is deeply unfortunate. I’m not sure how else to put this, so I’ll just say it: these men would not be out of step with the efforts of groups like Code Pink. We need to come together.
In America there is a “silent majority” who are tired of vapid patriotism, rabid nationalism, and endless wars. How we activate that silent majority—how we get them to stand up, to march, to declare “Enough is enough!” is a question for the ages.
A patriotic song I was taught in my youth was “You’re A Grand Old Flag,” written by George M. Cohan in 1906. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard it, but it flashed into my mind the other day because of its lyrics, especially the refrain:
You’re a grand old flag, You’re a high-flying flag, And forever in peace may you wave. You’re the emblem of the land I love, The home of the free and the brave. Ev’ry heart beats true ‘Neath the Red, White and Blue, Where there’s never a boast or brag. But should auld acquaintance be forgot, Keep your eye on the grand old flag.
Forever in peace? I second that sentiment, except America is constantly at war or preparing for war. An America that doesn’t boast or brag? Amen to that, except presidents from Bush to Obama to Biden to Trump boast and brag about America having the world’s best and strongest military, with Obama adding that America has the best military in all human history. How’s that for a boast?
Cohan’s song, of course, is nakedly patriotic, with its references to marches and pride. Yet even this stanza is more resonant of democracy than America’s actions today:
Here’s a land with a million soldiers, That’s if we should need ’em, We’ll fight for freedom!
The song speaks of U.S. military potential (“a million soldiers”) but adds only if we should need them, in which case they’ll fight for freedom.
When was the last time the U.S. military truly fought for freedom? World War II, I reckon.
This song’s references to peace, to humility, and to fighting only if we should need to in the defense of freedom, mark it as a true museum piece. How do we recover that version of America?
I read the news today, oh boy. About a lucky man named Elon Musk. But he lost out on one thing: he didn’t get a top secret briefing on Pentagon war plans for China. And the news people breathed a sigh of relief.
With apologies to John Lennon and The Beatles, a day in the life is getting increasingly tough to take here in the land of the free. I’m meant to be reassured that Musk didn’t get to see America’s top-secret plans for — yes! — going to war with China, even as I’m meant to ignore the constant drumbeat of propaganda, the incessant military marches that form America’s background music, conveying the message that America must have war plans for China, that indeed war in or around China is possible, even probable, in the next decade. Maybe in 2027?
My fellow Americans, we should be far more alarmed by such secret U.S. war plans, along with those “pivots” to Asia and the Indo-Pacific, and the military base-building efforts in the Philippines, than reassured by the “good news” that Comrade Billionaire Musk was denied access to the war room, meaning (for Dr. Strangelove fans) he didn’t get to see “the big board.”
It’s war, war, everywhere in America. We do indeed have a strange love for it. I’ve been writing for TomDispatch for 18 years now — this is my 111th essay (the other 110 are in a new book of mine) — most of them focusing on militarism in this country, as well as our disastrous wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, the ruinous weapons systems we continue to fund (including new apocalyptic nuclear weapons), and the war song that seems to remain ever the same.
A few recent examples of what I mean: President Trump has already bombed Yemen more than once. He’s already threatening Iran. He’s sending Israel all the explosives, all the weaponry it needs to annihilate the Palestinians in Gaza (so too, of course, did Joe Biden). He’s boasting of building new weapons systems like the Air Force’s much-hyped F-47 fighter jet, the “47” designation being an apparent homage by its builder, Boeing, to Trump himself, the 47th president. He and his “defense” secretary, Pete Hegseth, continually boast of “peace through strength,” an Orwellian construction that differs little from “war is peace.” And I could, of course, go on and on and on and on…
Occasionally, Trump sounds a different note. When Tulsi Gabbard became the director of national intelligence, he sang a dissonant note about a “warmongering military-industrial complex.” And however haphazardly, he does seem to be working for some form of peace with respect to the Russia-Ukraine War. He also talks about his fear of a cataclysmic nuclear war. Yet, if you judge him by deeds rather than words, he’s just another U.S. commander-in-chief enamored of the military and military force (whatever the cost, human or financial).
Consider here the much-hyped Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by that lucky man Elon Musk. Even as it dismantles various government agencies like the Department of Education and USAID, it has — no surprise here! — barely touched the Pentagon and its vast, nearly trillion-dollar budget. In fact, if a Republican-controlled Congress has any say in the matter, the Pentagon budget will likely be boosted significantly for Fiscal Year 2026 and thereafter. As inefficient as the Pentagon may be (and we really don’t know just how inefficient it is, since the bean counters there keep failing audit after audit, seven yearsrunning), targeted DOGE Pentagon cuts have been tiny. That means there’s little incentive for the generals to change, streamline their operations, or even rethink in any significant fashion. It’s just spend, spend, spend until the money runs out, which I suppose it will eventually, as the national debt soars toward $37 trillion and climbing.
Even grimmer than that, possibly, is America’s state of mind, our collective zeitgeist, the spirit of this country. That spirit is one in which a constant state of war (and preparations for more of the same) is accepted as normal. War, to put it bluntly, is our default state. It’s been that way since 9/11, if not before then. As a military historian, I’m well aware that the United States is, in a sense, a country made by war. It’s just that today we seem even more accepting of that reality, or resigned to it, than we’ve ever been. What gives?
The Face of War: Confederate Dead at Antietam (Matthew Brady)
Remember when, in 1963, Alabama Governor George Wallace said, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever”? Fortunately, after much struggle and bloodshed, he was proven wrong. So, can we change the essential American refrain of war now, war tomorrow, and war forever? Can we render that obsolete? Or is that too much to hope for or ask of America’s “exceptional” democracy?
Taking on the MICIMATT(SH)
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern did America a great service when he came up with the acronym MICIMATT, or the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex, an extension of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex, or MIC (from his farewell speech in 1961). Along with the military and industry (weapons makers like Boeing and Lockheed Martin), the MICIMATT adds Congress (which Eisenhower had in his original draft speech but deleted in the interest of comity), the intelligence “community” (18 different agencies), the media (generally highly supportive of wars and weapons spending), academia (which profits greatly from federal contracts, especially research and development efforts for yet more destructive weaponry), and think tanks (which happily lap up Pentagon dollars to tell us the “smart” position is always to prepare for yet more war).
You’ll note, however, that I’ve added a parenthetical SH to McGovern’s telling acronym. The S is for America’s sporting world, which eternally gushes about how it supports and honors America’s military, and Hollywood, which happily sells war as entertainment (perhaps the best known and most recent film being Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick, in which an unnamed country that everyone knows is Iran gets its nuclear ambitions spanked by a plucky team of U.S. Naval pilots). A macho catchphrase from the original Top Gun was “I feel the need — the need for speed!” It may as well have been: I feel the need — the need for pro-war propaganda!
Yes, MICIMATT(SH) is an awkward acronym, yet it has the virtue of capturing some of the still-growing power, reach, and cultural penetration of Ike’s old MIC. It should remind us that it’s not just the military and the weapons-makers who are deeply invested in war and — yes! — militarism. It’s Congress; the CIA; related intel “community” members; the mainstream media (which often relies on retired generals and admirals for “unbiased” pro-war commentary); academia (consider how quickly institutions like Columbia University have bent the knee to Trump); and think tanks — in fact, all those “best and brightest” who advocate for war with China, the never-ending war on terror, war everywhere.
But perhaps the “soft power” of the sporting world and Hollywood is even more effective at selling war than the hard power of bombs and bullets. National Football League coaches patrol the sidelines wearing camouflage, allegedly to salute the troops. Military flyovers at games celebrate America’s latest death-dealing machinery. Hollywood movies are made with U.S. military cooperation and that military often has veto power over scripts. To cite only one example, the war movie 12 Strong (2018) turned the disastrous Afghan War that lasted two horrendous decades into a stunningly quick American victory, all too literally won by U.S. troops riding horses. (If only the famed cowboy actor John Wayne had still been alive to star in it!)
The MICIMATT(SH), employing millions of Americans, consuming trillions of dollars, and churning through tens of thousands of body bags for U.S. troops over the years, while killing millions of people abroad, is an almost irresistible force. And right now, it seems like there’s no unmovable object to blunt it.
Believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve written dozens of “Tomgrams” suggesting steps America could take to reverse militarism and warmongering. As I look over those essays, I see what still seem to me sensible ideas, but they die quick deaths in the face of, if not withering fire from the MICIMATT(SH), then being completely ignored by those who matter.
And while this country has a department of war (disguised as a department of defense), it has no department of peace. There’s no budget anywhere for making peace, either. We do have a colossal Pentagon that houses 30,000 workers, feverishly making war plans they won’t let Elon Musk (or any of us) see. It’s for their eyes only, not yours, though they may well ask you or your kids to serve in the military, because the best-laid plans of those war-men do need lots of warm bodies, even if those very plans almost invariably (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.) go astray.
So, to repeat myself, how do you take on the MICIMATT(SH)? The short answer: It’s not easy, but I know of a few people who had some inspirational ideas.
On Listening to Ike, JFK, MLK, and, Yes, Madison, Too
Militarism isn’t exactly a new problem in America. Consider Randolph Bourne’s 1918 critique of war as “the health of the state,” or General Smedley Butler’s confession in the 1930s that “war is a racket” run by the “gangsters of capitalism.” In fact, many Americans have, over the years, spoken out eloquently against war and militarism. Many beautiful and moving songs have asked us to smile on your brother and “love one another right now.” War, as Edwin Starr sang so powerfully once upon a time, is good for “absolutely nothin’,” though obviously a lot of people disagree and indeed are making a living by killing and preparing for yet more of it.
And that is indeed the problem. Too many people are making too much money off of war. As Smedley Butler wrote so long ago: “Capital won’t permit the taking of the profit out of war until the people — those who do the suffering and still pay the price — make up their minds that those they elect to office shall do their bidding, and not that of the profiteers.” Pretty simple, right? Until you realize that those whom we elect are largely obedient to the moneyed class because the highest court in our land has declared that money is speech. Again, I didn’t say it was going to be easy. Nor did Butler.
As a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, I want to end my 111th piece at TomDispatch by focusing on the words of Ike, John F. Kennedy (JFK), Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK), and James Madison. And I want to redefine what words like duty, honor, country, and patriotism should mean. Those powerful words and sentiments should be centered on peace, on the preservation and enrichment of life, on tapping “the better angels of our nature,” as Abraham Lincoln wrote so long ago in his First Inaugural Address.
Why do we serve? What does our oath of office really mean? For it’s not just military members who take that oath but also members of Congress and indeed the president himself. We raise our right hands and swear to support and defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.
There’s nothing in that oath about warriors and warfighters, but there is a compelling call for all of us, as citizens, to be supporters and defenders of representative democracy, while promoting the general welfare (not warfare), and all the noble sentiments contained in that Constitution. If we’re not seeking a better and more peaceful future, one in which freedom may expand and thrive, we’re betraying our oath.
If so, we have met the enemy — and he is us.
Ike told us in 1953 that constant warfare is no way of life at all, that it is (as he put it), humanity crucifying itself on a cross of iron. In 1961, he told us democracy was threatened by an emerging military-industrial complex and that we, as citizens, had to be both alert and knowledgeable enough to bring it to heel. Two years later, JFK told us that peace — even at the height of the Cold War — was possible, not just peace in our time, but peace for all time. However, it would, he assured us, require sacrifice, wisdom, and commitment.
How, in fact, can I improve on these words that JFK uttered in 1963, just a few months before he was assassinated?
What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living…
I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age… when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn… surely the acquisition of such idle [nuclear] stockpiles — which can only destroy and never create — is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.
I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war — and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.
Are we ready to be urgently rational, America? Are we ready to be blessed as peacemakers? Or are we going to continue to suffer from what MLK described in 1967 as our very own “spiritual death” due to the embrace of militarism, war, empire, and racism?
Of course, MLK wasn’t perfect, nor for that matter was JFK, who was far too enamored of the Green Berets and too wedded to a new strategy of “flexible response” to make a clean break in Vietnam before he was killed. Yet those men bravely and outspokenly promoted peace, something uncommonly rare in their time — and even more so in ours.
More than 200 years ago, James Madison warned us that continual warfare is the single most corrosive force to the integrity of representative democracy. No other practice, no other societal force is more favorable to the rise of authoritarianism and the rule of tyrants than pernicious war. Wage war long and it’s likely you can kiss your democracy, your rights, and just maybe your ass goodbye.
America, from visionaries and prophets like MLK, we have our marching orders. They are not to invest yet more in preparations for war, whether with China or any other country. Rather, they are to gather in the streets and otherwise raise our voices against the scourge of war. If we are ever to beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks and make war no more, something must be done.
Let’s put an end to militarism in America. Let’s be urgently rational. To cite John Lennon yet again: You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. Together, let’s imagine and create a better world.
Bracing Views 