Tom Tomorrow has the perfect comic to sum up America’s recent Democratic primaries for president:
How can Bernie Sanders be electable when he keeps winning elections? A paradox for sure.
Of course, the whole argument against Bernie Sanders is as dishonest as the primary process is long. Let’s imagine Bernie Sanders gains the nomination and then defeats Trump in November. Is Bernie going to become a dictator and enact all his “crazy” socialist ideas by fiat? Surely, mainstream Republicans and Democrats in Congress are just going to roll over and approve all of Bernie’s “radical socialist” agenda. Right?
If Bernie were to win, he’d obviously face strong opposition from establishment elites, who would oppose and try to block everything he’d try to do. That said, the rich and privileged obviously don’t want to bother with such battles; they’d rather just nominate a “safe” centrist, or, even better, a person from their own ranks, like Mike Bloomberg. You can count on Bloomberg acting to protect Wall Street and the 1%. He’s got billions of reasons to do so.
As Bloomberg is foisted upon us by the lapdog media, other centrist candidates continue to fight for whatever money is left to sustain their campaigns. Mayor Pete is flitting from fund raiser to fund raiser (shaking more money trees in wine caves?); Elizabeth Warren is making appeals to party unity (good luck with that); Joe Biden is straining to remain relevant (no more malarkey?); and Amy Klobuchar is seeking any traction she can find in a campaign characterized by market-tested bromides (“I know you, and I will fight for you,” a variant of Bill Clinton’s “I feel your pain”).
The best way to judge the candidates is by the enemies they make, which is why I strongly support Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Yes, Tulsi is still in the running, perhaps only until Super Tuesday on March 3rd, but her message against regime-change wars and the military-industrial complex is much needed.
Go Bernie. Go Tulsi. We need leaders who are unafraid to speak truth.
Bernie Sanders wins New Hampshire — as well as Iowa — and what headline do I see at NBC News?
Bernie Sanders is now the front-runner — and moderates may be too divided to stop him
Why is it necessary to “stop” Bernie Sanders? What is so radical about Medicare for all, free college tuition, student debt relief, a higher minimum wage, and tax reform that benefits workers?
The next few months are going to be hard to endure for any American with a brain. For example, Chris Matthews at MSNBC equates Bernie’s democratic socialism with hardcore communism and suggests Bernie’s policies could end with him being executed in Central Park. No — I’m not kidding!
In another delusional MSNBC video, Bernie’s supporters are compared to Nazi Brownshirts:
So, the reality is that Bernie Sanders not only has to defeat “moderates” like Mayor Pete and Amy Klobuchar (a strong third in New Hampshire). He has to overcome the Democratic National Committee and the mainstream media, especially MSNBC.
Speaking of MSNBC and its negative and cynical coverage of Bernie, not all voters are fooled:
As one reader commented on our Facebook page, “OMG exactly the same tactics as in UK [United Kingdom] over [Jeremy] Corbyn followers. Trotsky rabble, Corbineestas, etc.”
Well, if you can’t beat ’em, smear ’em as a red, as dangerously radical, or alternatively as thuggish Brownshirted fascist Bernie Bros.
The establishment’s desperation is obvious. Go Bernie!
Last night, seven candidates took the stage in New Hampshire to joust before next Tuesday’s primary (where hopefully the votes will be counted quickly and accurately, unlike in Iowa). Showing my usual streak of political masochism, I watched the entire debate; after tossing and turning in the night, here’s my take on how the candidates performed.
Joe Biden: Biden seems to be fading fast. He came in fourth in Iowa and is slipping in the New Hampshire polls. In this debate, he came across as angry but unfocused. He has a “Get off my lawn!” vibe. Biden’s never done well as a candidate for the presidency (see 1988 and plagiarism), and this time is no different.
Mayor Pete: Buttigieg talks a lot but says very little. To me, he panders to the audience while simultaneously being disingenuous. (I was waiting for someone to ask, “Where’s the beef?” when he stopped gabbing.) For a politician, these are marketable skills, but Democrats are going to need a lot more than this to defeat Trump.
Amy Klobuchar: She had a very good night. Especially strong was her closing statement. But another way of putting this is that she was well coached and well prepared. Perhaps she’ll pull moderate votes from Mayor Pete, which would only be a good thing.
Bernie Sanders: Always passionate, always on message, Bernie had a solid night. But Bernie’s personal warmth doesn’t translate well in these debates.
Tom Steyer: Steyer had a good night as well, positioning himself for future contests in Nevada and South Carolina. I’m warming to Steyer because I think he’ll take votes from Mike Bloomberg.
Elizabeth Warren: The more you listen to Warren, the more you realize “I have a plan for that” is not a compelling answer. Warren has a habit of starting her replies with, “So, look …” She proceeds to lecture the audience with a “smartest person in the room” vibe. Lord knows we need competence in the White House, but I don’t think she’s connecting well enough with voters.
Andrew Yang: It was great to see Yang back on stage, since he tackles questions from a different angle than his rivals. Still, he didn’t get much time to speak, and it’s hard to see him staying in the race for much longer.
Who wasn’t on the stage?
Mike Bloomberg: The $60 billion dollar man, Bloomberg is testing whether the presidency can be bought. You’ve heard of the golden rule, as in he who has the money makes the rules, so who knows?
Tulsi Gabbard: Tulsi is staking everything on New Hampshire, where she’s held more town halls than any other candidate. Will her ground game pay dividends? Due to the high number of registered independents in NH, she has a chance to make an impression.
Final Comment
As usual, questions from the mainstream media, in this case ABC News, were framed to put progressives on the defensive. Of course, no questions were asked about runaway military budgets, the widening gap between the richest Americans and everyone else, stagnant wages and personal bankruptcies, gun deaths and mass shootings, or climate change. Even racial issues were ignored until the last third of the debate. As ever, consent was manufactured by keeping topics and answers within narrow boundaries approved by the establishment. And so it goes …
Bernie Sanders, it’s now clear, won the Iowa caucus vote. The predictable response of Tom Perez, the Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC): Hey, it’s time to stop! Let’s count the votes again! Maybe we can come up with a new total where Bernie doesn’t win.
Incredibly, the corruption isn’t even hidden anymore. It’s entirely in the open. The DNC will do anything to stop Bernie Sanders. Not because he won’t win against Trump. No — it’s because DNC members won’t be able to protect their perks, power, and privileges with Bernie as the Democratic candidate for president. Because Bernie simply won’t play their game. In a system rife with corruption, Bernie is as incorruptible as they come.
Again, the DNC would rather lose to Trump in November than win with Bernie. It truly is that simple.
Meanwhile, Tulsi Gabbard, who’s running strong in New Hampshire while calling for fundamental reform of the Democratic Party, is being treated as a non-person by the DNC. No appearances on CNN. No special rules for her so she can appear at the DNC-sponsored debate on February 7th. But of course the DNC can make special rules so that billionaire Michael Bloomberg can and will appear in that same debate.
The Democratic Party supposedly stands for diversity. Tulsi is a woman of color and a serving officer in the Hawaii Army National Guard. Bloomberg is a conservative “stop and frisk” white oligarch who endorsed George W. Bush. And who does the DNC favor in its quest for diversity?
Again, incredibly, the corruption isn’t even hidden anymore. It’s crystal clear — and damning.
What is to be done? Support Bernie and Tulsi. Condemn the DNC and its corporate bosses. And if some corporate tool becomes the nominee this summer, as is likely, think back to these days when it became so obvious (yet again) that, once again, the Democratic establishment is only truly determined when it’s out to screw its own progressive base.
One of the pilots who flew at the Super Bowl in his F-35 gets a little media love
W.J. Astore
In my latest article for TomDispatch.com, I tackle the U.S. military and its self-defeating nature when it comes to wars overseas. But there is a “war” that the military-industrial complex truly is winning handily, even overwhelmingly, and that’s the one for money and power within and across American society. Put differently, when it comes to winning hearts and minds, the military fails spectacularly overseas but succeeds brilliantly here in the “homeland.”
Consider only one example: America’s major sporting events. Each one has now become a military celebration. At the Super Bowl this past weekend, four 100-year-old military veterans from World War II were the centerpiece of this year’s opening ceremonies (ostensibly to mark the 75th anniversary of the ending of that war in 1945, as well as the 100th year of the NFL), and of course no event is complete without military colorguards, saluting troops, and a loud flyover by combat jets at the close of the national anthem. This is all accepted as “normal” and patriotic, the very mundanity of which illustrates the triumph of the military-industrial complex in our lives.
What follows is an excerpt from my article from TomDispatch:
The Future Is What It Used to Be
Long ago, New York Yankee catcher and later manager Yogi Berra summed up what was to come this way: “The future ain’t what it used to be.” And it wasn’t. We used to dream, for example, of flying cars, personal jetpacks, liberating robots, and oodles of leisure time. We even dreamed of mind-bending trips to Jupiter, as in Stanley Kubrick’s epic film2001: A Space Odyssey. Like so much else we imagined, those dreams haven’t exactly panned out.
Yet here’s an exception to Berra’s wisdom: strangely enough, for the U.S. military, the future is predictably just what it used to be. After all, the latest futuristic vision of America’s military leaders is — hold onto your Kevlar helmets — a “new” cold war with its former communist rivals Russia and China. And let’s add in one other aspect of that military’s future vision: wars, as they see it, are going to be fought and settled with modernized (and ever more expensive) versions of the same old weapons systems that carried us through much of the mid-twentieth century: ever more pricey aircraft carriers, tanks, and top of the line jet fighters and bombers with — hey! — maybe a few thoroughly destabilizing tactical nukes thrown in, along with plenty of updated missiles carried by planes of an ever more “stealthy” and far more expensive variety. Think: the F-35 fighter, the most expensive weapons system in history (so far) and the B-21 bomber.
For such a future, of course, today’s military hardly needs to change at all, or so our generals and admirals argue. For example, yet more ships will, of course, be needed. The Navy high command is already clamoring for 355 of them, while complaining that the record-setting $738 billion Pentagon budget for 2020 is too “tight” to support such a fleet.
Not to be outdone when it comes to complaints about “tight” budgets, the Air Force is arguing vociferously that it needs yet more billions to build a “fleet” of planes that can wage two major wars at once. Meanwhile, the Army is typically lobbying for a new armored personnel carrier (to replace the M2 Bradley) that’s so esoteric insiders joke it will have to be made of “unobtainium.”
In short, no matter how much money the Trump administration and Congress throw at the Pentagon, it’s a guarantee that the military high command will only complain that more is needed, including for nuclear weapons to the tune of possibly $1.7 trillion over 30 years. But doubling down on more of the same, after a record 75 years of non-victories (not to speak of outright losses), is more than stubbornness, more than grift. It’s obdurate stupidity.
Why, then, does it persist? The answer would have to be because this country doesn’t hold its failing military leaders accountable. Instead, it applauds them and promotes them, rewarding them when they retire with six-figure pensions, often augmented by cushy jobs with major defense contractors. Given such a system, why should America’s generals and admirals speak truth to power? They are power and they’ll keep harsh and unflattering truths to themselves, thank you very much, unless they’re leaked by heroes like Daniel Ellsberg during the Vietnam War and Chelsea Manning during the Iraq War, or pried from them via a lawsuit like the one by the Washington Post that recently led to those Afghanistan Papers.
My Polish mother-in-law taught me a phrase that translates as, “Don’t say nothin’ to nobody.” When it comes to America’s wars and their true progress and prospects, consider that the official dictum of Pentagon spokespeople. Yet even as America’s wars sink into Vietnam-style quagmires, the money keeps flowing, especially to high-cost weapons programs.
Consider my old service, the Air Force. As one defense news site put it, “Congressional appropriators gave the Air Force [and Lockheed Martin] a holiday gift in the 2019 spending agreement… $1.87 billion for 20 additional F-35s and associated spare parts.” The new total just for 2020 is “98 aircraft — 62 F-35As, 16 F-35Bs, and 20 F-35Cs — at the whopping cost of $9.3 billion, crowning the F-35 as the biggest Pentagon procurement program ever.” And that’s not all. The Air Force (and Northrop Grumman) got another gift as well: $3 billion more to be put into its new, redundant, B-21 stealth bomber. Even much-beleaguered Boeing, responsible for the disastrous 737 MAX program, got a gift: nearly a billion dollars for the revamped F-15EX fighter, a much-modified version of a plane that first flew in the early 1970s. Yet, despite those gifts, Air Force officials continue to claim with straight faces that the service is getting the “short straw” in today’s budgetary battles in the Pentagon.
What does this all mean? One obvious answer would be: the only truly winning battles for the Pentagon are the ones for our taxpayer dollars.
In 2016, Bernie Sanders had a winning message and Hillary Clinton didn’t. But Bernie’s message favored the working classes, not Democratic donors, so he was blocked and then sidelined. Even so, Bernie loyally campaigned for Clinton, who lost to a political novice, celebrity TV host, and lifelong con man.
In 2020, Bernie Sanders has a winning message and the other leading candidates (Biden, Warren, Buttigieg) don’t. Bernie’s message still favors the working classes, not the Democratic donors, so efforts are underway to block him again.
Consider Tom Perez, head of the DNC, and his selections for various committees for the convention. They are the usual suspects: Clintonites, Obama followers, members of the military-industrial complex, big pharma and insurance companies, and so on. Here’s a useful and funny video from Jimmy Dore that breaks it down:
Polls project that Bernie will win Iowa (Feb. 3) and New Hampshire (Feb. 11). What will the DNC do next to torpedo Bernie’s chances?
Small wonder Bernie advocates for a political revolution. But we’re not going to have one of those in America, not with the Democratic-Republican Party in charge.
A few more items. Consider these two articles at Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR):
Corporate Media Are the Real ‘Sanders Attack Machine,’ by Julie Hollar
It’s Media—Not Bernie Sanders—That Have an Antisemitism Problem, by Alan MacLeod
The latter article details the mainstream media’s efforts to paint Bernie Sanders — who, if elected, would be America’s first Jewish president — as an anti-Semite! Here’s an excerpt:
Have you heard the news? Democratic presidential frontrunner Bernie Sanders is antisemitic. Yes, yes, he’s Jewish, and has a long history of anti-racist activism—but that doesn’t matter.
So goes the story in several prominent media outlets, who accuse him of leading “the most antisemitic [campaign] in decades” (Washington Examiner, 12/13/19). While unable to point to Sanders’ own actions or words, the national press has associated him with hatred of Jews by attacking those around him. Throughout 2019, for example, Sanders supporter Rep. Ilhan Omar was constantly labeled antisemitic across the media for comments she made about the undue influence of the US/Israeli lobbying group AIPAC on American politics (e.g., New York Times, 3/7/19; Wall Street Journal, 7/12/19; Washington Post, 8/20/19).
Fox News (1/9/20) claimed Sanders would be “the most anti-Israel” president ever, conflating criticism of Israel and/or the Netanyahu administration with antisemitism.
Of course, corporate Democrats aren’t just against Bernie Sanders. They’re against any candidate that threatens their privileges and power. This includes Tulsi Gabbard, who is being boycotted by CNN even though she’s polling well in New Hampshire. Consider the following:
NORTH CONWAY, N.H. — Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii says she’s still waiting to hear from CNN about why she wasn’t invited to take part in a series of town halls the cable news network is holding next week in the state that holds the first primary in the race for the White House.
“We have reached out, I think, more than once, and we received no explanation. I don’t even think we’ve gotten a response to date about why they’re excluding the first female combat veteran ever to run for president, the only woman of color in the race,” the four-term congresswoman and Iraq War veteran said Tuesday in an interview with Fox News.
Could it be any more obvious? The fix is already in. It’s always in. The Democrats will do anything and everything in their power to block real change.
I know it’s unlikely, but I would love to see Bernie/Tulsi create a third party and run against Trump and whichever corporate tool the Democrats nominate. Please, Bernie, if the DNC screws you again, don’t be a “team player.” Give us a real choice — and pick Tulsi or someone like her as your running mate.
In 2004, when I was still on active duty, I spoke on leadership at the Panetta Institute in Monterey, California. At the time, I was the associate provost/dean of students at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center.
To prepare for my talk, I jotted down a few notes; I’ve decided not to update these or change them. (I’m sure I’d say a few different things today; then again, I’ve been retired from the military since 2005.)
Here are my notes from 2004 (with a few additions for the sake of clarity):
What is uniquely military about military leadership?
Life and death situations (but also true of Police, Fire, MDs, etc.)
Mandate to take the lives of others under certain ROEs (rules of engagement)
Inherent chaos (fog and friction) of war. Thus leaders must promote cohesion—bonds of trust within a unit—else the unit may collapse under the stresses of war
Possibility of routine loss of leaders on the battlefield requires the development of junior leaders with the willingness and emotional strength to take command when needed
Importance of an officer’s commission from the president, and his/her oath of office to the Constitution. Fidelity to the Constitution, and Integrity and Honor in general, are essential qualities
Role of long-serving NCOs (non-commissioned officers)—take care of them, and help them take care of junior enlisted. Put their needs before your own. Share sacrifices: Yes, RHIP (rank has its privileges). But officers should eat same grub as grunts. Take care of the needs of the men and women you’re leading before you address your own needs.
No one personality type. Our greatest leaders have been everything from vainglorious (MacArthur) to self-effacing (Gen Bradley)
“They don’t care how much you know, but they’ll know how much you care.” Actually, your subordinates care about both. Combination of emotional intelligence with intellect and hard work. You don’t have to be the brightest or best, but you may need to compensate with work.
Respect for subordinates; and don’t play favorites
Listen before acting
Keep calm in times of stress
Role model: As a leader, you are always being watched
Humility but not diffidence: If you don’t lead, who will?
Refuse to tolerate incompetence
Recognize top performers. Don’t take your best people for granted. Remember to reward them.
Communication: Telling people to suck it up sounds tough and appropriate in a military context. But are you sucking it up too? Nothing more corrosive than hypocrisy at the top. Integrity and sincerity are essential.
Look inside yourself. Why do you want to be a leader?
Academic leadership: Irony is that many academics avoid leadership positions because they distract from individual scholarship and academic achievement. [This mindset is] foreign to the military. Officers and NCOs trained to lead. Necessary because war might quickly knock out commanders; subordinates must be ready to act. Thus department chairs [in academe] often rotate; “burden sharing” rather than leadership. Healthy iconoclasm in academe, but it should not get in the way of leading.
“Question authority” is not enough. “Change authority” or “Become authority” if you don’t like the answers you’re hearing.
At the USAF Academy, there was a “Bring Me Men” ramp, but that slogan was removed due to sexual harassment scandals, even though the sentiment was based on a quotation from the late 19th century. But what it always was intended to mean was “Bring Me Leaders.” Leaders have moral courage to take responsibility and report clearly to the people. As commissioned officers, we swear an oath to the Constitution, and to protect it against foreign and domestic enemies. We do not swear an oath of allegiance to a specific leader or monarch. But an officer must also respect the chain of command. You go outside that chain at your peril.
Get to know your military. How many of you plan to serve in the military? Congress is ignorant of military matters. A minority have served (about 30%, whereas in 1969 it was nearly 70%) and even fewer have sons and daughters who are willing to serve. Only six congressional representatives and one senator have children serving in the military. 7/535 members = 1.3%. Among the rich and connected, the military is not seen as a desirable profession compared to law, medicine, business, or other, honorable professions.
How to get to know “your” military: Take an ROTC course at your college/university. Attend a military ceremony. Ask questions. The U.S. military needs your interest. Perhaps too narrowly drawn from the lower classes, but that’s not the military’s fault. No recruit is turned away because he or she is too rich or because he or she attended Stanford or Berkeley.
How would you like to be the leader of a U.S. military unit in Iraq that was expecting to rotate after a year, after which your men and women are told they have to stay for six more months, possibly longer? How do you keep people’s spirits up? Keep them focused on the mission while they’re separated from loved ones for months at a time?
Wisdom can be found in many places. I was watching Professional Bull Riding today, and the announcer (didn’t catch his name) dropped this pearl of wisdom:
Professional bull riding is not a sport based on hope. It’s a sport based on belief.
I caught his meaning. When you’re preparing to ride a bull, you can’t “hope” you’re going to stay on its back. You have to believe you’re going to do it. And even when you believe, often the bull is still going to win.
What does this have to do with Trump and the Democrats? Consider Trump as an intemperate bull. Sure, he’s ageing, but he’s got plenty of kick left. How do you “ride” this bull and defeat him? Not by bringing a weak case of impeachment that you know is going to fail in the Senate. Not by giving Trump several big victories, such as a massive defense budget and a new trade bill, so-called NAFTA 2.0. Not by offering only the most tepid objections to his warmongering with Iran.
Consider the DNC and its preferred presidential candidate, Joe Biden. Is a corporate Democrat who’s both compromised and fading really the best candidate to ride Trump out of office? As Joe Biden himself might say, give me a break.
You can’t hope you’re going to ride Trump out of office in 2020. You have to believe it. And you have to give the American people a candidate with some balls, with firm and principled beliefs, a bull rider like Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard.
Hope may have been important to Barack Obama’s success in 2008, but it’s not going to defeat Trump in 2020. To ride that bull, you have to believe.
Chief Justice John Roberts. Ten years ago, he gave us Citizens United.
W.J. Astore
The Senate trial of Donald Trump is a colossal waste of time and energy. Why? The result is a foregone conclusion: Trump is not going to be removed from office. Nevertheless, the mainstream media is obsessed with gavel-to-gavel coverage of what is mostly a non-event.
As my wife said to me yesterday, where is all this energy and outrage from Congress and the media about homeless people living in the streets? So many of whom are suffering from mental and physical illnesses of various sorts? Where is the attention to people who can’t afford to pay for their prescription drugs? What about all the veterans committing suicide? What about all the corruption that is systemic and endemic across Congress and the Executive branches? Where’s the attention to that?
The presence of Chief Justice John Roberts in the Senate provides a salutary reminder that a decade ago, the Supreme Court issued its “Citizens United” decision that declared corporations are citizens and that their “speech” in the form of money in politics is protected.
That decision is yet another example of America’s legalized system of political corruption. Why can’t we get Congress to change that? Where’s the media coverage of electoral corruption? The outrage about corporate money in politics? There isn’t any, since the mainstream media is complicit in the corruption.
To repeat myself: Ten years ago this week, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are citizens. Except for a few ultra-rich “citizens” like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, that meant corporations had (and have) superhero-like powers, but with none of the humility of Peter Parker (Spiderman), whose gentle Uncle Ben reminded him that, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Our superhero corporations just want the power, thank you very much, and our government and its three branches willingly bow down and serve them.
Where’s the trial for that offense against the republic? Bang the gavel, John Roberts.
Bonus Lesson: Democrats! Want to remove Trump from office? Nominate a coherent and charismatic candidate for the presidency, have a compelling platform, and inspire people to get off their duffs and vote in November.
Today’s article is a potluck of observations. Please fire away in the comments section if I stimulate some thoughts!
My wife today noticed how the weather is now militarized. An “arctic invasion” of cold air is coming our way, or so the Weather Channel warned. Do we need a new “Weather Force” to meet this “invasion”?
The other day at the gym, I was watching the impeachment drama on two TVs tuned to Fox News and MSNBC. For Fox News and its parade of Republican guests, the impeachment was a “hoax.” For MSNBC, it was a foregone conclusion Trump is as guilty as sin. I mentioned this to my wife and she had the perfect comment: “The truth needs its own channel.”
A reader wrote to me about a piece I wrote in 2008 about all the “warrior” and “warfighter” talk used by the U.S. military today. It got me to thinking yet again about the rhetoric of war. Back in World War II, when we fought real wars and won them, we had a Department of War to which citizen-soldiers were drafted. After World War II, we renamed it the Department of Defense, and after Vietnam we eliminated the draft, after which you began to hear much talk of warriors and warfighters. In the 75 years since 1945, America has fought many wars, none of them formally declared by Congress, and none of them “defensive” in any way. The longest of those wars (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq) have been utter disasters. Which is not surprising, since wars based on lies and fought for non-compelling reasons usually are losers. So, how do you buck up the morale of all those volunteer troops while encouraging them not to think about the losing causes they’re engaged in? Get them to focus on their warfighter identities, their warrior “cred,” as if it’s a great thing for democracies to fight constant wars.
The New York Times endorsed Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar today as the Democrats best prepared to serve as president. Looks like Jimmy Dore is right: establishment Democrats would rather lose to Trump than win with a true progressive like Bernie Sanders.
The other day, I went to my local post office and saw the POW/MIA flag flying. It got me to thinking: Who are the POWs/MIAs we need to remember today? Don’t get me wrong. As a retired military officer, I think we should remember America’s POWs and MIAs. But I see no reason to fly flags everywhere to remind us of those veterans who were prisoners of war or missing in action. Sadly, the POW/MIA flag is associated with conservative activism and reactionary views; it also can serve as a distraction from the enormous damage inflicted overseas by the U.S. military. As Americans, we are constantly told by our leaders to focus on American victims of war; rarely if ever are we encouraged to think of war itself as a disaster, or to think of the victims on the receiving end of American firepower.
More on the POW/MIA issue: In the early 1990s, when I was a young captain, there were persistent rumors of American POWs who’d been deliberately left behind by our government. These rumors were strong, so strong that the George H.W. Bush administration had to issue denials.
What are we to make of this? One thing strikes me immediately: an often profound mistrust of our government exists within the military. Our government has lied to us so often that some of my fellow officers believed it was lying again when it said there were no POWs remaining in Southeast Asia. We just assumed our government was so wretched and dishonest that it would abandon our troops to their fate.
This is nearly 30 years ago but it’s stayed in my memory — the suspicion back then that those commie bastards still held U.S. troops and our own government was part of the cover-up. (All those Chuck Norris and Rambo movies didn’t help matters.)
For more on this: The POW/MIA issue is still very much alive and is discussed by H. Bruce Franklin in his article, “Missing in Action in the 21st Century,” available at hbrucefranklin.com. As Franklin noted recently to me, “What we now think of as the Trump base was organized originally in this [POW/MIA] movement.” Now that’s a fascinating comment.
Bracing Views 