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’ve been reading John Ketwig’s memoir “…and a hard rain fell: A GI’s true story of the War in Vietnam,” and it’s reminding me just how plain dumb, destructive, and duplicitous America’s wars have been since World War II.
America’s wars are always dressed up with a necessary, even allegedly noble, cause. In Vietnam, we had to stop communism and all those dominoes from falling. In Iraq, it was about WMD and stopping Saddam Hussein, “the next Hitler.” In Afghanistan, it was about vengeance for 9/11, then creating democracy and even helping women. (How about helping women in America? Never mind.)
Vietnam is nominally communist today—and a big trading partner of the U.S. and an ally of sorts against China. No dominoes fell. Iraq didn’t have WMD and Saddam wasn’t the next Hitler; he was merely a regional strongman and a former U.S. ally who got a little too big for his britches, especially for Israel. Afghanistan was a war in search of a clear mission and attainable goals. After twenty years of effort and roughly $2 trillion in expenditures, the U.S. replaced the Taliban with—the Taliban. (I heard Norman Finkelstein say this first.)
We’re always told versions of the same lie: We need to fight them over there so that we don’t have to fight them here. Communism had to be rolled back in Vietnam else commies would be landing in Manhattan. Iraq had to be pummeled and Saddam overthrown before WMD landed in Boston. Afghanistan had to be pacified and modernized before the Taliban enforced conservative Sharia law in Biloxi.
None of this was true. The United States would have been perfectly safe without committing any troops to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. In fact, the U.S. would have been far better off if those wars had never been fought. Certainly Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan would have been far better off if they’d never become free-fire zones for American munitions (including the poisonous Agent Orange in Vietnam and, more recently, depleted uranium and other poisons in Iraq and Afghanistan).
Now we’re hearing about a possible U.S. war with Iran, allegedly to stop that country from acquiring an atomic bomb. It’s OK for the U.S. to have more than 5000 nuclear warheads and for Israel to have 200 or so, but it’s not OK for Iran to have even one, because reasons.
The U.S. military, vast as it is, with a vision of global dominance, always needs enemies. Of course, it’s not simply the military but the whole military-industrial complex, the MICIMATT,* which needs war and conflict to sustain itself.
I recently read “American War,” a powerful novel by Omar El Akkad. It imagines a second U.S. civil war starting roughly 50 years from now. It’s a fascinating book, well worth reading because it captures the horror of war, with all its atrocities, its massacres, its war crimes, and the deep wounds war leaves behind even among the most resolute survivors. John Ketwig’s book does the same as he recounts the fears and horrors of his year in Vietnam and the personal struggles he endured in coming to terms with what he’d seen and endured.
So, count me among those who are already against the next war, whether against Iran, China, or for that matter any other country. Sure, I think America needs to defend itself; I don’t think peace is going to break out spontaneously around the world; but I know for a fact that fighting constant wars is not a way toward greater peace and prosperity. Quite the opposite.
If you want to know what desperate and profoundly wounded war survivors are capable of, read “American War.” If you want to know what desperate and profoundly confused troops are capable of, read “…and a hard rain fell.” And ponder the continued propaganda here of the “good war,” the wonders of warriors and warfighters, and the repetition of slogans like “peace through strength,” a specific form of strength measured in kilotons and megatons of explosives, in massive body counts and military production figures.
Ask yourself: Is that “strength”? Are constant wars truly the path toward peace? How can we possibly be so dumb as to believe this?
MICIMATT: military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academe-think-tank complex. It employs millions of people and spends more than a trillion dollars a year. It’s not easily confronted. Nor is it easily contained, let alone curtailed.
I recently read the book, “Generals Die in Bed,” a classic account of World War I. In terms of combat between Ukraine and Russia, there are serious echoes of WW1 with trench warfare and needless death on a massive scale.
There are few things dumber and more wasteful than trench warfare (Ukraine, from the New York Times)
Far too often, war is glorified when it is really colossal waste. As Dwight D. Eisenhower said, war is to be hated. So, short of abject capitulation to a tyrant, I support efforts to end wars. Stop the waste. Stop the hate. Find a way to live together in peace. The alternative, perpetual war, is too terrible to contemplate.
Diplomacy can be pursued without abandoning Ukraine or betraying NATO. Certainly, Ukraine should be a party to the negotiations. The war is being fought on their turf. They have bled, as has Russia.
But: All wars must end. The trick is ending them in a way that doesn’t generate future wars. That was the greatest tragedy of World War I: that its ending and the botched settlement led almost inexorably to World War II and an even greater bloodletting.
Here’s the rub: Ever since 9/11, indeed ever since World War II, almost without exception, America has ALWAYS been at war. And it hasn’t gone well, has it? (Except for the arms makers and the Cheney neocon crowd.) Isn’t it time we worked for peace?
Far too often, America’s worst enemy hasn’t been Putin or China or some other bogeyman. It’s been the enemy within. And I don’t mean the “red menace” or the “woke” crowd. I mean the enemy that is threat inflation. The enemy that is incessant warfare in unnecessary wars of choice, which drives deficit spending, and which is reinforced by lies.
How many times have we heard of bomber gaps, missile gaps, falling dominoes in Asia, WMD in Iraq, etc., that turned out not to be true, but which were used to justify massive military spending and (especially in Southeast Asia) drove horrendous casualties? Yes, the MICIMATT is powerful, but why are Americans so easy to scare? Why are we so fearful when this country’s geographic position is so enviably strong and defensible? It’s not like Putin’s on our northern border: friendly Canadians are there! (Even if they boo our National Anthem at hockey games.)
The world is becoming multipolar again, which doesn’t mean it has to be a scarier place. A multipolar world could be a more stable one if U.S. leaders could just back off on their goal of dominating everything everywhere all at once.
The idea of full-spectrum dominance and America as a global hegemon at any price must give way to an irenic and ecumenical view of the world. The American religion of violent militarism and prideful exceptionalism is simply too expensive to sustain.
When the ship of state is slowly slipping under the waves, it’s not wise to steer closer to more icebergs. Let’s work to save our ship of state first.
Yesterday at a local barber shop, I spied some old Life magazines from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Two covers caught my eye:
The first cover celebrated the newish B-52 nuclear bomber that circumnavigated the globe in record time (for the year 1957). Incredibly, the Air Force still relies on updated B-52s today for global bombing missions. Note how the cover mentions nothing about the B-52’s purpose, which was (and remains) to carry nuclear payloads with yields in the megatons of explosive force, anywhere on the globe.
The second cover celebrated fallout shelters. Check this out!
This gives new meaning to living under bridges in America. If only we had built all these fallout shelters—the homeless would have places to live in America today. It sure looks communal and fun in that cutaway view: women holding babies, people reading newspapers and books, even group discussions featuring people dressed like Ward and June Cleaver.
This, I submit to you, is propaganda, the intent of which was to normalize nuclear weapons, perhaps even nuclear war. (Just calmly walk or drive to the nearest shelter if our B-52s have to nuke Moscow.)
It persists today, of course. Now when the Pentagon speaks of nuclear weapons, they frame it as “investing” and “modernization.” Invest in ICBMs! Promised to soar upward like a rocket! Modernize your portfolio with some new B-21 Raider bombers—only $750 million per plane!
If the risk of nuclear war comes up, the suggestion is made that all these new nukes will serve to deter, even to prevent, nuclear Armageddon. Nothing deters war and killing like more genocidal weapons.
Those Life covers from 1957 and 1962 may look quaint—even silly—until you realize nothing really has changed in America in 70 years. We’re still normalizing nuclear weapons and even nuclear war itself. And there’s nothing quaint or silly about that.
It’s always the right time to stop building more weapons of mass destruction
William Astore and Matthew Hoh
[Note to readers: Back in early September, Congressman Mike Turner penned an op-ed for the “liberal” New York Times supporting a massive “investment” in new nuclear weapons. Matt Hoh and I quickly submitted letters to the Times to protest this op-ed and its arguments; the Times ignored them. We then wrote our own op-ed below, shopping it to various mainstream media outlets without success. Here it finally appears for the first time.]
*****
Representative Mike Turner’s essay on nuclear weapons in The New York Times (We Must Invest in Our Aging Nuclear Arsenal, September 6, 2024) is dangerously loyal to counterproductive US national security policies and narratives.
Turner’s lamentation over foreign nuclear weapons programs ignores destabilizing US arms control choices this century. The US spends more on nuclear weapons than the rest of the world combined. Its $1.7 trillion modernization program (the Sentinel ICBM; the B-21 Raider bomber; Columbia-class nuclear submarines) has done little more than upset the decades-long nuclear deterrence balance among nations.
In his essay, Turner neglects to mention the US government’s unilateral withdrawal from multiple arms control treaties. Then-Senator Joe Biden rightly predicted the effects of George W. Bush’s abandonment of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty: “A year ago [in 2000], it was widely reported that our intelligence community had concluded that pulling out of ABM would prompt the Chinese to increase their nuclear arsenal tenfold.” The Chinese are now clearly headed in that escalatory direction.
To prevent the apocalyptic consequences of yet another nuclear arms race, the US should act to decrease “investments” in new weapons while cutting current arsenals by negotiating and enacting new arms reduction treaties. Together, the US and Russia already possess ten thousand nuclear warheads, enough to destroy life on earth and several other earth-sized planets. We need desperately to divest from nuclear weapons, not “invest” in them.
Consider as well that America’s current nuclear triad, especially the Navy’s Trident submarine force, is potent, survivable, and more than sufficient to deter any conceivable adversary.
Simply put, the US must stop building genocidal nuclear weapons. It must instead renew international efforts and treaties to downsize these dreadful and dangerous arsenals. Spending yet more trillions on more world-shattering nukes is worse than a mistake—it’s a crime against humanity.
Here we are haunted by the words of Hans Bethe, who worked on the Manhattan Project that created the atomic bomb during World War II. The first reaction Bethe said he’d had after Hiroshima was one of fulfillment—that the project they had worked on for so long had succeeded. The second reaction, he said, was one of shock and awe: “What have we done? What have we done,” he repeated. And the third reaction: It should never be done again.
That is the imperative here. The US must act so that future Hiroshimas will never happen.
It’s not America’s fate alone that’s at stake here, but the fate of humanity itself, and indeed most life on earth, as only a few dozen thermonuclear warheads exploding would likely produce nuclear winter and an eventual “body count” in the billions.
During the First Cold War, one heard it said: “Better dead than red.” That mentality remains, even as the “reds” today are more capitalist than communist. Meanwhile, the weapons makers for the military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC), in their greed, are the adversary within. From Israel and events in Gaza, we’ve learned the MICC will literally empower a people to commit mass murder. With more and newer thermonuclear weapons, the MICC may yet kill the world.
Higher quarterly profits will mean little when everybody is dead.
During the Vietnam War, a US Army major was heard to say: “We had to destroy the town to save it [from communism].” If America can destroy towns in Vietnam to “save” them from communism, if it can facilitate the destruction of Gaza to “save” it from Hamas, it can similarly destroy the earth to “save” it from China, or Russia, or some other “threat.” That is the indefensible (il)logic of building yet more weapons of mass destruction.
Contra Congressman Turner, there is no logical, sensible, defensible reason for America’s proposed “investment” in new nuclear weapons. But there are nearly two trillion reasons why it’s going forward, because that’s the projected total cost of modernizing America’s nuclear triad. Money talks—loudly, explosively, perhaps catastrophically.
Today, more than half of US federal discretionary spending is devoted to war and weapons. Americans, in essence, live both in a permanent war state and a persistent state of war. As bad as that reality is, a state of nuclear war is unimaginable and must not be allowed to happen.
At the height of the Cold War, one of us served in Cheyenne Mountain, America’s nuclear command center, and witnessed a simulated nuclear attack on the US. Even on the primitive monitors the Air Force had back in 1986, seeing Soviet missile tracks crossing the North Pole and terminating at American cities was unforgettable.
A generation earlier, Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb,” tragically noted in 1965 that it was 20 years too late to control nuclear arms. Those efforts, he said, should have been started “the day after Trinity” in July of 1945.
Let’s not make it 80 years too late. Congressman Turner is exactly wrong here. We must cut America’s nuclear arsenal and pursue new nuclear disarmament treaties. Never should our children be haunted as we were (and still are) by the darkness and doom of radioactive mushroom clouds.
William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and historian, is a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network.
Matthew Hoh, a former Marine Corps captain and State Department official, resigned in protest in 2009 against America’s ill-conceived war in Afghanistan. He is Associate Director at the Eisenhower Media Network.
Like too many people, I sometimes make the mistake of talking about nuclear war, when it’s really annihilation and genocide we’re talking about.
Wars have winners and losers. In nuclear “war,” everyone loses. The planet loses. Life loses and death triumphs on a scale we simply can’t imagine.
Language is so important here. I grew up learning about nuclear exchanges. EXCHANGES! The U.S. military talks of nuclear modernization and “investing” in nukes when the only dividend of this “investment” is mass death.
One of the few honest acronyms is MAD, or mutually assured destruction. Lately, it’s an acronym that’s largely disappeared from American discourse.
More than anything, though, realistic images of a nuclear attack are perhaps the most compelling evidence against building more nukes, as in this powerful and unforgettable scene from Terminator 2:
To me, nothing beats that scene. That is nuclear “war.”
The U.S. has over 5000 nuclear weapons; the Russians close to 6000. That’s more than enough to destroy the earth and a few other earth-sized planets. Imagine the scene above repeated eleven thousand times on our planet.
The insanity, the immorality of spending another $2 trillion on new nukes … well, it boggles my mind. We’ve become like the mutants in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, worshipping the bomb, acolytes of death and destruction.
If we all don’t end up killing ourselves and the planet in “an exchange,” we’ll likely degenerate into utter barbarism, as depicted in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. And even that grim novel has a life-affirming ending that is most unlikely.
Amazingly, after I wrote the above passages about nuclear “war” and “exchanges,” I came across Admiral TR Buchanan’s recent keynote address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he uses the word “exchange” in a remarkably banal (and frightening!) way.
BUCHANAN: Yeah, so it’s certainly complex because we go down a lot of different avenues to talk about what is the condition of the United States in a post-nuclear exchange environment. And that is a place that’s a place we’d like to avoid, right? And so when we talk about non-nuclear and nuclear capabilities, we certainly don’t want to have an exchange, right?
I think everybody would agree if we have to have an exchange, then we want to do it in terms that are most acceptable to the United States. So it’s terms that are most acceptable to the United States that puts us in a position to continue to lead the world, right? So we’re largely viewed as the world leader.
And do we lead the world in an area where we’ve considered loss? The answer is no, right? And so it would be to a point where we would maintain sufficient – we’d have to have sufficient capability.
We’d have to have reserve capacity. You wouldn’t expend all of your resources to gain winning, right? Because then you have nothing to deter from at that point.
So very complex problem, of course. And as I think many people understand, nuclear weapons are political weapons. I think Susan Rice said that at one point.
The motto of Admiral Buchanan might be: We had to destroy the world in order to lead it. Buchanan here is less sane than General Buck Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove.
This admiral thinks we might have to have “an exchange” with Russia, and that, if we do, we could do so “in terms that are most acceptable to the United States,” and that even after “an exchange,” the U.S. can still “continue to lead the world.”
Truly this is the banality of evil. I like how even after “the exchange,” we need to have a “reserve capacity” so that we can nuke the world again.
This is madness–sheer madness–but it’s received as probity and sane “strategic” thinking by the national security blob.
This guy was promoted to admiral precisely because he thinks this way. He thinks without thinking. With no humanity.
Well, as General Turgidson says in Dr. Strangelove, we might just get our hair mussed during a nuclear “exchange,” but does it really matter as long as we can kill more of them than us?
It’s Independence Day in America, so it seems like a good day to declare our independence from the insanity of war.
Sadly, since the presidency of George W. Bush if not before, it’s become routine for U.S. commanders-in-chief to boast of having the world’s finest military in all of history. Obama did it routinely, and Biden recently said the same during his disastrous debate with Trump. Few Americans stop to think about the implications of boasting about having the world’s greatest military—is such a boast truly consistent with democracy, liberty, and freedom?
Certainly, empires rely on strong militaries. Think of the Roman Empire or the Mongol Empire, or the Third Reich (Empire) of Nazi Germany. Do we want to be like them?
Those empires lived by the sword (quite literally so with the Roman Empire) and died by it as well. Their militaries, I would argue, were also more effective than the U.S. one, which hasn’t won a major war since 1945, the latter with a lot of help from our “friends” like the Soviet Union. The Roman, Mongol, and German empires are no more, worn down in part through the constant costs and demands of war. We need to learn more from history than the “fact” that America’s military is supposedly the world’s best since forever and a day ago.
I’ve been reading Oriana Fallaci’s “Nothing, and So Be It,” in which she recounted her time reporting on the Vietnam War. Two conversations with U.S. troops in Vietnam caught my attention. On pages 22-23, she recounts a conversation with Army Captain Scher, during which Scher confesses his disgust with war:
God, how disgusting war is. Let me say it—I’m a soldier. People who enjoy making war, who find it glorious and exciting, must have twisted minds. There’s nothing glorious, nothing exciting; it’s just a filthy tragedy you can only cry over. You cry for the man you refused a cigarette to and who didn’t come back with the patrol. You cry for the man you bawled out and who is blown to pieces in front of you. You cry for the man who killed your friends …
Later in the book, she interviews a Marine Lieutenant whose surname is Teanek (pages 174-75). Here’s what he had to say:
Teanek: “Men have been saying that [we should abolish war] for thousands of years, and with the justification that they’re abolishing war, they’ve soaked the greatest periods of their civilization in blood.”
Fallaci: “That’s no good reason to keep on doing it.”
Teanek: “Theoretically, you’re right, but in practice what you’re saying is very silly. It’s like convincing yourself—as I bet you do—that when you describe people dying in war you’re helping to abolish war. On the contrary. The more you see people who’ve been killed in war, the more you want to go on fighting wars: it’s a mystery of the human soul.”
It is indeed “a mystery of the human soul” why we humans persist in killing each other in such vast numbers through war. Of course, it’s partly because we glorify it, when we should recognize, as Fallaci does on page 187, that “War is a madhouse.”
I am sane!
One of my favorite scenes in any war film came in “The Big Red One,” a World War II movie by Samuel Fuller starring Lee Marvin as a grizzled Army sergeant of the 1st Infantry Division. It’s a scene in which U.S. troops liberate an insane asylum.
The unforgettable part of this scene for me is when one of the madhouse residents picks up a submachine gun and starts blasting away, crying “I am one of you. I am sane!”
American foreign policy remains in the grip of heretics. They believe that the Prince of Peace is actually a god of war. They believe America is strengthened by entangling alliances (think here of our so-called alliance with Israel). They believe in constant war as a recipe both for dominant power and greater freedom and democracy throughout the world. They believe that spending roughly a trillion dollars each year on weapons and war is a wise “investment.” And they believe they are the toughest and truest of patriots, the ones who see further, the ones with the guts to get things done, no matter how poorly America’s wars have gone from Korea and Vietnam through Afghanistan, Iraq, and today’s proxy wars.
There used to be a different America, a much less militaristic and bellicose one. The American tradition is rich and complex; it contains multitudes, as Walt Whitman might say. Why are we so stuck on warmongers, thieves, and vainglorious simps of empire?
As an American, I’m very much a part of my country’s complexity and richness. And the America that speaks to me contains elements and lessons such as these:
George Washington’s prescient warning about the dangers of entangling alliances with foreign powers.
James Madison’s warning that constant warfare is the direst of enemies of liberty, freedom, and democracy in America.
General Smedley Butler’s confession that “war is a racket” and that he had often served as a “gangster for capitalism.”
The Nye Commission in the U.S. Senate that investigated arms manufacturers and weapons makers as “Merchants of Death” that profited greatly from war.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “cross of iron” speech and his warning about the growing power and insidious nature of the military-industrial complex.
President John F. Kennedy’s powerful peace speech in which he extended an olive branch to the Soviet Union.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s powerful speech against the Vietnam War and the perils of militarism, racism, and materialism in America.
Of course, America has always had its dark side, with slavery and the genocidal treatment of Native Americans being at the top of the list. Yet America also has had its triumphs of wisdom and goodness. That is the America we should be embracing and celebrating. I believe it’s captured in the words of Washington, Madison, JFK, MLK, and so many others who’ve fought for peace and sanity, people like Dorothy Day, the Catholic activist who fought against war and all its awful excesses.
All that said, sometimes cartoons can express truths in ways that are as powerful as they are simple. In the cartoon below, the heretics of U.S. foreign policy are so many Calvins, spreading destruction and employing nukes in the name of manly seriousness. They are wrong. They are heretics. And if we continue to allow them to rule, they will surely lead America (as they already are in Gaza) to mass graves.
Student Protest and the White Rose Movement in Nazi Germany
Apologists for the Israeli government and its genocidal policies are now warning us about “radicalized” college and university students. Apparently, it’s “radical” to protest genocide, famine, and ceaseless bombing. Contrariwise, it’s apparently “normal” to support mass murder, total destruction, and widespread starvation. Talk about a world turned upside down …
Of course, it’s only “radical” to oppose genocide if you live in a totalitarian state that’s prosecuting that genocide or aiding others in prosecuting it. Anyone with a working conscience and a smidgen of humanity would think it’s normal and sane to oppose mass murder and to protest against it.
Sophie Scholl flanked by her brother, Hans (L) and friend Christoph Probst (R) in 1942
Consider a university student who famously protested against genocide: Sophie Scholl. She, her brother Hans, and the rest of the White Rose movement in Nazi Germany are celebrated as heroes today in Germany because they spoke out at great risk against mass murder, and indeed the Nazis executed them in 1943 after holding show trials.
Again, we don’t dismiss Sophie Scholl as a campus “radical” for standing up for Jews and protesting against the murderous policies of the Third Reich. We see her as a paradigmatic individual, an example of the very best of us, a young woman of great moral courage. Of course, the Nazis thought otherwise, arresting her then executing her, her brother, and other White Rose members as traitors to their “race.”
Perhaps the Scholls were radical after all: radical in their courage and their commitment to human rights and values for all.
If you want to watch a powerful movie about young campus “radicals,” check out “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days,” from 2005. I highly recommend it. Back in 2013, I put together a list of 13 movies about the Holocaust and genocide for a college course I taught. In that course, I used well-known movies and documentaries like “Schindler’s List,” “The Sorrow and the Pity,” and “Night and Fog.” The list below was my attempt to expand on that and to point my students to some movies and documentaries that they may not have seen.
Here’s the original article I posted back in 2013:
Thirteen Movies About the Holocaust
I’ve seen a lot of movies and documentaries about the Holocaust or with themes related to the Holocaust and totalitarianism. Of the films I’ve seen, these are the thirteen that stayed with me. Please note that these movies have adult themes; they may not be suitable for children or teens.
American History X (1998): Searing movie about neo-Nazis and the power of hate. Violent scenes for mature audiences only.
Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001): Excellent dramatization of Anne Frank’s life, to include the tragic end at Bergen-Belsen.
For My Father (2008): A movie about Palestinians, Israelis, and suicide bombers, but also a movie about the difficulties of confronting and overcoming prejudice.
Hotel Rwanda (2004): The genocide in Rwanda, and how one brave man made a difference.
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961): Powerful indictment of Nazi war criminals after World War II.
Katyn (2007): A reminder that the Nazis weren’t the only mass murderers in World War II.
The Last Days (1998): Incredibly moving documentary that explores the fate of Hungarian Jews. Highly recommended.
Life Is Beautiful (1997): It’s hard to believe that a comedy could be made about the Holocaust. But I think this movie works precisely because the main character is so resourceful and full of life.
The Lives of Others (2006): Astonishing movie about life under a totalitarian regime (East Germany). A “must see” to understand how people can be controlled and cowed and coerced, but also how some find ways to resist.
Lore (2012): Movie about a German teenager who has to survive in the chaos of 1945 as the Third Reich comes crashing down. Various small scenes show the hold that Hitler had over the German people, and the reluctance of many Germans to believe that the Holocaust occurred and that Hitler had ordered it.
Sarah’s Key (2010): Heart-wrenching movie about the roundup of Jews in France, which reminds us that the Nazis had plenty of helpers and collaborators.
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005): Inspiring movie about Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose movement in Nazi Germany. The Scholls were college students who took a courageous stand against the Nazis. Executed as traitors in 1943, they are now celebrated as heroes in Germany.
The Wave (2008): Compelling movie about the allure of fascism and “the Fuhrer (leader) principle.” Highly recommended, especially if you want to know how Hitler got so many young people to follow him.
I was bantering online with an old friend and fellow historian and I hit him with my best shot: history is un-American. If you think like an historian, and especially if you think America and its future actions should be informed, or possibly even constrained, by history, you are clearly un-American. History is more or less bunk, Henry Ford famously said, and Americans can safely ignore it. We are like gods, creating our own futures out of nothing, imposing our will on everything around us.
Henry Ford, American god
This attitude, this hubris, explains much about the U.S. military’s woeful record since 1945. The French lost in Indochina? No matter. Americans will prevail in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia because we’re not the French. The Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan? No matter. Americans will prevail there because we’re not the Russians. Overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his minority Sunni government will unleash chaos that strengthens Shia forces in Iraq, aligning that country more closely with Iran? No matter. America will bring order and the blessings of democracy to Iraq at the point of gun or a Hellfire missile.
Karl Rove, a major player in the Bush/Cheney administration, summed up this hubris in this now-infamous passage:
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
That man did not want for confidence.
Related to the idea of history being un-American is the business- and management-oriented nature of the officer corps in the U.S. military. To be promoted to field-grade (major or lieutenant commander), you almost have to have a master’s degree or be close to finishing one. But rarely do officers choose to pursue a master’s in history or any other subject related to the humanities. The master’s of choice is in business administration or some type of management.
By pursuing MBAs and management degrees, officers show their practical nature. They also set themselves up well for future careers once they retire or separate from the military. After all, who needs to know history, even military history? The U.S. military will simply act, creating its own realities, which feckless historians will then passively study as America’s real actors get on with the job of remaking the world in America’s image.
We live in the United States of Amnesia, Gore Vidal quipped, and history is part of that amnesia. Who remembers that America was at war in Afghanistan as late as 2021? It’s on to new “great power” struggles with China and Russia. Look forward, not backward, Barack Obama said when he became president, meaning there was no need to hold the Bush/Cheney administration responsible for anything, including torture and other war crimes. “We tortured some folks” — time to move on!
An expression I learned in the U.S. military is “analysis paralysis,” as in don’t overthink the problem. Act! But if America’s military record since World War II proves one thing, it’s that ignoring history because it’s “bunk” or less practical than another business or management course is a very unwise idea.
Acting should be informed by thinking. Dare I say, historically-informed thinking. Even for America’s wannabe gods.
Bracing Views 