10 September 2010
Unanticipated Consequence
Hendrik Hertzberg bemoans the lack of sacrifice that has been asked of those of us who have not fought in the two long wars since 9/11 in his comment in the September 13, 2010, New Yorker, “Iraq’s Cost.” Unfortunately, without a draft our nation is likely to get involved in another such “military adventure” and others. That is, as long as the rest of the world is willing to finance them—even the U.S. isn’t able to foot the trillion-dollar bill of such martial tasks out of its own treasury.
The Bush Administration did a pretty good job of convincing not only Americans, but the Europeans and China, as well, that our use of force and the contingent human suffering were needed in order to prevent deterioration in our collective living conditions. But without standing armed forces, our leaders could not have undertaken such an escapade. We must have thought it a worthwhile investment to pay the cost of avoiding having to draft an army in order to defend ourselves; perhaps we did that because we realized that there would not always be agreement on the necessity of fighting overseas. However, we and our financiers abroad have become very pliable when experts manipulate information in order to justify warfare for non-transparent reasons or even for its own sake.
Maybe the “new American moment” that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was talking about at the Council on Foreign Relations on September 8, 2010, comes with the admission that the U.S. will only perform the world’s policeman role in the future responsibly and still on its own terms.
Hendrik Hertzberg bemoans the lack of sacrifice that has been asked of those of us who have not fought in the two long wars since 9/11 in his comment in the September 13, 2010, New Yorker, “Iraq’s Cost.” Unfortunately, without a draft our nation is likely to get involved in another such “military adventure” and others. That is, as long as the rest of the world is willing to finance them—even the U.S. isn’t able to foot the trillion-dollar bill of such martial tasks out of its own treasury.
The Bush Administration did a pretty good job of convincing not only Americans, but the Europeans and China, as well, that our use of force and the contingent human suffering were needed in order to prevent deterioration in our collective living conditions. But without standing armed forces, our leaders could not have undertaken such an escapade. We must have thought it a worthwhile investment to pay the cost of avoiding having to draft an army in order to defend ourselves; perhaps we did that because we realized that there would not always be agreement on the necessity of fighting overseas. However, we and our financiers abroad have become very pliable when experts manipulate information in order to justify warfare for non-transparent reasons or even for its own sake.
Maybe the “new American moment” that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was talking about at the Council on Foreign Relations on September 8, 2010, comes with the admission that the U.S. will only perform the world’s policeman role in the future responsibly and still on its own terms.
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