Last month, in preparation for debate, I read several articles on militarism and its effects. I was basically trying to find reasons for why war was bad beyond the statistics. It seemed rather cliche to simply say that war is bad because people die. I wanted to bring things beyond that. I wanted to give a survey of all of the evils of militarism.
In my search, I found a wonderful article written by Chris J. Cuomo, a Professor at the University of Cincinnati. It was titled "War Is Not Just an Event: Reflections on the Significance of Everyday Violence". Now, the article was published in an academic journal, so if I tried to summarize it, I could not do it justice, but there were a few key things that stood out to me and made me think.
"...many of the questions about war that are of interest are how large-scale, state-sponsored violence affects women and’ members of other oppressed groups; how military violence shapes gendered, raced, and nationalistic political realities and moral imaginations; what such violence consists of and why it persists; how it is related to other oppressive and violent institutions and hegemonies-cannot be adequately pursued by focusing on events. These issues are not merely a matter of good or bad intentions and identifiable decisions."
These are interesting questions indeed. Surely war affects more than surface things like mortality. There are many implications to war- and the author of the article is correct when he says that they are not matters of identifiable decisions. I wonder if they are identifiable at all. Can we really know the adverse affects that our county's military has inflicted? Can we really identify how it has changed people in both domestic and foreign lands?
The author goes on to say later in the essay:
"Lack of attention to these aspects of the business of making or preventing military violence in an extremely technologized world results in theory that cannot accommodate the connections among the constant presence of militarism, declared wars, and other closely related social phenomena, such as nationalistic glorifications of motherhood, media violence, and current ideological gravitations to military solutions for social problems. Ethical approaches that do not attend to the ways in which warfare and military practices are woven into the very fabric of life in twenty-first century technological states lead to crisis-based politics and analyses."
We do not know what we are creating when we send legions of troops overseas. We do not know what sort of dogmas are being embedded in the minds of our youths as we train them up to love the military and regard it with unwavering respect. So often we tend to think that to love America we must love our military too. I wonder at the delusion of my friends who think that the size of our military is reasonable. It really isn't...
Our country is not currently engaged in any significant crises with foreign powers, and yet people thank soldiers for keeping our nation safe, as if our nation's security would be compromised without millions of troops training for some sort of impending combat. There is a great mistrust in this- a mistrust of diplomacy which prevails when steady minds are in power (which, for the most part, they currently are). The author of the article did not touch on the effects that militarism has on our nation specifically, but he did make me think about them. So, I'd like to talk about some of them for awhile...
Like all public schools, Ozark High has ROTC. A marvelous organization that allows students to wear uniforms, cut their hair to respectable lengths, march around in an organized fashion, twirl flags (and sometimes fake rifles), obey a collection of old Republicans who have (for whatever reason) been bestowed the designation of "sergeant", and learn other nationalistic bullshit. Many participants in this absurdity have gone on to join the military. I haven't really ascertained exactly what motivated them to do this, but I hope that it wasn't out of some absurd desire to protect our country. I think that the desire for a piece of the $682 billion dollar military budget would be more commendable than that delusion, but it's clear to me that many of our nation's youth believe what our military's propaganda tells them- that their nation needs them, that it is commendable to believe what a collection of totalitarianists tell them, to learn how to kill people and use that ability on command. Surely this is the trade of weak-minded people.
They say that those who are in the army are strong, that there is a distinction between "strong" and "army strong". What bullshit! Taking lives is nothing to be taken lightly and without discernible reasons to do so, it should be avoided at all costs. Individuals should not kill simply because elected superiors tell them to. That is blind obedience- cowardly self-subjugation. That is not strong, regardless of intentions.
Indoctrination seems to be the goal of proponents of the military. When the IB program was being implemented by the Ozark school district, a group of right-wing extremists (headed by "sergeants" of our school's ROTC) opposed it saying that IB would undermine the Christian and nationalistic values of our humble, little town. They wanted to stop the implementation of one of the best college-prep initiatives simply because they were afraid of the IBO's international-mindedness. I find it rather ironic that they were afraid of the consequences of implementing an acclaimed education program, but they have no problem giving their undying support to an institution responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people.
So fuck the military, fuck ROTC, fuck you right-wing, deluded, "sergeants" of that same institution.
All I have to say is think things through before making these comments. You should find the logistics on the military before you go claiming statements that really make little sense. "...millions of troops training for some sort of impending combat." Try again. The Army has 600,000 active personnel. 15% are combat arms: Infantry, Military Police, Calvary, etc. These jobs are directly in the combat field, however, most are simply "direct combat support." Our Infantry men are the "fighters." They are trained to kill or capture enemies, and make up about 5% of the Army. We're talking 30,000 troops. The military with all active personnel combined is under 1.5 million, just ahead of India and a ways off of China's massive military. Now, apply that 30,000 to the 330 million people that make up this country. Firstly, the whole of the military is less than 1% of the country. That means that in the country about 0.009% of the country is trained on "killing or capturing" our enemies, in direct combat. These 30,000 people are willing to risk their lives for the 390.9 billion people who live in the country they serve, and you can't respect that?
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying that you can't disagree with some military action. Even those of us who serve disagree at times (that includes all 1.5 million of us serving in all the branches of the Armed Forces). But if you really enjoy writing and expressing your opinion, think about who has helped to keep that freedom for you. If some jackknob in high school ROTC really influence your opinion over the whole organization, I'm appalled by the logic I know you have, Tim. Those kids don't know anything of the actual military and do not exactly represent yet, what only being in the actual organization can instill in them.
But, still, you have the right to say what you want. But when the boogie man comes in the middle of the night, who will you turn to when he takes your pen and paper, cuts out your tongue, and changes your life into what he wants it to be?
Wow, interesting stats, Alex, I was aware of some of them, but you did enlighten me. Firstly, I mean no personal offense to you are anyone else serving in the military. It's your prerogative, you should do what you believe is right. I'm inclined to believe that our opinions are significantly different on this matter and that any attempts at persuasion (from either one of us) would be futile. With that in mind- two things:
Delete1. You're right... I was wrong when I said "millions". I hadn't looked up numbers really. However, despite that failure on my part, the budget is still disconcerting. Our country spends a great deal on the military and I don't really understand why that's necessary. You say the military keeps us safe, but again, our country is not involved in conflict with any foreign power so I have to wonder who the military is protecting us from. Furthermore, considering our nation's massive reserve of allies, if we were to go into conflict with foreign powers, the threat posed would really be quite minimal.
2. As for the military's morality, I'll assume that your math is correct and the trained killers are a small percentage, but those in the military still condone the actions committed by said killers- the moral precedent is upheld by all members of the institution. That's troubling to me. I'm also troubled that many people (including JROTC cadets) are sucked into the military under the impression that they really are protecting their nation. I raise my eyebrows at propaganda and unsubstantiated claims, it's in my nature.
So prove me wrong, who is our military protecting us from?