The tradition of the citizen-soldier is still alive in this country — just look at our National Guard units. But the burden of military service is obviously not equally shared, with the affluent and famous tucked away safely at home. How many people remember that Jimmy Stewart, legendary Hollywood actor, flew dangerous combat missions in…
W.J. Astore A few years ago I was talking to an experienced U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, a battalion commander in Iraq. He compared the Iraqi situation to a Rubik’s Cube – a puzzling array of shifting loyalties, interconnected tribes, and religious sects. At the time, I thought it was a telling metaphor. But the metaphor…
W.J. Astore Nick Turse has a fine op-ed in the New York Times, “For America, Life Was Cheap in Vietnam.” In it he argues that for Americans involved in the Vietnam War, life was very cheap indeed – Vietnamese lives, that is. Turse has written a powerful book, “Kill Anything that Moves,” that documents the…
Daniel N. White Books on war are too important to be left to generals, or for that matter to the usual war buffs. I suspect that the entire cadre of American lefties who read seriously about war could fit handily into an SUV. If so, Bruce Cumings might just occupy the driver’s seat. His one-volume…
W.J. Astore Bruce Fleming, an English professor at Annapolis, has a great letter at the New York Times about the government shutdown. Unlike West Point and the Air Force Academy, most instructors at Annapolis are civilians rather than serving military officers. They have been furloughed because of the government shutdown, so Navy midshipmen are no…
b. traven Daddy, who won all the wars the USA has fought since World War II? Well, son, there is some debate about that. Our government likes to tell us that we won them because we are “exceptional” but there are serious questions about who really won. One thing is clear, though: When we wage war on…
W.J. Astore Ever since the attacks of 9/11/2001, the United States has actively celebrated martial virtue. We’ve portrayed our troops as heroes. Presidents have celebrated them as the best led and best trained and most effective military in all of human history. To question the wisdom of such hagiographic portrayals is to be dismissed as…
W.J. Astore In 1992 I had the pleasure of meeting Major General Julian Thompson at a colloquium at Oxford. It was ten years after the Falklands War in 1982, and Thompson shared some of the lessons he had gleaned from fighting that war. The inherent unpredictability of war was one such lesson. Four months before…
W.J. Astore A recent article in the New York Times about how General (Ret.) David Petraeus is being honored by the New York Historical Society featured a word often used to describe Petraeus as well as another retired U.S. general fallen on hard times, Stanley McChrystal. The word is “ascetic.” The American media loved to…
A recent article by John Pilger in the British Guardian speaks of a silent military coup that has effectively gained control of American policymaking. It features the following alarmist passage: In 2008, while his liberal devotees dried their eyes, Obama accepted the entire Pentagon of his predecessor, George Bush: its wars and war crimes. As the constitution is replaced…
The Contrary Perspective 