Sandy Hook

Sandy Hook

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

America's Path to Permanent War

No critic of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could have brighter conservative credentials. He (Andrew J. Bacevich) is a blunt-talking Midwesterner, a West Point graduate who served for 23 years in the United States Army, a Vietnam veteran who retired as a colonel, and a sometime contributor to National Review.
. . .
Bacevich has two main targets in his sights. The first are the commissars of the national security establishment, who perpetuate these “Washington rules” of global dominance. By Washington, he means not just the federal government, but also a host of satraps who gain power, cash or prestige from this perpetual state of emergency: defense contractors, corporations, big banks, interest groups, think tanks, universities, television networks and The New York Times.
. . .
Bacevich’s second target is the sleepwalking American public. He says that they notice foreign policy only in the depths of a disaster that, like Vietnam or Iraq, is too colossal to ignore. As he puts it, “The citizens of the United States have essentially forfeited any capacity to ask first-order questions about the fundamentals of national security policy.”
. . .


From Gary J. Bass’s review of America’s Path to Permanent War by Andrew J. Bacevich in the New York Times September 3, 2010.

Worth linking to at Advice You Didn't Seek.

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Andrew J. Bacevich, Sr. (born 1947 in Normal, Illinois) is a professor of international relations at Boston University and a retired career officer in the United States Army. He is a former director of Boston University's Center for International Relations (from 1998 to 2005), and author of several books, including American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy (2002), The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War (2005) and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008). He has been "a persistent, vocal critic of the US occupation of Iraq, calling the conflict a catastrophic failure." In March 2007, he described George W. Bush's endorsement of such "preventive wars" as "immoral, illicit, and imprudent.  His son, also an Army officer, died fighting in the Iraq War in May 2007. In summer, 2010, he accused President Barack Obama of "want[ing] us to forget about the lessons of Iraq."

19 comments:

  1. I saw Bill Moyers interview him a while ago. He is a very intelligent man and makes excellent points which, I might add, is why he's been ignored. If I can find the video, I think I'll post it.

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  2. As long as we occupy Muslim countries and kill Muslim people, there will be Muslims who want to kill us, and the war on terror (actually it should be called The War To Create Terror) will continue.

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  3. I admire Bacevich as well, and was sick at heart to hear that this man, who understood the folly of the Iraq War, lost his son there.

    These voices of reason are rarely heart on the MSM. Instead we hear nonstop coverage of a questionable judge in VA who ruled on one part of the health care reform bill that it was unconstitutional--while dozens of other judges ruled it constitutional.

    Thanks for posting this and reminding us of Bacevich and the work he's done.

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  4. Shaw,
    You mean that "liberal" MSM that is providing wall-to-wall coverage of the conservative judge?

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  5. I thank all of you for your wonderful comments. My usual practice is to turn off my comment form when directing readers to another blog because, while I certainly support Bacevich in this case, there's much more to be found at the original blog. I hope you take the time to go there. I don't think you'll be sorry.

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  6. BIG Bacevich fan, here! I've featured his book Washington Rules on my blog. His background gives him even more credibility and he's a great speaker. Thanks for this!

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  7. I haven't heard any of his speeches but will try YouTube. He seems to be pretty amazing - if only the powers that be would listen and take to heart what he has to say.

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  8. Bacevich is excellent, maybe the most intellectually rigorous political writer out there. His book on the end of American exceptionalism is a must.

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  9. Another Bacevich follower here. I should add that he was consultant to Obama during the campaign. Too bad Bacevich didn't end up in the cabinet and wield more influence.

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  10. K: I'm putting together my "to read" list as we speak.

    Octo: I do remember that and wondered why he wasn't given "something." Maybe because he didn't go with the flow?

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  11. We're going to have to collapse, just like the USSR did, before anything changes.

    That's coming. I said last year it will take from 5-10 more years. Every day I shorten my estimate.

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  12. JR and BB: We're going to have to agree to disagree on this. I'm not a Doom's Dayer by any stretch of the imagination and look upon that kind of thinking as a potentially self-destructive mind-set.

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  13. Whether a collapse happens or not (I doubt it) you have to remember that the USSR did not turn into a nice place when it did collapse.

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  14. Thanks, Magpie. I'm not sure there's been a country in all of history that's improved after a collapse.

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  15. This country collapsed once already - it was the Civil War.

    Anyway, about this fella...no one wants to hear from him, at least not anyone who can do anything to actually put an end to this war, anymore than they wanted to hear it during Vietnam.

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  16. "Whether a collapse happens or not (I doubt it) you have to remember that the USSR did not turn into a nice place when it did collapse."

    Well, relatively, it did. There's nothing like the 30-60 million executions that happened when the place was socialist. The old USSR was a constant bloodbath. Putin's velvet glove Stalin act is nothing like that.

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