What is it that causes some humans to glorify war? It cannot be denied. Those on the progressive, anti-war left don’t understand it, perhaps because they don’t want the prospect of being shot at to interfere with their lives. But many people, particularly Southerners for some reason, think that the military and the prospect of fighting an enemy is the highest ideal, and gives “meaning” to their existence. Officers especially feel “incomplete” without the experience of war; after all, war—or the glory of war—is their reason for being. Being a “great captain” in the military history books still has some pull on the imagination of some dreamers, but I have to admit that as I have grown older, accounts of the fight for justice (the Dreyfus Affair), and the defense of conscience (Thomas Beckett, Thomas More) have had a greater pull on my imagination.
History, as it has been said, is nothing but war and politics. So we are fascinated by Alexander the Great’s attempted conquest of the known world, marching with a modest army from Macedonia to India. Why? What motivated him to march his weary men thousands of miles in mostly tractless, arid conditions for no particularly purpose but personal glory? Why did Napoleon march all over Europe, in the process wiping out a whole generation of French men—merely for “La Gloire?” Although there may be underlying motivations involved—Hitler, for example, wanted additional “living space” for the “master race,” the agricultural and oil resources of Russia, and the destruction of European Jewry—most people fascinated by war are those who think in terms of the “glory” of it. Americans, of course, like to fancy themselves as above such petty considerations, and in a few instances—such as WW II and the subsequent reconstructions of Germany and Japan—the U.S. can rightly point to with some glad-handing. But other conflicts, such as the Mexican and Spanish-American wars, Vietnam and Iraq—motivations are much more open to question and doubt. It seems the weaker the perceived enemy, the less Americans need a moral justification to kill the “dark races.”
However, I think it is a bit hypocritical for some of us to express shock and dismay at Obama’s “reversal” of his promise; he never made any such promise to leave Afghanistan in the status quo. I have to credit Ed Schultz with being honest enough to point out to his listeners that Obama’s Afghanistan surge should not surprise anybody—this is what he told us he would do during the campaign, and many of his supporters readily agreed with this. Getting business done in Afghanistan should always have been the Bush administration’s first—and only—priority. It seems clear by now that Afghanistan served as a convenient pretext for the invasion of Iraq; Bush and Cheney had planned the Iraqi invasion before 9-11—they may even have secretly desired some kind of provocation (just not the kind that occurred). But for most Americans, we had an understandable motive for invading Afghanistan, but because we did not go there in force, sending most troops to Iraq, we find ourselves in the mess we are currently in. I have a difficult time in seeing how this will end well, but if it has a chance to, it has to be by the carrot and stick approach that Obama has proposed.
Obama is also giving this “surge” a definite timeline to work, or not. And none too soon for troops who have seen too many deployments. I have just read that many troops with “mental health” issues are being given “potent psychotropic” drugs to make them “fit” to return to combat. What will happen when these drugged soldiers return from combat is something society will be forced to deal with, since the military seems loath to do so itself.
And another 100,000 civilians dead.