Warmongers, Chicken Hawks & War Porn Addicts

Make no bones about it, the Islamic State, or ISIL needs to be defeated. It is evil, it is ruthless and it is a danger to the people that it controls and those in its path. Likewise it sates that it has larger goals. Because of this many Americans, over 60 percent in the most recent poll favor sending in ground troops to fight the Islamic State. Politicians talk about sending, 5,000, 10,000 or other nice round numbers of troops which they seem to pull from thin air as fast as they can. Others not only want to take on ISIL, but that the same time seem to want to go after Iran as well. Benjamin Netanyahu got a great round of applause for that boner strategy.

But the real fact of the matter is that American boots on the ground are not the answer. Now can American troops help, most certainly, but despite our great technological ability to kill our enemies and overrun territory, we are not the people to win this war.  The Iraqi Sunni and Shia to get their shit together to beat these guys. T.E. Lawrence so wisely wrote:

“Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is.”

Sadly we ignored that and like the British efforts, our efforts to invade, conquer and re-make Iraq in our image have failed miserably. Our failure is as poetic and terrible as Lawrence’s description of British efforts:

“We had been hopelessly labouring to plough waste lands; to make nationality grow in a place full of the certainty of God… Among the tribes our creed could be only like the desert grass – a beautiful swift seeming of spring; which, after a day’s heat, fell dusty.”  

But to the warmongers, the Chicken Hawks and the War Porn addicts who have no skin in the game this counsel doesn’t matter. Despite the fact that American soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen have been continuously in combat or supporting combat operations for the last thirteen and a half years, this country is not a country at war.  That was something that was shattering for me to realize when I stepped off the plane coming home from Iraq. Believe me, there is a big difference between saying “I support the troops” and having skin in the game.

The fact is that all of those who beat the drums of war but are unwilling to pay the cost, be they the Politicians, Pundits and Preachers, the Trinity of Evil as I call them, or their war addicted followers don’t care about the troops.  In my book the war-mongering preachers are the worst of the lot, but then some of those guys like Mike Huckabee are not only preachers, but politicians and pundits, I guess that must be a new twist on the biblical “prophet, priest and king” thing.  But even as these people counsel war, they refuse to raise taxes to support it, or even pay for the equipment needed by the troops. Likewise, they refuse to make national service, including the military draft a part of national policy. Why don’t we do this? The fact is that then we as a nation would actually have to have skin in the game, give up some of our luxuries and lace up the boots and go to war.

But we will die before we raise taxes or institute the draft. Politicians that suggest such things are driven out of office. Instead we will rely on that under one percent of our population who have shouldered the burden of war for over a decade, even while our political and business leaders scheme to find ways to cut military pay and benefits, especially those medical benefits incurred while serving.

It’s funny, well, no, it’s not funny, that the people leading this charge to war are the same assholes who brought about the Iraq debacle in the first place. But be assured, just as last time their sons and daughters will no serve, and they will not only not be held accountable, but they will profit from the war, just as they have since the days of Smedley Butler.

The fact is that those who brought about this debacle from the Bush administration should be tried as war criminals. But now we have potential Republican presidential candidates, and I might add Evangelical Christians say that there should be no war crimes, that war crimes are not bad, I guess as they are not being committed against us, but I digress.

Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who led the prosecution of the major Nazi War Criminals at Nuremburg wrote something that men like Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and others cannot seem to fathom:

“If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”

I say that there is a special place in hell for the warmongers, Chicken Hawks and War Porn addicts who are so willing to throw other people’s kids into wars that are unwinnable, if those who we are there to defend do not step up and do their part.

So with that my friends I wish you a happy and fun Friday.

Peace

Padre Steve+