----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter K." <peterk at enteract.com>
> http://slate.msn.com/?id=2073772&device=
>
> "Armchair General"
> The ugly idea that non-soldiers have less right to argue for war.
> By Christopher Hitchens
> Posted Monday, November 11, 2002, at 2:04 PM PT
>
> Continuing with the hidden vernaculars of "regime change" and hoping to
build toward a Bierce-like
> series (last week the Straussian language of revolution from above and
next week "terrorism"), one
> must pause simply to expel one term, to retire it, discredit it, and make
its further employment an
> embarrassment to those who use it. The word is "armchair."
>
> You've heard it all right. The concept embodied in the contemptuous usage
is this: someone who wants
> intervention in, say, Iraq ought to be prepared to go and fight there. An
occasional corollary is
> that those who have actually seen war are not so keen to urge it.
>
> The first thing to notice about this propaganda is how archaic it is.
====================
Yup. It's more like a simulatory warrrior syndrome we're facing. As for the contempt, it's a matter of not so much of wanting those who urge confrontation to pick up the gun or microbes or whathaveyou, but why urge anyone to do so given the lack of the utter inability to control the theatre of conflict once agression is inuagarated anymore?
This is not so much reducible to the law of uninteded consequences as to the *virtual* fact that once we stretch the temporal horizon[s] -metaphor alert- within which 'we' cannot *anticipate* the 'enemy's' responses, those who claim the expertise in 'defending' 'us' while, from at least a few perspectives seem to be engaging in protection racket like behavior, use that expertise to distract us from the fact that those who seek protection spent over $60billion in the last decade -due to the last Gulf War- for..what, precisely? That is to say, to get down to the nitty gritty, what is the point of all the chest puffing and staging of Minaret Curtain building if our putative allies have more than enough means at their disposal to contain Saddamism without Rumsfeldian death talk? That's right Prince Bhandar, I'm talking to you.........
>The whole point of the present
> phase of conflict is that we are faced with tactics that are directed
primarily at civilians. Thus,
> while I was traveling last year in Pakistan, on the Afghan border and in
Kashmir, and this year in
> the gulf, my wife was fighting her way across D.C., with the Pentagon in
flames, to try and collect
> our daughter from a suddenly closed school, was attempting to deal with
anthrax in our mailbox, was
> reading up on the pros and cons of smallpox vaccinations, and was coping
with the consequences of a
> Muslim copycat loony who'd tried his hand as a suburban sniper. Should
things ever become any
> hotter, it would be far safer to be in uniform in Doha, Qatar, or
Kandahar, Afghanistan, than to be
> in an open homeland city. It is amazing that this essential element of the
crisis should have taken
> so long to sink into certain skulls.
========================
Not at all. But the framing elides the utter separability of the two issues. The strategies invoked thus far to eradicate or mitigate the intent of the Al Qaeda's of the world -the consummate form of criminal behavior, just slightly more sophisticated than the Triads of Chinese organized crime- are not of the same caliber of bureaucratic commitment involved in stopping serial murderers. Lets say that by 2009 the interstices of these two types of criminal behaviour get filled in by all sorts of groups operating within the US, do we really want the John Ashcroft's of the country to have even greater police powers to pre-empt such behavior, given their theocratic worldview? I think not, so the idea that the military should have greater control, which seems implied by your statements, points to the larger context; which is, how do we avoid Rumsfeldianism and Ashcroftianism in the future given the fact that we might not be able to stop the Osama's of 2009 through 200.......?
>
> My wife is not of military age, and there is little chance of a draft for
mothers.
======================
Ah, the genderization of the warrior mind rears it's ugly head.........
>Are her views on
> Iraq therefore disqualified from utterance?
========================
How about Cynthia Enloe's or Asoka Bandarage's or Helen Caldicot's and countless other feminist critics of militarism? Are they to take a back seat too? Why should your wife get first dibs on cheerleading for more death and destruction given the deliberate ignoring of feminist anti-militarism over the past 100+ years?
>And what about older comrades who can no longer shoulder
> a gun? What about friends of mine who are physically disabled? Should
their expertise-often
> considerable-be set aside because they can't ram it home with a bayonet?
===================
So why are the Repugs trying desperately to shut Scott Ritter and other Vets up? There are plenty of Vets saying this is a big mistake. Are you prepared to devote a column or 7 to their perspectives on the 21st century of warfare?
> There are some further unexamined implications of this stupid tactic. It
is said, for example, that
> someone like former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey has more right to pronounce
on a war than someone who
> avoided service in Vietnam. Well, last year Kerrey was compelled to admit
that he had led a
> calamitous expedition into a Vietnamese village and had been responsible
for the slaughter of
> several children and elderly people. (He chose to be somewhat shady about
whether this
> responsibility was direct or indirect.) Do I turn to such a man for advice
on how to deal with
> Saddam Hussein? The connection is not self-evident, more especially since,
as far as I am aware,
> Kerrey knows no more about Iraq than I know about how to construct a
chess-playing computer.
=====================
Ah, the epistemic egalitarian finally shows up. No, he's no more qualified than you or me, so why don't you shut up already?
>
> One hopes that the next implication is inadvertent, but the clear
suggestion is that there ought not
> to be civilian control of the military. What-have callow noncombatants
giving brisk orders to
> grizzled soldiers? How could Lincoln have fired the slavery-loving Gen.
William McLellan, or Truman
> dismissed the glorious Douglas MacArthur? During the defense of
Washington, Lincoln became the first
> and last president to hear shots fired in anger. Donald Rumsfeld was at
his desk in the Pentagon
> when the plane hit, but probably is no better and no worse a defense
secretary for that.
===================
So what. The suggestion is false. The issue is not civilian control of the military, but rather the manner in which various officials in the War Dept. and the State Dept. are using their office to facilitate the Rent Seeking behavior of weapons manufacturers desiring to cash in on the anxieties of post 9-11. Again, if the Saudi's bought $60+billion of death and destruction from Lockheed Martin and the like since '91, yet can't defend themselves from immanent attack, then what's the use of a Rumsfeldian military ontology?
> A related term is "chicken-hawk." It is freely used to defame intellectual
militants who favor an
> interventionist strategy. Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska made use of the
implication recently, when he
> invited Richard Perle to be first into Baghdad. Someone ought to point out
that the term
> "chicken-hawk" originated as a particularly nasty term for a pederast or
child molester: It has
> evidently not quite lost its association with sissyhood.
=======================
Of course, dropping bombs on children from 2,000-35,000 feet is never child molestation. But then again, that's to get caught up in the testosterone driven cul-de-sac of 'sissyhood' and related idioms of machismo. Post-Modernically, Machismo is for Cowards.......
>Well, then, let them beware of licensing such a cheap form of ad hominem
argument.
======================
The ghost of a reflexivity alert...heading your way...........
>Just as some of the greatest anti-war writers and poets were courageous
soldiers, some of the best minds of World War II
> were civilian strategists and code-breakers, and some of the finest
Resistance fighters were
> intellectuals who picked up weapons. There is no certain way of enforcing
these distinctions
> morally, until the test actually comes. But now civilians are in the front
line as never before, and
> we shall be needing a more rigorous terminology to reflect that dramatic
fact.
>
===================
Yeah, except WWII is nothing like picking a fight with Saddam. So lets scrap the vocabularies and epistemologies of death and embrace the desire to live. That goes for you too Saddam, you dumbass..............
Ian