Called to Serve Vietnam

There is something stirring in Wisconsin and some folks have tried to connect it to what’s happened in Egypt. Unionized workers and their many supporters are in danger of losing their right to bargain collectively and the uprising that it has led to among the citizenry is definitely causing consternation among Republican lawmakers and the Republican governor. The comparison to Egypt – of people standing up to governmental efforts to limit their rights – is certainly understandable, but I have been wanting to express another connection that I feel deserves consideration since it is directly responsible for what is happening in Wisconsin, which is just the tip of an iceberg that threatens to take down our republic. The article below by Robert Greenwald details what I have been knowing and feeling since I heard about the Madison uprising – that the money we have been spending in Afghanistan is causing the crisis. He says it even more forcefully and concretely in the title in which he equates the monetary shortfall in Wisconsin with the return of 151 troops from the ill-fated war. That’s all it would take to save those whose livelihoods are being threatened and whose right to collectively bargain for their future contracts are in jeopardy. Greenwald, filmmaker and creator of the RETHINK AFGHANISTAN documentary, connects the dots much as the NATIONAL PRIORITIES PROJECT has done in letting us know what the true cost of this war is for each of our communities and each of us as individuals taxpayers. That each soldier costs our country $1 million a year (which doesn’t include the cost of healing those who come back with physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wounds) means that the money Governor Walker is trying to take back from the workers in his state – $151 million – could be restored with the return of those 151 troops. Then multiply that by all of the states which are in similar budgetary crisis already and those that are fated to experience a similar reality and the true cost of this futile war is evident. Greenwald connects the dots. If only we could get our national and local government to do the same. At the end of the article he invites the reader to join RETHINK AFGHANISTAN (http://rethinkafghanistan.com/). If you’ve not checked out their website I strongly encourage you to do so. We’re not getting the story it tells from our mainstream media…

Published on Saturday, February 19, 2011 by Rethink Afghanistan
BRINGING HOME 150 TROOPS FROM AFGHANISTAN WOULD FIX WISCONSIN’S BUDGET “CRISIS”
by Robert Greenwald
Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker is using phony budget projections to manufacture a staged “fiscal emergency” in his state so that he can whack programs and political opponents, but even his fake “emergency” pales in comparison to the cost of the Afghanistan War to his state. In fact, the U.S. would only have to bring home 151 troops from Afghanistan to save more money than Walker’s ridiculous union-busting plan. Better yet, ending the Afghanistan War altogether would save taxpayers in Wisconsin $1.7 billion this year alone, more than ten times the amount “saved” in Walker’s attack on state employee rights.

One might ask, “Isn’t Walker’s fake budget crisis a state budget issue? How would ending the Afghanistan War pay for that?” We get this question a lot when we talk about the cost of war to a state’s taxpayer. Keep in mind that state budgets are tangled with federal spending. That’s especially true over the past couple of years, as state budgets have relied on federal Recovery Act funds to balance their books during the recession. Spending decisions at the federal level are therefore doubly important, as they not only affect the national budget, but also what funds are available to help preserve state-level public structures.

That brings us to Walker’s slash-and-burn approach to the state budget. 

“Under Walker’s plan, most public workers – excluding police, firefighters and state troopers – would have to pay half of their pension costs and at least 12 percent of their health-care costs. They would lose bargaining rights for anything other than pay. Walker, who took office last month, says the emergency measure would save $300 million over the next two years to help close a $3.6 billion budget gap.”

So on average, Walker’s slash-and-burn attack on the unions in his state would save $150 million per year for two years. But if Wisconsin is truly in a state of fiscal emergency, as Walker claims, why is he not demanding the president withdraw troops from Afghanistan and make the savings available as fiscal aid to states? Every troop deployed in Afghanistan costs the U.S. $1 million per year, so simply bringing home 151 troops would save more money than his plan. And, with fiscal 2011 Afghanistan War spending alone to top $1.7 billion for Wisconsin taxpayers, an end to the war would free up more than ten times his plan’s cash, which the president could use for state fiscal aid.

Of course, the end of the Afghanistan War would mean that people with whom Walker is cozy would lose some important revenue streams. Remember Wackenhut, the war contractors that disgraced us by holding drunken, nude firelight romps in Afghanistan on the State Department’s dime? Walker got them a sweet privatized state security contract in a prior fit of “cost-savings” that failed to add up. But who needs to rein in death, destruction and obscenity when you can take a whack at the unions, right? Walker’s not actually interested in fixing a supposed emergency. He’s interested in paying off allies and zinging enemies, and you can tell that by his silence on war spending that’s bleeding his state taxpayers dry.

At any rate, state politicians in Wisconsin and beyond are going to have to face a moment of truth when federal stimulus aid runs out at the end of this year. Their citizens hate the Afghanistan War, and they won’t go along with draconian cuts to vital public structures or attacks on collective bargaining. They can either wise up and join the chorus of people calling for an end to the war, or be ready to face tens of thousands of fed-up protesters and angry voters. Your move, folks.

If you’re fed up wit this war that’s not making us safer and that’s not worth the cost, join Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook and Twitter.

© 2011 Rethink Afghanistan

Robert Greenwald is a producer, director, political activist, and Brave New Films founder and president. He is currently focused on the ReThink Afghanistan (2009, RethinkAfghanistan.com) documentary and campaign which addresses the misguided U.S. policy in Afghanistan. He has also produced and distributed short viral videos and campaigns like Sick For Profit (SickForProfit.com), Fox Attacks videos (FoxAttacks.com) and The Real McCain (TheRealMcCain.com), which were seen by almost a million people in a matter of days.

As we approach the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan and the accompanying pomp and homage, I want to do my part to provide a counter to all of the glorifying and edifying that is going to take place. That Sarah Palin has been asked by the committee organizing the main event to give the keynote speech only adds to my sense of the utter absurdity of many in this country who have conspired to keep the wool firmly pulled over the eyes of a wide swath of America as regards Reagan’s true legacy. But we must realize that by having prevented the real story of Reagan’s awful two terms in office and all of the lasting damage his policies have resulted in from being put forth to counter the mythology that has him as one of the great presidents of history, we run the risk of having the myth become reality.

So here’s a corrective. Please share it with anyone you think might be imbibing from the mythical wine of Reagan as savior, as conqueror of the Soviet Union, as driver of the economic engine, etc… It’s just so not true and whenever we allow delusion to reign we do a disservice to ourselves and subsequent generations. Here’s the piece with a brief bio of Mr. Borosage at the end:

THE REAGAN RUINS
By Robert Borosage
February 1, 2011 – 1:46pm ET
The celebration of Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday doesn’t come until early March, but the devotions have been going on for years. For conservatives, Reagan is the lodestar, the genial demigod to whom all must avow fealty. In a Time cover story, Michael Scherer and Michael Duffy suggest that Obama considers Reagan “The Role Model.” Richard Norton Smith, writing about the “Reagan Revelation,” attributes Obama’s uptick in the polls because he’s been “acting positively Reaganesque,” reaching out to the business community, scoring bipartisan victories on tax cuts, delivering a sermon in Tucson that Smith calls “worthy of the Great Communicator at his most consoling.”

This is more than a bit ridiculous. (Who knew that Bill Daley, most recently JP Morgan’s lead lobbyist,” and GE’s Jeffrey Immelt, who has shipped more jobs abroad than most CEOs, had such sway on public opinion?). But it will get much worse, as conservatives weigh in to suggest Reagan revived America, brought us together, dispatched communism with a speech and a lot of military spending, etc.

Before we go too far down this road, it is worth a reality check. Reagan, no doubt, was a transformational president. His presidency marked the beginning of 30 years of conservative domination of our politics, although Rick Perlstein argues persuasively that Nixonland tilled the soil of racial and cultural division that Reagan cultivated. (Not by accident did Reagan open his campaign in the unreachable Philadelphia, Mississippi, previously known only as the site of the infamous murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney, where he announced his belief in “state’s rights”).

But take a good look at the conservative mantra that Reagan championed: less spending, low taxes, deregulation, free trade, strong military, family values. On all of these, the Gipper and conservatives got it wrong.

Less spending was perverted, since Reagan doubled the military budget in peacetime (up 50 percent in real terms). He somehow didn’t believe military spending added to deficits. (Reagan never introduced a balanced budget in his presidency.) Less spending turned out to mean slash programs that support the weak and the vulnerable. Reagan opened the campaign against government domestic spending that leaves us with an aged infrastructure that is dangerous to our health, schools that put children at risk, and record numbers struggling simply to feed their families. Poverty levels began rising under Reagan and have remained high, other than in the couple years of the Clinton presidency when full employment began to lift all boats.

Low taxes turned into successive tax cuts for the rich. Reagan believed in the voodoo of the Laffer Curve, that cutting top-end taxes would generate more revenue. One thing it generated was inequality. The great leveling that marked the post-Cold War years came to an end under Reagan, as the wealthiest Americans began capturing ever greater portions of the nation’s income. Today, the wealthiest 1 percent captures about 23 percent of the income, and control more wealth than the bottom 90 percent of Americans, and captured a staggering two-thirds of the rewards of growth in the last “recovery” form 2002-2007. This is the true Reagan legacy.

Free trade was the label affixed to a trade policy defined by and for multinational companies and banks. Under Reagan, America began shipping jobs rather than goods abroad. When Reagan fired the PATCO strikers, he signaled to corporate America that it was open season on unions. The combination was lethal for America’s manufacturing base — and for the family wage that was the signature of America’s broad middle class.

Deregulation gutted consumer protection, environmental protection, workplace safety and the right to organize under Reagan. It led to many scandals that made his administration one of the most corrupt in history, with a record 138 officials investigated, indicted or convicted. But the biggest change was deregulation of banking, which led to successive financial wildings and crashes that have cost taxpayers literally trillions. The first was the Savings and Loan debacle that followed on Reagan’s reforms that empowered banksters to gamble with other people’s money, with their losses guaranteed by the federal government.

Strong military entailed wasting literally hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons we did not need and could not use, from reviving battleships to building new generations of missiles. The most notable folly was Reagan’s Star Wars fantasy, which continues to waste tens of billions each year, throwing money into a program that does not work against a threat that does not exist. It is heresy for any Republican to question this folly (Rand Paul, the world awaits). The military remains the largest source of waste, fraud and abuse in the nation’s budget — yet even Barack Obama promises a freeze to domestic discretionary spending, leaving out the military, even though we’re spending about as much as the rest of the world combined.

Combined with the strong military was a lawless devotion to the national security state, the belief captured by Nixon, that in the area of national security, when the president does it, it is legal. This doctrine of presidential license found expression under Reagan most notably in the Iran-Contra scandals, where the president created a secret fund and a secret army in direct violation of the laws of the land. He avoided accountability by professing ignorance and confusion.

Family values, the Republican reach to the evangelical right, were cynically used to divide Americans, not unite them, targeting blacks, women (or feminazis in Rush Limbaugh’s lingo), and gays. Reagan, steeped in the ways of Hollywood, was the utter cynic. He was the only divorced man to occupy the White House, was at best a distant parent, and generally avoided going to church. While he pandered to the Christian right, he was never very serious about pursuing their agenda.

Today, America is more unequal, its middle class is weaker, its manufacturing sector is hollowed out, its bloated military, laden with baroque weaponry, can start wars but not win them. Under the banner of conservatism, predatory corporate interests — Big Oil, Big Pharma, Wall Street, global corporations, agribusiness — have fleeced taxpayers while feathering the nests of the few.

So let’s celebrate Ronald Reagan’s style. He was a great communicator, an aw shucks American original, a genial optimist. He was a transformational president who launched America on a misguided, 30-year experiment with market fundamentalism. But let’s not forget the reality. His race bait politics of division were inherited from the dark side of Nixon. And his conservatism has cost this country dearly.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Robert L. Borosage is the founder and president of the Institute for America’s Future and co-director of its sister organization, the Campaign for America’s Future. The organizations were launched by 100 prominent Americans to develop the policies, message and issue campaigns to help forge an enduring majority for progressive change in America.

Mr. Borosage writes widely on political, economic and national security issues. He is a Contributing Editor at The Nation magazine, and a regular blogger on the Huffington Post. His articles have appeared in The American Prospect, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He edits the Campaign’s Making Sense issues guides, and is co-editor of Taking Back America (with Katrina Vanden Heuvel) and The Next Agenda (with Roger Hickey).

With much happening as always it has been challenging to find the right moment, but the two articles I am including in this post have propelled me to re-connect to my blog. The first is an effort to carry forth the kind of work that the NATIONAL PRIORITIES PROJECT does in connecting the dots vis a vis the money we’re spending on the so-called defense of our county and the cost of the wars in which we remain irretrievably mired. Tom
Engelhardt asks in his title the simple question, “Do You Feel Safer Yet?” and proceeds to tell some of the ways our treasury is being diverted from the profound needs of our people to carrying out war and making often poorly planned and executed efforts to improve life for the peoples whose lands we’re occupying. It is a tale of woe for both Afghanistan and America.

The second article talks about how we get ourselves into such fixes – Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan to name the worst examples. It focuses on the myths we are fed so effectively by the powers that be and the ways in which our unquestioning belief in and adherence to them perpetuate perpetual war. Here’s the myth of conservatives that keeps so many of our fellow Americans encased in a reality that prevents seeing the deep, historical and distressing social ills requiring program funding, innovation and commitment here at home:

Why should I give my hard-earned money to the government so they can hand it out to strangers who, for all I know, are good-for-nothing loafers and mooches? I want to be free to decide what to do with my dough and I’ll give it to responsible people who believe in taking care of themselves and their families, just like me. I’ll give my money to the government only to protect us from strangers in distant lands who don’t believe in the sacred rights of the individual and aim to take my freedom and money away.

This insidious myth has been promoted for decades by our government and our leaders to keep our country focused elsewhere and it works astonishingly well. Despite living in an increasingly divided society in which the rich keep getting wealthier and everyone else increasingly struggles to make ends meet, this myth allows the focus of our citizenry to remain on the “other” in foreign lands who we are convinced is out to destroy us. With such a myth spending endless amounts of our treasury to sustain unwinnable wars makes sense. How tragic and how likely is such a myth to result in the demise of our country. And as we go down, our freedoms, our rights and our hopes are being undone in the name of safety, which the first article tells us is not possible given the course we’re on. What a paradox…

DO YOU FEEL SAFER YET?
by Tom Engelhardt

In New York City, my hometown, as in so many cities across the country, a hard-pressed local government and a desperate transit authority are cutting back on services while hiking prices for a deteriorating subway and bus system. For night workers and those out in the lonely, dark early morning hours, some bus lines are simply being eliminated. Meanwhile, in one small settlement of 14,000 people in embattled Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, a single marine platoon is spending on average $400,000 a month on “reconstruction projects.” The Marines have, according to a BBC reporter who visited, “put up street lights, cleaned irrigation channels, handed out radios, paved the bazaar, built bridges, and are currently building a new school.” Do I feel safer?

In the U.S., policemen and firemen are being laid off, and the budgets of police and fire departments cut back or, in a few small places, eliminated. In Afghanistan, the U.S., having already invested $20 billion in building up the Afghan police and military, is now planning to spend $11.6 billion more this year alone, $12.8 billion in 2012, and more than $6 billion a year thereafter. According to Washington’s latest scheme, the Afghan security forces will be increased to 378,000 men in a poverty-stricken land, which means committing U.S. tax dollars to the project into the distant future. Do you feel safer?

In the United States, teachers are being laid off, class-sizes are on the rise, and tuition at public colleges is soaring. In Afghanistan, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) claims to have built or refurbished 524 schools and to be completing another 130 of them. Do you feel safer now?

In the U.S., basic infrastructure has been fraying, bridges collapsing, natural gas pipelines exploding, and projects like a commuter-rail tunnel connecting New Jersey to New York City are being canceled or put off. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, giant American-funded building projects are revving up (for which locals are being hired), especially a giant embassy/citadel in Kabul at the cost of $511 million (with nearly $200 million more going to the expansion of consular establishments elsewhere in that country). Meanwhile in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, another monster U.S. citadel-cum-regional-command-center is being built for nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars. Do you feel safer yet?

In the United States, according to the director of the Argonne National Laboratory, the aging national power grid “resembles the patchwork of narrow, winding, badly maintained highways of the 1920s and 1930s” before they were rebuilt as the interstate highway system and cries out for “strategic upgrading.” In Afghanistan, USAID has just awarded the Black & Veatch Corporation “a no-bid contract worth $266 million… to pump more power into Kandahar and Helmand provinces.” Meanwhile the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is investing $227 million in diesel-generator power plants and electrical-system upgrades for southern Afghanistan. Finally feeling a little safer?

Oh, and in case you think that these reconstruction projects are actually making Afghans feel safer, many of them are ill-built, visible boondoggles, and already crumbling. The cost of 15 large-scale reconstruction programs in Afghanistan studied by McClatchy News ballooned from slightly more than one billion dollars to just under three billion dollars “despite the government’s questions about effectiveness or cost.” A previous Black & Veatch project to build a diesel-fueled power plant in Kabul for $100 million, for instance, ended up costing $300 million and was a year behind schedule. Schools have reportedly been constructed so shoddily that they would have no hope of withstanding an earthquake and, according to the Washington Post, “roads, canals, and schools built… as part of a special U.S. military program are crumbling under Afghan stewardship.” Does anyone feel safer?

Think about this and then consider what TomDispatch regular Ira Chernus calls America’s myth of national insecurity.
© 2011 TomDispatch.com

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute’s TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture: a History of the Cold War and Beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. His most recent book is The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books).

HOW THE POWER OF MYTH KEEPS US MIRED IN WAR:
WHY ARE WE STILL IN AFGHANISTAN?
by Ira Chernus

When I try to figure out why we are still in Afghanistan, though every ounce of logic says we ought to get out, an unexpected conversation I had last year haunts me. Doing neighborhood political canvassing, I knocked on the door of a cheerful man who was just about to tune in to his favorite radio show: Rush Limbaugh. He was kind enough to let me stay and we talked.

Conservatives are often the nicest people — that’s what I told him — the ones you’d like to have as neighbors. Then I said: I bet you’re always willing to help your neighbors when they need it. Absolutely, he replied.

So why, I asked, don’t you to want to help out people across town who have the same needs, even if they’re strangers? His answer came instantly: Because I know my neighbors work hard and do all they can to take care of themselves. I don’t know about those people across town.

He didn’t have to say more (though he did). I knew the rest of the story: Why should I give my hard-earned money to the government so they can hand it out to strangers who, for all I know, are good-for-nothing loafers and mooches? I want to be free to decide what to do with my dough and I’ll give it to responsible people who believe in taking care of themselves and their families, just like me. I’ll give my money to the government only to protect us from strangers in distant lands who don’t believe in the sacred rights of the individual and aim to take my freedom and money away.

What a story it is — a tale of mythic proportions! As an historian of religions, I was trained to appreciate, even marvel at the myths people tell to make sense out of the chaos of their lives. So I can’t help admiring the conservative myth: so simple yet all encompassing, offering clear and easy-to-grasp answers that cut through the everyday complexities besetting us all.

Of course, the answers are far too simplistic, as stupid (in my opinion) as they are dangerous. But I was also trained to be non-judgmental and to admire the power of a myth even when I find it morally abhorrent. And this one is impressive, with its classic good-guys-versus-bad-guys plot line turned into a stark political tale of freedom versus slavery.

White Americans, going back to early colonial times, generally assigned the role of “bad guys” to “savages” lurking in the wilderness beyond the borders of our civilized land. Whether they were redskins, commies, terrorists, or the Taliban, the plot has always remained the same.

Call it the myth of national security — or, more accurately, national insecurity, since it always tells us who and what to fear. It’s been a mighty (and mighty effective) myth exactly because it lays out with such clarity not just what Americans are against, but also what we are for, what we want to keep safe and secure: the freedom of the individual, especially the freedom to make and keep money.

The President Trapped in a Myth and a War

No politician who aspires to real influence on the national level can afford to reject that myth or even express real doubts about it, at least in public, as Barack Obama surely knows. Not surprisingly, President Obama has embraced the myth in his most important speeches: The bad guys are always out there. (“Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world.”) The good guys have no choice but to fight against the evildoers. (“Force may sometimes be necessary.”)

Because every myth has variants, though, politicians can still make choices. In Obama’s version of the myth, the federal government can be a force for good. So he has a domestic fight on his hands every day against right-wingers who cast the government as an agent of darkness.

He’s not likely to stand a chance of winning that battle if he tries to take on the myth of national security as well. Bill Clinton once put it all-too-accurately: “When people are insecure” — which is exactly when they rely most on their myths — “they’d rather have somebody [in the White House] who is strong and wrong than someone who’s weak and right.”

That’s a truth everyone in the room undoubtedly had in mind back in the fall of 2009 when the top military field commanders came to the White House to talk about Afghanistan. Where else, after all, could our military act out the drama of civilized America staving off the savages? And what better-cast candidates for the role of savages could there be than the Taliban and al-Qaeda?

The generals who run the war also had to confront another vital question: Could they still act out some contemporary version of the myth of good against evil? They’ve given up on the possibility of victory in Afghanistan. So there’s no real chance to go for the classic version of the myth in which the good guys totally vanquish the bad guys.

But since the Cold War era, the myth has demanded only that the good guys don’t lose — that they merely “contain” the evildoers who “hate our freedoms” (especially our freedom to make and keep money) and will swoop down to destroy us if we give them the chance.

These days the generals must sense that even the containment version of the myth is in trouble. Their predecessors failed to enact it in Vietnam, and though the judgment of history is still out on the Iraq War, it’s looking ever more dim, too. If the U.S. loses in Afghanistan, the American public might abandon the myth that justifies the military establishment and its gargantuan budget. As a result, the generals prefer to fight on eternally.

President Obama is trapped at this point. He risks losing both a war and a presidency. Yet if he tries to ease up on the war accelerator, he knows he’ll be pilloried by an alliance of military and right-wing forces as a “cut-and-run” weakling.

If he’s ever tempted to forget that domestic political reality, the mass media are always ready to remind him. Just glance at the 145,000 Google hits on “Obama wimp.” Even his liberal friends at the New York Times have asked in a prominent headline, “Is Obama a Wimp or a Warrior?”

Within the confines of the national insecurity myth, of course, those are the only two options. If pressure is ever going to develop to get U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, progressives will have to offer a new option that actually speaks to Americans.

To Myth or Not to Myth

And there’s the problem. Myths are like scientific theories. No mountain of facts and logic, however convincing, can change believers’ minds — until a more convincing myth comes along.

A handful of progressive political thinkers are trying to persuade the American left to understand this truth and start offering new political myths (their technical term is “framing narratives”). George Lakoff is probably the best known. His books are bestsellers. His articles on websites invariably go to the top of “most read” and “most emailed” lists. Yet he can’t seem to make much of a dent in the actual policies and practices he’d like to change.

Progressives still shower the public with facts and arguments that are hard to refute, as (in the case of the Afghan War) the American people know. After all, more than 60% of them now tell pollsters that the war was a “mistake.” Yet the war goes on and progressives remain the most marginal of players in the American political game because they don’t have a great myth to offer. In fact, they’ve hardly got any good ones.

Political scientist David Ricci claims there’s not much progressives can do about it, precisely because they already have one very successful myth that prevents them — oh, the irony! — from taking the power of myths seriously. The progressive heritage, as he tells it, goes back to the eighteenth century Enlightenment, when the radicals of the day decided that fact and logic were the source of all truth and the only path to peace and freedom.

The Bible and all the other ancient tales bind us to the past, they argued. As a result, humanity was letting dead people lock us into the injustices that bred endless war and suffering. It was time to let human reason open up a better future.

If progressives believe they are myth-less, though, they’re blind to the one mythic plot they share with the rest of America: good against evil. Progressives act out that myth on the political battlefield every day, passionately fighting to defeat right-wing evildoers.

The problem is (and forgive me for repeating an old anti-left cliché of the 1960s, but it’s true here): the progressives’ political myth tells only what they’re against, not what they’re for.

In fact, deep down, most progressives do have a dim sense of their deepest principles: the Enlightenment ideals of peace, freedom, and equality based on the Romantic ideal of what Lakoff calls empathy, extended to all humanity and the biosphere as well.

But progressives don’t wrap their policy prescriptions in mythic language that says clearly, simply, and patriotically what they’re for. As a result, they can’t compete with the myth of national insecurity. They’ve got nothing to offer in its place, which is at least one reason why, despite growing opposition to the Afghan War, they can’t build a strong enough constituency to help — or force — Obama to end it.

All they can do is demand that he sacrifice his domestic agenda, and — no small matter for any politician — his second-term chances, on the altar of principle. As a result, they end up in a political never-never-land, which might feel good but isn’t going to save a single Afghan life.

No individual, much less a committee, can sit down and create a new myth. Myths grow organically from the life of a community. Progressives would find their myth emerging spontaneously if they just spent a lot more time thinking and talking about their most basic worldview and values, the underlying premises that lead them to hold their political positions with such passion.

A strong progressive myth could make it safer for a president to change course and perhaps save his presidency. Failure to stave off the bad guys destroyed Lyndon Johnson and gravely wounded George W. Bush. I suspect Obama would love to have a great progressive myth keep him from a similar fate. He won’t create it, but he’d probably be delighted to see it appear on the horizon.
© 2011 Ira Chernus

Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Read more of his writing on Israel, Palestine, and American Jews at http://chernus.wordpress.com. Contact him at chernus@colorado.edu

Are you facing the prospect of entering the New Year with our country still at War in Afghanistan with dread? Are you concerned that our finances are being gutted by a war we not only can’t win, but should never have begun 9 years ago? Are you wondering how to express your anguish and disapproval? Here’s one forum to consider. On New Year’s Day people around the world are being asked to phone, skype, twitter, e-mail, FACEBOO one of the numbers listed below to say no to endess war. This is being supported by a group called AFGHAN YOUTH VOICES FOR PEACE and the phone calls, twitters, skype calls, etc… will go to the people of Afghanistan and as the article states so clearly: “You can let Afghan people know that their lives matter as much as yours. Assure them that the U.S. government’s war is unacceptable to you and that you are working to end it.” I hope this can happen for you…

DEAR AFGHANISTAN: A NEW YEAR’S CALL FOR PEACE
by Afghan Youth Voices of Peace

While the US may be the world’s single super power in military terms, it faces another super power: the voices of war-weary millions who detest violence and killing. In Afghanistan, in the United States, and among the populations of countries whose governments have joined the NATO coalition, millions of people are calling for an end to war in Afghanistan.

On New Year’s Day, 01/01/11, people around the world are invited to raise their voices, through Facebook, Twitter, Free Conference calls, Skype, and blogs at several websites in a massive refusal to accept this war any longer. Let your New Year’s resolution be to stand for the people and end wars by sending a digital or spoken peacemaking message to people in Afghanistan. By amassing millions of messages calling for peace, we can create yet another indication that ordinary people within and beyond Afghanistan have had enough of war.

Afghanistan’s people need food not bombs, health care not warfare and courage for peace, not war. In the words of Abdulai, an Afghan teenager whose father was killed by the Taliban, the “Dear Afghanistan” campaign offers an alternative to the Obama administration’s most recent review of the war. Abdulai’s experiences of impoverishment, bereavement, and discrimination highlight realities that Afghans face every day. The U.S. government’s December review paid no attention to these conditions.

You can let Afghan people know that their lives matter as much as yours. Assure them that the U.S. government’s war is unacceptable to you and that you are working to end it.

We can catch courage from one another, sparking a New Year’s momentum to put an end to war.

Follow the steps below to communicate the simple yet crucial demand: Stop the Killing in Afghanistan.

On New Year’s Day 2011, from 7.05 pm Eastern Standard Time on the 31st of December 2010 to 7.05 pm Eastern Standard Time on the 1st of January 2011, from wherever in the world, you can:

Call from your Mobile or Home phone by dialing (661) 673-8600 & access code: 295191#. Please arrange to talk by sending an email to CallAfghanistan@gmail.com
SKYPE: Please arrange to call Afghanistan by sending your Skype ID in an email to CallAfghanistan@gmail.com
Send an email message to DearAfghanistan@gmail.com
Text or sms by mobile at +93 7791 84146 or +1 727-248-0308 (001-727-248-0308 if text messaging from outside U.S.)
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A note on timings for the NEW YEAR CALL:

Place Time Date
London 12.05 am to 12.05 am 1st Jan to 2nd Jan
EST 7.05 pm to 7.05 pm 31st Dec to 1st Jan
Pacific Std 4.05 pm to 4.05 pm 31st Dec to 1st Jan
Jordan 2.05 am to 2.05 am 1st Jan to 2nd Jan
Afghanistan 4.35am to 4.35 am 1st Jan to 2nd Jan

I want to take this opportunity to not only raise the issue of where the money could come from that is so desperately needed by states and local governments, by entitlement programs, by too many other places to mention, but to also thank my cousin, Elliot, for bringing the following article to my attention. I also want to thank Elliot for staying engaged with me in dialogue about our country – its priorities, its wars, its economic woes – despite our not always seeing eye to eye. Our latest divergence involved how we see and understand wikileaks and we definitely have staked out different positions, but on the same day that Elliot gave me his views on Assange and what he’s done, he sent me this article by Nick Kristof, who has been cited on several occasions on this blog, all about how we could start cutting the defense budget to both save numerous other programs and departments as well as reaping a peace dividend by presenting a different face to the world than that of our military might. In addition, Elliot had no way of knowing that I would also be posting today, in a separate post to avoid having the two messages get obscured by one another, a story about the New Year’s Day telephone calling event to let governments around the world know that there are millions of people opposed to the endless War in Afghanistan. So stay tuned after you read this one because another is on its way.

In the meantime here are Kristof’s facts, figures and ideas about how to change our world:

THE BIG (MILITARY) TABOO
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

We face wrenching budget cutting in the years ahead, but there’s one huge area of government spending that Democrats and Republicans alike have so far treated as sacrosanct.

It’s the military/security world, and it’s time to bust that taboo. A few facts:

• The United States spends nearly as much on military power as every other country in the world combined, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. It says that we spend more than six times as much as the country with the next highest budget, China.

• The United States maintains troops at more than 560 bases and other sites abroad, many of them a legacy of a world war that ended 65 years ago. Do we fear that if we pull our bases from Germany, Russia might invade?

• The intelligence community is so vast that more people have “top secret” clearance than live in Washington, D.C.

• The U.S. will spend more on the war in Afghanistan this year, adjusting for inflation, than we spent on the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War combined.

This is the one area where elections scarcely matter. President Obama, a Democrat who symbolized new directions, requested about 6 percent more for the military this year than at the peak of the Bush administration.

“Republicans think banging the war drums wins them votes, and Democrats think if they don’t chime in, they’ll lose votes,” said Andrew Bacevich, an ex-military officer who now is a historian at Boston University. He is author of a thoughtful recent book, “Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War.”

The costs of excessive reliance on military force are not just financial, of course, as Professor Bacevich knows well. His son, Andrew Jr., an Army first lieutenant, was killed in Iraq in 2007.

Let me be clear: I’m a believer in a robust military, which is essential for backing up diplomacy. But the implication is that we need a balanced tool chest of diplomatic and military tools alike. Instead, we have a billionaire military and a pauper diplomacy. The U.S. military now has more people in its marching bands than the State Department has in its foreign service — and that’s preposterous.

What’s more, if you’re carrying an armload of hammers, every problem looks like a nail. The truth is that military power often isn’t very effective at solving modern problems, like a nuclear North Korea or an Iran that is on the nuclear path. Indeed, in an age of nationalism, our military force is often counterproductive.

After the first Gulf War, the United States retained bases in Saudi Arabia on the assumption that they would enhance American security. Instead, they appear to have provoked fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden into attacking the U.S. In other words, hugely expensive bases undermined American security (and we later closed them anyway). Wouldn’t our money have been better spent helping American kids get a college education?

Paradoxically, it’s often people with experience in the military who lead the way in warning against overinvestment in arms. It was President Dwight Eisenhower who gave the strongest warning: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” And in the Obama administration, it is Defense Secretary Robert Gates who has argued that military spending on things large and small can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny; it is Secretary Gates who has argued most eloquently for more investment in diplomacy and development aid.

American troops in Afghanistan are among the strongest advocates of investing more in schools there because they see firsthand that education fights extremism far more effectively than bombs. And here’s the trade-off: For the cost of one American soldier in Afghanistan for one year, you could build about 20 schools.

There are a few signs of hope in the air. The Simpson-Bowles deficit commission proposes cutting money for armaments, along with other spending. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled a signature project, the quadrennial diplomacy and development review, which calls for more emphasis on aid and diplomacy in foreign policy.

“Leading through civilian power saves lives and money,” Mrs. Clinton noted, and she’s exactly right. The review is a great document, but we’ll see if it can be implemented — especially because House Republicans are proposing cuts in the State Department budget.

They should remind themselves that in the 21st century, our government can protect its citizens in many ways: financing research against disease, providing early childhood programs that reduce crime later, boosting support for community colleges, investing in diplomacy that prevents costly wars.

As we cut budgets, let’s remember that these steps would, on balance, do far more for the security of Americans than a military base in Germany.

I have been trying to work out for myself how to feel about the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. On the one hand it is definitely a step towards equal rights for gay, lesbian and bisexual people. Assuming the fight for such basic rights is on a continuum as it has often been for other historically oppressed groups in this country, and abroad for that matter, then this is a victory of some significance, which will also hopefully get us closer to being the egalitarian society our founding documents way too prematurely proclaimed us to be. But there is that “other hand” and from the outset this “victory” felt somehow less satisfying than it might be were our country not engaged in a disastrous war in Afghanistan and the on-going occupation of Iraq. Why should we be celebrating the possibility that more people could now serve openly yet still be part of a military that was helping to occupy 2 sovereign nations many of whose people we are doing irreparable harm. So, lo and behold, while browsing www.commondreams.org two days ago I came upon the following article by the founder of CODEPINK, Medea Benjamin. She finds a way to hold both of these conflicting notions in her mind at the same time and comes up with a response that is measured, sincere and pragmatic. See what she has to say to affirm and support the repeal while asking for something more, something that links up the struggles for social justice and peace. As always I would greatly appreciate any responses this triggers in/for you.

TO THE LGBT COMMUNITY: NOW THAT YOU CAN JOIN THE MILITARY, PLEASE DON’T!
Medea Benjamin

The peace group I co-founded, CODEPINK, has not only been protesting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the drone attacks in Pakistan, but we have been going to military recruiting stations, high schools and career fairs throughout the country encouraging our youth not to join the military. We talk to young people about the illegality of the wars under international law since we were not attacked by either Iraq or Afghanistan. We talk about how killing and maiming innocent civilians is morally wrong and creates new enemies, perpetuating the cycle of violence. We explain that the majority of Afghans and Iraqis want us out of their country and that these wars are not making us safer. We insist that our military should be used to defend us at home, not to invade other people’s lands.

We know that the military is one of the only ways many young people can afford a college education these days and that the financial crisis severely limits this generation’s career options. But we still encourage young men and women to look for other opportunities that don’t involved killing or being killed in wars we shouldn’t be fighting.

It might seem contradictory, then, that CODEPINK was an enthusiastic supporter of the rights for gays and lesbians to join and serve openly in the military. But within our organization, it was never even controversial — we stand up for the rights of all human beings. The decision to join the military or not should be determined by individual choice, not institutional discrimination.

We pressured our Congressional reps and attended every hearing with signs calling for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. We joined protests at the White House and rallies in Congressional districts. And we were in the Senate on Saturday when the historic vote passed, hugging and kissing our friends who had struggled so hard for this victory.

We understand that allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to openly serve in the military is a crack in the armor of bigotry that will eventually open the way for LGBT people to marry and be guaranteed equality in the workplace. We understand this victory in the larger context of the march toward full human rights for this oppressed community. And who knows? Perhaps this victory will also serve to strengthen the military’s respect for human rights abroad.

We also understand the potential for a powerful alliance between the LGBT and anti-war communities. We can work together to help young people — gay and straight — find careers that won’t kill them, maim them, destroy them psychologically, or cause them to do harm to others. We can jointly reach out to those already in the military to speak out against the violations of the rights of peoples whose land we occupy. We can ask LGBT veterans to join groups like Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War. And we can work together to turn our military from an aggressive force to one that truly defends us here at home.

As we struggle to find a more civilized way to treat each other in this world, let us recognize the commonalities in the fight for LGBT rights and the fight to end war.

Medea Benjamin is co-founder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange.

I read the following article when I got home from a pleasurable day with my 20 6th graders. It is about a planned action against the wars our country is waging in our names to take place on Dec. 16th in front of the White House. It is certainly not going to change policy or end the wars any sooner, but it is something. When I get to school tomorrow I will share it with my class and I will let them know that there are people who are willing to get arrested in order to speak out against what is happening in Afghanistan. They need to feel hopeful that we are not engaged in “permanent war” since they are going to be inheriting this country and this planet in whatever shape we’ve left it when our generation finally is gone. I appreciate the fact that there are those among us who will not sit still when horrible deeds are being committed by unwitting soldiers who have been brainwashed to believe that what they are doing truly makes us safer, brainwashed into thinking that it is O.K. to take the lives of civilians, and brainwashed into acting without examining their consciences. The men and women who have planned the action you will now read about are committed to trying what is at their disposal, a quiet, non-violent protest, in order to have their own consciences rest slightly more easily and to have hope. I respect them for that and hope their actions can inspire us. I very much appreciated Hedges adding the words of Auden to his piece…

HOPE, REAL HOPE, IS ABOUT DOING SOMETHING
Published on Monday, November 29, 2010 by TruthDig.com
by Chris Hedges

On Dec. 16 I will join Daniel Ellsberg, Medea Benjamin, Ray McGovern and several military veteran activists outside the White House to protest the futile and endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of us will, after our rally in Lafayette Park, attempt to chain ourselves to the fence outside the White House. It is a pretty good bet we will all spend a night in jail. Hope, from now on, will look like this.

Hope is not trusting in the ultimate goodness of Barack Obama, who, like Herod of old, sold out his people. It is not having a positive attitude or pretending that happy thoughts and false optimism will make the world better. Hope is not about chanting packaged campaign slogans or trusting in the better nature of the Democratic Party. Hope does not mean that our protests will suddenly awaken the dead consciences, the atrophied souls, of the plutocrats running Halliburton, Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil or the government.

Hope does not mean we will halt the firing in Afghanistan of the next Hellfire missile, whose explosive blast sucks the oxygen out of the air and leaves the dead, including children, scattered like limp rag dolls on the ground. Hope does not mean we will reform Wall Street swindlers and speculators, or halt the pillaging of our economy as we print $600 billion in new money with the desperation of all collapsing states. Hope does not mean that the nation’s ministers and rabbis, who know the words of the great Hebrew prophets, will leave their houses of worship to practice the religious beliefs they preach. Most clerics like fine, abstract words about justice and full collection plates, but know little of real hope.

Hope knows that unless we physically defy government control we are complicit in the violence of the state. All who resist keep hope alive. All who succumb to fear, despair and apathy become enemies of hope. They become, in their passivity, agents of injustice. If the enemies of hope are finally victorious, the poison of violence will become not only the language of power but the language of opposition. And those who resist with nonviolence are in times like these the thin line of defense between a civil society and its disintegration.

Hope has a cost. Hope is not comfortable or easy. Hope requires personal risk. Hope does not come with the right attitude. Hope is not about peace of mind. Hope is an action. Hope is doing something. The more futile, the more useless, the more irrelevant and incomprehensible an act of rebellion is, the vaster and the more potent hope becomes. Hope never makes sense. Hope is weak, unorganized and absurd. Hope, which is always nonviolent, exposes in its powerlessness the lies, fraud and coercion employed by the state. Hope does not believe in force. Hope knows that an injustice visited on our neighbor is an injustice visited on us all. Hope posits that people are drawn to the good by the good. This is the secret of hope’s power and it is why it can never finally be defeated. Hope demands for others what we demand for ourselves. Hope does not separate us from them. Hope sees in our enemy our own face.

Hope is not for the practical and the sophisticated, the cynics and the complacent, the defeated and the fearful. Hope is what the corporate state, which saturates our airwaves with lies, seeks to obliterate. Hope is what our corporate overlords are determined to crush. Be afraid, they tell us. Surrender your liberties to us so we can make the world safe from terror. Don’t resist. Embrace the alienation of our cheerful conformity. Buy our products. Without them you are worthless. Become our brands. Do not look up from your electronic hallucinations to think. No. Above all do not think. Obey.

W.H. Auden wrote:

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The powerful do not understand hope. Hope is not part of their vocabulary. They speak in the cold, dead words of national security, global markets, electoral strategy, staying on message, image and money. The powerful protect their own. They divide the world into the damned and the blessed, the patriots and the enemy, the rich and the poor. They insist that extinguishing lives in foreign wars or in our prison complexes is a form of human progress. They cannot see that the suffering of a child in Gaza or a child in the blighted pockets of Washington, D.C., diminishes and impoverishes us all. They are deaf, dumb and blind to hope. Those addicted to power, blinded by self-exaltation, cannot decipher the words of hope any more than most of us can decipher hieroglyphics. Hope to Wall Street bankers and politicians, to the masters of war and commerce, is not practical. It is gibberish. It means nothing.

I cannot promise you fine weather or an easy time. I cannot assure you that thousands will converge on Lafayette Park in solidarity. I cannot pretend that being handcuffed is pleasant. I cannot say that anyone in Congress or the White House, anyone in the boardrooms of the corporations that cannibalize our nation, will be moved by pity to act for the common good. I cannot tell you these wars will end or the hungry will be fed. I cannot say that justice will roll down like a mighty wave and restore our nation to sanity. But I can say this: If we resist and carry out acts, no matter how small, of open defiance, hope will not be extinguished. If all we accomplish is to assure a grieving mother in Baghdad or Afghanistan, a young man or woman crippled physically and emotionally by the hammer blows of war, that he or she is not alone, our resistance will be successful. Hope cannot be sustained if it cannot be seen.

Any act of rebellion, any physical defiance of those who make war, of those who perpetuate corporate greed and are responsible for state crimes, anything that seeks to draw the good to the good, nourishes our souls and holds out the possibility that we can touch and transform the souls of others. Hope affirms that which we must affirm. And every act that imparts hope is a victory in itself.

Also from Auden:

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

© 2010 TruthDig.com

Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. His most recent book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

The following article begins with the words of Sen. William Fullbright about the effects of the Vietnam War on our society as well as the prospects for bringing peace, stability and democracy to that war-torn country. It is a most suitable introduction to the new book by former Army colonel, Andrew Bacevich, “Washington Rules: America’s Path To Permanent War”, since it frighteningly foreshadows precisely where we find ourselves today, 44 years later. We’ve been in Afghanistan for 9 years now and what can safely be said is that there is no end in sight and in order to exit that tragic country, we will have to recognize that we are not only being unable to achieve any of our supposed goals, but the price for waging permanent war will continue to be taking our country to and over the brink of domestic disaster. Bacevich develops this premise convincingly, if you needed any additional convincing. Here’s one of his strong positions: The rules say that the U.S. should act as a global policeman. “Fixing Iraq or Afghanistan ends up taking precedence over fixing Cleveland or Detroit.” He goes on to say, “The U.S. should stop deploying a “global occupation force” and focus on nation-building at home.”

With no draft and no seemingly compelling force getting us out into the streets, the best we seem to be able to muster is what I read this morning about a small town in Kansas: “Starting before the cold dawn, thousands of well-bundled adults and students (with parental permission) lined the streets for the funeral of a 20-year-old killed in Afghanistan – thus pointedly keeping from shouting distance Fred Phelps’ hateful Westboro clan (Phelps says God is allowing soldiers to die in Iraq and Afghanistan because the military permits gays and lesbians to serve). Phelps’ seven relatives ranted their rant, but they were almost a half mile away, and nobody heard.” Yes, that is something. It shows that people can rally their energies to combat hate and ignorance. But it reminds me of the story of the upstream vs. downstream rescuer. The downstream rescuer witnesses person after person going past him or her on the verge of drowning and jumps in each time to rescue the victim. The actions are estimable and heroic and the story was originally told to me as a metaphor for the world of social work. The upstream rescuer watches what’s happening and announces, “I’m going upstream to find out who’s pushing them in!” We need to rescue our soldiers before they are sent to fight in this “permanent war”, not once they’ve been wounded mentally and/or physically, not after they’ve been sent back for repeated tours on prosac, not by trying to bolster the V.A. system to respond appropriately to PTSD and brain injuries. Yes, we have to require our government to help those who’ve been this country’s cannon fodder once they’ve fallen, but we have to find a way to stop this war machine. We need to be able to spend Thanksgiving being thankful that our country is no longer making it impossible for the citizens of other countries to feel thankful. See what you make of Bacevich’s work and may this day bring you some peace and the pleasure of the company of friends and or family…

IS AMERICA ON THE PATH TO ‘PERMANENT WAR’?

By John Blake, CNN

CNN — When the president decided to send more troops to a distant country during an unpopular war, one powerful senator had enough.

He warned that the U.S. military could not create stability in a country “where there is chaos … democracy where there is no tradition of it, and honest government where corruption is almost a way of life.”

“It’s unnatural and unhealthy for a nation to be engaged in global crusades for some principle or idea while neglecting the needs of its own people,” said Sen. J. William Fulbright, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in 1966 as the Vietnam War escalated.

Fulbright’s warning is being applied by some to Afghanistan today. The U.S. is still fighting dubious wars abroad while ignoring needs at home, says Andrew J. Bacevich, who tells Fulbright’s story in his new book, “Washington Rules: America’s Path To Permanent War.”

As the Afghanistan war enters its ninth year, Bacevich and other commentators are asking: When does it end? They say the nation’s national security leaders have put the U.S. on an unsustainable path to perpetual war and that President Obama is doing little to stop them.

Bacevich has become a leading voice among anti-war critics. He is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army, a former West Point instructor and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

He’s also a Boston University international relations professor who offers a historical perspective with his criticism. He says Obama has been ensnared by the “Washington Rules,” a set of assumptions that have guided presidents since Harry Truman.

The rules say that the U.S. should act as a global policeman. “Fixing Iraq or Afghanistan ends up taking precedence over fixing Cleveland or Detroit,” Bacevich writes.

His solution: The U.S. should stop deploying a “global occupation force” and focus on nation-building at home.

“The job is too big,” he says of the U.S. global military presence. “We don’t have enough money. We don’t have enough troops. There’s a growing recognition that the amount of red ink we’re spilling is unsustainable.”

Thomas Cushman, author of “A Matter of Principle: Humanitarian Argument for War in Iraq,” says Bacevich is mimicking isolationists who argued before World War II that the U.S. couldn’t afford to get involved in other country’s affairs.

“No one wants a permanent war, and nobody would argue that our resources could be better spent at home,” Cushman says. “But the people we’re fighting against have already declared permanent war against us.”

Does Obama buy into the “Washington Rules”?

The questions about the Afghanistan War come at a pivotal moment. The Obama administration plans to review its Afghanistan strategy next month.

The president had pledged to start withdrawing some U.S. troops next July. Obama and NATO allies in Afghanistan recently announced that combat operations will now last until 2014.

Those dates matter little to Bacevich.

“Obama will not make a dent in the American penchant for permanent war,” he says. “After he made the 2009 decision to escalate and prolong the war, it indicated quite clearly that he was either unwilling or unable to attempt a large-scale change.”

Bacevich says the notion that the U.S. military has to stay in Afghanistan to deny al Qaeda a sanctuary doesn’t “pass the laugh test.”

“If you could assure me that staying in Afghanistan as long as it takes will deny al Qaeda a sanctuary anywhere in the world, then it might be worth our interests,” he says. “Pakistan can provide a sanctuary. Yemen can provide a sanctuary. Hamburg [Germany] can provide a sanctuary. ”

John Cioffi, a political science professor at University of California, Riverside, says the nation’s “increasingly unhinged ideological politics” makes it difficult for the country to extract itself from battles in Afghanistan, Iraq and Central Asia.

“The U.S. is not on the path to permanent war; it is in the midst of a permanent war,” Cioffi says.

Permanent war is made possible by massive defense spending that has been viewed as untouchable. But that may change with the recent financial crisis and the decline of the nation’s industry, Cioffi says.

More ordinary Americans might conclude that they can’t have a vibrant domestic economy and unquestioned military spending, Cioffi says.

“All this points to a time in the future when the government will no longer have the resources or popular support to maintain what amounts to an imperial military presence around the world,” he says.

Yet leaders in the nation’s largest political parties may still ignore popular will, says Michael Boyle, a political science professor at La Salle University in Pennsylvania.

“While the public tends to be much more concerned with domestic issues, both the Democratic and Republican foreign policy establishments tend to be more internationalist and outward-looking,” Boyle says. “This makes them far more willing to conclude that nation-building missions in Afghanistan are essential to national security.”

Birth of the ‘Washington Rules’

The debate over permanent war may sound academic, but it’s also personal for Bacevich.

His son, a U.S. Army officer, was killed in Iraq, a war he opposes. And Bacevich has written several other books on the limits of American military power, including “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.”

Bacevich says the Washington Rules emerged when America was exceptional — right after World War II when a newly empowered U.S. deployed a global military presence to contain communism and spread democracy.

Communism’s threat has disappeared, but U.S. leaders continue to identify existential threats to justify the nation’s global military empire, Bacevich says.

The cost of that military empire is immense: The U.S. now spends $700 billion annually on its military, as much money as the defense budgets of rest of the world combined, he says.

Bacevich says the Founding Fathers would be aghast. They thought that “self-mastery should take precedence over mastering others.”

“It’s not that the Founding Fathers were isolationists or oblivious to the world beyond our shores,” Bacevich says. “Their reading of history led them to believe that empire was incompatible with republican forms of government and a large standing army posed a threat to liberty.”

What Bacevich’s critics say

William C. Martel, author of “Victory in War,” says the U.S. didn’t build a global military presence after World War II out of hubris but because of necessity. Much of the world had been destroyed in 1945.

“We had no option but to be engaged as a global leader,” he says. “If we did not stand up to totalitarianism, the world would have been a much worse place.”

Martel, an associate professor of international security studies at The Fletcher School at Tufts University in Massachusetts, says the U.S. must have a global military presence to confront radical groups that seek weapons of mass destruction.

The U.S. military may fight in Afghanistan “for years.” But it’s also been in Germany and Japan for decades, Martel says.

“We have a $14 trillion a year economy,” Martel says. “We’re spending roughly 4 percent of our GDP on defense. That’s historically where we’ve been for decades. I don’t see that as unaffordable.”

Permanent war can, perversely, boost the nation’s economy, says Jerald Podair, a history professor at Lawrence University in Wisconsin.

After World War II, most observers predicted a return to the Depression, Podair says. But Cold War military spending drove the nation’s economy to its longest period of sustained economic expansion in history.

Transferring military money to domestic needs will not stimulate the American economy the same way war spending will, Podair says.

“It is sad to say that ‘war is the health of the state,’ but during the last 70 years, that has generally proved to be true,” Podair says. “Unfortunately, the United States may have to ‘fight’ its way out of recession, just as it did during World War II and the Cold War.”

Obama, though, might fight his way to a presidential defeat in the 2012 election if he doesn’t find a way to pull the U.S. off the path to permanent war, Bacevich says.

If Obama is still waging war in Afghanistan in 2012, he’ll be in trouble, he says.

“That’s going to pose difficulty for him in running for re-election because many of the people who voted for him in 2008 did so because they were convinced that he was going to bring about change in Washington,” Bacevich says. “But the perpetuation of war wouldn’t amount to change.”

Could this be the only solution left for those suffering from the mental anguish that comes from participating in war? Jeff Hanks, whose story follows, chose to go AWOL to avoid returning to Afghanistan for yet another tour of duty. He is “just trying to get help” and it’s not been available. In fact, as the article below reveals, Mr. Hanks chose to go AWOL because the help he was trying to get was interrupted by the military. In its desperation to have more cannon fodder available to wage war and maintain occupations, it is pushing past the struggles of the casualties of those very wars and forcing soldiers to re-deploy numerous times regardless of their mental health. This is absolutely unconscionable, yet it is occurring with increasing frequency and with our acquiescence. The reason for this post, which follows a recent post about the efforts of the Iraq Veterans Against the War in their Project Recovery to get the help so many soldiers so desperately need, is so there is a reality check. We are increasingly using men and women who have been severely traumatized by witnessing and participating in killing others to wage war despite their condition. This is unacceptable and we need to let our government know.

Published on Monday, November 8, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
AWOL Soldier Refusing Deployment Because of Severe PTSD
by CommonDreams.org

by Sarah Lazare

“I am just trying to get help,” insisted Jeff Hanks, active duty US Army infantryman, who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “My goal in this situation is to simply heal. And they wonder why there are so many suicides.” Jeff spoke rapidly over the phone from Virginia, where he, his wife and his two young daughters are staying while he is AWOL from the military. Days earlier, Jeff had walked out of an airport, refusing to board a plane headed for Kuwait, which was to be his first stop on his way back to Afghanistan.

During his mid-September leave from his second combat tour with the 101st Airborne Division, Jeff sought help from Fort Bragg and Fort Campbell military doctors for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and physical wounds sustained in battle. Yet, just as his treatment was getting started, his command interfered, insisting that his military health care providers grant him clearance for immediate deployment. His providers acquiesced, even though they had not completed preliminary testing.

Jeff, who has trouble being in large crowds of people and difficulty controlling his anger, says he is in no state to deploy back to the war from which he is still struggling to heal. The 30 year-old soldier decided that his only choice was to go AWOL. Jeff plans to turn himself into his command at Fort Campbell on Veterans Day, November 11. He will be accompanied by supporters, including members of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

As the war in Afghanistan stretches into its tenth year, now the longest war in US history, Jeff’s story has become all too familiar in a military that is overextended and exhausted, pushing soldiers beyond their mental and physical capacities in order to fill the ranks. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been marked by staggering rates of trauma and suicide. Between 20 percent and 50 percent of all service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered PTSD.[1] [1] Suicide rates among active duty service members are twice as high as that of the civilian population and veterans with PTSD are six times more likely to attempt suicide.[2] [2]

In response to these developments, Iraq Veterans Against the War have launched a campaign – Operation Recovery – calling for an end to the deployment of traumatized troops. This 2,000-strong organization, comprised of veterans and active duty troops who have served since September 11, 2001, insists that Jeff’s situation is not isolated, but rather, has become endemic to the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Many troops currently deployed to combat theater suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injury [TBI] and Military Sexual Trauma,” says Jason Hurd, a former soldier who served in Iraq and is active in the Operation Recovery Campaign. “We find this situation unacceptable and demand an end to these inhumane deployments.”

Mental and Physical Wounds

Jeff, who grew up in Beebe, Arkansas, deployed to Iraq in 2008, a tour that eventually earned him a Combat Infantry Badge. During his time in Iraq, Jeff saw “the most brutal things of any of his deployments,” he says. “It really bothered me. I think about it all the time.” Jeff’s Iraq deployment was marked by stressful combat patrols that kept him “always on edge.” In 2008, he was witness to the aftermath of a car bomb explosion in a crowded marketplace in Balad, Iraq. It resulted in what he describes as “mass casualties.” He saw one little girl, the age of his oldest daughter at the time, who had been gravely injured by the bomb, but still alive. “I can still see that little girl,” he says. “I dream about her to this day.”

Jeff says that he and others in his unit were not given adequate care for the mental wounds they sustained in battle, with mental health professionals only coming for short visits once a month. He describes his only experience seeing a therapist in Iraq: “It was a total joke,” he says. “The guy just sat there and wrote stuff down and nothing ever came of it.”

Jeff tells of one person in his unit who developed a severe drinking problem during his tour. “I know it stemmed from stuff he saw in Iraq,” says Jeff. The command never pursued mental counseling of any kind for him. They told us not to speak to him and they eventually just kicked him out. He probably didn’t get disability pay or anything.”

“When I came home from Iraq I changed a lot. I noticed I had a lot of anger problems and I couldn’t sleep,” says Jeff. Family and friends noticed as well, and Jeff’s coldness and distance began to eat away at his marriage, says his wife Christina. “When he came back from Iraq, he would look at me so cold. There was nothing in his eyes. That was the thing that bothered me the most. He was so unlike himself. The old Jeff used to joke around, he used to go out and socialize.” The couple separated and Christina was left alone to raise their two daughters.

Jeff says that, back at the Fort Campbell, Kentucky, base where he was stationed, suicide was a widespread problem among the 101st Airborne Division. “There were multiples suicide attempts on base in Kentucky. For a while, we were having people kill themselves every other day,” says Jeff.

After serving in Iraq, Jeff was deployed to Afghanistan May 3 of this year. “In Afghanistan, there is more of a constant threat than there is in Iraq,” says Jeff, describing a deployment defined by constant mortar attacks, unclear missions and low morale among US soldiers. “We had no clear mission and nothing got done. We basically just sat in a valley waiting to get hit,” he says. In one incident, five US soldiers were hit by a roadside bomb. “One died for sure and I don’t know about the rest,” says Jeff. “We had to sit on base and wait for them to be stabilized. We heard them screaming. It stuck with me. You can never get rid of that sound.”

Jeff says that, like Iraq, medical treatment in Afghanistan was scarce and inadequate. “Combat stress people hardly ever came to the base. And it is hard to talk in a situation like that, since you are still in the war and on edge all the time,” he says. On top of limited resources, people in Jeff’s unit were teased and belittled when they asked for mental or physical health care. One private, who was blown back into a building after a mortar attack, complained of headaches and nausea to his command. “He was made fun of by the command in front of everybody,” he says. “There is a saying in the military: What, you got sand in your vagina?” Jeff is certain that this dissuaded many who needed care from seeking it. “It keeps you from seeking help. I didn’t seek help. I wanted to, but I would be ostracized.”

Three weeks before going on leave from Afghanistan, a mortar went off near Jeff, blowing him up against a wall. He still suffers severe headaches from the incident.

Coming Home

When he went on leave from Afghanistan in mid-September, Jeff began to notice how profoundly he had been affected by his combat experience. He describes being seized with uncontrollable anger, having panic attacks at the slightest stimuli and being unable to relate to his family and loved ones.

Having reconciled with his wife Christina, he had been looking forward to spending time with her and the kids. “I had been so excited to see my family when I came home on leave,” he says. “But when I was actually around them, they were just completely overwhelming.”

“My daughters see how much Jeff has changed,” says Christina. My older one says that daddy is not as nice as he used to be. She says ‘I don’t like daddy anymore.’”

In one incident, when Jeff and Christina were shopping at Walmart, Jeff was temporarily left alone when his wife went browsing in a different aisle. “I freaked out. There were too many people around me. I couldn’t be left alone.” Christina says she returned to find Jeff frantically insisting that they leave immediately.

Jeff tells of being afraid to sleep in the same bed as his wife, concerned that he would attack her in his sleep.

One day, Hank was overwhelmed with anger when a police officer “copped an attitude” toward his dad who had asked the officer for directions to a baseball game. “It triggered something in me,” says Jeff. “I really wanted to hurt him.”

“His mother has called me many times in tears about this,” says Christina. “She knows her son and she knows he is different.”

Jeff became concerned about whether he was fit for his imminent deployment. “If you have trouble controlling your anger at home, what are you going to do when you are in a situation holding a loaded weapon?” he asks.

In the Raleigh, North Carolina, airport where he was to catch a plane to Kuwait, Jeff had a panic attack in response to a stranger loudly clapping his hands. “I freaked out and was just like I gotta go. I can’t do this,” he says. Jeff walked out of the airport and checked himself into the Fort Bragg Emergency Room, the nearest military hospital.

Jeff was told by Fort Bragg doctors that they could not diagnose anything beyond the airport panic attack, because he was based out of Fort Campbell. Jeff arranged to meet his Fort Campbell command, where he was listed as AWOL for failing to board his plane. At Fort Campbell, he was passed around to various social workers, who eventually scheduled him an appointment with a mental health care doctor for Monday morning, October 11, at the Fort Campbell Medical Center. However, the Thursday before the appointment was to take place, Jeff’s sergeant called him and said he needed to get immediate clearance to go back to Afghanistan that Friday, meaning he would never get to go to his scheduled appointment. Jeff later found out that his command called his doctors and order them to give him immediate clearance.

“I hadn’t even been seen by a professional doctor,” he says. “All I want is treatment. They were the ones who sent me over there. Now they won’t even give me help when I need it.” Jeff says he was determined to get help one way or another: “At that point, my only option was to leave.”

Jeff has since been diagnosed by two civilian psychiatric professionals as having severe PTSD. He is currently weighing his options for meeting his urgent mental health care needs.

A Widespread Problem

“The redeployment of traumatized troops is a horrible problem,” says Ethan McCord, a veteran whose unit was shown in the “Collateral Murder” video distributed by WikiLeaks. “I was denied treatment for the mental and physical wounds I sustained in battle, like so many others.”

“In multiple units across all branches we’re seeing commanders order service members to the battlefield who just aren’t serviceable, says Chantelle Bateman, a former Marine who served in Iraq. “Rather than repairing them, we are sacrificing their long term well-being, their immediate safety and that of the people they are serving with.”

As the wars drag on, veterans are demanding an end to the overextension and redeployment of wounded soldiers. On October 7, the ninth anniversary of the Afghanistan war, dozens of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans marched from Walter Reed Medical Center to Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, to announce Operation Recovery. A campaign statement reads: “While we recognize that we must stop the deployment of all soldiers in order to end the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, we see the deployment of soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injuries and Military Sexual Trauma as particularly cruel, inhumane and dangerous. Military commanders across all branches are pushing service members far past human limits for the sake of ‘combat readiness.’ We cannot allow those commanders to continue to ignore the welfare of their troops who are, after all, human beings.”

According to the Department of Defense (DoD), even if a military medical professional deems a service member unfit to deploy, a commanding officer can waive medical evaluation and order the service member into combat[3] [3]. While the DoD is not forthcoming about the rate at which this occurs, high rates of PTSD and multiple deployments suggest that cases like Jeff’s are common. Almost 30 percent of troops on their third deployment suffer severe mental health problems. By 2008, nearly 33 percent of troops had served two tours to Iraq or Afghanistan, while 10 percent had served three tours, trends that can only increase as the war in Afghanistan reaches its tenth year. Today over 11,000 troops have served six tours, with each tour greatly increasing a service member’s chances of developing mental health problems, including PTSD, TBI and combat stress, as well as military sexual trauma, caused by rape and sexual assault from within the ranks.[4] [4]

Top military brass acknowledges that suicides and violent crimes plague the military, with four combat veterans recently killing themselves [5] at Fort Hood, Texas, in one week, one of them a suspected murder-suicide still under investigation. “The emergency issue for me right now is the suicide issue,” said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking person in the US armed forces.

The recently exposed kill team in Afghanistan, in which US troops hunted, killed and mutilated Afghan civilians [6], collecting their body parts as trophies, involved at least one soldier who was on a cocktail of medications for TBI.

“They are sending troops right back into the situation that traumatized them before they have the time to heal,” says McCord. It’s ruining our youth in the military. Operation Recovery is trying to stop this.”

Jeff remains determined to get the mental and physical health care he needs and is working with the Operation Recovery team of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Courage to Resist to figure out how to meet his immediate health care needs. “Five to ten years from now, these people are not going to care about me. I don’t want to be a basket case. I don’t want to go to a school play of my kid’s and freak out in a big crowd,” he says. “I just want help and they want to send me back to war instead of helping me.”

Footnotes:

1. Seal, K. H., Bertenthal, D., Maguen, S., Gima, K., Chu, A., and Marmar, C. R. (2008). “Getting beyond ‘Don’t ask; don’t tell’: An evaluation of US Veterans Administration post-deployment mental health screening of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.” American Journal of Public Health, 98, 714-720. See also “Comparisons of PTSD rates” Journal of Traumatic Stress [7] – Volume 23, Issue 1, February 2010.

2. “Suicide and PTSD,” Department of Veterans Affairs [8]; Armen Keteyian “Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans,” CBS News [9], November 13 2007; and Mark Thompson “Invisible Wounds: Mental Health and the Military” CNN [10], August 22 2010.

3. DDI 1332.14(8)c Updated: March 29, 2010 [11].

4. The Alaska Army National Guard: A “Tremendous Shortfall [12],” a report of the Veterans For America National Guard Program, October 15, 2008 and Mark Thompson, “America’s Medicated Army” Time [13], June 5, 2008.

Sarah Lazare is an anti-militarist and GI resistance organiser with Dialogues Against Militarism [14] and Courage to Resist [15]. She is interested in connecting struggles for justice at home with global movements against war and empire.

I received the following letter and article from my dear friend, Geoff, and I want to share it immediately with anyone who visits this blog. The urgency factor couldn’t be higher, though it is beyond astonishing that the deployment of traumatized and wounded troops has occurred at all let alone that it continues. The realization that without these soldiers the U.S. war machine would very possibly grind to a halt adds to the urgency. The goal of 10,000 signatures by Veteran’s Day is a worthy one and one that I hope will move you to pledge your support…

Hi fellow peace activists,

In case you haven’t seen this–Here’s information about Operation Recovery, the new campaign to stop the deployment of troops with PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury, & Military Sexual Trauma. Without the deployment of traumatized troops, it would be difficult for the Pentagon to have enough GI’s to continue the two wars.

This campaign by Iraq Veterans Against the War, is aiming to have 10,000 signatures on this petition by Veterans Day.

Please read this, & if you agree, go to the website provided.

And please forward it to listserves & friends.

Geoff

Dear Geoff,

On October 7, the 9th anniversary of the Afghanistan invasion, Iraq Veterans Against the War will announce our first-ever strategic campaign, Operation Recovery: Stop the Deployment of Traumatized Troops. As a loyal supporter, we are letting you know about our plans before we make them public.

Join our campaign now by making a Pledge of Support at https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5966/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4159

Thousands of troops are being sent to war despite suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and Military Sexual Trauma (MST). Many of us within IVAW have faced or are currently facing deployment as we try to recover from the severe trauma we have already experienced.

While we recognize that we must stop the deployment of all soldiers in order to end the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, we see the deployment of soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injuries, and Military Sexual Trauma as particularly cruel, inhumane, and dangerous. Military commanders across all branches are pushing service members far past human limits for the sake of ‘combat readiness.’ We cannot allow those commanders to continue to ignore the welfare of their troops who are, after all, human beings.

Because you are a trusted supporter, we are asking you to make a commitment to help us end this systemic abuse of GIs’ right to heal, which only furthers the cycle of dehumanization and destruction of these wars.

Sign the Pledge today at https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5966/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4159

By signing this pledge of support, you can stand with us in solidarity and affirm:

Service members have the right to heal.
Because the military is desperate for warm bodies in the field, and the VA doesn’t have the resources to serve all those in need, too often service members are conveniently denied care or access to quality mental health screenings. We say, service members with PTSD, TBI, MST, and combat stress have the right to high quality health care. They have the right to seek care and pursue treatments in the best interest of their health and well-being.

Service members have the right to receive medical care and advice from medical professionals.
A commander’s orders always supersede the opinion of military medical professionals when it comes to the well-being of our troops. We say, no military authority shall override the advice of medical professionals regarding the health of service members.

Service members who experience PTSD, TBI, MST, and combat stress have the right to exit the traumatic situation and receive immediate support, and compensation.
Too often, service members are forced to redeploy back into dangerous combat, or train in situations that re-traumatize them. We say, individuals suffering from trauma have the right to remove themselves from the source of the trauma. Service members who are not physically or mentally healthy shall not be forced to deploy or continue service.

We will support service members standing up for their right to heal, and we will stand against those responsible for violating them.

Will you stand with us? Sign the Pledge today at https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5966/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4159

We know that without the repeated use of traumatized soldiers on the battlefield, the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan could not continue.

Those responsible for the deployment of traumatized soldiers will do everything they can to hide the truth, but through our Operation Recovery campaign, IVAW is prepared to make demands and back them up with collective action.

For the past nine months, we have been developing this campaign. In the coming weeks, we will let you know of specific ways to get involved.

Start today by signing the Pledge of Support. Go to: https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5966/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4159

We can’t do this without you.

Sincerely,

The Campaign Team

Iraq Veterans Against the War is a 501(c)(3) charity,
and welcomes your tax deductible contributions

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