Americans overestimate the power and reach of their military

[eric144]

The ugly truth is that Americans overestimate the power and reach of their military, at great cost to America and the world

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=979

The U.S. military is not what it is cracked up to be. We are not the military power we think we are. And as an immature nation, an adolescent democracy that loves to preen itself in the radiance of exaggerated past battlefield glories, we have no sense of perspective or objectivity in assessing our real strengths and weaknesses. Those who offer objectivity are roundly denounced as un-American.

We enjoy talking about how we are the greatest military power on earth, when this greatness is a chauvinistic delusion. Our army is smaller than Pakistan’s. Without the use of nuclear weapons, we are constrained to employ battlefield engagement tactics when there is no battlefield. Like a spoiled child, we complain about the “unfairness” of urban warfare and casually explain away rampant collateral damage as simple mistakes. Despite all the high tech weapons and training, our recourse to winning the fight in a city like Fallujah is to destroy 300 buildings and shoot any mammal in sight.

Compounding this, we defame the veterans of Vietnam by lavishly praising today’s mercenaries and making it seem as if Vietnam was lost because of pot smoking rock and rollers who couldn’t take point or walk down the road when they were supposed to. Maybe draftees should have an asterisk put next to their names on the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington. Lastly, those who would have an American empire need to have a citizenry with an imperial spirit. We do not have that. We have a nation that puts yellow ribbons on SUVs, and moans and groans every time a single solider is sacrificed. The British had an imperial spirit. They were up to accepting carnage as the price for ascendancy.

The British lost almost as many men on the morning of the Battle of the Somme as the U.S. did in the whole of Korea. The British fought on in World War I accumulating over 900,000 souls for heaven or hell, with over 3 million casualties. Entire villages and towns in England were denuded of their manhood. The “cowardly” French suffered even more horrific numbers killed and wounded. We haven’t the stomach to engage an enemy the way they did, the way a real Empire did. Thank God. Thank God that, at base, Americans have no stomach for slaughter. It is a tragedy that good kids, serving their country, have to die or be maimed to pretend we do.

[eric144]

1. Americans have no stomach for slaughter

Sorry to answer my own message, but it just occurred to me that Americans have no problem slaughtering other races on an industrial scale. Vietnam and Basra (Gulf war I) spring to mind as examples.

Thnkfully as the author says, they don't like to lose their own children or die themselves. That's why the Pentagon doesn't want a draft.

Am I right in saying that some of the biggest protests (quite correctly) that led to the end of the Vietnam war came from those most directly affected (potential draftees) ?

[bemildred]

2. That mis-states the case a bit, witness the Civil War.

What is the case is that Americans tend to have no stomach for
dying in large numbers in feckless foreign adventures such as
Iraq, VietNam, and Korea, to name the most recent large boondoggles.
Nevertheless, there are far too many that like the jingo KoolAid,
and thus the error gets repeated, as it IS a very profitable sort of
"error" for some, and the making of many fine careers.

[NEOBuckeye]

3. The United States has long had sickening delusions about war.

Look up the Battle of Manassas, at the outset of the Civil War. People actually showed up with picnic baskets(!) to camp out for lunch on nearby hills, thinking it was going to be some kind of glorious parade! You know, a few shots fired here and there. Someone might get grazed by a bullet. The Union wins in the end, everyone shakes hands and goes back to business as usual. Even as bloody as that battle and the rest of the Civil War turned out to be, it unfortunately didn't seem to permanently vanquish America's bloodlust.

Even today, war is wonderful, so long as it's someone else's kid doing the fighting. As the sterotypical American non-thinking goes: It's all well and good for someone else or their poor son or daughter to get slaughtered, packaged, stored and forgotten in some warehouse, just so George Herbert Walker Bush, Dick Cheney and a bunch of other crusty old bastards can add 10 or 15 million more to their bank statements. Oh yeah, keep flyin' Ol' Glory and sticking it to those Arabs!

They died for our country, alright! Now let me gas up that brand-spankin new 9 MPG Hummer of mine!

:eyes:

[eric144]

4. War of independence

Is it possible that American glorification of war comes from the original war of independence in which 'patriots' fought a just war against imperial oppression ? It always seems to me that the USA is fighting for freedom and liberty no matter what the circumstances.

Freedom and liberty of course today translates to unfettered free market capitalism dominated by American owned multi national corporations .