COMMENTARY: Has Anyone Noticed There's a War Going On?
By Joseph J. Honick
Sorry to disturb anyone, but did you notice there’s a war going on?
I know I heard about it on the TV news in between nasty political
campaign ads, but I sure could not figure out whether any of the
candidates cared.
So I thought I would take this way to remind people in the communications and mind-bending business that there is damned well a war going on! It really is killing and maiming lots of people. We are even finally discovering that we’ve partnered with nakedly corrupt national leaders who torture their own people. We’ve tolerated the reality that some of our alleged allies even take money from those we’ve branded as enemies. Just as bad, our military folks are ticked off because somebody has blown the whistle on this stuff.
How could all this war stuff go on without one single political campaign ad raising even modest hell about it?
One reason might be that this is the first war in a long time when we didn’t have a draft to command the attention of the whole nation that our sons and daughters might be yanked into the process to help fight it…maybe even get maimed or die.
It all started when the late President Richard Nixon responded to some criticism about an on-going draft by appointing Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force. In other words, “Hey, Buddy, got nothing to do? We can use you to do some tough war stuff, get some medals…maybe spend a lot of time getting hurt or worse.”
Most influential in getting the legislation passed and signed was the Libertarian Cato Institute in the person of an otherwise brilliant economist from New York’s University of Rochester named Dr Walter Y. Oi. He and his colleagues made the case that all that was needed were to raise the military pay and improve conditions. And that’s what they did….until they had to send hundreds of thousands into places like Iraq and Afghanistan and found it was necessary to deploy, redeploy and then do it all over again with the same people.
So, when New York Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel -- a Korean War veteran -- offered up The National Service Act of 2003, you can figure what he ran into, when he said “If our great nation is involved in an all out war, the sacrifice must be equally shared….we must return to the tradition of the citizen soldier.”
The persuasive arguments of Dr Oi persisted: “The draft is a poor way to provide an effective common defense. It discourages the adoption of military technologies that can reduce loss of life and improve effectiveness during military operations….”
Anyone today who accepts that logic must know how fragile it is and continues to be but also that those coming out of high school today know nothing about some kind of national commitment, military or otherwise.
So, back to the just ended and embarrassing political campaign in which our national dignity was severely diluted if not ruined. Sign right here if you saw major debates about what got us into the destructive conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and what would get us out. Check the box if you can show that those whom we have been defending with our trillions of dollars and masses of young men and women have even seen an obligation to repay us…worse indicate if you know we even asked for any bills to be paid.
And, still worst of all: amid this lousy political debacle, those wars have been virtually forgotten in the efforts for one party or another to prove the opponents are beneath contempt and just beyond satanic evil. The voter decisions, whatever they are, will be simply that, no matter how bad any candidate might be , he or she is now inducted into a position of trust.
Recently, in these pages, I asked for real American leaders to step forth, instead of the loud mouths seeking personal and political power. Not one of any significance from any of the contending parties has told us how he or she will end the bloody conflicts in which we are foolishly engaged and how we will rationalize how those involvements have enriched a category in society known as “defense contractors”.
More know today about an oil explosion in the Gulf, rescued miners in Chile and ratings of “Dancing With The Stars.”
Has anyone noticed there’s a war going on? A lot of forgotten sons and daughters, some whole, some not, some no longer here…and their families certainly know. How come our political power seekers don’t seem to know?
Some believe that, had there been an ongoing draft, these senseless wars would either not have occurred or would have ended. At the very least, every power seeker would have had to take note.
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Joseph J. Honick is an international consultant to business and government and writes for many publications, including huntingtonnews.net. Honick, who served for more than a decade as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, can be reached at joehonick@gmail.com