National overview
Defamation of the US Army. . . Again
During the sixties and seventies, those who fought in Vietnam got used to the fact that many of our countrymen slandered us as at most victims of a government that sent the poor to wage a criminal war and, at worst, war criminals. ourselves, complicit in the routine devotion of atrocities. But the pendulum began to swing the other way in the 1980s and continued in the same direction through the Gulf War and 9/11 until soldiers against George W. Bush’s war in Iraq and Afghanistan were elevated to the status of “secular saints.” My fellow Vietnam veterans and I would no doubt have preferred such reverence to the cold reception we received after the war, but secular holiness has created its own problems – isolation from American society in general, unequal burden-sharing, and a belief in the moral superiority of those who serve versus those who do not – who threaten to undermine the bond between service members and veterans on the one hand and American society on the other. After all, healthy civilian and military relations depend on mutual trust between soldiers and the society they serve. Now the pendulum seems to be swinging back to the bad old days of slandering the military, as part of broader allegations that Donald Trump has normalized ‘white rule’ and other forms of right-wing extremism. The fact that on January 6 there were veterans among the rioters who entered the Capitol illegally is the persistent allegation that Trump appealed to extremist groups, and Trump’s popularity among the military forms the basis for the growing allegations that the army has become a friend of racism and extremism. Some have indeed even raised the spectacle of active service and troops of the national guard who are an ‘in danger’. Representative Steve Cohen (D., Tenn.), For example, told CNN that: The [National] I believe the man is 90 percent, male. Only about 20 percent of white men voted for Biden. You should see this in the Guard, which is predominantly more conservative, and I see it on my social media. . . they are probably no more than 25 percent of the people out there who protect us who voted for Biden. . . . The other 75 percent are in the class that is the large group of people who want to do something. And there were military people and police who took oaths to defend and protect the Constitution and defend what it did not do, who were in revolt. So it affects me. Cohen added that people referred on social media and reminded him of the assassination of then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. In response to a question about white supremacy during his CNN town hall on February 16, President Biden said: I will make sure my Department of Justice and the Civil Rights Department are strongly focused on those, and I will make sure we actually focus on how to deal with the rise of white supremacy. And you see what’s going on, the studies that are starting, maybe even at your university, about the impact of former military, former police officers, on the growth of white supremacy in some of these groups. Biden’s secretary of defense, retired Army general Lloyd Austin, has called for a ‘stand down’ to address the issue. ‘I really believe that 99.9 percent of our conscripts believe in it [their] oath. They believe, accept the values we are focused on, and they are doing the right thing, “Secretary Austin said on February 19.” I expect the numbers [of extremists in the ranks] to be small, but honestly, they would probably be a little bigger than most of us would guess. . . . But I just want to say that, in this case, small numbers can have an extraordinary impact. ‘But Kash Patel, the former chief of staff of acting secretary of defense Chris Miller, argued that the problem was overemphasized. “They themselves have acknowledged that the problem does not exist, to their knowledge, and that is because it does not exist,” Patel told Fox News: White supremacy is not great everywhere in the Department of Defense. It is outrageous and offensive to our men and women in uniform. . . . The Biden Pentagon deals with politics instead of logic and fact. . . . They told their own spokesman and their own secretary of defense that they did not know the problem and whether it existed. They do not have a name for it. They do not have a solution for that. But they’re going to label it anyway. There is indeed a “real problem”; it’s just not the one people talk about. Instead, political and military leaders have failed to define their terms. Racism versus Racial Prejudice Let me be clear: there have been serious racial incidents involving military servicemen in the past, and military leaders have been quick to deal with the perpetrators. But the idea that racism somehow occurs in the military is nonsense. The problem with this latest campaign is that most recent allegations of racism in the military summarize true racism and white supremacy on the one hand and racial prejudice on the other. The former has traditionally referred to membership of, or sympathy with, the KKK, neo-Nazis, skinheads, or other groups that preach violence. The U.S. military has long been vigilant about the possibility that extremist groups may use military training to advance their own goals. Background checks have always been part of the recruitment and recruitment processes. And the services were quick to separate individuals whose background tests made red flags. The latter is a manifestation of what both Plato and Aristotle called ‘own love’, a characteristic of human nature. The Greeks preferred their ways over those of the Persians. The Athenians preferred their own laws over those of the Spartans. All people prefer their own families and communities over those of others. Racial prejudice stems from generalizations about other racial groups, and is not unique to any group. It was my own experience that military service undermined such prejudices. As service members learn to work toward a common goal with others from different backgrounds, the service often teaches them to rise above their existing prejudices. It is also true that although the services reflect the racial attitude of Americans in general, they have done well to overcome racial problems. As the late military sociologist Charles Moskos noted a quarter of a century ago, the U.S. military is the only U.S. institution in which black men regularly instruct white men. The military is necessarily a meritocracy, which worries other institutions with the problem of prejudice. Extremism Although extremism and racism overlap in many cases, these are different phenomena. In the current debate, “extremism” does not seem to include the groups that caused chaos in America in the summer of 2020, committing riots, looting and arson. The media continued to portray these groups as ‘peaceful protesters’, and since peaceful protesters could not be extremists, the term was reserved for right-wing military groups and the like. But even if one limits the discussion to one side of the political corridor, where does one draw the line? Is the support for the second amendment or does it advocate for smaller and less intrusive government ‘extremist’? Is a service member or veteran who supports President Trump an extremist? Is it extremist to be skeptical about the search for ‘diversity’? Ironically, the military’s efforts to address an alleged lack of diversity in the ranks, like all identity politics, dare to divide people rather than unite them by suggesting that justice is a function of characteristics such as skin color. as individual character. In the military, where institutional efficiency depends on cohesion born of trust between and among service members, this is a serious problem. Undermining of trust The undermining of extremism and white supremacy in the military thus undermines trust on two levels: first, between the American people and the military as an institution; and secondly, between the military rankings on the one hand and their leaders on the other. Americans consider the military high, perhaps too high. But if civilians tend to put members of the military on a pedestal, it may imply that extremism and white supremacy are rampant in the military, but it can cause civil contempt for the military and lead to unfair condemnation. Needless to say, it does not bode well for sound civilian and military relations. As for the confidence within the power, what does the rich soldier think if both politicians and especially senior officers seem to suggest that supporting President Trump or traditionally conservative ideas like gun rights and smaller, less invasive government can make him or her? a threat to the country? What will be the consequences for morale and discipline if the ranks believe that senior leaders have sold them out by their apparent willingness to go along with such accusations? I am personally aware of increasing disillusionment with service members who feel betrayed by their senior leadership. Individuals join the military for various reasons, but a dominant one is a sense of patriotism, which is undermined when service members believe senior officers are willing to sacrifice themselves for modern political ideas. It is discouraging to note that no senior officer has come to my knowledge to expose this latest slander against the American soldier. Although real cases of extremism and white supremacy need to be identified and that offenders are separated from the service, the use of the service is a bad service, as has been the practice in the past. Both political leaders and senior officers owe it to the country in general and the military in particular to define extremism, identify real issues and provide data that confirms their assertion that a real problem does exist. To do otherwise is to make a contribution to those who lead according to them.