Blog Archive » War and Peace

(AP Photo)

The sight of men in suits bedecked with brass buttons, epaulets with stars, and chests festooned with military ribbons is always a bit startling for us civilians, even in this town where uniforms are part of the passing governmental scene.    Even more startling is the transformation of President Barack Obama into a stern-faced commander-in-chief, flanked by General David Petraeus and Admiral Mike Mullen, asserting constitutionally-mandated civilian authority over the military officers in a moment when General Stanley McChrystal's careless words threatened to destabilize the established order.    President Obama acted swiftly to accept General McChrystal's resignation stemming from the Rolling Stone debacle.  General Petraeus will take charge of Afghanistan now, having managed to bring the War in Iraq to a place where American withdrawal is possible.

The War in Afghanistan is now America's longest war, almost nine years and counting.   Back in the day when Vietnam claimed that title, when that ugly war raged in the swamps and jungles of southeast Asia, Americans followed the war more closely, knew the names and faces of the generals and admirals (Westmoreland, Abrams and Zumwalt), and the daily death toll rang alarm bells that triggered protests across the nation.   Vietnam compelled the attention of regular citizens for one overwhelming reason:  the draft.  At age 18, every young man became a potential soldier, and the draft lottery became the dreaded "great mandala" determining who lived or died.   The draft ended in 1973, replaced by the all-volunteer Army.   Young men between the ages of 18 and 25 must still register in the Selective Service System, but no one has been drafted since 1973. Full Article

(photo credit)

If you think that only high school "mean girls" claw and hiss and shred the reputations of other kids they deem uncool, you need to read the current issue of Rolling Stone to get the full flavor of men in uniform dissing the Popular Guy, aka Commander-in-Chief.

Mean boys!  The "Runaway General" Stanley McChrystal mocks Vice President Biden, derides "wimps" in the White House, and thinks dinner at a good restaurant in Paris with a French minister is "(bleeping) gay" in the words of an aide.  The General prefers Bud Light Lime at the Parisian Irish tourist bar with his band 'o' buddies.  Say no more. Full Article

On this Memorial Day weekend, let's take a few minutes to remember the fundamental values that are the reasons why millions of American men and women sacrificed so much in military service for our nation.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness… " (Declaration of Independence, 1776)

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and their colleagues gathered in Philadelphia on that first 4th of July might were surely men of their historic moment — white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant males whose frames of reference were largely constrained by the cultural mores of the 18th Century colonies — and, yet, they articulated a social and political philosophy that transcended their times to inspire the human quest for freedom, equality and justice across the ages.    Their potent words laid the foundation for American soldiers to lay down their lives for freedom from Valley Forge to Gettysburg to Flanders Field to Omaha Beach to Iwo Jima to Khe Sanh to Baghdad and Kabul. Full Article

(Photo by John Filo, Pulitzer Prize)

Neil Young wrote the anthem:

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

We're finally on our wn.

This summer I hear the drumming,

Four dead in Ohio.

It was the death of innocence.  It was the flashpoint for radicalization of the young.  It was the chasm between generations.  It was the beginning of the end of the Woodstock generation's peace, love and tie-dye hedonism.  It was the moment when the act of protest devolved from collegiate cool to murderous madness.  It exposed the naivete of the ivory tower and the utter pointlessness of the morass in Vietnam.  It planted the seeds of the destruction of Richard Nixon's presidency.  It symbolized the ultimate crisis of the American Century, the war within the culture itself.

We called it, simply, Kent State. Full Article

In his speech in Oslo today accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama acknowledged the irony in his receipt of the prize when he is commander-in-chief of a nation waging two wars.  His speech offered a pragmatic defense of the need to wage war in order to win peace.   Among other things, he said:

"We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

"I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak — nothing passive — nothing naïve — in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

"But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

President Obama made such a good case for the need to wage war that conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin have praised him.

What do you think of his speech and the philosophy he explained?   Agree?  Disagree?  Please send me your comments by clicking on the "comments" link below.

More on the speech at the White House website

See:  Commentary in the Christian Science Monitor

See:  Commentary on Politico

Checkout "Elusive Success" in the "On Success" column on WashingtonPost.com

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