The Colonel
Colonel Larry Wilkerson has “street cred”. He flew combat helicopters in the Vietnam War, graduated from both the Ranger and Airborne Schools of the US Army, and earned degrees in international relations, national security, and English literature. He was on General Colin Powell’s staff in the military, and then followed Powell into civilian life as his Chief of Staff at the State Department.
Wilkerson is outspoken about how Powell was “used” by the Bush Administration to justify the invasion of Iraq. Powell’s speech to the United Nations about Iraqi nuclear weapons development was critical in the lead-up to the invasion. That speech was based on information “cherry picked” from intelligence by the Bush Administration, led by Vice President Cheney, information turned out to be false.
Wilkerson understands force, understands the military, and understands intelligence. Last night on MSNBC, he called the intelligence leading to the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani “…a bunch of bull.” He added, “We have surrendered the strategic initiative to Iran”.
In the interview, Wilkerson added an anecdote from the Obama administration. He said that Obama told him in a White House meeting in the Roosevelt Room, that, “…there’s a bias in this town toward war”.
Biggest on the Block
It’s easy to see how Washington would have that bias. The US has the largest military in world history. We spend huge amounts of money to maintain it, last year budgeting almost $700 billion. We have more of everything, from ships to planes to tanks. And while there are larger armies in the world by number of soldiers, the US has more of everything else.
And of course, we have nuclear weapons.
So military solutions are often “the easy” ones. When there’s a world crisis that lends itself to blowing something up, we have the best means to do it. We are like the biggest and strongest kid on the block. When other kids annoy us, or even threaten us, it’s easy to simply swat them away.
No one can resist the ultimate force of America, “…the American people in their righteous might” as Franklin Roosevelt noted after Pearl Harbor. But there is a key modifier in that sentence, and in America’s role in the world. America has the ultimate force, but America must also be “righteous”. America cannot be seen as a world “bully” and maintain that “rightness”. When the US has acted (and we have) as the “bully”, we find that the national unity that flows to that power, stops.
Americans Together
Roosevelt’s call to arms after Pearl Harbor led to the development of the US military as the greatest world force, a force maintained today. Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor, and Bush after 9-11, could call on the full force of the American people. Few opposed their efforts, and there were long lines outside of enlistment offices. America knew it was time to defend itself.
But in other times and other wars, Americans have had questions. It didn’t take long to figure out that Vietnam was not a war defending the “homeland”. When we committed thousands of combat troops in 1964, millions of citizens began to question our motives. By 1968 it was the major issue in American politics, on American campuses, and in the streets of American towns.
Draft Army
Vietnam reached into the lives of most Americans because of the draft. The US Armed Forces then were based on conscription. At eighteen, American boys were selected to serve, and sent into combat in Vietnam. By the end of the war the draft system was based on a simple lottery, if you were born on the wrong day, then eighteen years later you were on the way to Vietnam. Have a “good number” and you got to stay home.
After the end of Vietnam, the United States military moved to an “all volunteer” force. And while those soldiers are incredibly effective and loyal, when we stopped the draft it somehow became “easier” to send troops into danger. After all, they volunteered, they chose this. It was less of a national burden to send troops to Kosovo and Bosnia and Iraq. And even the “righteous” war in Afghanistan against the forces that attacked us in 9-11 has dragged on. Al Qaeda is defeated and bin Laden dead, but we continue to battle, for so long that the soldiers fighting today might not even have been born when planes struck the World Trade Center.
An Easy Solution
So it’s easier to send our forces to fight in far away fields. It’s even easier when those forces can be piloted remotely, from a base in Virginia, as the bombs fall in Baghdad. No one mourns the loss of a drone, even if it costs millions. We proved that when the Iranians shot down one of ours a few months ago, and our response was a cyber attack. The choice to use military force becomes less “righteous” when it’s done with an upscale video game controller.
As the use of military force becomes easier to do, it is incumbent upon the decision makers to chose more deliberately and carefully. And that’s where we stand today. Do we believe that the President and his small coterie of militant advisors made a “righteous” choice in trying to provoke war with Iran? There is no question that Soleimani was a “bad actor”, a purveyor of terrorist acts throughout the Middle East. But there is “no new news here,” he’s been that same “bad actor” for the past twenty years and more.
It seems that the neo-cons, some of the same folks that led us into Iraq eighteen years ago, are happy to lead us into Iran. They decry the “righteousness” of their cause, trying to paper over the divisions of America with a patriotic war. Pompeo, Esper, and good old John Bolton have got what they want from Donald Trump.
But they gave up control when we killed Soleimani. As Colonel Wilkerson said, it’s not our call, “…we have surrendered the initiative”. Now it’s up to Iran. Their response will determine what we will do, whether it will be war or peace or that tenuous balance point we’ve maintained in between.
It’s hard to be righteous, when it’s not your call.
