Military Mythology

A young man reflects on his time in the U.S. Navy, what he saw there, and how his outlook on the world has changed. Very much worth reading.

Conservatives laugh at the Left’s naive fidelity to government propaganda on the domestic front, but generally accept without much question the much more transparent propaganda that the very same government peddles when it comes to foreign policy. The author takes aim at the mythology and mysticism by which these so-called conservatives have come to treat one class of government employees with a virtually idolatrous reverence.

Steve H.

I was lucky enough to escape the Navy’s clutches back in 1989 when I washed out of basic flight training. Unlike other recruits, officers could terminate their contract with the exception of being in the Inactive Ready Reserve for 8 years.

In retrospect, getting out of the Navy was the best thing that ever happened to me. I avoided being a coffin-stuffer for the criminal syndicate, otherwise known as the US Government. Thousands of others were not so fortunate. Those not killed or maimed will still have to deal with physical and psychological issues related to the mass murder they were forced to be a part of.

Smedley Butler was right: war is a racket.
jaffi411

Tom, thanks for linking to my article. While I am not the best of writers, I attempted to portray my experience in a concise format. Sure, there is a TON more that could have been said, but I just went with what I felt and attempted to lay it out quite simply. I most certainly do not mean to denigrate the service of any military personnel, I only wish to bring to light my own experience, observations and realizations. Yes, there will be a small contingent of vets and active duty that will disagree with my opinions (more probably the loudest critics will be those who have never served), but that was the risk that I took with coming clean and being earnest. However, I am confident that a great majority of the men and women that are now serving, or that have served, will agree with the sentiment of my words, because they are quite observant and experienced in such matters- I tend to trust the opinion of a wartime vet or active duty over a chickenhawk any day of the week.
jaffi411

Steve, here is Smedley Butler’s from a speech in 1933:

“War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

Granted, I am a proponent of free market capitalism, but the capitalism that he describes has very little to do with the free market, and can only be realized by the use of the State.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3YU52EINCBVVCOFOD5A5IHOJWA Bruce C

I see our military as the “muscle” for trade interests. Pure and simple. Without the need to keep oil and goods flowing smoothly, we’d get by with 25% of the budget. I’m a buff and I have read literally hundreds of military history books. I’m not anti-military. I just realize that our budget problems will never be solved for the reason Tom mentioned. The liberal left will never stop believing in government services for all And the “conservative” right will never give up their adulation of a large military and endless wars to “save the world” that are usually about something completely different. So, endless budget deficits and eventually hyperinflation is in our future.
Austin H.

“We all took the oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, only to find that those who are giving you those orders are disregarding entire portions of that document and calling is “just a piece of paper”; this represents quite a problem. Just what exactly was this whole thing all about?”

As an Active Duty officer in the USAF I’d say he hit the nail on the head with the above quote. I am sworn to defend the Constiution and the laws made in pursuance of it, that’s it nothing more. If I were out of a job tomorrow because there was no threat to the republic, I would be very happy.
Austin H.

“We all took the oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, only to find that those who are giving you those orders are disregarding entire portions of that document and calling is “just a piece of paper”; this represents quite a problem. Just what exactly was this whole thing all about?”

As an Active Duty officer in the USAF I’d say he hit the nail on the head with the above quote. I am sworn to defend the Constiution and the laws made in pursuance of it, that’s it nothing more. If I were out of a job tomorrow because there was no threat to the republic, I would be very happy.
AnarchistHypocrisy

It is amusing that anarcho-capitalist ideologues like Tom without a geopolitical ‘pot to piss in’ rail ad nauseam about the irrelevance of offensive warfare to obtaining desired goals. Indeed, virtually every nation on Earth has gained sovereignty by
coercive means, yet pacifists like Tom reject this legitimate means.

Moreover, while these ideologues have never demonstrated the will or the means to gain power for themselves (much less hold it from statist influences), they also profit nicely in practice from the very institutions that they reject in theory. In Tom’s case (and most anarcho-capitalists), a long career in government subsidized academia.

These are one of many causal factors explaining the irrelevance and failure of fringe maximal-capitalist doctrine.

Not to mention the routine practice of censoring opposing views instead of engaging them with fact and logic.
AnarchistHypocrisy

What anarcho-capitalist don’t seem to understand is that in an anarcho-capitalist society coercion will be used on the margins of society to obtain profits to perhaps a greater extent than it is today.

For example, capitalism in its purest form is profit seeking. In the absence of peaceful exchange, coercion will be employed under the following conditions:

1) voluntary peaceful exchange is not possible or peaceful exchange is more costly than coercive means

2) the transaction costs associated with the use of coercion are less then the profit to be gained from taking a valued resource by force

Moreover, this free market mechanism will be beneficial to society since heretofore unprofitable management of valued resources by a negligent owner are now put into better use by a profit driven actor.

Read quickly because Tom will censor this explanation in the absence of any opposing argument (there are no adequate ones to challenge this irrefutable logic).

In sum, the lamentations of Butler ring hollow since coercion is a legitimate means to insure maximum societal exploitation of valued resources. Furthermore, the long-term costs of coercion are minimal in both human and economic terms compared to the overall benefits of society when valued resources are removed from statist control and placed in capitalist control.

“Censorship
of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has
always been and will always be the last resort of the boob and the
bigot.” — Eugene O’Neill