Endless Leftism: A Recipe for Professorial Ignorance

Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor at Boston University, has published an article in the Washington Post entitled Endless War: A Recipe for Four Star Arrogance. In it he claims that, due to the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the professional U.S. military poses a dire threat to our constitutional form of government. I invite you to read the full article at the following web address: http://tinyurl.com/26fefea.

As a military veteran I too agree with Sun Tzu's dictum that "there has never been a state which has benefited from a prolonged war." I pray that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will both come to a close that favors the interests of the United States as soon as possible. However, I find the crux of the professor's article ludicrous. The idea that the professional U.S. military poses a threat to our Constitution is ridiculous on the face of it. In general, U.S. military service men and women take their oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic' very seriously. The people who pose the threat to our constitution are the civilian politicians and bureaucrats who are bent on persuading the electorate that they can vote themselves prosperity and security at somebody else's expense.

Professor Bacevich bases his assertions on the recently exposed statements of General McChrystal and his staff to journalists from Rolling Stone Magazine. He makes much of the fact that McChrystal and his staff express pointed dissatisfaction with their civilian counterparts and leadership and even question their competence and fitness to lead. Professor Bacevich apparently believes that military professionals should be like automatons, neither thinking nor expressing anything critical of their civilian leaders. I have news for the good professor: The idea that professional soldiers of any rank revere and actually respect their militarily incompetent civilian leadership is laughable.

The majority of military personnel serving the the United States of America are smarter than the majority of civilians they protect. This has been demonstrated over and over again. Not only that, but on the whole, military people tend to be more honorable, honest, and trustworthy than the civilians they protect. If one is talking about politicians, then virtually all military personnel are more honest, honorable, and trustworthy than any politician, including the President.

Military personnel obey civilian authority because they love their country, they revere the constitution, and that is the way it must be for our nation to preserve it's heritage of freedom. They do not do it because they admire and respect the civilian authorities; they do it because under our constitution it is their duty to do so regardless of what they think of them.

The fundamental views foolishly voiced to reporters by "Team America" are not wrong, just shared with the wrong people. McChrystal and his team were stupid to say such things to anyone but trusted comrades, and incredibly so to say them to the one group of people who have even less honor than politicians and lawyers: Journalists.

Those are my thoughts; what are yours?