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| How The Military Has Changed
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http://einside.kent.edu
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Do you ever read Ben Stein? The reason that I am asking is Ben, who has done TV, now writes fairly regularly for the NY Times. Stein is a patriotic and always "supporting the troops" sort of guy.
Stein's latest article,
Looking for the Will Beyond the Battlefield deals with how the military makeup has changed.
In the old days(WWII), everyone considered joinng the military whether they were rich or poor, educated or uneducated- everyonet put their life on hold to fight.
Now who fights for us? Like Ben wrote, "Brave, idealistic Southerners. Hispanics from New Mexico. Rural men and women from upstate New York. Small-town boys and girls from the Midwest. Do the children of the powers on Wall Street resign to go off and fight? Fight for the system that made them rich? Fight for the way of life that made them princes? Surely, you jest." I agree.
(AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
| Ben says "Can it possibly be that Hezbollah is better motivated, better led, better dug in and better armed than the Israeli army, which is supposed to be the best army, pound for pound, in the world? Can it be that Israel, which used to beat whole armies of countries like Egypt and Syria, has been humbled by a few thousand very well-motivated and well-armed men firing from between apartment buildings?"...
"The other side considers it a privilege to fight and die for its beliefs. Those on the other side cannot wait to line up to blow themselves up for their vision of heaven. On our side(especially the U.S.), it’s: “Let the other poor sap do it. I’ve got to make money.” How can we fight this fight with the brightest and best educated rushing off and working night and day to do private equity deals and derivatives trading? How can we fight this fight with the ruling class absent by its own sweet leave?"
I quoted Ben in this article several times, because I have advocated the same in my articles for several years now- the military needs to be made up of young men and women from all walks of life. The book AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service -- and How It Hurts Our Country also expresses this opinion.
(AFP/File/Ali Yussef)
| I think Stein was talking about how much we're in a bind. Let's look at Iraq. Everybody hates us, etc. Stein says those who enable us to live such a good life in America are those who fight for us, whether we agree or not. And, this is what worries him most of all; we keep going about our stuff, collecting our goodies without any realization that it could end, with soldiers from humble backgrounds making most of the sacrifices.
He's right, we're in a war with people who are "evangelized" to kill us. I mean, many do not want to admit that the Middle East is a strange, timeless place where nothing has changed for thousands of years. Hatred that has existed for generations is not going away. We will never be able to come to an understanding with or reason with these people.
All that said, there is, as someone recently reminded me, as I was railing against our mismanagement of Iraq, some encouragement in the world. What? Europe is getting involved in Lebanon in keeping the peace- at least some gleamer of hope. kt
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American Casualty Report in Iraq
Thanks to Keyvan Minoukadeh
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Commentary