AMERICA’S CULTIVATED WAR AMNESIA

Many times in Phronesis posts I’ve expressed both astonishment and deep regret at the failure of our political leaders, and much of the American public, to learn lessons from our history of foreign policy blunders, of which there have been many. Why do we repeatedly plunge into ill-conceived wars of choice that prove to be utter disasters?  Why is our penchant for using military force so unshakable?  Why do the American people, who invariably pay the highest price for our military disasters, not hold our leaders feet to the fire and say: no more!  I’ve pointed to the usual suspects--imperialist motives, hubris, the national security state, neo-conservative and Wilsonian-interventionist ideologies and their associated think tanks, and the complicit role of the established media in peddling the unshakable militaristic Washington line—but have always felt that despite the relevancy of such factors something was missing. 

A recent essay by Michael Brenner, which I’m including below as a guest commentary, identifies what might be missing from my analyses: the complicity of American culture; specifically, the persistent capacity of the American people to cultivate amnesia over the consequences of our military follies.  Why don’t we learn from the lessons of history?  Brenner offers an answer.  

RESPONSE TO JIM DUBBS ON SOLDIER’S LIVES DON’T MATTER

I received the following comment from loyal Phronesis reader Jim Dubbs on my recent post on the continuing Air Force campaign to retire the A-10 Warthog, which I argued represented a lack of concern for the lives of our troops. Jim always brings a valuable historical perspective to my posts, for which I am grateful.

You just have to wonder where any political leadership is on these issues. Ike may have issued the warning about a military-industrial complex, but successive Secretaries of Defense have decided that their survival depends on providing our various military leaders with the newest toys. I recall that McNamara -- who I believe was a car industry executive (Ford), like his predecessor Wilson (GM) -- was touted as this great efficiency expert who was going to make sure of strong civilian management of the armed forces. Indeed, he became lauded as a rather "strong" Defense Secretary. Not hard to understand. Of course, he was: Kennedy's military budget tripled that of Ike's as I recall. However, I think the bigger problem than the toys controversy (A-10 v. F-35) is that, in general, the military always seems to be preparing for the wars of the past, not the likely ones of the future. I would agree that A-10 is best for support of ground troops, but how much of the conflicts facing us now and in the future are likely to involve a significant commitment of troops on the ground? That may be one of the only things Rumsfeld was kind of right on, and he got castigated for tying to fight war on the cheap, right? 

My Response:
 

SOLDIER LIVES DON’T MATTER: THE AIR FORCE STILL DETERMINED TO SCRAP THE A-10

By Ronald T. Fox

An A-10 On Mission

Give the Air Force credit for persistence. Undeterred by a Congressional prohibition on retiring the highly effective A-10 Warthog, the AF is continuing its campaign to scrap it. Its latest scheme is to reduce the number of Warthogs that are combat ready. Manipulating Congress is nothing new to the AF; what is different this time is that the lives of many soldiers hinges on what the Congress ultimately decides to do about the A-10.

 

As I’ve written previously (see links below), the A-10 is a highly effective aircraft that has proven its value in all wars the U.S. has been involved in since 1990.  Designed primarily to support troops on the ground, which remains its main mission, it has also been used effectively for air defense suppression, interdiction, search and rescue, armed reconnaissance, forward air control, and air-to-air combat against helicopters.  Troops on the ground swear by it, its pilots and former pilots taut its virtues, and Congressional supporters on both sides of the aisle, aware that there is no viable alternative (it is far superior to the Army's Apache helicopter), continue to support its deployment. Despite these accolades, and its proven track record in combat, the AF wants to retire it, replacing it primarily with the problem-plagued F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), the most expensive weapons system in history. 

SEPTEMBER 2016 BONEHEAD ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH

NOTE:  It seems media sorts are only interested in Donald Trump these days. As a result, it has been hard to find bonehead absurdities from other prominent figures, although I'm sure there were many that didn't get wide coverage.  Though I’d like to avoid boring Phronesis readers with yet more Trump absurdities, I couldn't help but include the following dillies. With apologies, I offer this month’s Trump-dominated selections.

1. Former Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann. Bachmann warns of an “impending apocalypse” in which godly moral principles will no longer be defended if Hillary Clinton is elected.
 
“I don't want to be melodramatic but I do want to be truthful,” the evangelical Christian said in an interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “Brody File.” “I believe without a shadow of a doubt this is the last election. This is it. This is the last election.”
 
Bachmann, who advises Donald Trump on religious issues and foreign policy (go figure), explained that demographic change in the United States posed a disadvantage to Republican candidates since the country’s growing share of minority voters were more inclined to vote for Democrats.
 
“It's a math problem of demographics and a changing United States,” she said. “If you look at the numbers of people who vote and who lives in the country and who Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to bring in to the country, this is the last election when we even have a chance to vote for somebody who will stand up for godly moral principles. This is it.”
 
Bachmann said that if Clinton were elected, she would offer “wholesale amnesty” to undocumented immigrants “so that Republicans will never again have the chance at winning Florida or Texas” and therefore be unable to secure the White House. "She's going to change the demographics of the United States so that no Republican will ever win again," Bachmann insisted.
 
What’s absurd is her insinuation that brown people don’t stand up for “godly, moral principles, not her prediction of future doom for the white-only GOP-- an intriguing prospect, indeed.
 

PENN STATE’S COMMEMORATION OF JOE PATERNO

by Charles Snow

I have been closely following the Sandusky scandal at Penn State since it erupted in the fall of 2011. The latest chapter in this sad, ongoing saga occurred last Saturday when Penn State commemorated the 50^th anniversary of Joe Paterno’s first game (and victory) as the head football coach. The planned celebration was preceded by an editorial in the school newspaper questioning the wisdom of such an event, followed by a torrent of angry e-mails from Penn State alumni and Joe Paterno fans.
 
The Sandusky affair has been poorly handled by the Penn State administration from the beginning, including the firing of Paterno in a classic rush to judgment. Those who have been following this story can see no pattern in the decision-making by Penn State’s Board of Trustees, as well as by Presidents Erickson and Barron, unless that pattern is incompetence. I, myself, am convinced that the university administration is tone deaf when it comes to dealing with Sandusky’s crimes and the career of Joe Paterno.
 
To be fair, there is nothing that Penn State can do – or not do – that will please everyone. The hole that was initially dug in this affair is simply too deep. So I would like to simply offer my opinion on the Paterno commemoration given the context that has developed over the past five years.
 
It’s a fact that Joe Paterno was a great football coach. He is the winningest coach in college football, and all of his teams’ victories came as the coach at Penn State. Certainly, this individual’s record should be commemorated. Moreover, Paterno contributed to the university in other ways – as a fundraiser for the library and as the face of a model football program of student-athletes. Perhaps Paterno should be commemorated for these leadership characteristics as well.
 
But is Joe Paterno a moral role model as well? I don’t think so. I lost a lot of respect for Paterno the individual when I learned of how he handled the report by Mike McQuery in what is usually referred to as the “shower incident.” It didn’t then, and it doesn’t now, sound to me like Paterno had that young boy’s interests at heart. His bureaucratic passing of the information to the athletic director the next day bordered on being heartless. Now we’re hearing from depositions in one of the endless lawsuits that Paterno may have known more about Sandusky’s behavior than he ever acknowledged.
 
Should Penn State commemorate Joe Paterno before the full story of his role in the Sandusky affair is known? I realize that we may never know the full story even when the remaining lawsuits and trials are over. Therefore, I would wait – years if necessary – to honor Joe Paterno, and I would limit that commemoration to his role as football coach and the creator of a model college football program. The event that was held last Saturday is repugnant – especially in the eyes of Sandusky’s victims and those who are trying to increase awareness of the sexual abuse of children.

AUGUST 2016 BONEHEAD ABUSRDITY OF THE MONTH

1. Republican Senator Snowball Jim Inhofe. The lunatic, Imhofe has become infamous for the ridiculous arguments he offers to deny climate change science, like tossing a snowball on the floor of the Senate in an effort to prove that the globe isn’t warming. Recently he recounted a story of his granddaughter asking him why he didn’t know anything about climate change. His response: kids are being “brainwashed.”
 
During a radio interview, Inhofe stated:
 
“You know, our kids are being brainwashed? I never forget because I was the first one back in 2002 to tell the truth about global warming stuff and all of that. And my own granddaughter came home one day and said ‘Popi . . . why is it you don’t understand global warming?’ I did some checking and Eric, the stuff that they teach our kids nowadays, you have to un-brainwash them when they get out.”
 
I’d like to think Imhofe could be “un-brainwashed” when he leaves the Congress, but his anti-science brain has not only been washed, its been dried and bleached. The saddest thing is that he and his climate-science-denying colleagues probably won’t live to see the full horrors their ignorance has wrought on the earth.
 

SCRUTINIZING THE HIROSHIMA MYTH AND ITS LEGACY (RE-POSTED)

By Ronald T. Fox

NOTE:  While I was traveling in Italy, President Obama's visit to Hiroshima was a hot topic among political and social commentators of all sorts.    Most of the comments I read remained deeply entrenched in the Hiroshima Myth I wrote about last August: the use of the bomb was necessary to end the war and save lives, both American and Japanese, which according to the myth it did.  Despite strong evidence to the contrary, and the fact that far fewer Americans today believe nuclear weapons are a good thing, this widely-believed rationale for why the bomb was used remains unshakable.  In light of the latest round of rationalizing, I've decided to re-post my original pieces on Truman's decision to use the bomb and why the Japanese surrendered.  I have made a few modifications to the original.  (For an excellent, comprehensive history of the atomic bomb decision and why Japan surrendered, see: Paul Ham, Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath.)    

The original posting, as modified:

Atomic Bombs Dropped on Hiroshima (left) and Nagasaki (right)

August 6th, 2015, marked the 70^th anniversary of the dropping of the “Little Boy” atomic bomb on Hiroshima. As has been the case on every decennial anniversary of the bombing, the bomb’s use is currently being celebrated by politicians, media sorts, and most Americans as being responsible for ending the war and thus negating the need for an invasion of Japan’s home islands that would have caused enormous losses on both sides. This belief has achieved numinous status in the United States; most Americans accept it as an article of faith. It has become, as historian Christian Appy put it, the most successful legitimizing narrative in American history. There’s only one thing wrong with the Hiroshima narrative: it's not factual. There is perhaps no greater myth in U.S. history than the belief that the atomic bomb was the "winning weapon" that ended World War II. It’s what I call the Hiroshima Myth.

Despite doubts about the necessity to use the bomb expressed by a number of top military and political leaders at the time (and later in their personal reflections), challenges to the traditional Hiroshima narrative by several historians, and declining overall American attraction to nuclear weapons, the Hiroshima Myth remains deeply embedded in the consciousness of the overwhelming majority of Americans. How did it get so embedded? Why didn’t the highly authoritative 1947 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, which concluded that the Japanese would have surrendered "certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to November 1 1945--even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, the Russians had not entered the war, and no invasion had been planned or contemplated," establish a different narrative?

Were the bombings instrumental in ending the war? Did they avert an invasion of the Japanese homeland and thus save lives? There’s much at stake in the answers to these questions, for if the bomb wasn't necessary to end the war, then its use on Hiroshima and, especially Nagasaki, was wrong, militarily, politically and morally, especially when one considers that these two cities were not vital military targets.

At the risk of being called unpatriotic, un-American, or worse, because the issue still touches raw emotions (Americans don't take kindly to questioning the morality of our country's purposes), I will attempt to refute the Hiroshima Myth. Fortunately I am able to draw upon information that wasn’t available when early histories of the bombings were written. This information includes a declassified paper written by a Joint Chiefs of Staff advisory group in June 1945, the personal accounts of a number of top Japanese leaders, and various bits of documentary evidence uncovered by enterprising historians. These discoveries enable a more accurate picture of bomb’s role in ending the war.

In a three-part essay, I will argue that use of the atomic bomb was not the main factor inducing Japan to surrender and Truman’s bomb-use decision was not primarily based on a desire to save American lives.  I will also argue in Part III that our enduring belief in the bomb as “the winning weapon” has had a profound impact on American culture and on how we approach national security.