Forum Post: We should rename our Department of Defense -> Department of Imperialism
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 14, 2011, 1:42 a.m. EST by sudoname
(1001)
from Berkeley, CA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
We should just call it what it is.
EDIT: By the way, it used to be called the Department of War until 1947.
"All warfare is based on deception." Sun Tzu. All bank managers, CEO's, Police Chiefs, FBI, The White House, Media Vice Presidents, and so on...are all instructed to follow the ART OF WAR Modus Operandi.
So I think yer on to something sudoname. There is already an academic term that applies, so that: Department of Defense -> Department of Economic Imperialism.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/public-vote-option-on-competing-democratic-vs-repu/
I've seen a lot of posts on here talking about how war is murder and how we need to immediately stand down and/or recall all of our troops and pretty much wipe out the defense budget. Further, many of these people seem to believe that pretty much every war we've gotten into since 1945 was hopelessly misguided at best and murderous imperialism at its worst. I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think it's that simple.
I'm not going to disagree about Vietnam; that was a major blunder on the part of Eisenhower (when he decided that backing a French colonial government was a good idea) and Kennedy and LBJ (for not realizing what was going on and backing us out of there). I would much prefer that we'd been able to settle our affairs in Afghanistan and leave already, and Iraq never should have happened.
Korea, I do disagree on. Given the modern-day difference between North and South Korea I would argue that the results of the action we took there were worth the cost. I also feel like the ICC needs a warrant enforcement mechanism of its own (because otherwise it's usually us getting involved). However, sending a few people in to deal with Joseph Kony is the right thing to do. Sending the military into Darfur with orders to clean up on the Janjaweed and extradite Omar al-Bashir would have been the right thing to do.
You can't simply disallow all conflicts on the grounds that they're ugly. Sometimes we as a nation have to do ugly things because the alternative is worse. Before you ask, I would be more than willing to go to war if asked to; my greatest fear isn't dying (if it's for the right reasons) but to have hung back in a a situation when my interference could have saved someone.
War isn't something we should enter into lightly, and quite honestly Iraq was a PR stunt based on a lie. That said, I also feel like we need to move to a different way of handling our military; perhaps two years of mandated public (including in the military) or community service after high school would be a good idea. That would (in my mind) cut down on unnecessary warfare, given that there would be no exemptions and especially if children of public officials and defense contractors would be on the front lines of any military action we go into; authorizing and/or powering a war becomes a much tougher decision when doing so will point your child at the business end of someone else's AK-47.
Also, you could probably take a pretty good chunk out of our defense budget without dismissing or recalling a single soldier or reducing our combat readiness one iota. This is mostly due to all sorts of contracts that are late and over budget, or simply more expensive than training and maintaining your own people. If you look at the Lockheed Martin fighter jet flap it probably would have been cheaper to train a team of engineers and build the prototyping equipment they'd need. If we take government-subsidized private firms and consolidating those operations in-house, we have a start right there; if we stop giving crazy tax breaks for companies doing military R&D and moved those operations back in-house the cost of funding the labs and paying the people would probably be less than the lost revenue. The same goes for mercenary firms like Blackwater; we already have trained, disciplined soldiers capable of providing security; why should we pay a private firm to provide less qualified people at a net loss to the taxpayer?
The purpose of all War is to Murder people for their Money. That is how every war has been fought.
If we want to change the world, we must do it by leading by example. We cannot claim to be a nation of peace while waging war. At this point, America is the most hated nation in the world. Rightfully so.
Stop all War. Feed, Clothe, Educate your own citizens. Then MAYBE you get to start talking about other nation's situations.
At this stage it's sheer hypocrisy.
As far as feeding, clothing, and educating our people I do believe that those things are very important and do deserve more consideration from the federal government than they currently receive. Food Stamps and TANF as a whole are due for an overhaul; they should not be stigmatized as free money for the lazy but treated as a lifeline for the poor and unlucky, and be respected and funded as such. NCLB needs to go and we need to start having a real conversation about getting talent back into teaching and funding back into our school systems. On top of this, we need to start developing a real interest in renewable energy (solar, wind, etc.) in this country. All environmental concerns aside getting all of our energy from oppressed nations in a generally unstable part of the world is a major security risk. All of these things need to be higher up on the national agenda than they currently are, and I agree with you about that.
As far as war, not all war is murder. War does, unfortunately, involve killing people, and thus it should be used as a method of last resort. That said, America should do all the good that it has the power to do, both in a domestic and a foreign sense. Not all wars are as illegitimate as Iraq or Vietnam, and not all necessary overseas actions (such as nabbing Kony and dropping him off in the Hague) need to be handled with all-out war. Our foreign policy needs to be smart and efficient (most good done with the least risk to our troops and foreign civilians), but should not be completely isolationist.
I'll start by saying that all War is 100% murder.
There is no situation, with the exception of needing to take up arms to ensure our own survival, that requires War. The only time that this has even vaguely happened was in World War Two when America was directly attacked by Japan. The concern, at that time, was that Hitler and his allies, did have the power to cross the ocean and launch a land invasion. No one that we are fighting, and no one that we have fought since, has ever even remotely had that ability, with the one off exception of 9/11.
Every war since then has been an excuse to murder people and steal their stuff. Whoopity doo one of them ended up not being a total bloodbath that decimated the culture irreversibly. (Korea) You have Russia and China to thank for that, btw. If it was up to America, South Korea and North Korea would exist in name alone, and they'd be a wasteland.
So I guess I'll change my stance slightly. All War is Murder, but if it's strictly in the Defense of your People, it's a necessary evil that must be done, with the understanding that War is Murder.
So we agree that domestic policy needs to come first? Also, if a small intervention is required now to prevent atrocities later (Bosnia, Uganda, what should have happened in Sudan) where do you stand on that?
I think Domestic Policy is the only thing that matters. We can set the template for the world to follow. "Here's how you make the most successful society in the world."
As to the "Small Intervention", which is another way of saying "The Excuse we Use to Take Your Stuff."; This is akin to going into someone else's house and trying to resolve their problems. Think of it that way.
As a note: This example assumes no Police control, because on the world stage there are no Police.
You have a neighbor who beats his wife every day. You can hear the argument and the beatings. If your an American the solution is to give a gun to the wife. So she'll either shoot her husband, or he'll shoot her. In either case you are now living beside someone who is now armed. Let's say the Wife shot her husband. That's great right?
Except now she's a Murderer, who realizes that she has the power to do what she wants, but is tormented by the fact that she's a Murderer. So now she's beating her own kids. If your an American you say "I have to help!" And charge in there, take the gun you gave her, take her kids away, and put her in a corner. When the kids pick up the gun and shoot their own mother, you call it justice.
So now you have these kids in a house with a gun and you're their new Mommy. But you don't really care about them, because they aren't yours. You just made this all happen because Mom and Dad have a sweet T.V. that'd look great in your house.
This is the cycle of violence.
What we SHOULD be doing is this. Husband is beating wife. Talk to the wife. Tell her that she can come stay at your house. You can offer her protection from her husband in your house. You've made your house the envy of all other houses. It has everything anyone could ever want. You condemn the Husband's Violence. If he tries to storm into your house, you kick him out.
What happens here? Either the wife stays and gets beaten, and that happens, and that sucks, but there's nothing to be done. OR She grabs her kids and comes on over. We feed her, clothe her, give her a new life while keeping her psycho husband away.
America should be the world's refuge, not the world's police man.
Honestly, we should be more willing to do both, but to strictly limit ourselves to that role. This includes doing our best to eliminate potential conflicts of interest in places like the Middle East through energy independence, and doing our best to get some sort of mandate or warrant before acting. Honestly, we have wife-beating countries all over the place by your analogy, and that's regrettable but beyond our ability to fix. Serial murderers, on the other hand, need to be dealt with quickly and coldly, and if the ICC is willing to issue a warrant for one of them (Kony, al-Bashir) then we should execute that warrant in good faith and go no farther.
By who's authority? Under who's authority do we have the right to go into someone else's home and kill them? Is it our right to do that because they've killed someone? Is that the marker we'll use? "Kill someone and we'll come and get you?"
So what happens when we just start lying about it, like the Gulf of Tonkin or the WMDs? We swallowed those lies and it caused massive devastation.
If you act Violently and succeed, that just makes you a better Criminal.
All War is Murder. We should legislate that accordingly.
There's already an authority on these matters; that's the International Criminal Court. The problem is with the lack of enforcement. Honestly, I'm not talking about unilateral action on the part of the United States with neither impetus nor mandate from other nations. That was Vietnam and Iraq, and that should not happen. When the International Criminal Court issues a warrant on substantiated charges of such things as genocide, however, those warrants need to be acted upon or the consequences are at least as ugly as Vietnam and Iraq.
What I'd prefer to do is set up a general procedure for international intervention so that what needs to be done gets done and what ought to be left alone is left alone. First of all, the ICC needs to issue a warrant for one or more individuals on charges of crimes against humanity (war crimes, genocide, etc). Then other nations (most of the EU, including Turkey, and moderate states like Lebanon) should be consulted as to the acuteness of the situation. If most of them agree that something needs to be done, then we go in and execute the warrant; no more and no less.
So as long as we all agree that Murder is the way to go then?
Imagine if we ran our own country that way... oh... wait....
Tell that to the people in refugee camps in Darfur who are where they are because we did nothing. Tell that to the children Kony still uses as sex toys and cannon fodder because we did nothing. Go ahead, explain to them why they should have to live the way they do now because we did nothing, and why they're so unimportant that you can't be bothered to get your hands dirty defending them.
When did I say do nothing?
If we actually cared about those people we would grant them Asylum. We would rescue them from their situation and bring them here, where they cannot be touched by whatever situation, or whatever madman has taken control.
We say "These people are Humans, and, as fellow Humans, we will ensure their safety and their Right to Life."
We will not Murder.
I see what you're saying. It used to be called the department of war when we were relatively isolationist, but when we started having troops everywhere, it's now the department of defense. I just find that change ironic and misleading.
In regards to required military service, I think it's not such a bad idea to have some basic training like this - though I would argue for more like 6 months. (but I don't think this would ever happen)
Regarding reducing military spending, yeah, we could surely run a more lean fighting machine. The military spends ridiculous amounts on simple things (I know because I worked for the military long ago).
Okay...but that might piss people off...but I'll go along with it.
They should rename the north and west coast Department of Liberalism.
north and west coast? the borders of canada and mexico?
No. The North, and the west coast. Sorry for the grammatical error.
fine, but we get to call the south... Department of NeoLiberalism
That doesn't make any sense. You haven't ever been there have you?
born and raised, corpus christi, TX
So you are saying that all the good people in the South are involved with neo-liberalism? The Southern Baptist convention is in Tulsa OK. Explain how these people are involved in neo-liberalism.