the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

I've been needing to explore my thoughts on what it means to be a liberal member of America's military for quite some time, but frankly, I've been busy surfing YouTube, Facebook, and getting into Angel, a spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which you know is a not-so-guilty pleasure of mine. Oh...I'm also in class and am called up on to sometimes read stuff and write a paper. 

Anyhow...a couple of things I stumbled across this morning, in my ongoing efforts to avoid responsibility, have me again thinking about what it means to be liberal and military. The first is my discovery of the "4 Quarters, 10 Dimes" blog, which I discovered through this post (link). It's a long read, but well worth it. As you can see, I've put a permanent link to his blog on my right sidebar; he is my idea of excellent. He also reminds me a lot of my own blogging.* It's a core dump, pretty much, only this man is far more educated than I and he is--dare I say it?--downright poetic. (Also? He unapologetically loves ABBA. That seals it.) 

* I know. As an ex-girlfriend of mine used to say, "Is it vain to think your twin sister is beautiful?"

He is an independent voter who is explaining why he'll not vote Republican in the near future. One of his reasons is that he believes in a strong military, as do I. That was the first thing that got me thinking about this question* again. 

* "How can you be liberal and wear the uniform? Isn't that a contradiction?" This question is as ill-informed as "How can you be vegan and wear leather?" but it does crop up with surprising regularity. 

The second reason I'm thinking about it is that I just saw a quote attributed to Arundhati Roy (author of The God of Small Things, among other novels) to this effect: "It's odd how those who dismiss the peace movement as utopian don't hesitate to proffer the most absurdly dreamy reasons for going to war: to stamp out terrorism, install democracy, eliminate fascism, and most entertainingly, to rid the world of evil-doers." 

As the three of you who read my blog regularly* know, I just completed a class on Just War. That is, what are the just reasons for going to war? There are roughly eight.** They are: 

* I may be up to five. When I get to 10, I get a toaster. 

** Some people see a distinction between two of them, while others put the two together. The internationally-recognized reasons for going to war are surprisingly consistent, however. 

1. Legitimate authority. That is, just war can only be declared by the legitimate authority of the state. In a liberal democracy, this means our leaders must act based upon a majority of the will of the citizens. 

2. Just cause. The cause must be just. To date, the only internationally agreed-upon cause is retaliation against violent aggression. 

3. Declaration of Cause. Anyone who goes to war must declare to the world that they are going to war and precisely why. (And if even they haven't been formally schooled, the "why" will always attempt to morally justify their actions, which basically backs up the whole "just cause" requirement.) No fair just invading a sovereign state without warning or for an unknown reason; to do so permanently places you on the wrong side of history. 

4. Right intention. You can legitimately only wage war to correct a specific wrong. To do so for material gain is not morally justifiable. 

5. Probability of success. This one is a given, if you ask me. No one attacks someone when they have reason to believe they will lose. But whatever. 

6. Last resort. All other means of settling the problem must have been exhausted. 

7. Proportionality. The perceived benefits of war must be in proportion to its expected evils. Do the cost-benefit analysis, in other words. 

8. End of peace. The end of war is intended to be peace. One does not prosecute a war justly without the goal of eventual peace with the warring nation. 

If any of these requirements are not met, the war is not considered just. Who decides? History. :)

So Roy has a point. I think we were justified in going into Afghanistan after Bin Laden, by the way, but it's arguable, at best, whether we were justified in trying to take the Taliban out of power.* We were not--repeat NOT, in any form--justified in our invasion of Iraq. Did we do good things there? Yes. But the end does not justify the means; it doesn't make our aggression just. At the same time, have we facilitated instability in the Middle East? Yes again. All the lost blood and treasure aside, we have failed to do much of anything to change Iraq, in the long run. 

* I say "trying" because our getting them out of power is only temporary--until we leave. Actually? They're still in power now. Very much so. Power takes many forms. 

By the way...ok. I have to start this bit by telling you about a conversation I had with Daddy a couple of weeks before I deployed to Iraq in 2004. I had never been big into politics until then, and I was only marginally so at that point. I'd decided that, since I was going to Iraq anyway, I may as well find out all I could about the people, the culture, and why we were there. I came away from my research convinced that our presence there was completely unwarranted and would not end with a "democratic Iraq," unless we played fast and loose with the word "democratic." I told Daddy as much. He argued with me. I don't remember all he said, but the gist of my understanding was that they just needed a chance, and protection, and they would figure out how good democracy was. Or something like that. I argued that you can't give someone a democracy. Democracies only work if their citizens appreciate what they have and fight to keep it and make it work. 

We didn't "agree to disagree," since I don't do that. We eventually just dropped the conversation and never revisited it. 

So...one of our guest speakers here at the Joint and Combined Warfighting School a couple of weeks ago was General Anthony Zinni, USMC (Ret). He's a former Commander In Chief (now called Combatant Commander) of US Central Command. He told us a story about a woman who showed up to vote in Iraq's 2005 election, then asked who she should vote for. She was told that she had to choose. They started reading from the list of running parties, and the fifth one was the Islamic People's Party (or something like that). She stopped them and said she'd vote for them; since they were Islamic, they must be the best choice. Zinni concluded this story with an observation that "bringing democracy" to people like this simply doesn't work, no matter how much we want to believe it does. 

Hm. Yep. I agree that this is anecdotal evidence, but time will tell, won't it?* 

* "Yabbut,"--conservatives will say--"we just needed to stay the course, but we didn't. Otherwise, it would have worked." These are the same people presumably fighting for "smaller government" and lower taxes, right? But they want us to stay in Iraq to the tune of millions of dollars a day...right? Indefinitely. 

That's all background, though. The question on the table is how I can be liberal--like, very--and wear the uniform in good conscience. For god's sakes, I went to Iraq. 

Yep, I did. And as noted, I didn't believe we should have been there in the first place. How could I, in good conscience, go? 

My conscience isn't completely clear on that point. I was a part of something I didn't believe in. Perhaps I should have resigned my commission in protest (but I doubt I could have--at least, not until I got back from the deployment). I didn't do that. I could have gotten pregnant to avoid it, also, I suppose.* I mean, that would have at least gotten me out of the deployment, right? I didn't do that, either. I went and did my job. 

* Although I think I'd rather just go be shot at. 

You see, decisions are only black and white when they aren't yours. It's easy to pass judgment on me, say I acted against my own principles, and that's your luxury, because the decision wasn't yours. Life, in reality, has almost no black and white choices. We live in a world of gray. 

I'm in the military because I believe in what our country stands for--even when it isn't functioning at its best and even when it makes mistakes. We have a great idea for government, and it's an idea worth defending. Was I defending it in Iraq? No. However, the military, as an instrument of national power, simply won't work if its members can choose which missions they are willing to support and which they aren't. Military members, even those with the highest clearances and most responsibility, don't know and don't have to know why their civilian leaders* make the calls they do. Military leaders tend, by and large, to see only the military side of things. That's because we are taught to solve problems through the military. That's what we do. 

* Other people call these "politicians," but it's useful to be reminded from time to time that we have civilian leaders for a damn good reason. Military leaders tend to create regimes. So complain about "politicians" all you want to, but remember: we need the non-military in charge. They tend to see more ways out of a problem than "bomb the hell out of them."  And if they jump to that "solution" too quickly? Be afraid. Be very afraid. 

I chose to remain in the military because I believed in what this country stands for, even while I believed we were wrong to have invaded Iraq. (However, I did believe that once we'd invaded--right or wrong--we had a responsibility to try to help fix what we'd broken. Over time, I came to believe that our being there was not fixing anything; it was actually making things worse, and endangering more lives than necessary. Ethics is not the study of right and wrong; it is the study of choosing the "less wrong." At a certain point, the "less wrong" was US withdrawal from Iraq. We stayed for quite some time past that point.) 

By staying in the military in a position of responsibility, I have the opportunity to positively influence our future officers, which can change how we prosecute war and thus, influence our perception abroad.

You don't want fewer liberals in the miltiary. You want more. 

You don't have to approve of my choices. I don't need you to. After all, I don't wake up and look you in the mirror every morning. 

d