Oct 27^th

Patrick J. Buchanan seems to believe we desperately need another war, preferably non-shooting, to bring unity to the country. His column today cites the cold war and the fights against communism as having brought the country together. He writes, “We accepted the conscription of our young men. We accepted wars in Asia, and if need be in Europe to check the Soviet Empire. Vietnam sundered that unity.” It sure did, remember the pictures of the dead students on the ground at Kent State shot by nervous and poorly trained guardsmen.

Then we have this, “For what end other than defending our citizens, vital interests and crucial allies would we be willing to send a great army to fight as we did in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan?” Buchanan is talking about some very different wars. Korea and Vietnam were fought on the mistaken belief in the domino theory that if one Asian country fell to communism they all would eventually fall. Therefore any communist advance had to be stopped. Mac Arthur in Korea very nearly got us into a nuclear war with his talk of using atomic weapons on China. Harry Truman yanked him before he could ignite the world. That was the last war that might have been thought to give the country a purpose.

 The Vietnam War was not about bringing the country together. It was the last war to use draftees and many men eligible for the draft simply went to Canada to avoid it. There was also a problem with officials lying to the public about successes, there was the My Lai debacle; other similar embarrassments were kept well hidden from the public. The notion that the Vietnam War was a unifying force is simply laughable. Returning Vietnam veterans were routinely spit upon, called baby killers and worse.

The draft ended in January 1973. Ever since then we’ve had a volunteer army. This army is populated by people given huge financial incentives to enlist, huge at least by the incentives available to WW 2 volunteers. The current volunteers consist of youngsters, recent high school graduates who have little prospect for employment otherwise.  If you serve for three years you qualify for 36 months of college with all expenses paid. If you don’t want to use that benefit you can pass it along to a family member. That’s quite an incentive.

Buchanan writes, “Other than supporting Israel, maintaining access to Gulf oil and resisting ISIS and al-Qaida upon what do Americans agree?” That’s easy: they generally agree that we should stop sending our troops into the Middle-East to fight battles that are not winnable with guns. The Iraq invasion was initially supported on the basis of faulty intelligence. The Taliban was initially driven out of Afghanistan but the Afghans allowed them to return. WW 2 was the only war in recent history that could be called “unifying” and Buchanan has written a book calling it “An Unnecessary War.”

There is apparently no end of old white men running around waving swords and hoping someone will follow them.