What are your obligations if you support the war?

I teach at a conservative university. Most of my students are disengaged from politics, and most of them wholeheartedly support the war in Iraq. None of them would ever consider enlisting. The war, according to them, ought to be fought, but only by people who have "made that choice in their lives."

I'm curious to know your opinions. If you're capable of serving, is it hypocritical to favor having other people fight, but not you? Or does the fact that our military service is voluntary indeed mitigate any obligation on the part of a pro-war individual who is disinclined to take part?

Twelve billion dollars in $100 bills. . .

. . . is missing in Iraq. I caught just a part of the story on BBC News today. The U.S. evidently flew this money to Iraq, where it was to be spent on rebuilding efforts. Today--surprise!--most of it is missing and unaccounted for. Do any of you have time to check out the story and give us the scoop?

Democracy does not equal tolerance

As evidence that a democratic form of government doesn't automatically translate into a tolerant society, Deb posts a thoughtful (and horrifying) account of the treatment of Christians in Afghanistan. She lived there and has a unique perspective. Check it out.

"The White House has accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi politics"

That's the whole post.

Vietnam Purple Heart ceremony

Verbatim conversation between General Westmoreland and Purple Heart recipient First Sergeant Bud Barrow, at Long Binh evacuation hospital:

"I just want to congratulate you."

"Well, I'm not sure whether you oughta congratulate me or the enemy. They're the ones who won that one."

"Tell me, sergeant. What happened out there?"

"Well, sir, we walked into one of the damnedest ambushes you ever seen."

"Oh, no, no, no. That was no ambush."

"Call it what you want to. I don't know what happened to the rest of the people, but, by God, I was ambushed."

Fun Facts from Vietnam

I'm interrupting the theoretical posts for this bit of info:

• By October 1967, the U.S. military had built more than 40 ice cream plants in Vietnam "in an effort to make the troops feel more at home."
• In October 1967, there were almost half a million military personnel in Vietnam, but only one in eight was going to infantry units that did most of the fighting.

From David Maraniss' They Marched into Sunlight. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005.

John Stuart Mill on military intervention

I am currently reading a lot of theoretical works on war, in preparation for qualifying exams that must be passed before I start my dissertation. Because I am encountering so much that interests me, I've decided to post some diverse nuggets that I think you might find interesting, as well. I'm going to start today with John Stuart Mill, but others will be coming. None of this represents (yet) a well-thought philosophy on war by me--just food for thought right now. Mill was a political realist--we'll hear later from political socialists, liberals, and pacifists.

Speaking of aggression, Mill says it “would be a great mistake to export freedom to a foreign people that was not in a position to win it on its own.” Otherwise the intervention would either create another oppressive government, simply collapse in an ensuing civil war, or the interveners would have to continually send in foreign support, so the government would be a puppet government that would reflect the wills and interests of the intervening state.

If the people welcome an intervention or refuse to resist, something less than aggression has occurred. But we cannot make those judgments reliably in advance. We should assume that nationals will protect their state—even if the state is not just, it’s their state, not ours.
“All the injustices, therefore, that do justify a domestic revolution do not always justify a foreign intervention. Domestic revolutions need to be left to domestic citizens. Foreign interventions to achieve a domestic revolution are inauthentic, ineffective, and likely to cause more harm than they eliminate.”

I have taken the text from Michael W. Doyle's Wars of War and Peace, Norton 1997.

"If the Taliban's 'ambassador' isn't on no-fly list, who is?"

Interesting take on the former Taliban spokesman now attending Yale:

Anyone who still doesn’t believe that America’s security has more holes than a Krispy Kreme bakery need look no further than Yale University.
That’s where former Taliban propagandist and ambassador-at-large, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi , is enrolled as a student.

No need to check your glasses: You read that right.

Through the intervention of a CBS cameraman and a Yale alumnus — who says connections don’t count? — the 27-year-old Hashemi scored an interview with the dean of undergraduate admissions and, ultimately, a coveted letter of acceptance.

This is the same Taliban spin doctor who defended a regime that sheltered Osama bin Laden, held mass executions and burned entire families alive. And it’s the same haughty fellow who appeared in Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” insulting a burqa-clad woman protesting the Taliban’s misogynistic policies.

Never mind that Hashemi has only a fourth-grade education. Or that you could probably turn any rubble-strewn Kabul corner and find a far worthier candidate to sponsor for an Ivy League education.

This poor little lamb who’s lost his way is now a proud member of the class of 2009. Boola boola, death to America.

What’s most galling about Hashemi’s stint in New Haven isn’t that a guy with a fourth-grade education is wasting oxygen at Yale. Like it or not, the bien pensants at Yale can admit whomever they please — it’s a private institution — even if this particular admission is a sure sign that the school has now carried the concept of “diversity” to absurd levels.

No, what’s truly unsettling about this episode is that Hashemi was allowed to travel to Yale in the first place. For starters, how did the Taliban’s poster boy not make the much-vaunted federal “no fly” list?

Babies are on the no-fly list. A friend’s son, a New York lawyer with an exceedingly Anglo name, is on the no-fly list. And in what has to be the mother of all political paybacks, Sen. Ted Kennedy is even on the no-fly list. But the spokesman for the “America is Satan” crowd apparently didn’t make the cut.

(I have visions of Hashemi, in turban and full Taliban regalia, waiting to board his flight as security yanks a blue-haired granny with a walker out of line for further scrutiny.)

Newly released details about the occupants of Guantanamo Bay revealed that one of the detainees is an Afghan apple seller. This guy aroused enough suspicion for his reported Taliban and al-Qaida ties to be thrown in the clink for four years. One would have thought the Taliban’s mouthpiece would have at least rated a no-fly-list honorable mention, or some other kind of border alert.

This just proves what a security charade we go through every time we take to skies. Makes me wonder if anyone’s thought to put bin Laden’s name on the list, either.

Then, of course, there’s the problem of Hashemi’s student visa, and why on earth the State Department chose to give him one. Queries as to who put Uncle Sam’s stamp in Hashemi’s passport have caused cagey bureaucratic fingers to point in every direction.

The responsible federal agencies here — State and Homeland Security — are run by none other than the Bush administration, which won re-election with promises to keep America safe and prepared.

But unlike Hurricane Katrina, it’s pretty tough to pawn this cock-up on state and local governments.

Here’s a simply policy: Yale acceptance or not, prominent members and spokesmen of factions engaged in killing Americans should be summarily excluded from air travel to this country.

That’s one security measure that should fly.

Bronwyn Lance Chester, editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk.
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=100829&ran=66583

Pat Tillman . . . again

As I understand it, the military is now going to open its fifth probe of Tillman's death.

Perhaps my opinion will change if something shocking is revealed, but right now my thinking runs like this: the man is dead, God rest his soul. He joined gung-ho to fight overseas, and he was killed there. Sadly, he was killed by friendly fire. He was far, far from the first such victim, and he will not be the last. And if he had not been Pat Tillman, football hero, but Wayne Zabroski, C student from Cleveland, he would not have rated a first probe, much less a fifth.

I'm Begging You

This post is off my usual topic of war, but I just have to get this off my chest.

Please. If you call talk radio shows, please, in the name of everything that you hold dear, do not:

• thank the host for taking your call.
• tell the host how much you admire him/her.
• tell the host how long you have listened to the show.
• tell the host if this is your first time to call.

I am begging you--state your opinion, ask your question, and hang up. This will extend my life immeasurably. My family and my blood pressure thank you.

Bush Confident Bin Laden Will Be Captured

"I'm confident he will be brought to justice."

Bush pledged that bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader, and other planners of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks would be caught.

"It's not a matter of if they're captured and brought to justice, it's when they're brought to justice," Bush said.

The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, told a congressional hearing in Washington on Tuesday that the insurgency was still growing and posed a greater threat to Karzai's government "than at any point since late 2001."