Patriotism
I was not able to enjoy myself thoroughly at the Champagne Pops gala owing to the persistent, ghoulish gaze of this one:
The theme for this year’s benefit was Country Legends. Had I not known this, which in fact I did having earlier glanced at the printed program over a glass (or 3) of Pinot Noir during the pre-concert reception, I might’ve thought the theme was Heavy Metal Legends. Why? Well, remove Dolly’s tooth whitener, the red eye correction, and add a jolt of 110, and these two look nearly identical! :
That’s Iron Maiden’s mascot, Eddie.
…
Ten years — 10! –training the Iraqi military and they scattered like puffballs in the wind the first time isis said “Booh!” And McCain now calls for more boots on the ground in Iraq to train the “military” to fight isis?!
The mind reels.
I like to think of myself as patriotic. I really do. I like my country, broadly speaking. Not every where and every time as perfect as I’d like it to be, but utopia is for the euphoric. What I increasingly don’t understand, however, are the misguided sentiments of patriotism I often see expressed by my fellow countrymen (and women). Yes, misguided. Apparently during a moment of solemn reflection on the anniversary of 9/11, some people have expressed what you might call an almost reminiscent fondness for the good ol’ days of unconditional surrender of a country after having been carpet bombed into oblivion. Or certain post-war treaty formalities, where the losers publicly repent for their various atrocities while the winners divvy up what’s left and make the losers pay reparations for what was lost.
Verily, the felling of the twin towers was not the same kind of casus belli as was Pearl Harbor in flames. The former did not force the kind of retribution amenable to picking up the aggregate might of our Industrial Military Complex, bringing it to bear on some neatly delimited geographic area, turning it in on Full Blast and waiting for the Mo F’ers to say, I give.
You don’t need me to tell you that bringing modern enemies “thoroughly to their knees” in this way can no longer be definitively accomplished.
I suppose this explains the pining for the good ol’ days of war, when two lines of bayonet-wielding men would simply charge each other. Distinguishing winners from losers was so much easier then.
I don’t know. I’m not a military man. Don’t look for me in the Situation Room. Probably also explains why I don’t wax nostalgic around matters of military history. I don’t read that stuff and I’m more likely to yawn rather than fawn at the prowess of past military generals and such. Don’t mean to sound unthankful for their service, just saying I’m not interested in reading about, for instance, Patton’s tactical genius in the European theater. (See, I’m not totally ignorant).
Got to thinking about all this after a reply I left to a comment at a blog:
Commenter: The brutal fact is that the timber of humanity is crooked indeed, and these things need to be demonstrated and relearned over and over.
Me: The problem is when “straightening the crooked” becomes viewed as a moral responsibility of the US because we emerged during the last half of the last century as The Only Dominant Military Power In The World (please see: Team America, World Police). Increasingly, we are now expected to restore order everywhere in the world where it has fallen apart, for one reason or another, whether or not the ensuing disorder poses a clear and present danger to our homeland.
Now, implant that misplaced prerogative of national responsibility to “fix” the world inside a POTUS du jour with a jingoistic attitude and a perfect storm of congressional approval to borrow seemingly limitless sums of money to finance nation building “fixing” campaigns — future taxpayers be damned! — and, well… the national timber becomes vulnerable to crookedness as well.
What the commenter meant by “these things” was the 1) total annihilation of an enemy followed by 2) occupation of the enemy’s land for a generation or more so 3) the lesson of defeat is never forgotten. But that will no longer work in the world we now find ourselves in. Don’t need to be steeped in the lessons of military history to understand that. A glance at what’s gone down since 9/11 is sufficient to understand why.