So, Veterans, What Have We Learned?
Have we actually learned any lessons from our foreign policy decisions, politics, and economic system?
I figured Veteran’s Day was a good enough day to write this. Veterans, what have we learned? What have you learned?
You know that Veteran’s Day was originally called Armistice Day, right? But that’s not politically useful, is it?
Armistice Day was about one war’s conclusion, not about some perpetual, celebratory way of enforcing a fascination with military culture in a citizenry. A passive way of encouraging a politically-naïve population to go along with disastrous wars that enrich defense contractors and their lobbyists.
So… what have you learned?
Politics
Have you learned that cynical politicians use you as a pawn in their campaign messaging?
The GOP still is somehow seen — even after Trump — as the “pro-veteran” party, and the Democrats are still the “anti-war” party. Neither of these perceptions are the case in reality.
The GOP project the image of being pro-veteran, while actively engaging in budget cuts to programs that help them. At best, veterans are political props to them. They hold them up when they need an easy rhetorical device that short-circuits the mind, drilling down into the modern American obsession with military culture. Otherwise, crickets when it comes to actual support. They’re generally a bunch of chicken-hawks across the board (*cough Trump cough*.) You all hopefully remember Bush’s theatrics.
The Democrats have somehow gained an undeserved label of being “anti-war,” despite there having been only one vote from them in the Senate against the disastrous war in Afghanistan. Not only that, but Obama accelerated the drone strikes that have resulted in uncountable dead civilians. They’re also — generally — a bunch of chicken-hawks.
Both have no interest in national security. We will be attacked by terrorists again in ten or twenty years, when the kids of civilians we’ve killed become radicalized and serious about it. We never did a damn thing about 9/11. We just spent a lot of money and blood.
Foreign policy
Have you learned that your foreign policy isn’t designed with the interests of the United States and its citizens in mind? That it’s designed with the interests of big business at its heart?
The argument back in the day was that the Iraq war was about oil, and that may have been the case somewhat — before we became a net exporter, at least. There are usually more reasons than one for everything. The logic behind invading Iraq was part oil industry backroom dealing, part defense contractor lobbying, and part Iran and its nuclear program (that we started.)
It certainly wasn’t about weapons of mass destruction, that’s for sure.
And what about Afghanistan? I have my own breakdown of SIGAR’s “Lessons Learned” reports I am working on, but if you want a comprehensive piece on that disaster, might I suggest their final What We Need to Learn report?
It’s pretty terrible. Just… the whole thing. It’s bad. It reeks of corruption on all sides.
Have the last few decades really been about “protecting the homeland?” An idea that quite honestly reeks of ultra-nationalism and fascism?
Do you remember the creation of the Department of Homeland Security? Remember how its original goal was to prevent another 9/11 by coordinating intelligence agency communication? Well, it’s been relegated to border security — think more of a “CIA for ICE” kind of thing than some over-arching intelligence apparatus that coordinates disparate agencies.
Corporate apparatchiks must be pleased with themselves. Regulatory capture can go far beyond simple economics. Labor is a good. Which leads us to…
Economics
Have you learned that business and lobbyists pander to you with pennies while they rake in the dollars? That they crush government programs in order to criticize them, then offer you worse programs in return?
I’ve already hit on the perversion that is the defense contractor industry in other pieces and up above. I’ve already dropped the links to analysis that shows just how much of our defense budget is now taken up by private enterprise. It’s no longer a budget “for the troops.” Stop buying that line.
It’s funny how in applying policy post-9/11, those in power in the U.S. exposed their actual racist worldviews. The DHS isn’t there to stop terrorists, now — although you have to admit, in the cultural hysteria our politicians abused post-9/11, it sure seemed like that’s what it was going to be used for.
Now, DHS is mostly just here to shake down and terrorize migrant labor and people seeking asylum from the fallout of our other types of foreign policy disasters. Another bureaucratic and authoritarian tentacle of the octopus that is a government and business bedfellow-ship.
Those running this ship in your name are not afraid of actual terrorism, you see — that stuff rarely happens. That would be like being afraid of Ebola — certainly not something you want, but such a vanishingly small chance of it happening to you that you never even think about it.
What they’re actually afraid of are growing populations of people they have historically oppressed for favorable employment conditions for large agricultural businesses. Groups that would likely be against their interests in the long run — both authoritarian interests, and the interests of capital. Lobbyists pay for this stuff.
Veteran support non-profits pop up here and there, charging exorbitant administration fees for as long as they can get away with it, then apologizing, only to do it again when no one is looking years later.
It’s a vicious cycle of abuse and false apologies. That’s capitalism, baby! Specifically, neoliberal capitalism! Cut lean government programs until they are no longer effective, and the ineffectiveness then becomes political rhetoric about how the government can’t do its job. After that? Fill the void with less effective non-profits that have boards and executives that get big bonuses.
Lather, rinse, lose some limbs, get a pat on the back, get your wallet stolen, repeat.
That’s called a market development strategy. A very lucrative one!
But it’s OK. It’s all about you, the vet… Remember? How could you forget? It’s Veteran’s Day! Do you have a bunch of red, white, and blue shit on your walls yet? Why not? Go buy some!
Hope you enjoyed your free Chili’s meal!
Fin
So, veterans… what have we learned? What have you learned?
Hopefully something, but if history is any indicator, probably nothing. And that’s the greatest tragedy of them all, isn’t it?
(Oh yeah… check out Left Flank Veterans sometime.)
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