Years ago at Fort Riley, Kansas, home of the Big Red One, I can still recall having long discussions with a sergeant from the Vietnam Era. Since he was familiar with massacres and atrocities committed during the Vietnam Conflict (on both sides), we often discussed the Just War Theory and the differences between fighting an Offensive and Defensive War. Most of all though, we discussed if it was possible to be a soldier-indoctrinated and trained to kill and destroy the “enemy”-and still maintain a sense of humanitarian values and feeling in time of war. (In thinking back to Vietnam and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, maybe the most important question was not in asking how would they greet us, but how would/did we greet them!)
I was reminded of our conversations for three reasons. First, three Iraqi brothers were recently killed in Mosul in a botched military raid. Several months ago a female editor for Iraq’s Biladi TV was critically wounded when US troops opened fire. Again, US forces just killed a 12-year old girl in Hurriyah in northern Iraq when the driver of the car did not stop at a check-point. In Afghanistan, hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed due to faulty intelligence or being mistaken for suspected terrorists. Over the past several years, there have been other crimes like executions, stealing and rape committed by US forces against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Second, the newly signed Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Iraq and US military forces states that US forces are not supposed to do anything in Iraq without first coordinating with the Iraqi government or provincial leader. In other words, occupation forces can no longer have contact with Iraqi civilians, such as arrests or personal and home searches and seizures, until applying for an Iraqi court issued warrant. At the heart of the SOFA agreement is who has final jurisdiction over US troops and their behavior and actions: Iraq or the US? And what does this agreement mean for US forces?
Third, and since the United States prides itself on being founded on the principles of the Age of Enlightenment, remember that critical thinkers examined the military and concluded in an enlightened and civilized society a professional or standing army would be disbanded after a war was over. They also rejected the professional army in favor of a natural army composed of all able-bodied citizens, equal in arms and used only for defensive purposes. Enlightened thinkers too imagined militaries and war, along with their propaganda of killing, would eventually come to an end for a new peaceful and humanitarian way of thinking and living. (1)
Furthermore, reasoned individuals objected to monarchies in which kings held absolute power and used armies to preserve their power and suppress democratic dissent. They also denounced kings that continually enlarged their forces by grinding the people down to poverty and starvation. (Montesquieu advised the legislative body to be in complete control of the military versus a king or executor.) Other thinkers, like Voltaire, called soldiers hired thugs, murderers and the scum of the nation. (2) Philosophers believed militaries and wars impoverished people, leveled democracies, and depopulated the world.
Even Adam Smith, author of ‘The Wealth of Nations’, wrote that “Among the civilized nations of modern Europe…not more than one hundredth part of the inhabitants of any country can be employed as soldiers, without ruin to the country which pays the expense.” (3) He believed military budgets should equal only one percent of a nation’s productive output. Smith considered large armies as the most unproductive organizations and their conquests as the greatest crimes. In truth, Smith believed large standing and professional armies would create enormous debts and bankrupt nations. (Today, for example, the US devotes 42 percent of its total product and employs some 12 percent of its labor force directly or indirectly to the armed forces and military production.)
Finally, John Locke was horrified of professional armies (such as the one France had) and speculated that they were the most dangerous and destructive entities of life and liberty. The Second Amendment was included in the US Constitution for the sole purpose of protecting States and their citizen militias from an abusive and federally controlled large standing army. It was also understood in Article I that the Legislative Branch could raise an army only when the new republic was attacked and invaded, or to put down rebellions. After such events, the professional army was to be disbanded.
This week US Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced deep cuts in traditional weapons systems and a sweeping overhaul of America’s military strategy towards the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. While cutting missile defense programs, he has proposed billions of dollars more for intelligence and surveillance equipment, special forces units, Predator and Reaper drones, and more unmanned and robotic weapons. Gates hopes to impose a “new culture” on the Pentagon and the way it chooses and buys its weapons. Perhaps a more important priority would be to pursue a more “civilized” and “enlightened” military, such as the one reasoned thinkers in the past imagined.
Since a civilized society produces a civilized military, maybe the real problem resides in America’s social order itself. Has the US created a permanent war economy and de-enlightened warrior culture? In part two of ‘Is a Civilized Military Possible?’, I will explore this question and others like: Should the US Constitution follow the American flag? Should the Bill of Rights and due process apply to occupied peoples and victims of US war crimes? Should there be more humanitarian and cultural training in the military instead of combat and technical training? Should professional soldiers be held to a higher standard than insurgents, especially during Offensive Wars?
Finally, and now that the US is ready to lead the world on nuclear disarmament, will it show the way and reform its army into a civilized and enlightened military?
Dallas Darling is the author of The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace, and is a writer for www.worldnews.com. You can read more of his articles at www.beverlydarling.com.
Notes:
(1) Vagts, Alfred. A History Of Militarism, Civilian And Military. New York, New York: The Free Press, 1959. p. 75.
(2) Ibid., p. 76ff.
(3) Pauling, Linus and Ervin Laszlo and Jong Youl Yoo. World Encyclopedia of Peace. New York, New York: Pergamon Press Volume 1, 1986. p. 304.
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