Recently, Lew Rockwell published an essay warning us of the dangers to liberty posed by a strong standing military. It was very much in tune with former President Eisenhower, who warned of the dangers of the military industrial complex, and Davy Crockett, who suggested early on that we junk that elitist boys school at West Point or live to regret it. Rockwell was blasted as a Pollyanna, Eisenhower ignored completely, and Crockett dismissed as a backwoods hillbilly who had no real understanding of defense requirements.
Let's examine our defense needs. The big straw man today is rogue nations – most of whose inhabitants would be lucky under normal circumstances, to find the US on the map – if we stayed at home they'd eventually become aware of us, no doubt, because of our massive exports and technology. As it is they are all too aware of us; we are their worst nightmare. It's even money that they've known the horror of our terror bomber attacks.
As I always do, with everything, I take this personally: I'm dismayed to find my country an aggressor nation. In my adult life the US government has used force so often and so regularly, than even an old military man like me has begun to wonder. I'm truthfully not mad at anybody just now – at least not foreigners; the biggest threats we have to freedom are internal. Our police are highly militarized, our military train for urban warfare in our cities, our freedoms have eroded so rapidly that it is considered radical to teach the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights in our schools, which have themselves become propaganda factories for an alien ideology..
Don't mistake me for an idiot, please, Mr. Big Brother. I am totally underwhelmed by the threat of Sadaam Hussein and consider it no threat at all. He is not trying to take my weapons, nor has he tapped my phones or displayed violent and devilish programming for hundreds of hours continuously, every week for years, on my television screen. But wait – he is trying to get "weapons of mass destruction." You bet he is. So is everyone from Burma to Monaco. People are not stupid. The message from America is clear, if you have nukes, we'll leave you alone. Otherwise, we bomb at our discretion, or in the case of Mr. Clinton, we just bomb period, discretion having no meaning in the context of that person.
The Clinton White House has degraded our military in substantial and frightening ways. The feminization of the fighting forces means death for our troops in any new foreign adventures. Every real soldier knows that. Since the military leaders who've had the cojones to speak against this travesty have been purged, Clinton's little social experiment, aided and abetted by our fine conservative friends in the Republican party, will continue.
Of what use is such a military force? First, it is able to occupy territory, which it is doing in 106 countries by last count. It is able to kill large numbers of people without losing any of it's own personal, for what ever unconstitutional endeavor our corrupt leaders deem appropriate. Like the horror in Kosovo and the genocide in Iraq. It can serve as an internal police force, and it has become highly politicized, very much like the enemies it defeated in World War II. Our military now answers to the government, the UN, and to itself. Not to the people it serves. The unlamented demise of the draft completed the transition of our standing army into a mercenary force.
What it cannot do, is fight the big armored battles for which it once existed, and from which it defended Europe during the long years of the cold war. Nor can it engage in any sustained infantry combat – we won't even consider that, the consequences are too horrifying. Frankly, we'd get our clock cleaned. It is quite strong enough to suppress internal dissension – which has become, sadly, a mission for which it is tasked.
We do maintain a very strong nuclear force, capable of annihilating any country in the world twice over, at a moment's notice. Note that this is considered sinful conduct when the Pakistanis and Indians do it.
My suggestion? Most of you, particularly the war hawks of the left and right, won't like it, but here it is anyway. Junk the damn military. Bring u2018em home, muster u2018em out, and put u2018em to work! No wonder our corporations want to flood us with immigrants – so many thousands of our best workers are guarding the Bush family's business interests overseas that we a shortage of good employees. General Claudia Kennedy would make an excellent waitress at Waffle House, here in Georgia! Perhaps Mr. Cohen could roll up his sleeves and sling some hash. It's time these parasites did something useful.
Do I want a defenseless country? By no means, quite the opposite. I want a defenseless government! A constitutional United States (as in pre-War of Northern Aggression) would have a small force of missile troops and airmen with a national militia based on EVERY male citizen. A missile force of several thousand nukes would guarantee our safety from any attack – look at Israel, standing strong and isolated with only a force of several hundred nukes, and a well-known willingness to use them. Our ground forces were at their very best, in the War of Northern Aggression, when our regular forces were at their smallest level ever. No armies ever put in the field, by anyone, ever, were superior to Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, or for that matter, the pack of scoundrels that followed William Sherman.
Those were state troops, folks. Get the fedgov out of the Citadel and VMI. Leave us alone. We'll create our forces, and we'll get together to fight as needed. Not time for that in modern war – so I've heard repeatedly. Really? How long do you think it takes for an invading army to cross the ocean? Would we be unaware of a military buildup by Mexico or Canada? Hardly. Consider the Soviet defector who informed the CIA that no plans ever existed for occupying "CONUS" (Continental US) because the idea of occupying an armed country was too daunting. Should we not arrest the politicians who would deny us that most important of all national defense mechanisms, our guns? You bet we should. And deport them to the communist or "rogue" nation of their choice where they can live like outlaws and be content, for outlaws they are, make no mistake.
We speak often in this country of the blessings of liberty. And I wonder sometimes what country we are talking about. The "free" country I grew up in is long gone and has become an aggressor nation, and has jailed two million of it's own citizens. The fedgov is prosecuting wars at home and abroad that benefit us, as Americans, not at all. So I submit to you that it is not in my best interest for Bill Clinton and Janet Reno to have a strong military. Where strong standing armies exist, freedom withers. The founders knew this and spoke vehemently against the very thought of a standing army.
To you "conservatives," I say only this: examine your leaders and ask yourselves what is different about Newt Gingrich or Trent Lott or George Bush, in comparison to Bill Clinton or Al Gore? They all love foreign entanglements, they all love the drug war, they all cry out for more cops and less freedom. Judge your friends carefully and call them friends when they stand up freedom. When they do not, they are most certainly your enemies. Freedom is a fragile flower, and it is wilting in the heat of the hot rhetoric of the war hawks. There are no smart bombs. And there are very damn few just wars.
I am myself a combat vet – I fought in Rhodesia for a cause that mattered. And watched Comrade Jimmy Carter team up with those lap dogs in Britain and his natural allies in the USSR and Red China to support communist terrorists. Do I want such feeble swine as Carter in command of a Desert Storm style strike force? In fact, I don't want Desert Storm at all. Why should my national army be a police force for George Bush's oil buddies? Or Al Gore's oil buddies – Columbia anyone? But the market rules, eh? Cheaper than hiring security guards I suppose. Let Mike pay for it.
But oil prices would go up if we didn't fight in the mideast. Are Americans so silly as to believe that? Your oil prices are artificially high because you are paying for the warfare state. You want low prices, try peace for a change. You might like it.
I say again, look at your leaders, and ask yourself if these men can be trusted with a strong standing military. Don't tell me "we" need such a beast. I do not. Your leaders slaughtered large numbers of Serb Christians to support drug running Islamic gangsters and they used that very standing army General Washington warned us about. A national militia would not have done that. We'd fight only in self-defense, like real men.
Your leaders lied to you about Kosovo. This is not my opinion, this is documented fact. Yet many of you wish to beef up the military force these wretches used to work their will on unfortunate civilians. Think this through a little better, please! Human life is a gift from God, not to be taken lightly. A civilian may kill in self defense, specifically, when in "imminent danger of death or great bodily injury." This is a good law. Why does it not apply to our leaders, who kill randomly, whimsically, and often?
Projection of force is routinely brought up as an example of our need for a strong military. Yet why do we need to project force? Israel and Europe can take care of themselves. As can Taiwan – an economic powerhouse. Let them spend their own money on their own defense. We can offer them a very special boon that is worth it's weight in gold – we can guarantee that we will not attack them. All their defensive preparations can then be focused on any real or perceived enemies!
With the u2018feeble' military we retain, aren't we able to kill thousands of Iraqi children every month? Be careful what you wish for. This land of u2018liberty' is about to confiscate our personal firearms and you who speak of liberty will be reduced to pathetic comedians at that point. For there is no liberty without weapons. No army was ever stronger than Adolf Hitler's forces. Yet Germany had no security, and no freedom whatsoever under that fine fellow. Why then, do we mouth the same platitudes as history's most well know villain? Gun control and large standing armies – that was Hitler's mantra. And Clinton's. The only security that provides is for the dictator.
Fix what is really broken first. Give us a country worth defending. Stop killing at the whim of some despotic and morally bankrupt politician. Then talk to me about the military. I'm ready to talk. But what I'll say remains the same: a strong national militia with every man jack armed and ready to rock. You want freedom, tough guy? Then get your thumb out of your ass and clean that assault rifle. Freedom exists exactly as long as you, YOU, are willing to fight for it.
Mr. Peirce fought with the Rhodesian freedom fighters (the Ian Smith side, of course).
