Don't want to go to war no more

I haven't talked about Syria because there's already enough chatter out there but for the record, this is one fight I hope Obama loses. I believe Assad used chemical weapons. Yes it's appalling but I don't want to bomb Syria. I fail to see how that solves anything. The end result is more dead people. So what's the point?

Don't want to go to war no more

Second day analysis is coming in on Obama's foreign policy speech and this NYT editorial sees what Obama did there:

President Obama’s speech on Thursday was the most important statement on counterterrorism policy since the 2001 attacks, a momentous turning point in post-9/11 America. For the first time, a president stated clearly and unequivocally that the state of perpetual warfare that began nearly 12 years ago is unsustainable for a democracy and must come to an end in the not-too-distant future.

Our POTUS effectively declared the war on terror over. No more axis of evil. No more existential threat to justify deploying combat assets to fight a ground war that doesn't have a home ground. Obama is calling for a return to law enforcement and intelligence gathering for such preventative measures as are possible in fighting small cell groups and radicalized individuals.

Unsurprisingly, Charlie Pierce has the most astute analysis of Obama's speech. Definitely read it all but here's the punchline:

The process of making the presidency an office with far more power in foreign affairs than the Founders intended took decades. The process of putting a sharp edge on that office took less than one. Give this president some credit. At least he knows what a deadly weapon his office is.

Yes, Obama's speech was only words but I believe this counts as the use of the bully pulpit his critics so often claim he refuses to use. He's calling for an end to the forever war. He's asking America to calm down and restore some of those freedoms we gave up for supposed security. He's asking to have some of the executive war powers rescinded. But he can't make his rhetoric come to fruition alone. Congress needs to do its part, so maybe targeting them for some criticism would help acheive the goals Obama laid out. It's worth a try.

We don't need another hero

Inadvertently got caught up in the periphery of an internet outrage last night. Didn't have a clue what was going on, but after seeing five references in the first ten tweets in my timeline to some big pile on against Chris Hayes, I instinctively tweeted my support, just on general principle. I've been following him for long enough to know he would never do anything deliberately hurtful or insulting.

Discovered a fair number of insults from strangers in my mentions this morning criticizing my tweet. Then I got the skinny on what Chris actually said, and I was right. Chris merely made a nuanced remark about war heroes:

“I feel… uncomfortable, about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers, and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.”

Hero is such a loaded word. One might think of our fallen military troops as victims and still appreciate the sacrifice of life in service to their country. Indeed, Chris made that point too.

Hayes did acknowledge the other side of the argument, namely that there is no mandatory conscription and service is purely voluntary, therefore all those who choose to sign up and take heavy risks are heroes in their own right.

Chris raises a valid question. It's useful to ponder if the glorification of war contributes to mankind's proclivity to resolve differences with violence and all too often unnecessary death. And frankly it's always bothered me that we never really pay proper tribute to military troops who die long after they come home from the battlefront. A widely circulated statistic on the internet this week reminds us that more veterans of our most recent wars have died of suicide than combat. Yet no one proclaims them as heroes even though their deaths are equally attributable to their service.

I'm a life long pacifist. To me the best way to honor our war dead is to stop having wars. Granted not a realistic goal, but my preferred solution nonetheless. Which brings to mind this song, from whence I took the post title.



[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]