<div dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/us/16prof.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/us/16prof.html</a><div><br></div><div><h1 id="gmail-headline" class="gmail-headline" style="line-height:2.375rem;font-style:italic;font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;margin:0px 0px 10px;font-feature-settings:'kern' 1;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="2">Former Soldier, Now a Professor, Loses His Only Son to a War He Actively Opposed - this is Andrew Bacevich </font></h1><div><br></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 6:59 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank">peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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Excellent article, and as you say, unfortunately accurate.
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<div>On Oct 9, 2017, at 08:57, David Johnson via Peace-discuss <<a href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank">peace-discuss@lists.chambana.<wbr>net</a>> wrote:</div>
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<i><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Disturbing but unfortunately accurate !<u></u><u></u></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">By Andrew J. Bacevich, an author, most recently, of<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553393952/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">America’s
War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History</span></a>. Originally published at<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176335/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">TomDispatch</span></a><u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Consider, if you will, these two indisputable facts. First, the United States is today more or less permanently engaged in hostilities in not one faraway place, but<b> </b><a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/scary-fact-america-dropped-26171-bombs-7-countries-2016-18961" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">at
least seven</span></a>. Second, the vast majority of the American people could not care less. <u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Nor can it be said that we don’t care because we don’t know. True, government authorities withhold certain aspects of ongoing military operations or release only details that they
find convenient. Yet information describing what U.S. forces are doing (and where) is readily available, even if buried in recent months by barrages of presidential tweets. Here, for anyone interested, are press releases issued by United States Central Command
for just one recent week:<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><a href="http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/1324264/september-26-military-airstrikes-continue-against-isis-terrorists-in-syria-and/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">September
19</span></a>: Military airstrikes continue against ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq<u></u><u></u></span></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-align:left;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><a href="http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/1317427/september-20-military-airstrikes-continue-against-isis-terrorists-in-syria-and/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">September
20</span></a>: Military airstrikes continue against ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq<u></u><u></u></span></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-align:left;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><a href="http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/1318986/iraqi-security-forces-begin-hawijah-offensive/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">Iraqi
Security Forces</span></a> begin Hawijah offensive<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><a href="http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/1319013/september-21-military-airstrikes-continue-against-isis-terrorists-in-syria-and/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">September
21</span></a>: Military airstrikes continue against ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq<u></u><u></u></span></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-align:left;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><a href="http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/1320711/september-22-military-airstrikes-continue-against-isis-terrorists-in-syria-and/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">September
22</span></a>: Military airstrikes continue against ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><a href="http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/1322796/september-23-military-airstrikes-continue-against-isis-terrorists-in-syria-and/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">September
23</span></a>: Military airstrikes continue against ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq<u></u><u></u></span></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-align:left;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><a href="http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/1322828/operation-inherent-resolve-casualty/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">Operation
Inherent Resolve</span></a> Casualty<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><a href="http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/1322838/september-25-military-airstrikes-continue-against-isis-terrorists-in-syria-and/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">September
25</span></a>: Military airstrikes continue against ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq<u></u><u></u></span></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-align:left;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><a href="http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/1324264/september-26-military-airstrikes-continue-against-isis-terrorists-in-syria-and/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">September
26</span></a>: Military airstrikes continue against ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Ever since the United States launched its war on terror, oceans of military press releases have poured forth. And those are just for starters. To provide updates<b> </b>on
the U.S. military’s various ongoing campaigns, generals, admirals, and high-ranking defense officials regularly testify before congressional committees or brief members of the press. From the field, journalists offer updates that fill in at least some of
the details — on civilian casualties, for example — that government authorities prefer not to disclose. Contributors to newspaper op-ed pages and “experts” booked by network and cable TV news shows, including passels of retired military officers, provide
analysis. Trailing behind come books and documentaries that put things in a broader perspective.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">But here’s the truth of it. None of it matters.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Like traffic jams or robocalls, war has fallen into the category of things that Americans may not welcome, but have learned to live with. In twenty-first-century America, war is
not that big a deal. <u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">While serving as defense secretary in the 1960s, Robert McNamara<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://quotefancy.com/quote/1322097/Robert-McNamara-The-greatest-contribution-Vietnam-is-making-right-or-wrong-is-beside-the" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">once
mused</span></a><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span>that the “greatest contribution” of the Vietnam War might have been to make it possible for the United States “to go to war without the necessity of arousing the public ire.” With regard to the conflict
once widely referred to as McNamara’s War, his claim proved grotesquely premature. Yet a half-century later, his wish has become reality.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Why do Americans today show so little interest in the wars waged in their name and at least nominally on their behalf? Why, as our wars drag on and on, doesn’t the disparity between
effort expended and benefits accrued arouse more than passing curiosity or mild expressions of dismay? Why, in short, don’t we give a [<i>expletive deleted</i>]?<b> </b><u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Perhaps just posing such a question propels us instantly into the realm of the unanswerable, like trying to figure out why people idolize Justin Bieber, shoot birds, or watch golf
on television. <u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Without any expectation of actually piercing our collective ennui, let me take a stab at explaining why we don’t give a @#$%&! Here are eight distinctive but mutually reinforcing
explanations, offered in a sequence that begins with the blindingly obvious and ends with the more speculative.<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><b> </b><u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Americans don’t attend all that much to ongoing American wars because: <u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">1.<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>U.S. casualty</i><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>rates are low</i>. By using proxies and contractors,
and relying heavily on airpower, America’s war managers have been able to keep a tight lid on the number of U.S. troops being killed and wounded. In all of 2017, for example, a<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://icasualties.org/oef/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">grand
total</span></a><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span>of 11 American<b></b>soldiers have been lost in Afghanistan — about equal to the number of shooting deaths<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/2017-chicago-murders" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">in
Chicago</span></a><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span>over the course of a typical week. True, in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries where the U.S. is engaged in hostilities, whether directly or indirectly, plenty of people who are not Americans
are being killed and maimed. (The estimated number of Iraqi civilians killed this year alone<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">exceeds
12,000</span></a>.) But those casualties have next to no political salience as far as the United States is concerned. As long as they don’t impede U.S. military<b><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>operations, they literally don’t count
(and generally aren’t counted).<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">2.<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The true costs of Washington’s wars go untabulated. <span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>In a<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/ike_chance_for_peace.html" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">famous
speech</span></a>, dating from early in his presidency, Dwight D. Eisenhower said that “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and
are not clothed.” Dollars spent on weaponry, Ike insisted, translated directly into schools, hospitals, homes, highways, and power plants that would go unbuilt. “This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense,” he continued. “[I]t is humanity hanging
from a cross of iron.” More than six decades later, Americans have long since accommodated themselves to that cross of iron. Many actually see it as a boon, a source of corporate profits, jobs, and, of course, campaign contributions. As such, they avert
their eyes from the opportunity costs of our never-ending wars. The dollars expended pursuant to our post-9/11 conflicts will ultimately number in<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">the
multi-trillions</span></a>. Imagine the benefits of investing such sums<b><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>in upgrading the nation’s aging<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">infrastructure</span></a>.
Yet don’t count on Congressional leaders, other politicians, or just about anyone else to pursue that connection. <u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553393936/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"></a></span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553393936/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span id="m_-5734366644306098109cid:image002.jpg@01D340ED.6D0ECE30"><image002.jpg></span></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553393936/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"></a><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">3.<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>On
matters related to war, American citizens have opted out. <span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>Others have made the point so frequently that it’s the equivalent of hearing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” at Christmastime. Even so, it bears repeating:
the American people have defined their obligation to “support the troops” in the<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175912/tomgram%3A_rory_fanning,_why_do_we_keep_thanking_the_troops/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">narrowest</span></a><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span>imaginable<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175423/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich,_playing_ball_with_the_pentagon/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">terms</span></a><wbr>,
ensuring above all that such support requires absolutely no sacrifice on their part. Members of Congress abet this civic apathy, while also taking steps to<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/gop-leaders-quietly-remove-language-repealing-post-911-military-authorization-from-defense-bill/article/2629075" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">insulate</span></a>themselves
from responsibility. In effect, citizens and their elected representatives in Washington agree: supporting the troops means deferring to the commander in chief, without inquiring about whether what he has the troops doing makes the slightest sense. Yes,
we set down our beers long enough to applaud those in uniform and<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/patriots/the_blitz/2017/09/devin_mccourty_explains_why_patriots_knelt_during_national_anthem" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">boo</span></a><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span>those
who decline to participate in mandatory rituals of patriotism. What we don’t do is demand anything remotely approximating actual accountability.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">4.<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Terrorism gets hyped and hyped and hyped some more.<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>While international terrorism
isn’t a trivial problem (and wasn’t for decades before 9/11), it comes<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/you-re-more-likely-die-choking-be-killed-foreign-terrorists-n715141" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">nowhere
close</span></a><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span>to posing an existential threat to the United States. Indeed, other threats, notably the impact of climate change, constitute a far greater danger to the wellbeing of Americans. Worried about the
safety of your children or grandchildren? The opioid epidemic constitutes an infinitely greater danger than “Islamic radicalism.” Yet having been sold a bill of goods about a “war on terror” that is essential for “keeping America safe,” mere citizens are
easily persuaded that scattering U.S. troops throughout the Islamic world while dropping bombs on designated evildoers is helping win the former while guaranteeing the latter. To question that proposition becomes tantamount to suggesting that God might not
have given Moses two stone tablets after all.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-align:left;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">5.<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Blather crowds out substance.<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>When it comes to foreign policy, American public
discourse is — not to put too fine a point on it — vacuous, insipid, and mindlessly repetitive. William Safire of the<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>New York Times<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>once characterized American
political rhetoric as BOMFOG, with those running for high office relentlessly touting the Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God. Ask a politician, Republican or Democrat, to expound on this country’s role in the world, and then brace yourself for some
variant of WOSFAD, as the speaker insists that it is incumbent upon the World’s Only Superpower to spread Freedom and Democracy. Terms like<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>leadership<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>and<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>indispensa<wbr>ble<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>are
introduced, along with warnings about the dangers of<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>isolationism<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>and<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>appeasemen<wbr>t,<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>embellished
with ominous references to<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Munich</i>. Such grandiose posturing makes it unnecessary to probe too deeply into the actual origins and purposes of American wars, past or present, or assess the likelihood
of ongoing wars ending in some approximation of actual success. Cheerleading displaces serious thought.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-align:left;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">
<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">6.<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Besides, we’re too busy.<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span></i> Think of this as a corollary to point five. Even
if the present-day American political scene included figures like Senators<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://progressive.org/dispatches/robert-la-follette-america-s-anti-imperialist-prophet/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">Robert
La Follette</span></a><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span>or<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G4JFCTK/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">J.
William Fulbright</span></a>, who long ago warned against the dangers of militarizing U.S. policy, Americans may not retain a capacity to attend to such critiques. Responding to the demands of the Information Age is not, it turns out, conducive to deep reflection.
We live in an era (so we are told) when frantic multitasking has become a sort of duty and when being overscheduled is almost obligatory. Our attention span shrinks and with it our time horizon. The matters we attend to are those that happened just hours
or minutes ago. Yet like the great solar eclipse of 2017 — hugely significant and instantly forgotten — those matters will, within another few minutes or hours, be superseded by some other development that briefly captures our attention. As a result, a dwindling
number of Americans — those not compulsively checking Facebook pages and Twitter accounts — have the time or inclination to ponder questions like: When will the Afghanistan War end? Why has it lasted almost 16 years? Why doesn’t the<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175337" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">finest
fighting force</span></a><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span>in history actually win? Can’t package an answer in 140 characters or a 30-second made-for-TV sound bite? Well, then, slowpoke, don’t expect anyone to attend to what you have to say.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">7.<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Anyway, the next president will save us.</i> At regular intervals, Americans indulge in the fantasy that, if we just install
the right person in the White House, all will be well. Ambitious politicians are quick to exploit this expectation. Presidential candidates struggle to differentiate themselves from their competitors, but all of them promise in one way or another to wipe
the slate clean and Make America Great Again. Ignoring the historical record of promises broken or unfulfilled, and presidents who turn out not to be deities but flawed human beings, Americans — members of the media above all — pretend to take all this seriously.
Campaigns become longer, more expensive, more circus-like, and ever less substantial. One might think that the election of Donald Trump would prompt a downward revision in the exalted expectations of presidents putting things right. Instead, especially in
the anti-Trump camp, getting rid of Trump himself (Collusion! Corruption! Obstruction! Impeachment!) has become the overriding imperative, with little attention given to restoring the balance intended by the framers of the Constitution. The irony of Trump
perpetuating wars that he once roundly criticized and then handing the conduct of those wars to generals devoid of ideas for ending them almost entirely escapes notice.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">8.<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Our culturally progressive military has largely immunized itself from criticism. <span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>As
recently as the 1990s, the U.S. military establishment aligned itself with the retrograde side of the culture wars. Who can forget the gays-in-the-military controversy that rocked Bill Clinton’s administration during his first weeks in office, as senior military
leaders publicly denounced their commander-in-chief? Those days are long gone. Culturally, the armed forces have moved left. Today, the services go out of their way to project an<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/09/29/air-force-academy-head-tells-racists-get-oudelivers-stern-lecture-wake-racial-slurs-found-prep-schoo/715755001/" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">image
of tolerance</span></a><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span>and a commitment to equality on all matters related to race, gender, and sexuality. So when President Trump announced his opposition to transgendered persons serving in the armed forces,<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/26/politics/trump-military-transgender/index.html" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">tweeting</span></a><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span>that
the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail,” senior officers politely but firmly disagreed and<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/us/politics/mattis-trump-transgender-ban.html" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">pushed
back</span></a>. Given the ascendency of cultural issues near the top of the U.S. political agenda, the military’s embrace of diversity helps to insulate it from criticism and from being called to account for a less than sterling performance in waging wars.
Put simply, critics who in an earlier day might have blasted military leaders for their inability to bring wars to a successful conclusion hold their fire. Having women<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/21/us/women-army-ranger-graduation/index.html" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">graduate</span></a><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span>from
Ranger School or<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/22/politics/marine-corp-female-infantry-officer/index.html" style="color:purple;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">command</span></a><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span>Marines
in combat more than compensates for not winning.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">A collective indifference to war has become an emblem of contemporary America. But don’t expect your neighbors down the street or the editors of the<span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>New
York Times</i><span class="m_-5734366644306098109Apple-converted-space"> </span>to lose any sleep over that fact. Even to notice it would require them — and us — to care.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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