>
> Don monkerud wrote:
>
> There's been a lot of talk about veterans and little recognition that
> this country no longer has the draft. The people who sign up cannot be
> said to be a "citizen's army" like could have been said in past wars.
> The US, least we forget, today has a professional army.
>
> For those of you who observe the military. What type of difference does
> this make in today's army? In the future of the military?
>
> Jerry West replied:
>
> A mistake. If you are in favor of having any kind of a defensive
> military then the best kind is where all citizens are obligated to
> contribute and take the risk. On one hand it keeps the military closer
> to society as a whole, and on the other it improves the level of the
> military by providing it with a wider pool of skills and ideas.
>
> You have lifted the lid to a particularly squirmy can of worms here,
> Don.
>
>That he has, because the US could not be said to have had a defensive
military, at the very minimum since WW2. Within decade, the students of
Orwell on Capitol Hill decided that the War Department sounded much
cozier as the Defense Department, particularly in light of the US's
global plans, and since then, the media, brain-dead or properly taught,
from the mainstream to most of the so-called alternatives, such as the
Nation, Pacifica radio both the pre and post-coup variety, refer to the
billions of dollars for arms and manpower apprropriated by Congress as
"defense spending."
The question, what kind of army, of course, assumes that the existence
of an army is a given, except for Costa Rica, which decided, despite US
pressure, not to have one. The Japanese also resisted going back on the
path they went before, but have since succumbed. The problem with
armies, in general, is that they are, for the most part, used to
suppress the people in their respective countries and far less
frequently do they actually engage in combat with a neighbor's army
which is also busily employed in suppressing its own people.
Jeff Blankfort
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jun 26 2000 - 20:51:24 CUT