[wvns] Whatever Happened to "Uncle Sam Wants You"?
Whatever Happened to "Uncle Sam Wants You"?
by Michael Nolan
September 14, 2007
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0709d.asp
If the war in Iraq is worth fighting, then why doesn't George Bush,
commander-in-chief of an army stretched so thin by the Iraq
catastrophe that Colin Powell has labeled it "broken," just look the
people in the eye and say "Uncle Sam Wants You?" Think about it: Those
who support global, perpetual war — from Dick Cheney to Joe Lieberman
to Rush Limbaugh — never ask the ersatz patriots who support them to
join up or shut up. Despite recruitment shortfalls, deployment
extensions that push troops beyond human limit, and a re-set of the
war's projected length, from cakewalk to forever, the American
Empire's politicians and pundits never ask for volunteers. In the
modern U.S. Empire, the war's planners, supporters, and profiteers
(and progeny thereof) are not expected to serve.
In June, 2005, I wrote a piece for Common Dreams that made the
following observation:
Certainly, there's no shortage of passion on the pro-war side. No less
an authority on good and evil than Fox News Network's Sean Hannity
informs us on page 6 of his book Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating
Terrorism, Despotism and Liberalism, "[The] threat they [the
terrorists] represent is every bit as grave as the one we experienced
during WW II." Hannity is fond of playing the World War II card to
contrast the bravery of kids who marched en masse down to the
recruiter on Dec. 8, 1941, with those despicable young antiwar
liberals today. But instead of whining about liberals, why doesn't
Hannity use his bilious pulpit to ask like-minded Americans to perform
their "patriotic" duty?
The FBI labels increased gang activity in the ranks as a threat to
national security. If that's the case, why doesn't Bush call on those
who are bravely supporting the war from afar with the exhortation,
"America needs its best and brightest and most patriotic in the
military. Uncle Sam Wants You! Right now!" Surely they wouldn't say no
to the president, would they?
The face of Matthew Continetti is the face of the American Empire.
Continetti is a staff writer for the bellicose Weekly Standard, and,
as such, a relentless young cheerleader for the Iraq war. Yet this
twenty-something dismisses with an effete and arrogant shrug of his
shoulders any suggestion that he should serve in a war that he and
fellow chickenhawks have done so much to sell to the American people.
Fair warning to patriotic Americans: This three-minute Youtube clip
will make your flesh crawl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SVjZnDVxk8
Jonah Goldberg is of military age, though, like Continetti, not of
military inclination. From the safety of his perch at National Review
Online, Goldberg declares himself an admirer of what he calls the
"Ledeen Doctrine," which, as articulated by American Enterprise
Institute scholar Michael Ledeen, affirms that "every ten years or so,
the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country
and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean
business." The putrefying morality and obscene bullying manifest in
Continetti, Goldberg, and Ledeen are not eccentricities in neocon
nation but, rather, the very soul of neocon nation. Ledeen's American
Enterprise Institute, after all, earned congratulations from Bush as
the place where "some of the finest minds in our nation are at work on
some of the greatest challenges to our nation."
In the highly probable event that America launches an aerial attack on
Iran, the not-insubstantial Iranian army will move rapidly into Iraq
bent on the slaughter of American troops. College Republicans and
other young, "patriotic" pro-imperial supporters should make this
their Teddy Roosevelt moment and leave for basic training now, that
they might be ready to really support the troops — not with yellow
ribbons this time, but with risk to their own lives.
The rest of young and hale America can best defend their homeland,
their families, and the U.S. Constitution, not by kicking in the doors
of brutalized Iraqis (and engendering a hatred of Uncle Sam that begs
for terrorist retaliation here at home), but by refusing to serve in
imperial war.
Michael Nolan [send him mail nolanmj @ msn.com] is a freelance writer.
His work has appeared in LewRockwell.com, Common Dreams.org,
OpEdNews.com, and the Vermont Guardian.
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