An excellent feature on Wesley Clark appeared in one of the last issues of the late but much-lamented magazine Oxford-American (May/June 2003). In that article (The Art of Politics" by Duncan Murrell), Clark made an observation that has stuck with me (my emphasis):
<< When asked about his decision [as a young man] to leave Little Rock for West Point, he put it this way: "I wanted to serve my country. I wanted to be a leader. I wanted to be in the armed forces. I was worried about the threat to the country from Russia, and so I went to West Point."
<< Clark recognizes such feelings as somewhat anachronistic. The irony, as he sees it, is that while the relationship between the military and the general public ahs improved since Vietnam, the experience of actually serving in the military has become less common. The result is a perception of soldiers as the embodiments of ideals - duty, honor, country - reinforced by a sentimentality unsullied by first-hand knowledge of soldiering. Such admiration for the military is powerful, but not quite powerful enough to drive the sons and daughters of the middle and upper classes into recruiting offices. "We've been the beneficiearies of that lack of familiarity," Clark says, which has allowed the leadership of the United States to use the military as a symbol, sending soldiers off to wars that don't affect most American families directly by putting their children in harm's way. >>
I don't think one can really appreciate the politics of the Iraq War without keeping this element in mind. On the one hand, this attitude that Clark discussed renformces the sentimentality that the public on the "homefront" is tempted to feel during any war, which at its best is likely to be detrimental to clear judgment.
On the other hand, the more affluent voters have become accustomed to the idea that war should not require any sacrifices of them, their families or people they know.
Short, glorious wars comfort the comfortable. Long, messy ones are much more disturbing.
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