Soldiers

The trouble with Europe,’ said Churchill, is that ‘it produces more history than it can consume’. The question this insight begs is what have we learned from this history. One lesson is that soldiers belong in their barracks – out of sight and out of mind. So it is doubly depressing to see the ‘leader of the free world’ insist once again on a military display to celebrate the u.s national day on the Fourth of July with a military display. These vanity shows are usually the mark of a dictator with plenty to hide and were traditionally seen as signs more of weakness than strength by western observers. Nor was Trump the only one invoking the military recently.

We also had Senator Tom Cotton saying the 101st airborne would soon sort out ‘the anarchists’ of the BLM protests. Such was the brutality of his call to arms in an op-Ed piece in the NYT that the editor later had to resign. This craving by right-wing zealots to get the army onto the streets horrifies the Pentagon who know as well as the rest of us that where an army goes – any army- atrocities follow.

This is why there are such severe restrictions in calling out the u.s army under the law. Cotton said Trump could hide behind the Insurrection Act. But the generals don’t even like deploying the military to fight local natural disasters such as hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans in 2005 or indeed the unfortunate people of Puerto Rico more recently. The generals are right. There is always the risk of things going wrong and in a world where the u.s in permanently fighting foreign wars, it’s imperative the military enjoys the support of the homeland. This is not a given. The people turned against the wars in Vietnam and Korea and who now wants to be associated to the Iraq war?

The consequences of this opposition when it arises are not benign. For instance, when Pol Pot committed genocide against the people of Cambodia in 1979 it was Vietnam which had to rout his China-backed forces and it was a similar story in Syria in 2013 when Obama could get no congressional support to oppose Assad such was the fear among lawmakers that the voters had no trust left after the dismal betrayals of the Iraq war. This is what happens when you squander your moral capital and the same waste is evident in u.s use of the veto at the u.n blocking resolutions deploring Israeli expansion in the occupied territories.

When rioting broke out in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 following the police killing of a black man it’s fair to say that what surprised Europeans most was not the killing itself but the hardware the police brought to the unrest. Known locally as ‘used army surplus’ this equipment was more akin to what we had seen in Iraq and it was no wonder Obama banned the practice shortly after. Needless to say, this ban was quickly overturned by the present incumbent on coming to power.

At all events, armoured personnel carriers and other weapons of war is not the way that Hollywood has traditionally portrayed policing for world consumption and we can only ask where areJohn Wayne or Clint Eastwood when you need them. The sad part is of course that it doesn’t have to be like this and there have been many brave and eloquent peacemakers across the decades who proposed the changes and initiatives needed to end the racial disharmony. There are indeed positive signs that progress is possible wit the election of more people of colour in recent years.
As for Europe, we have had enough of soldiers on the streets thanks very much.