Where Are the Brave Military Voices Against Forever War?

Every once in a while I read a piece that perfectly summarizes my thoughts. It's almost as if I had personally put together the words to form the narrative.

Incidentally, this latest confirmation of my thoughts originated at The American Conservative.

Those that know me might be surprised--even shocked--to discover my daily readings often lead me to a publication committed to, "a measured, pertinent, principled conservatism for our time."

First, let's address that revelation.

I wear no labels.

I'm neither liberal nor conservative. I'm not a Republican nor am I a Democrat, however, I do believe in conservative principles and liberal doctrine.

I believe in the Constitution of the United States and that All Men Are Created Equal. 

I'll fight for equal rights and for civil rights and for Constitutional rights, but at the same time, I realize those rights often infringe upon the rights of others.

Now, let's get back on topic.

Major Danny Sjursen, a U.S. Army strategist and former history instructor at West Point who served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the author of Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians and the Myth of the Surge, and he also is a contributor to TomDispatch, a publication I insist you read on a daily basis.

Today, I want to reflect on the piece Maj. Sjursen contributed to The American Conservative: Where Are the Brave Military Voices Against Forever War?

In this piece, Maj. Sjursen asks what happened to those men who decades ago bravely spoke out against the military industrial complex.

"World War I boasted countless skeptics and anti-war activists both in and out of uniform. Their poetry and prose was dark, but oh was it ever powerful. Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen from the Brits; Erich Maria Remarque for the stoic Germans; and our own Ernest Hemingway. A lost generation, which sacrificed so much more than youth: their innocence. They call to us, these long dead dissenters, from the grave.

"They might ask: Where are today’s skeptical veterans? Tragically, silence is our only ready response."

Silence may be the order of the day, but, as Maj. Sjursen wrote, that wasn't always the case.

"During the brutal Seminole Indian Wars, 17 percent of army officers resigned in disgust rather than continue burning villages and hunting natives down like dogs in Florida’s Everglades’ swamps. Mark Twain’s cheeky prose demolished the Philippine-American colonial war at the turn of the century. Hemingway laid the truth bare after being wounded in the First Great War. And Major General Smedley Butler—two-time Medal of Honor recipient though he was—emerged from the Caribbean “Banana Wars” to admit he’d been naught but a “high class muscle man for Big Business,” a “gangster for capitalism.”"

During World War II, Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller provided a skeptical look at our approach to war.

Maj. Sjursen even pointed out John Kerry's efforts as part of Vietnam Vets against the War, which contributed to his presidential election loss. Kerry and other members of the group testified in the Winter Soldier Hearings.

Today, we're missing those voices.

Maj. Sjursen provides an explanation for the absence of the military skeptic.

"To begin with, most of the above mentioned wars were fought by draftees, militiamen, and short-term volunteers: in other words, citizen-soldiers. Even now, the identity of “citizen-soldier” ought to emphasize the former term: citizen. It doesn’t. Now, as we veterans are constantly reminded, we are warriors. Professionals. Hail Sparta!"

He makes another valid point regarding the current structure of our military:

"Most of America’s Founding Fathers, after all, scorned standing armies and favored a body of august, able citizen-soldiers. Something more akin to our National Guard. Deploy these men to faraway lands, so the thinking went, and each town would lose its blacksmith, carpenter, and cobbler too. Only vital interests warranted such sacrifice. Alas, it is no longer so."

Surely, there are citizen-soldiers, even those who, like most today, volunteered to serve, who believe in morality and right over wrong.

But, dig a little deeper and we understand why the voices have been silent.

"Professional officers are volunteers; dissenters are seen as little more than petulant whiners, or oddball nuts. It is hard to know why, exactly, but the increasing cognitive and spatial distance of contemporary soldiers from society at large seems a likely culprit. Combine that with the Republican Party’s veritable monopoly on the political loyalties of the officer corps and you have yourself a lethal combination."

Of course, there are other reasons as well: "... don’t rule out cowardice. Who isn’t fearful for their career, income, and family stability?"

Maj. Sjursen believes our "forever" wars are lost, "if ever they were winnable."

"Iraq will fracture, Syria collapse, and Afghanistan wallow in perpetual chaos. It will be so. The people will forget. Our professional, corporate regiments will, undoubtedly, add banners to their battle flags—sober reminders of a job well done in yet another lost cause. Soldiers will toast to lost comrades, add verses to their ballads, and precious few will ask why."

Yet, despite the mounting evidence and abundance of toasts to lost comrades, our military machine drives on, forging ahead as if there is a clear goal, an end game.

Why? Where are the brave military voices against forever war?