I completely forgot that yesterday was “National Sanctity of Human Life Day.” At The Reaction, Capt. Fogg describes how the day was commemorated.

Andrew J. Bacevich has an intriguing op ed in today’s Boston Globe that presents another side to the question, “to draft, or not to draft.” His argument is that an all-volunteer army has created a U.S. Army that is completely estranged from U.S. society. I’m not necessarily endorsing a draft, but I am presenting Bacevich’s view for your consideration.

Historically, Americans had viewed a “standing army” with suspicion. After Vietnam they embraced the idea. By 1991 they were celebrating it. After Operation Desert Storm — with its illusion of a cheap, easy victory — soldiers like General Colin Powell persuaded themselves that “the people fell in love with us again.”

If love, it was a peculiar version, neither possessive nor signifying a desire to be one with the beloved. For the vast majority of Americans, Desert Storm affirmed the wisdom of contracting out national security. Cheering the troops on did not imply any interest in joining their ranks. Especially among the affluent and well-educated, the notion took hold that national defense was something “they” did, just as “they” bus ed tables, collected trash, and mowed lawns. The stalemated war in Iraq has revealed two problems with this arrangement.

The first is that “we” have forfeited any say in where “they” get sent to fight. When it came to invading Iraq, President Bush paid little attention to what voters of the First District of Massachusetts or the 50th District of California thought. The people had long since forfeited any ownership of the army. Even today, although a clear majority of Americans want the Iraq war shut down, their opposition counts for next to nothing: the will of the commander-in-chief prevails.

The second problem stems from the first. If “they” — the soldiers we contract to defend us — get in trouble, “we” feel little or no obligation to bail them out. All Americans support the troops, yet support does not imply sacrifice. Yellow-ribbon decals displayed on the back of gas-guzzlers will suffice, thank you.

Bacevich is a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran with 23 years of service in the U.S. Army. Today he is a professor of international relations at Boston University.

It so happens I have an advance review copy of Chalmers Johnson’s upcoming book, Nemesis. I’ve read enough of it to know that lots of you folks will probably want to read it. Anyway, Chalmers Johnson quotes Bacevich,

Americans in our own time have fallen prey to militarism, manifesting itself in a romanticized view of soldiers, a tendency to see military power as the truest measure of national greatness, and outsized expectations regarding the efficacy of force. To a degree without precedent in U.S. history, Americans have come to define the nation’s strength and well-being in terms of military preparedness, military action, and the fostering of (or nostalgia for) military ideals. [Andrew Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 2]

Now, lots of us have noticed that while righties romanticize the military, and they fancy themselves great supporters of the military, they aren’t real big on joining the military. This seems to me to support Bachevich’s thesis. To see an example of the weird way the Right objectifies the troops, see this recent post by Dean Barnett. Barnett has a snit because Pelosi referred to the late Marine Corporal Jason Dunham, who died in Iraq at the age of 22, as a “young man.” Barnett writes,

I know the Democrats have developed as one of their pet Lakoffian tics the habit of describing our warriors as defenseless children. Thus, when Pelosi refers to Dunham as a “young man” and the men he saved as “other young people,” she’s merely falling into a bad habit.

But it’s a real bad habit; a truly offensive one. This is a matter of more than just mere semantics. Jason Dunham was a Marine. So, too, were the men he saved. They see themselves as warriors, and that’s what they are. The term “young people” is meant to demean them, and in Dunham’s case denies him the dignity that he has so completely earned.

A 22-year-old man is a young man. This is not demeaning. I don’t see anything demeaning about referring to people as, well, people, young or otherwise. And soldiers are people. But not to Barnett, it seems.

Additionally, the failure to use the word “soldier”, “Marine” or any other term that acknowledges a connection between Dunham and the military is borderline grotesque. In Pelosi’s formulation, it almost sounds as if some random “young people” were frolicking in Iraq and stumbled upon a live grenade.

One other thing: If Dianne Sawyer really wants to see human beings that are like “galvanized steel,” she might consider turning her journalistic gaze to Iraq and the Marines still there like Jason Dunham.

It is not an insult to Marines to acknowledge that they are human beings. But to Barnett, Marines are not people. They are not made of tender flesh and blood, but galvanized steel. They aren’t human, but objects.

Let’s go back to Bacevich’s Boston Globe column:

Stipulate for the sake of argument that President Bush is correct in saying that failure in Iraq is not an option. Then why limit the “surge” to a measly 21,500 additional troops? Why not 50,000? With the population of the United States having now surpassed 300 million, why not send 100,000 reinforcements to Iraq?

The question answers itself: There are not an additional 100,000 Americans willing to commit their lives to the cause. Even offering up 21,500 finds the Pentagon scraping the bottom of the barrel, extending the tours of soldiers already in the combat zone while accelerating the deployment of those heading back for a second or third tour of duty.

After the Cold War, Americans came to see war as something other than a human enterprise; the secret of military superiority ostensibly lay in the microchip. The truth is that the sinews of military power lie among the people, who legitimate war and sustain it.

For the United States to remain a great military power will require a genuine reconciliation of the military and American society. But this implies the people exercising a greater say in deciding when and where American soldiers fight. And it also implies reviving the tradition of the citizen-soldier so that all share in the burden of national defense.

Now, I’m sure it’s the case — it’s what everybody says, anyway — that from a purely military perspective a professional force is superior to an army of draftees. But what about what Bacevich writes, about the relationship between society and the military?

Add to this what I wrote in an earlier post, that America will have to choose between being an empire and being a republic; we cannot be both. I am more and more persuaded this is so, and that we have already reached the fork in the road (if not passed it).

While I was writing this, the BBC reported that U.S. troops stormed the Iranian consulate in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil and seized six members of staff.

In reviewing last night’s speech, Walter Shapiro wrote in Salon:

Ever since Bush denounced the theretofore unknown “Axis of Evil” in his 2002 State of the Union Address, at a moment when the nation was still fixated on the horrors of Sept. 11, it has been instructive to listen for new rhetorical gambits in major presidential speeches. That is why it is possible that the most fateful words that Bush uttered from the White House library on Wednesday night were these: “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria.”

Even though the Democrats have won the rhetorical war in labeling the Bush war plan as escalation, 21,000 additional troops is pretty small potatoes by the standards of prior wars such as Vietnam. But expanding the battlefield to the borders of Iran and Syria — if that was indeed what Bush was suggesting — now that would qualify as escalation, as even Henry Kissinger might admit.

See rege at The Carpetbagger for more discussion. This truly is the part of the speech that needs the most scrutiny and attention.

Oh, and without even looking, I’m willing to bet that one could find critics of the war complaining about the unguarded borders from at least 2005, if not earlier.

Well, on to the reviews —

I have to say one good thing about the New York Times — its editorials beat the pants of the Washington Post’s. Compare/contrast what the two august newspapers cranked out this morning:

Shorter Washington Post: Risks, obligations, fudge, ponies, maybe, uncertainty, ponies, wait and see. More fudge.

Shorter New York Times: Bleep.

Here’s the first paragraph from the NY Times:

President Bush told Americans last night that failure in Iraq would be a disaster. The disaster is Mr. Bush’s war, and he has already failed. Last night was his chance to stop offering more fog and be honest with the nation, and he did not take it.

It gets better after that.

Over at MSNBC/Newsweek, Howard Fineman is working hard to redeem himself from the days when his fawning deference to Lord Dubya earned him the title Media Whore of the Year.

George W. Bush spoke with all the confidence of a perp in a police lineup….

…if he was trying to assure the country that he had confidence in his own plan to prevent that collapse, well, a picture is worth a thousand words. And the words themselves weren’t that assuring either. Does anyone in America or Iraq , or anywhere else in the world for that matter, really think that the Sunnis and Shia will make peace? Does anyone think that embedded American soldiers won’t be in danger of being fragged by their own Iraqi brethren? Does anyone really think that Iran and Syria can be prevented from playing havoc in Iraq and the rest of the region by expressions of presidential will?

To answer Howie’s question — yes, there are people who think that. There’s no end to the remarkable self-deluding properties of human cognition. But enough of the freak show.

Shorter Boston Globe: Bush won’t face reality.

Shorter Martin Kettle (UK): Blair is screwed.

Now for some substance, from Walter Shapiro, Salon:

Throughout the long century to come, any future leader contemplating sending American troops into combat should carefully watch a tape of George W. Bush’s speech to the nation Wednesday night — and ponder its underlying lessons. This was Bush deflated, his arrogance temporarily placed in a blind trust, looking grayer than ever with his brow furrowed with lines of worry. How humiliating for Bush to be forced to say with a stony face, “The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people — and it is unacceptable to me.”

My take on the “unacceptable” line, in the context of the speech, was that Bush was wagging a finger at Iraqis for being messy. This is from the transcript:

The violence in Iraq — particularly in Baghdad — overwhelmed the political gains the Iraqis had made. Al-Qaida terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq’s elections posed for their cause. And they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis. They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam — the Golden Mosque of Samarra — in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq’s Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today.

The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people — and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.

Is he not saying everything would have worked out if the Iraqis had behaved themselves?

Fred Kaplan at Slate wonders what Bush will do if the Iraqis fail again:

President Bush declared tonight that America’s commitment is “not open-ended” and that “America will hold the Iraqi government to … benchmarks.” However, he said nothing about what will happen if the Iraqis fail to meet those benchmarks. And without a warning (even a sternly intoned “or else!”), benchmarks mean nothing.

And let’s look at those benchmarks. Bush said that the Iraqi government has promised “to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq’s provinces by November.” It “will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.” It will “spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure.” It will “hold provincial elections later this year,” to empower local leaders, especially Sunni leaders. And, in a further effort to co-opt Sunni insurgency, it “will reform de-Baathification laws and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq’s constitution.”

When did all these promises get made? Where did Maliki suddenly get the political power, or even the political audacity, to make them? One obstacle to reconstruction has been pervasive corruption within the Iraqi ministries; how does he hope to clean that up? The call for provincial elections has been ignored for months. The Shiite-led government promised to amend the constitution—with special attention to altering the language on oil revenue sharing and de-Baathification—back when the constitution was ratified; it has refused to bring up the issues ever since.

Still, if (if?) the plan fails, Bush will say it is Malaki’s failure, not his. From the transcript:

Only the Iraqis can end the sectarian violence and secure their people. And their government has put forward an aggressive plan to do it.

Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents, and there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have. Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work.

That’s his exit strategy — blame the Iraqis.

Richard Wolffe, Newsweek:

… if you listened closely to President Bush on Wednesday night, the much-anticipated speech didn’t change the central mission much. It’s clear, hold and build—only this time with money behind it, but not that much money, and not enough new troops to really make a difference. And, Bush signaled loud and clear, it’s really the Iraqis’ problem now.

Yes, the president accepted a degree of responsibility for the failures that have characterized the war in Iraq. “Where mistakes have been made,” he said, “the responsibility rests with me.” But he didn’t go into much detail about what those mistakes were. The basic strategy had been right all along, Bush seemed to be saying. The tactics just needed a little tweaking. …

… Bush reduced the U.S. role to that of loyal watchdog to the Iraqi government. “America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced,” he said. “If there is change in Iraq, it will have to come almost entirely from the government in Baghdad.”…

…Yet there was little discussion in the speech, or behind the scenes with the Iraqis, of what might happen if they failed to deliver once again. Bush’s aides say that talking about consequences—or threatening withdrawal—will weaken the Iraqi government and embolden insurgents and militias. President Bush simply said that he warned the Iraqi prime minister that the U.S. mission was not “open ended.”

“If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people,” he said, “and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people.” It was a curiously impersonal construction. He never suggested the Iraqi leader might lose the support of George W. Bush. And he never mentioned that the polls show a clear majority of Americans opposing his policy of sending more troops to Iraq.

Jack Murtha and others have been saying for months that it’s time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their own country. Now, I personally never saw this as much more than a talking point, to make the bugout seem less ignoble than it might otherwise. As much as I am all for getting out asap, let’s not kid ourselves that we’ll be able to go back to sleep and ignore Iraq after that. Whatever nastiness that goes on once we leave — and there will be nastiness, although not necessarily more nastiness than what will occur if we stay — will be seized by the Right as their next great “stabbed in the back” myth. For the rest of our lives, we’ll have to listen to the whackjobs whine about who lost Iraq? Anticipating this, it appears the politicians of both parties are pinning as much as possible on Iraqis. I can’t say I blame them.

But Bush is still reluctant to let go of his glorious little war, so 20,000 more troops will be tossed into the meatgrinder. Their purpose will be to buy Bush time to knit a bigger butt cover.

But this business about the Iranian consulate worries me; it seems, well, provocative. Is Bush deliberately trying to stir up enough trouble in the Middle East that Congress cannot deny him his 20,000 troops?

See also: Juan Cole, “Bush Sends GIs to his Private Fantasyland“; Glenn Greenwald, “The President’s intentions towards Iran need much more attention.”

OK, I’ll live blog the damnfool speech. You’d better appreciate this.

He’s calling the maneuver a “new strategy.” The violence of Iraq overwhelmed the political games. He’s talking about a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today. This is unacceptable.

“Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.” That’s supposed to be the money quote. “Where mistakes have been made” seems a bit weaselly to me.

Holy shit, he mentioned September 11. Stopit stopit stopit!!!

He’s saying that the Iraqis have a new plan — it’s not even our bleeping plan — and he’s claiming that experts (e.g., Barney and the White House goldfish) have reviewed the plan and say it will work. So it’s really the Iraqi plan, not our plan, and we’re just sending five brigades to be embedded in Iraqi units to help Iraiqis clear and support neighborhoods.

This time we’ll have the force levels we need to hold areas cleared of insurgents. No more whack-a-mole. Malaki has pledged sectarian violence will not be tolerated. Well, I feel better.

If the Iraq government doesn’t follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people. He really said that. I think Laura needs to sit him down for a long talk.

He’s wooden. No passion in this speech. He sounds as if he’s announcing the opening of a new supermarket.

He mentioned the Iraq Study Group, as if he’s really paying attention to it.

No one in America is still listening to this. Blah Blah Blah. There’s an episode from Season One of Rome on HBO I’m missing for this.

Our commanders believe we have an opportunity in Anbar Province to strike insurgents, or terrorists, or somebody.

OK, he’s mentioned Iran and Syria. Hmm.

Monotone droning. This is not a good performance. He’s not saying shit he hasn’t already said, so content is not particularly newsworthy.

“There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship.” So if we arrange one, will he go away?

On HBO, right now Julius Caesar is chasing Pompey Magnus around Greece. They had real wars in those days, buckaroos.

Oh, gawd, this is a bad speech. Booooring. Same old, same old.

It’s over. Deep breath.

He’s the postgame wrapup. Keith Olbermann says Bush mentioned Lieberman, which must have been while I was flipping to HBO. He also used the word “sacrifice” at some point, as British newspapers had predicted.

Here’s Dick Durbin, Senator from Illinois. Bush is ignoring the advice of his own generals. 20,000 too few to end the civil war, and to many to risk. We have paid a heavy price. We’ve given Iraq a lot, he says. Now in the fourth year of this war, it is time for Iraqis to stand and defend their own nation. They must know that every time they dial 911, we’re not going to send more soldiers. It’s time to begin the orderly redeployment of our troops.

Questions: Durbin used the word civil war with the president, he said.

Chris Matthews’s interpretation is that Bush is calling for a broadening of the war vis à vis Iran and Syria. I want to get a transcript and re-read that part.

Joe Scarborough says most of the Republicans will come back to support the President after the speech after his “clear and sober assessment” of the way forward. Those people are bought cheap.

Barack Obama speaks: The American people and troops have done everything asked of them. An additional 20,000 troops will not help. Obama says he will “actively oppose the president’s proposal.” We should engage in a dialogue with Iran and Syria. The President is saying the same stuff he’s been saying.

ABC News: Advance troops arrive in Baghdad