No

by Liam Kloef

Created on: March 25, 2011   Last Updated: August 26, 2011

Not only should we not increase the size of our military, we should give some serious thought to dismantling the armed forces altogether.  Since WWII, we have misused our armed forces for carrying out the ideological whims of a few influence peddlers; in turn, our mass media have assured us that the whims of a few are in our best interests.  Occasionally, there is some dissent from this institutional idiocy, but the dissent occurs only after our servicemen and –women are firmly entrenched in some foreign region, which is usually being run by some acquaintance of our influence peddlers; meanwhile, our service personnel await orders and direction from their superiors, which in turn await guidance from the influence peddlers.  Lost in all this are “our best interests.”

The suggestion to dismantle and eliminate our armed forces is so outrageous that even the most rabid anti-war or anti-military rabble rouser would never consider it.  But what good is having armed forces when they have, in the time of greatest need, failed to provide what their umbrella cabinet department states: defense.

Of course, that’s 9/11: our armed forces were remarkably unavailable that awful day to “defend” the country.  When the honchos finally scrambled a few jets long after that last plane had crashed in Pennsylvania, they headed toward where: Russia?  How could it not be evident that our armed forces and their most senior people—the Joint Chiefs of Staff—were no longer serving “our best interests?”  They were no longer capable of defense.

The sad fact is that since 9/11, our guys have been scrambling again to prove the services are indeed capable of defense.  But defense of the country is not in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya: these are more examples of ideological whims of influence peddlers; it’s time to “just say no.”  The generals and admirals know their personnel are not capable; but they cannot bring themselves to defy their civilian masters, since it’s at the behest of those masters that our generals and admirals get their next star.  That sounds harsh, but it’s the very inconvenient truth.

We now have more than enough brigades of the Second Amendment aficionados: they may provide that “well-regulated Militia,” which what remains of the Dept. of Defense may subsidize solely for the maintenance and upkeep of arms.  Any current active duty member of any of the armed services is welcome to join them.  Our heady influence peddlers can provide whatever subsistence the militia requires or demands.  They can have their private wars, ideological whims, and adventurism: they’ll never need or be allowed to conceal their true aims and desires under the aegis of “defense” again.

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