The Deceptive Allure of Preemptive Military Action

In the book ‘Moral Man, Immoral Society’, Reinhold Niebuhr argued that human beings can individually be moral, but that larger groups, societies and nations are essentially immoral entities because they will always act in their perceived best interests and will not be persuaded by moral arguments.  The recent use of preemptive military actions by Israel and the USA to attack Iran are classic examples of this truth.  But the glamor and excitement of military action are almost always followed by the horror of both the intended and unintended consequences, and the creation of new paths of conflict and hatred.

The aftermath of World War Two saw the two dominant powers, the USA and USSR, avoid direct military confrontation, but proxy wars continued to be fought from 1950 to 1990 in Korea, Vietnam, Central America, Afghanistan and many other parts of the globe.

 

Both the USA and the USSR took preemptive military or covert action during that period with little pushback from the world community in places such as the Dominican Republic, Iran, Cuba, Grenada, Guatemala, Chile, Panama, Nicaragua, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Indonesia and numerous African countries.  In the covert actions there was no public acknowledgement of what had been done, so there was no effort at justification other than internal, secret arguments based on the amorphous goal of national security.  The public justification for explicit military action was anti-communism for the USA and anti-imperialism for the USSR.

A close analysis of these actions and their consequences would certainly call into question their efficacy.  The toll of death and political dysfunction left in their wake was tragic and has left a legacy of perennial chaos in many cases.

 

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the USA had free rein in military adventurism.  Its first venture, the Gulf War of 1990, was largely perceived as a success in the west and gave the USA an inflated sense of its ability to effect rapid responses to world events or perceived problems through military means.

 

The debacle in Somalia in 1993 (the Battle of Mogadishu) dampened that hubris temporarily, but the successful NATO involvement in the Bosnian War gave renewed confidence to the US.  The 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in NYC in 2001 created a mania for military response that ultimately led to ‘forever wars’ in Afghanistan and Iraq with both short- and long-term negative results and massive civilian deaths and displacement.

 

Israel, a nation founded in war, has perceived itself to be in a state of war for its entire existence.  It has initiated preemptive military action numerous times without hesitation and its intelligence services have become the most adept assassins in world history.  But all its clever bombing and killing has not brought it any closer to living in peace with its neighbors and the Palestinian people who live in shameful misery within its territory.  

 

The only real impediments to preemptive military actions and assassinations are a recognition of the unintended and long-term consequences that may result.  Moral or ethical concerns play little or no role, but historical perspective should give every nation pause.  Diplomacy, sanctions and world pressure may be frustratingly slow to produce desired results, but beware the allure of a quick fix that is just sowing future seeds of disaster.

The Irony and Hypocrisy of MAGA Immigrant Hostility

Immigration is a difficult issue and it is roiling every wealthy country.  Liberal democracies have tried to control immigration but have been fairly receptive to it for both humanitarian (wars, famine and repression) and economic reasons (to compensate for declining citizen birthrates).  Populist groups within these countries have emerged as almost single-issue parties, riding a wave of hysteria about the economic, cultural and crime aspects of immigration. 

 

In the USA, Donald Trump won his first nomination almost solely on the basis of his anti-immigrant rhetoric after race-baiting his way into public awareness with the infamous birther conspiracy theory.  And there is little doubt that his dark denunciations of immigrants were a major factor in his election last November.

 

In a troubled world with political, economic and climate catastrophes on every front, it is not surprising that large numbers of people dare to attempt crossing into countries where there is much more opportunity to live freely and in peace, and to become economically stable.  There is a very fine line between refugees, economic migrants, and climate migrants.  The motivations are really no different than they were when our ancestors made the trip to this new land.

 

How much immigration is manageable for a country without destabilizing it in some way or another is a tricky question.  It is particularly fraught in a time when globalization is giving way to unilateralism, and the post-industrial economy is dramatically changing the labor market.

 

It is reasonable, though somewhat dubious in terms of moral and ethical principles, to say no when immigration rates become too high.  But this refusal should be made with a heavy heart and as much empathy as a government and its people can express.  It should break all of our hearts to have to turn away the stranger in need.

 

But the MAGA world, strongly characterized by its self-proclaimed evangelical Christianity, indulges an almost maniacal animosity toward immigrants.  Trump and Vance routinely slander undocumented immigrants and describe them with racist and demeaning language.  They are cast as criminals, drug addicts, terrorists and lazy opportunists.  The MAGA Christians cheer as masked gestapo-like ICE agents round up dreamers who have been here since childhood.  

 

Where is their Jesus in this?  “For I was a stranger, and you welcomed me”.  Where is the love and the sacrificial charity that is the very essence of Jesus’s teachings?  It is both ironic and deeply hypocritical that the MAGA world, with its loud pretense of Christian piety, should be so stridently and heartlessly vindictive to the desperate people that have risked all and started anew as strangers in our land.  Shame on them! 

FX Saturation or Oh no, Not Another Tom Cruise Movie!

Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning is in the theaters!  Ho hum.   Ok, let’s all just agree that Tom Cruise is one badass dude.  He is a living example of how massive wealth can keep aging in abeyance (or perhaps there is really is something to that scientology stuff?). But quite frankly, I will be perfectly happy to never see or hear about his derring do again in my rapidly diminishing lifespan.

I loved Mission Impossible when it was on television, though I imagine those episodes would seem dated and lame if I were to be desperate enough to watch them again.  In my youth I was fascinated by all the secret agent stuff and loved a good war movie.  I could sit through a couple minute car chase and a lengthy fistfight and be fascinated with the special effects necessary to stage them.  I was eager to watch each new Hollywood blockbuster.

 

But now I avoid them like the plague.  When I am forced to watch one due to social pressures, I find all the endless battle and chase scenes with all their incredibly high-tech CGI and special effects boring, trite and formulaic.  They simply do not interest me in the slightest anymore. I start to root for the evil guys out of sheer indifference.

 

Perhaps it is the fact that at almost 71 years of age I have seen so many adventure movies that I just don’t see anything new or intriguing in them.  I am particularly saturated with special effects.  I couldn’t even get excited by most of the Star Wars movies, though I was absolutely blown away by the first one.  I loved the first Raiders of the Lost Ark movie, but after that, Harrison Ford just left me cold (envy perhaps?)

 

I’ve only seen a few of the Marvel franchise or any of the other superhero stuff.  As a kid, I read comic books nonstop and would have killed to see blockbusters like the ones that seem to come out every few months. But now I couldn’t care less about the Fabulous Four or Green Lantern or any of the others whose names have now slipped into inaccessible spots in my memory.

 

Is it just me?  Is everyone else adoring this constant flow of Hollywood blockbusters with their ever more expensive, elaborate and stupefying special effects?  Do I no longer have my childlike wonder?  Can I no longer be thrilled by a fantastic adventure?

 

My movie and series tastes are very narrow now, and I find fewer and fewer things that really capture my imagination or that don’t seem terribly cliché to me.  But that’s ok.  I read more books and I find less sensational fare to pique my interest. I am a victim of FX saturation, but I can still fall in love with a book or a movie.  I guess I just have to accept that I am a bit of a snob and learn to live with it. 

No Political Party Has the Answer for the Post-Industrial Economy

The Post-industrial Economy is upon us.  The developed world is experiencing the death throes of industrial labor as a combination of automation and off-shoring to lower wage countries relentlessly eliminates manufacturing jobs.  Delusions about ‘bringing back manufacturing’, as voiced by Trump and other populists, will appear ever more irrational as the exponential advances in AI and robotics put the final nail in the coffin.

In reality, the post-industrial economy has been insidiously emerging over the last 90 years, as the service industry grew exponentially and other labor sectors stabilized or declined due to automation.  Here is a graph that depicts how services have increasingly dwarfed manufacturing and agriculture since 1840.

Significant numbers of manufacturing jobs left the US for lower wage countries.  Advances in robotics and AI will replace even those jobs at some point in the near future, just as automation essentially reduced farmwork to a skeleton crew of farmers and seasonal workers whose jobs few Americans want and are likely to be performed eventually by clever robots.

 

So now the future of labor is in services and so-called ‘knowledge work’ – jobs that require specialized education.  But for a significant segment of our population the service jobs are a poor substitute for the high-paying factory jobs of the past.  

 

Why is the average service job so much lower paying than the manufacturing jobs?  One theory is that the service sector has very low union representation compared to factory work. Collective bargaining has historically been one of the primary means for workers to achieve a better standard of living.  But even with labor unions, it is unlikely that the majority of service jobs will provide a satisfying standard of living.

 

In addition to traditional service jobs, there is a growing segment of so-called ‘gig jobs’.  These are jobs that are often independent work for limited periods of time making use of the Internet, social media, or working for Big Tech as contract labor.  These jobs may have a reasonable level of compensation, but they are typically short-lived and workers must hustle to stay employed and achieve a continuous cash flow.

 

As automation continues to advance it will no doubt take over many service jobs.  Much of customer support has already been automated, and brick and mortar storefronts and salespeople are disappearing.  Logistics, trucking, ride services, low level legal services, initial medical diagnoses, cashier services, fast food services and many other services can conceivably be partially or totally replaced by AI and robotics.

 

New service and gig jobs will be created, and perhaps there is no limit to what new ways people will find to make money, but it is likely to be a much more chaotic and uncertain labor model.  Can social media influencer be a career?  Will there be any stability in the work life of the vast majority of people?  

 

Neither the democrats nor the republicans nor the MAGA world have the faintest idea how to recreate the American workplace of the 50’s and 60’s.  Trade wars won’t do it.  Culture wars and immigration raids won’t do it.  Even taxing the rich more won’t do it, though using some of their vast wealth to create a better infrastructure, universal healthcare and free education might at least make the stagnating middle class less vulnerable.

 

We are facing a brave new labor world.  Populists have benefitted from the fear, anger and uncertainty that this new world has provoked, but they will be no more successful in finding a solution than the globalist elites that they have blamed and castigated.  The invisible hand of the market will flail helplessly.  Bold new social engineering ideas are needed ASAP, or the future will be one of disharmony and revolution.

Separating Anti-Israel Protests and Violence

The recent killings of a Jewish/Israeli couple and a Molotov cocktail attack on people at a rally for Jewish hostages in Gaza are tragic events and there is no justification for them.  However, the immediate efforts by the Trump regime and MAGA world to associate these acts of violence with the general protests against Israel’s war on Gaza and treatment of the Palestinian people are entirely misplaced and reprehensible.

There are protests against Israel taking place around the world.  European nations have taken strong stands against the disproportionate Israeli response to the October 7^th attacks and the recent use of humanitarian aid restrictions as a war strategy.  There have been sharp increases in anti-Jewish actions in these countries, though I know of no murders having been committed despite a far higher degree of anti-Israeli feeling and expression than in the USA.

 

Whether these are also associated with latent antisemitism is very difficult to discern.  The simple fact is that Jews are very closely associated with Israel, and the passionate feelings about Israel’s conduct of its war find expression in protests and opinions that are focused on Jews. 

 

Violent acts are often coincident with passionate protesting and criticism.  During the Vietnam War protests, a small number of people took violent action in expressing their rage against the war and the ‘system’.  During the civil rights era, an armed section of the Black Panthers committed violent acts in their belief that peaceful protest would not bring equality.  But in neither case were those violent acts seen as a justification for clamping down on peaceful protest and differences of opinion.

 

Violent acts like the two most recent ones would probably have taken place even if there were no protests on campuses.  Let’s face it, violence is endemic in our country.  Every effort should be made to prevent these acts, but denying people the right to protest and express opposition to US policies and deporting everyone who has voiced any concern about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people are the behaviors of a despotic regime.

 

Anti-Semitism vs Anti-Israelism

Big news!  The MAGA world has become the noble standard-bearer for the fight against antisemitism.  Hurray, hurray!  Their righteous fury over Palestinian protests and campus efforts to defund America’s support of Israel is a sign of their deep affection for Jewish people and their unyielding support for non-discrimination and tolerance, right?  Yeah, right.

The Trump regime, Christian evangelicals and other MAGA types have become strange bedfellows with the Jewish world and Israel.  Jews might be wise to view this passionate embrace with a bit of skepticism, as fervent Christians have not historically been the best supporters of Jewish people (see the inquisition, the pogroms, the holocaust and a long list of other less-than-affectionate treatments).

 

Christian evangelicals are supportive of Israel primarily because the return of the Jewish people to the holy land is seen as a pre-cursor to the second coming of Jesus and the Armageddon.  Christians are also not big fans of Islam, which may play a role in their newfound Jewish affinity.

 

As for Trump and the political right, their crusading efforts on behalf of Israel’s war in Gaza and their indignation over supposed antisemitic trends in American society are simply a way to demonize the left and provide a means for launching their war against universities.  They couldn’t care less about Jews or tolerance or antisemitism.

 

I understand the deep-seated fear in Jewish people of any hint of antisemitism, and their paranoia about their security, whether here in America, in Europe or in Israel.  The history of antisemitism is long and painful.

 

But here is the thing:  It is not unreasonable to believe that Israel has gone far beyond its right to defend itself in inflicting devastation and horror on Gaza.  There is an element of cry-wolf in Israel’s painting itself as constantly in existential danger.  Israel is the most powerful nation in the middle East and perhaps one of the most powerful in the world.  Its military and intelligence services are incredibly capable and it also has nuclear weapons.  It has more or less wiped out Hezbollah and it has made Iran look weak and impotent in every encounter.

 

Israel has become a bully as regards the Palestinian territories and people.  Its settler-dominated government and increasingly extremist political slant is clearly intent on seizing as much of Gaza as possible and continuing to steal land and settle the West Bank.  It has been building settlements in the West Bank continuously since the 1967 invasion and there are now over 700,000 settlers in this territory that the UN and most nations consider occupied land.

 

Jewish people have associated Israel with Jewish identity from the start.  Jewish people in the United States embrace this association.  Therefore, it is not hard to understand why anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian sentiments are also conflated with anti-Jewish feelings.  If I am criticizing Israel’s actions, am I antisemitic?  If I am calling for an end to military support of Israel until it ends the war in Gaza am I pro-Hamas?  A large number of Israelis and Jews in the United States have voiced similar feelings.

 

It is absurd to categorize the majority of anti-Israel protests as antisemitic.  And it is dangerous to use a pretense of protecting Jews from antisemitism to prosecute or deport protestors on campus or anywhere else.  America is at its strongest when it embraces free speech and the opportunity for competing views to express themselves, even in fairly energetic protests and marches.  The Trump regime has all the characteristics of a nascent police state, and this fake concern about antisemitism is a ruse that must be fought on every level before it assumes even more frightening forms.

If Push Came to Shove

The Trump regime has shown a willingness, a delight even, to cross the boundaries of legality, constitutionality and ethics.  Trump believes that he is empowered to do just about anything he pleases, and this time he has filled the government with lackeys who will carry out his every wish without hesitation.

The only thing that has stood in his way up to now is the judiciary.  Even Trump-appointed judges have shown some level of integrity and opposed his more egregious executive orders.  This has irritated Trump and his minions to no small degree, and they have already indicated that they are willing to bypass or ignore court decisions if they see fit.

 

Thus, the question arises: who can stop Trump if he chooses to go full dictator and ignores court rulings? Given the current obsequious nature of the republican-controlled congress, there is little chance that they will intercede or attempt to rein him in.  The only force left that is capable of stopping him would be the American people.  I believe there will be mass protests if Trump openly defies the courts.

 

But Trump has already indicated that he would eagerly deploy the armed forces if significant protests occur. Therefore, the most important question we may face in the months ahead is whether the US military will allow itself to be used by Trump to quell protests in a situation where he has clearly violated the constitution and any reasonable interpretation of presidential authority and ethics.

 

The military is expected to be apolitical.  It has both civilian and military leadership, with the President being the commander-in-chief.  But every officer in the military takes an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  In theory, if there is a conflict between the President and the Constitution, their path is clear: to protect and defend the constitution.

 

The military is conservative and masculine by nature.  Does this imply that it will tend to be supportive of the Trump ethos?  If one believes the Hollywood blockbuster version of the military, it would not be difficult to imagine the military falling in line with Trump’s authoritarian dictates.  But as a former military officer and the son, grandson and nephew of Naval Academy graduates, I have a very strong opinion that contradicts this assumption.

 

For US military officers, character, leadership qualities and discipline are the most important personal attributes.  Military officers detest poor character.  They admire honesty, modesty, integrity and ethical behavior.  

 

Trump’s macho version of America may appeal to the common soldier, but his character flaws, his lying, his boasting, his preening, his immorality, his lack of ethics and his arrogance are red flags to military leaders.  They will support him up to a point simply because he is the commander-in-chief, but I firmly believe that they will refuse to comply with orders to take arms against the American people if Trump has violated the constitution.

 

I sense that Trump’s momentum is already beginning to wane and that the consequences of his chaotic first months and his economic missteps will soon manifest themselves and prevent the worst from happening.  But I also am confident that if push comes to shove, the American military will demonstrate its true nature and integrity and oppose the first American tyrant.