TAPPED'S FAUSTIAN BARGAIN

Tapped was kind enough to reply to my post criticizing their embrace of the "military men know best" line of anti-war rhetoric.

Not sure why you describe our crush as "new-found," unless you assume that we're generally anti-military, which a quick scan of our archives will tell you isn't the case. As for your broader point. This has nothing to do with a "broader alliance" or some long-term strategy on our part to subvert the Pentagon. It's just common sense. War is a massive, risky, bloody endeavor, even when it is in the service of a just cause. Military men know that; Dwight Eisenhower knew it, which is why he once said that he hates war more than any peace activist. We respect their opinion because they know much about war that civilians, chickenhawk ideologues, pundits, bloggers, and others do not.

While I appreciate Tapped's responsiveness, somewhere along the way they mistakenly filed my critique under "conservative hawk" and missed the whole point.

First off, I would never endorse the concept that any criticism of military leaders makes one "anti-military." I take the position that skepticism of the brass' consensus views is valuable - and Tapped's recent position shows an abandonment of that admirable skepticism. During the Clinton years, progressives were unafraid to challenge military leaders on such issues as the status of homosexuals in the military and the use of force to halt ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo. Why does the replacement of Clinton with Bush all of the sudden make our generals infallible?

Second, I'm not in the least worried about progressives "subverting" the Pentagon. What I do worry about is the impact of such an alliance with the anti-war realists on progressives and liberals. Brent Scowcraft and company do not care one whit about democracy or human rights. They do however, care a lot about maintaining a steady flow of oil coming out of Saudi Arabia.

I agree that war is a "massive, risky, bloody endeavor" - and military men know the costs in an intimate way that civilians never can. However, I believe that this intimate knowledge led British and French veterans of WWI to come to the wrong conclusions in the 1930s and our veterans of the Vietnam horror to come to the wrong conclusions about Bosnia, Kosovo and now Iraq. Taking the position that the professional soldier is always right about when to use force is an abdication of the moral responsibility of citizens in a democracy. And by placing their weight behind the realist arguments against the war as opposed to conditioning their support on a firm, irrevocable commitment to nation-building in its aftermath, progressives are sacrificing their core principles for short-term political gain. Hopefully, Tapped and other liberals will abandon this Faustian bargain before it is too late.