Semi-random thought

[unixronin]

There's nothing wrong with a nation being ashamed of its soldiers' behavior when their behavior falls short of reasonable expectations.  But a nation that is ashamed of its soldiers simply because they are soldiers is doomed.

Comments

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

The problem is not the U.S. trust, confidence, and pride in its armed forces. Speaking broadly, that's a very good thing. An army that is scorned by its population will find itself unable to draw in the sort of people it needs to be a professional army -- with the moral dimension that goes along with it -- and will instead have to settle for an army of people who weren't smart enough to get into college and have no problem obeying authority no matter how ridiculous or corrupt.

Look at the difference in professionalism between Vietnam-era draftees and modern-day volunteers. It's night and day.

The problem specifically we face is that the President's approval rating hovers around 20%, Congress's approval rating hovers around 10%, and the military's approval rating is over 95%. That, to me, sounds like a recipe for either a very powerful and professional military being entrusted to incompetent civilian hands (a recipe for destruction), or perhaps a recipe for a military coup in this country (another recipe for destruction).

But the problem is not the approval of the military -- it is the total, utter, absolute leadership collapse of the Executive and Legislative branches.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The problem specifically we face is that the President's approval rating hovers around 20%, Congress's approval rating hovers around 10%, and the military's approval rating is over 95%. That, to me, sounds like a recipe for either a very powerful and professional military being entrusted to incompetent civilian hands (a recipe for destruction), or perhaps a recipe for a military coup in this country (another recipe for destruction).

But the problem is not the approval of the military -- it is the total, utter, absolute leadership collapse of the Executive and Legislative branches.

Can't argue with that. Although sometimes, I wonder whether when government gets bad enough and corrupt enough, a good clean military coup by competent and honest generals might not be such a bad thing after all — particularly if they take power only for long enough to clean the crooks out of the pigsty and put an honest government back in power.

[luxobscura.livejournal.com]

I thought about that during the Katrina clusterfuck on the federal level. Then, all of a sudden, Lt. Gen. Russel Honore steps off a helo, starts barking orders, tells his boys to keep their rifles "at rest", and shit suddenly started getting done.