Grassroots/Hank Kalet

Time to Leave the War Zones

Afghanistan. Syria. Iraq.

Ground troops. Bombers. Drones.

The international chess board. Power. Influence.

It’s a lie — the lie of indispensability, of American exceptionalism. It’s always been a lie, and it has created more harm than good.

I know that is not a popular opinion. American might defeated the Nazis, after all. American might kept the Soviets at bay. American might — it’s what Jim Mattis pointed to as he fled the Trump administration in defense of traditional military prerogatives.

Mattis was praised as he walked out the door as a true patriot, as one of the last adults in the rumpus room that has been the Trump administration. But it’s important to understand what Mattis was reacting to, what exactly caused him to finally cut ties after nearly two years of a quixotic administration that has cozied up to dictators and challenged allies.

Mattis resigned just a day after the president announced his intention to remove American troops from Syria and to halve the total number of troops currently serving in Afghanistan. Mattis opposed the moves and, in his resignation letter, he essentially defended American essentialism and the use of military. He called the United States “the indispensable nation in the free world” adding that, while we “should not be the policeman of the world,” we have a responsibility to “use all tools of American power to provide for the common defense.”

This includes being resolute in dealing with China and Russia. While he uses the word “unambiguous” to describe this mission, he leaves it undefined. China and Russia, he said, want to gain “veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions,” which is a power the United States has long reserved for itself.

Trump, of course, is not to be trusted, but dismissing his calls for troop draw downs because of their source does the nation and a world a disservice.

The American military has been at war of one kind of another since World War II — including those still raging in the Middle East. In addition, we have rigged foreign elections, sanctioned political assassinations, propped up dictators, educated brutal autocrats in military methods of control. We’ve engaged in torture and outsourced it, as well. We have bases around the globe.

We have led with the gun, which has diminished our ability to encourage the growth of democracy, respect for human rights, and it has contributed to the refugee crisis that has conservatives calling for the closing of borders.

It’s why we on the left should take advantage of this fissure, take Trump at his word, and then hold him to his promise to end our endless war making. Throw his words back at him. Give him credit — massaging his ego is a small price if it alters the foreign policy balance and pushes it away from militarism toward something else.

Mattis’ letter — and the response from the foreign policy establishment — should remind us that military brass, if left to their own devices, will almost always seek to expand both the size of the military and its reach. There always is a reason to slow walk it, to delay action, always a need to wait.

Hank Kalet is a poet and journalist in New Jersey. Email grassroots@comcast.net; Twitter @newspoet41 and @kaletjournalism; Instagram @kaletwrites; Facebook.com/hank.kalet.

From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2019

Populist.com