Closet HIstorian

I majored in history in college--back in the Dark Ages, the 1950's--but decided, in my senior year (1960-61),that I didn't want to go to graduate school in history: why? Because my primary history professor gave a long, detailed lecture, clearly loving all the details, of how investigators determined where and how the Russian Royals, the Romanovs, were executed--eggshells were key. They had been lured out for a picnic,to be shot, shooting range style, in the basement. I decided, then and there, that I didn't want to go to grad school in History, ergo, I went into the Army, since the draft was rapacious at the time, and I couldn't get a job with my draft status in limbo. My only hope had been to fail the physical, but flat feet no longer disqualified me from the army, and after a faint throbbing of hope, during my physical, my "heart murmur" turned out only to be nerves, and I passed and had to go on to the Army Security Agency, the institution for which I'd been recruited, "if you can cut the mustard," my recruiter Sargent had said. Long story short, I went to Turkey, instead of waiting around for Vietnam, and ended my army career before LBJ ambushed us all, by escalating the war in that country, after campaigning against a "war in Asia." I've only taught history, when it was a combo course for a Community College, covering US history and the American political system. But I confess, in long retrospect (I last taught 19 years ago), I enjoyed the historical stories, and the details did matter. It's the story that matters, which is why history is more compelling than dry constitutional facts, but you can hang a lot of facts on a good story. I must also confess that, as a teacher, I only occasionally told stories, especially when I was teaching college-level Economics. I think I did make it interesting for my students in a maximum security prison--my favorite teaching venue. Nevertheless, the inherent shape of history permits many stories. I'm trying to figure out how to tell one, now, a little bit of personal and local history, including much suspense and angst. If I can figure out how to shape the story, I can tell it; if not, not. It has to be a story, with a beginning, a middle and an end, no matter what hangs in between. A lot might, or will, if I can tell it, truthfully. It could make a good novel, which is, after all, a way of narrating history, without citing dates and names without meaning. Even a contemporary novel, perhaps, especially a contemporary novel, is an historical artifact: take Dickens, for example, writing about his contemporary London. There is no better record of Nero's Rome than the novel of Petronius Arbiter, although no dates or political events are directly recorded. That is how I'm an aspiring, closet Historian. I want to tell my history, if I can. You might learn from it; you might not. I just want to tell it, maybe just to be heard.

Nixon's Stroke of Genius

militarized our foreign policy: he abolished the draft. Sounds like a paradox, but it actually makes sense. The common wisdom is that democracies are not warlike. Yet, the US is the most warlike country in the world, although Americans think we're so peaceful. Now, that's a paradox that Nixon's stroke of genius created.

Instead of the draft, we have a professional army. This is no peacetime army like the one we had before WWII; this is a full-time army, with almost continuous wars, even if far from the "homeland."

Because it's a professional army, opposition to the wars is not visceral, the way it was during Vietnam, Korea and before WWII. "Our boys," (and "girls") don't have to go over there. The only ones who go are those who choose to enlist, which means people disproportionately poor, without other prospects, or from "military families," mostly Southern, or from minorities. Endless leftish commentaries have pointed this out, of course.

So, opposition to the escalation of the war in Afghanistan is muted: people aren't afraid that they, or their children, are going to have to go. Opposition is much more theoretical. The money we spend on these wars is only a part (a large part) of the taxes we pay, and we may object to that, but "our boys and girls" are not on the line.

We may object to the senselessness of the war, the needless killing, and the hopelessness of the enterprise, but we have a president who won the Nobel Peace Prize. So, if he can't get us out of Afghanistan, well, maybe we just should be there. His strategy sounds sort of plausible, but only if you accept certain premises.

For example: al Qaeda can't be allowed to set up camps in Afghanistan, from which they could train to attack us. So, we have to control Afghanistan--but we don't. I pointed out April 5th that the effectiveness of the "drone war" has demonstrated that al Qaeda wouldn't dare set up open camps in Afghanistan: we could cream them with drones. Furthermore, the Taliban wouldn't let them; they wouldn't want us to have a pretext to attack them. Ergo, we don't have to stay in Afghanistan, at all.

Furthermore, even Karzai wants to negotiate with the top Taliban, but the US says 'No.' Isn't Karzai the (more or less) elected President? And we're there to bolster Afghan government institutions? And defend them from the Taliban. Karzai has even made preparations for a loya jirga, the national assembly of elders that has venerable political legitimacy. He had wanted the Taliban to attend. So far, the US has said "No."

Do you get it yet? We have a professional military, courtesy of Nixon. Like the Roman legions, it MUST have wars--and bases in most countries in the world. We the People just get to pay--and deprive ourselves of services--until the US is bankrupted by its wars.