Monday, July 25, 2005
Mercenaries or Citizen-Soldiers
David M. Kennedy wrote a column in the New York Times claiming that the American military are "mercenaries."
Wikipedia defines "mercenary" as a "soldier who fights, or engages in warfare primarily for private gain, usually with little regard for ideological, national or political considerations. However, when the term is used to refer to a soldier in a regular national army, it is usually considered an insult, epithet or pejorative."
Clearly, the "professor" did not use the term to advance an intellectually useful analysis of any issue but as a pejorative.
He points out that "today's volunteers sign up for some mighty dangerous work largely for wages and benefits - a compensation package that may not always be commensurate with the dangers in store, as current recruiting problems testify." This defeats his contention that the soldiers are mere mercenaries. Clearly, they volunteer not for reasons of private gain, but for reasons of patriotism.
As an historian should understand, the founders of this country and others feared standing armies because of their threat to democracy, their expense in peace time and the tremendous expense of war in terms of lives and treasure.
Yet, what Mr. Kennedy finds unhealthy is that "history's most potent military force can now be put into the field by a society that scarcely breaks a sweat when it does so" with risk to very few citizens and "no significant burdens on the larger body of citizens in whose name war is being waged."
That sounds like a very well organized and efficient military that this country should be proud of rather than ashamed of. In fact, Mr. Kennedy quotes Thomas Jefferson warning of the dangers of Napoleon for "having 'transferred the destinies of the republic from the civil to the military arm." Napoleon greatly enlarged the size of the military and transferred massive economic resources to it.
These are the very actions that Mr. Kennedy complains are not occurring in the US today. He complains that the US does not need to draft great numbers of its sons and daughters into the military and transfer vast sums to its support as Napoleon did and as Mr. Jefferson feared would occur with a standing army.
I fail to understand why our men and women in the military somehow lose their standing as citizen-soldiers because they volunteered for service rather than being drafted. We have the best trained, best equipped military in the history of the world.
Rather than denigrating our volunteer citizen-soldiers as "mercenaries" seeking private gain, we should be celebrating their courage and dedication to the defense of their country in a very serious war against Jihadist terrorists.
In truth, Mr. Kennedy simply objects to the war in Iraq and has generated a very transparently fraudulent argument to attempt to justify his position. In doing so, he insults our citizen-soldiers' patriotism in serving their country and the intelligence of his readers.
Wikipedia defines "mercenary" as a "soldier who fights, or engages in warfare primarily for private gain, usually with little regard for ideological, national or political considerations. However, when the term is used to refer to a soldier in a regular national army, it is usually considered an insult, epithet or pejorative."
Clearly, the "professor" did not use the term to advance an intellectually useful analysis of any issue but as a pejorative.
He points out that "today's volunteers sign up for some mighty dangerous work largely for wages and benefits - a compensation package that may not always be commensurate with the dangers in store, as current recruiting problems testify." This defeats his contention that the soldiers are mere mercenaries. Clearly, they volunteer not for reasons of private gain, but for reasons of patriotism.
As an historian should understand, the founders of this country and others feared standing armies because of their threat to democracy, their expense in peace time and the tremendous expense of war in terms of lives and treasure.
Yet, what Mr. Kennedy finds unhealthy is that "history's most potent military force can now be put into the field by a society that scarcely breaks a sweat when it does so" with risk to very few citizens and "no significant burdens on the larger body of citizens in whose name war is being waged."
That sounds like a very well organized and efficient military that this country should be proud of rather than ashamed of. In fact, Mr. Kennedy quotes Thomas Jefferson warning of the dangers of Napoleon for "having 'transferred the destinies of the republic from the civil to the military arm." Napoleon greatly enlarged the size of the military and transferred massive economic resources to it.
These are the very actions that Mr. Kennedy complains are not occurring in the US today. He complains that the US does not need to draft great numbers of its sons and daughters into the military and transfer vast sums to its support as Napoleon did and as Mr. Jefferson feared would occur with a standing army.
I fail to understand why our men and women in the military somehow lose their standing as citizen-soldiers because they volunteered for service rather than being drafted. We have the best trained, best equipped military in the history of the world.
Rather than denigrating our volunteer citizen-soldiers as "mercenaries" seeking private gain, we should be celebrating their courage and dedication to the defense of their country in a very serious war against Jihadist terrorists.
In truth, Mr. Kennedy simply objects to the war in Iraq and has generated a very transparently fraudulent argument to attempt to justify his position. In doing so, he insults our citizen-soldiers' patriotism in serving their country and the intelligence of his readers.
# posted by Thomas A. Becket : 9:43 PM
