Join the Marines... for the Summer

The other day, the college-age daughter of a friend received an e-letter from a Marine Corps Officer Selection Officer, inviting her to "an awesome summer training program called the Platoon Leader's Course." Think of it as Marine Corps summer camp. No uniforms ("This is not ROTC!"), but reasonable amounts of moolah. Here's some of what was on offer to her, part of a desperate military's Iraq-era appeal to citizenly duty:

"You will earn approximately $2,400 (six weeks) or $4,000 (ten weeks) plus room and board during the training. How's that for a summer job?.... You will not incur any obligation to the Marine Corps even after completing the training. (You can choose whether or not to continue with the program).... Tuition assistance will be available to you after you complete training this summer. You could potentially earn $8,000 to $25,000 for school, depending on graduation date."

Imagine! The Marine Corps is willing to pay young people to go to a uniform-less summer camp to test their "leadership potential," with no commitment to the Corps necessary. Consider that; then consider what was certainly the President's only significant decision of the holiday season past--to permanently expand the US military by as many as 70,000 troops.

Now, as in some old math problem, the question is: How do you connect these two points. (Hint: Not with a straight line.)

Faced with a December shot across the bow in testimony before Congress by Army Chief of Staff Peter J. Schoomaker, who warned that the Army "will break" under present war-zone rotation needs, President Bush responded by addressing the "stressed" nature of the US Armed Forces. He said, "I'm inclined to believe that we do need to increase our troops--the Army, the Marines. And I talked about this to Secretary [Robert A.] Gates, and he is going to spend some time talking to the folks in the building [the Pentagon], come back with a recommendation to me about how to proceed forward on this idea." All this was, he added, "to meet the challenges of a long-term global struggle against terrorists."

Ah... that makes things clearer.

Of course, to get those new "volunteer" officers and men, who have generally been none too eager to volunteer for the Army and the Marines in the midst of a disastrous, far-away, increasingly incomprehensible set of double wars, you'll have to pay even more kids more money to go to no-commitment summer camp; and, while you're at it, you'll have to lower standards for the military radically. You'll have to let in even more volunteers without high school diplomas but with "moral" and medical "waivers" for criminal records and mental problems. You'll have to fast-track even more new immigrants willing to join for the benefits of quick citizenship; you'll have to ramp up already high cash bonuses of all sorts; you'll have to push the top-notch ad agency recently hired on a five-year contract for a cool billion dollars to rev up its new "Army Strong" recruitment drive even higher; you'll certainly have to jack up the numbers of military recruiters radically, to the tune of perhaps a couple of hundred million more dollars; and maybe just for the heck of it, you better start planning for the possibility of recruiting significant numbers of potential immigrants before they even think to leave their own countries. After all, it's darn romantic to imagine a future American all-volunteer force that will look more like the old French Foreign Legion--or an army of mercenaries anyway. All in all, you'll have to commit to the fact that your future soldier in your basic future war will cost staggering sums of money to hire and even more staggering sums to retain after he or she has had a taste of what "leadership potential" really entails.

Put another way, as long as Iraq remains a classic quagmire for the Army and Marines, any plan to expand the U.S. military in order to make it easier to fight such wars in the future, threatens to become a classic financial quagmire as well. In other words, Iraq and military expansion don't fit together well at all. And yet, looking at the state of our military in Iraq in a certain light, expansion seems so… well, logical.

After all, the American military, now at just over 500,000 troops, stood, at the time of the First Gulf War, at 703,000. (Of course, no one now counts the quite expensive hired mercenaries who envelop our military -- the privatized, Halliburton-style adjuncts, who cook the food, build the bases, do the cleaning, deliver the mail and supplies, perform interrogation duties, and so on, and whose increase has been striking as has the growth of rent-a-mercenary corporations whose armed employees are, for instance, all over Iraq.) In addition, it has long been clear that the Armed Forces could not take the strain of failing wars in Central Asia and the Middle East forever, not to speak of increased "commitments" in the Persian Gulf and the normal massive global basing and policing that the Pentagon regularly refers to as our "footprint" on the planet. Added to this, the President seems to be leaning towards increasingly the pressure on military manpower needs by "surging"--the Vietnam era word would, of course, have been "escalating"--up to 30,000 troops into Baghdad and al-Anbar province, while naval and air forces (with an obvious eye to Iran) are simultaneously ramped up in the Persian Gulf.

In light of Iraq, military manpower needs cry out to be dealt with. In light of Iraq, dealing with them any time soon will be prohibitively expensive.

In Washington, this conundrum leads nowhere in particular. Instead, in the spirit of imperial-mission logic (and with the urge to bash the Bush administration for being late to such an obvious support-our-troops position), Democrats simply leaped onto the expand-the-military bandwagon even faster than Republicans. In fact, leading Democrats had long been calling for just this sort of expansion. ("I am glad [the President] has realized the need for increasing the size of the armed forces... but this is where the Democrats have been for two years," commented Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the new House Democratic Caucus chairman.) The Democratic leadership promptly pledged to make such an expansion one of its top reform priorities in the New Year.

To get those numbers significantly higher will, it's estimated, take a decade and unimaginable sums of money (as well as those lowered standards). And, if the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan worsen, as they almost certainly will, and American casualties rise with no end in sight, you can start going through your multiplication tables. This could be considered but a form of ongoing blowback from American imperial shock-and-awe tactics in Iraq and presents some curious choices to our leaders. After all, to take but one example, those most eager to expand the military, with their eyes on the imperial future, should be eager to liquidate the Iraqi mission as soon as possible.

But a far more basic choice lurks--one rarely alluded to in the mainstream. If we voted on such things–-and, in truth, we vote on less and less that matters--the choice that actually lies behind the Marine e-letter to my friend's daughter might be put this way: Expand the military or shrink the mission?

This is the essential question that goes largely unmentioned--and largely unthought as well. In the meantime, money will continue to pour into military recruitment ad campaigns, bonuses, and summer camps. In the meantime, those Marine e-letters will continue to go out. In the meantime, money will continue to pour into the Pentagon and the national security world generally. In the meantime, we will continue to build our near billion-dollar embassy, the largest on the planet, in the heart of Baghdad's Green Zone. In the meantime, the imperial and military paths will continue to fuse, and the Pentagon will continue to take on new roles, even outside "declared war zones," in intelligence, diplomacy, "information operations," and other "self-assigned missions"; so that, as Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times recently described it, even our embassies will increasingly be militarized outposts in the global war on terror.

Shrinking the mission--choosing some path other than the imperial one (in part by redefining what exactly our national interests are)--would, of course, address many problems. It would make paying young people thousands of dollars to test their leadership potential or thinking about scouring Central America for a future Foreign Legion far less necessary. But no one in Washington--not in the Bush administration, not in James A. Baker's Iraq Study Group, which recently captured the Inside-the-Beltway "middle ground" on Iraq policy, not in the Democratic leadership--is faintly interested in shrinking the American global mission. No one in Washington, where a kind of communal voting does go on, is about to vote "no" to that mission, or cast a ballot for democracy rather than empire.

Expanding the military may seem like a no-brainer in response to the Iraq crisis. As it happens, it's anything but. Unfortunately, few ever discuss (as, for instance, Chalmers Johnson did in his book, The Sorrows of Empire) the 700-plus military and intelligence bases we retain around the world or ask why exactly we're garrisoning the planet. No one, in these last years, has seriously challenged the ever expanding Pentagon budget; nor the mushrooming supplemental requests for Iraq and Afghanistan, including the record-setting latest for almost $100 billion; nor, generally, the fact that paying for actual war-fighting is no longer considered an appropriate part of the Pentagon's normal budget process.

No one challenged it when, in 2002, the United States gained a new North American Command (Northcom), making U.S. citizens but another coequal part of the Pentagon's division of its imperial world, along with those who live in regions covered by Centcom, Paccom, and the just authorized Africa Command (Africom). No one challenged the vast expansion of Pentagon intelligence activities. No one offered a challenge as the military took on ever more civilian domestic duties, including planning for the potential arrival of a pandemic disease on our shores or for future Katrinas. No one seriously challenges the plans the Pentagon has on the drawing boards for exotic, futuristic hardware meant to come on line decades from now that, along with futuristic military tactics already being worked out, will help predetermine the wars most Americans don't even know we are going to fight--from the vast mega-slum-cities of the Third World to the borderlands of space.

No one considers what the Pentagonization of our world and the Homeland Securitization of our country is doing to us, because militarism here has never taken on the expectable forms--few vast military parades or displays (despite the almost full-scale militarization of Presidential funerals); few troops in the streets; no uniforms in the high councils of government. In fact, it's one of the ironies of our particular form of militarization that when our military--no longer really a citizen army--goes to war and troops begin to die, less Americans are touched by this than perhaps at any time in our recent history.

Shrink the mission or expand the military? Your choice?

Fat chance.

Comments (47)

1. "Democrats simply leaped onto the expand-the-military bandwagon even faster than Republicans. In fact, leading Democrats had long been calling for just this sort of expansion. ("I am glad [the President] has realized the need for increasing the size of the armed forces... but this is where the Democrats have been for two years," commented Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the new House Democratic Caucus chairman.) The Democratic leadership promptly pledged to make such an expansion one of its top reform priorities in the New Year."

   Ahhh....more glories of the "Revolution of '06", huh?

   Posted by Mask at 01/03/2007 @ 4:28pm

2. So..you want a shrinking military,shrinking Pentagon and its influence and you want the US to have no "foot print" in the world? Is that the view?

   It seems that in an ever unstable Islamic world, with growing populations and demand for more resources that a nation such as ours should have a foot print in many parts of the world and not be under the foot prints of others...

   This is a come home and melt the swords piece while the rest of the boys are melting their plows(Iran, NK, VEN)...(nuclear swords being forged)

   Nice anti American military editorial...kumbyeya, er , whatever....but I don't want you in charge of my security or of any one I know...further more, I would like all of my(our) enemys in the world, future or present, to know that the US has a capacity to erase them in seconds should we have to do so, and are willing to do it should that become a necessity to survival....

   Posted by john maasch at 01/03/2007 @ 4:29pm

3. Hey, isn't this a no-brainer? If we just had an even bigger military than the one we already had we could've stopped the 19 terrorists who struck on 9/11 after reading a flight schedule and figuring out how to use a boxcutter. A bigger military than all the other countries in the world combined is woefully inadequate. Let's expand! We'll just use the credit card again.

   It's a lot easier to add 70,000 troopers to our armed forces than read intelligence reports that say something like, "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In The U.S."

   Posted by fromredbird at 01/03/2007 @ 4:30pm

4. Oh, yeah,...Peace.

   Posted by john maasch at 01/03/2007 @ 4:31pm

5. It would have been easiler yet had Billy boy sent him to a meeting with the virgins...

   Posted by john maasch at 01/03/2007 @ 4:40pm

6. A secret meeting.

   Posted by john maasch at 01/03/2007 @ 4:40pm

7. I propose that John Maasch act like a gentleman would, and limit his crap on the front page of these threads to one post. You posted 4 times - there are some intelligent people here who dont support George Bushs American-slaughtering and Iraqi-slaughtering crap who have intelligent things to say.

   Posted by LiberalPride at 01/03/2007 @ 5:26pm

8. I don't support Bush slaugtering and I am glad he never has done so...

   "I propose that John Maasch act like a gentleman would, and limit his crap on the front page of these threads to one post. You posted 4 times - there are some intelligent people... "

   I am glad you were put in charge of how much and how many post one can do....and as soon as you post something intelligent we all will read it...the above post wasn't even close,tho, FYI...as a gentlemanly way of informing you.

   Posted by john maasch at 01/03/2007 @ 5:32pm

9. Why aren't there any anti-intervention conservatives posting on this website? John, please go and check out The American Conservative. While I hardly agree with everything they stand for, and agree still less with the principles underlying their positions, those folks at least don't believe in garrisoning the planet and provoking, yes, provoking attacks on us by our actions and "entangling alliances."

   Posted by cka2nd at 01/03/2007 @ 5:35pm

10. I just wanted to add my opinion that Tom Engelhardt has been posting some of the absolute best journalism on this site over the last few months. Outstanding.

    Posted by cka2nd at 01/03/2007 @ 5:37pm

11. Ladies and Gentleman, observe the calibre of person who still supports George Bushs Disaster in Iraq.

    48 hours: 5 Americans KILLED, 5 American families GRIEVING

    The Republican Party sends all 12 of its TOP intellectuals, who can type, to the Nation website. We are blessed here with one of the only places in the country where you can find and debate with Authoritarian supporters of George Bush and his stupid disaster in Iraq. And folks, these really are the TOP intellectuals in the Republican Party.

    Look at how the intellectuals of the Republican Party behave, coming here, posting 10 times on the front page of every thread - saying nothing, trying to waste all the space with empty posts like this. Seeing if they can force the Nation to change their totally unrestricted message board policies.

    John Maasch is about as bright as a man can be and still be a Republican, Authoritarian, Conservative, Iraq War Disaster Supporter.

    He says that sending Americans to DIE isnt slaughter. KILLING innocent people isnt slaughter.

    48 Hours, 5 Americans KILLED, 5 American families GRIEVE, and John Maasch just says "Support 5 more"

    Posted by LiberalPride at 01/03/2007 @ 5:42pm

12. Cka, you are right about Tom. his site is also one of the best.Tomdispatch.com

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/03/2007 @ 5:56pm

13. An Iraqi was arrested for taking a picture with a camera in their Democracy, where they have Freedom. Is he being tortured? Probably.

    Posted by LiberalPride at 01/03/2007 @ 6:17pm

14. LIBERALPRIDE

    Still waiting on those intelligent things for you to say....you sound like the Sheehanites.

    Posted by CPT at 01/03/2007 @ 6:41pm

15. Posted by CKA2ND 01/03/2007 @ 5:35pm

    Gadzooks! Is this a real conservative? Are we going to get a chance to see a real conservative exposing the LVLIBERTY1's, JOHN MAASCH's, RIO BLOTTO's, CHIP THORNTON's, BARRY25 or BARRY whatever-number-he's-on-now, and OKSPORTSGUY's as the radical imperialists they actually are rather than the conservatives they claim to be?

    Posted by fromredbird at 01/03/2007 @ 6:47pm

16. they call themselves Libertarians.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/03/2007 @ 7:54pm

17. you sound like the Sheehanites.

    Posted by CPT 01/03/2007 @ 6:41pm | ignore this person

    silly.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/03/2007 @ 7:55pm

18. What a scandal that the marine corps is using PUBLIC E-MAIL to recruit officer candidates....Sounds like they'll be overthrowing the government any time now.....Or maybe, (whispering) they already have, and they're just taking names, for execution later...or maybe, deciding who is to be sent to those concentration camps in wyoming we've been reading about on the blogs....

    This article could only have been written by someone who has complete contempt for the military, and those who serve in it...but then, that describes most of the contributers to the Nation, sad to say...They're some of the same people who compained that troops weren't handing out coffee and donuts (and money) soon enough in New Orleans in the days following Hurricane Katrina.....

    But, rest easy, Tom...your freedom to be an elitist snob is defended by much better men and women than yourself.....

    Posted by davebarlett at 01/03/2007 @ 7:55pm

19. "They're some of the same people who compained that troops weren't handing out coffee and donuts (and money) soon enough in New Orleans in the days following Hurricane Katrina....."

    so dumb, I'm compained.

    "your freedom to be an elitist snob is defended by much better men and women than yourself.....

    Posted by DAVEBARLETT 01/03/2007 @ 7:55pm | ignore this person

    are they doing that in Iraq? if not there, where? are they defending the free speech zones?

    definition of snob: a person with an exaggerated respect for high social position...

    don't make no sense in yer post do it?

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/03/2007 @ 8:02pm

20. Johannes, I wouldn't expect my post to make sense to you, you're one of the ones I'm complaining about.........

    Posted by davebarlett at 01/03/2007 @ 8:11pm

21. although maybe I should have substituted "pompous ass" for elitist snob........

    Posted by davebarlett at 01/03/2007 @ 8:13pm

22. This article could only have been written by someone who has complete contempt for the military, and those who serve in it. --DAVEBARLETT

    And your post could only have been written by someone who has complete contempt for rational thought.

    The crux of the article isn't the military, or "those who serve in it", but rather the misuse of the military.

    If you want to talk about "complete contempt for the military, and those who serve in it", let's talk about your kind. You know, the kind who advocates sending "those who serve in it" into a meat grinder, under false pretenses no less, all in the interest of conquest and war profits. The same kind of wonderful "patriot" who simultaneously waved the flag while wiping their ass with it, and cheered as the final 29,000 soldiers' lives were pissed away in Vietnam.

    Your wrong-winged pseudo-jingoist nonsense about how anyone opposed to abuse of the military is "elitist", unpatriotic, and anti-military is really, really pathetic, tired, and old.

    Posted by Left is Right at 01/03/2007 @ 8:14pm

23. "John Maasch is about as bright as a man can be and still be a Republican, Authoritarian, Conservative, Iraq War Disaster Supporter. "

    Still waiting for the intelligent post.....this ain't it either...I am a libertarian, as far as Iraq..my positions are well known here...and what you wrote ain't it.

    Posted by john maasch at 01/03/2007 @ 8:24pm

24. LEFT is RIGHT

    Are you kidding???? Yes the Nation is so very kind toward the military.

    How could anyone mistake the Nation for being antimilitary. lol

    Posted by CPT at 01/03/2007 @ 9:07pm

25. man, over the holidays, while disgustingly sick, a friend gave me a copy of a computer game called "rome: total war". i wasted a lot of time playing it.

    rome...

    Although we remember Rome more as an empire, for almost half her history she was in fact a republic, and like us, an altogether imperfect, yet earnest, democracy. This now rather obscure fact was once considered common knowledge to anyone deemed educated in this country, when knowledge of classical studies was an indispensable cornerstone of a well rounded education. Any study of the thoughts and writings of our forefathers will reveal that such understanding of the Greco-Roman past profoundly influenced their vision for our future. We chose to name our upper legislative house "the senate" and proceeded to imitate Roman architecture not only in the design of our capital, but in early civic buildings throughout our country. This did not spring from an admiration of the degenerate imperial phase of Roman civilization, but rather from the first half millenium, before multiple pressures, including their inability to make the leap from direct to representative democracy, as well as their own success, drowned out Rome's once vibrant democratic traditions.

    When Rome was nothing more than a city state, her people, after overthrowing an Etruscan tyrant, established a democratic form of government similar to that of Athens and other Greek cities, a direct democracy. The free Roman people, divided by class into patrician and plebian (aristocrat and commoner) came together in the assembly, to vote for officials and on laws. This idyllically imperfect system served Rome well as long as she was little more than a geographically limited city state, relying on the sturdy and patriotic muscle and sacrifice of her vibrant, free, plebian masses of farmers and craftsmen, led by civic minded landed yet not corrupted patrician aristocracy. The oft mentioned senate, in fact held very little power in domestic affairs, being a body of former elected officials, a semi-retired deliberative sort of gentlemen's club.

    The problems with her democracy began when, as a result of various wars of conquest, the political entity of Rome grew until it came to encompass most of modern Italy, and strained to extend her control even further. The pattern was as follows...Roman legions would march out to war against another state, often to the rallying cry of defeating tyranny, conquer her challenger, and return home laden with booty and a string of slaves. These slaves, naturally, were sold to those Romans, largely the patricians, who could afford them the most. The more slaves these wealthy landed aristocrats accummulated, the more productive, efficient, and prosperous their great agricultural estates, or latifundia, became. The patricians, however, were not the only ones who profited from these wars of conquest, sometimes begun as wars of defence. Certain industrious and clever plebes, as well as conquered yet friendly aristocrats, came to form a third pseudo class eventually known by the curious name of the "equestrians" (those who could in time of war afford a horse) who came to be the commercial, business class of Rome. Often it was men of this group who bid for and recieved contracts from the Roman government to collect taxes in the conquered provinces, men the Romans referred to as "tax farmers", who of course were universally hated by those who were farmed, in that they invariably harvested considerably more than they were authorized, thereby amassing impressive fortunes and with such, political power to rival the patricians...

    While this situation improved the fortunes and positions of these two groups, the same cannot be said for the great majority of plebes, nor for Roman democratic rebublicanism. You see, as the wars against tyranny became ever more frequent, ever more distant, and required ever more time away from family and modest farm, the plebian Roman farmer citizen soldier found his lot ever more untenable, his voice in politics ever smaller. The patrician great landholders, with all their slaves, out competed the small farmer who, more and more, away for years on end fighting the very wars that netted these unfortunate thralls, often returned home to find his farm sold to his social betters. Even without the absence of these brave, humble, citizen soldiers, the latifundia were just too powerful to compete with, but without the strongest back there to help, the family left behind was even less able to hold on. Year after year, campaign after campaign, humble, hard working, patriotic, plebian farmers sold their farms to the great landowners and trickled into the city of Rome itself, desperate, impoverished, and betrayed by the very people their sacrifices had enriched the most.

    But the patrician and his growing slave holding agricultural factories were not the only beneficiaries. As stated above, the equestrian, or business class, also benefited from these far flung conquests. They were awarded tax farming contracts, and obtained preferable trading status, supplied the ever growing mob of rome with grain (bread) to feed the once proud plebians, and animals and gladitorial slaves to distract the same with bloody games(circuses). They operated mines and armed the legions with slave factory produced weaponry. Initially, as a result of their non-patrician roots, they often sided with the plebian political cause against the ever more rapacious and proud aristocrats who denied them membership into the senate or elected position, but eventually they were able to force, bargain, and marry themselves into all positions of priviledge and power, thus abandoning forever their plebian roots and their plebian fellows whom thet left behind in permanant, dependant, marginalized, destitution.

    Even as Rome eventually granted to the free peoples of conquered teritories first, of course, in Italy, the coveted rights of citizens, the nature of Roman direct democracy made such rights, including the right to vote in the assembly, meaningless. How could a plebian farmer, ever threatened with economic ruin, take time out of his can see to can't see routine to make a 20, 30, 50, 100, mile journey to the capital to vote? Even in modern America, such would be difficult, but in ancient Rome, it was impossible. Yet the assembly remained the bedrock of roman political power, an increasingly farcical facade of democracy-in-form-but-not-in-fact. Because this is what developed...

    Remember the senate? The rich old men's lifetime club of former officials which in law held little power other than advisory capacity and foriegn affairs (an ever more important factor, to be sure)? As Rome became ever more infested with these landless, destitute plebes from throughout the republic, who clamored for sustenance and entertainment (gainful employment often simply not an option as slave labor increasingly took the place of good paid hard work) gathered restlessly in the very capital itself. The wealthy men of the senate, patrician and equestrian alike, took to hiring armies of these idle, now parasitical plebians for no reason other than to vote as directed in the assembly. In that the throngs of dispossesed came from a fairly representative geographical cross section of the republic, the degenerate result almost actually came to resemble some form of proto representative democracy, but in only the most cynical and distorted fashion. Furthermore, this disconnect between the ideal and the real, this dependence on charity and patronage for sustenance, and the ever growing addiction to barbaric, salacious and soul crushing diversion, eventually turned an honorable, patriotic, hard working, sturdy peasantry, the backbone of Roman military might, into an effete, trivialized, angry, petulant, and dependent mob, full of pride in nothing more than their national identity...

    Increasingly the ranks of the legions were filled not with what were in essense drafted levies of citizen soldiery, fighting for hearth and home, ideals of republican virtue and dignity, but of volunteer paid professional soldiers, many serving more as a matter of financial necessity than any robust idealism...(eventually even this resevoire of more or less ethinically Roman soldiery would be replaced, in Rome's long descent into imperial decadence, by foriegn , often "barbarian" mercenaries, whose vitality put native Roman virtue to shame, but I am getting ahead of the story here). Eventually, the common roman soldier came to place his loyalty more in the persons of his generals, who, in a form of noblesse oblige, promised land and patronage in return for service and sacrifice, just as Rome's non military leaders promised bread and circuses to their legions of ever degenerating civilian parasites at home in return for political votes and simply not rioting...

    This is not to say that there were none who saw the dangerous direction Roman civilization had taken, laying the seeds of her destruction so very long before she actually fell, though not so long before her liberty had become a hollow joke, before her "democracy" and "republic" ceased to be such in all but name only... While most of the patricians and ever more of the equestrians could see the welfare of their nation only in terms of their own, narrowly defined economic interest, certain far sighted, selfless, decent, wise, and compassionate souls from within these monied and powerful classes, from whom the term "patrician reformer" comes down to us, saw the danger, and allied themselves with those of the lower classes, betraying their own, and struggled mightily, ultimately futilely, to reversed these wicked trends. Among the most famous were the Gracchi brothers, a pair of high minded patricians who ultimately paid for their ideals with their lives. Marius, a plebian general whose ability elevated him through the ranks to generalship, was another. Eventually, Julius Caesar would make one last, desperate attempt to save the republic by destroying it...

    These last two were military men. The first, Marius, allied himself with the democratic, plebian forces during the Social Wars, Rome's first bloody civil conflict, and unlike later inter-warlord battles of the imperial era, a true struggle of ideals and class... Marius, a noble soul yet common man, was ultimately pushed to his limit (he was no longer a young man, described as a lean, robust, white haired sextegenarian, much beloved by his followers), losing control of his desperate troops and his better judgement for once, when he captured Rome itself, thereby dirtying his name, which eventually led to a victory by the reactionary aristocratic forces of the nihilistic, machiavellian, Sulla, who claimed republican victory while making himself a terrorizing, vindictive dictator in an attempt to bleed the will and life out of all resistance to the unenlightened self interest of his covetous, reactionary party. By the time Ceasar came along, a closet democrat himself, (for despite the tyrant's terror, democratic sentiment had somehow survived even amongst Rome's aristocracy) it was painfully obvious that no means short of bloody coup would ever reverse the damage done to Roman democracy in the name of the republic, but in reality in the name of self serving imperialism...and of course the ides of March ended even that last gasp...

    Contrary to the old adage, history never really repeats itself...but it sure can resemble itself. Our founding fathers, in their sage wisdom, with the example of Rome's folly, thought they had solved this great weakness, this inability to make the leap from direct to representative democracy. They thought they had enshrined a limitation of government, a guarantee of rights and freedoms in a written document, something else Rome never figured out. And for some two admitedly imperfect centuries, sometimes in one step backwards, two steps forward fashion, we have ever lurched toward these lofty enscribed ideals. Despite many shameful episodes, wrong headed fiascos, ancient predjudices and hypocritical injustices, ever has our nation thrown off the negative, picked itself up, righted its own as well as other's wrongs, and, until very recently, succeeded in our march toward a better future, a true city on the hill...a more perfect fulfillment of the ideals of our semi-holy constitution and the dreams of all our people.

    But can our democracy, our republic, survive our own success? Has our system become compromised by the most selfish and ruthless segments our own equestrians and patricians despite all the well thought out checks and balances that were supposed to allow us to avoid the fate of our predecessor, Rome? Have they in fact bought and paid for our elected representatives as surely as Rome's elites bought and paid for their armies of voting parasites? Has a complete, parsimonious unwillingness on the part of the ever more self serving, rapacious, and ruthless, to redistribute wealth in any form other than through military service helped to create a permanant underclass of ever harried plebes in our own time and place? Have they found a ready supply of (invisible) slaves in the form of low paid, exploited third world workers laboring under barbarous sweatshop conditions that supplant our own blue collar and petty managerial classes who suffered and sweated and bled and fought so hard for so long to raise their wages, occupational safety, security, and dignity? Is our military devolving from a noble calling for citizen sodiers, levied to defend that in which they have a stake, to a professional refuge for those less fortunate who find fewer and fewer options for personal advancement in a society and economy whose rules are ever more unfairly stacked in favor of their social betters? Are we, the once independent, moral, responsible, and dignified plebes of our republic, sliding into ignorant, petty, trivialized, dependency, eternal adolescent petulance, greed, sloth, lust, vanity, rage, gluttony and, most dangerous of all, PRIDE, as a result of our own short sightedness and moral cowardice, as well as our economic overlord's failure to see the difference between their own narrow interests and the interests of our country, our republic, our very democracy, as a whole? Have we already slain our brothers Gracchi? Is there a Marius, and if so, will we plebes have the courage, responsibility, and fortitude to assure that history does not resemble itself in this manner, again?

    Only if we understand...

    we are the new rome.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 01/03/2007 @ 9:08pm

26. Left is Right......ass is backwards.....nuff said

    Posted by davebarlett at 01/03/2007 @ 9:14pm

27. you want the US to have no "foot print" in the world? Is that the view?-Posted by JOHN MAASCH 01/03/2007 @ 4:29pm

    where does Englehart write that? His was quite a tirade, but he never said that, did he? Just an awful long list of where your tax dollars are being spent. And we know you hate taxes. if you get your knickers twisted over waste in New Orleans, why are you so happy to give the money to a corrupt former ba-athist to build a shit leaking police station in Iraq?

    I actually don't have a problem with the Marines holding such a camp, the idea that set Tom off. If it is indeed lock-stock solid that someone could walk at the end, why not?

    Posted by crabwalk at 01/03/2007 @ 9:33pm

28. you sound like the Sheehanites.

    Posted by CPT 01/03/2007 @ 6:41pm

    Speaking of which...she's still at it--

    Washington Business Journal - 3:07 PM EST Wednesday by Kent Hoover Washington Bureau Chief

    House Democrats tried to unveil their lobbying reform package today, but their press conference was drowned out by chants from anti-war activists who want Congress to stop funding the Iraq war before taking on other issues.

    Led by Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a slain soldier, the protesters chanted "De-escalate, investigate, troops home now" as Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., began outlining the Democrats' plans to ban lobbyist-funded travel and institute other ethics reforms. The press conference was held in the Cannon House Office Building in an area open to the public.

    Emanuel finally gave up trying to be heard over the chants, and retreated to a caucus room where Democrats were meeting.

    Sheehan says she has nothing against lobbying reform, but she and her fellow anti-war activists want Democrats to know they will keep pressuring Congress to end the war in Iraq.

    "We wanted the Democrats to know they're back in power because of the grass roots," Sheehan says.

    The anti-war activists held their own Capitol Hill press conference earlier in the day before deciding to attend the lobbying reform press conference as well.

    Before the chanting started, Sheehan got a hug from Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

    Posted by Mask at 01/03/2007 @ 9:45pm

29. HEY Kids, time again for Crab explains the neo-con mind!

    Newspapers that don't print things you like, it's ok to say "blow-em up!!"

    Duly elected or appointed judge issues a ruling you don't like? Call them activists, threaten to jail them, call for their deaths even.

    unions want health-care? the guvt can tell them to stuff it!

    Someone says something bad about the president? Truck-em off to a cage, man. Its patriotic.

    A CEO ruins his stock price, give the boy $210 million, hell he tried, right? and give him a tax cut too.

    Guv-ment CAN and WILL tell you where you can put your penis! But not your pollution.

    and if you dare, just dare, to say "Hey, General? are you sure you're getting a god deal on that new bomber?", then you should rot in Hell forever, you G-D america hater, you.

    why I oughta...

    this program brought to you by bored-crab productions, all rights reserved. copyright 2007.

    Posted by crabwalk at 01/03/2007 @ 9:46pm

30. I would like all of my(our) enemys in the world, future or present, to know that the US has a capacity to erase them in seconds should we have to do so, and are willing to do it should that become a necessity to survival....

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH 01/03/2007 @ 4:29pm

    We can do that.

    And the good news is we don't even need a standing army to do that

    Posted by Will C. at 01/03/2007 @ 9:51pm

31. elitist snob is redundant.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/03/2007 @ 10:14pm

32. "I would like all of my(our) enemys in the world, future or present, to know that the US has a capacity to erase them in seconds should we have to do so, and are willing to do it should that become a necessity to survival....

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH 01/03/2007 @ 4:29pm

    We can do that.

    And the good news is we don't even need a standing army to do that

    Posted by WILL C. 01/03/2007 @ 9:51pm"

    I agree, but I imagine some sort of standing force is required to go into places for extractions, invasions of some sort...toys alone will not work....

    and we have one of the smaller standing forces out there...

    Posted by john maasch at 01/03/2007 @ 10:17pm

33. Posted by JOHN MAASCH 01/03/2007 @ 10:17pm |

    you need about a dozen or so guys for an extraction

    and who did you plan on invading?

    Posted by Will C. at 01/03/2007 @ 10:23pm

34. A CEO ruins his stock price, give the boy $210 million, hell he tried, right? and give him a tax cut too.

    Posted by CRABWALK 01/03/2007 @ 9:46pm

    Nardelli . . . what a joke. Home Depot is one of the worst managed companies around and he's been paid like Pharaoh for years.

    Posted by fromredbird at 01/03/2007 @ 11:11pm

35. Posted by FROMREDBIRD 01/03/2007 @ 6:47pm | ignore this person

    they call themselves Libertarians.

    Posted by JOHANNESROLF 01/03/2007 @ 7:54pm

    They're libertarians even less than they are conservatives.

    Posted by fromredbird at 01/03/2007 @ 11:15pm

36. "I would like all of my(our) enemys in the world, future or present, to know that the US has a capacity to erase them in seconds should we have to do so, and are willing to do it should that become a necessity to survival....

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH 01/03/2007 @ 4:29pm

    So how about Usama bin laden? Has he been smote by our army yet? why did chimpy rely on Afghans instead of using the Army he had? How about the insurgents in Iraq? Have we smote every one yet? do they know that we will smite them? is that stopping them yet? It will be 4 years soon. so far it cost $355,495,762,177 of your tax dollars, not including the interest you pay to our friendly Saudi bank.

    I think the US military did more to keep threats off our shores after the tsunami and Pakistani earthquakes than the whole OIF. but that kind of operation lacks that certain.... feeling of the kill.

    Posted by crabwalk at 01/03/2007 @ 11:36pm

37. "you need about a dozen or so guys for an extraction

    and who did you plan on invading?"

    Mexico.

    Posted by john maasch at 01/04/2007 @ 12:03am

38. and who did you plan on invading?"

    Mexico.

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH 01/04/2007 @ 12:03am

    I think they beat you to it. And they don't spend jack on their military

    Posted by Will C. at 01/04/2007 @ 12:09am

39. While I agree that our military spending is obscene, I loathe when authors go on rants about things with little or no understanding. PLC has been around since well before the illegal invasion of Iraq.

    It's just another commissioning program to allow the Marine Corps to weed through quality candidates; good people wash out. There are uniforms, I believe the email may have meant that you don't have to wear them at your university, as ROTC students do.

    Also PLC is hard. The Marine Corps isn't desperate for officers, but it needs, and I believe it should have, the best quality people leading the youth of our nation.

    At any rate, if you're going to write an article condemning something as horrific as "summer camp with no uniforms," at least do a simple Google search for it. If you do, you will quickly see people in Quantico that I guess just all woke up one day and decided to dress the same in military attire.

    So yes, uniforms; and giving people an option to challenge themselves and try something out of their own free will, with NO obligation. And they've been doing it for quite a while. Does that make it all better?

    Posted by wesborre at 01/04/2007 @ 12:30am

40. Its a really bad trip for them!

    Posted by RIO BRAVO 01/04/2007 @ 12:41am

    but you said the trip to canada ended in weed

    That sounds pretty good

    Posted by Will C. at 01/04/2007 @ 12:47am

41. Only if we understand... we are the new rome. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 01/03/2007 @ 9:08pm

    Not bad Mr Blibble, not bad. You're not crazy after all.

    Perhaps GB, which was a genuine world empire, has more parallels with the collapse of the Roman Empire than the US, which has never been and still is not a world empire but has been and is more of an unofficial world policeman.

    The US really became a big player only after it had greatness thrust upon it during and after WW2. GB had run itself broke fighting two world wars and along with some of the more minor European "empires" slipped into post colonial, empire-irrelevance. How much does the US rise to power have to do with its armaments and space races with the USSR in the past? Without the tremendous impetus such programs gave to US science and engineering one could speculate about the likelihood of America's present dominance in the technologies that were thus spawned.

    The foundational moral and democratic philosophy of the US owes much to Europe's historical influence; particularly England, so its greatness in its institutions, if you please, is basically a derived and common one. There is nothing there that other democracies don't have in one form or another. Its great uniqueness then is in generating tremendous wealth. That could probably be shown to be a function, not only of the arms and space races but also of your economic system. Perhaps the incentives that the US economic system provides for the "go getters" is part of the reason for its success as a wealth creator. That system seems to be less generous to those without above average job skills and training and for the functionally unemployable (the dole), than most if not all other Western democracies.

    Gibbon's rationale for the fall of the Western Roman Empire had, like yours, to do with the outsourcing of the military and thus divided loyalties, the rise of other-worldly Christianity and moral corruption, that was fed by prosperity. Others place more emphasis on demographic changes in Europe.

    However is there any US analogy with Rome in its decline and fall? Are not the forces that are shaping the US (and other Western economies) "independent" and external and of such a global nature that it wouldn't make much difference even if all those things that you value from the past, could with the wave of a wand, be restored?

    Posted by lrjones4 at 01/04/2007 @ 06:25am

42. Posted by LRJONES4 01/04/2007 @ 06:25am

    thanks croc. like i said, history never really repeats itself. i suppose one could draw an analogy of sorts between europe and greece, ussr and carthage.

    but what you pointed out about american financial power, i think, kind of supports my analogy. in a nuclear world one cannot simply barrel over everything in one's way purely militarily...rome owed much to greece, just as america owes much to europe...

    and too, perhaps our system is strong enough to avoid rome's fate. perhaps nations, civilizations, are like people and computers...if they live long enough, they eventually go crazy and die...

    but if the analogy holds, then we are still currently at our apogee of power, and have a while to go.

    happy new year.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 01/04/2007 @ 07:16am

43. You're not crazy after all.

    Posted by LRJONES4 01/04/2007 @ 06:25am

    i dont know about that now...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 01/04/2007 @ 07:19am

44. it seems that many repubs equate anti-military and anti militarism with anti americanism. nothing could be further from the truth. the constitution does not endorse the militarization of our society that has taken place since WW2. the Iraq war is the stinking open wound of that militarism.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/04/2007 @ 11:53am

45. Posted by JOHANNESROLF 01/04/2007 @ 11:53am

    yeah, and this professinalization of the military, though not necessarily bad in and of itself, reminds me of rome's abandonment of its citizen soldier army. the drive to offer citizenship to foreigners desperate to come here in exchange for military service reminds me of rome even more, when barbarians were allowed to enter the legions for basically the same purpose, though i would never consider hispanics as barbarians...well, not most...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 01/04/2007 @ 1:09pm

46. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 01/04/2007 @ 1:09pm | ignore this person

    nice Gibbon imitation.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 01/04/2007 @ 1:18pm

47. Now we know (What happened to the "Discuss" option?) at Yahoo!! News.

    The Nation's instructions are "Please refrain from straying off-topic and making personal attacks. Your comment may be edited or removed at the discretion of Nation staff. Our goal is not to stifle debate but to keep it relevant."

    Please, Nation staff, use your discretion!! There is no debate to stifle.

    Posted by Cordella at 01/07/2007 @ 03:23am