I Still Owe the Military Nothing

lewrockwell.com ^ | February 4, 2004 | Brad Edmonds

[Blzbba]

LOL

[sergeantdave]

According to US Army archives, Hitler did indeed have plans to invade the US. The plan was to drop paratroopers into the Canadian Rockies, establish bases and attack from the north. I'd guess this was contingent on conquering Russia, so the Nazi forces could jump off from Siberia. The information, I believe, came from a Swiss diplomat who passed it on to the Allies.

I believe the documents are in the Army Winter Warfare school.

I never saw the documents but read a synopsis from the Army some years ago. If someone could verify this, I'm sure it would make interesting reading.

[AppyPappy]

Yeah there is no way Germany could have made atomic weapons or long-range bombers.

You slept through history, didn't you?

[Blzbba]

"The plan was to drop paratroopers into the Canadian Rockies,"


French Canada would've been a better drop-point...

[optimistically_conservative]

I have to admit that I agree with much of this.

No one owes me because I chose to serve in the AVF military. This is the opposite side of the wrong-headed coin that subscribes to the idea that my parents made some sort of sacrifice for my decision.

I also agree that our military is more Machiavellian than a militia-based last line of defense.

I do think it is appropriate to honor those that choose to serve in the military as we should those that choose to serve in the police, firefighter, medical, etc. services that are based on selflessnes over, say, entertainers whose self-aggrandizement motivates them more than a concern for the welfare of others.

I would also say that during my service, I have probably done more to ensure the freedoms of Europeans, Asians and South Americans directly. Whether that has pushed the frontiers of our own national security out from our borders, making the risk of foreign attack less, can certainly be debated.

I also have understood that Americans do not trust the military to be directly involved within our borders in enforcing security - choosing to engage our military abroad rather than against non-citizens and interlopers domestically.

The author is entitled to his opinion, and in uniform or out, I support his right to publish it. Given the success of our freedoms, I do not see a need to defend it, or rail against it, with anything more than the tools at hand in my civilian role.

Should that change, he can count on me to do it in my military role.

[Tennessee_Bob]

Ssshhh...we're not supposed to think about that!!

[JohnGalt]

Hyping the threat of an enemy is what government due to justify mothers giving up their sons to serve the interests of the state.

[cynicom]

Appy..Adolf had one of his 4 engined aircraft come within 12 miles of New York city during the war.

[Tennessee_Bob]

We could also say "I did...have sex with that woman..."

I'll be danged - Clinton DID confess!!

[u-89]

The comparison of the Barbary pirates to today's wars is apples and oranges. Jefferson understood the purpose of the navy and defense. The founders wanted a navy to defend our shores and our shipping. To war agaisnt attacks by pirates and demands of tribute for safe passage is as legit as it gets.

Consolidation the American continent by the US could be considered aggressive expansionism but most thought it was a natural enough phenomenon to control the area coast to coast. Late in the 19th century when that job was done suddenly that wasn't good enough. We wanted to be a major power of the European model. We wanted to project force through the world. We built up our navy to compete. Then we grabbed Hawaii and picked a war with Spain in order to grab her holdings. We have been meddling in other's affairs ever since and have been at war ever since at the coast of millions of US casualties and tens of millions of foreigners. Not to mention the billions and billions of tax dollars.

So in order to play big shot instead of just being a peaceful bastion of freedom and prosperity we suffer the results of heavy taxation, government/corporate alliances, foreign enemies where they need not exist, the occasional draft, the surveillance state, increased police powers, foreign aid and a host of other evils. As the founders understood a standing army was a threat to freedom. And we certainly are a lot less free since 1898.

To sum up the problems we have today are what the CIA phrased as blow back. The unintended results of our actions. Absolutely no comparison to the Barbary pirate situation.

P.S. To prove the wisdom of the warning against a standing army presenting too big a temptation for politicians here's a Madelene Albright quote: "what's the point of having the world's most powerful military if you don't use it?"

[2banana]

If Germany didn't have the ablitity to subdue England in it's darkest hour, they couldn't manage a cross channel invasion, then there is no way they could have handled a cross Atlantic invasion. They didn't have long range bombers, fighters or aircraft carriers or a sizable enough navy.

It is, of course, a big what if the war went well for Germany.

Germany was building an aircraft carrier during WWII (the Graf Zeppelin) and had plans to build others.

Germany did have a long range bomber (Heinkel He 177 ) and long range airplanes (Condor). They had plans for long range jet bombers and long range ICBMs.

Germany was also working on the atomic bomb and probably would have developed it in 1946.

Throw in captured and salvaged capital ships from France, (assuming) England and (assuming) Russia, and yeah, it could have happened...

[alloysteel]

Assuming, of course, that every country is the moral equivalent of every other country, and there are no more compelling reasons to go to war than as a team exercise to keep up the spirits of the home team, then we may just as well abolish the military altogether, suit up for football, get out there and drill, and sell admissions for the big game day.

But that would also imply that the opposing team would not sneak over in the night and set the stands on fire. Nations only obey a code of conduct if they are fairly certain that their counterparts understand the rules. When the other side choses not to abide by those conventions, it is necessary to impress upon them the consequences.

[u-89]

>Hitler was also extremely angry at Tojo for attacking the US and drawing us into the European Theater, as he knew that our involvement there spelled inevitable disaster for him.

Correct. He declared war on us because he knew once Japan attacked the US and Britain made us officially allies and our aid to England and our actions in the Atlantic would increase drastically. In short when Japan brought us into the war on England's side war with Germany was inevitable. Hitler figured to make the best of a bad situation and declare war first so it looked like he was sticking by his ally Japan in the hopes they would reciprocate by attacking Russia.

[JohnGalt]

When the people we hire to protect us, take away the citizens guns, and let the barbarians through the front door, and the masses do not blame the people hired to protect us in the first place when something very bad happens, its only logical the people we hired to protect us would paint the picture of a diabolical enemy rather than actually fire one of its own.

[u-89]

Smedley Butler said "war is a racket". He said that every action he was ever involved in was not in the defense of American freedom but for the profits of wall street and bankers.

P.S. Butler also was breveted to captain for action in China before officers were eligible for the CMH. So technically he could be considered a 3 time recipient.

[spodefly]

Freepers, as they're called, are self-selected, and virtually all neocons; almost no libertarians are among them.

No wonder I feel so left out here. You're all a bunch of damn neo-cons.

Paleo and Proud!!!

With a nation full of rifle-toting rednecks ...

I resemble that remark.

All in all, an interesting supposition on the authors part, but I vote we keep the military. In case anyone invades the US, I don't want to have to have the militias trying to battle lean, mean professional soldiers without air cover and artillery (and a bunch of other stuff) provided by the US military.

[Just another Joe]

With all modesty, if they actually were "Just another Joe"s from the street they could figure out the last two fairly quickly.
The Abrams could be another can of worms.
You have a good point.

[XJarhead]

This article is so full of blissful ignorance its difficult to know where to start.

Apparently, the author can envision no reason for the United States ever to wield military force overseas. So I suppose the lives of human beings other than Americans have no value to the author. He'd have let the Holocaust, or something even more horrific proceed without a note of concern from the U.S. He's also have had no problem with letting Britain get overrun by the Nazis, or with all of Europe falling under the thumb of the Soviets after WWII. He doesn't seem to consider how that might have affected us here over time if we were the only free country remaining on earth. And one without a standing military. No Navy to ply the oceans, no Air Force.... We couldn't even have stopped the Soviets from putting missiles in Cuba.

What has made the US an uninviting target for 200 years is the oceans and our gun ownership.

Oh boy. This guy is so locked into his little rationalistic world that he assumes everyone plays by the same rules. 9/11 didn't happen because someone wanted to conquer us. It happened because they wanted to kill us. The oceans are no barrier (particularly if the Navy is eliminated), and gun ownership is no barrier to those kind of attacks either. If you permit terrorists who target the U.S. to operate freely outside the U.S., its only a matter of time until they succeed.

As Iraq and Afghanistan have proven in the last three years, making war halfway around the world is expensive, risky, and difficult even for the US, even today, even when attacking pathetically weaker opponents.

How expensive was it for Al Qaeda to kill 3000 Americans? And am I reading this wrong, or is this guy saying that we shouldn't have gone after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Actually, that must be what he's saying, because he advocates eliminating the standing army that is engaging in that war.

Universal gun ownership means an occupying force can never succeed.

That's just false. I'm thinking this guy's military knowledge is limited to computer games or something. Plenty of armed people have been successfully repressed throughout history. In the real world, every person in an occpied country isn't willing to sacrifice his life gloriously. The vast majority will be cowed over time if faced with overwhelming force. But even if he's right, an invasion and ultimately unsuccessful occupation still would mean the deaths of millions, destruction of our economic life and property, and decades of oppression.

Just look at Iraq. Tons of guns there, yet our loss rate is only 1 per day. That's a political issue here, but in military terms, its insignicant. Our occupying force could stay there forever if we wanted it to, particularly if we didn't have the type of scruples we have now. Start wiping out whole villages, murdering mullahs, etc., and you'd see resistance collapse pretty quickly. A little brutality doesn't work, but a lot of brutality does.

To occupy, you have to step out of your planes and humvees and move on foot. The more the natives own guns and want to resist, the more ground area you have to occupy continuously. With a nation full of rifle-toting rednecks, a hostile foreign power can never succeed. To obliterate us, they would be forced to nuke us.

Yup, as someone pointed out, too many viewings of Red Dawn here. He's lost in his own romanticism without checking reality. A "nation of rifle toting rednecks"? I dunno, I think most of the people in Greenwich Village probably don't fall under the rubric of "rifle toting rednecks." Lots of rifle toting rednecks in Washington D.C., right? And I'm willing to bet the author doesn't fall under that description either. I'm sure he fancies himself one of the "intellectual leaders" of the resistance.

There is no incentive for any nation to do that to any other

That's just terrible reasoning. This guy is so locked into his own worldview its amazing. When Rome conquered Carthage, it didn't try to take advantage of Carthage's economic power. It didn't try to steal anything. It wanted to eliminate a potential rival. So it intentionally destroyed the economic viability of Carthage by razing the city and sowing the fields with salt. We could become a target not because someone wants to take our wealth, but because someone perceives us as a potential threat, either military or economic. Everyone else in the world does not act solely on the basis of rationalistic economic thought.

Heck, I'd be more prone to believe we owed our freedom to the military if they were here, defending our borders (or even their own headquarters). They're not.

Actually, they are. The majority of the U.S. miltary is stationed right here at home. As for those guys overseas, they're killing enemies in Afghanistan before they can come here and kill more Americans.

I'd expect something better from a site that purports to follow the teachings of a brilliant guy like von Mises.

[u-89]

>Hitler did indeed have plans to invade the US

We have contingency plans to fight wars against everybody in every conceivable circumstance. Some are pretty far flung. How could Hitler drop paratroopers in the Canadian Rockies when he didn't have one plane that could fly across the Atlantic? Let alone across the continent to boot.

[alloysteel]

That was a most curious arrangement of a syllogism. The people we hired to protect us do NOT take away citizens' guns. Elected politicians do not protect us, they protect their future electability. They in turn hire armies, but it is not the business of armies to collect weapons from individuals. That may prove to be impossible to do in any event, if the citizenry is aroused. Elected politicians do test the expressed will of shifting opinions of people, and if the presence of weapons in the hands of individuals is perceived as an undesirable thing, then restrictions on ownership and use are instituted. Requirements for possession of firearms is made more and more restrictive, until the total number of gun owners is vastly reduced. Once below a critical number, the civilian populace is virtually helpless, and unable to provide even guerrilla resistance in the event of invasion and overwhelming defeat of the designated military forces.

Whatever feeble resistance is mounted is then designated the "diabolical enemy".

A state of war is most often the opportunity for the elected or appointed government to seize even more authority over the daily activities of the citizens than would otherwise be permitted or tolerated. The only way to reverse this situation is to carry through to victory over the engaged enemy, and give peace a chance. Surrender guarantees that the old status will never be re-established.