“... the sad reality is that after losing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan we simply don’t need them. People have proposed work programs like the CCC or WPA to address the unemployment; while that is debated the military is simply serving as those programs.”
The saddest subsection of reality is that the American public believes Great Britain lost its war in Afghanistan (circa 1898).
The same logic applies to American defeats in Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Minus any hard-headed calculation of the national interest, or any but the feeblest actions in support of same.
And there’s more news: the CCC was organized and run by the War Dept - in sum, by the US Army. So the military was doing duty as the employer of last resort some decades before any “prison or draft” choice confronted the little offenders of the 1960s. Any such initiative might not fare so well these days: half a century on, soldiering has been transformed and demands different abilities.
“The same logic applies to American defeats in Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Minus any hard-headed calculation of the national interest, or any but the feeblest actions in support of same.”
If the purpose was to simply kill more of them than we lost, I guess we won all three. There is no other formula by which any of the three is a victory.
“the CCC was organized and run by the War Dept - in sum, by the US Army. So the military was doing duty as the employer of last resort some decades before any “prison or draft” choice confronted the little offenders of the 1960s. Any such initiative might not fare so well these days: half a century on, soldiering has been transformed and demands different abilities.”
Sure; they were preparing an adult population for soldiering for the coming war. I’m not even criticizing the role today, just explaining why they can be picky. The money to keep the workfare going is running out, so some of the chaff has to be separated from the wheat (and apparently tattoos and weight overlooked ten years ago are the indicators now).