Today's Military: Right, Republican And Principled

Military Times (E-mail) | Dec. 2003 | Gordon Trowbridge

[VaMarVet]

FYI on latest Military Times poll results.

[rhombus]

I work with the military every day. The are our nation's finest men and women. Thank you one and all.

[Naspino]

Disband this Dean!

[KarlInOhio]

Once in the military, many said, members are wrapped in a culture that values honor and morality.

[snip]

“The country and the military profession are best served by an officer corps that is apolitical,” said Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and professor of international relations at Boston University. “That doesn’t mean that officers don’t vote, but for them to collectively identify themselves with one or the other party strikes me as simply unhealthy.”

Perhaps the unhealthy thing is that one party goes out of its way to devalue honor and morality and collectively identifies itself as being opposed to the military.

[2banana]

“The country and the military profession are best served by an officer corps that is apolitical,” said Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and professor of international relations at Boston University. “That doesn’t mean that officers don’t vote, but for them to collectively identify themselves with one or the other party strikes me as simply unhealthy.”

University of North Carolina professor Richard Kohn co-authored a 1999 study on the civilian-military gap issued by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies. That study, which surveyed thousands of students at staff colleges, also found a military sharply more Republican and conservative than the nation, and one at odds with civilian leaders on a host of issues.

“The alienation from the 1990s continues, and was not simply based on hatred of Bill Clinton or distrust of the Democrats, as some argued about our results,” Kohn said in an e-mail interview. “It’s endemic to the highly professionalized, all-volunteer military of the last generation.”

Could it have anything to do with the oath of enlistment? To uphold the US Constitution that most military people take pretty seriously...now which party at least pays lip service to upholding the ideas and freedoms in that document?

[DrDeb]

. . . additional information from the poll:

The military poll found support for the decision to go to war slightly higher than among the public, but the difference was within statistical margins of error.

Sixty-five percent of those in the Military Times Poll said the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over; a Gallup poll found public support at 59 percent.

About 30 percent of military members polled said they had deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom, but there were no significant differences in opinions about Iraq between those who deployed for the war and those who didn’t.

•The military group is solidly in Bush’s corner, supporting the president more strongly than the nation as a whole. Two-thirds of respondents said they approved of the president’s job performance. Similar polls of the public before Saddam’s capture found Bush’s approval rating hovering around 50 percent.

One likely factor in that support: Military members are much more likely to identify themselves as Republicans. Recent polls show about one-third of Americans consider themselves Republicans, but 57 percent of those surveyed by Military Times identified with the GOP.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2513919.php

[Mentos]

Right, Republican And Principled

Holy redundancy, Batman!

[jmaroneps37]

66% think they have higher morals than civilians.... it aint braggin' if its true.

[Last Dakotan]

one that considers itself to be morally superior to the nation its serves

Whoa! this just jumped out at me. This is a serious problem in a democracy.

[jpl]

It doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out that people who hate the country (or are at best ambivalent towards it) are much less likely to be willing to put their life in harm's way for it.

[VaMarVet]

Thanks much!

[dakine]

The military has been R for a long time, it was funny working under Civilian leadership at the Pentagon back in '96 when Clinton was re-elected. They would catch themselves looking suspiously at you when discussing all their inauguration parties...

[Defend the Second]

I spent three weeks with the 1AD in Baumholder, Germany prior to its deployment to Iraq. You are correct, sir. It ain't bragging, because it is true.

God bless the men and women of our armed forces, and God bless President Bush.

[fuente]

So tell me exactly where honor, duty and sacrifice are taugh in public schools.

[Steel Wolf]

“The country and the military profession are best served by an officer corps that is apolitical,” said Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and professor of international relations at Boston University. “That doesn’t mean that officers don’t vote, but for them to collectively identify themselves with one or the other party strikes me as simply unhealthy.”

Two observations on this.

First, you're not going to cultivate a balance of opinion with the military if one of the political parties is anti-American and anti-military. The lack of morality, honor and scruples from the Democrats has been enough to steer the trend to the right over the years. There are no common values, so the only military liberals are the ones that were liberal when they showed up and have remained liberal.

Now that the left has been hoping for defeat and high casualties in Iraq, for the sole purpose of advancing political goals they've been thus far unable to sell, the situation is different. The guys in Iraq know the media, and they audience they cater to, much more than before. They understand that there are people trying to twist their words against them, and they know that there are some Americans back home who neither support them, nor want them to win at all. I don't see why liberals would expect that the military would view them favorably, since a large number of liberals openly want them dead.

Second, liberals have failed to learn the lessons of their beloved socialist leaders. Stalin, for instance, said

"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We don't allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas?"

Liberals may have ideas, but their enemies have both ideas and guns. Some of these guns have names like 'Tomahawk' and 'MOAB'. The ideas they have are even more dangerous, ideas like 'personal and civic responsibility' and 'freedom'. People thus armed are dangerous indeed.

Why liberals would push to divide society, especially when that divide would put them on the side with no weapons sharper than the wit of Al Franken, and ideas as stale as the tomb of Karl Marx, completely defies logic.

[SLB]

If the military judges society with the same standard as found in Exodus 20:14 which is that one item taken for granted by many civilians, adultery, is not only a sin, it is a crime punishable under the UCMJ. Then obviously the military are being forced into a life with higher standards than the society they are to serve and protect. Would the military have these same high standards without the threat of punishment?

[TomGuy]

[Many do] not believe the nation’s civilian leadership has their best interests at heart

After some of the idiocies, laws and actions, from many of our elected leadership, I tend to agree.

From McDermott, hClinton and friends touring Bagdad and dissing the current Administration to Orin Hatch wanting a Constitutional Amendment to allow non-US citizens to vote in US elections to the Dem 9 wanting the UN to absorb our sovereignty by taking over our National security.

It would seem some of our elected have more self-interests and agendas than what is best for America as a nation.

[Defend the Second]

LD, I can tell you that you have nothing to worry about.

Civilian leadership is a bedrock principle of the US armed forces. Most professional soldiers will NOT criticize the President, even if it is that SOB Clinton. I know: during three weeks with the 1AD, I as a civilian, took every opportunity to blast Clinton. Not one of the hundreds I spoke to took the bait. They have another way: Silence. Say something about GWB and they tell you they love the guy with big smiles. Say something about Clinton, and they say nothing - because they have nothing good to say and because they will not criticize the civilian leadership in front of a civilian.

I am not worried about these guys.

[familyofman]

"66% think they have higher morals than civilians.... it aint braggin' if its true."

but these claims are without support & only the opinion of themselves. I would think the same would be true if you polled the NEA & asked them if they have higher morals than the rest of society. Bogus poll with bogus results; my group is better than your group - a totally predictible result from any/all groups. How about a poll of inmates at Sing Sing - they may even think their morals are in good standing.
Bragging is unseemly, almost immoral.

[CFC__VRWC]

“The country and the military profession are best served by an officer corps that is apolitical,” said Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and professor of international relations at Boston University. “That doesn’t mean that officers don’t vote, but for them to collectively identify themselves with one or the other party strikes me as simply unhealthy.”

Translation - this guy was a REMF, Clinton rumpswab who didn't kiss quite enough Perfumed Prince ass to get his stars. So he retired and went on to another field where one can get ahead by doing nothing but bootlicking and spewing liberal propaganda, academia.