Obama, One Lucky Devil

Dear Mr. President,
Not a good week for your War of Terror. A federal appeals court ruled the CIA has to reveal records of drone strikes; the UN ruled the drone war in Pakistan a violation of their sovereignty that disrupts life there; Karzai rails against our refusal to turn over Bagram, our secret talks with the Taliban, our ongoing killing of civilians, our Special Forces thugs still in Wardak despite his order to leave; angry demonstrations by the locals; General Dunford’s alert to U.S. troops… So much for your smart war in Afghanistan, so much for winning hearts and minds, so much for a trillion bucks blown on war instead of peace. But you’re a lucky devil and along with 2 disastrous wars you also inherited an all-volunteer army and a disengaged public. I’ve always thought eliminating the draft was a mistake. A professional army is, in effect, an imperial army divorced from and ignored by the public and this is dangerous for democracy, justice and human rights. With an all-volunteer army, the public loses interest in war. They have no skin in the game. It’s not their sons, husbands and lovers who are sent into harm’s way by politicians. Few families are affected by war; for them life is normal—celebrities, entertainment, career, pursuing all the meaningless trivia of modern life. It’s someone else’s son getting a leg or arm blown off, someone else’s father killed by an IED, someone else’s lover or husband burned in an explosion, someone else’s friend suffering moral injury. It’s why there’s no demonstrations, why Americans by the hundreds of thousands aren’t in the streets demanding an end to the insanity, to the evil of drones and kill lists and targeted assassinations, to the ongoing violence and bloodshed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, why the drumbeat for war in Iran, in Syria, isn’t drowned out by the voice of the people. You get away with murder, Mr. President, literally and figuratively. You say all the right words and do all the wrong deeds and few people pay attention. Unless you’re on the receiving end of our War of Terror. Unless you live in the mountains of Waziristan or Helmand Province or southern Yemen where drones are ever-present, where Hellfires incinerate without warning, where an invisible enemy is everywhere watching and there is no defense. You expand the injustices of your predecessor and few people protest. But history will not treat you kindly in spite of our national blindness. Your luck will eventually run out.