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                                                            Breach of Trust  - Part 2

     [This book is a part of The American Empire Project in which Metropolitan Books offers "short, argument driven books" regarding the American  Imperium.]

"Empire, long considered an offense against America's democratic heritage threatens to define the relationship between our country and the rest of the world."                                             The American Empire Project

                       Closing the circle of history.

     Bacevich opened this book with an epigraph from Edward Gibbons classic, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:

In the purer ages of the commonwealth, the use of arms was reserved for... citizens who had a country to love, a property to defend and some share in enacting those laws which it was in their interest to maintain. But as public freedom was lost in extent of conquest, war was gradually improved into an art, and degraded into a trade...That public virtue which among the ancients was denominated by patriotism derived from a stray sense of interest in the preservation of free government... Such a sentiment could make but a very feeble impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic prince.

     Bacevich closes his book with the words of General George Marshall's warning against criminal governments:

There must not be a large standing army subject to the behest of a group of schemers. The citizen-soldier is the guarantee against such a misuse of power. 

     Behold the beauty of history, regenerating mans story over and over and....

 

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Book Review by Joe Brosius

                                 Breach of Trust

  How Americans Failed their Soldiers and Their Country

                                By Andrew J. Bacevich

Metropolitan Books Henry Holt & Company, NY

Copyright 2013 by Andrew J. Bacevich   196 pages + footnotes

     Colonel Bacevich has just blared reveille: Wake up Americans – if you do not take part in national service, America will go down the same path as other failed empires. This short, easy to read and understand call to duty not only describes the danger America faces as Bacevich sees it, but offers the history behind it and his solutions.

     Bacevich summarizes his argument thusly –“The all-volunteer force is not a blessing. It has become blight.” The blight is from citizens not participating in what their government does in their names.

     The all-volunteer force began when Nixon ended the draft during the American war on Vietnam. Since the draft has ended, our government has actually increased the number of overseas military adventures. Bacevich deftly gives a short American military history of the past 40 years

     Bacevich does make a strong case for national service. It would restore some power back to the people. Yet with the draft opposed by the Army, by politicians and by the American public, a national service would be difficult to institute. If there was a draft would there be no more wars like Vietnams or Iraq? Bacevich argues that these would be less likely since all Americans would have ‘skin in the game’.

     Having read all of his books I’ve been expecting this one since Colonel Bacevich does have a strong sense of duty. Bacevich foresees “impending bankruptcy, both moral and financial” if Americans fail to regain control of the use of their military. Bacevich deploys heavy firepower against the pundits on the left and the right who support America’s military adventures while having no ‘skin in the game’.

     From praise to shame, from Smedley Butler to Bush and Obama, Bacevich has given the American people a history lesson and a literary spanking. While I agree with his argument, I doubt the American citizenry will heed his call for any sort of national service, military or civilian, and step up to save their republic. As the song says – The hour is getting late.

 http://www.bu.edu/ir/faculty/alphabetical/bacevich/

 http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-J.-Bacevich/e/B003AQW7VG

 http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm

Lies and duplicity - From the South China Sea to Ohio in 1964

 

     Lies and duplicity - From the South China Sea to Ohio in 1964

We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.                                                                                                                                                                                           President Lyndon B. Johnson

   

  With this one sentence LBJ may have ensured his victory in the 1964 Presidential election. Spoken at Akron University in Ohio on October 21, 1964, could LBJ have been lying with only 2 weeks till the election?  

      A brief review of America’s involvement in Vietnam could start in 1945 when the Japanese had surrendered. France was eager to re-establish control of its colonial empire in Southeast Asia. At the same time a Vietnamese nationalist and communist known as Ho Chi Minh, had gathered followers and proclaimed Vietnamese independence. Ho Chi Minh asked the U.S. to recognize this declaration but the American government ignored his request. America was concerned about the global spread of communism and the need to help France rebuild. A nasty war between the French and the Viet Minh led to a French defeat. The Geneva Convention was to settle the future of Vietnam. One of its provisions was a temporary partition between the northern part and southern part of Vietnam. This partition was to be only until free elections would decide the direction the Vietnamese wanted to go politically.

     LBJ, unlike JFK, was a reluctant cold war warrior. Always looking to do more domestically he referred to Vietnam as a “bitch”. By the time LBJ became President, America had been covertly helping South Vietnam for well over a decade.http://books.google.com/books/about/Rethinking_Camelot.html?id=ENqiQY5V4ooC

     In 1964 the US Navy was conducting electronic eavesdropping patrols in the South China Sea. That summer the US was also covertly helping South Vietnamese commandos infiltrating North Vietnam by sea. On August 2, 1964 the USS Maddox was on patrol off the coast of North Vietnam when it was attacked by a North Vietnamese patrol boat. Two nights later it reported another similar attack. What to make of these 2 reported attacks? Electronic eavesdropping is done my most navies. Yet assisting in commando insertions is an act of war. That a North Vietnamese patrol boat responded aggressively would make sense. That no such attack occurred two nights later is almost a certainty. Based on these questionable attacks, the US Congress handed LBJ the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing the use of force in Vietnam.

     On December 1, 2005, the NSA declassified over 140 documents related to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Agency Historian Robert J. Hanyok’s review of SIGINT confirms what many had suspected since 1964 – there was no second attack.http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=134

       So, was LBJ lying to the American people? Or was the bigger lie sold to the American Congress – the Gulf of Tonkin incident?http://www.fas.org/irp/nsa/spartans/ Either way, 58,000 Americans gave their lives.  Arthur Schlesinger Jr. pointed out “that the future outwits all our certitudes.”   Today the U.S. and Vietnam maintain cordial trade and diplomatic relations.

 
   That historians should give their own country a break I grant you; but not so as to state things contrary to fact. For there are plenty of mistakes made by writers out of ignorance, and which any man finds it difficult to avoid. But if we knowingly write what is false, whether for sake of our country or our friends or just to be pleasant, what difference is there between us and hack-writers? Readers should be very attentive and critical of historians, and they in turn should be consistently on their guard.

                                                                                                           Polybius




When I first read these remarks 25 years ago I realized I needed to re-learn my history.  I can only ask that all students of history take the advice of Polybius. If there is something good to come out of a historical event it will surface without our embellishments.

     On this Veterans Day I would like to briefly cover Doolittle's Raid. It was just announced that there are only 4 remaining veterans of the 80 men who flew that mission. The 4 will be opening the bottle of champagne that has been saved for the final toast to their deceased crewmembers.

    American fighting men have been volunteering for bold, risky missions since our War for Independence. The 80 men on Doolittle's raid understood the risks.  Their mission was a success in 2 ways. It boosted morale at home and kept the Japanese command guessing from where the next strike would come.

     While it did take the sleeping giant of America a little while to get on it's feet, once it was up there was nothing stopping it until Victory.

Happy Veterans Day.http://doolittleraider.com/

American History Blog

                                                        

   Welcome to copperheadblog. Here you will find book reviews on new history books, briefs on battle reenactments/living history events, interviews with vets and some different perspectives on American history.
     Although I primarily cover American military history I am opposed to our militaristic tendencies. That America was born of, and has grown via war is, however, a fact of our history.