It was only five months ago that the last US troops escaped Afghanistan as the Taliban overran Kabul. America’s longest war ended with a humiliating withdrawal. A great majority of American conservatives (and many progressives too!) enthusiastically supported our initial invasion in 2001. Recall that this was in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people. We had to invade Afghanistan, our leaders told us, because they were harboring the Al Qaeda terrorists who committed that heinous act.
Throughout the 2000s, support for the Global War on Terror was a litmus test for political affiliation. By the midpoint of the decade, most Democrats had turned against the war - not necessarily out of principle, but out of a need to oppose President George W. Bush. Republicans in turn emphasized their support for the war, and equated support for our troops with an endorsement of their mission.
This divide had actually started decades before. Opposition to the Vietnam War had become identified with left-wing causes such as socialism, drug use, and free love, so conservatives doubled down on their support for the war and for the troops. While many entertainers and celebrities used their influence to oppose the war, outspoken conservatives such as Merle Haggard equated patriotism and love of country with support for the war and for the military.
So it was with the War on Terror. As the left turned against the war and our military, conservatives continued to support our endeavors in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2008, the Republican Party nominated the hawkish Senator John McCain of Arizona to run against Senator Barack Obama of Illinois who had promised to end both wars and bring our troops home. But something strange happened after Obama took office. Not only did he fail to live up to his promises, he actually expanded the War on Terror, deploying American troops to Syria, Yemen, and other hotspots around the globe.
Genuinely antiwar leftists betrayed. Many conservatives were confused. As the wars continued without end, the right began to turn against them, making common cause with the antiwar leftists who they had criticized as “unpatriotic” just a decade before. This new antiwar movement found its champion in an unlikely place: Donald Trump.
During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, Trump attacked several conservative sacred cows. He mocked both President Bush and Senator McCain, causing the neoconservative commentators who still supported endless foreign intervention to clutch their pearls. They expected the Republican base to reject this antiwar heretic, but instead we embraced him, propelling him to an unlikely victory in the presidential election.
Yet even President Trump was unable to complete the withdrawal of American troops that he promised. The same neoconservative warmongers who had started the War on Terror fought the president every step of the way. Pentagon brass ignored his orders, DC bureaucrats put up roadblocks, and deep state operatives even plotted to impeach the president because of the way he was reordering our foreign policy.
In hindsight, the War on Terror was less about fighting terrorists than it was about the same military/industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about as far back as 1960. When the Cold War ended in 1991, we needed a new enemy to justify our enormous military budget, with its defense contractor benefactors, and Osama bin Laden helpfully provided us the perfect target.
But now Afghanistan is lost, Iraq is relatively stable, Syria is stubbornly refusing to fall, and ISIS is mostly gone. The attempts by our warmongering oligarchs to start a war with Iran have fizzled. What to do? Well, there is always Russia, our eternal enemy.
Anyone born before the 1980s remembers the Cold War. The Soviet Union was a dark atheistic mirror of the United States, and the entire globe was divided between the free world and the communist bloc. America stood tall, holding back the tide of Russian communism. President Reagan called them an “Evil Empire”.
Even though the Cold War ended in 1991, old habits die hard. As Vladimir Putin increased his hold on Russia and reasserted his country’s place as a world power, American politicians and commentators once again cast Russia as our implacable foe. Senator McCain denounced President Putin as KGB. Then-Vice President Joe Biden called him a “killer”. Hillary Clinton tarred Donald Trump as having “colluded” with Putin, creating a hoax not only to take down the president but also prevent any detente with Russia from occurring under Trump’s watch.
When foreign policy analyst Clint Ehrlich went on Tucker Carlson Tonight to explain why we should avoid involving ourselves in any war between Russia and Ukraine, pundits across the spectrum attacked him as being Putin’s lackey, and some even demanded that he and Tucker both be prosecuted for treason. We are told that Putin is the next Hitler, who must be stopped now before he takes over the world. This is the same tactic they have used since the end of World War II - every minor conflagration is the invasion of Poland all over again, every politician who refuses to jump into war is Neville Chamberlain all over again.
Former Army officer Alexander Vindman is a perfect example of the sort of person who wants us to go to war. He was born in Ukraine during the Cold War, fleeing to the United States to escape communism. However, he still has clear ties to his home country - he was once offered the position of Defense Minister in the Ukrainian government. Vindman was instrumental in President Trump’s first impeachment, testifying that Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president amounted to “quid pro quo” - ignoring the fact that Trump was attempting to investigate actual corruption by former Vice President Joe Biden.
Now, Vindman is going on cable news to demand that the United States intervene to save his home country from Russian aggression. He demands we do it because it’s the right thing to do, while obfuscating his clear conflict of interest. Doesn’t it seem that the people pushing us into war are completely disconnected from the average American? They will send our young men and women overseas to die, but they themselves have no skin in the game.
They say history repeats, first as tragedy, then as farce. In the early 2000s we were swept up into fervor for war because we had been attacked, because we trusted our leaders, and because many of us remembered the awful way that Vietnam veterans had been treated and wanted to prevent that from happening again. But it is no longer 2001. We see clearly how the military/industrial complex works in a post-Cold War world, always seeking enemies to fight, without regard for the cost in American blood and treasure.
The reasons for the tensions in Ukraine go back decades, even centuries. The fall of the Soviet Union left behind a mess that is still being cleaned up today. Watch out for our warmongering news media (war is great for ratings!) to try to boil this issue down to a simple good guy / bad guy paradigm. The situation in eastern Europe is complex, and we must not rush in to satisfy the bloodlust of amoral politicians and sociopathic journalists.
This year, conservatives must rise up as one and reject the dangerous policies of Liz Cheney, Dan Crenshaw, John Bolton, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Alexander Vindman, and everyone else who would gladly start World War III and send your sons and daughters to die in a faraway land for their own selfish reasons. We should be more concerned with our border with Mexico than Russia’s border with Ukraine. We should spend our money and time taking back our own cities rather than fighting in Europe’s. We must not let ourselves be dragged into another foreign war while our own country is collapsing from within.
What can we do in Idaho?
Contact your congressman and senators and ask them to resist any measures to involve us in this conflict.
Put the pressure on our governor and state legislature to oppose the use of our National Guard for any combat abroad.
Make your voice heard - just because conservatives support our men and women in uniform does not mean we will rubber-stamp another pointless foreign war.
For a more in-depth analysis of the history of America’s foreign wars and the relationship of conservatism to militarism, check out my other blog: https://declineandfall.blog/2021/09/02/forever-war/