What passes for conventional wisdom is simply wrong

As a way to promote his latest book, Andrew Bacevich recently posted an article on TomDispatch entitled, The Unmaking of a Company Man -An Education Begun in the Shadow of the Brandenburg Gate.

In the article, Bacevich explains to his readers how he begun to challenge and question long held conventional wisdom, namely the package of assumptions, habits, and precepts that have defined American foreign policy and the use of the military since the end of World War II. While shedding habits of conformity acquired over decades may be difficult to some people, like Bacevich and many other anti-imperialist scholars, once you begin to critically question and analyze how American leaders have used military force since the end of the Second World War, it is easier to identify all the incidences of militarism in America.

As you go farther down the path of reeducation like Bacevich talks about in his recent article, the more you will see how badly militarism infects the American republic and has weakened the United States. Just as Eisenhower warned the American people in his famous farewell speech to the American public in 1961, the vast and powerful military industrial complex, is the fertile ground of political corruption in which militarism has risen up from within America. An American foreign policy greatly influenced by the Pentagon and an affinity for the military by the American people has emerged as central to the American identity.

Along with infecting government and society, Eisenhower warned that the military industrial complex was also beginning to infect spiritual aspects of America. The recent decision by a congregation in Florida to burn copies of the Islamic Koran is a prime example of how Eisenhower’s prediction of how the military industrial complex, or in another words, militarism, has infected the American spiritual conscience.

Reviewing American history over the last six decades reveals that enormous defense budgets and associated weapons programs supplied by politically connected defense corporations, require an enemy. A critical assessment of American history reveals that a corrupted political establishment along with institutions and organizations with interests in national security, has now replaced the fighting the spread of communism in the Cold War era, to fighting Islamic fundamentalism and terrorist organizations like Al-Qaida.

The new book by Andrew Bacevich, which recently received a positive book review in the New York Times, is the latest addition to Il Principe’s library.