Worshipful coverage of the U.S. military

black dude with pompano · Nov 11, 2012

hondo said:

black dude with pompano said:

Wow, I agree with both Starman and Mark! This is quite historic!

I think lack of familiarity with the military is a big part of it. The people who are most worshipful of Our Heroes® are those who don't have the first clue about the military. I have a big military family background. Yes, a lot of cool guys and gals in there. But also a lot of guys (including my relatives) who enlisted because THEY WERE COMPLETE AND UTTER FUCK-UPS IN LIFE AND HAD ABSOLUTELY NO BETTER OPTIONS. The idea of genuflecting every time they walk by is so absurd and laughable.

This of course makes me incredibly politically incorrect when everyone is uniform is supposed to be worshipped. But I want to barf every time I'm at game and the p.a. announcer insists that I stand and recognize police officers and soldiers such. No thanks. Wearing a uniform and carrying a gun might make me fear you, but it doesn't make me respect you anymore than any other shlub.

To the extent, I "Support Our Troops", I try to do so by not electing leaders who will send them to the whatever the war of the moment happens to be...although in the current climate, that usually means selecting the lesser of two evils.
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So you don't respect people who join the military for whatever reason (and many, many people with no direction in life have certainly found it in the military), thus accepting a profession that makes it possible that they can get killed or wounded in the line of duty keeping your sorry ass safe at home?
Just wanted to get that straight.
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Yep, that's exactly it.

Freedom isn't free! These colors don't run! USA!

I feel like I'm debating with a bumper sticker.

wicked · Nov 11, 2012

MisterCreosote said:

I could probably count on two hands the number of journalists I know who know how the military actually works.
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I bet most of us don't know the difference between a Marine and a soldier (and I was guilty of that before covering the military regularly).

Azrael · Nov 11, 2012

hondo said:

The next time a small needs the U.S. military to bail them out of an invading tyrant, they could pick up the phone and try calling Sweden or Austria for help.
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They often do. And whether or not you personally believe in the efficacy of the UN, lots of other countries have armies and those armies go places and help people. They even help the United States.

But your posts sort of clarify the point of the thread, which is the now-habitual uncritical, uncriticizable reflexive deference America shows its military.

YankeeFan · Nov 11, 2012

Spencer Ackerman:

Like many in the press, nearly every national politician, and lots of members of Petraeus’ brain trust over the years, I played a role in the creation of the legend around David Petraeus. Yes, Paula Broadwell wrote the ultimate Petraeus hagiography, the now-unfortunately titled All In. But she was hardly alone. (Except maybe for the sleeping-with-Petraeus part.) The biggest irony surrounding Petraeus’ unexpected downfall is that he became a casualty of the very publicity machine he cultivated to portray him as superhuman. I have some insight into how that machine worked.

...

I wasn’t alone in this. Petraeus recognized that the spirited back-and-forth journalists like could be a powerful weapon in his arsenal. “His ability to talk to a reporter for 45 minutes, to flow on the record, to background or off-the-record and back, and to say meaningful things and not get outside the lane too much — it was the best I’ve ever seen,” Mansoor reflects. It paid dividends. On the strength of a single tour running the 101st Airborne in Mosul, Newsweek put the relatively unknown general on its cover in 2004 under the headline CAN THIS MAN SAVE IRAQ? (It’s the first of three cover stories the magazine wrote about him.) Petraeus’ embrace of counterinsurgency, with its self-congratulatory stylings as an enlightened form of warfare that deemphasized killing, earned him plaudits as an “intellectual,” unlike those “old-fashioned, gung-ho, blood-and-guts sort of commander/s,” as Time’s Joe Klein wrote in 2007. This media narrative took hold despite the bloody, close-encounter street fights that characterized Baghdad during the surge.

That March, I was embedded with a unit in Mosul when I learned Petraeus was making a surprise visit to its base. The only time he had for an interview was during a dawn workout session with company commanders, I was told, but if I was willing to exercise with everyone else, sure, I could ask whatever I wanted. The next morning, Petraeus came out for his five-mile run and playfully asked: “What the hell is Spencer Ackerman doing in Mosul?” It’s embarrassing to remember that that felt pretty good, but it did. And sure enough, while I sweated my way through a painful run — I had just quit smoking and was in terrible shape — he calmly parried my wheezed questions. I only later realized I didn’t gain any useful or insightful answers, just a crazy workout story that I strained to transform into a metaphor for the war. (“‘This tires you out that day, but it gives you stamina over the long run,’ he noted. ‘And this is about stamina. It’s absolutely grueling.’” Ugh.)

...

To be clear, none of this was the old quid-pro-quo of access for positive coverage. It worked more subtly than that: the more I interacted with his staff, the more persuasive their points seemed. Nor did I write anything I didn’t believe or couldn’t back up — but in retrospect, I was insufficiently critical. And his staff never cut off access when they disagreed with something I’d written. I didn’t realize I was thinking in their terminology, even when I wrote pieces criticizing Petraeus. A 2008 series I wrote on counterinsurgency was filled with florid descriptions like “Petraeus is no stranger to either difficulty or realism.”

Politicians and the press treated Petraeus as a conquering hero. Tom Ricks, then the Washington Post’s senior military correspondent, wrote that Petraeus’ “determination” was the “cornerstone of his personality,” and portrayed the success of surge as that determination beating back the insurgents and the nay-sayers. “The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus,” wrote Brookings Institutions analysts Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack after a return from Iraq. “They are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.” John McCain hugged Petraeus so closely during his 2008 campaign that Post columnist Jackson Diehl dubbed the general “McCain’s Running Mate.”

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/petraeus-cult-2/
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Mark2010 · Nov 11, 2012

hondo said:

black dude with pompano said:

Wow, I agree with both Starman and Mark! This is quite historic!

I think lack of familiarity with the military is a big part of it. The people who are most worshipful of Our Heroes® are those who don't have the first clue about the military. I have a big military family background. Yes, a lot of cool guys and gals in there. But also a lot of guys (including my relatives) who enlisted because THEY WERE COMPLETE AND UTTER FUCK-UPS IN LIFE AND HAD ABSOLUTELY NO BETTER OPTIONS. The idea of genuflecting every time they walk by is so absurd and laughable.

This of course makes me incredibly politically incorrect when everyone is uniform is supposed to be worshipped. But I want to barf every time I'm at game and the p.a. announcer insists that I stand and recognize police officers and soldiers such. No thanks. Wearing a uniform and carrying a gun might make me fear you, but it doesn't make me respect you anymore than any other shlub.

To the extent, I "Support Our Troops", I try to do so by not electing leaders who will send them to the whatever the war of the moment happens to be...although in the current climate, that usually means selecting the lesser of two evils.
Click to expand...

So you don't respect people who join the military for whatever reason (and many, many people with no direction in life have certainly found it in the military), thus accepting a profession that makes it possible that they can get killed or wounded in the line of duty keeping your sorry ass safe at home?
Just wanted to get that straight.
Click to expand...

I don't feel on ounce safer because of anything that happened in Iraq or Afghanistan.

BTExpress · Nov 11, 2012

I've got firefighters, police officers and military in my family, many of whom have been shot at (by criminals here and opposing armies over there),
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God bless them.

But one of the points was . . . the soldiers wouldn't be shot at "over there" if they weren't "over there" to begin with.

Did we need to be in Europe in 1942-45? Yes.

And the next time a European nation declares war on us, we belong there again.

Other than that . . .

Beaker · Nov 11, 2012

Peripherally related, I suppose--Nicholas Kristof wrote his column about a seemingly normal soldier who came home and snapped:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/opinion/sunday/kristof-when-war-comes-home.html

hondo · Nov 11, 2012

black dude with pompano said:

hondo said:

black dude with pompano said:

Wow, I agree with both Starman and Mark! This is quite historic!

I think lack of familiarity with the military is a big part of it. The people who are most worshipful of Our Heroes® are those who don't have the first clue about the military. I have a big military family background. Yes, a lot of cool guys and gals in there. But also a lot of guys (including my relatives) who enlisted because THEY WERE COMPLETE AND UTTER FUCK-UPS IN LIFE AND HAD ABSOLUTELY NO BETTER OPTIONS. The idea of genuflecting every time they walk by is so absurd and laughable.

This of course makes me incredibly politically incorrect when everyone is uniform is supposed to be worshipped. But I want to barf every time I'm at game and the p.a. announcer insists that I stand and recognize police officers and soldiers such. No thanks. Wearing a uniform and carrying a gun might make me fear you, but it doesn't make me respect you anymore than any other shlub.

To the extent, I "Support Our Troops", I try to do so by not electing leaders who will send them to the whatever the war of the moment happens to be...although in the current climate, that usually means selecting the lesser of two evils.
Click to expand...

So you don't respect people who join the military for whatever reason (and many, many people with no direction in life have certainly found it in the military), thus accepting a profession that makes it possible that they can get killed or wounded in the line of duty keeping your sorry ass safe at home?
Just wanted to get that straight.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's exactly it.

Freedom isn't free! These colors don't run! USA!

I feel like I'm debating with a bumper sticker.
Click to expand...

That's because you don't want to make an argument based on the merits of either case. You have no case, other than your self-described utter lack of respect for the military.
As I mentioned to Mark, thank your lucky stars you have the freedom to post this drivel. The military is protecting that freedom.

hondo · Nov 11, 2012

Mark2010 said:

hondo said:

black dude with pompano said:

Wow, I agree with both Starman and Mark! This is quite historic!

I think lack of familiarity with the military is a big part of it. The people who are most worshipful of Our Heroes® are those who don't have the first clue about the military. I have a big military family background. Yes, a lot of cool guys and gals in there. But also a lot of guys (including my relatives) who enlisted because THEY WERE COMPLETE AND UTTER FUCK-UPS IN LIFE AND HAD ABSOLUTELY NO BETTER OPTIONS. The idea of genuflecting every time they walk by is so absurd and laughable.

This of course makes me incredibly politically incorrect when everyone is uniform is supposed to be worshipped. But I want to barf every time I'm at game and the p.a. announcer insists that I stand and recognize police officers and soldiers such. No thanks. Wearing a uniform and carrying a gun might make me fear you, but it doesn't make me respect you anymore than any other shlub.

To the extent, I "Support Our Troops", I try to do so by not electing leaders who will send them to the whatever the war of the moment happens to be...although in the current climate, that usually means selecting the lesser of two evils.
Click to expand...

So you don't respect people who join the military for whatever reason (and many, many people with no direction in life have certainly found it in the military), thus accepting a profession that makes it possible that they can get killed or wounded in the line of duty keeping your sorry ass safe at home?
Just wanted to get that straight.
Click to expand...

I don't feel on ounce safer because of anything that happened in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Click to expand...

Anyone fly a 737 into your office building since 9-11?

YankeeFan · Nov 11, 2012

No 737 was used on 9/11.

Beaker · Nov 11, 2012

There's a difference between being utterly thankful to our troops and being reflexively and completely uncritical towards their leadership.

Mark2010 · Nov 11, 2012

Hondo, chill, mate. I wasn't talking about WWII. I was talking about things that actually happened since, say, 1960.

No one flew an airplane into my building before 9/11, either. For starters, I don't go into the high floors of tall buildings.

As stated earlier, I'm not dissing anyone who chooses to join the armed forces. But don't expect me to salute them, either. I'd just as soon cut the entire military in half and spend the money on other things.

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Worshipful coverage of the U.S. military

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Worshipful coverage of the U.S. military

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