{"id":46347,"date":"2014-08-25T12:00:13","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T11:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=46347"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:30:41","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:30:41","slug":"the-american-cult-of-bombing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/08\/the-american-cult-of-bombing\/","title":{"rendered":"The American Cult of Bombing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why You Should Expect More Bombs to Be Dropped Everywhere<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

When you do something again and again, placing great faith in it, investing enormous amounts of money in it, only to see indifferent or even negative results, you wouldn\u2019t be entirely surprised if a neutral observer questioned your sanity or asked you if you were part of some cult.\u00a0 Yet few Americans question the sanity or cult-like behavior of American presidents as they continue to seek solutions to complex issues by bombing Iraq (as well as numerous other countries across the globe).<\/p>\n

Poor Iraq. From Operation Desert Shield\/Storm under George H.W. Bush to enforcing no-fly zones under Bill Clinton to Operation Iraqi Freedom under George W. Bush to the latest \u201chumanitarian\u201d bombing under Barack Obama, the one constant is American bombs bursting in Iraqi desert air.\u00a0 Yet despite this bombing — or rather in part because of it — Iraq is a devastated and destabilized country, slowly falling apart at seams that have been unraveling under almost a quarter-century of steady, at times relentless, pounding.\u00a0 \u201cShock and awe<\/a>,\u201d anyone?<\/p>\n

Well, I confess to being shocked: that U.S. airpower assets, including strategic bombers like B-52s and B-1s, built during the Cold War to deter and, if necessary, attack that second planetary superpower, the Soviet Union, have routinely been used to attack countries that are essentially helpless to defend themselves from bombing.<\/p>\n

In 1985, when I entered active duty as an Air Force lieutenant, if you had asked me which country the U.S. would \u201chave\u201d to bomb in four sustained aerial campaigns spanning three decades, among the last countries I would have suggested was Iraq.\u00a0 Heck, back then we were still helping Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, sharing intelligence<\/a> that aided his military<\/a> in pinpointing (and using his chemical weapons against) Iranian troop concentrations.\u00a0 The Reagan administration had sent future Bush secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld there to shake<\/a> Saddam\u2019s hand for a photo op.\u00a0 We even overlooked Iraq\u2019s \u201caccidental\u201d bombing<\/a> in 1987 of a American naval vessel, the USS Stark<\/em>, that resulted in the death of 37 American sailors, all in the name of containing Iran (and Shia revolutionary fervor).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s said that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but Saddam didn\u2019t remain a friend for long.\u00a0 Emboldened by U.S. support in his war with Iran, he took Kuwait, only to initiate the first round of devastating U.S. air raids against his military during Desert Shield\/Storm in 1990-1991.\u00a0 As these and subsequent bombing campaigns damaged and debilitated Iraq, contributing to Saddam\u2019s overthrow in 2003, the Shia majority in that country found common cause with Iran, strengthening one branch of militant Islam.\u00a0 At the same time, the general destabilization of Iraq from a generation of air war and invasion has led to a Sunni revolt, the strengthening of an al-Qaeda-style movement, and the establishment of a \u201ccaliphate\u201d across significant parts of Iraq (and Syria).<\/p>\n

Now, given that less-than-stellar record, does anyone want to hazard a guess about the next American response to peoples and leaders our government doesn\u2019t like in Iraq or the rest of the Middle East?\u00a0 My money is on more bombing, which surely requires explanation.<\/p>\n

Cranking Out Bombers<\/strong><\/p>\n

If one weapon captured the image of the former Soviet Union, it was the main battle tank.\u00a0 From T-34s during World War II to T-72s near the end of the Cold War, the Russians cranked them out like sausages.\u00a0 And if one weapon captured the image of the U.S., then and now, it has surely been the bomber, whether of the strategic or heavy variety (think B-52) or the tactical or fighter-bomber variety (think the F-105 in the Vietnam years, the F-15 \u201cStrike Eagle\u201d in Iraq, and for the future, the most expensive weapons system of all time, the F-35).\u00a0 As the richer superpower, the U.S. cranked out high-tech bombers like so many high-priced sausages.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bomber will always get through.\u201d\u00a0 That article of faith<\/a>, first expressed in 1932 by Stanley Baldwin, thrice Prime Minister of Britain, was seized upon by U.S. airpower enthusiasts<\/a> in the run-up to World War II.\u00a0 Despite decidedly mixed and disappointing results<\/a> ever since, bombing remains the go-to choice for American commanders-in-chief.<\/p>\n

What we need in 2014 is a new expression that catches the essence of the cult of U.S. air power, something like: \u201cThe bomber will always get funded — and used.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s tackle the first half of that equation: the bomber will always get funded.\u00a0 Skeptical?\u00a0 What else captures the reality (as well as the folly) of dedicating more than $400 billion to the F-35 fighter-bomber<\/a> program, a wildly over-budget and underperforming weapons system that may, in the end, cost the American taxpayer $1.5 trillion<\/a>.\u00a0 Yes, you read that right.\u00a0\u00a0 Or the persistence of U.S. plans to build yet another long-range \u201cstrike\u201d bomber<\/a> to augment and replace the B-1 and B-2 fleet?\u00a0 It\u2019s a \u201cmust-have,\u201d according to the Air Force, if the U.S. is to maintain its \u201cfull-spectrum dominance\u201d on Planet Earth.\u00a0 Already pegged at an estimated price of $550 million<\/a> per plane while still on the drawing boards, it\u2019s just about guaranteed to replace the F-35 in the record books, when it comes to delays, cost overruns, and price.\u00a0 And if you don\u2019t think it\u2019ll get funded, you don\u2019t know recent history.<\/p>\n

Heck, I get it.\u00a0 I was a teenager once.\u00a0 In the 1970s, as an Air Force enthusiast and child of the Cold War, I hugged exotic and therefore pricey bomber jets to my chest. (Well, models of them, anyway.)\u00a0 I considered them to be both uniquely American and an absolute necessity when it came to defending our country against the lumbering (but nevertheless menacing) Soviet \u201cbear.\u201d\u00a0 As a result, I gasped in 1977 when President Jimmy Carter dared to cancel the B-1 bomber<\/a> program.\u00a0 While I was a little young to pen my outrage, more mature critics than I quickly accused him of being soft on defense, of pursuing \u201cunilateral disarmament.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back then, I\u2019d built a model of the B-1 bomber.\u00a0 In my mind\u2019s eye I still see its sexy white body and its rakish swing wings.\u00a0 No question that it was a man\u2019s bomber.\u00a0 I recall attaching a firecracker to its body, lighting the wick, and dropping the plane from the third-floor porch.\u00a0 It exploded in mid-air, symbolic to me of the plane\u2019s tragic fate at the hands of the pusillanimous Carter.<\/p>\n

But I need not have feared for the B-1.\u00a0 In October 1981, as one of his first major acts in office, President Ronald Reagan rescinded Carter\u2019s cancellation and revived the mothballed program.\u00a0 The Air Force eventually bought 100 of the planes for $28 billion, expensive at the time (and called a \u201cturkey<\/a>\u201d by some), but a relative bargain in the present budgetary environment when it comes to bombers (but these days, little else).<\/p>\n

At that point, I was a young lieutenant serving on active duty in the Air Force.\u00a0 I had by then come to learn that Carter, the peanut farmer (and former Navy nuclear engineer), was right.\u00a0 We really didn\u2019t need the B-1 for our defense.\u00a0 In 1986, for a contest at Peterson Air Force Base where I was stationed, I wrote a paper against the B-1, terming the idea of a \u201cpenetrating strategic bomber\u201d a \u201cflawed strategy\u201d in an era of long-range air-launched cruise missiles.\u00a0 It earned an honorable mention, the equivalent of drawing the \u201cyou have won second prize in a beauty contest\u201d card in Monopoly, but without the compensatory $10.<\/p>\n

That \u201cpenetrating,\u201d by the way, meant being loaded with expensive avionics, nowadays augmented by budget-busting \u201cstealth\u201d features, so that a plane could theoretically penetrate enemy air defenses while eluding detection.\u00a0 If the idea of producing such a bomber was flawed in the 1980s, how much more is it today, in an age of remotely-piloted drones and missiles guided by GPS and in a world in which no country the U.S. chooses to bomb is likely to have air defenses of any sophistication?\u00a0 Yet the Air Force insists that it needs at least 100 of the next generation version of them at a cost of $55 billion.\u00a0 (Based on experience, especially with the F-35, you should automatically double or even triple that price tag, cost overruns and product development delays being a given in the process.\u00a0 So let\u2019s say it\u2019ll cost closer to $150 billion.\u00a0 Check back with me, God willing, in 2040 to see whether the Air Force\u2019s figure or mine was closer to reality.)<\/p>\n

Idols for Worship, Urges to Satisfy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obviously, there are staggering amounts of money to be made by feeding America\u2019s fetish for bombers.\u00a0 But the U.S. cult of air power and its wildly expensive persistence requires further explanation.\u00a0 On one level, exotic and expensive attack planes like the F-35 or the future \u201clong range strike bomber\u201d (LRS-B in bloodless acronym-speak) are the military equivalent of sacred cows.\u00a0 They are idols to be worshipped (and funded) without question.\u00a0 But they are also symptoms of a larger disease — the engorgement of the Department of Defense.\u00a0 In the post-9\/11 world, this has become so pronounced that the military-industrial-congressional complex clearly believes it is entitled to a trough filled with money with virtually no accountability to the American taxpayer.<\/p>\n

Add to that sense of entitlement the absurdist faith of administration after administration in the efficacy of bombing as a problem solver — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary — and you have a truly lethal combo.\u00a0 Senator John McCain was widely mocked by progressives for his \u201cbomb Iran<\/a>\u201d song, warbled during the 2008 presidential campaign to the tune of the Beach Boys’s “Barbara Ann<\/a>.”\u00a0 In fact, his tuneless rendition captured perfectly Washington\u2019s absolute faith in bombing as a solution to… whatever<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even if the bombs bursting over Iraq or elsewhere don\u2019t solve anything, even when they make things worse, they still make a president look, well, presidential<\/em>.\u00a0 In America, land of warbirds, it is always better politically to pose as a hunting hawk than a helpless dove.<\/p>\n

So don\u2019t blame the Air Force for wanting more and deadlier bombers.\u00a0 Or don\u2019t blame only them.\u00a0 Just as admirals want more ships, flyboys naturally want more planes<\/a>, even when strategically obsolete from scratch and blazingly expensive.\u00a0 No military service has ever willingly given up even a tiny slice of its share of the prospective budgetary pie, especially if that slice cuts into the service\u2019s core image.\u00a0 In this sense, the Air Force takes its motto from King Lear’s \u201cReason not the need!\u201d and from Zack Mayo’s \u201cI want to fly jets!<\/a>\u201d (memorably uttered by that great Shakespearean actor Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman<\/em>).<\/p>\n

The sad truth runs deeper: Americans evidently want them, too.\u00a0 More bombers.\u00a0 More bombs.\u00a0 In the movie Top Gun<\/em>, Tom Cruise\u2019s Maverick got it all wrong.\u00a0 It\u2019s not speed<\/a> Americans feel a need for; they have an urge to bomb.\u00a0 When you refuse to reason, when you persist in investing ever more resources in ever more planes, use almost automatically follows.<\/p>\n

In other words, fund it, build it, and, as promised in the second half of my equation, the bomber will always get used.\u00a0 Mock him all you want, but John McCain was on to something.\u00a0 It\u2019s bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb if not (yet) Iran… then Iraq<\/a>, or Pakistan<\/a>, or Libya<\/a>, or Yemen<\/a>, or (insert intransigent foreign country\/peoples here).<\/p>\n

And like cults everywhere, it\u2019s best not to question the core belief and practices of its leaders — after all, bombs bursting in air is now as American as the “Star Spangled Banner.”<\/p>\n

___________________________<\/p>\n

William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), is a <\/em>TomDispatch regular<\/em><\/a> who edits the blog <\/em>The Contrary Perspective<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright 2014 William J. Astore<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 tomdispatch.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why You Should Expect More Bombs to Be Dropped Everywhere – Few Americans question the sanity or cult-like behavior of American presidents as they continue to seek solutions to complex issues by bombing Iraq (as well as numerous other countries across the globe).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}