Doug Lief Lief is a third-year English
student who is willing to die for his country, but only from
natural causes. Contact him at dlief@ucla.edu. Click
Here for more articles by Doug Lief
The recent diplomatic shuffling that has gone on over the EP-3
spy plane has proceeded so by-the-book that I wonder if the book
isn’t “International Relations for Dummies.” The
incident, while less incendiary than I had hoped, brings to the
forefront the importance of military readiness. I say it’s
time we let our military slip into total disrepair for the good of
the nation.
The imbroglio with the EP-3 and the Chinese is evidence of a
lack of military cohesion. First of all, does anybody buy this
collision cover-story? I’m not a physics major, but is there
any way in the name of Joe Perry’s sacrum that two planes
collide in mid-air and one of them survives to land? There is no
such thing as an aerial fender-bender. I’ve tapped another
car at five miles an hour and dented it. Imagine what happens at
hundreds of miles an hour. Something tells me the Chinese fighter
pilot didn’t roll down his window and ask to swap insurance
info.
Thankfully, the Americans made it home safe and sound after
President Bush showed an acumen for Asian relations not seen since
his father threw up on the prime minister of Japan. Here’s a
guy who campaigns on a platform of dignity and changing the tone in
Washington, but who can’t even say “I’m
sorry” after we accidentally kill a Chinese pilot.
This latest foul-up is just one incident in a long string of
military buffoonery. A submarine plowed through a Japanese civilian
ship, killing nine people. A U.S. fighter jet flying too low
clipped a cable car in the Alps. We accidentally bombed a Chinese
embassy in Europe. Our military is, as they say, FUBAR (Flying
Using chicken Bones As Radar).
All of these events have built up the perception that the
American military is unfit to fight. The image has been around for
a long time, and has completely pervaded our movies to the point
where almost every war movie casts the villain as one of our own.
Whether it’s Marlon Brando in “Apocalypse Now,”
Telly Savalas in “The Dirty Dozen” or the fat kid from
“Full Metal Jacket,” it seems that we simply
can’t handle the truth.
Military unreadiness was also a major issue during the last
presidential campaign. Bush promised to spend double what Gore
proposed, while Gore maintained his plan spent double what Bush
proposed. This is mathematically impossible, unless of course both
candidates were planning to spend zero dollars.
 Illustration by HINGYI KHONG/Daily Bruin Apparently the
logic is that two planes would never have collided if we were
spending more on the military. This is like arguing that rich
people are less likely to cause a drunk driving accident. It
doesn’t matter how much the planes cost if the guy behind the
wheel isn’t watching where he’s going.
The truth is that the military doesn’t really need any
more money, especially since Saddam Hussein is the only enemy we
have right now. We taunt him now and again, but we can’t take
him out since his popularity is so high in his country (99.9
percent of all Iraqis living in fear of “relocation”
approve of the job Saddam is doing).
All of our current militaristic dreams are built off of Cold War
paranoia. Now that the Cold War is over, the military budget could
be better spent. Yet we keep creating planes that cost more and
more.
Eventually, these supermega-hyperstealth millenium falcon jets
will be like the hand-towels in your mom’s downstairs
bathroom. “No, don’t fly those!” the president
will say. “We’re saving those jets for when we have
really good company over.” So, they’ll sit in a hangar
somewhere collecting dust until World War III breaks out, but of
course by then we’ll have newer and better planes.
So while this $5 billion high-tech paperweight takes up space on
an aircraft carrier, a five-year-old inner-city kid dies because
Medicare wouldn’t cover some of his health care needs.
An unprepared military is the best thing we could possibly have.
Every single war we were unprepared for was a smashing success. We
won the Revolution, the War of 1812, and most notably World War II
(for those of you who missed it, it’s currently running on
the History Channel 24 hours a day). But, we were very prepared for
the Civil War (although a victory, an ugly bloodbath), the Korean
War, and the war in Vietnam.
Let’s examine the case of WWII. We were in the middle of
our isolationist period, or as historians call it, the “La la
la! I can’t hear you” era. The Japanese attacking Pearl
Harbor during that time is like Bobby Knight punching the referee
in the back of the head. Instead of just a technical foul called on
him, he gets fired.
Being unprepared gives our country the go-ahead for righteous
indignation, the most powerful weapon of all.
Attacking an unprepared country gives them the ability to cry,
“No fair!” The impetus to fight back makes such a
country a far fiercer enemy. We soundly defeated the Japanese with
what Tom Brokaw referred to as “The Greatest
Generation.” Specifically, he meant the greatest generation
of killers. Your grandpa kicked more Nazi behind than you can ever
imagine, so you should probably shut up and let him watch
“Matlock” before he slits your throat with some of that
hard candy he keeps on the coffee table.
If this incident has taught us anything, it should be a dose of
humility. Jingoism is fine and all, and we should have respect for
anybody willing to take a bullet for this country. Since the
soldiers are the guys holding all the guns (unless you live in
Texas), however, that means the rest of us have a responsibility to
make sure they’re pointing them the right way.
We elected a commander in chief who has probably read neither
Machiavelli’s “The Prince” nor Sun Tzu’s
“The Art of War.” East or West, there are rules
governing military conduct. We have followed them too blindly and
ignored the rules that govern human conduct overall.
Our military must be as great as any single person can be
within: strong, but also responsible.
In Shakespeare’s play about the great warrior Henry V, the
title king advises the following: “Never two such kingdoms
did contend without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops are
every one a woe, a sore complaint ‘gainst him whose wrongs
gives edge unto the swords that makes such waste in brief
mortality.”
Perhaps our fighting men and women shouldn’t be as gimpy
as I suggest, but maybe it’s time we scaled back the menacing
stance before we make too much waste in brief mortality. Semper
fi.