by Joe Siano
1984 was published in 1949.
That same year, in an Orwellian coincidence, the United
States’ Department of war was rechristened the Department of Defense. Likewise, the Secretary of War became the
Secretary of Defense.
Following two devastating World Wars, war wasn’t so popular
anymore. But who could argue with
“defense”? After all, doesn’t the state
have the right, nay, the duty to defend its people?
However, defense was the last that Washington, DC had in in
mind. Just the next year, in 1950,
America went on the offense in Korea. No
Korean government attacked or even threatened America. Yet there we were with American troops on the
ground, bombers in the skies, and lives lost.
Concurrent with the War Department’s name change, the birth
of NATO would permanently station American fighting men thousands of miles from
our shores in Europe. The SEATO pact of
1954 paved the way for U.S. intervention in Vietnam and South East Asia.
And thus began the global deployment that led over 170,000
U.S. troops in more than 150 countries.
America went on offense in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
With our fighting forces playing offense in every corner of
the globe it became evident that they were too preoccupied to protect American
soil. American meddling in the Iraq –
Kuwaiti conflict and boots on sacred Saudi Arabian soil invited the catastrophe
of 911.
911 demonstrated that military adventurism was incapable of
protecting everyday Americans. Even
worse, the blowback that it generates has made life more dangerous.
Our government tacitly admitted that the Department of
Defense fails to defend us when they invented the Department of Homeland
Security. Homeland security? One might think that that was the job of
the Department of Defense. Not so. In classic Orwellian doublespeak “Defense”
means “Offense”
When the legendary generals of yesteryear of went abroad
seeking glory, no one called it defense.
Caesar, Pompey, Alexander called it conquest.
Let’s call a spade a spade.
As each and every football team has an Offensive Coordinator and Defensive
Coordinator reporting to the Head Coach.
So too should the President have clearly
delineated Offensive and Defensive ministers to reflect functional reality.
John Quincy Adams once said that America “goes not abroad,
in search of monsters to destroy”.
So much for that. We
are on offense.
So let’s reassign the Defense title to Homeland Security. Then we re-brand the current Department the
Defense the Department of Offense.
Our Founders counseled that “A well regulated militia,
composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the
right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”.
They feared standing armies and justly so.
Now our professional homeland
defenders spy on us while the standing army spreads mayhem worldwide.
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