Childish ‘Goody Two Shoes’ Heroes Aren’t a Good Thing
Published in Nikkan Gendai
(Japan) on 19 June 2014
by Hajime Takano (link to original)
President Obama has been troubled by the issue of whether or not to have the military intervene against al-Qaida's invasion of northern Iraq. Seeing this, the remnants of the Republican Party's hardliners and neoconservatives have criticized him for having a weak attitude, saying that if America chooses noninvolvement, once again, as with Syria, it will be looked down upon. Some of the mass media have also been following this so-called "indecisive attitude."
However, this tone is angering opposition international lawmakers toward the center.
"The United States’ claim to exercise decisive military force and behave as the police of the world is an anachronism. The 13-year wars against Afghanistan and Iraq have served no purpose other than to cause state collapse and still-unsettled civil wars in both states. It will only cause both countries to destabilize even further if U.S. forces intervene again. Consider it and you will understand. This is not a conversation about who gets to play the goody-two-shoes hero."*
At the very least, Obama has declared that U.S. air forces will be kept back, which can be summed up as a symbolic aerial bombing.
"That much is common sense. However, have you read IAVA's special white paper from March?"* asked the same lawmaker.
IAVA is the Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran's Association, an organization that aids all American veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan — but I did not know of the white paper.
“Over 2.6 million men and women in the United States military have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001. Many of these individuals deployed more than once during their service. As of March 18, 2014, nearly 52,000 have been wounded in action and over 5,800 killed in action. But these numbers do not begin to capture the invisible costs of these wars.
“Tracking the number of veteran suicides is difficult because there is no central registry of veterans that identifies them as such, and not all veterans are registered with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA, the Department of Defense (DoD) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention partnered to share databases to more accurately estimate this number, but it’s still an imperfect system. The best estimate to date is that 22 veterans die by suicide daily, and more recent data suggests that the rate may be higher for veterans under 30.4," claims the white paper.(1)
The problem is that the U.S. right wing dismisses Obama's struggle as his being "weak-kneed." This is becoming contagious with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as well. The true essence of the "Right to Collective Self-Defense" question is: Not wanting to fight a war with China, Abe is spurring Obama on by saying, "Japan shall also fight strongly and firmly together with the U.S."
This resonance of the "childish heroism" of the United States with other countries such as Japan is not a good thing.
Takano Hajime was born in 1944. He acted as supervisor for "Insider" and "The Journal." He wrote "Marines, Don't Enter Okinawa!" among other books.
(1) Ref: http://media.iava.org/IAVACampaigntoCombatSuicideWhitePaper.pdf
*Editor's note: These quotes could not be verified from online sources.
However, this tone is angering opposition international lawmakers toward the center.
"The United States’ claim to exercise decisive military force and behave as the police of the world is an anachronism. The 13-year wars against Afghanistan and Iraq have served no purpose other than to cause state collapse and still-unsettled civil wars in both states. It will only cause both countries to destabilize even further if U.S. forces intervene again. Consider it and you will understand. This is not a conversation about who gets to play the goody-two-shoes hero."*
At the very least, Obama has declared that U.S. air forces will be kept back, which can be summed up as a symbolic aerial bombing.
"That much is common sense. However, have you read IAVA's special white paper from March?"* asked the same lawmaker.
IAVA is the Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran's Association, an organization that aids all American veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan — but I did not know of the white paper.
“Over 2.6 million men and women in the United States military have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001. Many of these individuals deployed more than once during their service. As of March 18, 2014, nearly 52,000 have been wounded in action and over 5,800 killed in action. But these numbers do not begin to capture the invisible costs of these wars.
“Tracking the number of veteran suicides is difficult because there is no central registry of veterans that identifies them as such, and not all veterans are registered with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA, the Department of Defense (DoD) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention partnered to share databases to more accurately estimate this number, but it’s still an imperfect system. The best estimate to date is that 22 veterans die by suicide daily, and more recent data suggests that the rate may be higher for veterans under 30.4," claims the white paper.(1)
The problem is that the U.S. right wing dismisses Obama's struggle as his being "weak-kneed." This is becoming contagious with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as well. The true essence of the "Right to Collective Self-Defense" question is: Not wanting to fight a war with China, Abe is spurring Obama on by saying, "Japan shall also fight strongly and firmly together with the U.S."
This resonance of the "childish heroism" of the United States with other countries such as Japan is not a good thing.
Takano Hajime was born in 1944. He acted as supervisor for "Insider" and "The Journal." He wrote "Marines, Don't Enter Okinawa!" among other books.
(1) Ref: http://media.iava.org/IAVACampaigntoCombatSuicideWhitePaper.pdf
*Editor's note: These quotes could not be verified from online sources.