I’ve recently begun reading Caroline Alexander’s new book, Skies of Thunder, The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World. Its focus is the theater of operations in which my father served as operations officer for the 1st Air Commandos, an all-volunteer unit, in World War II. And no, he isn’t mentioned, though his commander Phil Cochran (“Flip Corkin” in the comic strip of that time, Terry and the Pirates) is. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. was instantly at war in both Asia and Europe and my father, then too old to be drafted, soon volunteered. Though, as a Jew, he undoubtedly wanted to fight the Nazis, he was sent to India as part of that unit’s operations against the Japanese in Burma.
By May 1945, the Nazi regime had gone down in flames, and that August, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were A-bombed more or less to smithereens, the Japanese surrendered, ending “his” war, but, as it turned out — from Korea to Vietnam, Afghanistan to Iraq — anything but ending Washington’s disastrous urge to be a global war state. Like so many former soldiers of that war, he never really talked to his son about his experiences. Fortunately, he at least got to see (and help) the genuine good guys win.
However, by the time American-style war hit my world — in Vietnam — the United States looked like anything but the good guy (at least to me and so many young people like me) and I found myself volunteering (so to speak) to turn in my draft card and protest that war in the streets. By then, of course, the American national (in)security state was already succeeding in a striking fashion at only one thing (other than turning itself into a remarkable growth industry): it was largely freeing itself of us and of Congress. And of course, as retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, historian, and TomDispatch regular Bill Astore, whose Bracing Views Substack is a must-read, makes all too clear today, this country, the globe’s (once) dominant power, has only gone from bad to worse when it comes to both preparations for and making war in a big time and, in both cases, remarkably disastrous fashion. Tom
From the Arsenal of Democracy to an Arsenal of Genocide
The Pernicious Price of Global Reach, Global Power, and Global Dominance
During World War II, American leaders proudly proclaimed this country the “arsenal of democracy,” supplying weapons and related materiel to allies like Great Britain and the Soviet Union. To cite just one example, I recall reading about Soviet armored units equipped with U.S. Sherman tanks, though the Soviets had an even better tank of their own in the T-34 and its many variants. However, recent news that the United States is providing yet more massive arms deliveries to Israel (worth $20 billion) for 2026 and thereafter caught me off guard. Israel quite plainly is engaged in the near-total destruction of Gaza and the massacre of Palestinians there. So, tell me, how over all these years did the self-styled arsenal of democracy become an arsenal of genocide?
Israel, after all, couldn’t demolish Gaza, killing at least 40,000 Palestinians in a population of only 2.1 million, including thousands of babies and infants, without massive infusions of U.S. weaponry. Often, the U.S. doesn’t even sell the weaponry to Israel, a rich country that can pay its own bills. Congress just freely gifts body- and baby-shredding bombs in the name of defending Israel from Hamas. Obviously, by hook or crook, or rather by shells, bombs, and missiles, Israel is intent on rendering Gaza Palestinian-free and granting Israelis more living space there (and on the West Bank). That’s not “defense” -- it's the 2024 equivalent of Old Testament-style vengeance by annihilation.
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