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This is not the time to be defending the military against its own actions in violation of everything they are taught from basic training on, beginning with that oath.
And there's the rub: in practice, "the military" inevitably gives mixed messages on that subject, depending on the situation at hand. And that has a tragic aspect to it- especially under the circumstance of war, which is in itself an admission of failure, the admission of a tragic ending. No matter what banners may fly and what crowds may cheer at the outset, the essence of war is summed up in the words of verse 31 of the Tao Te Ching.
My early apprehension of that conundrum is one of the reasons that I never seriously considered a military career, or even enlistment in the National Guard or Reserves, once I became of age to be eligible to join. But alongside my rejection of militarism is recurring admiration for a great number of the military veterans I know, or whose stories I've read about. They know how to be decisive; they're resourceful; they don't quit easy; they don't bag on projects at the first sign of resistance or difficulty; they know what stoicism and sacrifice and real shoulder-to-the-wheel work is. In my observation, all too many Americans lack many, most, or all of those laudable traits.
Any social movement for fairness and justice and ecological sanity and ethical dealing would be much enriched and empowered by an infusion of those characteristics. I'm still wondering about the "the moral equivalent of war" that can forge that sort of character and sense of mission and idealism in a human society...what will it take?
One more point, on the topic of libertarianism: the way it's most commonly expressed by its informal advocates- including myself- "libertarianism" is more of a philosophical stance than an ideological dogma. There should be no urgency to reify such libertarians as "true believers" in a political sense, or to otherwise caricature us- much less to posit everyone self-identifying as a "libertarian" to be a dire political threat to liberal or progressive initiatives. There simply aren't enough ideologically committed libertarians extant to pose such a threat. And most of the dogmatic ideological libertarians are simply too laissez-faire to ever coalesce into a "movement" of political activism.
I suggest engagement, issue by issue. You'll see what a multifarious bunch of contrarians we are. Speaking personally, I have no ironclad allegiance to a political ideology of any sort. By contrast, I like to think that my ethical principles are non-negotiable (although I can't guarantee what would happen if they were ever subjected to unexpectedly severe critical duress.)
