Breakdown of Trust -- A fascinating piece in the New York Times on Sunday reported on how many military recruiters are quitting, even going AWOL. They are getting hell for not meeting their quotas from their bosses and when they are out in the field they are being laughed at, scorned, despised. What we are witnessing is the breakdown of the social contract. When trust is broken at the top levels, the human parts of the machine start to break down.
When it is your life on the line and you are being told to kill, or die or live for a lie, it is no longer an abstract principle barked by some Fox News stooge. It's a life-or-death decision. For some the moral questions are as grave as actual life and death decisions, for what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? You want to kill innocent families in Iraq, or do you want to face the consequences of desertion, disgrace? As the war grinds on, more and more will choose anything but to commit the ultimate act -- murder -- without a clear justification. The same kind of existential decision will confront more and more people, and increasingly they will find that they cannot choose to kill unjustly, or to participate in the frauds of the government in whatever way is being demanded of them.
These reservists who have been dragged to Iraq joined the reserves for the educational and employment opportunities, and in return they committed themselves to defend the Constitution, their country and their families. They didn't sign on to participate in an invasion and occupation with no clearly defined motive, or with a discredited one.
davidcogswell.com |
