Here's a popular bumper sticker we've all seen: "If you love freedom, thank a vet." Here's an iconoclastic response to it: the last time an American soldier fought to protect or advance the cause of American freedom was the Civil War. In that distant conflict some American soldiers actually put their lives on the line to win freedom for other Americans, who happened to be enslaved African-Americans. Of course, some of the Union troops in the Civil War were indifferent, even hostile, to the rights and freedoms of African-Americans, but we know for sure that there were also Union soldiers--black and white--who believed that it was their moral duty to risk their lives to extend to all Americans the freedoms so evocatively asserted in the Declaration of Independence. Consider the case of
Robert Shaw of Massachusetts.
Since then, American wars have been fought to defend American interests, not American freedoms. By saying that, I do not mean to insist that these wars were all cynical exercises. The United States was attacked by Japan in 1941, and I believe a military response was justified. When Germany subsequently declared war on the U.S., it made sense to consider Germany our enemy. A world where Japan controlled the Pacific and Germany did the same in Europe would have been an inhospitable, brutal place, but it is absurd to claim that either of these countries could ever have occupied American soil and subverted American freedoms. Our armed forces in World War II were engaged in a reputable cause, but they were not defending American freedom. Nor were American military forces in Korea, Vietnam, or Iraq (in either Iraq war). They were instruments of American foreign policy.
Today is Memorial Day, and in cemeteries across the country, orators will offer up platitudes and golden phrases about the bravery and sacrifice of the American soldier. There's no doubt that sacrifice and bravery have indeed often characterized our military (as have brutality and selfishness--after all, these are human beings, just like us, no better, no worse). But if you love freedom, thank the ACLU.