If you watch TV news much at all, you’ll recognize the fellow. He’s a “military authority” who, aside from his many appearances on TV news shows, has written for various military publications and the WSJ, Weekly Standard, New York Post, Washington Monthly, USA Today, Newsweek and the Wash Post.
Last night on Fox, Peters was discussing the recently released video of American soldier Bowe Bergdahl and here’s an excerpt (full interview below)…
Now look, Julie, I want to be clear. If, when the facts are in, we find out that through some convoluted chain of events, he really was captured by the Taliban, I’m with him. But, if he walked away from his post and his buddies at wartime… I don’t care how hard it sounds, as far as I’m concerned, the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills.
As Jonathan Turley noted, Peters seems to consider trials an inconvenience. So, one wonders, what else might we find to help us understand the ideas of this fellow who is a regular guest on TV and in editorials, introduced as an “expert” or “military analyst”? Here’s some more from this swell guy (thanks to wikipedia)…
There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.
That’s from a 1997 article. The following is a direct quote from the wikipedia page on Peters…
In a 2009 article for The Journal of International Security Affairs titled “Wishful Thinking and Indecisive Wars” [7] Peters’ advocates the ruthless use of United States military power, declaring “If you cannot win clean, win dirty.” Peters’ also raises the controversial possibility of directing the United States military to attack journalists. Peters writes, “Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.”
Some do not find war a horror. They love it. The idea of killing people excites them.
Update: Crooks and Liars provides a fuller context for that last quote from Peters (in a piece written for “Journal of International Security Affairs”)…
While the essence of warfare never changes—it will always be about killing the enemy until he acquiesces in our desires or is exterminated—its topical manifestations evolve and its dimensions expand. Today, the United States and its allies will never face a lone enemy on the battlefield. There will always be a hostile third party in the fight, but one which we not only refrain from attacking but are hesitant to annoy: the media.
While this brief essay cannot undertake to analyze the psychological dysfunctions that lead many among the most privileged Westerners to attack their own civilization and those who defend it, we can acknowledge the overwhelming evidence that, to most media practitioners, our troops are always guilty (even if proven innocent), while our barbaric enemies are innocent (even if proven guilty). The phenomenon of Western and world journalists championing the “rights” and causes of blood-drenched butchers who, given the opportunity, would torture and slaughter them, disproves the notion—were any additional proof required—that human beings are rational creatures. Indeed, the passionate belief of so much of the intelligentsia that our civilization is evil and only the savage is noble looks rather like an anemic version of the self-delusions of the terrorists themselves. And, of course, there is a penalty for the intellectual’s dismissal of religion: humans need to believe in something greater than themselves, even if they have a degree from Harvard. Rejecting the god of their fathers, the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar.
Of course, the media have shaped the outcome of conflicts for centuries, from the European wars of religion through Vietnam. More recently, though, the media have determined the outcomes of conflicts. While journalists and editors ultimately failed to defeat the U.S. government in Iraq, video cameras and biased reporting guaranteed that Hezbollah would survive the 2006 war with Israel and, as of this writing, they appear to have saved Hamas from destruction in Gaza.
Pretending to be impartial, the self-segregating personalities drawn to media careers overwhelmingly take a side, and that side is rarely ours. Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.Perceiving themselves as superior beings, journalists have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants. But freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom.
The Journal of International Security Affairs (founded in 2001) is published twice yearly by JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. I first bumped into this acronym reading Woodward’s book “Plan of Attack” where he quotes Colin Powell, returning to his office after another unsuccessful attempt to convince Bush that an attack on Iraq was fraught with perils, “He’s been captured by the JINSA crowd” (paraphrased from memory, but that’s very close…Woodward hasn’t included a note on JINSA in the index).
