by William J. Astore and Tom Engelhardt Posted on
Originally posted at TomDispatch.
It’s that moment again. Graduation time in high schools and colleges across the country. Because I’ve always thought that graduation speeches had a certain je ne sais quoi, I’ve given a number of them at TomDispatch to… well, I must admit, never anyone actually graduating from anyplace anywhere, but only, as I once put it, “on the campus of the mind.” Strangely enough, despite my 20 years at this site, no grade school, high school, college, or graduate school has ever asked me to address its graduating class. Explain it as you will. Still, that never stopped me, nor this year has it stopped TomDispatch regular, historian and retired Air Force lieutenant colonel William Astore from ushering the graduating class at the Air Force Academy, where he once he taught, into our all-too-embattled world.
Perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn that the actual graduation speech at that academy this year was given by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. If you read it, you’ll see just how relieved Washington types are that, after 20 years of disastrous American war-making across the planet, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and turned us back into – to steal a phrase from an earlier piece by Astore – the “good guys.” In fact, in that academy speech, Austin managed to dismiss this country’s 20-year Afghan disaster all too modestly. “America’s longest war – one that spanned nearly all of your lifetimes – came to an end,” he said. Indeed, it did and what a mess of an end it truly was. Austin, however, made it sound like a near-miracle of Air Force triumphalism. “Last year,” he said, “your fellow graduates played a significant role as the United States evacuated 124,000 people from Afghanistan – the largest air evacuation of civilians in our country’s history. Young service members showed courage, skill, and deep humanity. And they got plane after plane into the sky.” No retreats or losses or disasters there, just a simple evacuation, right?
Of course, don’t bother to ask those seven Afghan children killed in our final air strike in Kabul – the U.S. military termed it a “righteous strike” at the time – what they thought of our “deep humanity.” That, naturally, is beside the point. So, with our strange and ever more disturbing world in mind, including the growing armed violence in this country, take a moment to graduate with William Astore onto a planet spinning into unknown space. ~ Tom Engelhardt
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