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ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS HERALD |
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WAR FALLACIES AND REALITIES Around the nation’s capital these days a steady drumbeat of opposition to the Iraq war throbs ever louder. It emanates mostly from the Democratic side of Congress, although not exclusively so. Some Republicans are also growing uneasy as polls show public support for the war falling, and the president’s approval ratings along with them. Much criticism centers on our apparent inability to get free of an uncontrollable – some say “unwinnable” – situation. Week after week passes without visible improvement, while more of our troops are killed or hurt by terrorists. Congressional leaders who oppose the war say we have no “exit strategy”. Some claim Mr. Bush “lied” about the need to conquer Iraq. Soldiers and others recently returned from Iraq say otherwise. They complain that our domestic news coverage ignores the remarkable progress being made in Iraq. They speak of the new Iraqi Constitution, government functions operating, schools re-opening, businesses thriving, people going on with life. They note that the violence we see on the nightly news now comes from terrorist bombers. Organized military attacks by Guerilla bands are passe, but this distinction is unreported by American media obsessed with representing the Iraq campaign as “failed”. “The insurgents have very little left,” said one officer back from his second war tour. “We’re kicking their butts.” But hearing the American media tell it, “you’d think the enemy is mounting another Battle of the Bulge. The only question about the outcome is whether our political ‘leaders’ can hang with us until we finish the job.” Recently, President Bush has spoken strongly against war critics, calling them “irresponsible” for trying to make a retro-issue of the intelligence on which fighting Iraq was based. Mr. Bush said anyone has a right to criticize the conduct of the war, but no one has a right to his own facts. Bush spokesman Karl Rove also pushed back against “dishonest” critics in a recent speech. In the latest anti-war salvo, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) – a staunch supporter of the military, and one of the Democrats’ strongest hawks – has demanded immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq. Claiming that we are simply wasting our forces there, Mr. Murtha read to the House some emotional letters from citizens whose family members were killed or injured in Iraq. Outraged Republican leaders promptly proposed a resolution calling for immediate pullout of American troops, and insisted that the House cast a recorded vote on it. A lively debate ensued. (Only three congressmen supported the withdrawal resolution; 403 voted against it.) An attempt in the Senate to impose a withdrawal timetable was defeated, 58-40. Much confusion clearly exists among political leaders and the public over the war. The following is a brief analysis of premises I have heard articulated by various politicians. (1) We have “won” the war in Iraq, but, inexplicably, our troops are still there getting hurt. I list this first because it is such an irrational charge. Who would keep troops in a foreign country, where they can be hurt or killed, beyond the time when they are needed there? Mr. Bush’s political opponents like to call him a moron, but do they really believe he and his advisors are so venal or stupid as to risk our forces after they have won? This sets a new standard for demagoguery. Of course, we have defeated Iraq’s conventional military forces, but pacification of the country is not yet accomplished. (2) We are still trying to win, but victory is beyond us. This is the world according to peaceniks from the ‘60s. Nevertheless, there is a germ of truth in it. Our national problem is time and memory. Remembering how you won before is an important part of having the confidence that you can win again. Unfortunately, if you can remember what it was like when America last won a war, you’re at least 75 years old. This means 90% of Americans have no living memory of that event. Only politicians like Senator Robert Byrd (now 88) and a few others his age can remember what winning a war was like. Most of our leaders are younger. Their wars ended in something besides victory: e.g., stalemate (Korea), withdrawal (Vietnam), or stopping a successful campaign short of complete victory (1991 Gulf War). Nothing we have fought since 1945 has ended in the total surrender of an utterly defeated enemy. This is undeniably a problem. (3) We could have won, but the war has been hopelessly bungled. When did a perfectly run war become the standard? Wars rarely go according to plan. This one is no exception. Even World War II – when the Greatest Generation supposedly rolled serenely onward from victory to victory – was one depressing defeat after another for nearly two years. It is horrifying, even now, to realize how bad it was. The Pearl Harbor catastrophe was only the start of a serious thrashing administered to us by the Japanese. Our casualties in the Pacific, Atlantic, North African, Italian and Northern European theaters were so appalling that the public wasn’t accurately informed. If the truth had been known, we might not have continued. Had today’s political climate prevailed then, we almost certainly could not have finished the war successfully. (4) Saddam Hussein was unrelated to international Islamic terrorism (i.e., Iraq was the “wrong” war). The link between Saddam Hussein, Iraq, and international terrorism was well known to Mr. Bush, to his predecessor (Bill Clinton), and to both political sides well before the attacks of 9-11-2001. International terrorism is a whole web of operatives and supporting nations. Saddam was a key player – a real bad guy – who simply had to go. Despite Joseph Wilson’s self-serving reports, we know Saddam was trying to buy enriched uranium from Nigeria. Had he managed to get The Bomb, God only knows what might have happened. For some to claim otherwise, now, is either amnesiac or duplicitous. Many politicians now grieving Saddam’s “unnecessary” removal roundly denounced George H. W. Bush for not toppling him when he had the chance in 1991. (5) We’re not serious about this war because we’re not serious about border security. Michael F. Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris, writes: “We have done virtually nothing to defend the homeland, unless our enemies are stupid enough to enter through official entry-points now flooded with billions of dollars worth of electronics. Our enemy is many things. So far he has not been stupid. Most U. S. land and sea borders are wide open.” The truth of Mr. Scheuer’s charge is undeniable. Illegals are streaming across our borders, a million-plus a year – an unknown number of terrorists among them. An entire political movement, with Mexican Presidente Vincente Fox at its epicenter, has coalesced around the premise that it is somehow illegitimate for the USA to prevent people from entering the country illegally. Both Democratic and Republican national leaders oppose serious control of illegal immigration. The cost of medical care and social services for illegals has become a major political issue in states and local communities. Citizens have organized into patrol-groups in certain localities to monitor borders and notify immigration authorities of illegal entries. The president has denounced them as “vigilantes”. Security at airports, etc., seems more a burlesque than a serious effort. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta was a Japanese internee as a boy, during World War II. The experience evidently scarred for life. Since 9-11, he has steadfastly opposed any racial or ethnic profiling at security checkpoints. This has produced the bizarre spectacle of 80-year-old grandmothers being searched for “weapons” while young men of Middle-eastern extraction cruise through security untouched. I have personally had female “security guards” in full Arab costume sort through my briefcase at Dulles Airport. (They seized a small pocket-knife from my kit of personal items.) Mr. Scheuer is right. This is dumb stuff. We’re not serious. (6) Pacification – the final step in the war – is proceeding, but such efforts take time. This rings true. Pacifying a conquered country and bringing it to full self-governance are difficult, time-consuming activities. Armed terrorists were still operating in Germany as late as 1948. Today, 60 years after organized hostilities ended, we still have troops there. Why do we think we can make Iraq into a new democratic nation and get out in just a couple of years? (7) We know we can’t win, but are simply sacrificing troops to make Mr. Bush look good. I’m not smart enough to grasp how Mr. Bush is made to “look good” by mounting casualty lists. Of course, the premise is absurd. But the charge that “we know we can’t win” can’t be ignored. Without doubt, our military leaders know we can win, militarily, both in Iraq and against international Islamic terrorism, because they know the quality of the fighting men in our armed services. They are the same kinds of men who defeated Hitler’s and Hirohito’s “master races”. Those enemies thought we could not stand up to them. One old veteran said “the Japs seemed sort of dazed” that we would endure the casualties required to win the island he fought for. “I think they’d been told we weren’t tough enough to take them,” he said with a gleam in his eye. “But they found out different.” Whether the American public is tough enough to win a war is another matter. Mr. Scheuer thinks we can’t win a war because the American public neglected its children’s education: “As a society, we have failed to teach children that… wars are tremendously bloody. …When war is joined, annihilation of the foe is the only moral goal. …In big wars, America’s goal is desolation of the enemy, not an exit strategy.” Mr. Scheuer says our civilian leaders do not know how to wage war, “…and the Pentagon’s uniformed bureaucrats lack the guts to tell them they are wrong.” What I see missing on the home front is moral outrage – i.e., “hatred” of the enemy. My grandmother – a Christian woman as ever was – spoke contemptuously of the “Japs” until her dying day. (She wasn’t too fond of the Spanish for blowing up the Maine in 1898, either.) Today, such strong feelings seem scandalous among the moral-equivalence and diversity crowd. In the 1940s, “remember Pearl Harbor” rang on as a rallying cry throughout the war. “Bataan” had the same moral force. (Some historians say the Japanese lost the war on the Bataan Death March.) We are fighting an enemy who brutally beheads innocent people on-camera. He destroyed two great skyscrapers, damaged our national military headquarters, crashed four airliners filled with innocent people, and killed 3,000 of our citizens on a single day. His sympathizers danced in the streets when this damage was inflicted. His brave “soldiers” blow up hotels in the name of Allah. FDR said we would win the final victory, “so help us God”. Mr. Bush calls Islam “a religion of peace”. Maybe we’re not mad enough at the enemy to beat him. We need to think about this. ***** In a future column we’ll examine whether the USA still knows how to win a war. I wish all of my readers a Happy Thanksgiving and thank them for their support.
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