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 o American wishes
to contemplate the idea of war — the horrific circumstances
in which our country could lose many of its most precious citizens
in a brutal effort to kill other humans. War is tragic and it is
unfair, and we must weigh very heavily any decision that results
in our own being killed in efforts [far away] to kill others. Yet
sadly, killing is what we have suffered, and war is what has been
unleashed upon us — losses incurred on American soil far more
grievous than those at Fort Sumter or Pearl Harbor, the powder kegs
of our two worst conflagrations.
Indeed, the
events of September 11 constitute the most devastating attack on
the home soil of the United States in its long history. If the mass
killing of thousands of our civilians in a time of peace, the destruction
of our most hallowed buildings, the derailment of our economy, and
the terror of germs that has nearly paralyzed parts of our government
mean we are in a war, then a number of very difficult, but inescapable
consequences must naturally follow.
Postwar
Governments
Just as we
would never have allowed a Goering, Rosenberg, or even Speer to
join a postbellum coalition in conquered Germany, or General Tojo
and his warlords to help reconcile factions in Japan in September
1945, or the North Korean Communists to share in a unified pan-Korean
government, so too the very idea of the murderous Taliban taking
part in the reconstruction efforts in Kabul is morally reprehensible
and absurd. We cannot ask our young men and women to risk death
to eliminate the Taliban, only later to allow them to enjoy the
powers of government. If we bury Americans killed in Afghanistan,
and then allow the mullahs of the Taliban to forget the past, we
will have profaned the sacrifice and memory of our own dead. In
this regard, the adamant condemnation of proposed Taliban inclusion
by both Russia and India is to be held in higher regard than what
has been offered so far from Europe and the United Nations —
or some members of our own State Department.
Belligerents
If this were
a war, we would not hesitate to end the evil in Iraq, where there
is a history of germs brewed, missiles stockpiled, and the use of
poison gas. We can insist on U.N. inspections of all suspect facilities
in Iraq, and ask Baghdad to surrender its arsenal. When those reasonable
proposals are rejected — as they will be — we should prepare
to end the reign of terror of Saddam Hussein. Only that way can
we correct the blunder of the last day of the Gulf War and turn
Iraq from an autocracy to a democracy — a rebirth that might
make a greater impression on Saudi Arabia and its ilk than did the
prior nightmare.
Such a campaign
is fraught with risks — crumbling coalitions, vulnerable flanks,
logistical nightmares, depletion and scattering of our stretched-thin
forces, the specter of tactical nuclear and germ warfare against
our troops, more terrorism at home, domestic dissension, European
repugnance, and a complete absence of allies. But if we are at war,
if we wish to avenge our dead and ensure the safety of our children,
we have no real choice, even as our eventual victory is not in doubt.
True, air power
can wreck the Iraq military, but a ground invasion, aided by indigenous
resistance movements from the current no-fly zones, is essential.
The real lesson of the Gulf War was not merely that coalitions were
critical to our success, but equally that by bringing aboard an
assortment of dubious allies that were not critical for victory,
we failed to go to Baghdad — and made no demands for Kuwait's
medieval and cowardly government-in-exile to promise its citizens
the eventual hope of consensual government. After the events of
September 11, allowing Iraq to continue its dark work as before
would be like not invading Italy in our war against Germany, or
seeking to ignore Pearl Harbor while trying to marshal our desperately
unprepared army against Hitler. There was a logic of sorts to both,
but national purpose and common morality made us go after all three,
and at once.
War
Leaders and Their Language
If we were
really at war, our national lexicon would reflect that seriousness
of purpose. Americans would be told to brace for setbacks but always
be assured of "victory." The candor and resolve of Bush,
Cheney, and Rumsfeld would not raise eyebrows — if this were
really war. Stability in the Middle East is to be hoped for. We
all pray for good relations with the Islamic peoples in dozens of
countries — as our past aid to them against Communism, Iraqi
fascism, and Serbian genocide attests. Americans wish the war to
be short and without civilian casualties. We hope the elimination
of terrorism will bring greater understanding of Islam and closer
relations with Muslims in general. But right now those considerations
— if we be at war — are secondary to victory and the abject
defeat of our enemies: bin Laden's terrorists, the Taliban government,
Iraq, and enclaves in Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, the Sudan, and the
Philippines.
General Sherman
— perhaps the most slandered and misunderstood figure in American
history — accepted that his marches through Georgia would result
in lasting negative public relations. But he also knew he was dismantling
the infrastructure of a slave society at its heart, humiliating
those who had called for his destruction, and — by his very
audacity — killing few and losing less. At the beginning of
his march, Sherman was told he would end up like Napoleon in Russia;
a week later, those same plantation owners were begging him instead
"to go over to the South Carolinians who started it."
In war, reasoned and sober men like Halleck, Marshall, Eisenhower,
Bradley, and Mark Clark are necessary to craft the organization
of war, to marshal the powers of resistance, and occasionally to
rein in the more mercurial and dangerous in our midst. But they
do not, in themselves, bring us victory.
The defeat
of our enemies in the dirt and carnage of war is accomplished by
a different kind of men, themselves unsavory and often scary in
their bluster and seriousness — the likes of Grant, Sherman,
Patton, King, Halsey, LeMay, and a host of others still more uncouth.
They speak differently, act differently, and think differently from
most of us, but in war they prove to be our salvation, for they
understand best its brutal essence — that real humanity in
such an inhuman state of affairs is to use massive force
to end the killing as quickly as possible. Men such as George
S. Patton expect to offend us with their vocabulary, scare us with
their assurance, and be relieved or discredited when we no longer
need them. Thanks to them, in the luxury of victory and peace we
can pretend we never really wanted to be [their] war makers at all.
But now we have not yet achieved either victory or peace —
and so we need the ghost of Patton more than ever.
Neutrals
and Not-So-Neutrals
If we are really
to be at war, it might be wise to worry more about bringing battle
to our enemies wherever we find them, than fretting about warnings
from neutrals, near-hostile governments, and frenzied but organized
protest groups in Western countries. Muslim associations in European
countries were cheering at the news of 6,000 American dead; posters
of bin Laden continue to blanket the streets of the Middle East;
funds for his killers are traced to banks in the Gulf — surely,
in times of war, such open hostility means something. Our forefathers
in World War II did not much worry about what the Spanish, the Turks,
or those in Argentina felt about our war with Germany. They assumed
that many of their elites were hostile to the Allies, that their
governments would intervene to aid the Axis if victory was assured
— and that only our annihilation of Nazism would keep them
out of the war and in fear of us.
So, too, only
resolute action and victory in Afghanistan and against Iraq and
other terrorist enclaves will ultimately silence the hateful crowds,
and convince the Palestinians, Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia to
change their ways — both to cease their direct aid to terrorists,
and to stop transforming domestic dissent into nationalist fury
against us. It is disingenuous to say that those of the Islamic
media simply enjoy a free climate of critique like our own, when
their governments encourage criticism of us, but not of the
real, indigenous causes of their own misery. Promises of largess,
coalition building, and assurances of our measured response and
moderation are perhaps salutary in the present morass. But only
victory will impress upon those who have funded the terrorists the
need to stay neutral, get out of our way, and pray that in our systematic
campaign against our enemies we do not at last turn our righteous
anger against them.
Concern
for Our Enemy
If by chance
we were really to be at war — when, right now, Americans are
parachuting into the dark to stop the killers responsible for the
Trade Center attacks — then we would look upon those who seek
to restrain U.S. retaliation in its proper wartime context. The
director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Los Angeles, for
example, wants greater disclosure from the White House about the
details of the campaign, hinting that only fears of backlash prevent
that organization from calling on America to cease the bombing
altogether.
If we
forget that the disclosure of such information would endanger the
lives of American servicemen; if we pass on their misdirected
emphasis away from the slaughter of thousands of Americans, to worry
instead about the regime that helped kill them; if we ignore
that all of the killers, and nearly all of those in custody by the
FBI either for past bombings or for complicity with the present
slaughter, are from the Middle East; if we choose not to
mention that self-proclaimed Islamic fundamentalists operated freely
within the American Muslim community and were sometimes aided through
so-called Islamic charities — even then, we are still left
with the disturbing fact that in a time of war, the Muslim
Public Affairs committee is considering calling for an end to U.S.
retaliation in Afghanistan. Indeed, the Council on American-Islamic
Relations has already done essentially that by demanding an immediate
end to the bombing that is directed at the terrorist bases and Taliban
military — and is critical to reducing casualties among American
ground forces.
We, of course,
are a free and tolerant society, where expression of dissent is
crucial to our national fabric. But good sense, and some shred of
the old idea of patriotism, might at least caution against such
petitions when we are at war against Islamic fundamentalists. Muslim
organizations must not emulate the German-American groups of the
late 1930s that criticized U.S. policy toward Nazi Germany. Once
the firing started — as it has now — it would have been
difficult to stomach German-American organizations organizing for
a halt to B-17 raids over Berlin, or expressing angst about civilian
casualties as Patton crossed the Rhine.
The
Abyss
We are at the
precipice of a war we did not seek. We can grimly cross over it,
confident in our resolve, more concerned about our poor dead than
the hatred of enemies or the worries of fickle neutrals, assured
that our cause is just, and reliant on the fierce men of our military
who seek no quarter and need no allies in their dour task. Or we
can fall into the abyss, the well-known darkness of self-loathing,
identity politics, fashionable but cheap anti-Americanism, ostentatious
guilt, aristocratic pacifism, and a convenient foreign policy that
puts a higher premium on material comfort than on the security of
our citizens and the advancement of our ideals.
If we really
are at war, let us perhaps have pity upon our doomed enemies. But
after what we suffered on September 11, if we are not at
war, then we should have pity upon ourselves for what we have become.
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