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 The
Mythology of Quick, Clean War
Democrats, media and the politics of betrayal…
[Gordon Cucullu] 12/7/05
“War
is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed
and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks
nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which
he cares more about than he does about his personal safety
is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless
made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” John
Stuart Mill
Watching
the Democrats in Congress – abetted by some ill-informed,
poorly disciplined Republicans – engage in the politics
of betrayal this week was grim. Seeing so many supposedly intelligent,
dedicated, patriotic individuals engage in infantile defeatism
was maddening. They are attempting to snatch defeat from the
jaws of victory and many of us are frustrated and upset.
Contributor
Gordon Cucullu
Former
Green Beret lieutenant colonel, Gordon Cucullu is now
an editorialist, author and a popular speaker. Born
into a military family, he lived and served for more
than thirteen years in East Asia, including eight years
in Korea. For his Special Forces service in Vietnam
he was awarded a Bronze Star, Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry,
and the Presidential Unit Commendation. After separation
from the Army, he worked on Korea and East Asian affairs
at both the Pentagon and Department of State as well
as an executive for General Electric in Korea. His
first major non-fiction work, Separated
at Birth: How North Korea became the Evil Twin,
is based in large part on his extensive experience
in Korea and East Asia as a governmental insider and
businessman. [website]
[go to Cucullu index]
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Part of what
drives these individuals – aside from Beltway
poll watching, and unchecked ambition - also troubles many Americans:
our obsession with achieving the impossible. We want to have
a clean, crisp, sanitary war in which we suffer few casualties.
We want our enemy’s pain to be minimal possible to achieve
desired results. We want the unfortunate deaths of civilians – euphemistically
called “collateral damage” – removed from the
process completely. Additionally we wish that all deaths inflicted
by internal errors – “friendly fire casualties” – be
prevented. We want a Clean War Pill to cure our foreign policy
ills and will accept no hangovers or unpleasant side effects.
And, by the way, we want the entire thing from beginning to end
wrapped up by next Thursday.
Even though Iraq since
July 2003 has been a frustrating experience it has been relatively
positive. Regardless, American media conveys
much the opposite impression. Compared to previous wars casualty
levels are extremely low considering that 50 million people in
Iraq and Afghanistan are free of brutal, mass murdering dictatorships.
Elections, that took years to take place in liberated Japan and
Germany, have been occurring with reassuring regularity and have
included increasingly large numbers of the population. Disaffected
Sunni citizens – who held all the cards during Saddam’s
vicious reign – are accepting the reality of living with
other Iraqi citizens as equals. The terrorist campaign has shifted
focus from American troops to Iraqi civilians and first responders,
particularly police. And the terrorists are now mostly foreign
fighters imported from Saudi, Yemen, Jordan, Chechnya, and other
Arab/Islamic states.
So why are Americans
so disconsolate about the state of affairs? The obvious answer
is that we receive precious little positive
news from the battlefield. We are told that casualty rates are
high, though they are not. We are told that the “insurgency” is
gaining popularity among Iraqi people while the converse is true:
insurgents have declared war on ordinary Iraqis and the civilians
recognize the threat. Massive demonstrations in Jordan see the “Arab
Street” - which up till now has been deafening silent – out
chanting “Zarqawi, burn in hell!” Inside Iraq civilians
who may have given tacit support to the terrorists are no longer
intimidated and are informing to American and Iraqi forces on
the hideouts of the al Qaeda thugs.
We are told that Iraqi
infrastructure is irreparably harmed while there is more electricity
generated now than any time during
Saddam’s reign, more schools are open, more hospitals are
functioning with better equipment, more news media sources – newspapers,
radio, television, and Internet – are operating than at
any time in Iraqi history, and the economy is booming to the
point that large numbers of Iraqi expatriates are returning to
join in the free market bonanza. Iraqis are indeed concerned
about American presence – they fear that we will cut and
run.
What can be the motivation
for such disconsolate reporting – actually
misreporting – from the battlefield? Part and parcel it
is the Vietnam syndrome writ large. The reporters, commentators,
and analysts who report the war are themselves fatally infected
with the Vietnam disease even though most are far too young to
have experienced it firsthand. They were inoculated with anti-war,
anti-American ideology while in journalism school and receive
frequent booster shots. They have been schooled that mere reporting
of the news is for wimps and that real journalists are “participatory.” They
believe their role is “interpreting” news for the
unwashed public. So selective screening, cherry-picking facts,
and slanting interpretations are all part of their beat.
Some of the Vietnam
legend is that bad wars are ugly while good wars can be just,
clean, and bright – evidence our mythologizing
of World War II and the generation deemed “Greatest”.
We rewrite the history of warfare to suit our flawed beliefs.
We have forgotten the horrific mistakes in WWII leader’s
judgment, the friendly fire casualties, the intentional targeting
of civilians, the mass bombings, and the lingering insurgency
in Germany for years following victory. We have sanitized what
was in fact an extraordinarily brave group of men and women fighting
a typically messy war. We ignore the past and paradoxically vilify
what today’s military has done to develop a method of war-fighting
that preserves civilian life and minimizes casualties.
But America in the
post-Vietnam era – even decades past – seems
incapable of discarding the revisionist slanders placed upon
it by the hard left and its media accomplices. We are told by
the “anti” crowd that Iraq is “another Vietnam,” and
that American presence only “motivates the insurgents to
greater violence.” That this is totally fatuous and historically
incoherent does not penetrate. But where a genuine similarity
exists between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War is that these
same moral cowards forced a precipitate withdrawal of American
support for our South Vietnamese ally. What followed were gruesome
killing fields, concentration camps, and hundreds of thousand
of hapless refugees.
Our shameful retreat
left a dismal political and economic system that is still struggling
to regain a modicum of the prosperity
that South Vietnam enjoyed even during wartime. Flight from Iraq
would trigger a civil war, give victory to the al Qaeda terrorists,
and energize the Islamofascist killers. They would attack America
and our allies from all sides with all imaginable weapons – and
some that we cannot imagine. Is this really the outcome that
serious American Democrat leaders wish? That itself is unimaginable.
By insisting on the
impossible: ultra “clean” wars
with no losses and quick, cheap victories and by continuing to
heed the revisionists who “Vietnamize” every international
move that America makes to protect itself and spread freedom
to oppressed peoples we risk losing this fight. These internal
dissidents are so obsessed with their anti-American, anti-Bush
criticism that they are willing to run from a vicious enemy and
betray the sacrifices of our soldiers. We must prevent them from
doing that as the consequences would be extremely dire for Iraq,
the region, and America.
That is the real lesson of war: war is sometimes necessary,
always messy, and never quick, crisp, and clean. We must keep
things in perspective. And we as a nation must steel ourselves
to the necessity of enduring difficult circumstances and persevering
in order to bring about safer, better times. Those are the real
lessons of warfare, and of Vietnam. -one-
Curious
about North Korea? Learn more in Gordon’s
best-selling book Separated
at Birth: How North Korea became the Evil Twin became
the Evil Twin, Lyons Press available at bookstores now.
copyright
Gordon Cucullu 2005
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