WAR..What is it good for?

[fintstone]

I think that this is a well-reasoned article on the Iraq war and responds well to some of the "problems' aired on this BBS.

May 09, 2006
The Prison of the Present
By Victor Davis Hanson

Listen to the present televised hysteria. Too few troops! No, too many still there! The CIA is out of control! No, it is weak and irrelevant! The Iraq mess only empowered Iran! No, its democratic experiment is the best way to undermine that neighboring theocracy.

Such frenzy of the 24-hour news cycle is now everywhere, as we are lectured that our victories over the Taliban and Saddam Hussein have caused as many problems as they solved.

But in war aren't choices usually between the bad and the far worse? So often victory leads not to utopia, but only something better.

Take our past ambiguous successes. Recall that the outcome of America's horrific, but successful, Civil War that ended slavery led not to racial harmony. Instead followed over a decade of failed Reconstruction and another century of Jim Crow apartheid in the South.

We saved a reeling Britain and France in World War I. But an isolationist United States did not occupy a defeated Germany. So we fought a resurgent Hitler little more than twenty years later, who talked of the 'stab in the back,' while he bragged that imperial Germany had withdrawn unbeaten from foreign soil.

The outcome of World War II (note the sudden need for the Roman numerals) was not perpetual peace or even the freedom of Eastern Europe, but rather its enslavement and a Cold War of a half-century.

The United States prevailed in saving South Korea. Yet it still bequeathed a lunatic nuclear communist state to our grandchildren.

Gulf War I was a smashing success. But it was followed by the slaughter of tens of thousands of Shiites and Kurds, twelve years of no-fly zones, and yet another war against Saddam.

Almost every controversy in this present war also proves to be a rehash of the past. Poorly armored Humvees? Thousands, not hundreds, of Americans perished, in thin-skinned Sherman tanks ("Ronson lighters") that never were up-armored even at the end of World War II.

Too few troops? In late July 1944 as Gen. George Patton raced eastward through France, the topic never came up. But by autumn as several under-strength American armies suddenly stalled on the distant Rhine, national recrimination replaced the earlier euphoria. What fool planner had advocated a broad-front advance into Germany with far too few soldiers?

Did removing Saddam empower Iran? No more so than ending Nazism gave more opportunity for our "ally" Stalin to enslave Eastern Europe.

Why was our Iraqi intelligence so poor in assessing the potential for postwar insurgency? The same was asked how some surprised American divisions near the end of World War II were nearly annihilated by Germans in the Bulge and by the Japanese on Okinawa?

Won't Iraq require years of occupation? We hope not. But years after our victories, American troops are still residing in Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, and the Balkans.

The point of these historical comparisons is not to excuse our present mistakes by citing worse ones from the past--or to suggest that all wars are always the same. Much less should history's examples be used to stifle necessary contemporary criticism that alone leads to remedy.

Rather knowledge of the capricious nature of wars of the past can restore a little humility to our national psyche.

We need it. Ours is the first generation of Americans that thinks it can demand perfection in war. Our present leisure, wealth, and high technology fool us into thinking that we are demi-gods always be able to trump both human and natural disasters. Accordingly, we become frustrated that we cannot master every wartime obstacle, as we seem otherwise to be able to do with computers or cosmetic surgery. Then, without any benchmarks of comparison from the past, we despair that our actions are failed because they are not perfect.

But why did a poorer, less educated, and more illiberal United States in far bloodier and more error-ridden wars of the past still have greater confidence in itself? Was it that our ancestors, who died younger and far more tragically, did not expect their homeland to be without flaws, only to be considerably better than the enemy's?

Perhaps we have forgotten such modesty because we have ignored the study of history that alone offers us guidance from our forbearers. It now competes as an orphan discipline with social science, -ologies and -isms that entice us into thinking that the more money and education of the present can at last perfect the human condition and thus consign our flawed past to irrelevance.

The result is that while sensitive young Americans seem to know what correct words and ideas they must embrace, they derive neither direction nor solace from past events. After all, very few could identify Vicksburg or Verdun, much less have any idea where or what Iwo Jima was. In such a lonely prison of the present what are historically ignorant Americans to make of a Fallujah or an Iranian madman's threat of annihilation other than such things can't or shouldn't or must not happen to us?

So, of this present war, I think our war-torn forefathers would say to us that both messy Afghanistan and Iraq are better places without their dictators even if they never will resemble Carmel or Austin.

They would add that it is not unusual to be confronted with new crises even after such apparently easy victories. And they would shrug that however scary Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran now appears, it poses nothing new or insurmountable to a confident and strong United States that has dealt with far more serious enemies in the past with its accustomed wisdom and resolve.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.
© 2000-2006 RealClearPolitics.com

[CamB]

Interesting to juxtapose that against Coulter's rant...

I think it is a good article, but it also lends itself to multifacted conclusions. IMHO, it is hardly a case for war - rather it is a case for perspective about the current war, and perspective about the utility of war.

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

Good god y'all...

[dd74]

More poor journalism, Fint. After posting this and the Coulter crap, you should go for a trifecta and post something from Mad Magazine.

What's the point here? A feel-good about an irresponsible war deemed under the auspices of "capricious?"

So that's why Mr. Hanson fails to mention Vietnam?

Oh, and on a personal note, don't you have a thing against the liberal arts? You should check the dear professor Hanson's creds before vascilating (i.e. cutting and pasting) toward those who you think put the "liberal" in liberal arts.

Or have you made an exception this time only because the writer has so liberally slanted himself with convenient facts?

[fintstone]

Originally posted by dd74
More poor journalism, Fint. After posting this and the Coulter crap, you should go for a trifecta and post something from Mad Magazine.

What's the point here? A feel-good about an irresponsible war deemed under the auspices of "capricious?"

So that's why Mr. Hanson fails to mention Vietnam?

Oh, and on a personal note, don't you have a thing against the liberal arts? You should check the dear professor Hanson's creds before vascilating (i.e. cutting and pasting) toward those who you think put the "liberal" in liberal arts.

Or have you made an exception this time only because the writer has so liberally slanted himself with convenient facts?

And why would he address Vietnam...to remind you that we did not withdraw our troops in 1975 as you recently posted on another thread?

Nope, nothing against liberal arts. You made that up yourself...remember? When you start forgetting which lies you have already posted...you should probably revert to the truth.

Mr Hanson is brilliant and a fine writer...you just expose yourself by posting such tripe. Both he and I (without benefit of a liberal arts degree) know how to spell "vacillating."

[fintstone]

Originally posted by CamB
.....
I think it is a good article, but it also lends itself to multifacted conclusions. IMHO, it is hardly a case for war - rather it is a case for perspective about the current war, and perspective about the utility of war.

I would have to agree. It is nice to have a bit of rational thought here tonight.

[island911]

Did ya really miss the point, dd?

It is interesting how people demand a perfect, low cost, fast sol'n to a nasty problem. I suppose it makes them feel 'above it all.'

. . add a dash of half-baked hindsight, and we really get a load of righteousness; oddly from the left.

[dd74]

Originally posted by island911
Did ya really miss the point, dd?

It is interesting how people demand a perfect, low cost, fast sol'n to a nasty problem. I suppose it makes them feel 'above it all.'

. . add a dash of half-baked hindsight, and we really get a load of righteousness; oddly from the left.

Was there a point?

Oddly...seems like those who first demanded war demanded the American public believe it would be perfect, low cost, fast, wouldn't require many troops, and also bolstered hard-targets and good intel as well as soldiers greeted as liberators. I.E., a dash of half-baked forethought with loads of self-righteousness -- mostly from the right...

I guess those were missed points as well, huh?

Again: the largest missed point: Vietnam.

Again: crappy article if it wants to speak objectively.

Thanks for trying...

[RoninLB]

The author does a decent job of condensing a timeless subject as it's not often discussed. If you're carrying political baggage then it's easy to miss.

[WolfeMacleod]

Originally posted by fintstone
War..What is it good for?

Ohohohoh OH!

It's good for inspiring some of the best music to come from the music industry, that's what.

[cool_chick]

Anti war kills people, pro war doesn't. We must wage war in order to not have war. Lack of support for war propagates it, while supporting war avoids it. Message to the Iraqi people; we must destroy you in order to save you.

[RoninLB]

It would be great if we could inspire other populations with our social policy.. but logically that's not even a consideration.

Paying them off with economic development does work. If you can't do that it means they want to destroy you one way or another.

If there was money in it for enterprise wall st would figure out something. WTF, they're advising the religious right's expansion. They even convinced the whole US how dangerous cig's are while they keep generating cash off of it.

[KFC911]

Originally posted by Jared Fenton
Good god y'all...

Humph...absolutely nuthin'

[lendaddy]

Not sure how you can read that and not see the point

He's not even saying the war was worth, or even not worth, fighting. The article really isn't about war . It's about the American psyche and how we have reached a point in our collective where we accept no pain, our threshold is almost zero. That our actions are no longer measured against history (where they might show well), but rather measured against perfection.

I thought it was a great article.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by cool_chick
Anti war kills people, pro war doesn't. We must wage war in order to not have war. Lack of support for war propagates it, while supporting war avoids it. Message to the Iraqi people; we must destroy you in order to save you.

You certainly whittled away the fat, CC, good work.

VD Hanson, professor, has written well in one area; illegal immigration. His book, Mexifornia: A State of Becoming was pretty good. What propelled him into the limelight, however, was his marriage with the neo-cons on the War Against Iraq and by extension the rest of the middle east, he's all for it and writes repeatedly in complete support for Bush and the Bush'ists.

His current writing, and most for the last four years, while obviously from an educated man, is Bush'ist dung.

[KFC911]

Originally posted by lendaddy
Not sure how you can read that and not see the point

If you're referring to my post...right back atcha .... How old are you 'daddy'? My post has nothing to do with the article itself...simply a response to 'Good god y'all'.... you don't get it do you?

[lendaddy]

Originally posted by cool_chick
Anti war kills people, pro war doesn't. We must wage war in order to not have war. Lack of support for war propagates it, while supporting war avoids it. Message to the Iraqi people; we must destroy you in order to save you.

Did you actually read the article? Maybe I missed the part that mentioned anything you posted above?

[lendaddy]

Originally posted by KC911
If you're referring to my post...right back atcha .... How old are you 'daddy'? My post has nothing to do with the article itself...simply a response to 'Good god y'all'.... you don't get it do you?

No not you, I know my James Brown.

HA! Too hot..... in tha hot tub, make me wanna sweat....huh!

[KFC911]

Originally posted by lendaddy
No not you, I know my James Brown.

HA! Too hot..... in tha hot tub, make me wanna sweat....huh!

Sorry 'bout that...just brought back memories of my youth....

edited: BTW, did JB cover it? Edwin Starr's version is what I remember from 'way back when'....

[Moses]

Originally posted by KC911
Humph...absolutely nuthin'

Say it again...