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COMMENTARY
November 11, 2006
Back to war
It is Armistice Day, again. I usually write something sentimental when my column happens to fall on this day -- and would, this year especially, as the recent inheritor of my grandfather’s diaries from the trenches of the First World War, and my father’s pilot’s log from the Second. Both, embodiments of the scout’s honour: their nation called them, and they were prepared. As millions of others’ kin.We left a lot of bodies in fields in Europe; in the Pacific, and in the Middle East. But we won those wars. Germany and Japan are democracies today. Whereas, we are now in the act of choosing to lose the first major battles of a 21st-century war -- in Iraq and Afghanistan -- with horrendous consequences. The cashiering of Donald Rumsfeld, immediately after the lost mid-term election, somewhat deflated my hopes in President Bush’s chances of recovery. (Though some wind has returned with the quick renomination of John Bolton as his U.N. ambassador.) Mr Rumsfeld had become the least loved member of his cabinet, and the easy lightning rod for people unhappy about America’s role in Iraq. Paradoxically, the U.S. military has performed superbly in Iraq, under all kinds of debilitating, “politically correct” restraints, such as the need to kill as few of the enemy as possible, and to entirely avoid collateral damage, even to the people actively sheltering them in the Sunni Triangle. As Mark Steyn has said with clarity elsewhere, it is the contribution to the Iraqi democratization project of the other U.S. departments that has been cumbersome, overscaled, bureaucratic, and inept. And it was the U.S. civilian administration under Paul Bremer that stayed consistently one step behind Iraqi security developments. So why did everyone pick on Mr Rumsfeld? The chief stated reason was, “Not enough troops on the ground.” But the troops they had were seldom allowed to shoot, and it is in the act of shooting that a military presence becomes convincing. More troops, without more shooting, means more sitting targets for the jihadis. Especially where, as here, we are dealing with an enemy that is extremely attentive to allied weakness of will. This is the main point Osama bin Laden, the late Abou Moussab al-Zarkawi, and innumerable other leading jihadis have made to their supporters, again and again: that the U.S. is a “paper tiger”, who will cut and run after sustaining a few casualties. Imagine the power of this message, after they can add Iraq and Afghanistan to their happy memories of Lebanon and Somalia. It will become less and less fun to be an Infidel in those circumstances, anywhere on this planet. Why pick on Mr Bush? Because he went into Iraq in the first place, I suppose. Because, unlike his predecessor in the White House, this President refused to allow the United States, and the West it defends, to be monkeyed by Saddam Hussein, et al. At some point, you stop watching the enemy’s manoeuvring to hurt you, and do something about it. Mr Bush did something, on the generous assumption that, after 9/11/01, the U.S. electorate could be kept behind him. He misunderestimated the media’s power, to broadcast the message of “quagmire”, 24/7 from their ivory towers. Mr Bush’s political problems were hardly domestic. (The U.S. economy has been steaming ahead, taxes are lower and revenue climbs higher.) With a few gracious exceptions, such as Britain, Australia, Poland -- and Canada, rather late in the day -- the West has watched America defend our common vital interests, alone. The American electorate has taken this in. Why should they, alone, shoulder the world’s burdens? Why should they be held responsible if Iraq and Afghanistan prove incapable of self-government? I am, on balance, ashamed of the hesitant and scrounging support my own countrymen have given our American allies. But the answer to each of the questions above is the same. “Because you, America, are the superpower, we depend on you to lead.” I could go on lamenting what is now unfolding with seeming inevitability: a fresh countdown to a new April 30th, 1975 (the final evacuation of Saigon). Every allied soldier in the field must feel that now in his bones: that the people back home are no longer behind him, that his comrades have sacrificed their lives for nothing. But keep fighting, soldiers. The war isn’t over, and events are yet unsealed. Mr Bush remains the captain, and knows the stakes. Together with all my doubts, I’m still pulling, for and with him. For he's the only captain we have. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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