Sunday, September 23, 2007

Better dead than Fred   [Mark Steyn]

By the way, I see, on re-examining David Freddoso's original post, that Senator Thompson upped the ante:

This country has shed more blood for the liberty of other countries than all other countries put together.

Sorry, guys, if that's the level of bragadocio required, include me out. It should not be necessary in "supporting our troops" to denigrate everybody's else.

And, putting to one side arguments about who died for what nobler ideals 60 years ago, what makes it an even more dubious line is that it gets to the heart of the question facing the nation today. Osama bin Laden looked at 30 years of US foreign interventions - Vietnam, the helicopters in the Iranian desert, the Beirut barracks, the inconclusive end to the first Gulf war, Somalia, the antiseptic air-war-only Kosovo campaign - and concluded that, while America was certainly prepared to expend treasure in advance of its goals, it was not prepared to shed blood. The bin Laden thesis is that, if the sleeping giant wakes up, all you have to do is prick him in the toe and he curls up in the fetal position howling in pain. And, if you happened to be in the chancelleries of the world watching CNN International these last four years through an endless parade of anchors deploring another "grim milestone" and Senators urging "exit strategies" and defeatist peaceniks saying that if you really support our troops you'll bring them home so they're available for Katrina relief, etc, you might be inclined to think Osama was on to something.

None of this is to deny the bravery of the best fighting force in the world. But notice that injured US servicemen and the families of the dead have made commercials arguing that their sacrifice in Iraq was worthwhile - and most US TV networks are refusing to play them. That's the divide - between a professional military that feels it's worth it, and a public that at the moment is unpersuaded. And this critical question - about American will, about whether there's anything out there that the public regards as worth the bones of a California grenadier (to modify Bismarck) - is not assisted by deluded ahistorical bromides. The left bandies enough fictions - America's killed one million Iraqi civilians, etc. The right should not retreat to fantasies of its own.

09/23 11:49 AMShare