'I THOUGHT WE WERE DIFFERENT'
Wed Sep 8, 7:08 PM ET
By Georgie Anne Geyer
WASHINGTON -- Several months ago in North Carolina, where many American military officers have retired, I ran into an elderly general I had known in Vietnam. He was always the personification of the "officer and a gentleman," a man so honorable that even members of the press had nothing to say against him.
We chatted about our melancholy memories of meeting in Vietnam in the late 1960s and, of course, we talked about Iraq (news - web sites). Finally, he said sadly, shaking his head, "And I thought we were different."
This week, as we approach the third anniversary of the attacks on 9/11, one question hangs over many in the country, surely most of the people I meet. It is no longer a question of whether we can "win" this war (we cannot, in any traditional sense, without a cost so humongous it would destroy us morally as a nation). It is no longer a question of whether the purported reason for the Iraq war was false or even falsified (we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the WMD threat did not exist).
No, this third anniversary brings us face to face with a deeper and endlessly haunting question: Have we changed as a people so as to be willing, as the polls show us, to re-elect men and women who have misled us and lied to us every step of the way? And others: Are we willing to accept the fact that, even as our American losses topped 1,000 this week, we probably also killed up to 2,500 "insurgents" in only the last week? Have we, the rational, "exceptional" people of our history, been overtaken by the war fever and that same identification with the demented warrior-leader as lesser peoples throughout history?
War never stands alone. It quickly develops its own rationale, its own being, its own hypnotic power -- and the neocons who used a naive president to get us into this war knew that from the start. People never get out of a fight, despite knowing it is hopeless, midway through the conflict, even when it becomes abundantly clear that it is in their interest to do so. (Read Barbara Tuchman's great "The March of Folly" and compare Iraq to her examples of human "folly," from the Trojan Horse to Vietnam.)
Nor do wars simply end, even for the victor. All of Europe suffered for the next 50 years (and, indeed, until today) for the Allies' "winning" World War I, with the bloom of British, French and German youth destroyed and the stage set for the next world war. In the uneven and unexpected practice of war, no one ever walks out the door the same way he walked in.
Even the administration now admits the doleful truths of Iraq. This week, the Pentagon (news - web sites) acknowledged that "insurgents" control important parts of central Iraq and that it was unclear when American and Iraqi forces would be able to secure those areas, much less hold elections in January, which has been the supposed answer to everything. (You can bet that forces will not go into those areas until after the American elections.)
In fact, many in the administration, especially the career uniformed military who have been privately against this war from the very beginning, are simply reflecting in slightly muted terms what the major military analysis groups of the world are saying.
Britain's highly regarded Royal Institute of International Affairs, for instance, in a bleak assessment of where the U.S. stands 18 months after the launch of the war, suggests that at the most, the U.S. and its coalition can hope only for a "muddle through" scenario -- holding the country together but falling short of the original goal of creating a democracy friendly to the West. The Middle East team of the institute, which is chartered by Queen Elizabeth II (news - web sites), warned that Iraq would be lucky if it managed to avoid a complete breakup and civil war and if the country did not become the spark for a vortex of regional upheavals.
Still another bleak report came from the Carnegie Endowment by the accomplished scholar Graham E. Fuller, former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA (news - web sites). He warns that while Islam and democracy are not incompatible in principle, the "increasing radicalization of a Muslim world that feels under siege is creating a highly negative environment not conducive to strengthening moderate versions of political Islam." Until the external sources of radicalization are diminished, he writes, such as the Palestinian problem, the departure of U.S. troops from the region and an end to the "broad-brush, anti-Muslim discrimination resulting from the war on terrorism," there are no grounds for optimism.
In short, our presence there is working directly against our purported reasons for going there. And if President Bush (news - web sites) is re-elected, the Palestinian problem will almost surely have reached its point of no return, as Israel expands and the next target of the Great Anti-Terrorist Crusade becomes Iran. War without end.
Is this what the American people really want? Have we changed so much, from our mission of being an example to mankind to becoming its emperor? All one can really do on this third anniversary is pose the questions.
link
Wed Sep 8, 7:08 PM ET
By Georgie Anne Geyer
WASHINGTON -- Several months ago in North Carolina, where many American military officers have retired, I ran into an elderly general I had known in Vietnam. He was always the personification of the "officer and a gentleman," a man so honorable that even members of the press had nothing to say against him.
We chatted about our melancholy memories of meeting in Vietnam in the late 1960s and, of course, we talked about Iraq (news - web sites). Finally, he said sadly, shaking his head, "And I thought we were different."
This week, as we approach the third anniversary of the attacks on 9/11, one question hangs over many in the country, surely most of the people I meet. It is no longer a question of whether we can "win" this war (we cannot, in any traditional sense, without a cost so humongous it would destroy us morally as a nation). It is no longer a question of whether the purported reason for the Iraq war was false or even falsified (we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the WMD threat did not exist).
No, this third anniversary brings us face to face with a deeper and endlessly haunting question: Have we changed as a people so as to be willing, as the polls show us, to re-elect men and women who have misled us and lied to us every step of the way? And others: Are we willing to accept the fact that, even as our American losses topped 1,000 this week, we probably also killed up to 2,500 "insurgents" in only the last week? Have we, the rational, "exceptional" people of our history, been overtaken by the war fever and that same identification with the demented warrior-leader as lesser peoples throughout history?
War never stands alone. It quickly develops its own rationale, its own being, its own hypnotic power -- and the neocons who used a naive president to get us into this war knew that from the start. People never get out of a fight, despite knowing it is hopeless, midway through the conflict, even when it becomes abundantly clear that it is in their interest to do so. (Read Barbara Tuchman's great "The March of Folly" and compare Iraq to her examples of human "folly," from the Trojan Horse to Vietnam.)
Nor do wars simply end, even for the victor. All of Europe suffered for the next 50 years (and, indeed, until today) for the Allies' "winning" World War I, with the bloom of British, French and German youth destroyed and the stage set for the next world war. In the uneven and unexpected practice of war, no one ever walks out the door the same way he walked in.
Even the administration now admits the doleful truths of Iraq. This week, the Pentagon (news - web sites) acknowledged that "insurgents" control important parts of central Iraq and that it was unclear when American and Iraqi forces would be able to secure those areas, much less hold elections in January, which has been the supposed answer to everything. (You can bet that forces will not go into those areas until after the American elections.)
In fact, many in the administration, especially the career uniformed military who have been privately against this war from the very beginning, are simply reflecting in slightly muted terms what the major military analysis groups of the world are saying.
Britain's highly regarded Royal Institute of International Affairs, for instance, in a bleak assessment of where the U.S. stands 18 months after the launch of the war, suggests that at the most, the U.S. and its coalition can hope only for a "muddle through" scenario -- holding the country together but falling short of the original goal of creating a democracy friendly to the West. The Middle East team of the institute, which is chartered by Queen Elizabeth II (news - web sites), warned that Iraq would be lucky if it managed to avoid a complete breakup and civil war and if the country did not become the spark for a vortex of regional upheavals.
Still another bleak report came from the Carnegie Endowment by the accomplished scholar Graham E. Fuller, former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA (news - web sites). He warns that while Islam and democracy are not incompatible in principle, the "increasing radicalization of a Muslim world that feels under siege is creating a highly negative environment not conducive to strengthening moderate versions of political Islam." Until the external sources of radicalization are diminished, he writes, such as the Palestinian problem, the departure of U.S. troops from the region and an end to the "broad-brush, anti-Muslim discrimination resulting from the war on terrorism," there are no grounds for optimism.
In short, our presence there is working directly against our purported reasons for going there. And if President Bush (news - web sites) is re-elected, the Palestinian problem will almost surely have reached its point of no return, as Israel expands and the next target of the Great Anti-Terrorist Crusade becomes Iran. War without end.
Is this what the American people really want? Have we changed so much, from our mission of being an example to mankind to becoming its emperor? All one can really do on this third anniversary is pose the questions.
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