Too much about Iraq?
Some readers will complain about reading here more on Iraq, and the need to defeat the Islamists in the more general war against terror. But the serial writing about the topic is like yelling “Fire” as flames engulf the house. Do we yell it only once, and then keep mum in fears of boring the scorched inhabitants?
Iraq Strategy
The Iraq Study Group will probably suggest, as the Democratic Party suggests, as the administration suggested, that we accelerate Iraqization in preparation for downsizing and leaving. There will be disputes over what to call the status quo, over how long this process will, or should, last, or over whether it was the policy of the administration (despite the Halliburton slurs and ‘no blood for oil’ sloganeering) in the most recent months (cf. the recent leaked Rumsfeld memo); but nevertheless both critics and supporters of the war will come to some sort of consensus of finishing the training of the Iraqi security forces, hoping the democracy can survive, and then “redeploying” American troops. Success or failure will be adjudicated whether by 2008 there is still a functioning constitutional government.
Lost?
In a recent debate of sorts on a Boston radio show, an ex-Clinton official lectured on Iraq as already lost, apparently reflecting this new communis opinio of despair. Given the level of violence and our losses in Iraq, in this view, we supposedly have no chance of securing the country and are now defeated—and should leave precipitously.
But don’t we need some perspective on this new assessment of “lost”? What would these same critics say to Abraham Lincoln in May-June 1864 (”Each hour is but sinking us deeper into bankruptcy and desolation.”) when Grant’s Army of the Potomac tottered at the brink (Spotsylvania [ca. 18,000 casualties]; Cold Harbor [ca. 13,000 casualties]; Petersburg [ca. 12,000 casualties), prompting calls for an armistice on the basis of a status ante bellum, and the real prospect not just of Lincoln not winning the election of 1864, but perhaps not even receiving the Republican nomination? Or what would the pundits of the Kennedy School of Government or the Council on Foreign Relations have said about retreat from the Yalu River in November 1950 (ca. 14,000 casualties)? Korea is lost? We destabilized the Korean peninsula? We only empowered the real enemy Russia in Europe?
If anyone wishes to understand the ripples of an immediate American withdrawal from Iraq, try reading Raul Castro’s public address in Havana, in which he announces the end of American global influence as evidenced by our inability to defeat the terrorists (e.g., “In the eyes of the world, the so-called “crusade on terrorism” is unavoidably heading down the path to a humiliating defeat.”). My favorite line is the enforcer of the Cuban Gulag sermonizing on Americans’ “secret prisons.”
Do we have another Sherman, Patton, or Ridgeway?
That is not to say that simply staying the course will bring victory without radical changes in tactics and strategy—but that ability to change quickly and fundamentally is nothing novel in American history. That infamous summer of 1864 was saved by Uncle Billy Sherman’s completely unorthodox siege of Atlanta, and then followed after the elections with the march to Savannah (opposed by Grant and without consultation with Lincoln). Matthew Ridgeway saved the American army in Korea, and after the removal of MacArthur ensured a counter-offensive back up to the DMZ. The billion-dollar plus B-29 effort was facing catastrophe before the arrival of Curtis Lemay in the Marianas. Creighton Abrams, who oversaw Vietnamization and the drawdown of over 500,000 to less than 30,000 U.S. troops by 1972, turned a disastrous war into one in which, had we not cut off aid to South Vietnamese, our allies were in a position to win.
The point? As in prior crises, the U.S. military realizes that public support is waning for the effort in Iraq, and it must find a way both to drawdown only in measure and at the same time train the Iraqis to stop the insurgents from destroying the nascent democracy. So let us hope there is a Sherman, Patton, Ridgeway, Abrams et al. among us.
American slang
Has there been an upsurge in the vocabulary of cynicism, sarcasm, and nihilism? On the old philologist’s dictum that words alone reflect reality (in graduate school, we were often asked in seminars on Xenophon or Thucydides to support grand assertions about “democracy” or “freedom” with precise words in the ancient Greek vocabulary [together with citations to ancient texts])—do our newly created phrases tell us something about our postmodern mind? I heard on campus last week a barrage of the usual slang: “Whatever”; “I don’t think so…”; “Duh?”; “Hellooo?”; “See yaaa”.
I was wondering whether on the farm our ancestors used to employ the same language—as in…
“Cyrus, are we going to in get the crop?”
“Hellooo.”
“Emma, did you get the butter churned?
“Whatever”.
“Langford, did the freeze hurt the blossoms?
“Duh?”
And when you compare the relentless smirking and snickering of a David Letterman or Bill Mahr with past variety hosts of the 1950s, or TV shows like Desperate Housewives or Sex in the City with Bonanza or Paladin, then we get a good glimpse of the rapid devolution to a postmodern society. Not that we don’t have genius and flair in our midst, but the gap reminds me a lot of the change in temperament of a Juvenal or Petronius compared to an earlier generation of Horace and Virgil. While Trimalchio and his bunch argue over stuffed song birds and dancing catamites, some legionary is on the Rhine or Danube holding back the tide. One wonders about an audience’s taste that went from Fibber McGee and Molly to Howard Stern in less than 50 years.
Books…
Currently I am reading Barry Strauss’s %%AMAZON=074326441X The Trojan War.%% Strauss is the type of classicist whom in %%AMAZON=1893554260 Who Killed Homer? %% we once thought were desperately needed for a dying profession. He wrote solid academic books about the Peloponnesian War, then a memoir about sculling, and more recently this reinvestigation of the Trojan war, encompassing the latest archaeological, linguistic, and literary evidence, all aimed at capturing a wide audience and renewing interest among the broader public in antiquity.
The strange thing about the Trojan War is that as the decades roll on, and more philological evidence from Near Eastern and Mycenaean texts is sifted and resifted, and the site is re-excavated and enlarged, the more likely it becomes that Homer really was the custodian of a far off, quite important war near the end of the Mycenaean Age. Despite the necessary requisites of oral poetry, the nature of fiction, the passing of five centuries, the contamination of Dark Age and early polis allusions, and the aristocratic nature of early oral audiences, the %%AMAZON=0147712556 Iliad%% and the %%AMAZON=0147712556 Odyssey%% probably capture a great deal of information about this shadowy war between Mycenaean lords and an outpost of Near Eastern rivals in Asia Minor.
I am also reviewing Walter Reid’s new biography of the much maligned %%AMAZON=1841585173 Gen. Douglas Haig%%, who oversaw British forces in World War I from 1916 onward. As Reid shows, while not a military genius, Haig was never the reactionary, blinkered, and technologically backward old stuff shirt that we have become accustomed to accept as entirely culpable for the Somme. It is hard to know what could have done once the German army of 1914 crossed the borders into France and Belgium, inasmuch as it was the best equipped, most professionally organized, and best led infantry force of the age.
Nothing, but ill-prepared British and French armies stood in its way—and in the way of a very different vision of a future Europe than shared by the liberal republics of London and Paris. Reid is a first-class biographer, and Haig is both a frustrating and yet at times sympathetic figure
I must say I am not looking forward to next week’s book, a 1000+ page new account of the crusades (%%AMAZON=0674023870 God’s War%%) by Christopher Tyerman. Just the introduction was overwhelming, not made easier by a ponderous prose style—but I will reserve judgment until I actually finish the book.
Digg This
del.icio.us
PJM Home
Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power
Mexifornia : A State of a Becoming
Between War and Peace: Lessons from Afghanistan to Iraq
The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (Paperback)
Wars of the Ancient Greeks (Smithsonian History of Warfare) (Paperback)
Who Killed Homer: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom
Fields Without Dreams : Defending the Agrarian Ideal (Paperback)
The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny
The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War (Paperback)
40 Comments
Jeffrey S. Neher:I’ve long dreaded the realization of one of my haunting thoughts…and at times I have many. This thought has to be set up with a little history. It’s the history of Soviet communism. This failed experiment was the costliest in human history. In cost of course I mean in life, the loss of human life. Lenin looked toward America with a wary eye, and like his predecessors also with an envious one. To harness the raw power of the American economy with Soviet-style social restraint was the ideal. Every step along the “Revolution Road” was an attempt at a step ahead…of the U.S. of course. The only President who seemed to fully grasp this was Ronald Reagan. For he knew the Soviet appetite to consume and then out-spend it’s American counter-part in every area of public consumption. From the nuke race of the late 40’s and early 50’s to the race to space, the USSR was always about beating America. The Russian leaders knew they could not destroy the great advesary of the West from the outside. No, our power was too much and our people too resilient to lay down for a Soviet revolution. This revolution had to start within the American borders. First the elite class, then the intellectuals and finally our youth. Nakita said it loud and clear, “we will destroy you without firing a shot”. I’m not sure if that is exactly the way he put it but the meaning is the same. Finally in this nation we have a man come to power who refuses to appease and coddle and cajole. Instead he embarks(with only a few friends)on a new, bold strategery of calling evil evil and daring them to keep up. Keep up Mr. “keep dying on me” PM of Russia. Keep up economically, keep up militarily, and keep up prestige-wise in the eyes of the world. This leader would tell their leader jokes about their closed society. He would go on and on with American anecdotes of American freedom and greatness. Most in this nation thought Reagan was just talking to us. Nah, Reagan was also talking to the Soviets. He knew they were listening. Who better to continually hear of American excpetionalism than your arch-enemy? Reagan and Thatcher would ask Soviet leaders why they had to put up walls to keep people in while we had to put up walls to keep people out? And speaking of walls, going to Berlin and telling the Soviets tear down this wall. Down came the wall. We won without firing a “direct” shot at Russia. Russia is to dissolve it’s satellites known as the Baltics and other republics and they are to be a democracy. Yeah, maybe….
Flash foward to 2006. Dead jounalists are being found and read about in “free” Russia. Former spies, KGB spies are being poisoned. People with intimate knowledge of Russian abuse poisoned. Who is the president you may ask? Former KGB Top-Cop Vlad Putin. Are we detecting a pattern yet? According to everthing I’ve read, Soviet missiles are still aimed at our cities. Soviet nuke material is missing, scientists on the lamb, the govt. itself building Iran’s nuke program and missile-def. system. China entering into oil-contracts with Iran. Russia and China for the first time ever conducting military exercises together. A pattern yet?
What was the missing ingredient in Soviet style communism? Religion. Islamo-Fascism is not that far off from SC. Could there be a deal between Iran, Russia, and China? There don’t appear to be any terrorist attacks on either nation right now. Coincidence? Just haven’t gotten around to it? Maybe my haunting thoughts are springing to life…the ressurection of Soviet Russia. Combined with China and a rogue nation like Iran, this could be the beginning of a bad, bad situation. The evil possibilities are endless. Russia gets her pride back, China gets it’s oil and Iran gets it’s nukes. And we the sleeping? Sleepng wth one eye closed and the other covered. Sounds a little like the German, Italian, Japanese axis of today…..
Dec 2, 2006 - 10:32 pm Brian:Please — don’t ever apologize for writing multiple articles on the single most important issue of our time, perhaps of the 21st Century, and maybe even in the history of western civilization.
As a former university professor and moderately successful scientist, I learned long ago that my students and colleagues learned best through repetition.
Hell’s bells . . . if the AP, NYT, WaPo, Boston Globe, CNN, ABC, CBS, NPR etc. can repeat half-truths and rumor-based falsehoods ad nausea based on their use of stringers, and then ply us with the same worn and faulty analyses on the basis of those reports, surely you can be forgiven by your opponents for presenting variations on this vital issue, while accepting applause for your efforts from your supporters.
Personally, you give me confidence in my own reading of what’s happening in Iraq, throughout the Middle East, and in our own post-modern western cultures.
Brian
Dec 2, 2006 - 11:34 pm Judith:You write that philosophers say “words reflect reality,” but, sadly, in our overly PC, distracted society, it’s more like “words DISTORT realty”…i.e. “freedom-fighters/militants/activists/extremists” (terrorists) strapping on suicide belts to bomb Tel-Aviv pizza parlors; Roving “youths” (Muslims, Jihadi-punks) setting a bus & passenger aflame in Paris; Bush’s “religion of peace” (Islamo-fascists); “Undocumented workers” (”illegal aliens”); European/UN/liberal left “multiculturalists” (those pusillanimous Lilliputians w/ hyper-inflated tolerance for the intolerant)…you get the drift, all Orwellian defeatist delusional expressions that are unbecoming our great nation…just read the NY Times…
Funny how one disparaging remark from a lame reader can carry weight. Professor Hanson please know that your important voice of wisdom on Iraq/Middle East & the high stakes geopolitical world we face w/ the Jihadists, nuclear proliferators & our own Machiavellian, Baker/Rice amoral defeatists is more than appreciated. It’s refreshing to read erudite commentary, tinged w/ gems of philosophy, history & morality, that counters those in the media & Washington who’s sense of history only goes back to yesterday’s breakfast. You are right to be an alarmist in a world that is all too ready to rationalize evil & join the ostriches in the soulless sands of complacency & denial. Please keep ranting & educating…LOUDER & LOUDER.
Dec 3, 2006 - 2:18 am MarkP:Professor Hanson’s reference to our “devolution to a postmodern society” can be summarized in a single word: decadence. And it’s far worse than he knows. I teach high school and know of what I speak. I see students everyday who have accepted laziness as a virtue. In their words: “Dude, why bother? The worst you can get is an ‘F’.” This group does not recognize failure as a consequence worth considering. Perseverence is a virtue unknown to them. By habit they quit when faced by anything challenging. “Whatever” sums up the attitude of those who seek only amusement and distraction. At the tender age of sixteen they have already elected to become life-long dependents of their parents. Some have even said so to my face: “My parents have money.”
It gets worse. When we discussed the possiblity of a military draft, the majority said they would rather leave the country than join the service. The only freedom they value is a right to debauchery: smoke dope, fornicate, and play video games. This is all enabled behavior by adults who don’t want to take on the responsibility of parenting. Suggest to a parent that drugs might be part of the problem and you get “no way, not my child” from people who would rather live in denial than confront the harsh reality. Pathetic it is, but I do not exaggerate.
Like Rome in AD 410, today’s youth would rather throw open the city gates to the Vandals than fight. But then, when everything comes free, does such a “citizen” have a vested interest in his society? The Greatest Generation endured a depression and fought a war. They were patriotic because they invested their blood and sweat in an idea they believed in. Today’s youth believes in nothing because nothing is demanded from them. They speak of their “rights” but never their duty.
We will pay the price for our decadence. A society can become too wealty and too liesured for its own good. We have reached the precipice. Even in decline the decrepit Byzantine Empire sometimes showed flashes of its old vigor. But technology has speeded up the process of decadence and decline. If societal attitudes do not change, the fall will be swift, dramatic, and horrific. We’ll see it in Europe first, but that does not guarantee we’ll learn the lesson.
Dec 3, 2006 - 5:27 am Improbulus Maximus:All of the original post and subsequent comments are completely true and accurate, but I’ll throw in my $.02 anyway. The way I see it, the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and the US is leading the race to the bottom. We have lost all purpose and direction as a nation, and while our culture drifts rudderless toward the maelstrom, the only unforgivable sins one can commit are to speak the truth about any matter, and to expect people to behave better than wild animals.
Dec 3, 2006 - 8:24 am chris:Despite all the efforts and sacrifice of the past centuries, especially the previous one, things are not getting better overall, but only worse. I think this is very telling; the harder a small minority tries to do right and serve humanity by promoting Liberty and Justice, the harder the majority resists, because it seems that nothing is so horrifying and repulsive to people than to be faced with the prospect of taking responsibility for their own actions. Most of humanity apparently prefers the safe comfort of slavery to the burdens of freedom, and so I belive this century will end seeing all of humanity enslaved under one form or another of dictatorship, as Orwell warned us about not so long ago.
I have more to say, but it will have to wait, as I have a headache today, so I will continue later.
“And when you compare the relentless smirking and snickering of a David Letterman or Bill Mahr with past variety hosts of the 1950s, or TV shows like Desperate Housewives or Sex in the City with Bonanza or Paladin, then we get a good glimpse of the rapid devolution to a postmodern society.”
Do you even know what the word “postmodern” means? I’m skeptical.
Dec 3, 2006 - 10:03 am Manual Laborer in Selma:What a gloomy, sadly accurate group of posts. But before succumbing to despair, remember–some of us won’t go down without a fight.
Dec 3, 2006 - 10:41 am Phillep:The left needs Bush, the Republicans, and the Conservatives to fail in order to gain power, and that means they need Iraq to fail.
They still control most of the news media, so they control most of the public’s perception of reality. They do not care if Iraq and the rest of the area is depopulated, so long as it happens in a way that can be twisted to be blamed on Bush, etc.
Dec 3, 2006 - 10:52 am Dick Stanley:The long-maligned ARVN finally proved it would fight once it was no longer subordinate to the big American battalions, but aided with artillery, air and medevac by American advisors. The Iraqi army, though with more ethnic diversity than in Vietnam, surely can do likewise, unless we also pull the plug on them to satisfy politics at home. I hope this time we maintain a troop presence at some level in Iraq. Why leave when we have invested in the big FOBs and our principal enemies are right there in the region. Why not spend a generation or two as we did in Germany and Japan?
Dec 3, 2006 - 11:12 am Fred Beloit:It seems to me that our present military at the highest levels has more Eisenhowers and Colin Powells than Shermans, Pattons, Stonewall Jacksons, Jeb Stewarts, etc. Just consider the new Commandant of the Marine Corps, who, a week after taking his new position, said the Marines were over stressed and needed to take upwards of seven months away from Iraq to rest, spend more time with their families and be further trained. Further trained to do what? Fight in Iraq? This is a Marine General talking folks. Real fighting colonels and generals usually come with some personalality or character traits that are no longer wanted for large command jobs, and no degree of excellence in leadership, drive, daring, and tactical innovation seems to make up for deficiencies of beureaucratic and political correctness expertise. I believe that our civilian leadership in response to the MSM, rather than the top military leadership, is responsible for this. I am not skeptical of our military’s ability to destroy any enemy we come up against, in spite of some of the rather dour and no doubt valid things said above about some of our youth (actually some of those who avoid or fail to qualify for military service). But very little attention is being paid by the civilian leadership here at home to destroying the enemy. Politics is sapping our leadership’s energy. Iraq is in many ways an ideal battlefield, we have the enemy outgunned, we have air superiority, and numerous other tactical and supply advantages. I acknowledge that the urban aspects make a harder battle environment, but some of this is a result of the surgical attack requirements imposed upon our military in order to spare the guilty civilian population along with innocents. This war is just like Viet Nam in one way. The most powerful portion of the enemy is also a combined arm, one that the military alone cannot defeat. That is the enemy has propaganda skills, guilty civilians to aid them, and the MSM and leftists here at home to aid them and subvert efforts to win this war.
Dec 3, 2006 - 11:14 am John J. Vecchione:Homer nods, as it were. London was not the capital of a “republic” in 1916 nor is it today.
Dec 3, 2006 - 11:50 am Dave Begley - Omaha:Keep writing about Iraq! It is the single most important issue.
And thanks for the book review of Mark Steyn’s “America Alone.” He’s no VDH but a fine writer nonetheless.
And here’s one for you: President Bush should hire Professor Hanson for his speechwriting staff ASAP. Gerson is gone and the quality is not the same. The President needs to articulate clearly the policy of the United States and VDH can supply the words.
The next State of the Union or whenever the new Iraq policy is announced is a critical speech.
Dec 3, 2006 - 12:58 pm David Davenport:Haig was never the reactionary, blinkered, and technologically backward old stuff shirt that we have become accustomed to accept as entirely culpable for the Somme. It is hard to know what could have done once the German army of 1914 crossed the borders into France and Belgium, inasmuch as it was the best equipped, most professionally organized, and best led infantry force of the age.
But the Somme offensive happened in 1916, not 1914. Why couldn’t or didn’t Haig elevate the British Army to the standards of the Germans by 1916?
Dec 3, 2006 - 12:59 pm Fred Schoeneman:Can you recommend some further readings on the changes Abrams made after Westmoreland that would support your assertion above that S. Vietnam was in a position to win in 1972, had we not cut off aid? It’s not that I doubt you, it’s that I’m ignorant.
Regards
Fred
Dec 3, 2006 - 1:28 pm PaulM:Tragedy awaits us. Instead of working to address the problem, there are those in the United States who have blinders on. They are cut from the same cloth as Trimalchio. Wake up America! The barbarians are at the gate.
Dec 3, 2006 - 1:59 pm RightWingNutter:Re. MarkP,
“When we discussed the possiblity of a military draft, the majority said they would rather leave the country than join the service.”
Hmmm. Oddly, that sounds like an argument FOR resuming the draft. If one includes the consequence of the parents voting against the party that drove their presciousssss moppet into the frozen north… Perhaps conservatives should mute our criticism of Rangel and let him shoot his party’s leg off.
Dec 3, 2006 - 2:02 pm Robert Mandel:MarkP,
I too am a high school teacher and know the problem extends far beyond just the students. I trying to teach the first semester of a Western Cib course, we read everything from Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, to Locke, Rousseau, and Montesqiueu. And what was the response? How come my son’s getting a “D”? Parents couldn’t care less what they learn, how they learn it, but rather the letter on a piece of paper which somehow jusitifies or validates their parenting. As if there’s no correlation?
The entitlement mentality of today’s generations is what has doomed us. Never have so many felt they deserved so much, for offering up so little.
Perhaps Dr. Hanson can help explain why, and provide a link to the past where it equally occurred. I can only think of the end of the Roman world, one more non-Roman, defending an Empire they had no affiliation with, or affinity for. I imagine traveling those ancient Roman roads in the 4th and 5th centuries would be much like traveling I-405 in Los Angeles today.
Even as the Greek world knew its place had slipped, and they turned towards Rome to protect them from the Macedonians, they still knew they were worth saving. Do we feel as much today?
Our biggest enemy is ourselves. How do we win that war?
Dec 3, 2006 - 2:43 pm Arnold:Trojan War. Hey, this is it, this is what politicians think about. How to fight the trojan war? It’s on their minds all the time, that if this can be used as weapons to control massive problems once and for all, then we’ll enter that utopian dreamland. And this is about all they seem to be up to. The press supports the efforts and relates it all to the general public because they, of course, have the need to know.
These Trojans, they are talking about, can be found behind the counter of any 7-eleven store.
So many of our government educated citizens do not think beyond these things either. It’s what the NEA, the socialists, the communists wants.
Sick, You decide.
Dec 3, 2006 - 5:05 pm Mike Perry:For several months I’ve been editing, Chesterton at War, a book that’ll include much of what G. K. Chesterton wrote about war. It’s been a marvelous education in how to think clearly, and one thing I’ve learned from him is the importance of stepping back and looking for a much larger story than that being debated, one that examines why people are professing to support one side or the other in a war. Motives can tell us a lot, especially when those motives are expressed by the parties themselves.
Applied to the Iraqi War, that principle leads to interesting results. Who among the critics of the war expressed any concern for Iraqi people when they were victims of Saddam’s genocide? Virtually no one as best I can tell. CNN’s deliberate coverup of Saddam’s mass murders didn’t hurt their status with the rest of the mainstream press in the slightest. And who among the critics of the war has a plan to establish a democracy anywhere in the Middle East, assisting one or more countries to reach a point where human rights are respected, where religious freedom exists, and where the rule of law is respected? Again, as far as I can tell, the critics of the war would be perfectly content to see the Middle East remain a cesspool of violence and repression, as long as none of that horror is exported to them (personally) as terrorism. In fact, many of of the war’s critics are also virulent critics of Israel, the only Middle Eastern country where the rights of Arabs are respected.
In short, if we look at motives, the critics of the war talk a sham morality, only pretending to be concerned about Iraqis when it suits their agenda. There real goal is a Middle East where we have a ‘realistic’ policy of recognizing “the hopelessness of the weak resisting the strong,” and of the folly displaying courage in the face of terror.
To quote Chesterton again: “That is the talk of a people who are doing a wrong. Such a people is condemned not by its crimes; it is condemned by its justification. It was only when I had read the defences of the thing that I saw that it was indefensible.”
Finally, it’s also all too easy to suspect that many of the critics of the war actually want Iraq to descend into the horrors of civil war. After all, that would be no worse than the rule of a Saddam that, if they had their way, would still be in power.
–Michael W. Perry, Inkling Books, Seattle
Dec 3, 2006 - 5:06 pm David:My son is precious. What he is not is devoid of character, discipline, or purpose. He is also of draft age. I can only imagine the revulsion other parents of already dead and mangled sons and daughters must feel as they prepare to see their sacrifices dishonored, devalued, and rendered meaningless by a cowardly, feckless leadership that, yet once again, lacks the resolve to finish a war.
What assurance can ever be given or believed that our sons won’t be wasted on a whim or political vagary? Before criticizing our youth in sum, we’d best be damned sure we, as the generation who commits them to fight, are as devoted to our ideals as we ask them to be.
When middle aged posters here vow to “not go down without a fight”, they should keep in mind they, after all, won’t be the ones going down in some filthy alley in a backwards, barbaric country while others here live their lives unblemished except by headlines.
I would send my son to fight, but not to fight for those who make a policy written in water by those who will not be steadfastly behind him.
Dec 3, 2006 - 6:39 pm John Blake:For context and perspective, refer to Jacques Barzun’s magisterial overview of the late 1990s. An Emeritus Professor at Columbia, in his nineties, Barzun published “Dawn to Decadence”, wherein he argues that Western civilization’s Great Age lasted quite precisely from 1450 to 1950– from the fall of Constantinople, followed by Gutenberg, to the “fall of Europe” in context of network television.
Barzun’s is an astounding intellectual achievement: Historical facts translate to socio-cultural ideas, and the Emeritus Professor knows them all. The one area he scants is that of science and technology, particularly since the burgeoning Industrial Revolution from c. 1750, coincident with the Enlightenment in its anti-clerical, libertarian guise. For all the fervor of artistic, literary, and political/economic thinking these past two centuries, it is undeniably the materialist substrate from Edison’s research laboratory to Ford’s mass-production techniques to the synergistic melding of corporate finance with entrepreneurial incentive that lends our world its force.
This is the antithesis of overweening collectivist Statist systems exemplified by Marxism. In any case, as 1920 marked the advent of Mass Commercial Culture so 1950 began an era of Free Market Abundance in the developed world. Not in all history has there been such a time, when the majority of young reached three years old; education became widely available; giant populations throve on innovation, filling every economic niche with life-enhancing goods providing comfort and leisure unto what previous generations considered an extreme old age.
Major Twentieth Century wars sought uniformly to secure this culture. But then came the reaction, a societal psychosis that deemed material well-being equivalent to a death-of-spirit. Regressive tendencies from know-nothing academia to parasitic welfare politics to defeatist Statecraft assaulted virtually every positive, successful aspect of Western culture in favor first of National Socialism, then International Socialism, finally a militant, nihilistic death-cult glorifying literal suicide in preference to any material or spiritual existence not of its own making.
The failure of nerve that broke like a tidal wave in 1920 stemmed from annihilating the generation of 1896 in Flanders Fields. The failure of imagination that followed, stoked by passive addiction to mass media (TV shows not pictures but fast-moving dots, which lull faculties to sleep), from 1950 on has lead by default to an a-historical culture that neither knows nor cares to know where its roots lie. So intellectual nourishment withers and dies, and old-style collectivist, Statist parasites like tapeworms leach ever-increasing substance from the body politic.
One cannot live off seed-corn forever. To redistribute a socio-cultural-economic pie, there must first be a pie. What frustrates historical awareness most acutely is the fact that perfectly simple and obvious principles governing the human animal, truisms literally for millenia, are cavalierly abandoned by elitist ignoramuses of no talent or accomplishments, who view meritocratic polities as anathema to their megalomaniacal self-esteem.
If “money is everything” (Marxism’s asinine conflation of qualitative with quantitative economic elements), and you have money, how can you be worthless? Let’s face it, absent a philosophy, treating ideas and ideals as native currency exchangable for any other, today’s elites “cash in” (sell out) to obtain a sense of values –any values– they so obviously lack. The easiest way is to espouse extremes, so why try harder? Thus we arrive at stasis, which is inherently unstable, and lacking any upside (because worthless philistines have none), straight down is what remains.
As Barzun says, fundamental principles may be subtle but they are simply stated, not by any means complex. “No law” means No Law; the statement is not “mere words” subject to Humpty Dumpty’s brilliant legalisms. So nothing matters… and we have come full circle. Welcome to the desert, friend. Here we breathe sand, eat dust, and die very, very young.
Dec 3, 2006 - 8:12 pm P. Ami:The above discussion of Barzun’s masterpiece is fitting. Into each section of his book he disperses chapters that discuss what folk of particular Western cities could have known about the world at particular times (London in the late 1700’s, Chicago in the middle 1800’s, Venice in the 1600’s, etc…). In his last chapter he makes a survey of what might be known if one lives in NYC but looking forward to the middle parts of this new century. In this discussion he describes the decay of Western culture continuing on. Instead of considering that our decay is one that puts an end to this culture he believes we will adapt to our decadence, as we grow bored with it. Some of the elite will recognize the decay and work together with other elite to reconsider the past and configure their view of Western classicism. They will do what all such renaissance do, in hoping to recreate past glory, they will instead create something new and wonderful. Because they diligently try to reinvigorate classicism their movement will carry the germ of this culture forward for the next age to consider and react to.
I think there are talented people in our midst. I think these people must know the past and come to terms with it. I think they must hold the basic ideas of our culture dear and pass them as best they can to our children. All our children who go to school and find satisfaction in mediocrity are no different then those who were of the lower classes of the past. We can do nothing to elevate a peasant from his mental state but we must honor their individual humanity. We shouldn’t lament the low quality minds of our people, as this has always been how people have been. There is quality, which is rare, and we have the crude, which is common. Two things judge any culture, the talent level of its elite and their just treatment of the lesser members of the society. Everything else is a function of these qualities.
Barzun’s book seems to end in speculation that misses a major shift that has occurred since the publication of his book, the worldwide revelation of Islamo-fascism. With our recognition of the threat this movement makes to Western culture, must we adjust our expectations of what Barzun suggested will revitalize our people? I think not. I think the pressures of these days will bring quality together. It will be in response to this threat that a Renaissance will occur sooner then it might have otherwise (besides, the Pope is quite accurate in stating that it is in reaction to our decadence, what he calls reason without faith, that brought this threat to be). For our Renaissance to happen the elite must be prepared to affect the moral of the people and lead them to understand the truth. We should be encouraged by the knowledge of how our parents dealt with similar adversity. We must hone the ability to use words correctly so that we mean what we say and say what we mean. We must have the will to do what is right, and pride, not in our deeds, but in the Spirit that makes these deeds necessary. An elite such as this will affect people. If you did not think this was possible you would not comment on a blog such as this. This a great war against our way of life and to win it we must reclaim our culture for ourselves. Then we can lead those lazy imbeciles that muck about the school system, students and teachers, and instill in them a sense of what about life is worth living for.
Dec 3, 2006 - 11:43 pm Jenn M.:What I think VDH fails to understand is that in pop culture terms, Bill Mahr is nonexistent and David Letterman is “old and busted.” I teach high school and the kids never, EVER mention either of them. I don’t think poor Dave has much influence over anyone younger than himself.
The post-9/11 kids are more interested in on-line video games or the ruthless satire of “South Park.” Oddly, I find this promising. The games encourage a fierce kind of teamwork and “South Park” encourages a healthy suspicion of, well, everything. You can teach this generation anything, as long as you present it in context and in energetic bursts (THIS is what Locke believed and THIS is how it is relevant to your life. Just don’t be boring!)
And in regard to the previous post, NOBODY seems to agree on what “POSTMODERN” means.
Dec 4, 2006 - 4:54 am T.Branin:The ugly truth is that nothing will be done about Islam until more Americans die on American soil here on the North American Continent having been killed by militant Muslims. As Steyn says only America can end the threat, and until we are inconvenienced in some broad and deep way, the vast majority of Americans will snooze on. All who particiapte in this web site see this danger - save for some liberal loonies - and want to prevent it. I do not think it can be prevented but must occur. I am fully confidant that at that time, America will, as Patton said, “know what to do.”
Dec 4, 2006 - 6:35 am Tom:The United State’s military has failed in Iraq because their general officers lack decisiveness whether it is in the planning or the execution of combat operations. We have been dealing with the same problems in Iraq for 3 1/2 years such as insurgency, Syria, Iran and the militias, but they have failed to address them with decisive action. Probably because they are developed to be cautious managers and administrators not bold and audacious combat leaders. Only bold and decisive action will defeat the enemy, and win the war in the region. I do not like to generalize, but I do not know of any Sherman, Patton or Ridgeway in our armed forces today.
Dec 4, 2006 - 10:05 am Tom C.:Could not agree more with MarkP. Whatever degree of civilized behavior we enjoy today came hard, and still is mostly a veneer. I well remember growing up in the 1950s when the Pax Americana was a given and we thought that all the battles had been fought for all time and that as the children of the elect we had only to go with the flow.
For various reasons I managed to develop a degree of skepticism and grow up. It would seem that anyone not sleepwalking ought to recognize that we are in great danger. “We have met the enemy, and he is us”.
Indeed.
Dec 4, 2006 - 11:20 am Mike Burleson:“let us hope there is a Sherman, Patton, Ridgeway, Abrams et al. among us.”
My vote is for Gen. Russel “stuck on stupid” Honore’ of New Orleans fame!
Dec 4, 2006 - 3:18 pm boarwild:i’m afraid the “Pattons, Ridgeways, & Shermans” don’t exist in this military simply for the fact that war fighting has become too politically correct. i’ve heard (don’t know if true) that in Iraq there are lawyers who - once an insurgent has been captured - order their immediate release if the evidence is not “slam-dunk”. how the hell can you fight a war that way? moreover, i would hazard that the military academies - post-Vietnam - have knuckled under to the PC world view and that we (in Iraq) are trying to be the “good guy” all the time and not doing the job we need to be doing. there was an overconsideration for “collateral damage” in the opening stages of the Iraq campaign. look, bottom line: the military’s job is to CRUSH it’s enemies by whatever means necessary. i’m afraid the Bush Admin & Pentagon along with the JCS is too worried about the media lense hanging over everybody’s head to really fight this war. al-Sadr shouldn’ve been shot a long time ago. why play paddy-cake with him?
as a member of Generation X and a military historian, every Baby-Boomers sojourn into a military adventure has been - shall we say - disappointing to say the least. Bush 41 (even though not a Baby Boomer) halted the air attack on the so-called “Highway of Death” because of the media - what was that? LB Johnson (a member of the “Greatest Generation” was a total flop as a war leader). but Baby Boomers understand the nature of war even less (at least the politicians).
“War means fighting, and fighting means killing.” trouble is, nobody wants to do that anymore.
i hope i’m wrong about all of this. i really do. call it “postmodern” or whatever you want. i call it a “cultural sickness” which translates into: “stick your head undeaneath the pillow, don’t read papers, remember Bush is an idiot, all politics is bumper sticker slogans, forget Iraq & the Middle East when is “Desperat Housewives” back on?, the only thing important is what SNL/South Park/some idiot Hollywood celebrity thinks, and Dave LEtterman/Bill Mahr are cutting edge.”
it’s all very depressing. i have the last issue of VFW Magazine right here, listing all the battle honors of those fighting in Afghanistan & Iraq. who else is shining the spotlight on these great Americans?
no, we just get more Clay Aiken….
Dec 4, 2006 - 3:54 pm MarkP:P. Ami, if you are suggesting that the salvation of our culture will come from a true aristocracy (Greek roots “aristos”: best of, and “crac”: rule by) then I can agree with you in theory. Such leaders must be men and women of superior mind, spirit, and moral fiber. But from where will they come? Not politics. As Tocqueville remarked, America tends to elect men of mediocre caliber. If he could see the state of our Congress today, he’d probably say this is an understatement. The clergy? Too interested in the clerical fashion show to address real problems. Academia? Too many faux professors with bad attitudes toward their own culture. Business? Nope, not here either. Capitalism is amoral. Science? Maybe. Some of our best minds pursue truth according to natural law. But we need to get such people out of the laboratory and into the public spotlight. Philosophy? Maybe. But the world hasn’t known a first-rate philosopher since, dare I mention him, Frederick Nietzche. I seem to be suggesting someone evangical. A new Gandhi? Another Martin Luther? King, too, if you prefer.
In the meantime, I am content to play the role assigned to me by Providence. With fidelity to the truth, I’ll lecture in my classroom on Plato and Polybius, Magna Carta and Machiavelli, a bit of Rousseau, and a dash of Kant. It’s the best I can do for minds that are willing to learn. And it doesn’t hurt to live modestly, pay my bills timely, chop wood, and plant the occaisional fruit tree. I could do worse.
Dec 4, 2006 - 5:23 pm P. Ami:MarkP,
Barzun suggests the new elite will be people savvy to computers, other techne, and math.
“The Lord Bacon had predicted that once the ways of science where enthroned, this type of [geometric] mind would be common. Dials, toggles, buzzers, gauges, icons on screens, light emitting diodes, symbols and formulas to save time and thought-these were for this group the source of emotional satisfaction, the means of rule over others, the substance of shoptalk, the very joy and justification of life”.
-From Dawn to Decadence, J. Barzun
It is first interesting that Barzun chose to “enthrone science” as he has written many books discussing how careful we must be with every word we write. Through the progress of this book he builds the idea that once a movement gains the upper hand, is enthroned in other words, it begins to rely on its form and loses its spiritual vigor. He compares the virtuosity of such men as Mozart to those whose virtuosity is in playing music in the style of Mozart. So, with science enthroned its methods are in popular use while the vigor of scientists has waned. We have techne that do things faster and with better precision then machines of the past. These are the main works of our scientists today. Rather, we should call them engineers. Where are those who, instead of improving on previous techne, create an utterly new device? Perhaps they are where those who will develope an utterly new philosophy are? Meanwhile, the arguments we find on blogs and between op-eds will often sight science to agree or disagree with Evolution and its theories along with the many other principles the Age of Reason bequeathed us.
It seems to me there must be those savvy to technology that run in various circles. Some will be clergy, others will be professors, and some will be politicians. I am sure they will be from many fields but similar in having a nature that constructs wonderful things. In this desire they will have cast aside the idea that everything good must be sensational. Instead they will recognize that great works have deep roots and they will find in history Western roots waiting for their water.
The pressures of our day will bring these people together and these are the elite that will reinvigorate our culture. Fidelity to truth is of the utmost importance. I hope you find it not too hard to pay your bills and that your fruit spill sweetness down the cheeks round a table full of family.
The group making up this blog-syndicate, me thinks, is mighty pleased to point out the works of the “enemy”. I think this is symptomatic of our cultural decadence. Might we not be better served discussing what we can do to fortify our culture? While we need people pointing to the sky saying the Luftwaffe is inbound, some must take it upon themselves to gather sandbags, set the anti-aircraft guns blazing and the civilians into shelter. One of us is Churchill and we need to create the environment that will allow this person to act as he was born to. I would rather work towards that then wait for what so many seem resigned to, a few vaporized American cities and the unleashed madness this would incite. Do you really trust any of the people currently at the helm to unleash the beast and then reign it back in?
I would like to make a correction. In describing Barzun’s “View from New York” I mistakenly placed his reference year as sometime in the middle of this century. Instead he imagined an anonymous someone from the year 2300 writing “View from New York, 1995” in the style of Barzun. What I wouldn’t do to have taken some classes with him in Colombia University.
Dec 5, 2006 - 12:49 am Dennis:I was in Vietnam in 1972. We were not winning - nor could we win in any then-comprehensible sense of winning. I once asked a Vietnamese friend there what would happen if the Americans pulled out. “Then the war will be over,” he replied.
Anologies between Vietnam and Iraq are fragile at best. VDH’s own A War Like No Other suggests that those involved in a new type of warfare are often the last to realize how things have changed.
Dec 5, 2006 - 7:42 am cfbleachers:VDH, I too self-reflect on my comments that often return to a repeating theme or thesis and wonder if it sounds like the needle is stuck on an old album, that nobody listens to any longer in a CD world.
Yet, I come back to the same conclusion. Paul Revere’s mythical ride didn’t stop at the first house, hoping that the word would spread thereafter of its own volition.
I believe, without hyperbole or exaggeration…that bloggers such as yourself, Glenn Reynolds, Charles Johnson and others…are saving America.
I say this because I believe that the most potent weapon being used against us is not made of steel, enriched uranium, yellow and green wires and/or cordite. It is made of words and pictures.
And I do not believe that the enemies of state have the power, the resources, the resolve nor the moral high ground upon which to mount a successful campaign against us that could not be crushed forthwith.
So, how are they “winning” and why do I believe that VDH, Instapundit, Little Green Footballs and others are saving and have saved America?
I believe that the strength of our enemies is geometrically enhanced by our own information stream. AP, Reuters, NYTimes, LATimes, CNN, BBC, Newsweek, …followed with dogmatic loyalty by ABC, CBS, NBC news…present us with will-killing regularity the steady drumbeat of enemy viewpoint,…more importantly…a picture painted of America as wrong, evil, stupid.
This raging river of rancor…is intended to erode our resolve, to make us hesitant in our actions and self-loathing in our comportment.
There is no greater enemy to the people of the West, than the Western press.
On this very day, Bill Roggio, an embedded blogger was quoted at Instapundit, describing how he hated wearing a press identification button…because our soldiers there feel so strongly that our own press is lying about them and about the situation in Iraq.
It is the intentional distortion by what has become the Ministry of Media for our enemies, that is far and away the most potent weapon against America.
Bernie Goldberg wrote a couple of books that outlined how this is accomplished, but he (and others) go out of their way to suggest that leftist news agencies operate in an echo chamber and therefore are not intentionally complicit in foisting a “one-sided” viewpoint to the American public.
But, this is an unfortunate and I believe a dangerous “pass” given to the people who have been granted a de facto public trust over our information stream.
It is no longer reasonable to suggest that photoshopped distortions of the truth to project a certain reaction by the public, the use of “sources” who don’t exist to tell a story that never happened, the use of fake documents to create an opinion against America, her leadership, her intentions and her place in the world…all intended to give an impression about America (or Israel) to the world…that is untrue and unfair…should not be countenanced or watered down.
I do not believe there is a single more important issue in our time. And I believe that bloggers, such as yourself, Glenn and Charles…and some others…are saving America.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Please don’t stop…not for a minute, not for a nanosecond. WE need you. Now, more than ever.
Dec 5, 2006 - 7:58 am Chuck Rostkowski:A good book that gives a broad sweep of 400 years of North American History is “Generations” by Strauss and Howe. Neither is a professional historian(a point that may be in their favor given the current bent of the American Historical Assoc.), but they manage to offer a clear view of the cyclical nature of our past. We have been down this road before. Think of the moral decadence and vacuousness of the 1850’s (the Tawney decision) and the 1920’s and 1930’s (the intellectual obsession with the Soviet Union). And remember that in the summer of 1941 after two years of open German aggression and 4 years after the Japanese raped Nanking the American Congress passed the Draft extension by only one vote. We are a sleepy people but once aroused, as VDH has pointed out, we can become quite vicious. I am not optimistic about the immediate future but I am about the ultimate outcome. This crisis, which according to Strauss and Howe, has come right on schedule will be met by the right generational mix. But we will have some dark night to get through.
Dec 5, 2006 - 8:08 am judson:The political implications of the Classical canon are interesting; my opinion of Vergil and Horace certainly changed when I realized that both enthusiastically licked Augustus’ boots. Petronius (if the author of the _Satyricon_ was indeed Nero’s “Arbiter of Elegance”) at least thought to posthumously blackmail his emperor; as for Juvenal, he has the advantage that his biography is a complete mystery to us.
Not to mention that the empire did at least as well in Juvenal’s day as it did in Horace’s…
Dec 5, 2006 - 12:56 pm Joseph Colwell:Our current military leadership cannot compare to the greats of the past.
According to President Bush and Rumsfeld, not one single military leader has asked for more reinforcements in Iraq. That indicates very questionable judgment.
Dec 5, 2006 - 7:53 pm nitpicker:I’m certain that you might be able to find your Patton, your Sherman and your Ridgeway if you point out where in Iraq one might find Messina, Atlanta and (proverbial) 38th Parallel. We are not in the wars of old, Mr. Hanson, but find our soldiers mixed among the good and the bad in unknown measure. There is no bold, battlefield stroke which can solve this situation.
Dec 6, 2006 - 9:48 am chuck:I hate to break this to you, but there will be no Pattons, Ridgeways, Shermans, Jacksons or whatever other hero you’d like to pluck from our illustrious military past who will come save the day in Iraq. Unlike any of the wars you refer to, this is a guerrilla war in which the rebel wins by not losing, and because he is not a member of any identifiable armed force of an identifiable state (or other) entity, there will be no decisive battle that will decide this war.
How can I get through to you: this war is not one that can be won militarily. Even Republican Chuck Hagel said exactly that today, and he is someone I think knows a thing or two about modern militaries and guerrilla wars.
Dec 6, 2006 - 8:55 pm L Nettles:I’ll slip in my congratulations for the listing of A War Like No Other in American Heritage’s list of the Best of the Past for the the past year.
Dec 7, 2006 - 4:53 am Thomas Foreman:Patton, Sherman and Ridgeway became Patton, Sherman and Ridgeway by not thinking in conventional terms. This is an unconventional war that I must insist can still be won militarily. Politcal and economic considerations carry a great deal of weight as well, but security and the destruction of insurgent elements takes priority, as Mr Hanson said when he remarked that reconstruction follows victory.
Dec 7, 2006 - 11:27 pm Bernard Saylor:At my blog, I nominate three potential candidates whom I am familiar with from personal experience. Foremost among them is Ragin’ Cajun Lt. Gen. Russell Honore. Check him out on your own, or see what I have to say about him here:
http://signalsped.typepad.com/a_delightful_mix_of_pragm/2006/12/i_humbly_bow_at.html
Mr Hanson, I apoligze for bad form in posting a link to my own site, but I feel I may have the men you are looking for. Also, I’m a new blogger and need the hits.
Honore could be your man!
Those who believe that by 1972 the U.S. was close to winning the Vietnam war should read Col. David Hackworth’s excellent book, “About Face”.
Dec 8, 2006 - 5:23 pm