Page 2 of
2 DISPATCHES FROM
AMERICA Finding
home-grown back-stabbers By
William J Astore
candidate,
Republican or Democrat, dares to be labeled
"defeatist" by calling for a major withdrawal of
U.S. troops in 2008. Exceptions like Ron Paul,
Dennis Kucinich, or even Bill Richardson only
prove the rule - with support in the low
single-digits, they risk little in bucking the
odds.
Fear of being labeled "the enemy
within" is already silently
reshaping our politics as even
decorated combat veterans like Congressman (and
retired Marine Corps colonel) John Murtha are not
immune from being smeared for criticizing the
president's war. Politicians recognize that, in a
campaign, it's well-nigh impossible to overcome
charges of weakness and pusillanimity. Senator
Hillary Clinton senses that she may be unelectable
unless she argues for us to continue to fight the
good fight in Iraq, albeit more intelligently. In
fact, if you're looking for significant changes in
troop levels or strategy there, better hunker in
for Inauguration Day 2009 - and then prepare to
wait some more.
Of myths and
accountability McCain's comments did echo
a Clausewitzian truth. In warfare, the people's
will is an indispensable component of a nation's
warfighting "trinity" (that also includes the
government and the military). It's exceedingly
difficult to prevail in a major war, if a leg of
this triad is hobbled. By choosing not to mobilize
the people's will, by telling us to go about our
normal lives as others were fighting and dying in
our name, the Bush administration actually hobbled
its own long-term efforts. Now, they are getting
ready to claim that it was all our fault. We were
the ones who lost our patience and will to
victory. This is rather like the boy who killed
his father and mother, only to throw himself on
the mercy of the court as an orphan.
Back
in 2002-2003, with an all-volunteer military, a
new Blitzkrieg strategy, and believing God to be
on their side, it appears Bush and Company
initially assumed that broader calls for support
and sacrifice were militarily unnecessary - and
unnecessarily perilous politically. Now, despite
dramatic setbacks over the last four years, they
still refuse to mobilize our national will. Their
refusal reminds me of the tagline of those old
Miller Lite beer commercials: Everything you
always wanted in a war, and less - as in less (or
even no) sacrifices.
So let me be clear:
If we lose in Iraq, the American people will not
be to blame. We cannot be accused of lacking a
will that was never wanted or called upon to begin
with. Yet the stab-in-the-back myth gains
credibility precisely because so few high-level
people either in government or the military are
being held accountable for failures in Iraq.
In World War II, Thomas Ricks reminds us,
our military relieved seventeen division
commanders and four corps commanders of duty. With
the possible exception of Brigadier General Janice
Karpinski of Abu Ghraib infamy, has any senior
officer been relieved for cause in Iraq? Since
none apparently has, does this mean that, unlike
the spineless American people, they have all
performed well?
To cite just one typical
case, Major General Kenneth Hunzeker served as the
commanding general, Civilian Police Assistance
Training Team, from October 2006 to July 2007 in
Iraq. Surely, this was a tough job, especially for
a man with no proficiency in Arabic. Yet, by all
accounts, Iraqi police units to this day remain
remarkably corrupt, militia-ridden, and
undependable. Does this mean Hunzeker failed?
Apparently not, since he was promoted to
lieutenant general and given a coveted corps
command. Interestingly, his most recent official
biography fails to mention his time in Iraq
leading the police assistance team. Even if
Hunzeker was indeed the best man for the job, what
kind of progress could have been possible in a
ten-month tour of duty? By the time Hunzeker
learned a few painful lessons, he was already
jetting to Germany and command of V Corps.
If no one is held accountable for failed
policies, if, in fact, those closest to the
failures are showered with honors - as was, for
instance, L Paul Bremer III, who headed the
Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad for the
President from May 2003 to June 2004 - it becomes
easier to shift blame to anyone (or everyone).
Here, German precedents are again compelling.
Because the German people were never told they
were losing World War I, even as their army was
collapsing in July and August 1918, they were
unprepared for the psychological blow of defeat -
and so, all-too-willing to accept the lie that the
collapse was due to the enemy within.
This
is not to say that today's military has been
silent. To cite three examples, retired Army
Leutenant General Ricardo Sanchez recently
criticized the surge strategy and called the Iraq
war "a nightmare with no end in sight". Another
perspective came from 12 Army captains formerly
stationed in Iraq, who, writing in the Washington
Post, also rejected the surge and called for rapid
withdrawal as the best of a series of bad options.
Finally, seven NCOs in the elite 82d Airborne
Division (and then still in Iraq) offered graphic
illustrations (on the op-ed page of the New York
Times) of the one-step-forward, two-steps-back
nature of "progress" on the ground in Iraq.
Think of these as three military
perspectives on a disastrous war. But even they
can serve as only a partial antidote to the myth
that some kind of victory is inevitable as long as
we, the American people, remain supinely
supportive of administration policy.
Blaming you Given the right
post-war conditions, the myth of the
stab-in-the-back can facilitate the rise of
reactionary regimes and score-settling via long
knives - just ask Germans under Hitler in 1934. It
also serves to exonerate a military of its
blunders and blind spots, empowering it and its
commanders to launch redemptive, expansionist
adventures that turn disastrous precisely because
previous lessons of defeat were never faced, let
alone absorbed or embraced.
Thus, the
German military's collapse in World War I and the
Dolchstoss myth that followed enabled the
even greater disaster of World War II. Is it
possible that our own version of this, associated
with Vietnam, enabled an even greater disaster in
Iraq? And, if so, what could the next version of
the stab-in-the-back bring in its wake?
Only time will tell. But consider yourself
warned. If we lose Iraq, you're to blame.
William J Astore, a retired
lieutenant colonel (USAF), earned a doctorate in
modern history from the University of Oxford in
1996. He has taught military cadets at the Air
Force Academy and officers at the Naval
Postgraduate School, and now teaches at the
Pennsylvania College of Technology. His books and
articles focus primarily on military history and
include Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism
(Potomac Press, 2005). He may be reached at
wastore@pct.edu.
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