Robert D. Kaplan on global media danger, admirable character of US troops, role of American power

Kaplan: If you go back to the 1920's and 1930's, the communist international stood for a lot of good things on paper. A lot of artists and writers went to Spain to fight against the regime there. If you ask them, they were fighting for workers' right, civil liberties, etc. It was all great sanctimonious commentary, but when you look behind the scenes, there wasn't much there and what was there was very bad. What I'm suggesting is if you look at the global media, not just America and Europe, but the Middle East and other third-world medias, you get a conglomerate, a wet blanket of sanctimony about peace, harmony, love, demilitarization. When you add it all up, will allow the worst thugocracies to emerge.

Kaplan: They're self-evidently good. Everyone is for peace. People would like to have less and less armies. Because they're self-evidently a good thing, all kinds of bad things can hide behind them.

Kaplan: No. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that the immediate ark the global immediate yarks the way it's emerging, is, it's, I call them global cosmopolitans. They have less and less stake in any particular country, and that country's national interests. Even though they increasingly espouse the needs of humanity as a whole, as an abstract idea. But what I'm saying is, unless you're anchored to a specific geographical space, national interest, there's almost no honesty in your opinion. It's ultimately, still, it's going to be nation states that are going to take on tyranny, that are going to make the world, that are going to provide an armature for minimal global war.

This part of the interview raises problematical questions of whether what Musharraf did creates "a slippery slope."

Kaplan: Pakistan I know very well. Musharraf's worst problem is that he didn't take power a few years sooner. When he did take power in October, 1999, every civil society in Pakistan supported the coup d'etat to topple the democratically elected regime. These were civil societies anchored in a geographical space. They were going to live in Pakistan and they saw that behind this moralistic facade of a democratically elected regime, parliament was being bought awe off by the prime minister and his brother. Journalists were getting beaten up if they didn't support the ruling part, the state was collapsing, while general Musharraf is the last of the whiskey-sipping, cane-holding, British educated enlightened officers in the Pakistani military. So the military regime supplanted the elected regime, it meant a move forward. These are the kinds of contradictions and compromises you never hear from the global media, that the global media seems utterly incapable of figuring out.

How does one morally embed themselves with insurgents? Is this suppose to be similar to a criminal defendant having a right to an attorney? While the crime is taking place? Is the idea we get more intellegence on the other side and in the long run lives are saved? Or does this just give them more notoriety, fame and publicity to recruit more? More coverage seems called for on this issue. If it is a wrong practice, do we put the pressure on? Should we have allowed press to have been embedded with the Nazis in WWII?

[Kaplan] "...we have a phenomenon of international journalists covering the war from the point of view of insurgents. I know some who have embedded with insurgents and have done an excellent job."

This quote from Kaplan below is one of the most remarkable things I think I've ever heard:

[Kaplan] "In fact, Christian prayers, where the troops kneel down before going into battle in Fallujah, if you do your research, they were similar to the same prayers before the marines landed in World War II in the central Pacific before the marines landed at Guam in the western Pacific. The prayers, the emotions, the religiosity, the heartfelt religiosity hasn't changed, it's just the attitude towards it that's changed. I spent several days in Fallujah with marine grunts. You know, firefights would last 40, 45 minutes at a time, it was very, very intense, not quite as intense as two weeks ago, but almost, somewhat close to that level. And I saw, a marine lieutenant, his staff sergeant killed, loved guys, 12 killed in action, dozens wounded in action, I never saw a marine cry or get angry. The only time I ever saw that happen was when an Iraqi civilian was killed or wounded by mistake. So the level of compassion of the troops on a broad statistical level, as far as what I've seen, is unquestionable. There have been abuse, and all of that but that's a separate issue." [end Kaplan quote]

It reminds me of Gen. MacArthur's speech at West Point:

"And 20 years after, on the other side of the globe, again the filth of murky foxholes, the stench of ghostly trenches, the slime of dripping dugouts; those boiling suns of relentless heat, those torrential rains of devastating storms; the loneliness and utter desolation of jungle trails; the bitterness of long separation from those they loved and cherished; the deadly pestilence of tropical disease; the horror of stricken areas of war; their resolute and determined defense, their swift and sure attack, their indomitable purpose, their complete and decisive victory -- always victory. Always through the bloody haze of their last reverberating shot, the vision of gaunt, ghastly men reverently following your password of: Duty, Honor, Country.

The code which those words perpetuate embraces the highest moral laws and will stand the test of any ethics or philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift of mankind. Its requirements are for the things that are right, and its restraints are from the things that are wrong.

The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training -- sacrifice.

In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when he created man in his own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of the Divine help which alone can sustain him.

However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind."

Source: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/douglasmacarthurthayeraward.html

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