Victor Davis Hanson: The War and Its Critics

Most genres don’t require footnotes—the memoir, the essay, the journalistic dispatch. I’ve written histories that had too many footnotes—The Other Greeks had citations to ancient sources in the text, explanations with asterisks at the bottom of the page, and formal endnotes at the back of the book—and memoirs like Fields Without Dreams and Mexifornia with no citations.

But when you write history, and especially history of a contentious nature about Iraq, in which so much is at stake, it is incumbent to identify primary sources. The last three books about the supposed mess in Iraq—Cobra II, Fiasco, and now State of Denial—violate every canon of intellectual courtesy. Check who said what in Cobra II and you find the following: “Interview, former senior military officer”, “Interview, former senior officer”, “Interview, former Centcom planner,” Interview, Pentagon Officials,” “Interview, U.S. State Department Official,” or “notes of a participant.”

When the readers encounter the most controversial and damning of verbatim quotes in Fiasco, they are presented with “said a Bush administration official” or “recalled one officer.” Woodward is ever more derelict, in imagining not just the conversations, but even the thoughts of characters. And lest one think I am unduly critical in questioning the veracity of these unnamed sources—whose authenticity can never be checked by anyone other than the journalists who now write out popular histories—examine the recent record of journalists at the New York Times and Washington Post, and more recent stories such as the Koran flushing at Guantanamo or the photshopped pictures from Lebanon. But even more specifically, Ricks himself in the course of promoting Fiasco, repeated rumors from unidentified (“some”) sources that the Israelis deliberately exposed their civilians to rocket attacks from Lebanon to gain sympathy from the world community: “According to some U.S. military analysts … Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they’re being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon.” He was immediately called to substantiate those unproven charges. After considerable damage done to the reputation of the Israeli Dense Force had been done, Ricks backed down and apologized for his unsupported allegations with a weak mea culpa about his revelations “Ugh. I wish I hadn’t.”

Every source in Cobra II, Fiasco, or State of Denial, may be accurate, but we will never know that, because for a variety of reasons the authors who claim they worked from notes and recordings, chose not to identify the most inflammatory sources by name. It would be as if I wrote a history of the Peloponnesian War and, to support my most controversial points, added footnotes that stated “A manuscript in the Vatican,” or “Private letter to author from anonymous Greek shepherd attesting a stone altar in his field”

Finally, note the silence from the numerous critics of the “Path to 9/11” who objected to the film’s adaptation of the 9/11 report. But that docu-drama clearly identified itself as a fictionalized rendition of a document, and made no claims as history. In contrast, this new genre of journalistic exposé purports to give us the real story of Iraq, but denies us the very tools of determining whether what we are reading is true, half-true, or simply made up.

Everything that needs to be said about Iraq has. Long gone is any surprise that most current critics of the war were its one-time boosters, much less that it matters much.

Still, a book will be written about the public fickleness of prominent columnists, pundits, politicians, and TV talking heads and hosts, who now damn our efforts, but once were gung-ho in their support of removing Saddam—and crowed as much when the statue fell.

My rule of thumb is that almost every current, know-it-all critic, whether a Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Chris Matthews (“we are all neo-cons now”), Francis Fukuyama, etc., at one time or another voiced support for removing Saddam and bringing war to Iraq.

One constant in their various escape hatches is that a particular lapse, a certain mistake alone explains their abandonment of earlier zeal—too few troops, disbanding the Iraqi army, not trisecting the country, the tenure of Donald Rumsfeld, etc.

In contrast, the simple truth is too bitter to confess: their support follows the pulse of the battlefield. When the statue fell and approval for the war hovered near 80%, few wanted to be on the wrong side of history. But fast forward three years plus: after well over 2,000 battle deaths, and chaos in Iraq, most not only don’t wish to be associated with the stasis, but contort to assure that they never supported the war in the beginning (hard to do with footprints on the internet), or were supposedly betrayed by the incompetence of others.

I admit to being somewhat jaded: 80% of most people have no ideology or widely-held views, but simply reflect perceptions of failure or success. Those who praised Lincoln to the skies when Sherman reached Savannah in December 1864, just months earlier had hated him during the awful prior summer. Those who later sang Churchill’s praises after El Alamein and Normandy Beach surely did not earlier after the string of disasters at Dunkirk, Singapore, and Tobruk. Those who wrote in praise of massive B-17 raids deep into Germany in early 1945, escorted by hundreds of lethal P-51 Mustangs, had written off daylight unescorted bombing in 1942 as an aerial holocaust. The point, again, is that in the middle of a war, savvy is apparently defined as changing positions and views to keep pace with the upside-downside battlefield, rather than looking at the long-term conduct of the war.

My own views remain the same. While I didn’t support removing Saddam prior to September 11, I am glad we did afterwards. While there were plenty of errors committed—no American should ever have appeared on Iraqi television; Tommy Franks should not have abruptly abandoned the theater; instant ad-hoc solutions were preferable to long-term utopian efforts at perfection—none of these lapses were as serious as those in the past in the hedgerows, in the skies above Germany in 1942, on Iwo Jima, or during the days before the Bulge, and none cannot be corrected and learned from.

Iraq is 7,000 miles away, in the heart of the ancient caliphate, surrounded by a hostile Sunni Saudi Arabia, Shiite Iran, and treacherous Jordan and Syria. The war was conducted through three national elections, and became the focus of a hostile global media — much of it predisposed to be critical of the US government and military.

Nevertheless, that we now have a consensual government fighting for its life against terrorists is nothing short of remarkable. Everything and everyone now hinge on the outcome.

The safety of millions of brave Iraqi reformers, the prestige of the United States and its military, the policy of fostering democratic reform in the Middle East, the end to the nexus between failed autocracies and scapegoating the West through terrorists; success of the Bush Administration; the effectiveness of the Democratic opposition; the divide between Europe and America; the attitude toward the United States of the Middle East autocracies; the reputation of the Islamic terrorists — all that will be adjudicated by the verdict in Iraq. Rarely have so many ideologies, so much politics, so many reputations been predicated on just a few thousand American combat soldiers and their Iraq allies.

I also confess, at this point I have a very reductionist, very Jacksonian view now of Americans in Iraq: America went in for the right purposes, conducted itself with honor and humanity, was still good when it was not perfect; and can leave something far better than what it found—if it will make the necessary adjustments, as in all of its past wars, and persevere. 130,000 took us at our word and are in harm’s way as a result. So I don’t care much to refight the argument over who was smart and who stupid—only how best to support out troops and ensure they win at the least possible cost.

A final note. At some point all these retired generals need to simply quiet down and think. In World War II, Nimitz or Eisenhower never blamed the Secretary of War or FDR for the mistakes on Iwo Jima or the Kasserine Pass. Instead, they called in their top brass, drew up a plan, followed it, and then presented a successful fait accompli to their civilian overseers. In other words, our four-stars need to summon their colonels and majors in the field, draw up a military strategy that ensures our political aims of seeing a stable consensual Iraq, and then win. Blaming Bush, or faulting Rumsfeld is a waste of time; figuring out as military officers how to achieve victory over a canny enemy is all that matters.

Pedophilia (“love of children”) is different from pederasty (“desire for boys”); each term uses the Greek prefix pais/paidion differently, since the Greek word can refer both to the generic “children” and the gender-specific “boy.” In addition, “—philia” is the more abstract “love” and covers any and all type of contacts, while the “-erast- root came to mean sexual union largely in a male context.

Why the distinction? It seems that Congressman Foley in not a pedophile as accused, but rather a classical pederast—that is, he is an active male homosexual interested mostly in adolescent boys rather than men his own age. Given his proclivities, I doubt there is much controversy over what he was intending in his emails, or his aims with Congressional pages. What is strange, however, is why some of the Republicans have hesitated to damn his behavior, which reminds me of something right out of Aristophanes.

Were Foley a military officer, and wrote such things to an enlisted man, he would immediately have been court-martialed. And those now sort of, kind of, almost defending him on grounds that there is no acutal, concrete, proof that he consummated his desires, had he written such graphic and sickening things to their own teen-boys, would have had him jailed—or worse.

How odd, this controversy: traditional moralists like some of the Republicans are defending a predatory pederast who seems to be infatuated with teen-age Congressional pages who are entrusted as near children to his care, while Democrats, who have made it a point not to criticize one’s “life-style” choices (remember the Barney Frank case) are suddenly outraged over the overly-liberal parameters in which Foley was allowed to operate.

Still Republicans need to wise up: this is a losing issue since the public doesn’t really care whether the Democrats are hypocritical, using scandal for partisan advantage, or hysterical in seeking headlines: the facts determine the case: a US Congressman wrote sexually suggestive messages designed to entice an underage subordinate employee. End of story. All this is left to doubt now, is how much the Republicans will hurt themselves if they persist in whining about partianship rather than condemning pederastic flirting.

With all do respect Dr Hanson, your take on Iraq is far too influenced by the Junk Media's nonsense and far too little based on actual facts about Iraq.

http://icasualties.org/oif/

http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Security_Forces

Listening to all the Media hysteria over Bob Woodward's latest attempt to be the new Kitty Kelly, one is struck by just how wrong the Drive By Media is on every aspect of the Iraq War.

Here is the raw data on Iraq. Seems Bob Woodward latest work is simply a regurgitation of every falsehood, half truth and exaggeration present by the Junk Media on Iraq since 2003.

In a vain attempt to falsely validate preconceived notions, Mr Woodward demonstrated how the Left has managed to be wrong on every aspect of the Iraq War. Mr Woodward's central thesis is that attacks are "as high as they have ever been". Perhaps that is true. Even if true those attacks are getting less and less effective. If conditions are worsening why were the Iraqis taking higher monthly casualties in 2004 and 2005 with a smaller force?

Simply put BW, like the rest of the American Political Left is full of it. They have had their minds made up about Iraq from even before the war started. In his latest work it is clear Mr Woodward simply went to find people who would say what he wanted to hear. It is also becoming apparent that when he did not hear what he wanted, Mr Woodward simply misquoting the source to put his Democrat Party Masters spin on the data. Apparently this current book is his act of atonement to the DC Establishment for writing a fairly balanced book on President Bush last time.

If you chart the data at the sources above, you see a base line of violence. While the violence ebbs and flows the base line is steady at 65 Coalition casualties a month. The Iraqis are averaging a steady 200 casualties a month. No sustained rise in baseline casualties to validate the "Iraq is heading for Civil War" Democrat Media Machine spin.

What is particularly significant about the Iraqi Security Forces casualties is they are averaging the same casualty levels with a much larger force. As of Aug 2006 there is a 300,000 Iraqi security force in the field with about 5,000 being added a month. By the end of the year the Iraqi Security Forces will be complete fielded. Right now out of 18 provinces in Iraq only 2 are considered "not ready" for transition to Iraqi control. Of course the two provinces are Anbar, the province along the Syrian border and Basrah the Shi'a stronghold along the border with Iran. Yet even in both those areas significant progress has been made just in September 2006 alone.

In Anbar the Iraqi tribes have entered into an agreement to work with the Iraqi Government to root out the foreign terrorist groups. In Basrah, the British and Iraqi forces just started operations to crack down on the Shi'a militias.

Iraq: British, Iraq troops begin Basra mission

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1709154/posts

Most Tribes in Anbar Agree to Unite Against Insurgents (The NY Times is deeply saddened)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1703582/posts

This data totally undercuts the spin presented by Bob Woodward, and other Democrat Party propagandists, that Iraq is "heading for Civil War" or is "spinning out of control".

What Woodward et all seem to fixate on is Iraqi Civilian casualties. What they forget is a terrorist or a militia member killed in intra tribal gang warfare is considered "an Iraqi civilian casualty". So when you hear a news story that says "40 bodies discovered around Baghdad" MOST of them are probably casualties from gang on gang violence. While that violence is an on growing crises we and the Iraqis will have to deal with, it is not a fundamental threat to the long term survival of the Iraqi Government.

Obviously the immediate counter the Leftist propagandists will claim is that ;We are not making fast enough progress" That is nonsense.

look at the data on Iraqi security forces. More and more of the job is being taken up by Iraqi forces. 2 of 18 Providence have been turned over to complete Iraqi control. Out of 18 Iraqi provinces all but 2 are at least partially under Iraqi control All the progress in the war is on our side. The enemy is making no progress. Time is on our side, not theirs.

Another factor on Iraq the Leftists fails to grasp is how the war in Iraq has fundamentally changed in the last 6 months. Because the external Terrorist threat has been significantly reduced, we are able to focus on other lesser threats. Witness what the British down south, and the US in the Baghdad region, are doing. They are working with the Iraqis to weed out the gangs and militia that sprung up in the wake of Saddam's fall.

Counter Insurgency is slow, painful work. But the progress is all on our side. The "Insurgents" has demonstrated no ability to politically or militarily evolve. Guerrilla war strategy consists of 3 phases.

1. Stage one: very small unit harassment actions.

2. Stage two: continuation of state one with an evolution to large units actions. Development of larger and large geographic areas fully under Guerrilla control.

3. Stage three: conventional warfare between large units.

The Terrorists are still stuck in stage one of Guerrilla Warfare. They can wreck stuff and kill people they cannot grow. They cannot take and hold ground or engage in anything beyond small scale hit and run attacks.

Their failure to develop a shadow political structure to act as a polar opposite to the Iraqi Government is their fatal flaw. They simply lack the structure or local support network needed to move beyond state one

The claims and assumptions stated as "fact" by the Junk Media on Iraq are fraudulent. Considering how much they have got wrong on Ira, one has to wonder just what else he make up for their "News"?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.