In today’s WSJ, editorialist Daniel Henninger examines retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez’ much ballyhooed “Iraq is a nightmare” speech to military affairs writers and editors. Like others, Henninger (whose Op-Ed lies behind a subscription wall) notes that the media was much happier to pass along the general’s criticism of the White House, Congress and the federal bureacracy than they were his fulminations against the Fourth Estate itself:
“It seems that as long as you get a front-page story there is little or no regard for the ‘collateral damage’ you will cause. Personal reputations have no value and you report with total impunity and are rarely held accountable for unethical conduct. . . . [Y]ou assume that you are correct and on the moral high ground.”
Henninger further illuminates the general’s themes on the Bush administration, both parties in Congress and the State Department in particular. But like any good pundit – such do exist – he leaves the instant heat and noise of the recent kerfuffle in his wake and attempts to analyze what it all means – especially in the light of Sanchez’ insistence that leaving Iraq abroil because of our internal divisions should not be considered a viable option:
“Clearly,” he says, “mistakes have been made by the American military in its application of power. But even its greatest failures in this war can be linked to America’s lack of commitment, priority and moral courage in this war effort‚ĶAmerica has not been fully committed to win this war…”
In politics, a degree of disunity is normal. But in our time, partisan disunity has become the norm. The purpose of politics now is to thwart, to stop.
We may have underestimated how corrosive our disunity has been on the troops in Iraq, and how deeply it has damaged us.
Those of us in politics — politicians, reporters, bureaucrats — are largely inured to all this, and we seem to have assumed that the system shares our infinite capacity for antipathy and tumult. But is this occupational toughness natural to politics, or is it cynicism? I don’t think the soldiers or the American people see the difference.
Arguably it is the proper role of politics to intervene, to question. But during Vietnam and again now, we haven’t been able to avoid simultaneously putting troops on the battlefield while fighting bitterly amongst ourselves at home for the length of the war.
The U.S. officer corps is aware of this. While no one is talking about a stab in the back, they may conclude that the home front and its institutions are unable to, or will not, protect their back.
One may ask: Will we ever want to do this again? Are we able to undertake military missions that prove difficult? Or is the projection of U.S. military power into the world an idea that now irreparably divides the American people?
These are critically important questions, and the answers will define the size and shape of our armed forces, how those forces might be employed, what committments to our allies we intend to honor and the kinds of things we are willing to tolerate – or not – in our adversaries. We owe it to ourselves to have an open conversation about what kind of nation we intend to be and how we intend to interact with the world.
The next 13 months or so would be a great opportunity to do so.
Lex …
The deep fissures between our political parties desperately need to be healed by efforts at mutual respect [sadly missing at this point in time]. I have been more or less attentive to our politics since I was a young teenager at the start of the second world war, and I have never before seen the level of intense hatred we have reached today. We must try to heal those fissures before the nation as a whole descends into frantic infighting, despair and destruction.
We used to be able to disagree without trying to destroy each other and all of our descendants. I remember.
The mainstream print media has been and is totally complicit in this mess. There were great newspapers in my youth. The Christian Science Monitor, The Milwaukee Journal, and many papers similar in content and dedication found in our midsized American cities. Even the New York Times was one of them in those days. Almost all are gone now, eaten up and distorted by Boards of Directors and Editors whose first duty is toward some skewed inner ideas and loyalties which have nothing to do with presenting the news as fairly and objectively as possible, and everything to do with making the story fit preconceived notions of what it should say … what the “facts” should be. After all, people, every story has at least two sides, doesn’t it?
Along the way, these entities have not only deserted their own loyalties to our wonderful country, to the American Dream, they have successfully demonized civil disagreement, so that anyone who disagrees with their points of view is automatically evil, and “needs killin’ ” as the old frontier expression goes. I sometimes think that Congress was better back when they fought it out with pistols for two, coffee for one. At least, after that, they could make a stab at getting back to thinking clearly, with all that testosterone out of the way.
Is there no way out of this morass? Have our elected leaders so polarized their views that rational agreement is beyond hope? What course can we can endorse that might persuade officials to support objectives that are less destructive to our national welfare?
Marianne Matthews
Henninger’s commentaries are usually available at OpinionJournal:
http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110010748
He’s a treasure!
5 years and counting…
Since Congress authorized the use of force in Iraq.
Ive been trying hard to fix in my mind the recent controversies over remarks made by LT. Gen Ricardo Sanchez, as well as the testimony of Gen Petreaus last month ….
I do think that America no longer has the guts to engage in a foreign war. The general public is so inundated with negative news that it is nearly impossible for us to make any kind of headway against the enemies that assault us daily and the creeping change in society that appeases our enemies.
I watch what is happening in Europe quite closely. I find that we are about 15 years behind the mindset of Europe.
That is to allow any and all to come to our land and change our land to suit them under the terms we set up when this kind of invasion was unthinkable.
In addition, we are closely following the EU model, albet 15 years retarded, regarding our social programs.
I really don’t think that we will be able to sustain our military strength and numbers much longer. The American people long for the European model, which we all know to be a chimera based on the U.S. providing security. Never the less, the Europeans SEEM to have the budget for a great welfare state which we do not because we are busy protecting everyone else.
I whole heartedly disagree with placing defensive missle systems in Eastern Europe. If the Europeans don’t want to institute this and pay for them then I say good luck! Let the Iranians blast you back to the stone age!
I find the idea of the U.S. placing missle systems in Eastern Europe, no matter what their target, to be unnecessarily provacative but also another “Nanny measure” for Europe.
I just wonder, when the U.S. Navy is reduced to the strength of the U.K. Navy, who will protect the sea lanes? Maybe Blackwater???? Will we have privateers out there keeping the sea lanes open? I think it might happen.
“These are critically important questions…”
I wonder if we’re even allowed to ask the questions and expect the courtesy of an answer these days? The recent kerfluffle with Media Matters and Rush Limbaugh, and add in the shocked, shocked (!) reaction of the punditry class regarding Ann Coulter’s preference for a Christian nation, raising the question is now proof of one’s ism-du-jour. Racisism, sexism, anti-semitism, you name it or make it up, the -ism that prompted the question is a crime, the question itself not even worth the afterthought of answering.
Funny how a group that supposedly respects diversity in all its forms doesn’t seem to hold much for diversity of opinion, or seem disposed to argue the merits of their position vs. the person posing the opposing view.
On the plus side it does make for very short conversations with boring people.
“Well, women and men are different.” – Me.
“That’s sexist!” – some woman.
“That’s why there’s more than one sex, so we’d have something to compare against.” – Me.
– Max