“[The] combination of national leadership with no military expertise and a population that hasn’t been taught the cost of freedom leaves us with a government that does whatever seems expedient and a citizenry that believes whatever’s comfortable. Thus, myths about war thrive.”
Myth No. 1: War doesn’t change anything.
Thanks for posting this. I am going to print it out and take it to my in-laws so that I can survive Thanksgiving. There is no piling on like liberal relatives piling on.
Awesome. Tnx.
Actor RICHARD GERE said WAR NEVER SOLVED ANYTHING dumb hollywood ignoramus if it were not for the AMERICAN REVOLUTION we sould still be a british subjects and if it were not for WW II we would be under a dictator and if he said anything bad about his dictator he would have been dragged to the nearists concentration camp
My wife often says violence never solved anything, to which I reply, “It solved Hitler”. Good post.
That was a good read. Unfortunately, there are lots of pacifists out there who love the convenience of their “freedoms”, provided by the blood of the soldier, without incurring any duty/responsibiity on their own part.
They are quite comfortable in their hypocrisy of hiding behind the gun of the soldier, or policeman, while at the same time issuing a smug condemnation of the use of force.
I listen, and consider, arguments made by people of opposing viewpoints, as I like a good argument and also appreciate when my arguements are seriously considered as well.
However, I do not tolerate pacifists and defeatists. Unless they are willing to go into a country/situation like Zimbabwe, N Korea, etc and make their bold statements there then I consider these people as pond-scum.
That’s a great find, commonsense with an overview of history. Two obvious points that pacifists and knuckleheaded lefties especially in Europe have yet to figure out: “The good news is that in over 3,000 years of recorded history, insurgencies motivated by faith and blood overwhelmingly failed. The bad news is that they had to be put down with remorseless bloodshed.”….and…. “The harsh truth is that when faced with true fanatics, killing them is the only way to end their influence. Imprisoned, they galvanize protests, kidnappings, bombings and attacks that seek to free them.”.
Anyone really think that the majority of those jihadis imprisoned at Guantanamo wouldn’t be back to the business of murder and mayhem in a heartbeat when released? They can rot there until the WOT is over. Killing them outright as they engage us in Afghanistan and Iraq makes sense to me.
Amazing article. Thanks, Kate.
War is the natural extention of political will when diplomacy breaks down.
War has done more to settle accounts with tyrants than any other human process.
Violence solves lots of things.
It’s the unintended consequences that are such a b%tch to deal with. Doing the right thing means accepting responsibility for those consequences.
I find that liberals as a matter of their nature do not like responsibility and that’s the real reason they don’t in general have the desire to do the right thing. It’s all about trying to avoid consequences and responsibility.
Amazing link Kate. Thanks so much for posting this. It reaffirms why I voted for you multiple times for best Canadian blog.
The article is well worth consideration. Thanks Kate…
Excellent post indeed and much needed to-day. I also think people need to know that the so-called peace movements were created and financed by the communists in order to undermine Western society, and it is sad to see just how effective it has become.
The threat we face now is greater than any of the past due to the refusal to identify the enemy. This is a first indeed and prevents us from winning this war thus far. It still amazes me how this can be when our enemy openly states his intentions and then carries them out. Our denial and complaisance can only bring defeat, especially when we allow enemy elements among us to flaunt our laws and demande that their host adapt to them and their ways.
This guy heavily skews things toward conflict and violence. Though war is a fact of life, and always has been but that does not allow us to shirk our responsibility to treat war with the gravity and respect it deserves. An article like this just serves to make war and conflict more acceptable. The article attempts to diminish the value of legitimate diplomatic options and is really geared to preaching to those who believe war is a forgone conclusion than presenting a well formed discussion.
Comments:
Myth 1: War Does not change anything. War can change things for the better as indicated but it can just as easily leave things unchanged or make them worse. War is the failure of diplomacy and should be seen and treated as an abhorrent event. Each conflict needs to be judged on its own merits balancing the cost with expected gain. What also needs to be judged is the legality of the conflict and their are clear expectation set by the UN that most nations subscribe too which define a legal war. For war to change things for the better you need a clear plan and reasonable chance for success. Though the US and British enjoyed significant success in the conventional portion of the Iraq war their lack of forethought created serious problems that may in the end, be worse than the situation they proported to solve.
Myth #2: Victory is impossible today; When dealing with conventional military forces in industrialized countries this maybe untrue. Asymmetric warfare is a problem that has yet to be solved in any real sense. You can win if you don’t fight. Diplomacy and negotiation cost less and generally provide better results than war and are always preferable. He goes on to discuss outdated historical precedent. The truth is that things today are significantly different.
Myth No. 3: Insurgencies can never be defeated.
Asymmetric warfare is a problem that has yet to be solved in any real sense in recent history. The economies of scale for a force facing insurgent activity are extremely high. If care is not taken to prevent the killing of innocent people the standing force will loose support. Many of the insurgents are fighting proxy wars and are well financed. Furthermore, the difficulty in justifying foreign missions on the home front makes justifying losses due to insurgency more and more difficult. Insurgencies can be defeated but the cost is high and progress is not easily measured. Basically it’s an attempt to inflict attrition until the will to stay is eroded.
Myth No. 4: There’s no military solution; only negotiations can solve our problems. Military solutions do have their time and place. In general leaders move towards conflict far too readily. Hey what use is this big stick I’m carrying if I can’t beat someone with it? How can I get someone to pay for a bigger stick if I’m not using the one I got already? Tongue in cheek but such is the world of politics today. Negotiation and diplomacy is the preferred route. The problems currently faced in Iraq were caused by the invasion. The problems related to Saddam have been addressed but can anyone with a straight face claim that this was the only alternative and that the results we have today are so compellingly positive that we do not rethink our position on the value of the invasion?
Myth No. 5: When we fight back, we only provoke our enemies. “if you don’t fight back, you encourage your enemy to behave more viciously.” Can the insurgents not claim this as well? This attitude creates is a perpetual cycle of escalation and violence. The entire cold war was a fine balancing act that avoided this premise completely. If the US and Sovs went toe to toe it would be unlikely that we would be here right now. Careful and deliberate, planning, negotiations and diplomacy are the better alternative.
Myth No. 6: Killing terrorists only turns them into martyrs. Our goal should be to be better than the terrorists. Our goal should be not to kill them but to defend ourselves from them and if possible bring them to justice. Sure they don’t follow our rules but why debase ourselves and lower ourselves to the lowest common denominator. Our goal should be proving to everyone in affected populations that there are more effective alternatives. In the end this is the way peace was reached in Ireland.
Myth No. 7: If we fight as fiercely as our enemies, we’re no better than them. Our soldiers should fight to the best of their abilities the problem with ferocity is it connotes an emotional element more specifically an uncontrolled emotional element. This can and does lead to crimes perpetrated by our troops. We must be rational, objective, and above all professional. The west has highly trained professional armies and they should be treated as such. I hold our troops to the high standards I know they have been trained to respect.
Myth No. 9: Our invasion of Iraq created our terrorist problems. Actually it did. Terrorism existed before the invasion, no doubt about that (9/11 being an obvious and extreme example), but the level of increase in terrorist activity has increased substantially afterwards in relation to the invasion of Iraq and too a lesser extent Afghanistan. This invasion created a rallying point, a focal point for extremists everywhere. The US government has had to stop reporting the incidents of terror because there was no way to spin the fact that the number was rising uncontrollably directly correlated with events in Iraq.
Myth No. 10: If we just leave, the Iraqis will patch up their differences on their own. In Iraq, Pandora’s box has been opened. No hope of closing it. We will be dealing with this for a generation. The current US administration is pushing its agenda though. There are likely options which would be better but given the factions and infighting it’s all likely moot. It is now a regional problem that needs to be solved by Iran, Syria, Turkey, etc… Not much value that the US or UK can add, in fact they maybe detracting from a solution.
Myth No. 11: It’s all Israel’s fault. No. but they do have a hand in maintain the status quo. They benefit from keeping up infighting among Muslim factions. Muslim peace is not in their best interest. A disorganized enemy is something they would prefer. Also the stand to loose billions in military aid if the US can no longer justify the giveaway of military equipment. (I do believe in the right of Israel to exist but I don’t think they are a model country). The Saudis are our friends… they have oil… we need oil… we have money… they need us we need them.
Myth No. 12: The Middle East’s problems are all America’s fault. No. But again they have no vested interest in complete peace the Middle East. They need the oil and want to maintain control by ensuring their are a limited number of regional powers to interfere with its economic motives.
I always love comebacks to the war never solved anything, comment that mention Hiroshima or Carthage,
…
Tell that to someone from Carthage war never solves anything, Oh wait they were all killed, solved that problem for the Romans.
Heinlin might have had that in starship troopers,
Fotis, pray tell us just when “diplomatic options” have succeeded with an aggressive enemy seeking another’s destruction?
Never is the answer. Oh it has been tried by fools as with Hitler without one successful case.
One does not have to like or love war in order to understand that it is required at times, and all this blathering does not change the fact that our enemy has openly and actively declared war on us. Pretending it is not so, is simply ridiculous unless living under a theocracy is fine with you.
Last of all your moral equivalence is disgusting to say the least concerning Israel.
@Fotis:
I left a comment over at the blog that Kate linked to which showed that I was less than awed by the article…even though there was a base point that was worth the read: the antiwar crowd always assumes that the enemy is full of martinets. If the writer’s assumption is true – that the terrorists are mere bullies – then the “antiwar elite” is riding on a false assumption.
Myself, though, I wouldn’t go too far as you did – specifically with regard to myth #9. al-Qai’da was more proactive than you may have realized. America was far more arrogant on the world stage back in the 1950s and 1960s, but all that arrogance prompted back then was mass demonstrations and egging-on of any domestic protestors.
There’s a bit of a kicker regarding the 9/11 attacks. Remember Timothy McVeigh’s favourite book, The Turner Dairies? The date “September 11th” played a pivotal role in that book. (September 11th and 12th, to be precise.) It was on that day that the white-racialist Resistance planned a huge bombing (it may have been a series of them; I don’t quite recall) that killed a few thousand of their fellow Americans. For all I know, bin Laden & Co. got the inspiration from a combo of Turner and those two Columbine psychos who planned to drive a plane into a skyscraper.
Nota bene, folks: al-Qai’da and the racialist Right turned into somewaht of a tag team in the years 1993 to 2001. I’m not trying to inpute racialist sympathies to al-Qai’da; far from it. What I would attribute this tag-team’ing to is…
…al-Qai’da’s political wing attending the wrong cocktail parties. (Think it over, with this hint: bin Laden wanted to provoke an uprising in the U.S….)
dinosaur: I never said that war does not solve anything and I qupote myself “War can change things for the better as indicated but it can just as easily leave things unchanged or make them worse.” Did you even read it? Though understanding of what happened in Carthag makes rattling good ancient history, I’m not sure is applies today. Hiroshima is a differnet matter altogether. We were at TOTAL war with Japan, Germany and Italy. Decisions were made in a completely different context than anything we see today. I’m not saying it will never happen again but trying to draw false linkages is what promotes war like thinking.
Alain: When was the last time we had a war that was explixctly seeking someones destruction? Terrorism is not a war and our efforts to stop it can not be treated as suchor they are doomed to failure. War is geared towards compelling state actors to do something they would jnot otherwise do. All major wars in the recent past have been about resources, ecconomics, or politics. A theocratic motivation for war in my estimatation simply hides a grab for money and power under the guise of religion. An enemies destruction is counter productive. They have been wars of conquest as opposed to wars of destruction (all rhetoric aside). My statements on Israel maybe harsh but I’m not sure why you consider them disgusting.
Ryan and Fotis:
(Yawn)
While you are engaging in mental masturbation, the world goes on, along with conflict an wars, and here’s a little secret: when you are dust, it will continue along the same way. Your Utopian/Marxist ideals mean nothing.
Fotis, you still do not get it. First it is your moral equivalence (from lack of moral compass no doubt concerning Israel and the Muslim world that is disgusting.
Furthermore if you are also unable to figure out that the Islamists who have declared war on the free non Muslim world and who started this war, do not seek to destroy our societies in order to install and impose Islam on us, then it is pointless to debate the issue. Let us give terrorism a rest, because this is not and will never be a war against terrorism. Terrorism remains only one tool the Islamists use in their marche towards conquest.
@Dougie:
There are two times in my life that I’ve been called a Marxist; yours is the second. Interestingly enough, they’ve both happened in the last few years: when I was younger, people were more perceptive.
Apart from your personal reaction, you have said precisely nothing to me. You’d better worry about your own corpse gathering dust.
And how many Jews were saved by appeasement?
( don’t bother answering me, whatever the number – if it exists – it will be so ridiculously low compared to the SIX million who were killed by Nazis that it would only prove my point… )
Agreed. Every word of it. But then I usually do with Ralph Peters. I enjoyed his novels back in the day and he has matured into a brilliant analyst and explainer of both military history and modern practice.
Anti-war people would have to first admit there is an enemy before we could ever discuss war with them.
It seems to me that jaw jaw jaw got us into wwI, wwII and Korea and a millitary solution finished wwI & II. Korea was a political/diplomacy solution. To all you Jack Lay -a- ton of BS’ers out there. Which was better
Fotis, I’m proud of you, there isn’t a lefty canard that you missed. They are easily fashioned into a utilitarian rebuttal, like being on autopilot, aren’t they.
What you didn’t get in this astoundingly original and well reasoned article and can only counter with your astoundingly unoriginal and borrowed from others ideas leaves me, like Doug, yawning. If you were a term paper, your grade would be poor, at a good school anyways, noted as plagarized and not the work of a sincere seeker of truth using logic and reason.
Somewhere between you and me, I learned to distinguish my opinions versus the memorization of others.
My apologies if you were expecting a REAL dialogue.
Fotis said,
A disorganized enemy
is something they [Israel] would prefer.
Actually, they would prefer peace.
Good article … Thanks Kate !
@penny: Thank you for showing a precision that Dougie Boy is evidently incapable of.
It’s an unfortunate fact that many learnings are mere regurgitations; the entire school system is geared towards it. To be reasonable, you can’t expect someone that’s had close to two decades of Q & A-based training to muster an original line of thought when faced with an issue of the day.
Be patient in the realization that the blind are beginning to lead the blind in left-lib land. When twenty-one, I myself was naive enough to believe that the Gulf War would be another Vietnamesque quagmire: I even bet money on such an outcome. I was proven wrong – and spectacularly so. Thankfully, I was pragmatic enough to see a parallel between the antiwar Left and the hyperinflation-is-just-around-the-next-corner goldbugs. Ever since then, I’ve treated the ‘next-Vietnam’ mantra skeptically.
Thanks, Daniel, and may I add that your blog is adorable.
Yep, Fotis is a work in progess, hopefully young and not some fossilized narcissistc of my era spewing the same unoriginal ideas no matter what the circumstances for 30 years now.
Fotis is the “term paper” of our times. Enough said.
@Alain: I’ve got a very strong moral compass. Unfortunately your and mine may not point in the same direction (I’m not saying opposites mid you. Far from Moral equivalence I hold Israel to higher standard than factional groups which oppose it. There will always be groups that oppose Israel (not that I support any violent actions against Israel) and as a state should wield it’s power with restraint and discretion. There have been many times when it has acted appropriately to threats it faced but their have been times when it has not Summer 2006. Also, there is no single person speaking for all people of the Islamic faith so when you make a statement that Islamists have declared war you cast a wide brush which does not do most Islamic people justice.
@Doug: I think you have a reading problem… I don’t think anyone said wars and conflict did not exist and feel they can be avoided at all times. I re-iterate, each situation is unique and should be treated as such. I too have never been characterized as a Marxist or a Utopian more often than not I am characterized as a pragmatist.
@Friend of USA: I Never discussed appeasement. Diplomacy and negotiation does not have to mean capitulation. Point taken about Israel and Peace but I guess so too are the Palestines and other affected parties. But does peace mean the same thing to the both of them.
Daniel: Agreed Terrorists are bullies (by definition) but traditional (conventional) responses to them are unlikely to succeed, IMHO.
Penny: This article was not original. Frankly I’m not sure why you think it was. I have seen every point in some version or another many times previously. Some of the names and faces may have changed but the points are essentially the same. Maybe this explains my autopilot mode? I am not 21 and may actually be of your era but I’ve likely swung around 180 degrees since I was 21. I don’t know if I can be characterized as a fossil though. I’m not in the same place I was 10 years ago and I likely will evolve into something else in another 10 years. I’ve never been called a narcissist before.
As long as there is one asshole on the planet, pacifism cannot work.
“Military history is as often the story of appeasement as of warmongering. The destructive military careers of Alexander the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, and Hitler would all have ended early had any of their numerous enemies united when the odds favored them.”
Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_military_history.html
Was it Robert E. Lee who said something like, “It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we would grow too fond of it.”