Original photo by Hubert Van Es for Reuters
After Lewis M. Simons’ empty anti-war diatribe published on the front page of last Sunday’s Washington Post Outlook section (which I fisked liberally here), I was intrigued to find an article by Victor Davis Hanson on today’s Outlook front page — beneath the fold understandably because of Hurricane Katrina, but no less prominent than last week’s liberal elitist rant. In “Why We Must Stay in Iraq,” Hanson, a classicist and historian, articulates clearly many reasons why Iraq is no Vietnam. He draws on contrasts with not only Vietnam itself, but on parallels with World War II and its aftermath, in order to emphasize how important it is that we remain and fight the good fight.
We forget that once war breaks out, things usually get far worse before they get better. We should remember that 1943, after we had entered World War II, was a far bloodier year than 1938, when the world left Hitler alone. Similarly, 2005 may have brought more open violence in Iraq than was visible during Saddam’s less publicized killings of 2002. So it is when extremists are confronted rather than appeased. But unlike the time before the invasion, when we patrolled Iraq’s skies while Saddam butchered his own with impunity below, there is now a hopeful future for Iraq.
Hanson concedes the obvious desire to draw Vietnam parallels, in view of the similarities of asymmetrical warfare and the savageness of our enemies. “But make no mistake,” he writes, “Iraq is not like Vietnam, and it must not end like Vietnam.” One tremendous difference I see between the Vietnam War and the War in Iraq is the underlying cause and geopolitical climate of each. It as obvious as it is critical to understand: the Global War on Terrorism is a Hot War with few borders, not the Cold War against communism of the Korea and Vietnam eras that involved build-up, stand-off, and mutually assured destruction between the US and the USSR.
With the Cold War there were costly yet relatively contained flare-ups, huge armament build-ups, and much posturing — a war of isometric tension, not of all-out assault. With the ascendant GWOT, the first volleys came unprovoked from the Islamofascists, and at least as early as the first attack on the Word Trade Center in 1993. Our enemy has no national allegiance, is widely dispersed, and is most often cloaked — waiting to strike terror into the souls of the innocent and thereby weaken their enemy The West.
Something that the leftist elites seem painfully unable to grasp is the true aim of the Islamofascists: a New Caliphate, with utter destruction of everything Western. Negotiation? A non-starter. As Michael Ledeen explains in “Defeating Fascism, Again,” his October 2003 NRO article:
In one important respect, the current jihad is more like the German variation [of Nazi fascism]: The notion that all believers are part of a greater whole, transcending national boundaries. Hitler had his Reich, Osama wants his Caliphate, and Khomeini foresaw a global Islamic state in which all believers would be brought together in an irresistible unity.
We all recall what negotiation with Hitler bought Europe: only a little time and a stronger Third Reich. Ledeen goes on in his article to describe the fall of fascist states at the hands of decisive military defeat and observes this pattern:
…[O]nce the regimes were revealed to be vulnerable, once the leaders were seen to be as corrupt and as fallible as any others, the tide began to turn.
The pressing need following 9/11 has been to set defeat after decisive defeat against the al Qaeda brand of Islamofascism — which, contrary to what we are fed by the MSM and the leftist elites, was nesting in Iraq well before Saddam fell. [See Cao’s recent detailing of the Iraq-al Qaeda connection in her three-part series: Part I, Part II, and especially Part III. ] To cast these defeats to the enemy, we must not waver. Hanson articulates the stakes of the GWOT in the face of Vietnamesque defeatism thus:
The specter of Vietnam will also turn on those who embrace it. Iraq is not a surrogate theater of the Cold War, where national liberationists, fueled by the romance of radical egalitarianism, are fortified by nearby Marxist nuclear patrons. The jihadists have an 8th-century agenda of gender apartheid, religious intolerance and theocracy.
What part of this threat do the anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-American anointed liberal elite simply not understand? It boggles the mind. Indeed, see my colleague GM Roper at GM’s Corner for a mind-numbing look at a possible future, should we fail to hold back and reject this Islamofascist threat.
Hanson is bullish on the future of Iraq, as long as American forces remain to fulfill the mission: to protect a fledgling Iraqi democracy from those who promise virgins in paradice in return for an Islamist caliphate. “For all its pyrotechnics, the call for a glorious return to the Dark Ages has found no broad constituency,” he notes. Iraqis are making clear their wishes to the contrary as they progress — a stumble here or there, granted — toward a constitutional and representative government. America and it’s allies have been nursing them along with military and infrastructure support, and to great success — especially given the ruinous condition of Saddam’s Iraq. Hanson is a bit frustrated, as many on the right have been, that this positive message fails to sink in — not spin as leftist detractors would call it, but truth as currently unreported by the MSM.
Indulge me while I excerpt the last section of Hanson’s article largely unedited, as it’s one of the most profound statements I’ve read on the progress we’re making over there:
Yes, the administration must account to the American people for the radically humanitarian sacrifices of American lives we are making on behalf of the freedom of Kurds and Shiites. It must remind us that we are engaging murderers of a sort not seen since the Waffen SS and the suicide killers off Okinawa. And it must tell us that victory is our only option and explain in detail how and why we are winning.
[…]
A few days ago, while the networks were transfixed by Cindy Sheehan (or was it Aruba?), the United States military, in conjunction with Iraqi forces, was driving out jihadists from Mosul — where the terrorists are being arrested and killed in droves. Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla of the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, who had worked for months to create an atmosphere of mutual understanding on the city’s streets, was severely wounded as he led his men to clear out a terrorist hideaway. The jihadist who shot him — who had recently been released from Abu Ghraib — was not killed, but arrested and given medical care by U.S. surgeons.
Not long before he was wounded, Lt. Col. Kurilla had delivered a eulogy for three of his own fallen men. Posted on a military Web site, it showed that he, far better than most of us, knows why America is there:
“You see — there are 26 million people in Iraq whose freedom we are fighting for, against terrorists and insurgents that want a return to power and oppression, or worse, a state of fundamentalist tyranny. Some of whom we fight are international terrorists who hate the fact that in our way of life we can choose who will govern us, the method in which we worship, and the myriad other freedoms we have. We are fighting so that these fanatical terrorists do not enter the sacred ground of our country and we have to fight them in our own backyard.”
With recent competition from Circus Sheehan on one extreme and Disaster Katrina on other, it seems a herculean task for President Bush to maintain focus on Iraq and the GWOT while still being a compassionate and strong leader during our nation’s own tragedy. In the face of both partisan attacks and natural disaster, he must press forward with the long-term view. Wholesale suffering is facing our homeland as it rarely has before; soon too will re-emerge a fight for not one, but two Supreme Court vacancies unlike any in the modern history of this nation. So it will be understandably hard for Bush to buoy support of Iraq and convey its lynchpin role in winning the Global War on Terrorism.
And yet: our nation may appear as if swept by a hundred Katrinas, should we lose the GWOT and the Islamofascist Caliphate win out. The first step toward allowing such an unacceptable end would be to let this “Iraq equals Vietnam” nonsense continue to fester in the American psyche unchallenged.
A prouder image — Photo by TSGT Russell CooleyIV, U.S. Air Force, 1St Combat Camera Sq.
Related posts:
Iraq Is No Vietnam - Another View
Iraq Is No Vietnam 2 - A Fairytale of Two Wars
Cross-posted at TMH’s Bacon Bits
Said The MaryHunter @ 3:56 pm | Permalink
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Very nice piece, TMH. There is hope, we must stay the course. Me and my family have made our sacrifices, it’s worth everything to me to know that my grandchildren will be living under an American flag, enjoying all the freedoms I had, and not under sharia law and the flag of the moongod.
We.must.win.
Comment by Cao — 9/4/2005 @ 4:12 pm
Damn, TMH, when you are good, you’re good, but this time you are STUPENDOUS!!
Comment by GM — 9/4/2005 @ 4:20 pm