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said President Roosevelt (T), "and carry a big stick." Sounds like good
strategy for a country ready to take on the whole world. Yet for much of its
history this country has been just the opposite. Many Americans believe the
military power of the country is absolute and the leaders of the country can
win any war they choose to enter if they are only resolute enough to push
through to victory. In fact, often the bluster is hollow. Wars are lost, we
are told, because Democrats surrender. The insistence that "we've never lost
a war" persists as a slogan, though often it is the Republicans like
Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon who surrender. The ideal wars for these "no substitute for victory" people are pushover victories like the Mexican and Spanish American wars, the First Gulf War and the so-called American Indian wars. The most terrible of our wars was the Civil War, which both sides thought could be ended in three months. |
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The war of 1812 ended with Washington in ruins, the White House torched and the only victory in New Orleans after the peace treaty was signed. However, such celebrators of American victories as Senators Lieberman and McCain insist that anything less than victory betrays the country and those who have already died. Humiliating compromises like Korea and Vietnam -- and like any compromise in Iraq has to be -- are the works of defeatists, traitors and unpatriotic Democrats. If we chant "USA!" Often enough, sing "God Bless America!" fervently enough, wear flag pins, fly the flag in front of our house and croak the national anthem loudly enough, we will win victory and honor our dead heroes. |
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Who are those who reject compromise of a useless and criminally deadly war like Iraq? They are the blusterers, members of "veteran's organizations," mountain folk, crackers, West Texans, blue collar workers, evangelical clergy, neo-cons, Republicans, white ethnics, Sox fans, folks who want Cardinal George to "get rid" of Father Pfleger, those who tell you with a straight face that the country isn't ready yet for a black president and that the United States must rid itself of "illegal aliens." (I hasten to add that all these groups number some men and women who are innocent of bellicose patriotism.) The second gulf war looked like it would be a "cake walk" just like the first. "Shock and awe" and "Special Forces" would knock over Saddam Hussein's regime. Just like firing on Fort Sumter. The war has been prolonged by defeatist left-wing Democrats, right? So now that the Russians have attacked our hapless Georgian allies, we must teach the Russians a lesson. How can we do that since we don't have any available troops to send to Tibilisi and the public is not ready to support the dispatch of the Marines to the Caucasus mountains? We go after the Russians with the big vocal stick. Columnists and editorial writers denounce them. Condoleezza tells the Russians what they "need" to do. Senator McCain reads the riot act to them. Mr. Putin is patently shaking in his boots. As for the Georgians, well too bad for them. If they had read any recent American history, they would know the louder the noise in this country, the smaller our actual help. We are four flushers, as the European "Captive Nations" could have told them. When a country finally managed to get rid of Russian troops, they didn't get much help from us. Of course we took credit for tearing down the walls. Didn't President Reagan, in one of the great grandstander plays in human history, demand that the Russians tear down the Brandenburger Tor? Now altogether -- "Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!"
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 A Stupid, Unjust, And Criminal War: Iraq 2001-2007 Father Greeley calls to task those who justified, planned and executed the war and reminds us that God weeps at the destruction of war, whether lives lost are ‘ours’ or ‘theirs.’  Order
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