Taking a HARD look at the Business of Politics

American War Dead, The Atomic Bomb, and Politics

An odd confluence of events has me thinking about the War in Iraq. So what’s the death toll now? 2,500 or 2,600? Oops 2,911 (Total 2,911 US Dead (2,695 in Iraq, 215 in Afghanistan and 1 at Guantanamo of non-hostile cause) as of September 25th. So how to put it in perspective?

Last weekend was the John Basilione Parade in Raritan, NJ. Never heard of John Basilione? A Congressional Medal of Honor winner in World War II. Only enlisted man to win the Congressional Medal of Honor and Navy Cross, and the Medal of Honor was not awarded posthumously! Yet he died in combat. Sergeant Basilone received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his gallant action during the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942 and the Navy Cross posthumously for more heroism in the Battle of Iwo Jima where he was killed in 1945. Yes, he didn’t stay selling War Bonds as a hero after Guadalcanal, but went back to combat, only to be killed in another bloody battle. I frequently pass the bronze statue of him gallantly cradling a machine gun with bands of ammunition strung across his chest; certainly a hero fighting for a heroic cause. So how many Americans died at Guadalcanal? 1,768 dead (ground), but over 5,000 more airmen and sailors were lost in that battle alone. Iwo Jima (you know the guys with the flag on the hill)? 6,821 dead with 27 (¼ of the total awarded during WWII) Medals of Honor awarded for Iwo Jima. The Battle of Tarawa was the second battle of the Pacific Theater, where 1,009 Americans were killed. So in the first two offensive battles of World War II about the same number of ground troops were killed as the total number so far in Iraq. (World War II statistics courtesy of Wikipedia)

So why this fascination with World War II? Well, I’m a boomer, born in the aftermath of WWII with a father that served in the Navy. So? I needed something to watch while on the treadmill exercising today and the History Channel had a program on X-Day. I never heard of X-Day. D-Day yes, but X-Day? It was to be the invasion of homeland Japan, scheduled for late 1945 or 1946. The 2 hour program gave highlights and casualty counts of many of the major battles of the Pacific and noted the fact that the Japanese tended to fight to the last man rather than surrender. X-day was scheduled to invade the most southern island of Japan, Kyūshū. More than a million US causalities were forecast for this part of the invasion alone. Hence, use of the atomic bomb. Well, maybe. Traditional bombing was already destroying Japanese cities. It was speculated that Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, pushed Truman into using the bomb, not to defeat Japan as much as to intimidate the Russians. There was also talk that the American people were tired of war and wouldn’t tolerate the massive casualties that an invasion of Japan would entail. By the time of the A-bomb, the Japanese weren’t fighting to win, but rather were engaged in a strategy to get a negotiated truce rather than unconditional surrender. Would the American hawks have prevailed over the doves with a bloody invasion to get that unconditional surrender? MacArthur wanted that bloody invasion to extend his glory as a military leader. Who knows how it would have turned out, but US technology came to the rescue and shifted the balance to allow MacArthur to stroll into Tokyo rather than fighting his way in.

Then I came downstairs and read an article in the NJ paper about a Vietnam memorial being dedicated in the town next to where I grew up. 58,000 US military died during the Vietnam conflict and 29 of them from this one NJ city. One speaker who I know and is about 15 years older then I said during the dedication: “A lot has changed since they were young.� Yes it has, well maybe. The columnist writing the article went on to comment about the lies and government deception during the Vietnam era. It wasn’t a game or a chain of pizza delivery restaurants, Domino Theory was the potential spread of evil communism. I found it credible, but I was young. After all, Cuba had already happened, much of Europe had been swallowed up, and China was the other 400 pound gorilla in the room. So we had to stop them in Vietnam! There was some logic to this. We were fighting an enemy who had said: “We will bury you.� They were winning the space race and the hearts and minds of peasants throughout the world. We were in a nuclear arms race, with the fear of annihilation just over the horizon. Stopping the influence of communism made some sense; maybe not a black/white struggle, but at least some very definitive shades of gray.

So we learn in the 1990’s that it was smoke and mirrors and maybe not as grave a threat as we thought. The columnist, Robert Braun, perhaps summarized it best: “No, what happened was that politicians who exploited the fear of Communism were trapped by their own rhetoric into getting us involved in another country’s civil war. Sound familiar? Just substitute ‘terrorism’ for ‘communism’.�

He went on to write: “They did die for something worthwhile, but it wasn’t our freedom. They died out of their faith in those who led their government. They died believing they wouldn’t be sent to such an awful place to do horrible things for no good reason. They died, because when politicians lied, they believed those words because that’s how they were raised by parents (from a generation) who did fight and die in a war to protect freedom and human rights.� 58,000 Americans died for a misapplied theory, poor strategy, lies, and political hubris. The peace movement of the 60’s and 70’s was wrenching America apart, prying the hypocrisy from the “traditional American values.� The ignoble end of the Vietnam War and then Watergate which exposed just one aspect of how low politicians will sink to retain power seemed to end that era. I remember all those shades of gray – the fears, the lies, the theories, the strategies, and the hubris. I wasn’t rabidly on either side. My position and thoughts evolved as the facts and information evolved. I spoke with those concretely on both sides who could see only their own side’s philosophical point of view, never to abandon it. The issues subsided but that rigidity of thought by many never died.

Now in 2006, with nearly 3,000 US military dead, we are embroiled in a new struggle. Certainly it is not of the magnitude of sacrifice of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, or Vietnam (unless of course you were one of the 3,000 or the other thousands seriously maimed). But what is this struggle and why are we fighting it? Domino Theory and Vietnam’s importance may have been flawed, but there was some logic to that period. That logic escapes me today.

I was both fearful and angry on 9/11. My family was spread out over the NY-Philly metro area, all of us away from our safe rural home. When the fear subsided and all family members were safe, there was an emptiness that stayed with me for not months but years. I couldn’t even look at the skyline where the World Trade Center had been for over a year. And there was anger – we had to get revenge! Turning the Middle East to “Nuclear Winter� and the concept of the cartoon “Lake Afghanistan� both had their appeal, but then reality set in. You couldn’t defile the earth just for revenge, even if all the people in the region deserved it. But did all the people? That gets to just indiscriminate killing of all Arabs. Didn’t Hitler try that with a different race/religion? Well, it isn’t really Arabs, its Moslems and not all Moslems, just radical Moslems, or using the new spin term “Islamofascists.� So its “asymmetrical warfare.� With our large organized military against small bands of guerrilla terrorists. Didn’t Chairman Mao teach us in Vietnam that guerilla operations can’t be sustained without the support of the general population? What have we learned? What have we done?

There was no easy solution. No “bomb them back to the stone age� answer. Was military action needed? Yes, probably. The operations in Afghanistan seemed to be on target – fast, light, and focused. Get in, do the job, and get out. Use a multinational force as peacekeepers. Then we lost focus and started “outsourcing� the operations there and diverting resources and attention to Iraq.

Iraq - talk about misapplied theories, deception, and bumbling incompetence. The wag that said it was similar to ‘if after Pearl Harbor we retaliated and went to war with Peru’ perhaps had it best. Vietnam sort of crept up on us with commitments of small numbers of military advisers slowly leading to more troops and finally a full commitment of forces over a period of years. Yes, there were those citing the lessons of the French in SE Asia, but the Domino Theory was the prevalent view. Going into Iraq which was a discrete planned event, not just a gradual evolution of involvement, there was plenty of warning about the potential instability in the resulting situation. It wasn’t just the liberal academics or political scientists; it was the folks from the Bush I administration and even Colin Powell speaking of the “pottery barn� rule – you break it you own it.

Is Bush to blame for the lies, the deceit, and the manipulation of the American people? Personally I don’t think so. I think he’s too dumb to pull this off by himself and was probably led by those with a more sinister agenda. There was money to be made and power to be consolidated. Conquering Iraq and getting rid of Saddam Hussein certainly did allow Bush to best his father, always a potent psychological motive though. Before I speculate more let me find the time to read Frank Rich’s book (already waiting upstairs) and Bob Woodward’s new book.

What is clear is that we should focus on the lies and mistakes of the past to better understand what happened and how to proceed. What is clear is that those that have perpetuated the lies and the spin need to be held accountable and if nothing else feel the voters’ wrath. What is clear is that “stay the course� is a poor plan and not acceptable. What is clear is that there are no clear cut winning options. If there were clear-cut winning options, don’t you think the liberal Democrats would have proposed them – they are not stupid you know (well … not that stupid)? This is a mess in which all of America is embroiled. It is not to our advantage to polarize by liberal/conservative or Democratic/Republican.

Enough rambling today. There’s plenty more to comment on in the future.

BitchSlapped on 10/3/06, 3:06 PM
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