The primary conflict is not the
war in Iraq, but the more global confrontation which
will decide, whether America will lead the world into
a time of peace or follow it into a time of war.
The American Awakening
In the last two weeks, the long-sheltered
American public has discovered that the United States
was at war. They have also discovered that in a war,
troops are killed, wounded, taken prisoner, executed,
and are missing in action.
Our citizens further learned that
civilians, in large numbers, young and old, are caught,
(or are forced) between the military forces and are
also wounded, killed or missing. Americans also learned
that enemy soldiers can, at a given time, fight, win
to some degree and show both some skill and individual
bravery.
At the same time, Americans, discovered
that the enemy is willing to use women and children
as shields, kill their own civilians, who refuse to
take up arms, fight alternately in uniforms and civilian
clothes, wave white flags to fake surrenders in order
to ambush Coalition forces, and drive civilian automobiles
carrying explosives to kill soldiers at road checkpoints.
Americans are beginning to grasp
that war is not a video game to play for the moment
and then turn off. Nor is war a movie, serialized,
from beginning to end like “The Godfather,”
into, three or four, segments.
Welcome to the truths which warriors
have known since before the Spartans and the Persians
at Thermopylae, circa 480 B.C.
The American Clock and the
War
It’s not about the clock! The
realization that the war in Iraq would not be over
in a day or two recently sent much of the media into
a negative hysteria. That shows you how little the
media really knows about war. War goes at a schedule
determined by the mission, the enemy, the terrain,
troops available, logistics, and the weather, to name
only a few variables. It does not progress on the
time schedule predicted by a politician or commentator
who thinks a war should be over in a week or a month.
Let’s compare the length of
two recent conflicts. Desert Storm, which was about
as close to the "perfect" campaign as you
can get, lasted six weeks. The Yugoslav operation
into Kosovo, which was far from a perfect campaign
by any measure, took over two months to complete.
It only ended, as soon as it did, because the Russians
convinced the Serb leadership that capitulation was
better than resistance.
A more appropriate time measure for
this war could be Desert Storm and Kosovo, except
that Iraq is substantially larger than either Kuwait
or Kosovo and the defenders in places appear somewhat
more motivated. This is likely to be a war of many
weeks or months. It is perplexing why the criteria
for a “successful war” has been set in
days.
Think about it. Before I reminded you, did you recall
or even ever know how long Desert Storm or the action
in Kosovo lasted? It’s not about the clock.
Stop checking your watch.
It’s about the result. Few
remember the time. Everyone remembers who won.
The American Media
The television media has brought the
war into our dens and living rooms, enabling each
of us to imagine that we are qualified to be an armchair
commander. We are provided a host of maps, videos,
still photos and “talking heads.” We are
overrun with military experts and analysts. Some good
- some not. Two of the more qualified, whom you may
have seen, on CNN, is Major General David Grange,
now retired, with whom the author served, years ago,
in the Army’s 1st Ranger Battalion.
Apparently, most of the American public
doesn’t realize that they are seeing the war,
through the limited camera lenses and inexperienced
eyes of reporters, not trained soldiers, airmen and
marines. Watching war on TV is not really like being
there. No smells, no death, no blood, no sweat. Sanitized.
Like our American way of life.
To better understand how little you
see, the next time you finish a roll of toilet paper,
save the tube. Shut one eye and look through the tube
with the other. Walk around. Look at things hundreds
of yards away. Try it at night. Get the picture? No?
Actually, you don’t get the
picture. That’s the point. Throw away the tube,
open both eyes, get close to what you were looking
at. See the difference? Now you understand how much
war you don’t see. Several other things may
not be readily apparent, unless, we realize what else
we are not seeing.
Although there are some exceptions,
few correspondents try to go or are allowed to go
into a serious firefight. Think about what you have
routinely seen on television. You’ve seen the
“after-action” report. “Hearsay,”
if you will, far from the actual fight.
Doesn’t it make sense that the
very same “fierce fight” described by
a reporter, may be described as a routine engagement
by the experienced warrior? After all, it’s
not always a “fierce fight” if the Americans
are doing most of the shooting and there is little
incoming fire from the enemy. Is it loud? Yes. Overwhelming
to the senses of the uninitiated journalist? Sure.
Try to imagine both simultaneous tank, mortar and
artillery fire. At the same time you may have both
air cover with strikes from both “fast-movers”
and helicopters. It still may not be a “fierce
fight.” It may be a one-sided fight, fierce
only in the amount of firepower the American forces
can apply.
We used to call that the “combined
arms team.” It means being able to “move,
shoot, and communicate, better than the enemy.”
It’s how wars are won. The professional soldier
understands these things, the professional journalist
does not.
Unlike the average journalist, the
professional American military leader has been raised
and guided by the concepts of Duty, Honor, and Country.
The media has been guided by ratings, sensationalism
and advertising dollars. Which one is more worthy
of belief?
Teddy Roosevelt, another warrior,
supplies the correct answer, “It is not the
critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the
man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred
by dust and sweat and blood . . . .”
The American Warrior
As tough as it is for an for me to
admit, the military of today is certainly better trained,
better equipped and more able than the military was
in my active service. The weapons are certainly better
and more lethal. Much of the training is harder and
better. Both male and female service members are in
better shape physically. Comparatively, they are better
educated. Individual protective gear is provided to
every soldier. By comparison, in my early days, our
body armor was called “jungle fatigues.”
The military has also changed, for the worse, in some
respects.
Back in 1991, when American troops
last faced down Saddam Hussein, the Army had 711,000
active-duty troops. Today it has 487,000--a 32% drop.
Cuts in the number of Navy and Air Force personnel
have been just as steep. The Marine Corps has been
more stable dropping only about 10% in the past decade.
If you hear concerns about the American
military’s capability or track record, you might
suggest that the speaker look at the results of the
two World Wars, and Korea. More recently, they might
consider the results of Desert Storm in the early
90s or Afghanistan last year.
What about Vietnam, you say? Well, that hits a nerve
with me, but I’ll tell you this. We didn’t
lose it where my Airborne unit fought or where virtually
every single major battle, fought by my brother units,
took place.
We gave away the Vietnam War primarily
in the media and on the liberal college campuses.
We ought to have learned from that mistake. It appears
that some number of mis-guided, pusillanimous, moral-weaklings,
would have that happen again. The rogue state dictators
and terrorists don’t hate or fear us because
we’re weak. They hate and fear us because we
are, by far, the strongest military country in the
world.
They know they can’t defeat
us on the field of battle, but they do think they
can make us defeat ourselves - like we did in Vietnam
and Mogadishu, where a previous President pulled out
the troops after Ranger and Delta Force took casualties
in the “Blackhawk Down” incident. Given
this, let’s look at what Saddam and his advisers
may well have thought and why.
The Iraqi Regime
Saddam can lose land. It’s mostly
desert. He can lose people. The Kurds in the north
and the Shiites in the south, don’t like him
or want him anyway. It’s about preserving Saddam’s
power base, his military, meaning his regime.
It is important to understand that
even Saddam and his most optimistic advisers never
thought they could win a war with the United States.
We proved that in Desert Storm. Why would Saddam fight
another one, then, you say?
For Saddam, it was about making the
best of two bad choices. Saddam clearly believed that
either to give U.S. led inspectors complete access
or to willingly surrender, for example by going into
exile, was to certainly lose his power and his control
over the regime. In that event, the chance of his
regime’s survival was zero.
By comparison, if Saddam went to war, he had a better
than zero chance, that the combination of media, Muslims,
Arabs, propaganda, the French and German investments
in Iraq, and the various anti-war protests could cause
America to surrender the military victory it would
certainly otherwise win.
Additionally, if Saddam can survive,
as the leader of his regime, he can then posture as
having beaten America. He will correctly claim that
conflict, terrorism and the threat or use of weapons
of mass destruction, is the way to defeat America.
And it will be. But only if we do it to ourselves.
Saddam cannot do it to us.
America’s Leadership
Role
Since the Security Council and the
majority of the international community refused to
back us, what are our options? Must we allow ourselves
to be dictated to on matters of critical national
interest by third-rate rabble? The answer must be
a resounding “No!” Not just because we
are being willful, but because we have a special role,
a special place in the world today, and therefore
a special responsibility.
As Charles Krauthammer, winner of
the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary,
observed, “We tend not to see or understand
the historical uniqueness of this situation. Even
at its height, Britain could always be seriously challenged
by the next greatest powers. It had a smaller army
than the land power of Europe, and its navy was equaled
by the next two navies combined.”
He continued, “ Today, the
American military exceeds in spending the next twenty
countries combined. Its Navy, Air Force and space
power are unrivaled. Its dominance extends as well
to every other aspect of international life - not
only military, but economic, technological, diplomatic,
cultural, even linguistic, with a myriad of countries
trying to fend off the inexorable march of MTV English.”
We likely have never faced a greater
threat than we do today. The weapons of mass destruction
provide the rogue state or terrorist, willing to use
them, previously unimaginable power. Remember 911?
Terrorist organizations, and rogue states like Iraq,
have demonstrated that they have and will target America.
Wait for it and worry or take action and preempt it?
The decision before us, is a decision between being
a casualty or a survivor. Between action and inaction.
Now is the time for action. It is the time for leadership
on the world stage -- not for being elbowed into the
cheap seats in the balcony. I for one, do not wish
to be, under the thumb of the leadership, which I
see in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya,
Lebanon, China, what is left of the Soviet Union,
or numerous other countries I could name.
The choice between those countries
and our American government and American way of life,
is not difficult. The fact that some try to even make
it a choice signifies the degree of decay of our national
fortitude. Those governments are not even close to
an acceptable example of the world in which most Americans
want their family to live. Many were and are willing
to fight for a better and safer future for our children.
To build on the remarks of Secretary
of State Colin Powell, both a diplomat and a warrior,
the present conflict is not about oil or American
expansionism. Historically, we have not sought the
land of others, except for enough of it to bury the
Americans who loved freedom enough to give their lives,
on foreign soil, to secure that freedom for others.
In every conflict, where we have fought a war to the
finish, we have left the country better off when we
came than when we arrived. No shame or apology is
necessary for what America has done, for the world
in the past, nor what we are doing for it now.
As citizens, we should display, at
least, the moral courage of our warriors. As Americans,
we need to be dedicated to finishing this fight –
no matter what and no matter how long it takes. The
benefit to the world will be greater than any cost
to America.
Editor’s Note: Mr. Barnes
is a lawyer in Key West, Florida. His military perspective,
on recent events in Iraq, may have more credence than
you would expect. During Mr. Barnes’ Vietnam
military service, he led a rifle platoon, in combat,
in the same 173rd Airborne Brigade that recently parachuted
into northern Iraq. He was wounded three times. He
was awarded the Silver Star. Later, in Europe, for
some 22 months, he commanded a mechanized infantry
company in the same 3rd Infantry Division, which has
been the primary American Division leading the advance
into Iraq.
