Critical Mass

By Cody Beckman

I have repeatedly read and heard comparisons drawn between the United States of today and that of the pre-World War II era, usually mentioning something of America’s intellectuals’ support of Hitler and Mussolini, the collective blind eye turned toward totalitarianism in Europe and the East in the name of isolationism, and occasionally touching on the subject of anti-Semitism. We are repeating the mistakes of the past, I am often told, as we once again throw our county’s “great minds” behind regimes of destruction, intentionally overlooking dictatorship because of political greed, and how anti-Semitism runs rampant. That we need to stop countries like Iran, Syria, and North Korea before their leaders become the next Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo. There is great truth in these comparisons.

In many ways, we are repeating the past, not only of the 1930s, but also of Vietnam in the 60s and 70s, Beirut in the 80s, and Iraq in the 90s. Michael Ledeen of the National Review Online compares our political situation to that of Franklin Roosevelt’s first terms in office, saying “ we have been given an extraordinary opportunity by our enemies” now because we follow the footsteps of the past. “Then, too, the mounting power of what became the Axis was ignored,” Ledeen notes. “As my father often reminded me, a few months before Pearl Harbor, at a time when Nazi armies were long since on the march, the draft passed by a single vote. Apologists for Hitler and Mussolini were legion, and some of our leading intellectuals were saying that American democratic capitalism was a failure, and we would do well to emulate the European totalitarians.”

Sound familiar?

Yet, as I mentioned above, we are not restricted to only 30s style thinking. We have given way also to the Vietnam policy of limited engagement. Time and time again Vietnam veterans write in their memoirs of their firm belief that, were they allowed to carry the war to the leaders in North Vietnam, our war there could have ended not only sooner, but successfully. Most recently I read it in Hunting the Jackal, the memoir of Billy Waugh, a Special Forces and CIA operative who served the United States from before Korea until our most recent endeavors in Afghanistan. As his time in Vietnam drew to a close shortly before the United States pulled out, Waugh reflected on the seven and a half years he spent there. Standing before his commanding officer, he thought:

“ Damn. Oh damn. We begged so many times to take this battle to the North, to Hanoi, directly to Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap. We could have killed those two and finished this war years and years before .

“[. . .] I knew the best time for proper action was 1965. Rather than piecemeal replacements and half-assed actions, we should have f****** well taken the battle to the heart of the people. We could have finished that war seven years before the last battle was fought by our SOG lads.

“Our administration did not have the stomach for such a vigorous plan of action, so what did we do? We fed soldiers to their death for ten years, just to walk the hell away. After fifty thousand American men [were] KIA we retreated from the battleground, with nothing to show for so much bloodshed.”

Sound familiar? Not necessarily in Iraq, but in our entire stance of this Global War on Terror, euphemism for World War III?

Waugh speaks also of our policy in Iraq today, repeated from Desert Storm/Shield, itself a holdover from World War II. “The conventional brass see warfare as crunching the enemy in the tracks of their tanks, taking the ground—holding the ground as theirs, raising the flag, and continuing the march forward. Well, nice people, you can see what holding the ground did to us after the end of the official hostilities in Iraq. That country is an example of what a ‘hold territory’ war causes.”

Ledeen puts is this way: “The greatest failure of our leaders, with rare exceptions, is their refusal to see the war plain, which means Iran and Syria (might as well call them ‘Syran,’ since they operate in tandem, with Tehran pushing most of the buttons). It was never possible to ‘win in Iraq’ so long as we insisted on fighting in Iraq alone. You can not win a regional war by playing defense in one country. It was, and remains, a sucker’s game. Syran pays no price at all for killing our kids and our allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now in Gaza and Lebanon/Israel.”

One might note that we won in World War II, and again in Desert Storm. Vietnam and our other endeavors in the Middle East have not always been so successful. This is, perhaps, because in World War II as with many other military operations of the United States, we waited until we were drawn into it, until we had absolutely no other choice but to retaliate. In some ways this is seen in Israel as well, who certainly attacks with more effectiveness than have we in some time, but (usually) only in response to a suicide bomber or some other breach of sovereignty.

Repeating the past can mean reliving both mistake and victory, mourning and celebration.

Ledeen closes, “Perhaps [the demonstration of our capacity to win the war] will change without yet another Pearl Harbor. It looks to me like the American people would support it. I don’t yet see the necessary vision and will from our leaders.” I certainly hope this is not necessary. We as Americans have an indomitable spirit, an overpowering military with the best precision weaponry. We just need to use it.

The great theologian Martin Luther said in his On Secular Authority , “But if your opponent is your equal or your inferior, or a foreign ruler, then you should first offer him justice and peace, as Moses taught the children of Israel. If he will not settle, then do the best you can and resist force with force, as Moses well describes in Deuteronomy 20[10ff]. But here you are not to consider your own advantage, and how you can remain ruler, but your subjects, whom you owe help and protection, so that the work is done out of love. Since your whole country is placed in danger [by war], you must consider whether God will help you, so that everything does not go to wrack and ruin; and even if you cannot help making some widows and some orphans, you must at least prevent total ruin, and nothing but widows and orphans [being left]. The subjects for their part owe obedience and must set their lives and goods to it. For in such a case everyone must risk his goods and even himself, for the sake of his neighbor. And in such a war, it is a Christian act, and an act of love, to kill enemies without scruple, to rob and to burn, and to do whatever damages the enemy, according to the usages of war, until he is defeated. But beware of sins and of violating women and maidens. And when the enemy is defeated, then those who surrender and submit are to be shown mercy and granted peace. In other words, act according to the maxim 'God helps the strongest.' Abraham did so when he defeated the four kings (Genesis 14[15]). Of course, he killed many and did not show much mercy until the victory was his. A case like this should be regarded as something sent by God, so that for once the land is swept clean of villains.”

In other words, Luther says, it is not an act of love to stay out of war because you are a Christian (as this country is so often called). This would be true only if you were the one attacked, that you could turn the other cheek. Rather, for you to stand by and let your weaker neighbor be defeated by a tyrant would be an act of hate. You should, in that case, defend your neighbor, defeating your foe as quickly and thoroughly as possible, that you might help him after his evil has been stopped.

This is what we need to do in the Middle East. The more we sit on our thumbs, the more we repeat our past errors, the greater destruction we allow. It was wrong 60 years ago and it is wrong today.