Victor Davis Hanson: Iraq's Future - And Ours

This blog is in a series of posts from my readings of THE RIGHT WAR? THE CONSERVATIVE DEBATE ON IRAQ. Please contribute your comments. The following is a discussion of Chapter 1, a republished article by Victor Davis Hanson, January 2004, COMMENTARY.


In January 2004, Victor Davis Hanson published an article in Commentary magazine, "Iraq's Future - And Ours." In this article, VDH reflected back on the first 8 months of how the U.S. has confronted the post-war operation. He notes the irony that a quick and stunning military success brings: a long and trying process to secure the peace (and order). "Of course, we must not wish the war would have lasted that long in order for us freely to destroy Saddam’s remnants, but we must at least appreciate that short wars by their very nature often require messy clean-ups.”

What could we have done better to prepare for the "messy clean-up?" The most critical mistake we made during the war and in the immediate aftermath was our tolerance of looting and our disbanding of the Iraqi army. VDH points to these factors, which led to the creation of the Iraqi resistance, in forms of cash, weaponry, and manpower. Now (as of January 2004), the enemy is combining their 8th century technology and our 21st century technology to use weapons against us in creative ways.

He also notes that Iraq has had its own history and its own problems, which they are still confronting. He also points out the many false perceptions that the American public and media have including the fact that most Americans believe that war is the worst thing that can happen to human beings (it's not).

The most important aspects of his article deal with the the problems that a materially wealthy, prosperous, humanitarian, democratic nation such as the United States has with war. It is a conflict. He says that “Post-bellum Iraq reminds us how much we are geared not to taking but rather preserving lives – including, quite naturally, our own.” He continues, “One dead American causes far greater distress, not just among the American public but in the military itself, than the satisfaction prompted by the knowledge that dozens of Baathist murderers were killed in return.” In World War II, he argues, we were much more willing to sacrifice lives, if we knew many more lives on the enemy's side were being taken. It was a strategic sacrifice and many Americans were willing to make it.

Today, on the other hand, Americans are more detached from war than ever. Part of this reason lies in our government's response to the anti-war protests that were sparked during the Vietnam era. Today, "... as our government seeks – often successfully – to wage war with as little upheaval at home as possible, it never troubles to tap the inner reserves of the American people, who might well rise to the challenge of a long and difficult struggle against those who seek to kill us all. We are thus caught in yet another paradox: the more lethal and adroit an even smaller number of American soldiers become, the more detached an ever greater number of Americans can be from the wars waged in their names.”

This is indeed a serious problem. While the media brings the war home to us, sometimes with live pictures, we distance ourselves from the war. Most of us go on with our daily lives here in the prosperous nation we live in, and we probably forget that our nation is at war; we forget about the soldiers who are sacrificing their lives every day; we might pity the images on television or in the newspaper, but we go on each day as if they are just images, but not real. What are we doing to connect with the war? To make our own sacrifices for it?

If we are more connected with the war, with the people fighting it, and with the knowledge of lives being lost, victories being won, will we be more in support of it? More willing to join the military? More willing to sacrifice our time, our efforts, our material wealth? This is an interesting question VDH poses and I'm not sure if I have the answer. I will say that several friends of mine who have gone to Iraq have come back and they have made this point: Americans here at home don't realize how evil the enemy is. One friend told me how the enemy in Iraq sometimes positions themselves in or near schools so that the Americans will either not fire back or if they do, they will risk killing innocent children.

VDH is then right about one thing for sure: Americans, including the military, are so concerned about humanity, while our enemy is not. We value a culture of life, our enemies do not. Even in fighting a war, we try to avoid casualties, even if that forces us to do things the long, hard way.

Finally, VDH closes his article with the following statement, “In an era of the greatest affluence and security in the history of civilization, the real question before us remains whether the United States – indeed, whether any Western democracy – still possesses the moral clarity to identify evil as evil, and then the uncontested will to marshal every available resource to fight and eradicate it. In that sense, our willingness to use unremitting force to eliminate vast cadres of proven killers, in Iraq and elsewhere, is a referendum on modern democracy itself.”

Do we still have the will to fight? And, is this war a necessary part of that fight? Is this an ultimate test for a liberal democracy? For Western Civilization? Or does VDH have it all wrong? Maybe we don't want to fight because we are we there for the wrong reasons. Did we bring this fight to ourselves? Is the government detaching us from the war for some other reason? Or does the government realize that Americans are no longer willing to make such a sacrifice that is necessary to win a war? What will this generation of Americans be ready and willing to fight for?