By Chuck Fager
[NOTE: “Pineland” is the Army’s name for Fayetteville and the surrounding area, used in various war games and training exercises. “Pineland” is portrayed as a country oppressed and occupied by a foreign armed force, which the Ft. Bragg trainees are to liberate by stealth and force. The “Pineland Journal” is an occasional, personal report/reflection on the experience of being a resident of this imaginary yet also real territory, while trying to live from a different set of assumptions.]
Fayetteville, NC–It’s February 7, 2003, and out on Fort Bragg the big guns are booming again, part of some new round of war games. And what seemed to echo distantly in their muffled roars this time last year now sounds like the leading edge of a terrible storm, the real thing about to burst over Iraq, and us, with the torrents and thunderbolts of war.
An even more vivid and unsettling harbinger of this war came yesterday, when I sat on a panel about the war with one of its defense intellectual advocates.
It was my second such foray. The first, at Duke almost three months ago now, had me seated next to an academic, pleasant, articulate and dogged; let’s call him Smith. He quietly insisted that the invasion of Iraq was necessary, and would be ultimately beneficial for the Iraqis and the rest of the world.
I challenged the value of the war to the Iraqis, and based this objection above all on the prospect of high civilian casualties. Smith calmly replied that this was no problem, because the US military was the most careful such force in history when it came to minimizing them.
Perhaps so in theory and even intention, I retorted, but two big doubts about that notion linger for me. First, even if US generals get “collateral damage” down to a seemingly tiny percentage of, say, bombs dropped or missiles fired, the overwhelming volleys likely to be loosed by our forces argue for many civilian deaths just by the law of averages; and the record of the first Gulf War shows that many of the ‘smart”: bombs were really rather destructively dumb.
Moreover, I argued, in such a calculus, the counting does not end once the jets or the drones fly away. When US bombs destroy electricity and water purification plants–as they did many in Iraq the last time–the names of the children who die months or even years later from lack of safe water also belong on the casualty list, even if the bombing itself was done “cleanly,” without hitting civilians at the moment of the attack.
By such reckoning the toll of the first Gulf War and the years of sanctions that ensued must be, has to be huge, and has been reckoned by credible estimates in the hundreds of thousands. Smith still scoffed at this number, but had little concrete to offer in rebuttal beyond repeating that US wars were run in a primly fastidious manner. When I pointed to the million-plus Vietnamese civilian fatalities in our adventure there, a figure widely acknowledged, Smith shrugged, insisting he was talking about current–and impending–wars, not troubled missions bungled by a previous generation, mine..
So much for my first cavil. The second went simply unanswered, and to me is even more damning. It is that the Pentagon has resolutely refused even to discuss the question of civilian casualties in Iraq, either in the first or now the second Gulf war. No estimates, no explanations, no comment. The subject is off the table, and this policy of zipped lips has been decried even by staunchly pro-military analysts. Thus the basis for Smith’s insistence that US war planners take pains to avoid them is strictly secondhand and unofficial. This by definition makes his contention unverifiable at best, and at worst no more than propaganda repeated.
Whatever goes on behind the scenes, this official refusal to engage diverges sharply from the public stance of hyper-morality that suffuses the current pentagon regime. It is no wonder that their reaction is to pass over it silence whenever possible. And this was the response of my second panel colleague, at yesterday’s face-off: let’s call him Jones.
Pineland Journal: Smith, Jones, and War on Iraq — 2
Jones is a fast-track Special Forces major who took time out from his schedule of intensive war preparation to join the panel at a local college. Trim and articulate, he had been president of his class at West Point; quoted Clausewitz at every opportunity, and stayed on message, offering no comment at all when I again presented my civilian casualty calculus as an objection to a new war. Instead, Jones preferred to talk about the coming war itself, which he was positively eager to see begin.
For him, Smith’s modulated claim of a favorable outcome for the Iraqis was far too modest: this war, Jones enthused, would be a tremendous boon to all mankind, the golden door to peace, democracy and prosperity, not only in the currently turbulent Middle East region, but for as far as the eye could see. It would even, he believed, push the Israelis and Palestinians to the brink of a rapprochement.
My initial challenge to this scenario was to brandish a sheaf of articles and statements by generals, intelligence analysts, diplomats, political conservatives and even Republican donors, all decrying the plan as foolhardy and dangerous to American interests. The “Peace Hawks and Un-Usual Suspects” I called this unlikely band. The kicker was the January 13 full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal placed by a group of corporate CEOs who had backed G.W. Bush in 2000 but oppose the Iraq war and were now demanding, “We want our money back. We want our country back.”
The willingness of all these people to go public, I contended, showed there is a real debate over the wisdom of this plan underway that crosses party and political lines, even though it has been largely ignored and marginalized by the administration.
Jones’s response was patronizing and dismissive; the debate was great, he said; it showed America at its best. But it was also over, because we were going in, and soon, and a good thing too.
When a questioning student saw the specter of a new American imperialism in his pronouncements, Jones was trigger-quick with denial: No way – the US did not intend to “plant the flag” in Iraq or anywhere else. Of course, this rejoinder was quickly challenged; yet cries from me and others that imperialism could take other forms than formal colonization did not faze him.
We would soon bomb our way into Iraq, Jones agreed, but would then march in as liberators, not “overlords.” He confidently predicted that the Iraqis (those who survived, I griped) would be greeting the 82d Airborne with cheers and flags, and it was evident Jones didn’t intend to miss out on the party. While he did acknowledge that we’d need to be involved there for awhile, to ensure its proper transition to an acceptable version of democracy, the terms “occupation” or “colonialism” could in no way be attached to these outcomes.
Very well, then; I said; what’s in a name? Though “imperialism” is now being used openly and without apology in such establishment journals as the New York Times Magazine. But if it must be a blood-red rose (or cruise missile) by some other name, what then to call the enterprise our rulers are about to launch?
Where to look for an answer was suggested by a religion professor. He named the association of the present leadership with politicized fundamentalism, which sees in the current struggle the latest and possibly most ominous locale for its end-times biblical preoccupation. This was, the professor opined, a very hazardous combination.
But Jones was having none of it. He hadn’t, we were informed, seen Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson at any of the policy conferences or seminars he’d recently attended with various policy wonks and high-mucky-mucks. Those in charge–he was now slightly indignant–were not religious fanatics, but very smart, rational people, making thoughtful, clear-sighted decisions. End of story.
Such political and cultural naivete was touching, even if it was not to be taken seriously in a person who undoubtedly knows how to spell the word “Ashcroft.” There are, major, more policy conferences in Washington than those you were invited to. In any event, the light dawned and an alternative to the dreaded “imperialism” was rolling off my tongue:
“Messianic Hegemonism.” That is, the US is not out to conquer Iraq (and the world), but to bring it salvation, in the form of our “values,” especially democracy (as long as they learn to vote for the right sort of democrats, who among other things won’t mess with our control of their oil.) That’s the messianic part.
And we’re bringing them this salvation even if they didn’t ask for it, and not counting how many of them we’ll have to kill to deliver it. Which is the “hegemonic” part.
I argued that this program was a recipe for permanent wars, loss of civil liberties and ever-deepening militarization of our society, which would (among other things) likely force the return of the draft, even though Rumsfeld and the White House don’t want it: the world is simply too big to manage with the army we have or are likely to get without it. (Cf. North Korea, et al.)
Jones sneered at this, saying the army “could not afford” the draft. This was a curious response from one who has argued in print for doubling the military budget, and seems confident that we can afford an endless convoy of new high-tech, astronomically-priced weapons.
Okay, so “messianic hegemonism” doesn’t have the sound-bite ring of “Axis of Evil.” But the religion professor chuckled and agreed, as did some of the other panelists. Jones shrugged it off, as I expected. But I knew I was onto something when he went on to set the Iraq crusade in the context of the National Security Strategy document issued by the White House last September. Unlike earlier such documents, Jones said, this one was a very “big picture” manifesto, worldwide in scope and combining the advancement of our values with the determination to thwart any challengers to our preeminence.”
Advancing our “values” while protecting our preeminence? Aha! I had him cold.
Pineland Journal: Smith, Jones, and War on Iraq — 3
That document is the very scripture of Messianic hegemonism, pure and simple. Jones’s response was paradoxical, or contradictory: dismissing imperialism or messianic hegemonism, he simultaneously gushed with awe at the new strategy’s worldwide sweep. He found its vision thrilling. I frankly found it chilling.
Part of the difference in our reactions, I am convinced, was generational as much as political or even– though I doubt he would admit to this– theological: his combat experience came in Panama in 1989, and stints in the little wars of the 90s. To me, the grizzled antiwar veteran shaped and scarred by Vietnam, Jones seemed impossibly young (he’s 38) and idealistic. He hadn’t seen or lived through the experience of watching national hubris shatter not only much of Vietnam but also large sectors of the US Army. I’m sure he’s studied all that at West Point, and is confident he knows how to avoid repeating the mistakes of that generation of generals. Oh yes, I recognize such ardor, though mine came in a different costume and with flowers in its hair; but now it does not fool me. Does that qualify as older and wiser? Older, at least.
When he couldn’t make headway with us by praising the new imperial vision, Jones fell back to the hard-nosed soldier’s mantra that war was necessary because (pointing at me): “There are some very dangerous people out there who hate you and are determined to kill YOU.” And he was ready to lead the charge to kill them first; which was, he knew, the only possible and moral response.
At which point the student moderator asked the standard, and entirely reasonable question, “But why do they hate us so much?”
When one of the faculty members started to talk about the US propping up dictators, hogging the oil, and abetting Israeli oppression of Palestinians, Jones quickly pulled the pin on the line that’s supposed to explode all such talk like a concussion grenade: This is Hate-America stuff, he charged, which excuses and even supports terrorism.
But I fired right back, citing my work with Dr. King in Selma, Alabama as evidence that figuring out why people hate each other, and how to address this nonviolently can and does work, and benefits rather than threatens America. As evidence, I contrasted the success of the 1965 nonviolent campaign there in bringing “democracy” to the Black Belt with the failure of the Union Army to achieve any comparable result in an 1865 assault, despite its military “victory” in Selma and the South.
This response seemed to catch him off guard, I suppose because it wasn’t a familiar sound bite. Further, I was speaking from first-hand experience, as real as his parachuting into Panama with guns blazing. On reflection it seems clear that the “hate-America” canard can be effectively countered by assertive statements of alternative approaches, especially with something to back them up.
(I would now add an analogy to disease research: we don’t accuse cancer researchers of “siding with the disease” when they seek to understand why and how carcinomas start and grow; such understanding is crucial to overcoming it. For that matter, Jones’s charge doesn’t pass the hypocrisy test, because the military has battalions of intelligence staff analyzing every bit of available data about Iraqi and other terrorists, trying to “understand” them for military purposes.)
These were only debating sallies, though, and however well I and others may have blunted them in the discussion, Jones still had the trump cards, which he gladly showed when a young woman asked when he thought the attack would start. Disclaiming any “inside information,” Jones nonetheless opined that he expected the bombing to begin late in February, shortly after the Hajj in Mecca concluded, with a ground invasion to follow in short order. And he thought it would all be over quickly.
I couldn’t argue with most of this scenario; all the evidence points to it. And I want to acknowledge the integrity of Jones’s advocacy: unlike the chickenhawks and draft-dodgers at the top, he will put himself in harm’s way for this adopted vision. But I’m still doubtful about the last part: will it all be over quickly, the way 1991’s Desert Storm (but not the dying of Iraqi civilians) ended after a few days?
As this debate proceeded, an eerie sense of role reversal crept over me: gone was my radical persona of the Sixties. That night, on that panel, Jones was the radical – nay an outright, unashamed revolutionary–while I was the querulous conservative: warning against unintended consequences and the hazards of social engineering, lamenting the erosion of constitutional traditions, arguing for limits and incremental rather than drastic change in Iraq. How did it happen, I wondered, that it was me waving a page from the Wall Street Journal, quoting Republican CEOs, generals, and Jesus?
So it goes. And after the debate, the countdown to war continued unabated.
Heading home, two quotes came to me, as supplements to the Clausewitz Jones cited so regularly. The first is from Robert E. Lee at the battle of Fredericksburg in 1862: “It is well that war is so terrible,” he told James Longstreet, “or we should grow too fond of it.” Is Jones too fond of it? As far as the fire to be visited upon Iraq, I fear the answer is yes.
The other is from the sociologist Peter Berger, in a 1970 book called Movement and Revolution: “When it comes to revolutionaries,” he wrote, “only trust the sad ones. The enthusiastic ones are the oppressors of tomorrow–or else they are only kidding.”
That night Jones was surely not kidding; but perhaps I was melancholy enough for both of us.
Postscript from the New Yorker, February 10, 2003: “The other day, Secretary of State Colin Powell was reminded that his boss is in bed by ten and sleeps like a baby. Powell reportedly replied, “I sleep like a baby too–every two hours I wake up screaming.”