WASHINGTON -- Awash as we are in the cranky appraisals of our
war in Iraq and the congressional projects to end it summarily, we
have every reason to conclude that for some Americans a real war is
not nearly as amusing as one produced in Hollywood. A real war is a
lot more difficult to script than a war headed for the silver
screen. Inopportune events take place. Even uncovenanted happenings
occur. During World War II more than 14,000 American POWs died in
German and Japanese hands. President Franklin Roosevelt had not
anticipated such brutal treatment. Other unanticipated enormities
took place, for instance, the dithering in the hedgerows of France
after the D-Day landings. Still, no congressional investigations
were convened to distract our leaders from bringing the war to a
diplomatically viable conclusion.
Were Senator Joseph Biden in the Senate during that ghastly war,
I wonder how many of President Roosevelt's cabinet members the
senator from Delaware would have fallen on? How many times would he
demand the resignation of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson? How
many congressional inquiries would the congressional minority have
insisted on after atrocities were discovered, logistics bungled, or
battles lost? Surely the bombings of German cities were
controversial. Would these bombings be called atrocities by a 1944
version of Senator John Kerry? In fact, during World War II the
Allies suffered many controversies and setbacks. Yet the criticisms
and recriminations were almost nonexistent in the Congress, and
even the press was quiet. Revelations that might have comforted our
enemies were downplayed even after the war.
My favorite examples of this self-discipline are to be found in
David Reynolds's stupendous history of how Winston Churchill wrote
his Nobel Prize-winning war memoirs, In Command of History. In a word, Churchill
censored himself. Working with the Labour government's cabinet
secretary, Churchill passed over in silence many wartime successes.
Revealing them even after the war might have weakened British
national security. For instance, he never mentions the cracking of
the German Enigma code or his low expectations for Dwight
Eisenhower's presidency. Maybe today there are fussbudgets in the
antiwar movement who would have Churchill's Nobel Prize withdrawn
for deceiving readers, but at the outset of the Cold War the
British had to contemplate the aggressive designs of the Soviet
Union. Washington, doubtless, practiced similar deceptions.
The distinguished British journalist William Shawcross has just
returned from Iraq. He was a famous critic of the Vietnam War but
he views the Iraq War as just and winnable. In fact, he reports
that things are going far better there than either the British or
the American press has reported. An Iraqi army is coming together.
It is, as Shawcross says, determined "to defend Iraq -- the whole
of Iraq -- against terrorist destruction." Given Senator Biden's
fascination with all things British, perhaps he will quote
Shawcross on the Senate floor. You might recall the Senator's 1988
run for the Democratic presidential nomination when he got caught
plagiarizing from a speech by British Labour Party leader Neal
Kinnock.
A growing number of Democrats are demonstrating Senator Biden's
shameless opportunism. An unedifying specimen of it is their easily
provoked calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld arrived at the Pentagon for his second stint as
secretary of defense (he also held the post during the Ford
administration) charged to reform the military. Still organized to
fight a Cold War, it had to be reorganized for future wars. It had
to be brought into line with the Goldwater-Nichols Reauthorization
Act of 1986, calling for cooperation among the services and an end
to inter-service duplication. Rumsfeld transformed this legislation
into Pentagon doctrine. "He did that in spades," Jed Babbin, the
Pentagon watcher, remarks. Then came the war in Iraq. Never before
have the armed services operated in such smooth combinations so
agilely. Rumsfeld was vindicated.
In the post-Cold War climate there has been a huge increase in
the manning of special operations units. Each branch of the
military makes its contributions to whole units that are more
adaptable and deployable than ever before. Rumsfeld made this too
happen. Though the post-war policy adopted in Iraq was not his
first choice, he has loyally stood by it. Rumsfeld is true blue. We
should not have to wait for the end of the war to recognize that.
He and President George W. Bush should have the loyal opposition
FDR had in his day.
topics:
Hollywood, Law, Military, Iraq, NATO
