Iraqi Collateral Damage
Just Say Yes
February 10, 2003
The Mad Hatter is back from the tea party and clutching a new Zogby poll in his trembling hand. The results of the poll, as published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution find that 58% of Americans favor going to war with Iraq. However, 52% would oppose the war if it resulted in thousands of American casualties. And, in classic Hatterish fashion, an even greater 54% of Americans would oppose the war if it resulted in thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths.
Just what do Americans think the definition of war is?
Karl von Clausewitz envisioned war as, “…the continuation of politics by other means….” The Oxford Dictionary further defines war as “any active hostility or struggle between living beings; a conflict between opposing forces or principles.” Right from the outset, the entire concept of war becomes a conundrum. Is it purely a conflict between political forces or does it encompass the entirety of the populations wrapped in those political swaddling clothes?
In the classic sense, war is total. All of a society’s resources are focused on winning the conflict. War is also absolute. Anything that must be done to minimize the cost to your side and maximize the cost to the enemy is de rigueur. When, in the classic sense, one’s opposing combatants are, as military historian John Keegan described, “warriors”, there are no holds barred. Warriors are, “brought up to fight, think fighting honorable, and think killing in warfare glorious.” More to the point, a warrior, “prefers death to dishonor and kills without pity when he gets the chance.”
In the modern world, war has become a limited pursuit. Limited warfare is a boutique phenomenon. Political objectives dictate the goals of the conflict. Rather than a struggle for survival as in total war, a limited war is the prosecution of a conflict focused on the achievement of specific goals. Limited wars also constrain the type of and acceptable tactical missions of the weapons used. Unlike the firebombing of Dresden during the absolute WW II, national and world opinion becomes sensitive to unnecessary collateral damage (spelled civilian casualties) during a limited conflict (war).
In every practical sense, the terrorism America suffered on 9/11 was an act of absolute warfare. The terrorists were warriors who killed without discrimination or conscience. The terrorists used every means at their disposal to wage that war and will continue to do so. And the terrorists certainly believe that killing and dying are both honorable and glorious. To date, the U.S. response has been limited.
Ralph Peters, a retired Army intelligence officer, finds that, “For the U.S. soldier, vaccinated with moral and behavioral codes, the warrior is a formidable enemy....We are at our best fighting organized soldieries who attempt a symmetrical response. But warriors respond asymmetrically, leaving us in the role of redcoats marching into an Indian-dominated wilderness.” He further notes, “You cannot bargain or compromise with warriors. You cannot 'teach them a lesson'....You either win or you lose. This kind of warfare is a zero-sum game. And it takes guts to play.” Remember the German massacre of American POW’s during the Battle of the Bulge in Malmedy?
The recent Zogby poll is a testimonial to this Mad Hatterish concept. Americans want to prosecute a limited war against Iraq. Their appetite for battle is neutralized by the concept of American casualties. And, in the finest tradition of guilt-ridden compassion, the most unpalatable of all scenarios would be the infliction of Iraqi civilian casualties.
As ludicrous as this may sound to some, the fact of American culture is a naive proclivity towards civilization. After all, if Saddam Hussein and the terrorists his regime supports are barbarians, what are we if we mimic them? Consequently, the fact is and will remain that even at its most distasteful, the U.S. prosecution of a limited war against Iraq will remain just that…limited.
The bomb-enshrouded Islamic terrorists who jump into Israeli school buses and their French allies will be only too eager to accuse the U.S. of barbarism at the first shred of civilian flesh. Those prosecuting the war over wine and cheese from their Upper West Side apartments will be only too gleeful at the prospect of finding further fault with their country and greater nobility for the Islamic martyrs. But, most of all, the war will be limited because we are Americans. It is to our credit as a people that we do the right thing because of what we think…not because of what others might. That is our moral fabric. Those morals are what differentiate us from the seething masses of those who most despise this country.
But, in the coming conflict with Iraq, what is the “right thing”?
Is it tolerable to kill an Iraqi civilian while he is at work in a munitions factory but not when he is at home sleeping? Do levels of humanity differentiate themselves when an individual punches a time clock versus settling back in a Lazy Boy? What if our dear martyr Saddam has constructed all of his command and control facilities beneath orphanages? Better yet, what to do if the Republican Guard bunkers itself in a maternity ward and uses bulging wombs as cover?
What are soldiers? They are civilians plucked from society and put into uniform. The weapons they use, the uniforms they wear and the food they eat are all products of the civilian population that supports them. They are the tools that exercise the will of the body politique. All citizens of a country become tools of their government but, conversely, all governments are tools of their citizens. And…Webster’s defines citizen as, “a person owing allegiance to and entitled to the protection of a sovereign state.”
Thus, individuals create governments and support them. Even when a government becomes totalitarian, it cannot exist without the support of a majority of its citizenry. Even the French had the courage to rise against Louis XIV when his monarchy became too intolerable. Ipso facto, one is either a citizen or a sheep. Citizens create self-determination and sheep keep bah-bahing on their way to slaughter.
American self-sacrifice in the coming conflict should be relative. After the first round of determined and surgical strikes, if Iraqi resistance remains strong, then the gloves should come off. In 1991, the Iraqi citizenry had ample opportunity to remove their leadership. But, in the finest tradition of Islamic martyrs, they morphed from the-mother-of-all-wars to kissing-American-feet and back to death-to-America in a Mad Hatter second. If our Founding Fathers had an equal lack of fortitude, we would all be tenant farmers on the estates of British nobility. When you cede your right to do for yourself, you also cede your right to protest others doing for you or to you.
If, after the U.S. determination in the war becomes evident and credible, the Iraqis remain defiant, the sacrifice of American lives in the name of civility will no longer be justified. The taboo against collateral damage can become a bottomless pit of blackmail from which only sorrow emerges. Where does it end? In the wasting of 20 American lives to save one Iraqi civilian? In the restricted bombing policies of the Viet Nam era that landed so many good American pilots in torture camps America was vilified. And oh how the world cried if one American bomb touched a Vietnamese civilian. But only the families of the U.S. POW’s and MIA’s cried for the tortured souls of our own. Are you listening Ms. Fonda?
There are no easy answers in the days that lie ahead. Everything will be a judgment-call. But, to the American politicians, military leaders and citizenry this war should not become a political game with our brave soldiers as its pawns. That would be treason. We should fight this war as American citizens, not sheep.
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