Military Myths

Dec 23, 2007

Two trends over the past forty years contribute to our national ignorance of the cost, and necessity, of victory in Iraq. First, the most privileged Americans used the Vietnam War as an excuse to break a long standing tradition of uniformed service. Ivy League universities once produced military heroes, but now they’re little more than hotbeds of looney left politics. Yet those same universities still produce most U.S. political leaders. The men and women destined to lead this nation in wartime routinely dismiss military service as a waste of their valuable time and talents. Second, we've stripped in-depth U.S. history classes out of our schools. Since the 1960s, one history course after another has been cut, while the content of those remaining focuses on social issues and our alleged misdeeds. As a result, ignorance of the terrible price our soldiers had to pay for our freedom creates absurd expectations about our present conflicts. When the media offers flawed or biased analyses the public lacks the knowledge to make informed judgments. National leadership with no military expertise and a population that hasn't been taught the cost of freedom leaves us with a government that does whatever seems expedient and a citizenry that believes whatever's comfortable. Thus, myths about war thrive.

Myth No. 1 is that war doesn't change anything. This campus slogan contradicts all of human history. Over thousands of years war has been the last resort of tribes, religions, dynasties, empires, states and demagogues driven by grievance, greed or a quest for glory. No one believes that war is a good thing, but it is sometimes necessary. We need not agree about the manner in which a war is fought, but we can't pretend that if we laid down our arms all others would do the same. One thing we may be certain of, our enemies believe that war can change the world. And they’re not deterred by bumper stickers.

Myth: Victory is impossible today. Victory is always possible, if we’re willing to do what it takes to win. But victory is impossible if our troops are placed under impossible restrictions, if their leaders refuse to act boldly, if every target first must be approved by politicians, and if Americans are disheartened by a constant barrage of negative reporting, twisted facts, half-truths, and in some cases downright lies from the media.

Myth: There's no military solution; only negotiations can solve our problems. Generally the reverse is true. Negotiations solve nothing until a military decision has been reached and one side recognizes a peace agreement as its only hope of survival. It would be a welcome development if negotiations fixed the problems we face in Iraq, but we're the only side interested in a negotiated solution. Every other faction - the terrorists, Sunni insurgents, Shia militias, Iran and Syria – are convinced they can win, if only we would give up. The only negotiations that produce lasting results are those conducted from positions of inarguable strength.

Myth: When we fight back, we only provoke our enemies. When dealing with bullies, either in the schoolyard or in a global war, the opposite is true: if you don't fight back, you encourage your enemy to behave even more viciously. Passive resistance only works when directed against rule-of-law nations. It doesn't work where silent protest is answered with a bayonet in the belly.

Myth: Killing terrorists only turns them into martyrs. It's an anomaly of today's Western world that privileged individuals feel more sympathy for dictators, mass murderers and terrorists than they do for the victims. The truth is that when dealing with fanatics, killing them is the only way to end their influence. Imprisoned, they galvanize protests, kidnappings, bombings and attacks that seek to free them. Dead, they're dead. And dead terrorists don't kill anymore.

Myth: If we fight as fiercely as our enemies, we're no better than them. Did the bombing campaign against Germany turn us into Nazis? Did dropping atomic bombs on Japan to end the war and save hundreds of thousands of American as well as Japanese lives turn us into the beasts who conducted the Bataan Death March? But our obsession with tragic incidents of which there have been remarkably few obscures the greater moral issue: the need to defeat enemies who revel in butchering the innocent, who celebrate atrocities, and who claim their god wants blood.

Myth: Our invasion of Iraq created our terrorist problems. This claim ignores the order of events, as if the attacks of 9/11 happened after Baghdad fell. The terrorist problems have been created by the failure of Middle Eastern civilization, and were worsened by the determination of successive U.S. administrations to pretend that Islamic terrorism was an aberration. “Peacefully” refusing to respond to attacks allowed our enemies to believe that we were weak and cowardly.

Myth: If we just leave, the Iraqis will patch up their differences on their own. The point may come at which we have to accept that Iraqis are so determined to destroy their future that there's nothing more we can do. But leaving immediately would guarantee a series of slaughters and a massive victory for terrorism. It's ridiculous to claim that our presence is the primary cause of the violence in Iraq, a charge that ignores centuries of Muslim history.

Myth: It's all Israel's fault. Israel is the Muslim world's excuse for failure, not a reason for it. Even if we didn't support Israel, Islamist extremists would blame us for countless imagined wrongs, since they fear our freedom and our culture even more than they do our military. All men and women must recognize the difference between Israel and its neighbors: Israel wants to live in peace, while its genocidal neighbors want Israel erased from the map. As for the belief that the Saudis are our friends, Saudi money continues to subsidize anti- Western extremism, and hatred between Muslims and all others.

Myth: The Middle East's problems are all America's fault. Muslim extremists want everyone to believe this, but it isn't true. The collapse of the once great Middle Eastern civilizations has continued for more than five centuries, and the region became a cultural backwater before the United States became a country. It’s social and economic structures, its values, its neglect of education, the indolence of its ruling classes and its inability to produce a modern state that served its people guaranteed that as the West progressed, the Middle East fell ever farther behind. The Middle East has only itself to blame for its problems.

The wealth and power of the United States allows us many things denied to human beings throughout history, but we simply cannot afford ignorance of our nations history.