Some well-known conservative commentators are feuding with each other over the prospect of war with Iraq. The rhetoric has become surprisingly heated. The central question is, of course, whether war is necessary — and morally justified.
James Fitzpatrick's new novel, The Dead Sea Conspiracy: Teilhard de Chardin and the New American Church, can be ordered directly from Winepress Publishers — 1-877-421-READ (7323); $12.95, plus S&H. You can email Mr. Fitzpatrick at jkfitz42@aol.com.
(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
But there is a side issue that is being debated just as intensely. It is the question of whether the hawks on Iraq possess sufficient military background to be advocating war. Charley Reese, Pat Buchanan and Joseph Sobran have taken the lead in making the case that they do not. William Kristol and Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard, and Jeffrey Lowry of National Review are among those who think this a bogus issue.
I know it can be annoying when someone seeks to find a middle ground between opposing sides in an argument. It smacks of fence sitting; or worse, of posturing as the wisest guy in the crowd, as the clear thinker able to find the intelligent middle ground between contesting hot heads. But I am going to take a shot at it anyway, because I think both sides in this debate have important points to make, but that the correct position, in this case, is somewhere in between them.
Consider Lowry’s comments about Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel, a combat veteran of the Vietnam war, who uses his own wartime experiences to warn of the possible unintended consequences of invading Iraq. Lowry will have none of it, snapping that “Hagel’s most remarkable entry into the Iraq debate has been to suggest that prominent hawk Richard Perle be in the first wave of the Iraq assault, an implicit argument that only those with combat experience — like Hagel — can express views on whether the United States should go to war.”
Lowry mocks Hagel’s cautionary comments as a call for “a foreign policy of endless Socratic dialogue.” “The schools of realism, isolationism and liberal internationalism,” says Lowry, “should move aside. Hagel is making an ‘ism’ out of agonizing.” More: “Sentences have meaning, and so do paragraphs. At least they do until Hagel gets his hands on them.” Lowry holds that Hagel “has raised senatorial vacuity (his strength) to such exquisite heights, one doubts that the world’s greatest deliberative body will ever be the same.”
In contrast, Charley Reese refers to the conservatives who are pushing for war with Iraq as “crazy” men who “who actually believe the United States can run about the world, overthrowing governments by force and establishing democracies in their place. This group of maniacs not only wants war with Iraq, but after that, war with Syria, Iran and North Korea. Any government that doesn’t meet their standards of a modern Western-style democracy is a target for America’s military might in their warped minds.”
Reese goes further: He sneers at hawks without military experience as “fat, pale-skinned journalists and commentators,” as “rabid intellectuals who wouldn’t know one end of a gun from another,” who “advocate war that will be fought by other people’s sons and daughters,” adding that it is “the worst kind of moral cowardice to be for war if you yourself are not going to participate in the fighting.”
Whew! Hagel raising “senatorial vacuity” to new heights? Non–military men displaying the “worst kind of moral cowardice” when they call for U.S. military action? Can there be an acceptable middle ground between those who see the question in such black and white terms? Maybe not, but let me give it a try.
First of all, come on: Lowry is right: You do not have to be in the military or a veteran to express an opinion on military policy. He is on solid ground when he states that “Hagel has views on farm policy, without growing corn himself; on drug policy, without busting crack dealers himself; on Social Security, without being an elderly retiree himself.”
In fact, I am convinced that anyone who criticizes fellow citizens without military experience as “fat, pale-skinned journalists” who will not have to fight in the wars they advocate, is seeking to get under the skin of his opponents more than illuminate the issue. If you asked Charley Reese whether the question of declaring war should be left solely to the Pentagon, he would say no. That’s obvious.
And yet, the reason why Reese can score emotional points with comments such as the above is because we all sense he is right; that there is something inappropriate about large numbers of men who have never served in the military, and who will not serve in a war with Iraq, talking tough and throwing around terms such as “national resolve” and the need for “standing firm” in the face of the enemy. Remember, it is only recently in this county’s history — since the end of the draft, to be precise — that we have faced such a situation. Until then, political leaders tended to be men who wore their country’s uniform at one time in their lives, and to be men whose sons would be in combat once the fighting began.
But not now. It is not an exaggeration: Our political leaders and leading journalists will not only not have family members in the combat units that go into Iraq, they very likely will not even know anyone who will be in those combat units. Our all-volunteer military does not come from the neighborhoods where politicians, lawyers and journalists live. I agree with Reese, if his point is that those who call for the “national sacrifice” necessary to support a war effort should be more intimately involved in the pains of that sacrifice. Otherwise our military could become something akin to the French Foreign Legion, a force available for politicians to employ on questionable missions that would not be supported by the country if its own sons were on the front lines.
So, am I calling for a reinstitution of the draft and universal military service? No, and even if that were a good idea, it is not going to happen. But how about this? How about if we simply raised the stakes? What if we required young men to not only register for the draft when they turn 18, as they currently are required to do, but also to register to be placed in some formal status in the military reserves. It will be made clear to them when they do this that they will face no military obligation because of this status — unless the country finds itself in a war that requires a massive infusion of manpower. But that if that happens, there is a good chance that they will have to play some part in the effort.
Think about how this will change the dynamics of the debate. The entire population will feel the cost of the proposed military action. Hawks will be talking about sending their sons and other family members into combat when the question of war comes up. I am not saying that would change their tune on the advisability of military action. But it might. And it would end the suspicions that lead men like Charley Reese to write of their moral cowardice.
