Wednesday, January 8, 2003

Sean Hannity says it'll take "about 15 minutes." Bill O'Reilly declared we could take Iraq "with minimum casualties." Lucianne Goldberg thinks we ought to bomb that North Korean nuclear reactor currently being reactivated. When pressed by the host on CNBC how we should do this, she declared: "We must have a carrier over there somewhere." If these statements are representative of your thinking, you are not alone.

The U.S. military has been tremendously successful over the past 20 years in limiting its own casualties while inflicting enormous losses on the enemy. The American public has witnessed snippets of this capability through military footage made available to television news. We seem to be on the verge of the bloodless (at least on our side) war; the war Patton feared where the fighting is done by machines and nothing is risked nor reaffirmed. The danger in this thinking is that it is simply not true, and any military man will tell you it's falsehood, and its concomitant danger to us as a nation.

History is replete with examples of the uncertainty of war. Men make plans, and train, and equip, and assemble forces for the conduct of war. Once those forces are unleashed, all bets are off.

The Persians, with their overwhelming numerical superiority, were certain of victory, but became the vanquished at the hands of the Spartans at Thermopylae. The Romans sent three magnificent legions of 30,000 men against Hannibal at Cannae, only to have them completely enveloped and slaughtered. The battles of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt should all have been walkovers for the massed French cavalry, who were outranged by the English longbow and outfought with the English battle-ax. Guderian's and Rommel's massed armor overran the low countries and the numerically and technologically superior French forces in 40 days as they waited behind the Maginot line for the attack that never came.

History also shows the influence one surprise genius can exert in an armed conflict. At Gallipoli, it was Mustafa Kemal (later known as Attaturk) who tied down the British forces and inflicted 250,000 casualties. At Dien Bien Phu that genius was Vo Nguyen Giap who defied his Chinese "advisors" and their advice for a frontal assault, opting for a siege, and driving the French from Indochina. In the American Civil War, it was Grant who separated his army from its supply lines, lived off the country, marched around Vicksburg, and set the example for Sherman.

The list is long, and the examples are there to follow. Instead we get "conservative" talk show hosts who have never been near the military who, in their frenzy to support the policies of George Bush, lead an ignorant and willing public down a path that exists only in their imagination. They're all yelling: "All unto the breach," from the safety of the rear. The danger in such ignorance is the public disbelief and disenchantment when the first major military setback occurs. How could this happen? Why are we even there, and what do we do now?

In the case of Iraq, the President has still produced no tangible evidence that the former policy of containment necessitated a new policy of confrontation. He has shown us no instance where Iraq presents, or will present a direct threat to the United States or its interests. All threats are perceived by extension of a radical Islamic attack on the World Trade Center. He has also shown us no link between Iraq and radical Islam.

Meanwhile, the North Koreans, a far more unstable bunch, have used the Iraqi crisis to generate their own pressure, to what end I still haven't figured out. With an army of over 1 million, and the presence of 36,000 U.S. troops in South Korea, the forces of Kim Jong Il do represent a direct threat to U.S. citizens and our interests. At the same time, we have fired our first shots in anger at our alleged allies, the Pakistanis. Nobody knows where that relationship is going, but it doesn't bode well.

What this all adds up to is a U.S. public unprepared for the sacrifices that may be necessary. The executive branch, which consists of many chicken hawks and few veterans, won't do the politically unpalatable, and military men, by statute, are not allowed to speak out. At the same time, we may be about to attack the wrong people for the wrong reason.

The conservative press in its slavish attachment to the Republican President continues to mislead the public into believing this whole thing will be simple and practically bloodless. For the sake of my former brothers in arms, I truly hope it all transpires as these Republican draft dodgers tell us it will. I hope the Iraqi Mustafa Kemal, the Mao Tse Tung, the Arabic Nathan Bedford Forrest stays repressed by the madman.

On our part, we are committed now to this action and must be willing to stay the course, destroy Saddam and all his minions and if necessary, any part of the Islamic world that opposes us. We actually do have a very capable, well trained, well disciplined and equipped fighting force that will prevail no matter what setbacks it encounters.

But America must be made to realize there is no such thing as certainty in war. Unfortunately for us, the hard questions that should have been asked before Bush committed us to this course of action will only be asked if there is some major setback. For the sake of those risking their lives for our Constitution and ourselves, we can only hope that those questions never need be asked.

"O God of battles, steel my soldiers' hearts, Possess them not with fear! Take from them now the sense of reck'ning, or th' opposed numbers. Pluck their hearts from them."

Timothy J. Parker

Peachtree City

LTC, CTANG (Ret)