What Have We Become?

I don’t remember all the details, but I can clearly recall the scene on VJ (Victory Over Japan) day in my hometown.  My father took me on the two-block walk from our home to the downtown area.

It seemed as though every ambulatory citizen was there.  Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Socialists, and perhaps even a Communist or two were hugging each other, slapping each other on the back, shaking hands, and dancing in the middle of the street.  Loud music emanated from the several taverns in the small business district.  Dad said everyone who wanted a free drink had no problem finding someone to buy it.

Joy was general.  No one was asking any questions about the ethics of actions that ended World War II, including atomic bombings.  No one was questioning our military strategy, or the intentions or operations of any of our allies.  Some of that came later, but for the moment Americans were just plain happy that the killing finally had stopped.

In recent days, American involvement in two wars ended.  The eight-month civil war in Libya reached the last of its final days when rebels killed the nation’s tyrannical leader.  Almost simultaneously, President Obama declared our military work in Iraq over after eight years of struggle in a war that every poll showed was unpopular with a majority of our people.

Were there huge celebrations?  Parades?  Loud music? Free drinks?  Not at all.  We were immediately treated to a volley of carping and bitching by various politicians and commentators.

Our NATO allies, primarily the United Kingdom and France, who did the heavy lifting in Libya, where charged in the United Nations and some American media with violating their charter to provide air power to protect Libyan civilians.  What were the British and French pilots supposed to do?  It seems wildly impractical to suggest they should land when they spotted an armored vehicle and ask the driver if he intended to shoot rebels, innocent civilians, or just a couple of rabbits before they launched a rocket.

From the right came complaints that the U.S. did too little in Libya, and never should have let allies assume the leadership in the military actions.  From the left came assertions that we should have shunned any involvement at all, and had run a huge risk of getting into another Viet Nam or Afghanistan quagmire. From other quarters came charges that helping the rebels would surely result in replacing a secular dictator with Libyan leadership controlled by religious fanatics.

We did have the leading role in Iraq, so the critics had to shelve that complaint and come up with a few new ones.  One was that Obama played a political trick to gain support before the next elections.  That is a strange position, indeed, considering he made a clear promise during his presidential campaign to get us out of Iraq. Apparently, keeping a promise nowadays is an evil act.

Others complained about leaving four or five thousand contract guards in Iraq to protect our diplomats and other civilian workers.  They cautioned that relying on contractors for security purposes was a serious danger.

What should we do?  Let the remaining known thugs in Iraq wipe out a segment of our diplomatic and foreign aid corps?  The prime minister of Iraq refused to continue to allow legal protection for American troops; thus it seems quite logical to turn to contractors to provide needed para-military power.

Probably the most unbelievable criticism is that Obama acted precipitously and failed to execute an orderly withdrawal.  Good grief; our withdrawal has been in the planning stages for at least two years.  Our administration is well into planning a withdrawal from Afghanistan, with a target date some three years in the future.  That would seem to indicate the people in the White House and Pentagon are practicing careful planning.

This critic thinks three years is way too long to wait for the Afghan withdrawal.  I hope that doesn’t make me as un-American as the rest of those idiots who can’t take even a day off from their political agendas and negative attacks to celebrate the end of a war and praise our young men and women for their role in bringing it about.

Of course, World War II was much larger, although it lasted only about half as long as the Iraq adventure.  And, American involvement in Libya was relatively minor and resulted in no loss of life. No matter the scope or length of the conflicts, however, lives were put at risk and dollars were spent that could have been used for better purposes.  

But yet the spirit in the country seems very different from the way people felt at the end of hostilities in 1945.  Have all the wars since then caused us to no longer feel any personal connection to military actions?

What about Libya?


A reader posed the question regarding our latest military adventure after reading the geezer’s opinions (March 20 post, “When Will We Ever Learn?) regarding American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those opinions could be summarized as: “Get out.”

I’m a little nervous about another military entanglement in the Muslim world, but I believe the U.S engagement in Libya was justified. President Obama is being vilified just about equally by those who say we should have gone in sooner and those who claim we should not have entered the fray at all. Somewhere in the middle are various members of Congress who are complaining that they weren’t consulted, or even that Obama’s action was illegal without their approval.

It all reminds me of what many wise old U.S. Forest Service managers said during my career with that organization when we were in the middle of a controversy: “When we’re catching hell equally from the timber industry and the preservationists, we’ve got it about right.”

I think Obama got it about, but not quite, right this time.

To ignore the pleas for help from the young rebels in Libya would have sent a terribly wrong message to other youths calling for more freedom and democratic institutions throughout the Middle East. It would have sent an equally wrong signal to tyrants we have traditionally supported, such as the Saudi royal family. This, I think, is just the right time in history to change the course of our foreign policy to what we say it always has been—supporting freedom and democracy.

We don’t need to launch another dozen wars to pursue humane, rather than economic, goals. But we do need to demonstrate to the tyrants that they must make concrete progress toward reforms that benefit their people or they will lose any support we are giving them, and we will join international military opposition to them should it develop. We can help make the world a better place with that sort of policy.

Obama, I believe, made only one serious mistake in his approach to the Libyan situation. Early on, he announced to one and all that “Gadhafi must go.” That defined a not necessarily essential end point to the conflict. The current civil war could end in a stalemate, resulting in an east-west partitioning of Libya. I think a partition separating traditionally unfriendly tribes, although not entirely satisfactory, would represent progress. There was no reason to rule it out with an emotional declaration stating only one outcome is acceptable.

Otherwise, Obama did the correct things. He declines to agree with those who say he actually created an “Obama Doctrine” for dealing with rebellions against dictators, but I think he did. If he did, it’s a good doctrine.

He studied the situation carefully, almost until the last possible minute available to save the rebels. He waited for a commitment from the Arab League to oppose Gadhafi and a commitment from NATO allies to assume military leadership after our major involvement was completed. He helped get United Nations Security Council approval of action to protect Libyan civilians. He stated clearly that American troops would not be involved, and we were not going to accept a leadership position throughout the conflict.

This approach is superior to what we have done recently in the Middle East—launching an assault by all available American forces, dragging along only those allies we could coerce into participating. That’s the kind of action that got us in all the trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan, trouble we can’t seem to get out of.

Of course, the fact that the two wars have emptied our treasury may have been the primary factor in putting us on a better course than usual. Letting others take the military lead after a no-fly zone was established was a big cost saver for us. But it wasn’t a five-and-dime variety military action, either. Those Tomahawk cruise missiles (we fired about 112 the first night of our activities) cost $1 million to $1.3 million apiece. We had more than 2,000 stockpiled when we opened fire, so the costs won’t be immediate, but the bill will come due when we replenish the arsenal.

Those expensive missiles needed to be fired. Military leaders are unanimous in stating that the first step in establishing a “no-fly zone” is to knock out anti-aircraft weapons and detection systems. We did that pretty quickly. Now our involvement is limited to things we are very good at, such as aerial refueling and surveillance and related intelligence and communications operations. The rebels and our allies who have the biggest stake in creating a democratic Libya are handling the rest.

Our involvement in Libya has cost us some cash, but so far not one American life has been lost and we have saved many, many lives. Gadhafi said he would kill civilian opponents “like rats,” and go door to door to do it when he had the chance. There’s no reason to doubt his word on that. Our air and missile power attacks helped prevent slaughter on a giant scale. Obama needs only to stick to the limits he has set for American participation to make our part in the Libyan intervention a success we can take pride in.

Call the new approach whatever you want—a doctrine, a policy, a blunder, an accident of history. I call it a welcome, new approach when force becomes necessary to carrying out our responsibilities to help improve the human condition.

Aim, Boys, Aim


Would someone please tell those Libyan rebels who claim to be hard up for arms and ammunition to stop firing rounds into the air to celebrate every little thing? The enemy seldom attacks from that direction.