Will They Have Died in Vain?

[thedrifter]

Will They Have Died in Vain?
Gabriel Schoenfeld - 5.7.2007 - 1:32PM
Commentary, NY

On October 23, 1983, 241 American Marines were killed by a suicide bomber in Lebanon. “Not easy,” wrote Ronald Reagan in his diary about the painful task of telephoning the parents of the dead. “One father asked if they were in Lebanon for anything that was worth his son’s life.” The answer—not spoken but implicit in the fact that Reagan was shortly to withdraw all American forces from the war-torn country—was evidently “no.” Lebanon’s civil war raged on for almost another decade without further American interference. From the standpoint of history, the Marines had perished in vain.

We have now lost almost 3,400 soldiers in Iraq. Over the weekend another dozen Americans were added to the list, along with a great many more Iraqis. Will they, too, be seen to have perished in vain, their lives “wasted”—to employ the politically insensitive word that Barack Obama used earlier this year and then apologized for?

With each American casualty, the pressure is building for a rapid American withdrawal. The Democratic-controlled Congress wants to impose a deadline on the American presence. It is threatening to cut off funds for the war effort. Yet if the United States withdraws from Iraq, leaving in its wake a raging civil war and a fertile breeding ground for Islamic terrorists, history’s answer to that terrible question—have they died in vain?—will be all too clear.

But supporting a war that is going badly, in which American forces are getting continually hammered, is emotionally, morally, and intellectually arduous. To those of us who do not want to see American soldiers die and die needlessly, it may be time, then, to tip our hats to those in public life—soldiers, politicians, and intellectuals—who are not only being steadfast but are finding a way forward.

Among the last-named group is Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, a penetrating analyst of military affairs and one of the initial proponents of the current “surge.” In yesterday’s New York Times, Kagan offered some preliminary evidence suggesting that the new strategy is working. He also offered compelling answers to the many critics of the war who are eager to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

We cannot know yet whether Kagan will be proved right or wrong. History may charge the Bush administration with the unforgivable offense of having done too little too late when it moved in this new direction. But what Kagan’s analysis does make plain is that the decisive battle is not in Iraq, but here at home.

There are many—liberals and conservatives alike—who initially supported the war but who now appear to believe that defeat is inevitable. Some of them are busy retroactively revising their own earlier hawkish positions by means of flimsily constructed, ex-post-facto analyses of what led us into what one such intellectual—Andrew Sullivan—has called “a bloody and endless trap.” His reversal—see my Tiramisu Andrew?—is a case study in irresponsibility in wartime.

Giving in to such pessimism now would generate a self-fulfilling prophecy. But pushing forward without regaining the backing of the public may just prolong the agony—which is why the Bush administration and supporters of the war need to mount a concentrated campaign to persuade the American people to give our forces time to let the new strategy succeed.

If we fail in this, and if the Democrats make good on their promise to pull the plug, then the American soldiers who are killed between now and then will be added by history to the tally of those who died pointlessly.

That would be both a disaster and a crime.

Ellie

[jcart]

as a corpsman who was there on 10/23/83 i don't feel they died in vain,but as a prescence or force to be reckoned w/and we were blindsided,but insyead of pulling out maybe we should have built up what was devastated and left to do our "job" so my / our sons and daughters would'nt have to experience what we did 25 yrs ago.if the politicians had to get their hands dirty,would there be any wars?? respectfully submitted,doc.