HANSON!

Victor Davis Hanson:  Surreal Rules

The
difficulties of fighting in an absurdly complicated region.

1. Any death — enemy or friendly, accidental or deliberate, civilian or soldier
— favors the terrorists. The Islamists have no claim on morality; Westerners do
and show it hourly. So, in a strange way, images of the dead and dying are
attributed only to our failing. If ours are killed, it is because those in power
were not careful (inadequate body armor, unarmored humvees, etc), most likely
due to some supposed conspiracy (Halliburton profiteering, blood for oil, wars
for Israel, etc.). When Muslim enemies are killed, whether by intent or
accidentally, the whole arsenal of Western postmodern thought comes into play.
For the United States to have such power over life and death, the enemy appears
to the world as weak, sympathetic, and victimized; we as strong and oppressive.
Terrorists are still “constructed” as “the other” and thus are seen as suffering
— doctored photos or not — through the grim prism of Western colonialism,
racism, and imperialism.

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In short, it is not just that Western public
opinion won’t tolerate many losses; it won’t tolerate for very long killing the
enemy either — unless the belligerents are something akin to the white,
Christian Europeans of Milosevic’s Serbia, who, fortunately for NATO war
planners in the Balkans, could not seek refuge behind any politically correct
paradigm and so were bombed with impunity. Remember, multiculturalism always
trumps fascism: the worst homophobe, the intolerant theocrat, and the
woman-hating bigot is always sympathetic if he wears some third-world garb,
mouths anti-Americanism, and looks most un-European. To win these wars, our
soldiers must not die or kill.

2. All media coverage of fighting in
the Middle East is ultimately hostile — and for a variety of reasons. Since the
1960s too many reporters have seen their mission as more than disinterested news
gathering, but rather as near missionary: they seek to counter the advantages of
the Western capitalist power structure by preparing the news in such a way as to
show us the victims of profit-making and an affluent elite. Second, most
fighting is far from home and dangerous. Trash the U.S. military and you might
suffer a bad look at a well-stocked PX as the downside for winning the Pulitzer;
trash Hezbollah or Hamas, and you might end up headless on the side of the road.
Third, while in a southern Lebanon or the Green Zone, it is always safer to
outsource a story and photos to local stringers, whose sympathies are usually
with the enemy. A doctored photo that exaggerates Israeli “war crimes” causes a
mini-controversy for a day or two back in the States; a doctored photo that
exaggerates Hezbollah atrocities wins an RPG in your hotel window. To win
these wars, there must be no news of them.

3. The opposition —
whether an establishment figure like Howard Dean or an activist such as Cindy
Sheehan — ultimately prefers the enemy to win. In their way of thinking, there
is such a reservoir of American strength that no enemy can ever really defeat us
at home and so take away our Starbucks’ lattes, iPods, Reeboks, or 401Ks. But
being checked in “optional” wars in Iraq, or seeing Israel falter in Lebanon,
has its advantages: a George Bush and his conservatives are humiliated; the
military-industrial complex learns to be a little bit more humble; and guilt
over living in a prosperous Western suburb is assuaged. When a Jimmy Carter or
Bill Clinton — unlike a Nixon, Reagan, or Bush — sends helicopters or bombs into
the Middle East desert, it is always as a last resort and with reluctance, and
so can be grudgingly supported. To win these wars, a liberal Democrat must
wage them.

4. Europeans have shown little morality, but plenty of
influence, abroad and here at home during Middle East wars. Europeans, who
helped to bomb Belgrade, now easily condemn Israel in the skies over Beirut.
They sold Saddam his bunkers and reactor, and won in exchange sweetheart oil
concessions. Iran could not build a bomb without Russian and European machine
tools. Iran is not on any serious European embargo list; much of the
off-the-shelf weaponry so critical to Hezbollah was purchased through European
arms merchants. And if they are consistent in their willingness to do business
with any tyrant, the Europeans also know how to spread enough aid or money
around to the Middle East, to ensure some protection and a prominent role in any
postwar conference. Had we allowed eager Europeans to get in on the postbellum
contracts in Iraq, they would have muted their criticism considerably. To
win these wars, we must win over the Europeans by ensuring they can always earn
a profit.

5. To fight in the Middle East, the United States and
Israel must enlist China, Russia, Europe, or any nation in the Arab world to
fight its wars. China has killed tens of thousands in Tibet in a ruthless war
leading to occupation and annexation. Russia leveled Grozny and obliterated
Chechnyans. Europeans helped to bomb Belgrade, where hundreds of civilians were
lost to “collateral damage.” Egyptians gassed Yemenis; Iraqis gassed Kurds;
Iraqis gassed Iranians; Syrians murdered thousands of men, women, and children
in Hama; Jordanians slaughtered thousands of Palestinians. None
received much lasting, if any, global condemnation. In the sick moral calculus
of the world’s attention span, a terrorist who commits suicide in Guantanamo Bay
always merits at least 500 dead Kurds, 1,000 Chechnyans, or 10,000 Tibetans.
To win these wars, we need to outsource the job to those who can fight them
with impunity.

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6. Time is always an enemy. Most Westerners are
oblivious to criticism if they wake up in the morning and learn their military
has bombed a Saddam or sent a missile into Afghanistan — and the war was begun
and then ended all while they were sleeping. In contrast, 6-8 weeks — about the
length of the Balkan or Afghanistan war — is the limit of our patience. After
that, Americans become so sensitive to global criticism that they begin to hate
themselves as much as others do. To win these wars, they should be over in
24 hours — but at all cost no more than 8 weeks.

Silly, you say, are
such fanciful rules? Of course — but not as absurd as the wars now going on in
the Middle East.