Last week, US Marines in Iraq stormed the hornet’s nest of Fallujah and dealt the anti-American insurgency a crushing blow, pacifying the mosques, murder dens and sniper holes used by the enemy to kill Americans and pro-US Iraqi policemen. They also found the mutilated body of a woman believed to be Margaret Hassan, the British aid worker held hostage by insurgents demanding the removal of United Kingdom solders from Iraq. Yet it was the video-tape of a US Marine shooting to death a wounded man that he believed threatened his life that became the top story out of Fallujah.
Images of the shooting, aired widely on Al-Jazeera television, have enraged Iraqis and other Arabs in the Middle East, prompting the US ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte to express regret for the shooting and promise that the marine involved would be held accountable under military law.
I disagree. The marine acted well within his rights. The battle for Fallujah has been particularly hard-fought; the insurgents have fought house to house, using snipers and booby-trapping the dead in an attempt to delay their inevitable defeat. The theory behind their action is simple; they do not believe the US has the stomach to endure a hard fight. They believe that if they fight ruthlessly, the US will quit Iraq.
The answer to such an enemy is ruthless force. In the American Civil War, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman knew as much when he wrote to the mayor of Atlanta that “war is cruelty” and that those “who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.” The mayor had requested Sherman rescind his order that Confederate civilians evacuate Atlanta on humanitarian grounds. Sherman argued in reply that Atlanta was the wellspring of Confederacy and that to spare it for any reason would only serve to perpetuate the war. After years of defeat and needless suffering and loss, Sherman’s bold move helped secure the eventual Union victory that came seven months later.
In Iraq, the US is faced with an enemy that has no right to strike. There is no legitimate reason to oppose the US mission—there is no right for the Iraqis to set up a religious dictatorship to replace Saddam. If peace is the goal, the US must root out the Muslim insurgents; it must make action against America synonymous with individual ruin. Rather then apologize for US forces killing the enemy, our leaders should lay the blame for such death exactly where it belongs: with those who fight against the nascent freedom that the US is installing in Iraq.
Yet we are told however that if we act boldly in Iraq, we will incur the wrath of the Arab world. Have we forgotten that we are fighting in Fallujah now because the jihadists did not honor their earlier promise to disarm and return to their productive lives? As far as the Arab world is concerned, it seems the only acceptable deaths in Iraq are American ones. Have we forgotten that the lives of our own men and women are more important than those of the enemy that seeks to destroy us?
So when I see footage of a squad of marines engaged in house-to-house fighting, and one of the marines shoots a man he perceives to be a threat, I say “so be it.” Even if the facts show that the marine was mistaken in his perception of the threat, his actions were nevertheless moral. This marine was a man acting in self-defense against an enemy who has killed brutally in the name of an unjust cause. Such is the hard, yet just nature of war.
And truth be told, our war-fighting strategy in Iraq is ridiculously over-generous to the enemy. Why should we risk any American lives to defeat the insurgents? Why doesn’t the US bomb the jihadists and the cities they occupy into oblivion as it did with the Nazis in Germany and the Shinto cultists in Japan? Our government exists to protect American lives, not to sacrifice them in the name of preventing “collateral damage.” One American life ought to be worth more than 10,000—even 100,000 of the enemy.
So instead of placing our men in harms way in Fallujah and then apologizing when they kill the enemy, we should demand that the Bush administration open up the floodgates and unleash the full power of our military might. We should fight the war in Iraq as it deserves to be fought: as a righteous war to defeat a vicious tyranny that threatened our security. Those who stand with that tyranny or seek to replace it with a new one are an enemy that forfeits their right to exist. They deserve all the harm that comes to them.
That is why I cannot cry for the man killed by the marine. To win in Iraq, those who stand with the insurgents it must be brought to ruin. Until these men choose to put down their arms, that means our killing them. If not, there will be both more death—and no end to it in sight.
::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 3:09 PM |donate | link
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Sunday, November 14, 2004::
Intellectual Activism: Let us never to fail to honor the heroic again
Here's this week's GMU Broadside Column:
Last Thursday was Veterans Day, a holiday dedicated to honoring the valor of those American men and woman who defended the freedoms of the nation though their service in the armed forces. Not unlike Thanksgiving Day, Veterans Day also aims to give thanks, but unlike Thanksgiving Day, which is celebrated though feasts and family get-togethers, Veterans Day is supposed to be celebrated though solemn events that give us pause to commemorate the contributions of our veterans.
So why then did the George Mason University, one of our great civic institutions, offer no such commemoration to mark Veterans Day last week? Nowhere on our campus was any effort made to reflect upon the role of our nation’s military veterans. No great speech or tribute was made, no heroics were honored and no losses reflected upon. It was as if the holiday didn’t even exist.
Yet this university celebrates all sorts of groups and occasions. The history of almost every ethnic minority is recalled in one way or another on campus. One university office is dedicated to “diversity programs” while another office is dedicated to “multicultural research and resource.” Last spring, the entire Johnson Center was decorated from head to toe with flags to celebrate Mason’s international cultures. There are festivities to mark almost every identity that one could imagine.
So again, why then the omission of this one uniquely American holiday? Are we veterans not important? (I say “we” because I am one, courtesy of my five years with the marines). Is it because we were part of a brotherhood of arms that is uncomfortable to contemplate in these controversial times?
The truth is we veterans are as much a part of the George Mason community as any other group. Our military experience makes us unique; we are part of a fraternity not of race or of birth but of choice; we chose to affirm our freedom by serving in the nation’s armed forces. That commitment took us to the ends of the earth, separating us from families and loved ones and testing us in ways unimaginable to most: from tedium, to despair, to the elation many of us feel from being part of hard-won achievement.
I personally know men on campus who have endured the kind of pain only the battlefield can offer; men who, quoting a poet “march[ed] in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,” yet kept their grace and benevolence even in the face of it all. These are men whose courage brought them honors when they wore the uniform, but who here, in our community, receive little credit and no special mention. Universities are sacred places; because of their role in discovering and teaching truth, they are a place where the best within us is reflected. Yet if last week was any indication, the best in our veterans has become hardly worth mentioning.
This failure to properly commemorate our heroes is wrong. The fact is that every discipline and every department on our campus ought to mark Veterans Day. The history department could recall those Mason students who performed heroically in battle. The information technology department could recall the role computer engineers played developing the computers that broke the enemy’s secret codes. The women’s studies center could recall the role women played in the fight for freedom. The philosophy department could reflect on the power of a free and independent people to defeat every tyranny that would seek to enslave them. This list is endless; in the fight for freedom, practitioners of every art and every science have played a role.
Yet that George Mason forgets the role our veterans played in securing the freedoms that make our university and other places of free thought possible is unforgivable; it says we place no value in the struggle it took to bring liberty our people and the effort it takes to preserve it. We should be ashamed of ourselves for this oversight.
I propose that George Mason never let another Veterans Day go unmarked again. I propose that a parcel of land on campus be set aside and a monument be constructed on it to pay tribute to Mason’s military veterans and those Mason alumni who have died in the service of the nation. This memorial should be conspicuous and prominent; it should be a place of awe, reverence and respect that personifies the virtues we seek to honor in our veterans.
On Veterans Day, this monument should be a site of celebration. And perhaps most importantly, this monument should be a palace where a future generation of veterans will remember and draw inspiration in the hour of their testing.
We should do this. I can forgive an error of omission in our failing to properly observe this last Veterans Day. I can not forgive an error of commission that says “no” to a call for us never to fail to honor the heroic again.
::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 10:28 PM |donate | link
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