The Warrior's Ethos

"On what foundation stands the warrior's pride?"
- Samuel Johnson, The Vanity of Human Wishes

Dr. Johnson's question relates to the recent assessment of the war in Iraq. The Washington Post points to another source that the war proceeds into the quagmire that will bankrupt the United States in personnel and materiel. The quagmire, according to the article, has spread to the rest of the world because of American intervention in the Middle East. Perhaps this assertion will prove correct after the years of looking back, the historians' analyses, and the result of years of terrorist attacks on the homeland. But tonight, I thought I would use Dr. Johnson to explore what is so different between the two opposing forces. What causes men (and in the case of the United States, women) to plunge into the meat grinder?

For the jihadists, absolute truth exists. Unlike many Americans who believe that an individual defines truth set by some vague parameters based in religion, law, upbringing, the Islamists know for certain that the promise of paradise is granted for the ultimate sacrifice. Their leaders, the ones who easily send the young on suicide missions, may have alternative motives: power, money, status. If martyrdom were indeed so important to those who preach it, why would they not strap on the TNT belt and plunge into the next Baghdad cafe that they see? Thus, the warrior's pride rests on a promise, governed by the Supreme Being, but delivered through earthly intermediaries who have their own agenda. Might as well use the poor and destitute to get what you want if they are willing to go to Heaven for it.

For the servicemen and women in the United States, their pride rests on something different. The cynic will state that socio-economics influences enlistment in the miltiary. The cynics are partially correct, and the lack of particpation from scions of the upper and upper middle class proves this argument. However, the military, and in particular the combat units, swell their ranks with those volunteering for hazardous duty. Some join the military to pay for something they need or want: college, a chance to abandon their small towns, a dream of independence from poverty or to gain a job skill. But for the most part, the "trigger pullers" are men and women who want to serve at the edge of their own humanity, and they serve there so that others do not. In the heat of combat, loyalty to fellow unit members sustains the fight.

Thus, when we look at the combatants in this war, the War of Ideology that I have oft discussed, we see that a promise of paradise fights the promise of duty. Sure, the politicians drape themselves in Old Glory and speak of how soldiers and Marines want to spread democracy and provide a better life for the Iraqi people. Although I cannot quote any imam from Iraq, I imagine that their message sounds similar, that they will provide something for their people that Democracy and Capitalism cannot. In short, they fear what we guarantee, a chance for the individual to make up his mind about religion, politics, who shall be his friend, and whom he shall marry. In the ranks of the US military, you find many who serve for a promise, but in this case one given from the combatant to its citizens. Unlike his enemy, the Marine kicking in doors in Fallujah is guaranteed no eternal paradise. Instead, that Marine promises the citizens who sent him there, as General Robert E. Lee once said, "to do [his] duty in all things. [He] cannot do more. [He] should never wish to do less." His warrior's pride originates from the promise, but we depend on it, whether we support the war or not.

Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting U.S. Terror Fight

The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

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Israel to withdraw all troops from Lebanon by weekend

Israel's military chief told lawmakers Tuesday that it plans to withdraw all its remaining troops from Lebanon by this weekend, meeting a key requirement of a cease-fire that ended the 34-day war against Hezbollah guerrillas.

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77% Americans Believe Iran going "Nuclear Soon"

Most doubt that anything can be done to prevent such a development.

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A Goosestep Down Memory Lane

"What Wonder then, fair Nymph! thy Hair shou'd feel,
The conqu'ring Force of unresisted Steel?"
- Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock

The last line of Canto III from Pope's mock heroic poem blisters the mind with a concept of horrific consequences. Think of the Nazis' march through France in World War II to understand it. "Bon jour, mes amis d'Allemagne, now take away our citizens whom you deem unworthy. Do whatever you wish to them, and we will avert our eyes."

Now, the Nations of the World for Appeasement and Cowardice, formerly known on We Happy Few as "The United Nations", willfully accept the proliferation of nuclear weapons in a regime that has vowed to decimate the nation of Israel. And with all the Shia and Sunni discord in Iraq, Saudi Arabia may be next on the hit list. According to a recent poll from Rasmussen Reports, seventy-seven percent of Americans believe Iranian President Ahmadinejad will summon the Nuclear Genie and make his three wishes. More importantly, forty percent believe the World can stop Iran; thirty five percent have resigned to Iran's possessing the Big Fireworks.

The United States will, once again, sally forth isolated from the world community. Amazingly, the NWAC (again, formerly the UN), its European bench-warmers, and the rest of the Hangers-On will take the risk of a regional nuclear conflict in the Middle East. Maybe people really do not care if Iran blows up Israel, but they will care if the Saudis and their wells get blown to smithereens. How does $250-a-barrel sound? Hard to drive the Autobahn when the gas costs as much as the leather seats in a Mercedes.

According to the Washington Post, the US Treasury has now crafted a plan to exert economic pressure on Iran and the financial instituions around the world that knowingly or unknowingly feed the Beast. Thus, while diplomatic means seem to have vanished from Kofi Annan Headquarters, the Greenback and the G7 nations can at least agree to slow Iran's progress.

Let's see which governments honor this commitment. Otherwise, the 21st century's "unresisted steel" may be more horrific than the last century's.

The American Achilles

“For this cause he sent me to instruct you in all these matters, to be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds."
- Phoenix, Iliad, (9.440-1)

Petulant and arrogant, Achilles removes himself from the battlefield on the windy plain of Troy because his king, Agamemnon, has insulted him. The king knows he cannot win the battle without the brutal and skilled warrior, so he sends a delegation to convince Achilles to return to the ranks. Agamemnon also knows the fastest way home is to secure the destruction of Troy. Phoenix, a former warrior and current counselor to the king, arrives in the distant tent of Achilles and announces his purpose, to instruct the younger man to both "speak" and "do". The leader cannot perform one without the other.

On the international stage, a violent and horrific drama continues to play. In today's Washington Post, Senator John McCain and former Senator Bob Dole compare the current situation in Sudan, replete with its massacre and displacement of civilians, to the not-so-distant crisis in Bosnia and Serbia. Instead of invoking the equally apt comparison to Hitler's reign of terror, Messrs. McCain and Dole pull from recent memory as if to say "here we are again." In the mid-1990s the UN, NATO, Europeans, and Americans acted in concert to prevent a spreading genocide. Even with this effort, the brutality shocked the world. But it was stopped.

Let us also realize the opportunity here for the United States. The Sudanese government has allied with the Janjaweed militias, a group of Islamic radicals. Some, but not all, of their actions spring from the radicalized worship they practice. These militias systematically rape, torture, and murder non-Muslim Sudanese civilians, described, of course, as rebels against the government. The opportunity for the United States is to fight another battle in the 21st century War of Ideology. The Sudanese want protection and food not democratic reforms. We should provide the former as the initial salvo launched at those governments who prefer to destroy its citizenry rather than provide for it.

Fareed Zakaria, in his book The Future of Freedom, explains that economic reform and its corollary, taxes, develop and sustain democracy. In essence, without a vibrant middle-class that pay fair taxes to the government, democratic reforms are doomed. He states that governments, such as Saudi Arabia which receives no income from taxes, offer the promise of "we don't ask much of you economically and we don't give much to you politically" (p. 76). In this War of Ideology in the Sudan theatre, the United States has the opportunity to reverse this promise by providing the essential protection of life that would allow the oppressed population to grow and develop its own economic resources. In short, the War of Ideology is about "what do I get with radicalized Islam versus a legitimate capitalist/democratic government." If we cannot provide more than the Islamic radicals, then we will lose 10 times out of 10.

Phoenix's call to Achilles rings throughout the halls of Congress and down Pennsylvania Avenue. We have begun speaking the words; now we must do the deeds.

Just Watching Movies in the Basement, Dad

"For what so that this carpenter answered,
It was for nought: no man his reasoning heard;
With others so great he was put down
That he was thought mad by all the town."
- Chaucer, The Miller's Tale

In Chaucer's tale a jealous, yet simple and kind carpenter, John, hosts a young student, Nicholas, during the boy's stay in college. Nicholas, a crafty and testosterone-laden youth, convinces his host that a great flood will come to destroy the entire town, and John must build some tubs to save all John, his wife, Alison, and Nicholas. While awaiting the flood, Nicholas and Alison descend from the tubs to fulfill their natural, sexual desires, and when the final scene unfolds, John, now the cuckold, is considered the fool of the town. When his neighbors come to his house, all delight in his impotence and ignorance.

Today, two different countries cuckold Old Man United Nations. First, according to today's Washington Post, Sudan's leader, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan al -Bashir rejected a UN mandate to place troops in Darfur in order to stop the carnage on the civilians caught in a power struggle between the Sudanese government and the rebels. Second, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ignored the UN deadline to halt its nuclear program. Now he and his country, with enormous oil reserves, face economic sanctions.

What will the United Nations do? Tighten the belt on Sudan, one of the poorest nations on the planet? If that course occurs, the Sudanese government will suffer nothing as its population dwindles on the edge of extinction. Those in power will get their money the old fashioned way, they will steal it. For Iran, limit the nation's ability to export oil while world-wide supplies deminish and demand increases? Will the European nations, Russia, China, and for that matter the United States tolerate $100-a-barrel oil in order to stiffle the Iranian economy?

Niall Ferguson in his book, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, cites that Woodrow Wilson envisioned the League of Nations, the UN's predecessor, "would not merely guarantee the territorial integrity of its member states but might consider making future territorial adjustments 'pursuant to the principle of self-determination'" (p. 63). Years later, the Nazis rose to power through self-determining, democratic elections and began violating borders as soon as they could. The embers of the League extinguished on the day Germany invaded Poland. Now, the world witnesses similar defiance. What will stop the genocide, estimated to have cost 450,000 lives according to the Washington Post article above, when a dictator refuses to allow the UN troops to enter? What will stop the Iranians from developing a weapon to realize their deepest, seediest desire, "wiping [Israel] off the map"?

Unless you favor continued mass killing and future nation-sinking, diplomacy in a vacuum will not produce a peaceful solution. In Chaucer's tale, the neighbors perpetuate the crime, the humiliation of a man who had offered his home to a homeless student. The neighbors join in the fun and make no moral stand. The joke, the "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" between neighbor and reader, continues in front of the oblivious and helpless John. In this world stage, the Two Rogues have rendered the UN impotent because of the fracture within the security council. For example, in the Darfur resolution to commit troops, a resolution approved 12-0, China, Russia, and Qatar abstained. Why? Surely, those nations cannot believe mass killing a resonable activity for a government to perform. Likewise, in the case of Iran, Russia and China, and in many ways France, oppose the diplomatic objectives of the United States and Britain; thus, President Bush retorts that the US will go it alone and all responses are possible. Surely, the Chinese, Russians, and French cannot believe another Middle East war, either nuclear or conventional, to be a positive development in the progress of man.

These complicated situations warrant complicated solutions, but in reality, the Chinese and Russians have tremendous power to resolve them peacefully. They must make the just decision, to commit the men and materiel to stop both, and ignore their desire to counteract US hegemony. Otherwise, the UN peacefully sleeps, blissfully ignorant of all the sneaky behavior occuring downstairs.