Gen. Sanchez's Scream

From Instapundit:

UPDATE: Henninger's column inspired some lengthy thoughts from reader Scott Wallace, which to some degree parallel my own worries. Click "read more" to read them.

Wallace emails:

"The problem is that our political and journalistic classes lack sufficient patriotism to promote self-discipline, or perhaps sufficient self-discipline to allow them to act patriotically."

It's both, to a certain extent. The 'sufficient patriotism' comes from just flat-out different views of what the nation should be about--internationalist versus Americans, to be blunt.

That then leads into the second--the self-discipline to realize one has lost one's favored policy proscription and now must decide whether one is going to abide by the result and support the team or try to sabotage the effort in a backdoor attempt to get one's way.

This is why I keep on sounding the clarion call of future civil conflict. I have no problems with people carping about the war effort--something obviously wasn't going well (beyond the normal refusal of the enemy to roll over and play dead for us). And, frankly, only with public pressure was anything going to change, which is a poor statement on the chain of command. And if we weren't going to fight it to win, I had problems telling people to keep supporting the effort.

However, I have to believe that one reason the chain of command was reluctant to change course in Iraq was the belief that the opposition was not in good faith, but instead was a stealth attempt to finally achieve what they could not win outright in 2003--and therefore any change in policy or admission that things weren't progressing would be used as a hammer to just end the entire thing.

I think this year has validated that view--we can win, but the other side would still prefer to lose, for various reasons. It's almost like if, in WWII, the German-American Bund was still trying to figure out how to end Lend-Lease as Patton was getting ready to cross the Rhine (i.e., lot's of fighting left to go, but you'd rather be in your shoes than the Germans).

The problem, to me, goes beyond the war. It goes to the very heart of the democratic ideal--that the loser on any issue, to a certain extent, needs to shut up and get on board, as payment for being allowed to participate. Its like poker--you don't put your chips on the table, play some hands, and then take your money out of the pot if you should lose--because other people put their money down in good faith, and would have paid up if they had lost.

The left has made it perfectly clear that the only legitimate outcome of any debate is the one where they get their way. If they don't, they grumble, and protest, and tear apart, and sabotage, and try to delegitimatize the other side--what they never do is say "well, people have spoken, we disagree, we will continue to state our side, but within limits, and now lets go forward and make this work".

A marriage based on an arrangement like that is never going to work. And a nation based on a democracy won't either, because the other side decides two can play that game. And eventually it is going to occur to one side that if the power struggle became more of a, say, "historically traditional" model, there seems to be a enormous differential in the potential of each side to field strength on the physical plane. At that point, it becomes tempting, and less aggravating, for one side to just cut the Gordian knot.

Leftists, nutroots, and Dems are akin to the classic 16-year-old obnoxious adolescent, who goes around doing whatever he wishes and thinking the world can't touch him, because others will play by the rules while he doesn't.

That is--till the world touches him, because the world is a lot bigger than the 16-year-old.

I would prefer to avoid all of this. But to do so, we have got to start talking about the ground rules--the Code of Democracy (well, they're more like guidelines...)

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader known only as Danny emails:

So, according to your reader--and by extension, you--the issue of abortion has been resolved, and all pro-lifers should shut up and get on board? Do we want to continue in this vein?

Actually, I think that's a good analogy. You don't have to shut up and get on board, but you have to realize you've lost the political battle at the moment, and not decide to throw out the rules and carry on the struggle by any means necessary. That's the distinction between outfits like Operation Rescue, or people like Eric Rudolph, and people who just think that abortion ought to be illegal. Likewise, there's a big difference between criticizing the war on the one hand, and on the other hoping that the enemy will win in order to secure political advantage here at home. And don't pretend that there aren't people who want us to lose.

But the bigger point is that people need to know how to lose, and lose gracefully. That doesn't mean shut up and get on board -- you can always try again -- but it does mean that "by any means necessary" is not a good model for a democratic civil society.

Bolding in above post added by me.

Yep, that is spot on.

On a related note, it drives me nuts when people, primarily Lefties, try to argue that we didn’t need to drop the A-bomb on Japan. To me, that only confirms their absolute ignorance of the battle for Okinawa.

As usual the MSM has chosen to censor, confuse, and spin any remarks about the war. If you read the entire text of what General Sanchez said you will find some very interesting positions like; the media and Dems have caused the deaths of some American troops, and we cannot pull out now because what would follow would be more dangerous for the US.

>>These were some big mistakes though:

One of the big problems I have with punditry on this war, is the expectation that it could have been fought “perfectly”.

WARS AREN’T FOUGHT PERFECTLY!

To illustrate this, from American history, just look at Bull Run, Little Big Horn, Kasserine Pass, Anzio, a score of others.

While I don’t disagree with your assertion that we should have increased the numbers of our ground troops early on, this idea that wars can be fought perfectly has got to go. 20-20 hindsight is a wondrous thing.

Nobody said it could be fought perfectly - no plan survives contact with the enemy.

That said, even before Iraq many people in the military and Congress were saying that the caps needed to be raised if we were to really fight a "war on terror" since it would be much more manpower intensive than any conventional war. Bush had a receptive Congress at the time - why he chose not to push for a raise in the caps, I don't know. The fact that we've had RIFs since 2003 really boggles the mind.

We forget how manpower intensive this can be (the fact that we pushed as much as possible out of the military and onto civilian contractors should have been a clear sign). People see all of the automation (UAVs, etc.) and they forget it's some grunt down there on the ground that ends up killing or capturing most of the terrorist types, because a Predator is only a tool.

As far as Iraq goes, when you fight a war against a country, or their military or political leadership, in order to defeat them, they have to know it. There can be no doubt in their minds. You don't have to wipe out villages, but you do have to make a show of force.

You can't simply say "mission accomplished", and dismiss the Iraqi military (formerly or not) and then later on get around to policing former Iraqi military bases, depots, etc. Those bases and depots weren't storing .22 birdshot - they were storing equipment and weapons that have been used against us ever since. I think too much reliance was placed on "Shock and Awe". Shock and Awe is great if you want to boot somebody out of a country, but it's not great if you intend on occupying a country of 25 million with less than 200,000 troops.

I agree with all of that.

But Rumsfeld was going down the “transformation” road, and that’s not what we did. And at root, it’s 20-20 hindsight. He has been “McLellan’ed”, pushed aside, and we are where we are. Would’a-could’a-should’a.

Good points. I'd also add, as an adjunct to your #1, that Bush should have asked for a declaration of war on 09-12-01. The only arguments I've heard against this are (a) you can't declare war against a group (I say Barbara Streisand to that), and (b) without a declaration of war the President has more latitude as how to wage that war (I find that hard to believe, and even if it's true I think the unification that a declaration would bring would trump increased options).

With regard to your #2 I think part of the problem was not letting conquering warriors act like conquering warriors. Hell, our troops should have been allowed to take souvenirs and fly our flag.