Bill Whittle's "Victory"

Back to reading Bill Whittle in my spare time. I read "Responsibility" today and liked it, as it very elegantly and perfectly put my thoughts on the fundamental difference in human beings and what creates conflict. I more or less forgot all about it, though, reading "Victory." He wrote it in 2003, evidently shortly after they tore down the statue of Saddam in Baghdad. You know the one. The one I didn't see in Baghdad, because it wasn't there. Anyways, a lot of people, especially opponents to his way of thinking, and even myself at first, would say in hindsight that the article is written pretty naively optimistically, given that we're still fighting there and don't know when we'll be done or if we can really call it a victory. As the piece went along, though, I saw that even in mid-2003 we really had achieved profound victory in Iraq.

Everything I've read of Bill Whittle's so far has deeply touched my mind, but this one deeply touched my heart, too. I thought I was going to cry reading it at one point; thinking back on it now, I still might cry writing about it. In his typical fashion, he leads you to believe that he's talking about one thing, then reveals that he's talking about something more basic and significant yet. In this case, he talks about the victory we've won for two-thirds of the article, then says that he's not talking about our military victory, but the fact that we were even willing to fight at all, and then how we fought. The part that nearly made me cry was this excerpt:

"...we had the genius – the only word for it -- to place reporters from several nations, and from every point on the political spectrum – among the troops, to not only see for themselves, but to show the entire planet, in real time,
whether or not American servicemen are baby-killing murderers or the most
tightly disciplined, courageous, humble, humane and morally magnificent army that has ever gone into battle in the storied history of this human species.
Just step back for a moment, and think about how monumentally confident that action was. Before it even started, without knowing how well or badly it would go, with dire warnings of street-to-street fighting that would echo the horrors of Stalingrad, and predictions from shrill and desperate cynics that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians would die – on camera – we decided that we could trust our eighteen and nineteen year old grunts to do the right thing with bullets flying and the blood of their best friends on their uniforms.
Ah, but these were American kids, well-educated, highly motivated, decent and determined, and the most professional warriors, ambassadors and statesmen that ever walked this earth. Good God I am proud of every single one of them."

It truly is of unparalleled significance that our leaders had the monumental confidence in us to go about the war as it has, that our people, less the whiners and scapegoaters and demagogues, had not even the courage but the indelible confidence in our young people to go ahead with the war as we have. In addition, he crystallizes the notions that this war is probably preventing many wars future generations would have to fight, by reminding the world that we will fight a long and daunting battle to prove that our rock-solid system is the best system on the planet now and in all of its history. That "everything the enemies of America could throw at us – failed."

I have also been thinking lately, and was reminded strongly reading "Victory", of the comprehensive economics of nations. I think war's goal is to cause the enemy nation to hemmorhage resources, both tangible and political, until it can no longer survive further losses and is at the mercy of its opponent. "Victory" was really more about the Hearts & Minds campaign than about destroying or cause to be lost to the enemy its tangible resources, but I think it helped persuade me of the importance of that Hearts & Minds campaign. My problem with it before probably stemmed from it being such a cushy, bleeding-heart catchphrase, but I think its success would mean total success for the same reasons that make Iraq and us different in the first place. Our end goal really is to reshape Iraq into a free marketplace of ideas, trade, and culture, as I believe is the manifest destiny of the rest of the world. The American experiment has been so comprehensively succesful and caused such rapid growth in every field of human existence, and caused so much of the rest of the world to advance in kind, that only the worst fools can denounce it. The beauty of the American system is that it isn't just American, or rather it's not a quick fix or uniquely fitted to America. Anyone equipped with logic can reason out for themselves that the existence of creatable wealth begets free trade begets freedom and growth, no matter the culture or religion or resources. The only two requirements are the ability to trust each other and the desire to work hard, and everything from there falls into place. It doesn't require sacrificing your rich cultural traditions, just your desire to rule others and get what you don't pay for.

I guess that basically sums up why some other cultures or peoples don't like it: they'd have to start equal to everyone else and work their way up. We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. And once they're done, the whole damn world is better for it.