I'm a TNR-defender by and large. But the current online addition of the magazine features an article so scary it shakes me. Victor Davis Hanson -- I don't know who he is -- writes a piece called "Stop Talking" (byline: "Kill the insurgents".)
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040607&s=hanson060704
Here are a few of Hanson's claims:
"Most of the time in war, diplomatic machinations don't create enduring realities--events on the battlefield do. After World War I, the defeated, but not humiliated, German army that surrendered in France and Belgium provided the origins for the "stab in the back" mythology that fueled Hitler's rise to power. After World War II, by contrast, the shattered and shamed Wehrmacht in Berlin was unable to energize a Fourth Reich."
It's interesting that Hanson is talking about the "stab in the back myth" since it's recently come up about the current situation: Matt Yglesias in particular deals with the new conservative idea that "liberal commentators are killing the war effort" which Hanson implicitly feeds here. Also, I'm not a history buff but my understanding was that the rise of Hitler was largely caused by diplomatic failure: specifically the allies' draconian demands for reparations that fed far-right populist hostility in Germany -- a mistake not repeated after WWII. Maybe that's just the liberal interpretation of history, but it's always the one I've read. Hanson doesn't give it a mention.
Later, Hanson opines:
A year ago, we waged a brilliant three-week campaign, then mysteriously forgot the source of our success. Military audacity, lethality, unpredictability, imperviousness to cheap criticism, and iron resolve, coupled with the message of freedom, convinced neutrals to join us and enemies not yet conquered to remain in the shadows. But our failure to shoot looters, to arrest early insurrectionists like Sadr, and to subdue cities like Tikrit or Falluja only earned us contempt--and not just from those who would kill us, but from others who would have joined us as well.
I can't believe I read that. "Our failure to shoot looters?" What about the "contempt" we've earned by our actions at Abu Ghraib, or "we don't do body counts" approach to civilian casualties? Not even mentioned in the article.
Later, he says this:
There are other advantages to a force of some 138,000 rapidly responding soldiers, rather than 200,000 or so garrison troops. The more American troops, the less likely it is Iraqis will feel any obligation to step up to the responsibilities of their own defense. The more troops, the more psychological reliance on numbers than on performance of individual units. And, the more troops, the higher the profile of culturally bothersome Americans who disturb by their mere omnipresence, rather than win respect for their proven skill in arms.
But the IISS estimates (cribbed from Billmon) for how many troops are needed isn't 200,000 but about a half million -- enough to replicate the soldier/ civilian ratio in Bosnia. If you don't know that inconvinient bit of dissent from Hanson's grand ideas, his discussion sounds pragmatic on its face; but it's actually pretty sinister: not more troops, just more trigger-happy ones. As if lack of discipline in dealing with civilians and prisoners hasn't caused enough problems. Is he honestly suggesting things would be better if we'd gone ahead and razed Falluja?
Then comes the Neocon dream:
A consensual Iraq, then, even in the broadest sense, is a de facto revolutionary force in the region, whose daily televised parliamentary proceedings, free and open presses, economic transparency, and vibrant popular culture offer an alternative paradigm to the same old tired Middle East dichotomy between the Islamic fundamentalism of the masses and the fascist autocracy of the elite...
And the Realpolitik kicker:
The hard truth is that grand diplomacy and geopolitical calculus depend on the lethality of a few thousand American fighters in the streets of Karbala, Kufa, and Najaf. The more lethal they are today, the safer Iraqis and Americans will be in the years to come.
That combination of Realist shoot-first-ask-later dominance and Neocon pie-in-the-sky democracy-dreaming (for a country that's never known it; who's neighbors have never known it; who are still Third World in many social and economic aspects; that is culturally averse to everything else Western) is not only wildly contradictory, it's wildly scary. I usually defend TNR for offering the smarter side of hawkishness and making me think about my opposition to the War; but this, in my opinion, is the abyss.