Why Don't Republicans Want Out of Iraq?
Sun Nov 14, 2004 at 08:10:14 PM PDT
I was reading through the Free Republic, and came across
this thread. Basically, the article claims John Kerry lost Vietnam and now by his mentioning Al QaQaa in the campaign betrayed "my [the author's] son in the same manner that he had betrayed his fellow Swift Boat servicemen, and then all the American servicemen and women who served honorably in Vietnam so long ago." The comments included such rubbish as (on Vietnam) "The scoreboard says we lost. The players know better", various defenses of Joseph McCarthy, blaming Truman for losing Korea, etc.
I think the reason this "conflict" in politics continues is based simply on the fact that neither side understands how the other thinks, and thus neither side can attempt to solve the problem for their benefit. I don't claim to understand either side perfectly, but I think I have an idea of why Republicans remain convinced that we are winning the war in Iraq.
For an example, let's look back at Vietnam. The right, as personified by John O'Neill, in general believed that the "pacifist, cowardly left" as personified by John Kerry, was directly responsible for "losing" Vietnam. Their reasoning is as follows: Our boys in Vietnam never lost a battle. Thus, it had to be the people back at home, the cheese-eating surrender monkeys who lost Vietnam. From their AXIOM of "The military never lost a battle. They couldn't have been the ones to lose the war", they come up with increasingly absurd theories, such as "If the US had presented a united home front, the Vietcong morale would have collapsed and we would have easily won."
I say AXIOM because they believe it could not possibly be false. If you were to ask the average right-winger "Could we have lost Vietnam without losing any battles", they would say "No". And as we didn't lose militarily in Vietnam, they must find a new front for us to have lost on, in this case the public opinion front.
However, they make a logical flaw (rather, 2 flaws). The first is embodied by the statement "We never lost a battle, so how could we lose the war?" They believe with all their hearts that with our superior firepower and the American Spirit, our troops are nigh-invulnerable in combat. Normally, they blame the "protestors at home" for our loss in Vietnam. Occasionally, they will blame incompetent cowardly generals for the loss. They do not even CONSIDER the fact that we can do everything "right" and still lose the war. And they do not even look at doing everything "right" correctly. By their definition, doing everything "right" means simply having military superiority, such as through the highest weapons technology. As we have the newest tanks and airplanes, we must be doing everything "right", and thus we can't lose. They don't bother thinking about the "hearts and minds" of the native people. Thus, they think nobody else needs to think about their hearts and minds, so they might as well tell us the people will be greeting our troops with roses.
The second is "shoot the messenger" syndrome. They think "We can't be losing this war. We weren't losing the war until you said we were. It's you're fault." Thus, when the news media started reporting on the massive casualties in Vietnam, they were killing our troops by reporting it. When Walter Cronkite said after the Tet Offensive that Vietnam was a stalemate it became a stalemate. When John Kerry claimed that the war was unsuccessful, the war became unsuccessful.
If we are not careful, the same thing will happen with regards to the Iraq conflict. American troops have recently entered Fallujah to clear it of rebel and terrorist troops (there is a difference, and there are some of both in Iraq). The terrorists and rebels have undoubtedly left Fallujah for some time now, as Kos has pointed out multiple times. But in the eyes of the right wing, it is another military triumph! We cleared the insurgent hotbed of Fallujah with minimal loss of life. And caused lots of casualties!
I digress for a moment to comment on the last statement, as it truly sickens me. First, the fact that the success of the war might be judged solely based on how many people we have killed in Iraq. These are real people. This isn't a game. Secondly, the fact that most of the people dying AREN'T the ones we want to kill. I am sure that more civilians were killed than terrorists in the Fallujah assault. But, anybody who claims "We are killing civilians and letting the terrorists get away" will in rightwingthink be letting the terrorists get away.
The important question remaining is: How do you reason with these people? How can you tell them that we can lose the war without losing battles? How can you tell them that we don't win or lose because of what people at home say? Here are some thoughts:
1) Don't call it a war! By war, people tend to think of a fight between two organized governments, and whoever destroys the other government wins. The populace is unimportant in a war.
We are NOT FIGHTING A WAR in Iraq. There was no declaration of war, and even if there was, it would have been against the Hussein regime. We are not at war with Iraq. We are now on a peace-keeping mission. We are now in Iraq for peace-keeping, not for war. This is where the "We won the war, can we win the peace" comes into play. But that still talks in the language of war. Perhaps talking in the language of nation-building would be better. We need to be focused on creation, not destruction. Iraq is our friend now. We need to help them.
2) This one is more problematic, because nearly any argument you can give can be ignored by them saying "You're losing us the war!". The truth is no help against these people, as witnessed by Inhofe (I refuse to dignify him his title) and his "more outraged by the outrage than ... by the treatment" in Abu Ghraib.
Or rather, the truth is no help against some of these people. However, the mass of the American public will listen to the truth. I sincerely doubt the Limbaugh's and Inhofe's can convince the American public that because we report what happened last year now, we are causing the troops to lose in Iraq in the past. If we can show that it already HAS happened, and don't claim it will happen, it will be much harder to blame the messenger.
Just as you must think like a terrorist to understand them, we need to try to think like the right-wingers in order to defeat them. I'm not comparing Republicans to Al Qaeda, I'm just saying that we need to try to understand where they are coming from. Too often, we simply dismiss them as "stupid" or "delusional". This isn't the case. They simply have different beliefs than us. We should respect this, but we also have a duty to show them where it is not a matter of belief, but they are wrong. We lost far too many men in defense of the "domino theory". We need to make sure we don't lose more in Iraq.
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