Still Winning : Our Last Hope to Be Great Again (9781546085287)

by Hurt, Charles

  Powerful luminaries from both parties have feasted at the banquet table of America’s military-industrial complex for decades. Usually the only people who are not represented at that feast are the ones who wind up paying the most grievous price for that international adventurism.

  Even to this day, reasonable people in America can debate whether or not we should have allowed ourselves to get dragged into World War II. After all, we paid an enormous price during that conflict in terms of blood and treasure. Those costs in terms of treasure only grew higher with the rebuilding of Europe and Japan. And, for the most part, the fighting was almost entirely over lands far, far away from the United States.

  Without a doubt, it was a shining moment of sterling heroism for so many Americans fighting on the front lines of Europe and the Pacific. To this day the sacrifices those men and women made are hard to entirely comprehend.

  To be sure, it was, in fact, a “world war” in every literal sense. Practically no corner of the globe was not consumed by the conflagration. Even living on a massive continent protected by broad seas did not entirely protect America from the fierce winds of that war. Beyond the savage fighting, the political winds, too, profoundly affected our tidy island home. A Europe controlled by Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin would have been intolerable and eventually would have dragged us into a war of survival. The Far East, controlled by the lunatic emperor of Japan, was not far enough away, as obviously evidenced by the bombing of our air and naval bases at Pearl Harbor.

  No matter how much of an ardent anti-interventionist you may be, we can all agree that the United States spectacularly achieved our goals in that war. Part of the reason for our success was how clearly defined the mission was—unlike our muddled efforts in places like Vietnam. We responded to Japan’s sneak attack with a ferocity that has remained a warning to vicious despots the world over during the more than seventy years since we dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We eliminated Hitler’s rapacious German army and freed Jews from his concentration camps. Finally, we struck a cool peace with expansionist Russia that at least put off the inevitable long enough to recover from the war.

  By the time all the dust settled from World War II, the American economy was booming, the Soviets were starving, the Jews had a homeland, and Germany and Japan were being rebuilt into responsible industrial countries. In time, Germany and Japan would enjoy the second- and third-largest economies on the planet, just behind the United States of America. Tiny little Israel’s economy would be among the top twenty in the world.

  Whatever you think about getting into World War II, it is pretty hard to argue with the success of it. Obviously, it came at an enormous sacrifice both in terms of financial cost to the United States and in terms of men and women who sacrificed their lives or forever paid the price of injury and horror, particularly during fighting in the Pacific.

  There was another cost of World War II that is rarely discussed. But it is a heavy one that many Americans have paid dearly in the decades since. Ironically, it stems from the unalloyed success of World War II.

  Sure, people came home from that war. They kissed girls, got married, and started families. They bought homes and built tidy neighborhoods. They enjoyed a postwar economic boom that lifted unprecedented numbers of Americans into a new, burgeoning “middle class.” It was a sudden economic boom rarely seen on such a scale in human history. Regular Americans rightly enjoyed every fruit of their nation’s joyous success.

  Outside of those growing neighborhoods with nice yards and new cars, powerful people in places like Washington, D.C., were eyeing other fruits of that time. The dizzying success of World War II demonstrated the unrivaled global power that was the United States. To those early swamp creatures, it also revealed that the levers of power in the American government could be used to turn the United States into a policeman of the world.

  President Dwight Eisenhower, our last general-turned-president, was most prescient in warning against allowing the military-industrial complex to take root in Washington. Sadly, leaders of both parties ultimately ignored that stark warning.

  Always for the most understandable and noble reasons, American leaders have been drawn into foreign conflicts: Settling foreign aggression abroad. Containing communism. Keeping global adversaries in check.

  Barely back from war in Europe and Japan under President Franklin Roosevelt, Democrat presidents Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson got us thoroughly mired in wars in Southeast Asia. President Trump is still dealing with the broken pieces left behind in a now-nuclear Korean Peninsula.

  Our entanglement in the Vietnam War was even more costly in terms of blood, treasure, and the American psyche. Vietnam was a perfect example of the globalist geniuses in Washington thinking they were smart enough to fix some far-flung part of the world. And the boys who paid the heaviest price for that intervention often were not the sons of the people making those decisions.

  Casualties mounted against an obstinate enemy and with little hope in sight. For all his failings, President Richard Nixon at least understood the need to disentangle from an enemy far, far away who was not going anywhere. The original purpose for getting involved may have remained a noble one. But Nixon was smart enough to ask whether it was worth the ongoing price. Which, of course, it wasn’t.

  The vast and extensive lies that generals and politicians in Washington wove to maintain the facade of progress in Vietnam only further damaged America’s trust in government. It caused many of America’s most patriotic families—the very same families whose loved ones fought so bravely in World War II—to wonder about the price they were paying and whether their government could even be trusted.

  In many ways, the families who paid the dearest price during Vietnam would eventually become the “forgotten” men and women who decades later would rush into the embrace of the brash New York real estate magnate Donald Trump.

  One of the biggest problems about staying out of foreign wars is that American voters tend to rally around a president in any war. This is because Americans are decent people who assume their leaders are doing their homework as diligently as Americans take care of their own families and businesses. If our leader says there’s a need and a cause worth fighting for, then Americans are there to answer the call.

  In a perfect world, never would a president get us into a war or launch air strikes in order to distract attention away from some brewing sex scandal back home. President Clinton’s timing back in 1998 was purely coincidental, he insisted. The airstrikes just happened to have come the day after House Republicans delivered impeachment charges against Clinton.

  But, as you may recall, the Iraqi air strikes were supposedly about getting Saddam Hussein’s regime to cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors—not about distracting from the politics at home. Only a rank skeptic would have any doubts about this.

  It’s that trust in leaders during wartime that leads to the added political benefit of a boost in poll numbers. The highest approval rating Gallup had ever registered was for President George H. W. Bush after he invaded Iraq in retaliation for Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, until his son—President George W. Bush—topped that record in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

  Since politicians cannot contain themselves around the mesmerizing elixir known as poll numbers, they tend to get really excited around military hardware and all manner of international interventionism. With America positioned as the world’s policeman there’s always some conflict somewhere that leaders can justify getting involved in.

  The only problem is that these spikes in poll numbers around military actions are more like sugar highs—they don’t last.

  Needless to say, about a year after his skyrocketing poll numbers, George H. W. Bush got booted out of the White House. His son also saw a serious drop in the polls as the aftermath of 9/11 led to another Iraqi invasion as well as a war in Afghanistan. Both engagements have lingered for decades beyond what was
originally promised. America had once again become involved in the tricky business of nation building in a faraway land.

  None of this is to say that either Bush threw down the gauntlet to protect the sacred sovereignty of Kuwait or avenge those lost on 9/11 just to goose poll numbers. But the added political boost is always dangerous, especially when a president is surrounded by youthful advisers whose job it is to look to the next campaign. As an adviser to the president, a political operative can’t help but think that way and advise his client, in this case the president, as such.

  Certainly, I do not believe President George W. Bush got us into the Iraq War for any kind of underhanded political purposes or for any ulterior motives, for that matter. The tangible bloodlust in the aftermath of 9/11 was so potent that action was needed. The country had witnessed three thousand of its fellow citizens suffer an unimaginable end only because they were Americans. We saw two of our most prominent symbols of America in ashes because they represented a way of life deemed unacceptable to another group of people. We heard the heroic stories of those who crash-landed their passenger plane in a field in Pennsylvania, likely saving hundreds more in the nation’s capital.

  Indeed, one of the things I have always admired about President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney is that I have never doubted that they got us into the Iraq War for anything other than their stated reasons. There was an opportunity not just to show the world that any attack on America was unacceptable, but also to try to prevent another event like that from happening again. They believed that Saddam Hussein and despot thugs like him anywhere around the world posed a grave danger to peace and security in the United States. If the choice was between intervention and prevention or hoping and waiting, then the decision was simple.

  The conspiracy theory suggesting that oil was at the heart of the decision just doesn’t hold up. Like it or not, the Middle East is a player on the world stage because of its oil reserves. Thus those countries cannot simply be dismissed or ignored—even though their hold over the world has shifted somewhat in modern times.

  But the idea that we would launch a costly war to depose a vicious dictator more than six thousand miles away, only to create a vacuum that would be filled by the next most vicious force in the area, over oil is ridiculous. Moreover, time has shown that America’s dependence on foreign oil was not permanent. In 2018, America ended its dependence on foreign oil and became a net exporter for the first time in seventy-five years. Also, if the war in Iraq was about oil, wouldn’t the better strategy have been to invade Saudi Arabia, which produces far more oil than Iraq? The theory of oil as the heart of the issue in the Iraq War just doesn’t hold up.

  The larger problem with the war is that we believed that our closely held principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would be universally shared. Did we really think that after decades of merciless subjugation by the most bloodthirsty despots, the people of Iraq would rise up and joyously fall into line under a peaceful form of democracy? The lives lost and money spent over there showed us that no amount of action or resources can put that desire in the hearts of people. The people have to have that fire for freedom themselves. It’s that fire that inspired our troops to go there in the first place and it’s what makes us want to pursue these global conflicts.

  But there are sacrifices to these overseas efforts. Think of what more than $5 trillion might have done here at home: the schools it could have built, the job programs it could have created, and the health care it could have provided for those coming home from these military campaigns.

  Most unthinkable are the lives sacrificed and heroes who came back home utterly broken. Post-traumatic stress disorder has only recently become a topic of conversation, but many suffered silently after serving honorably overseas. A 2018 report from the Department of Veterans Affairs showed the suicide rate among young veterans ages 18–34 increased by more than 10 percent between 2015 and 2016 and the suicide rate among veterans overall is 1.5 times higher than for those who’ve never served. Others come home with missing limbs or severe head trauma that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

  These sacrifices are among the easiest to forget in Washington, where the decisions are made by politicians. The generational gap between those who served in World War II and remember the sacrifices of war versus those who avoided the draft in Vietnam is evidenced by the leadership in Washington. It’s easier to disregard the sacrifices of war if you’ve never served. These considerations may change as more of those veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan run for office and are part of the conversation when considering the next invasion.

  To be sure, President Bush never relented in his optimism that the war in Iraq was justified and wise. His determination to win that war never flagged. And his devotion to the men and women he sent to carry out his orders in that foreign land never wavered. His commitment to them has remained strong even after leaving office. And his rare times in the spotlight postpresidency are almost always to promote a veterans’ cause.

  The same cannot be said about many politicians down Pennsylvania Avenue in the U.S. Capitol, where lasting positions on the war depend on which way the latest wind is blowing. In the beginning, back in 2002, there was strong unity by politicians in favor of going to war. The United States Senate voted 77–23 in favor of war, with 29 Democrats joining Republicans. In the House, the vote was 297–133, with 82 Democrats joining in.

  But the amazing and enraging thing is not how bipartisan the vote was in favor of war; it is how many of those politicians who voted in favor of the war would later declare they had made a mistake. Their commitment went no further than hitting a button to vote, while America’s precious youth were dying in a foreign cesspool. All these elected “leaders” cared about was political gain.

  Just listen to the words of two of the biggest political warriors who later deserted the men and women they had sent out onto the battlefield.

  “We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction,” declared John Kerry, the insufferable Democrat from Massachusetts. “Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein,” Kerry labored on. “He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime.”

  Not to be outdone, then-senator John Edwards went even further: “I think Iraq is the most serious and important threat to our country and I think Iraq and Saddam Hussein present the most serious and imminent threat.” Edwards, a personal injury lawyer from North Carolina, was so bloodthirsty for war that he even cosponsored an earlier version of the Iraq War resolution, though his bill never reached the floor.

  Within two years, Kerry and Edwards both turned against the war and busied themselves running a presidential campaign against President Bush. The main issue in that campaign was the war in Iraq, the war that both men had voted for.

  Both Kerry and Edwards will go down in history as the political buffoons they are. If cemeteries were just and true, John Kerry’s tombstone would be a giant granite pretzel. His epitaph would read: “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” That famous flip-flop would be in reference to the bill he voted for to keep funding the war in Iraq that he had voted in favor of but then turned against.

  And then later voted not to fund. After voting to fund.

  If there had not been so many lives of people so much worthier than John Kerry or John Edwards on the line, it would have all been funny. But young men and women were dying. They were coming home horribly maimed. There was nothing funny about any of it.

  John Kerry’s insufferable self-regard was legendary among the press in 2004, even if it rarely leaked into most of the coverage of his campaign. Reporters made little secret of their certainty that there was no way President Bush could win re-election.

  I was pool reporter on the eve of the Democrat Convention in Boston that year when Kerry went to
Fenway Park to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in a game against their arch rival Yankees. There to catch Kerry’s pitch was a soldier, back from Iraq, who supported Kerry for president.

  I described the mixture of boos and applause Kerry received as he walked out onto the field towards the pitcher’s mound. He took his position in the grass so that he could make a little league throw to the soldier squatting behind home plate.

  “Kerry then gave a gangly, long-armed windup about two feet into the green grass from the mound,” I wrote in my pool report. “It was a soft pitch that stayed aloft until hitting the dirt between the legs and under the soldier.”

  In other words, despite the little league set-up, Kerry still could not get the ball across the plate. Of course, I had to ask him about that.

  Astonishingly, his immediate response was to blame the soldier.

  “I held back,” Kerry replied. “He was very nervous. I tried to lob it gently.”

  So, it wasn’t enough to vote for a war to send this guy to Iraq, then to run a presidential campaign against the war you voted for? John Kerry also had to call the soldier some kind of Nervous Nelly when he himself could not throw a little league baseball across home plate.

  Even more enraging was the later discovery of just how little homework many of these senators did before voting for the war—far and away the most serious decision any politician can ever make. When you are sending young people to die in war, doing a little research isn’t too much to ask.

  A few years later, a 2007 report by The Hill newspaper revealed that only “a handful of senators outside the Intelligence Committee say they read the full 92-page National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s ability to attack the U.S. before voting to go to war.”