Security and Irrational Risk …
(I do not regard the freedom of the Iraq a proper purpose for Americans to die for)…
Every action has a risk. Simply existing has a risk that an event out of your control will interact with you; not many people are struck down in the prime of life by meteors, but it happens and is a measurable risk. There exists no activity accomplished by Americans, or anybody else, which does not carry a level of risk.
One of the most important aspects of the professional military that has been built since the end of the Vietnam War is our appreciation and control of risk. Some elements of the various safety regimens have trended to the ridiculous, but mostly the US military has become better for studying and managing risks and benefits.
The above quote is a sample of the irrational emphasis on safety common in political discussions about the war. By taking so absolute a stand, the author of denies the any action, save divine intervention, on our part to help the Iraqi people. While I don't object to service members praying for the Iraqi people, I cannot recommend it as the centerpiece of a strategic action plan for the Middle-East. Regrettably, opposition to the war has established miracles as the only munition acceptable to them. This is not a rational basis for security.
All of us in the military are volunteers. I volunteered again this year to serve with the reserve unit that was most likely to deploy. I did so because I felt that I could make a reasonable contribution with a marginal amount of risk. The units serving in Iraq are also experiencing high levels of re-enlistments. Part of this is due to exceptional leadership, but a lot of it is due to service members willing to accept a reasonable amount of risk to accomplish something.
Missing in the discussion of the value of American lives is the value of what is being achieved. There are about 25 million Iraqi's and we have so far lost less than 2,100 Americans. Is one American life worth the freedom of 1,000 Iraqi's? What about 10,000? Do the math any way you want, but those who are taking the risks are accepting them by re-enlisting in record numbers. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are investing themselves in the freedom of the Iraqi people.
If this discussion was taking place over coffee at Lloyd's of London, it would take moments. A risk is being offered and rational investors are placing themselves at stake to cover it
at the defined rate of return. The concerns of people not involved in the transaction would probably result in a series of boring dinner party conversations, but nothing else. Since we are in a democracy, we are exposed to those same insipid dinner party guests every day on national television. The exposure has not given them a better appreciation of risk or return, or in fact an offering of what they would be willing to invest in. The opposition to the war has not defined a rational level of risk they will accept to achieve greater security.
Sticker Shock Anti-War political operatives were discomfited yesterday when their congressional representatives were compelled to vote to lose immediately. This upset the entire notion to purchase failure in Iraq on the installment plan. The price of failure in stark terms was too much to bear as a flat payment. For longer than I have been alive, it has been the driving goal of a lot of people to convert everybody to the faith that nobody ever wins a war. As success comes closer to arriving in Iraq, the religious fervor of the pacifist faithful has become more desperate.
While this war has been hard, the professionalism of our troops has allowed them to buy success with gallons of sweat and only a small amount of blood. We mourn those who were taken from us and those who have suffered lasting harm, but their losses have not yet been in vain. The care taken by our forces to accomplish something significant with the lowest losses possible is about to be repudiated by people committed to losing at any price. While our Generals have certainly learned the lessons of running an effective counter-insurgency campaign, the opposition to the war is utterly committed to repeating the mistake of abandoning the people we try to free like they did in Vietnam. The American Friends Service Committee is trying to support the troops by the peculiar tactic of cutting them off without a cent. Others are subtly and often flatly lying about the level of success in Iraq, when they can't ignore it.
No longer can the opposition groups claim to be opposed to the war, because they aren't paying any attention to the actual conflict. When measurable quantities are mentioned, they are never related to any operational details. The 2,100 deaths are not compared to the hundreds of thousands of raids, searches, sorties, or even enemies captured and killed. Compared to any other modern war, this has been astonishingly effective. Compared to any other counter-insurgency, this is a miracle. The opposition is not mounting a principled campaign to protect our troops, because history shows that our troops are their own best guardian. The opposition is primarily opposed to success, and history has shown that they will grind our soldier's bones without a care to block military success. We are not dealing with an anti-war movement; we are dealing with an anti-success movement.
One of the fears maintained by the anti-success movement is the notion of the deranged combat veteran loose in the world, unable to tell friend from foe, killing at the snap of a twig. While Post Traumatic Stress Disorder exists, the deranged veteran story has been disproved time without number. Regrettably, the same cannot be said about the leftover anti-war activists. Time without number, rational efforts to maintain our national security have been assaulted by purveyors of shame looking for someplace to unload their stale arguments. Now that the anti-war movement has fully distilled itself into the anti-success movement, we have a real concern about ending the war. What successes will they seek to kill next in the most successful nation in the world?
