Eric's Beijing Diary

This morning on Dialogue, Hazim Hamed, Arab expert with the Xinhua News Agency was talking with Yang Rui about the current quagmire that the war in Iraq has become. He pointed out that Iraq is very much a tribal culture, and that the Americans have become enmeshed in a situation they do not seem to understand. He talked about the growing disillusionment among the people of Iraq concerning the war.

It is hard to get a handle on what the people in Iraq are really thinking, because their opinions are usually represented by someone who has a particular position to defend. I don't know if there is anything approaching a scientific poll in Iraq. But there does seem to be some question in the minds of the Iraqi people whether the Americans, in cooperation with the interim government, are going to be able to stabilize the region.

I am not sure how objective Mr. Hamid's position would be--it's really hard for me to judge. But, if nothing else, it was a reminder of how the Americans have failed once again, to really count the cost of waging war.

World War II was consuming. There was no one in the country who was not touched by it. But somehow Vietnam was different. The poor boys went to war, and the privileged somehow found a way out. For twelve years, now, this country has been ruled by men who were among those privileged, and were able to escape the horrors of war. They never lived in the battlefield. They never felt bullets whizzing over their heads. For this reason, they simply do not have a personal awareness of the horrible cost of war.

The modern American idea of trying to fight a war without an army is hopelessly unhistorical. Of course it is not a bad idea to destroy the materiel of war from the air. But as soon as possible, you must go in with heavy artillery and pound the daylights out of enemy defenses. And then (and this is the part everyone seems to forget), you must go in with the Army. And you need to go in with enough divisions to completely overwhelm the enemy and occupy the territory.

MacArthur ruled Japan as a virtual dictator for five years after World War II. This time, the Americans have rushed to turn over the country to in interim government before they have even begun to secure the area! They clearly do not have control of the country, and they are already declaring victory and relinquishing what little control they have. It's hard to watch. War is a horrible, dark, dirty, disgusting thing. If you find that you must wage war, then you fight to the finish, push the enemy to a full surrender, and bring healing to a broken land. This new American practice of trying to fight a war without an Army is self-defeating. It will never work.