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December 13, 2006
Learning from Lincoln
Columnist Tony Blankley can't fathom the fecklessness of the American character -- or, more correctly, the character of the American political class -- when it comes to fighting and winning wars.
Official Washington, the media and much of the public have fallen under the unconscionable thrall of defeatism. Which is to say that they cannot conceive of a set of policies -- for a nation of 300 million with an annual GDP of over $12 trillion and all the skills and technologies known to man -- to subdue the city of Baghdad and environs. Do you think Gen. Patton or Abe Lincoln or Winston Churchill or Joseph Stalin would have thrown their hands up and said, "I give up, there's nothing we can do"?
Or do you suppose they would have said, let's send in as many troops as we can assemble to hold on while we raise more troops to finish the job. If the victory is that important -- and it is -- then failure must be unthinkable, even if it takes another five or 10 years.
[...]
Sometimes, current tactical logistical weaknesses must not be used as an excuse for, or a signal of, strategic failure.
In 1861, newly elected President Abraham Lincoln faced such a dilemma over the siege of Ft. Sumter. He had decided to ignore his military advice to surrender the fort.
While the final published version of his explanation for this decision in his July 4, 1861 Message to Congress did not reflect his personal anxiety in coming to that decision, it might be useful to President Bush to read Lincoln's first, unpublished, draft -- which did reflect his mental anguish as he tried to decide. All his military advisers, after due consideration, believed that Fort Sumter had to be evacuated. But Lincoln's first draft read:
"In a purely military point of view, this reduced the duty of the administration, in this case, to the mere matter of getting the garrison safely out of the Fort -- in fact, General Scott advised that this should be done at once -- I believed, however, that to do so would be utterly ruinous -- that the necessity under which it was to be done, would not be fully understood -- that, by many, it would be construed as a part of a voluntary policy -- that at home, it would discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its foes, and insure to the latter a recognition of independence abroad -- that, in fact, it would be our national destruction consummated. I hesitated."
Lincoln was alone in the self-same rooms now occupied by George Bush. All his cabinet and all his military advisors had counseled a path Lincoln thought would lead to disaster. He was only a month in office and judged by most of Washington -- including much of his cabinet -- to be a country bumpkin who was out of his league, an accidental president. Alone, and against all advice he made the right decision -- as he would do constantly until victory.
This ultimately comes down to deciding what we're willing to do to achieve victory. The grey-haired members of the Inside-the-Beltway club that produced GeezerPalooza 2006 (aka the ISG Report), for all their (alleged) wisdom, never asked any scholars of Islam and the Middle East how our withdrawal from Iraq would be perceived by our friends and enemies.
The answer, of course, is: Weak, afraid, unwilling to honor commitments, defend friends or offend our enemies.
There is no question that we have the soldiers, the weapons and the battleplans to win; what we lack now -- as Lincoln did then -- are leaders who understand that some retreats cost far more than the gain they promise.
There's much I don't like about Pres. Bush's leadership, but his unwillingness to follow the ebb and flow of popular opinion, the whimsy of the chattering classes, does seem to contain echoes of the solitary determination of Lincoln.
And, as with Abe, history -- and victory -- will be the arbiter of Pres. Bush's success or failure.
Posted by Mike Lief at December 13, 2006 11:33 PM
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