Leading the charge from behind a desk
By LIONEL VAN DEERLIN
Columnist
The San Diego Union-Tribune
September 4, 2002
We should attack Iraq, the sooner the better. An air war for sure, maybe ground troops too. That's up to the president. Allies? – who needs 'em? Or utilize the United Nations? Hah!
I detect a distressingly familiar pattern here. Almost without exception, it seems, the loudest voices for sending Americans into battle are raised by persons who never have been to war themselves.
A sensitive point, this. Who would argue that wisdom in foreign affairs is limited to those who have worn the uniform? I, for one, felt no smarter after four wartime years in the Army.
And yes, the world changes. From Congress on down, most persons now in government are unlikely to have seen military service. No one denies their right to sound off.
Still, I have to wonder about the raucous calls we hear for storming ramparts in far-off places. Might such clamor come with greater credibility – and surely with more grace – if raised by persons who know the sound of shot and shell?
Instead, today's warmongers are being rallied increasingly by stay-at-homes. Example: What seemed an orchestrated call for pre-emptive action against Iraq was heard, just days apart, from Vice President Cheney and the GOP's House whip, Tom DeLay.
So what bugs me? Well, Cheney obtained his college BA and DeLay his high school diploma in the very same year, 1965 – a moment that marked the height of America's troop buildup in Vietnam.
I don't propose making a peep show of long-ago Selective Service records, nor shuffling through anyone's past. Suffice it to note that neither DeLay nor Cheney enlisted, and neither was drafted for America's last major military venture. Yes, countless young men similarly avoided service in that war. But many thousand others answered the call, including more than 57,000 whose names fill a memorial wall not far from the U.S. Capitol.
In a late August address by DeLay, one might have thought we were hearing General Patton. Demanding "action now" against Saddam Hussein, the congressman juxtaposed the following thoughts: "I feel very comfortable in saying this . . . Yes, I realize there will be casualties."
DeLay might argue that he's no stranger to violence. He ran a termite exterminating business in Sugar Land, Texas.
Cheney's fighting credentials rest on his stint as secretary of Defense under the first President Bush. He speaks proudly of helping execute the six-day Gulf War, which is to say that his bunker was behind an office desk some 7,000 miles from where the bombs were bursting.
Cheney recently assured a VFW audience in Nashville, "The entire world must know we will take whatever action is necessary to defend our freedom and security."
It's been a long time since an earlier Rough Rider was vice president.
Others voicing eagerness for a first strike against Baghdad include Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and the chairman of Bush's Defense Policy Board, rotund Richard Perle. Their common bond? Both look back on careers happily uninterrupted by military service.
Similarly deprived is Kenneth Adelman, a sprightly fellow who's been on most of the TV talk shows, where he describes the intended assault on Saddam as "a piece of cake." Adelman's curriculum vitae begins with his selection as President Reagan's chief arms negotiator. His Senate confirmation hearing in 1983 is remembered for a perplexing exchange on – what else? – arms control.
"Do you agree with Defense Department calculations that the nation could survive a nuclear war?" a senator asked.
"I'm not sure. I haven't given it much thought," Adelman responded.
"Do you have any idea how many Americans might be left alive after an exchange of the missiles presently on line?"
"I have no way of estimating. It's not my area of interest," said Adelman, who'd soon be our man at the arms bargaining table.
It's hardly comforting to learn this same public servant now views the Iraq venture as a piece of cake.
Nothing new here. In the late Vietnam years, Indiana Rep. Andrew Jacobs, a veteran of sustained Marine combat service in Korea, expressed an aversion for public officials who talk a strongly pro-military line but have done no fighting themselves. In the well of the House one day, Jacobs introduced and defined a new term: war wimp.
"War wimp is a noun, singular," Jacobs began. "It means someone who is all too willing to send others to war, but never got 'round to going himself. . . . "
Though the congressman named no names, Capitol newsmen began compiling a list of chest thumpers who met his definition.
War wimp – not bad. What say we keep the list updated?
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Van Deerlin represented a San Diego County district in Congress for 18 years.
Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
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