ninme

So, Fred Thompson the other day said something I think is kind of silly, and they’ve been passing the issue around at the Corner over the weekend, and Mark Steyn, in a series of posts, made (and expounded upon) some interesting points:

The Corner - Re: Thompson is probably right… Mark Steyn

I have no particular problem with Fred Thompson’s statement, and The Washington Post’s promotion of the Soviets as liberators is absurd. But in defending the Senator is it really necessary to sneer at everybody else? “British Commonwealth” may be a joke designation to David Freddoso, but in the First and Second World Wars the Empire had one common citizenship: In the legal sense, Welshmen, Canadians, Indians and Jamaicans were all “British subjects” and 1.7 million of them died. They fought together, and they’re buried together in Commonwealth war cemeteries in almost every corner of the globe.

As to whether it’s still a meaningful categorization, take the “British Commonwealth” out of Afghanistan today, and then see how long it takes to name a single Nato ally who’s prepared to do any actual fighting alongside US troops.

As for “soldiers stolen by force from occupied Ireland”, southern Ireland was famously neutral in World War Two and so the only Irishmen who fought Nazism and Fascism were the many who volunteered to serve in British regiments. Speaking as an Irishman myself, I can’t see why it advances Senator Thompson’s point to denigrate the service of every living Irish combat veteran.

UPDATE: Getting a lot of shamrock-hued anecdotage along the lines of the following:

Do not forget the many Irish volunteers who flew with the RAF, including such memorable characters as the fighter ace Paddy Finucane, who once, during the Battle of Britain, while in his cups at a pub after a long day fighting the Luftwaffe, raised a pint and offered a toast, “To Eamon de Valera! He kept us out of the war!”

Alas, Finucane did not survive the war. He was killed in 1941, leading a fighter sweep over occupied France.

The Corner - Soldiers of the Queen, cont. Mark Steyn

Re Fred Thompson and David Freddoso’s remarks on who spilled more blood, I’ve had a remarkable number of emails along the lines of the following:

The Commonwealth figures for KIA and total casualties somewhat exceed the USA’s figures for World War II, but it can also be argued that most of those casualties were taken in direct self defense of the homeland (Britain and Australia), mainly from attacks by Hitler’s Germany and much less so from Japanese attacks on the Brit colonies in the Pacific.

The USA was not actually engaged in a war to defend its very existence from invaders in World War II, as clearly were the UK and Australia… It can be argued reasonably that the USA was engaged in the Atlantic War mainly for the benefit of its British allies and to prevent Hitler from dominating all of Europe. Therefore it can be argued that proportionally far more of the American casualties in Europe were suffered in defense of other nations’ freedoms than in defense of the American homeland.

So now we’re arguing about what proportion of a nation’s war dead died in direct defense of its national territory as opposed to those who died as a selfless act of generosity to a remote people in a distant struggle in which they had no national interest at stake?

Okay, let’s play this game. If the USA was “not actually engaged in a war to defend its very existence”, then presumably neither was Canada. Yet Canada suffered a higher per capita rate of military casualties in World War Two than America. So, for that matter, did Newfoundland, which was not at that time part of the Dominion of Canada. No big surprise about that. They were both in the war two years longer than the United States. But, if my correspondent is going to get all Stanislavskian about it, what was the Newfie or Manitoban motivation for soldiering in Europe?

Look, I’m the least anti-American non-American on the planet. All I did was defend the Commonwealth’s war dead and the 70,000 Irish volunteers who served with the British in the Second World War from the cheap sneers of David Freddoso. I certainly never attempted to argue that the Commonwealth had spilled more blood, or better blood, or proportionately more disinterested blood, as these correspondents are arguing, than the US. And I didn’t do that for a very simple reason: It’s unbecoming for a serious nation to get into a pissing match about whose pile of war dead is higher.

The Corner - Better dead than Fred. Mark Steyn

By the way, I see, on re-examining David Freddoso’s original post, that Senator Thompson upped the ante:

This country has shed more blood for the liberty of other countries than all other countries put together.

Sorry, guys, if that’s the level of bragadocio required, include me out. It should not be necessary in “supporting our troops” to denigrate everybody’s else.

And, putting to one side arguments about who died for what nobler ideals 60 years ago, what makes it an even more dubious line is that it gets to the heart of the question facing the nation today. Osama bin Laden looked at 30 years of US foreign interventions - Vietnam, the helicopters in the Iranian desert, the Beirut barracks, the inconclusive end to the first Gulf war, Somalia, the antiseptic air-war-only Kosovo campaign - and concluded that, while America was certainly prepared to expend treasure in advance of its goals, it was not prepared to shed blood. The bin Laden thesis is that, if the sleeping giant wakes up, all you have to do is prick him in the toe and he curls up in the fetal position howling in pain. And, if you happened to be in the chancelleries of the world watching CNN International these last four years through an endless parade of anchors deploring another “grim milestone” and Senators urging “exit strategies” and defeatist peaceniks saying that if you really support our troops you’ll bring them home so they’re available for Katrina relief, etc, you might be inclined to think Osama was on to something.

None of this is to deny the bravery of the best fighting force in the world. But notice that injured US servicemen and the families of the dead have made commercials arguing that their sacrifice in Iraq was worthwhile - and most US TV networks are refusing to play them. That’s the divide - between a professional military that feels it’s worth it, and a public that at the moment is unpersuaded. And this critical question - about American will, about whether there’s anything out there that the public regards as worth the bones of a California grenadier (to modify Bismarck) - is not assisted by deluded ahistorical bromides. The left bandies enough fictions - America’s killed one million Iraqi civilians, etc. The right should not retreat to fantasies of its own.

The Corner - Re: Fred and America’s wars. Mark Steyn

Well, I dunno, Michael, but I like my presidential rhetoric to be a bit more like this:

All of these men were part of a roll call of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore: the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland’s 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England’s armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard’s “Matchbox Fleet” and you, the American Rangers.

That’s President Reagan addressing “the boys of Pointe du Hoc” at Normandy in 1984. I know everyone wants Fred to be the new Ron, but I miss the old one’s generosity of spirit.

I like that one because, note the way the jingoistic allies-less Republican acknowledges the existance of other nations in WWII (unlike most Hollywood movies).

The Corner - Re: The sun never sets… Mark Steyn

Okay, I’ll bite. Even if that’s all Fred Thompson meant, I say nuts.

FDR didn’t take America to war in 1941 with the “disinterested intention of liberating others”. He took America to war not to end the Holocaust or free Belgium or build a democracy in Japan but for reasons of hard-headed national self-interest. All the rest was the happy consequence of victory. Likewise, America didn’t topple the Taliban because it was suddenly overcome by a burning desire to see more women legislators in the Afghan parliament: That, too, was a happy consequence of a war waged for selfish reasons.

When a democracy goes to war, there ought to be a moral component to ultimate war aims, which is why the end of the first Gulf campaign was so shabby and unworthy of America. But Senator Thompson’s line is a gross sentimentalization.

Furthermore, it’s not just sentimental, it’s only effective retrospectively - for the war you fought 60 years ago, not for the war you’re fighting now. An awful lot of Americans see Iraqis waving purple fingers at the polls and shrug, “Nice. But not worth dead Americans.” To sell this struggle to the electorate, you have to frame it in terms of the national interest. It has to be a war consistent with American ideals but fought for selfish reasons.