The High Cost of Freedom
27 July 2006Thomas Jefferson said, “”The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Jefferson understood what many Americans and most of the rest of the western world have forgotten or never knew: Freedom is not free.
New York Post columnist John Podhoretz had an excellent piece on July 25 with the challenging title Too Nice to Win? Israel’s Dilemma (H/T Sister Toldjah). Podhoretz’ question is whether the world’s democracies have grown so civilized that they can no longer tolerate the kind of fighting necessary to actually win a war. It is an interesting question.
Three years into the war in Iraq the U.S. has lost a little over 2500 soldiers there, less than in many single battles in previous wars. Indeed, the U.S. lost between five and six thousand soldiers in one day in the Normandy invasion. Yet today Americans seem unable to stomach the loss of 2500 in three years.
The U.S. is not unique in our aversion to war casualties. Yesterday the Israeli cabinet considered whether to extend its ground forces further into Lebanon in the effort to root out Hezbollah. In the face of nine additional deaths of soldiers the parliament said no. It seems that even Israel is having trouble dealing with the cost of defending itself.
Beyond that, we can’t seem to tolerate the deaths of those we deem to be “innocent.” We don’t really define innocent but we assume that anyone not in uniform should be classified so. We are not willing, collectively, to assign responsibility to the citizens of a country for the actions of their leaders.
The U.S. has always striven to avoid civilian casualties where possible. Indeed, just war theory, which has driven American military policy for many decades, says that every effort must be made to avoid casualties among non-combatants. Yet that same theory recognizes that some civilian casualties are unavoidable. That situation is compounded when the enemy purposely inserts itself among the civilian population in order to shield itself from attack.
Podhoretz asks,
Can any war be won when this is the nature of the discussion in the countries fighting the war? Can any war be won when one of the combatants voluntarily limits itself in this manner?
Could World War II have been won by Britain and the United States if the two countries did not have it in them to firebomb Dresden and nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
What if George Washington and the leaders of the American Revolution had been unwilling to inflict extreme damage on the British or suffer great losses themselves? What if the allies in NATO had been unwilling to see “innocent” Germans or Japanese killed in WWII? What would the world look like today?
Part of the problem is that many Americans have bought into the idea that American style government isn’t anything to be proud of. They believe that our system is just one among many, equal systems. Prior to the fall of communism in most of the world, many had high hopes that communism would be the ultimate system of government. Its failure did not dissuade those individuals from their belief that democratic governments were fatally flawed.
The bottom line for these kinds of people is that a system of government and a way of life is not worth fighting for. Much of the world has had freedom for so long that there is no memory of the lack of freedom. There is no memory of the cost of freedom. For much of the western world freedom is a given.
Perhaps victory by those who would take our freedom is what it will take for those people to wake up. If Islamo-facism wins, those who are unwilling to fight will either be killed or subjugated and they will finally see where they were wrong. But that is an awfully high price for the rest of us to pay for them to learn the lessons of history.
Podhoretz concludes with a stunning question:
Is this the horrifying paradox of 21st century warfare? If Israel and the United States cannot be defeated militarily in any conventional sense, have our foes discovered a new way to win? Are they seeking victory through demoralization alone – by daring us to match them in barbarity and knowing we will fail?
One way or another we will have to answer that question.
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