The Agitprop Trap: The Sissification Of War

Howard Kurtz jumps into the middle of the Right versus Left debate over a series of columns presumably out of Iraq at TNR. They were written under a pseudonym Scott Thomas. For current and past links see Memeorandum here and here.

I've already criticized TNR for feeling there was a need to publicize these minor tales of war. And I rather imagine that, in the telling of them, there's some embellishment and for all I know, some bits were all but made up. It's called the fog of war for a reason.

But what also concerns me is this seemingly growing insistence that America must fight wars and every action of every soldier needs to look like something noble, something you'd expect to see in an old World War II movie.

War is an ugly, and I'd argue, necessary business from time to time. And with today's technology and new media, we are going to see, hear and read more of war's uglier moments contemporaneously. And we are going to fight other wars, just as we are, for now at least, going to continue to prosecute this one, whether anyone likes it, or not.

The trap I don't want the Right to fall into is this concept that no American war can have an atrocity, not that the TNR pieces come close to that, or that America at war couldn't possibly be less than pretty. It never has been and never will be so, for America, or any nation at war.

In some part, the nation may have already become a bit sissified when it comes to war, preferring to not see any ugliness, or any misstep by members of our armed forces, less the entire effort become somehow intolerable. I don't think that's widespread. But I do think that too much protestation from the Right somewhat feeds into this concept that wars must be fought without ugliness, without hardship and always without error.

As that will never be the case, insisting it at least appear so in our media ultimately only undermines our overall ability to fight them. And fight them we must. I don't know how accurate are the TNR pieces, though I assume there's at least something to them. But I'd rather have a frank narrative for war that helps a nation understand what it must be prepared to accept to win, than an overly sterile narrative that demands no ugliness ever take place. We burden our troops enough already with holding them to a higher standard of behavior than we do our civilian population. Let's not make the mistake of demanding they be perfect, for that, neither we, nor they will ever be.

Comments

[Capitalist Infidel]

Dan, I think you're misunderstanding this situation. We on the right all know that there will be atrocities committed from time to time by Americans. It's the fact that the "editors" over at TNR are believing obvious lies. Just check out Blackfive and other milbloggers who've completely debunked this crap. The point is the left will believe anything negative against our troops. I need proof before I believe it.

[Dan Riehl]

"Just check out Blackfive and other milbloggers who've completely debunked this crap."

I have. I just don't see a whole lot worth disproving, frankly - some, perhaps, but not much of it.

[Capitalist Infidel]

FOB Falcon has been heard from now. That's where this farce supposedly took place

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2007/07/fob_falcon_responds.asp

Dan, we have to debunk they're lies as soon as possible. The Vietnam veterans didn't get that chance. If they're going to lie it's our responsibility to expose them.

[Dan Riehl]

Cap Inf. - Trust me, were this about an alleged rape, a murder, etc, I'd be all over it, as I was with Haditha. I am not, in this post, attacking the debunkers - I did a bit of that myself a few posts back. This post dealt with America having lost it's stomach for war post Vietnam. I am addressing a different issue here. The mil blogs have done a great job debunking this stuff, which is why I linked memeorandum, through which those posts can all be found.