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A selection of the many letters we received about Fred Thompson's comments on American sacrifices and Mark's responses at The Corner: Thompson is probably right ; Soldiers of the Queen; Better dead than Fred ; Fred and America’s wars and The sun never sets .
RED MEAT POLITICS
The Thompson line about blood for the liberty of others" is a sort of change-up pitch to the original line, that the "US Marines have done more to ensure world peace than all the protesters who ever marched on Washington." It's a compelling line, but since Fred is hoping to get some of those more moderate protesters to vote for him, he changed it a little to expand the US from just the marines, and to change the protesters to foreigners, who don't actually vote for US presidents.
It seems like pretty straightforward red meat politics to me. Is it populist? Sure. But given the trends in our public education system I don't expect this election will be any more about the issues than any other.
Tom Costello
Radio Free NJ
HAPPY CONSEQUENCES
Okay Mr. Steyn, I'm converted. I did like the Senator's line because it made me feel good about being an American, but you're right, the freeing of oppressed peoples has been more of a "happy consequence of victory" and not a goal.
But I would think that if you're one of the unhappy peoples living under oppression you've got to be hoping that US interests are somehow tied to your country. I can only imagine someone praying for a US led invasion of their country.
That reminds me of a joke from the Clinton years.
A Japanese and a German were talking w/ a Bosnian trying to console him over the US attacks on his country.
The Japanese man pointed out that his country had been invaded and occupied by the US and now Japan was the number one economic power of the Pacific region and enjoyed peace and prosperity unequalled in their history.
And the German man pointed out that Germany had gone through the same thing, having been defeated and occupied by the US after WWII, but now they were the economic powerhouse of Europe.
The Bosnian, w/ tears in his eyes said, "yes, I know."
"So why are you crying?" they asked.
"Because we're winning!"
LT Curt LaRose
BE SELFLESS OR ELSE
”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?"
I'm certainly not as well read in history as you but wasn't there conscription in WWII and wasn't at least one deserter shot for not wishing to lay his costly sacrifice upon the altar of freedom?
Jack Ely
UGLY JINGOISM
I rarely agree with anything you write, but I heartily agree with this:
"Sorry, guys, if that's the level of braggadocio required, include me out. It should not be necessary in 'supporting our troops' to denigrate everybody's else."
One of the least attractive characteristics of many on the right in the US is the penchant for asserting the greatness of the US by denigrating other countries. Usually it's just idiotic, such as Ann Coulter or Jonah Goldberg suggesting that we should bomb Canada, but it's also very often
counter-productive, as when we alienate our allies with ugly jingoism.
Gabriel
THANKS FOR KICKING BUTT
You are so right, Mark. Sheesh.
We don't need to make this point. I don't want anybody to make this point and say they speak for me - or want to speak for me.
Thanks for kicking some butt over on the Corner. Sometimes, it's a little much.
Tari
THE LIBERATION STUFF
The sun never sets.. Agreed...but only if what Fred Thompson said was only heard by Americans.
With an international audience, I think he has to play up the liberation stuff.
Of course, they don't get to vote. Yet.
John Davies
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
NODDING UNDER PROTEST
Usually, there is little I find that you write that I find commendable or sympathetic. That is why it is with puzzlement and an unease in my gut that I find myself nodding my head in agreement with regards to your pissing match over "Who suffered more" in World War II with David Freddoso. He is really exposing himself as a dolt.
Chester Tapley
DON’T KNOCK THE COMMONWEALTH
I agree that even if not technically true, there is nothing wrong with Fred Thompson saying that the US has shed more blood freeing others than anyone else. (It is certainly not true that the Soviets shed blood freeing anyone.) We should never, ever disparage the British Commonwealth countries, however.
Is it too late for Canada to find its manhood again?
“Arizonabears”
GET THE MESSAGE ACROSS
First, let me agree with you 100% in all of your Corner postings.
Second, isn't this kind of statement from Fred exactly the kind of thing we don't want in our next president? President Bush has not been stunning in his relations with our allies. Much of that has to do with tone. Perhaps this appeals to Southerners? I seriously doubt it.
Third, Russia lost millions of people defending their homeland from fascism. That's the way they see it. They don't believe us when we go on about our militaristic altruism, nor should they. It is phony, and frankly, what parent wants to hear that their child, or what widow wants to hear that their husband, or what child wants to hear that their father, was killed so that Iraqis could vote? Not a single one. The people that are moved by such things don't join the military. They want to hear that their sacrifice, their loss, was in defense of the United States of America. That explanation is one George W. Bush has failed to deliver. That failure is the source of his low poll numbers and the high number of Americans who want to leave Iraq, civil war or no. Do we need another president incapable of making such connections because he is so thrilled with a statement that thumbs our allies in the eye? Methinks no.
Chris Laurence
FDR’S ALTRUISM
Actually FDR did go to war for altruistic reasons. Before the Japanese attack on 12/07/1941 and the subsequent German declaration of war he initiated several actions which precipitated our entry into the war which we could have avoided. We provided immense quantities of war material to both China and Great Britain for their wars with axis powers. Fighter pilots in our armed forces were allowed to "resign" their commissions so that they could form and join the Flying Tigers and engage in aerial combat with Japanese zeros. We also supplied the P40s they flew. Subsequently they automatically got their commissions back with promotions. Our navy was engaged in a shooting war with U-Boats to protect the convoys carrying our goods to Britain. All this occurred before any declaration of war.
J. Burt Peterson
FDR’S SELF-INTEREST
The US entered the war against Japan only after being directly attacked by Japanese forces at Pearl Harbor, not for any idealistic reasons. Furthermore, the US did not declare war on Germany at the same time and only entered the European war some days after Pearl Harbor when Hitler joined the Japanese and idiotically declared war on the US.
It remains an open question as to whether the US would have entered the fray against
Germany had Hitler not declared war on the US!
Fred
Australia
WHY IS SELF-DEFENSE BETTER?
I am just writing to say that I am in full agreement with you in regards to the standing of the Commonwealth war dead. The shared nature of the sacrifices made by free peoples during the Second World War should never be ignored in favor of a numbers game to try to claim one nation or another made the greater, or more selfless, sacrifice to liberate Europe from the Nazi yoke.
I am especially frustrated by the suggestion that the sacrifices of the commonwealth are to be valued less because notions of self-defense were involved. Are the sacrifices of the brave Polish and Free French (among others) volunteers to be belittled in a like manner? The Commonwealth forces were composed of men from across the globe, from Great Britain and her Empire and assisted by more from the conquered nations of Europe, and even volunteers from neutrals. Australians and New Zealanders travelled half way around the world to fight Germans and Italians in North Africa. Poles made airborne landings in Belgium, and Free French fought to expel the Italians from Ethiopia. Were these sacrifices any less meaningful because their own nations were conquered, or threatened with conquest? Were their brave and extraordinary efforts to continue the war after their own governments had capitulated any less meaningful because they fought to free their homeland? This sort of calculus is both petty and irreverent, especially when it is an attempt to make one's own country look better.
Spencer Miller
IT’S A CRAPSHOOT
I agree with your point about free nations' "self-interest" being the primary justification for war . Same goes for marriage: you marry her because you are very attracted to her....but if she turns out to be a great mom...and cook...and homemaker..so much the better. After the initial
attraction, the rest is a crapshoot. But if that primary attraction wasn't REALLY there at the beginning, you end up like Bill n' Hill. And if the nation can't be shown that "this war" is in their self-interest, the national effort will half-hearted ( and..the nation will be"polarized"...ugh! )
As you know, there is plenty of evidence that FDR WANTED to send troops to Europe in 1940 and '41, but he succumbed to his domestic political instincts. ( Speaking truth to power is easy, but power "speaking truth to the people" is even tougher at times...if "power" wishes to remain there.) The isolationist right wanted no part of "this latest war in Europe", and the left did not come on board until Hitler broke his non-agression pact with Russia.
I think it is fair to say ...that if FDR had had the balls to get involved in 1940 or '41, that effort would have been 50-50, altruism vs self interest.
Incidentally, those isolationists were really something back in those pre-Pearl Harbour days. Charles Lindbergh, for example, tried to pressure the U.S. Congress to insist that CANADA - a British Commonwealt partner, for heavens sake - cease its military involvement "over there". Can you imagine!
I'll say it again, "...December 7th, nineteen forty-one... a day which will live in fortuity". Few people realize how close Hitler was to developing the Big One. The free world dodged a bullet, thanks to Japan.
John Gross
Beloeil, Quebec
NO DRAFT IN IRELAND
Good point, and, although Parliament did authorize extending conscription to Ireland in the First World War, the Government never actually imposed a draft on Ireland. The several hundred thousand Irishmen who served in WWI were all volunteers.
Russell Wilson
IRISH SOLDIERS ENLISTED WILLINGLY
“Soldiers stolen by force from occupied Ireland”
That statement would have come as quite a shock to my great-grandfather, Capt. Thomas Mahony of the Royal Irish Regiment (posthumously awarded the Military Cross), or the countless other Irishmen who served in the Royal Irish and other Irish regiments of the British Army in the Great War, such as the Munster Fusiliers, the Dublin Fusiliers, and the Connaught Rangers. Between 50,000 and 100,000 Irish-born men gave their lives in World War I -- many of them Catholic nationalists who voluntarily enlisted in the cause of "freedom of small nations" (i.e., Belgium).? Moreover, a majority of the Irish-born war dead were Ulster Protestants who hoped to cement the union with Great Britain; whatever else they may have thought, those men certainly did not consider themselves "soldiers stolen by force from occupied Ireland."??
E O Kelly
BREATHTAKINGLY STUPID
Mr Freddoso’s quip about "stolen by force from occupied Ireland" is historically inaccurate. In fact, it's breathtakingly stupid.
In WW1, John Redmond's Irish Nationalist party (the popular choice of most Irish Catholics in 1914), openly exhorted Irishmen to join the army and fight in France. Tens of thousands of Catholics followed this advice by volunteering. And tens of thousands of Protestants joined because they were loyal Unionists.
In WW2, the Irish Free State was unoccupied and officially neutral. The estimated 70,000 who joined the British army were volunteers who crossed the Irish Sea to join up. And the estimated 50,000 soldiers from Northern Ireland were from a state where the majority of the population insisted on remaining part of the United Kingdom.
I hope the rest of his historical allusions bear a closer resemblance to reality,
Patrick Murphy
(born and raised in Dublin, Ireland)
FLANDERS PADDY
My "Poppa" from Connemara came to the USA as a boy, turned around and went back to Europe with Pershing, got himself gassed, then blessedly returned to raise our broad and unwieldy clan in Upstate NY.
Thanks for the Finucane quip, that brought a smile to this bloody Jesuit.
Steve Shields
THE IRISH ACE
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. His engine hit, he ditched into the English Channel, and was not recovered. His last words were "Well chaps, this is it", which is about as stiff upper lip as one could expect from any blue-blooded English toff who came out of Eton.
Stuart Koehl
Falls Church, Virginia
ULSTER VOLUNTEERS
I think Freddoso was referring to Ulster when he said Irish soldiers were "stolen." This is not true either, as conscription was not enforced in Northern Ireland during WWII, specifically because of the concern about nationalist sympathies. All those who fought from the UK part of Northern Ireland were volunteers. I agree with your points.
Mike Collins
ANTIPODEAN CONTRIBUTION
My daughter is planning to study abroad in the Antipodes next year. One thing I've already told her about, and that I will follow up with more information, is the remembrance of ANZAC Day. She'll need to understand first. This is probably the ONLY time you'd ever hear "Waltzing Matilda" played in a respectful way.
Why did they come north, to Gallipoli and the Western Front? Duty and honour to their King.
And why else? They were mostly of Celtic descent, especially the Australians. How could the proud sons of a race of warriors sit out the biggest fight of their time?
James Nealon
WHAT WERE THEY FIGHTING FOR?
"It's unbecoming for a serious nation to get into a pissing match about whose pile of war dead is higher. "
Well, truly, & righteously said. You mentioned the Canadians -- oh so true. They could also
consider the 4th Indian Division in North Africa. And the Aussies at Tobruk. But my favorite is
the Brazilians in Italy. Just what were THEY fighting for?
John Schedler
Seattle, Washington
PARTIES OR POLES?
In their excellent book on the Free Polish Forces in World War II, A Question of Honor, Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud recount the following story to demonstrate how murky war aims had become by 1945:
"At a society wedding in in London in January 1946, Tory MP Henry Channon, closing his eyes to the chaos in the lives of so many of his countrymen, remarked to socialite Emerald Cunard how satisfying it was that life in London had returned so quickly to normal. 'After all', he said, glancing around at the other well-dressed guests sipping their champagne, 'this is what we have been fighting for'. Known for her sharp tongue and quick wit, Cunard could not resist a jab at such fatuousness. 'What?' she cooed, looking around, too. 'Are they all Poles?' (p.401).
Stuart Koehl,
Falls Church, Virginia
THE SOUTH AFRICAN FORCES
Please do not forget that South Africa was then part of the Empire and that she sent several brigades to North Africa and Italy. Field Marshall Jan Smuts was a member of Churchill's war cabinet. All this over the opposition of the pro-German National Party. And South Africa sent troops to the Middle East and France (after capturing German South West and German East Africa) in the first world war. My grandfather (who was German) changed his name and served with the South African forces in South West Africa and with the Sherwood Foresters in France. I always thought that the British treated her former African allies shabbily after the war but that's real politik.
Ian Duncan
Farmington, Connecticut
YOU FORGOT THE AUSSIES, KIWIS AND SOUTH AFRICANS
Mark, in this post you mentioned Welshmen, Canadians, Indians and Jamaicans as members of the British Commonwealth but forgot Aussies, Kiwis and South Africans like my own dear departed Irish-descended dad.
I'm old enough to remember the crisis that happened when Verwoerd pulled South Africa out of the British Commonwealth and was nearly assassinated for his efforts.
Sadly, as you must admit and despite your toast to Funcane, the Irish were (rightly or wrongly) identified at that time fairly strongly with the IRA many of whom were Nazi sympathizers.
I had no idea that you are Irish but it explains your accent. I'll see you in a different light from now on.
PS – Even though I'm currently a Fredhead, I know he has serious shortcomings.
Patrick Conlon
CLOSE CALL
In the history of the world, the British Empire probably did more good than any other entity, even including the U.S. It would be a close call as to whether the U.S. is first or second.
Fred may have exaggerated - but not by much - in saying that the U.S. has shed more blood in the defense of other people's liberty. The British Commonwealth is right up there. Let's not quibble.
More to the point. Is there any country which is even a close third to Britain and the U.S.?
Spec Bowers
Sunapee, New Hampshire
CRITICAL BUT NOT TERMINAL
Mark, though bragadocio..( two 'gs' btw) makes me cringe, your observation is right on. It was an
intemperate and unnecessarily broad generalisation. I do not regard it as a “terminal” comment as you seem to do but it surely does not speak well of the man or his “handlers” - but that's a whole 'nother issue, ain't it..............
John Kovarik
SOVIET CONTRIBUTION
You are correct. The Soviets never freed anyone, just put made them go from one bloodthirsty dictatorship to another. Stalin himself probably killed as many Soviet citizens as the entire Nazi and Imperial Japanese combined.
These nations taken over by the Soviets after battling the Nazis out were not freed until the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
All anyone has to do is just ask them.
Kap
WOULD THEY DO IT AGAIN?
As a longtime admirer of your work‹I¹d urge you to eschew further posts on the topic. Your last line re: the pissing contest is right on. There¹s far more heat than light in this thread.
Instead of arguing along these lines, we of common interests should be more concerned about who will be willing to fight when the inevitable finally develops. We all know it¹s coming. Do we think The Commonwealth nations know their story any better than our youngsters know ours? Will their youngun’s be any more ready to take up arms than our current non-participants?
There’s the real rub.
Excelsior.
Terry
THE NABOBS OF NEGATIVISM
I would like to comment on part of your posted comments, which I show below:
"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."
The last sentence, where you write "and a public...". I don't think the "public" has been given the opportunity to judge the merit of the commercials. That might sway public opinion away from the nabobs of negativism.
I don't intend this as a criticism - just an observation.
I enjoy your writing. I first heard (and read) you on Hugh Hewitt's show. I am only able to listen to the audio clips that are on his web-site. I wait every Friday morning, to see if you were on his show, the previous Thursday, so I can listen.
Brett Butler
FIRING UP AMERICA
I think Thompson's comment was designed more for political capital than academic truth. His whole justification for running was that the Republican base wasn't fired up about any candidate. Indeed, at this time it seems hard to get fired up about “America” in general. Thompson's line was designed to deliver a little bit of “America, F*** Yeah!” into the minds of the electorate. He's been using it everywhere for this effect and it nearly always gets applause. Hell, it got applause on Leno, which probably wasn't a studio filled with mid-western Soccer Moms on vacation. Americans want to be 'The Good Guy' and like it or not, most American military action in the second half of the century has been hampered by a crisis of confidence over this fact.
Joe
ps- Loved America Alone.
SWIPING AT THE DOUBTERS
"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?"
Well, yes. That was what the original quote was about. Pretty sure Ol' Fred wasn't' including dead from the Spanish American war or Custer's Last stand in that tally. And while I basically agree with you that we don't need to get into pissing contest over body counts and motivations, I took the quote as a swipe at people and countries that constantly question the USA's motives in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. I have no idea it this WAS the point as I've not heard the speech, but given the audience and the news/political background at present (Petraeus, pull out dates, UN stuff, etc.) that how I took it as a sound bite. I think quite a bit of the country, when they hear (almost daily) the latest on US imperialism and greed think something along Fred's lines and were glad to here it articulated by a major political figure in such a succinct manner.
Or not. Time will tell.
Donny H. Dickey
Rusk, Texas
CARPING COME-BACK
I hear Thompson's statement (more blood than all other countries put together) as a response to worldwide carping about American "imperialism". I don't hear it as denigration of anyone. Certainly not Britain, Canada, Australia etc.
The U.K. and Commonwealth have been our allies for a long time and I don't understand why you'd be getting email dumping on them, but you shouldn't confuse those sentiments with Thompson's statement.
RKO
California
WE’VE GOT TO ADMIT OUR SUPERIORITY
Don’t REALLY want to pile on here, particularly since I absolutely agree with you and think that Fred was being at minimum hyperbolic, and in fact kinda wrong. You said:
“ I know everyone wants Fred to be the new Ron, but I miss the old one's generosity of spirit.
I agree with that, too, but generosity of spirit would be step two, and we as a nation just are not ready to be back there yet. “
What’s step one? Thinking of ourselves as the good guys. (ourselves=Western Civilization).
Reagan had the advantage that HIS America at least thought they were deserving of the Superpower designation. He could say “yeah, we’re great, so are our Allies, we all think we’re right and we are, now let’s go kick some ass”.
Whoever inherits this country has to first bring us back to the point of admitting our own superiority. Yes, some of us do, but we are less than 50% now and I believe it is that societal sickness that must be cured first. Why bother winning a borderless war with a secretive enemy if we don’t believe that we are better than he and deserve to rule the world?
On some level Fred realizes this, and understands that the first thing that MUST be done is to get America (and all of Western Civilization) to believe in her rightness of purpose again.
Anyway, just a different angle on things.
Leslie Price
Houston, Texas
THANKS FOR DEFENDING COMMONWEALTH FORCES
Last night I ran across Mr. Freddoso's post in the Corner questioning the relative historic contribution of the Commonwealth to liberty. I began writing him an e-mail to defend our honour, but I didn't complete it at the time. While it was easy to lay out the numbers, and not too hard to argue about the motivations (at least in WW1 and WW2), I had a hard time concluding with the right tone: the US has made great sacrifices for liberty, it would have been better if there
had been fewer casualties, etc.
Fundamentally, Mr. Freddoso (and Mr. Thompson as well) is making the sort of American exceptionalist argument that gets under the skin of foreigners, even of friendly ones. America alone is the paragon of virtues, conducting a foreign policy according to the highest ideals;
every other country is motivated by crass national interests, and their citizens all wish to live the American dream, even if they refuse to admit it. Shining city upon a hill and all that.
Again, I don't wish to deny the many great things about the United States, her history, her citizens, her essential leading role in the West at this time. But Americans should recognise that other peoples have equally worthy reasons to love and honour their own nations.
Ross Douthat - here - has a wonderfully gracious quote from Reagan praising The Royal Winnipeg Rifles (and others) as well as the American Rangers.
But, as I said at the outset, I found it hard to strike the right tone in my abortive e-mail to Mr. Freddoso. Thus I was delighted to see that you had decided to add some posts to the Corner regarding former senator Thompson's claim. Thank-you for defending the sacrifices made
by Commonwealth forces in the cause of liberty.
Marc Grégoire
Montréal
FORGET THE FANTASY NARRATIVES
Thank you for making this point. Even though I disagree with you and Mr. Fredosso politically, I am happy to see a Cornerite acknowledge the fact that fantasy-narratives do little to help political debate, no matter whose agenda they further. It is a point that is always worth making, and which
Fred Thompson would do well to heed.
James Garrison
LACK OF ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE FACTS
One needn't be a know nothing to defend the indispensable role of America in the world. Like so many things Thompson his embarrassing lack of acquaintance with facts detracts from whatever truism he has stumbled upon.
J Rubin
SOMETHING IT WASN’T
Newt once said the business of politics is to unite one's friends and divide one's enemies. It seems that Mr. Thompson's choice of words in praising US troops has alienated at least one Anglophile on the side of truth and light and sewn division, etc.
More likely a throw-away line has been spun into something it wasn't after the fashion of a grenade tossed into the enemy's tent. I imagine lefties are lighting candles at this very moments praying Mr. Thompson will say macaroni or something that could be construed to sound like macaca.
steve
YOU CAN COUNT ON AMERICA
As much as I delight in your work and wisdom, I have to stick up for Thompson and Freddoso just a tiny bit on this. A good measure of the generosity of spirit provided in that selection came from Peggy Noonan – a luxury Thompson doesn't have on the campaign trail.
Yes, he overstated his case. And, yes, Freddoso may have understated the contributions of sundry nations in the advancement of freedom for people of other nations. But, the gist of it all is that, when it comes down to the nut-cutting (for lack of a better term), people have nearly always been able to count on Americans above all others to spill their own blood for the freedoms of other people.
I've always found that it's best not to take an insult where you know none was intended.
And that's my tuppence.
Walt
WHAT’S YOUR POINT?
You are trying too hard to prove something which was never at issue in this conversation!
Chuck Clardy
MASTERS AND OPPRESSORS
I see that you posted on The Corner an excerpt from my reply to you this weekend regarding Fred Thompson's remarks on American blood spilled relative to the other nations of the world, indicating it was representative of many other replies you'd received. And then in your follow-up post you criticize my excerpted response, suggesting that the writer was "going to get all
Stanislakvskian about it" in counting dead bodies and such. You also went very hard after Mr. Freddoso personally in several of your posted comments.
I think you missed the point of both my response, and Fred Thompson's original statement, and David Freddoso's defense of Thompson. Please pardon my lengthy comments below, but this subject deserves more analysis than is available in trite statements and witticism on anyone's part.
The point of none of the statements at issue was not to denigrate or dismiss the sacrifices of any other particular nation or group of nations – Thompson mentioned none others, as you know. He did not criticize the Brits or the Canadians or the Australians for any lack of contribution to protecting freedom.
Nor was it my point to get into an argument based on mere body counts under various and sundry categories and degrees of unselfish sacrifice.
Mr. Thompson was speaking to an American audience about American sensibilities. He was not addressing the British Parliament, or the Canadian Parliament, or the London Guardian. I am sure that if he had the Republican nomination sewed up and he was speaking to a foreign audience, he would speak rather differently, and much more about shared values and sacrifice, as does President Bush.
And when you state that you much prefer the diplomacy of President Ronald Reagan in his moving tribute to the allied fighters at Pont du Hoc, he was indeed addressing an international audience in a purposeful exercise of diplomacy. You'll also note that Reagan was soon thereafter, on the same European trip, hotly criticized for his respectful acknowledgment of German war dead at a cemetery that included members of the dreaded SS - in a speech aimed at German nationals.
The point of Thompson's statement (and I repeat from my first reply, I am not a FredHead ... I happen to be a Giuliani guy), I believe, was to address and appeal to an essential element of contemporary American national character ... to wit, that we Americans spend proportionally more of what we have to defend the interests of others who are oppressed, while nevertheless
also protecting our own interests, than any other nation or group of nations on earth. That happens to be a true fact, your protests notwithstanding.
Americans do that because it is important to us that we see ourselves as the "good guys" in defense of our national founding ideals - freedom, equality, and self-determination. We spend not only American blood in large amounts toward this end, but also American treasure ... who else, for instance, would have bankrolled the Marshall Plan to rebuild western Europe from the rubble? Or would have rebuilt Japan from its ashes with American dollars and trade? Certainly not the Commonwealth. And who is always first in line - yesterday and today - with airlifts, food, medicine, and doctors and nurses, and boots on the ground in the aftermath of a terrible natural disaster, be it earthquake, tsunami, or famine? Was it the Commonwealth that pledged its national treasure to fight AIDS in Africa, challenging the rest of the world to follow our lead, as did President Bush in his first term?
Call it "American exceptionalism", if you will, but that self image, including its link with our founding ideals, is important especially to the men and women who are filling the boots on the ground in hellholes around the world like Iraq and Afghanistan. Fighting for "righteousness" is an important component to the American fighting man's morale and justification for the very violent and at times very ugly business of war, and the same concept is similarly important to maintaining American civil support for the fight.
Most other nations and their peoples, historically and today, couldn't care less about the concept of fighting for the freedom and lives of others ... in many cultures, war is justified mainly as a matter of cultural pride (as with the Jihadists), or cultural domination (the Fascists and Communists), or revenge (from which so many centuries-long blood feuds spring), or to take from someone else what they as a people feel they want or need or are entitled to receive (territory, oil, gold, etc.). The concept of fighting for the benefit of others, particularly for the cause of someone else's political freedom, is of course a very rare thing in human culture ... but in America that concept is now most certainly embedded in our culture.
That was not always so ... for America was mostly expansionist and isolationist throughout most of its national history prior to World War I. World War I was a watershed cultural event, for it was really the first instance of Americans fighting on foreign soil not for American empire or gold or territory, but for a combination of protecting our security interests as well as for the security of others. For the millions of American doughboys, it was their first exposure to a foreign world and
culture beyond their hometown, their county, their state, or their region of America. World War II greatly amplified that effect, both geographically (encompassing both east and west) and geopolitically (the ideological struggles against Fascism and immediately after WWII, Communism).
We Americans also - of course - routinely fight for ourselves and our national interests at the same time that we defend others. When we have no identifiable national interest at stake, we do other things to help, but we rarely shed American blood. Take Darfur, for example. We fight rather vigorously for our own freedoms, for protection of our own lives and safety, and we fight for revenge as well. But we also have routinely (since WWI) internalized the fight for others in the decision matrix when American troops are to be put at risk.
That is why President Bush made his case for the invasion of Iraq based on a combination of justifications - both self serving (from a nationalist perspective), and selfless. In America, the self-serving interest is often not enough in and of itself to justify our sacrifices in war on foreign
soil. After all, we've got all the technology, nukes, missiles, a huge Navy and a huge Air Force it takes, if all we wanted to to was kill Jihadists in any of their respective comfortable hidey-holes. We merely need stand off, hit them with a few dozen nukes, and then let the God and the buzzards take care of the rest. We are the world's sole super power - who could stop us if we decided to behave accordingly? That style of national defense (based upon unadulterated national interest), however, would not pass muster in today's America.
Even in World War II, and after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, one of the strongest motivations used by our Supreme Commander in the Pacific, General MacArthur, was his personal promise to free the Filipinos from the Japanese occupation. That motivation led to repeated battles over warfighting strategy with Roosevelt and other members of the Allied military
command. "I will return" was probably the best known of the World War II military mottos. It's part of our national character. And the Filipino people have never forgotten - especially after America granted the Philippines their independence shortly after the war.
You are certainly welcome to take issue with the numbers behind Thompson's statement of last week, and that I cited in my response - such a topic always being an interesting subject for a drawing room discussion over good cigars and fine whiskey, or long-winded academic studies - but I don't see the reason for the sudden defensiveness from you and others hailing from the
Commonwealth who have been lambasting David Freddoso and Fred Thompson over the weekend.
The Brits, and their counterparts in Canada and most everywhere else in the former British Empire have never particularly styled or characterized themselves as defenders of the defenseless, as warriors in defense of democracy and personal freedom, etc. In fact, even you must admit that until the Brits finally lost the last of their empire in the mid 20th century, they were among the world's most successful oppressors and exploiters of both native peoples and British colonials. Besides their unwelcome policies of taxation, import restrictions, and lack of representation for the American colonists (who had grown too big for their colonial britches with their immensely profitable sugar, tobacco, and cotton trades), the Brits also managed to dominate south Asia, the Caribbean, much of Africa, and Malaysia as an unwelcome colonial master for several centuries.
The Brits practiced not only colonial oppression, and bloody well effectively, but they even employed virtual genocidal tactics against the rural Irish (with their refusal to do anything useful in response to the 1840s potato famine) ... intentionally depopulating their troublesome subject island by 2/3 in just a handful of years. And even long after that, the Brits continued to refuse self-determination for the Irish through their bloody suppression of yet another Irish rebellion during World War I, then a subsequent civil war and their refusal of anything but the ungenerous Irish Free State and partition of Ireland, all the way through to the end of World War II when reality finally forced the Brits to recognize the Irish Republic.
And then there's Northern Ireland - which today is finally relatively peaceful, but whose four centuries of religious and political strife occurred principally as a result of British military suppression and purposeful British resettlement of Ulster by Protestant Scots - for the very
purpose of displacing and dominating the native Irish Catholics in their homeland.
It took Ghandi's leadership to finally force the Brits out of India, when an exhausted UK finally realized they lacked the will and the resources to maintain their Eastern empire. The Brits also were hardly welcome in Palestine right after the war ... it took a violent campaign by the bomb-throwing Irgun to finally chase the Brits out of the Middle East.
One possible exception to Britain's role as Imperial Master and Oppressor was their effort to eliminate the transatlantic traffic in African slavery in the early to mid 19th century. However, even as high-minded an aim as this appeared to be, one would have to be very blind to the geopolitics of the age to not know that that effort was intended as much as anything to hinder the economic development of Britain's former American colonies and her colonial competitor (Spain) in the New World. The Commonwealth's hands were hardly clean, anyway, when it came to African slavery, given that Britain herself was the nation that introduced and then profitably exploited African slavery in her American colonies. It just so happened that only after the loss of said colonies - and "coincidentally" during the second Brit attempt to smash the new American democracy - was Britain so anxious to knock the underpinnings from the extremely successful American sugar, tobacco, and cotton industries, and the supporting slave trade from which Britain no longer profited.
Of course, long after the Brits outlawed the Atlantic slave trade, they continued to virtually enslave much of China with its immensely profitable yet illegal and morally disgusting opium trade, despite the cries by the Chinese that opium addiction was sapping their people of all productive capability.
Now, I don't cite these historical facts for the purpose of bashing the Brits and the Commonwealth, per se. But if certain members of the Commonwealth are going to start going nuclear over statements such as those made by Fred Thompson last week, and in doing so imply that Americans have no right to feel considerable pride in their unique nearly century-long defense of the defenseless, well, then you should be prepared to have history thrown back at you.
(Oh, and to put my personal analysis into some context, I am a native-born American, whose familial ancestors helped found and defend the Jamestown Colony, and then helped settle the rest of Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland for the Brits ... my ancestors were equal parts British, Welsh, Scots, and Irish, and my surname is British .... making me as geo-genetically conflicted as they come.)
Instead, it is far better for the Brits and other members of her Commonwealth to good-naturedly reply to Mr. Thompson's remarks with something along the lines of, "Say, old chap ... don't forget our contributions to the defeat of evil foreign tyranny ... we've shed more than a few commonwealth pints of blood too!" "Oh, and by the way, you chaps were a bit late to the party in the last great war. Glad you finally joined in!" And that would all be true, and quite consequential to boot, and to which undoubtedly Thompson and Freddoso and most any other American would concede quite graciously. There is no evident lack of American gratitude – official or cultural - and recognition of the key role played by the Commonwealth in the current war with the Jihadists. Including gratitude for the Canadians who today are killing Taliban in Afghanistan, and dying in some numbers themselves.
As for the suggestion that the only thing that matters - or that should matter - to Americans is protecting strictly American interests, I would have to say that is obviously true of the attitudes for some significant segment of the American population. We will always have our isolationists,
and our "realpolitik" crowd. But for many others, and for those to whom Mr. Thompson was speaking, it is also important that the sacrifice of American blood be made for more than just the momentary advantage achieved in the latest geopolitical war of wills du jour.
At the end of the day, for many if not most of those who must actually make the sacrifice, it is also important that some essential micro-scale human good come directly from their sacrifice. Killing a Taliban or an Al Qaeda suicider, or ten thousand of them, is not enough in and of itself. Even
making America strong and rich is not enough. Protecting real flesh and blood people from terrible consequences - be it one's fellow warriors, and the folks back home, and the native men, women, and particularly, the children, you encounter every day in country - is an important reinforcement of our own self image ... as the "good guys".
That is why you see so often, in repeated blog postings, interviews, and recorded conversations of our actual warriors on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan, the term "bad guys" being used. If our warriors are just serving their own nation's self interests, then there are no "bad guys" and
"good guys", just opponents and allies, dead guys and live guys.
Criticize Thompson's political rhetoric all you wish. Maybe he should have modified and extended his remarks to acknowledge the critical contributions to freedom of our current allies. But you do not need to become so defensive about the Commonwealth, to the point of anger. You tread on somewhat thin ice when you rather hysterically (as your posts this weekend appear to many) attempt to angrily disavow any recognition of a key element of the essential American character.
Respectfully submitted, by someone who is a proud American, who also loves the Brits and Aussies for who and what they are today (but not necessarily for who and what they were in an earlier age). The Canadians? They are, shall we say, somewhat uneven in their current devotion to defending political freedom, despite an honorable legacy handed down from their World
War II forbears.
Duane J. Truitt
Naples, Florida
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