Every time we’ve made the left turn onto Eisenhower Drive, and passed through the imposing brick gates of Arlington National Cemetery, I’ve been overwhelmed with emotion. Family members of those buried at Arlington National Cemetery, are given a spec…

Frankly the notion that one can evaluate the utility of any war strictly on the question of preserving Freedom w/o regards to other factors is quite ‘disassembling’. I believe the onus is still on you to prove your assertion, all I did was pull the rug out from your position so far.

Andy S. here’s two for you:
http://freedomist.powerblogs.com/posts/1117582312.shtml
http://freedomspeace.blogspot.com/2005/05/democracies-increase-violence.html

Bottomline, evil and nonfreedom spreads when good men do nothing. Just because “Freedom isn’t free. It must be fought for and defended.” is a slogan of sorts does not diminish the overarching truths behind it.

The insults are pointless — the debate is interesting, and worth a response (if you’re still monitoring this thread).

1. I’m willing to accept that my original point 1 was most debatable. I would point out, however, that the European monarchies managed to collapse, one way or another, long before we had any real influence in the world. Citing our experience as an “example” is fair, and of course you can never fairly untangle what would have happened and what actually did. But we were a little country — not particularly influential in world affairs — and the real power of our “example” is dubious. The existence of the United States was hardly the driving force behind the French Revolution. It’s tough to argue, I think, that our “example” was a meaningful force in British political development. And more generally, much larger forces were at work in the political and societal changes in 19th and early 20th century Europe than our “example”. Had we remained Englishmen, I’m convinced our level of freedom would be very similar to that enjoyed by today’s Brits.

2, 3, 4, and 5. Reasonable comments, but none of them bears on the question of our essential freedoms. “Manifest destiny”, “concept of USA”, “notion of Federalism” — these are all political notions, and part of our national myth, but not issues of freedom.

6 and 7. Here, too, you haven’t made a positive argument for any actual risk to American freedom, nor provided a clear concept of freedom preserved by military action.

8. Actually, I’d suggest that other than point 1, this is the most debatable issue on my list. The USSR was in fact a legitimate enemy at that point (though the link to China was never as strong as it was then believed). But still — no war with Russia was actually fought, and we can see clearly, in hindsight, how weak the USSR really was. (I know it’s another matter of dogma that we “won” the Cold War, by somehow forcing the Russians to try to keep up with our military spending — that’s a viewpoint that I suggest ought to be very carefully examined, but I won’t do that here.) The wildest view of Russia’s potential success, I think, might have them overextended in an attempt to dominate Africa or the Middle East — I can’t fathom how it could be extended to actually compromise the freedom of any American (or even any Western European, but that’s not the topic at hand).

9 and 10. Again, you make valid points with reference to competition among nations, but you offer no compelling example of AMERICAN FREEDOM at risk. As for Manuel Noriega threatening “the world” — I think most of the world would be surprised to hear it.

11. I supported Gulf War One, by the way — but I never thought my freedom, or that of any American, was on the line. I’m quite aware of the sequence of events but would be interested in your reasoning that American freedom was at risk due to Saddam’s occupation of Kuwait.

12. Once again, you’ve just raised the volume without adding any useful fact or argument. How, during the period while Clinton fiddled, was my freedom at risk?

In general, you’ve confused a couple of points. I haven’t argued against the use of our military power to achieve political or national objectives. I think the use of power for these purposes is absolutely legitimate. I also am even comfortable with the use of our power to defend the rights of others — WW II shows why we should be prepared to do this. But I do wish we could see the exercise of American power for what it is — an element of the goepolitical power struggle, based on the calculations of our leaders — rather than cloak it in emotional language about the cost of freedom.

So — I’m ready for “real beef”, as you say. Let’s have it. Show me, in a positive sense, how my freedoms have been preserved. Let’s make it easy — stick just to Saddam and Iraq — and make a few meaningful points about American Freedom (rather than the American Legend, or American National Interest — not the same thing).

Do what?

Andy S, please tell me you’re not interested in publishing textbooks. I don’t mind your opinions being way out in left field, but I’d sleep better knowing you won’t be publishing them as facts in California’s new 200 page limit for textbooks.

1. Suppose there’d been no Revolutionary War? There would have been no Federalist model to contrast the near concurrent French Revolution. What would we look like 200 years later? Certainly nothing like modern day Canada, Australia or any other British Colony. Sedition would have consisted of France and by measure, Germany, France & Portugal trying to subvert or otherwise weaken British hegemony. IOW, the Irish problem writ large. Canada and other commonwealth states turned out the way they did as a result of our American Revolution. If anything, these colonies owe their measure of autonomy precisely due to the domino effect of our forefathers. In the same way the ME and former Warsaw Pact nations owe their transformation to the American ideal of freedom. Next

2) Would 1812 have happened notwithstanding the American Revolution? Debateable, but look at the players of that day. Who would have been our Ben Franklin? If our revolution took root here, we could well have been fractured much like Africa, ie United States of New England, United States of Dixie, etc.

3) Mexican-American war. Again, barring the American Revolution, it most probably would have been a 3-way war over disputed territories between Britian, France & Spain. Instead, under Polk and my namesake, it helped define our manifest destiny and reinforce the concept of United States of America.

4) Civil War, the question of slavery was as much a question of State sovernity. If it didn’t happen then it most likely would have happened later, because the fact that a slave male was only worth a fraction of a white man was at odds with “equal”. If we didn’t go to war then, we well could have gone to war over women sufferage. In essence Lincoln cemented the notion that Federalism trumps States rights.

5) The Spanish-American War. Again, barring our founding over 100 years before, it would have been a 2-way war between Britain & Spain. I refer you to this link:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/chronology.html. With regards to the sinking of the Maine, you can blame reactionary journalist for jumping to conclusions about who was at fault. As an aside, what is it about Cuba/Gitmo and Yellow journalists? Anyhoo, since the Spainards had their own version of manifest destiny in which all were subject to the crown, we can be forgiven for wanting to shove them out of our sphere of influence once and for all.

6 & 7) Simplistic but naive. For one, the majority of Americans hailed from one side or the orther or both, so yes it always did concern us. Two, you discount the massive influx of refugees and the economic pressures of our then nascent global economy.

The Korean War. Your world view obviously stems from M.A.S.H. and other Hollywood staples. Ultimately, it was about containment of both Russia & China.

9) Vietnam, for one who doesn’t appreciate freedom, it would be natural to not notice the effect. Nonetheless it significantly impacted millions. But then again, as long as you have your Happy Meal McNuggets (TM), what do you care?

10 & 11) Grenada/Panama. See #9. But more specifically, Grenadian rebels with Cuban support held a number of our citizens hostage. With Panama, we had a dictator & drug kingpin using his State powers to threaten us and the global economy in general.

11) Gulf War One. Since you don’t see the significance, then it would probably be safe to surmise you were just starting grade-school. A quick recap here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/cron/

12) Iraqi Freedom. It would also take a hypothetical chain of non-events to conjure up a lack of any real threat to American freedom, hence the Clinton Administration fiddled while Iraqi Shites and Kurds burned. The facts have been presented and are out there and not too difficult for any high schooler to google (not Wiki) and digest.

You presented an interesing question in asking if anyone could name the moment in history in which American freedoms were truly at risk, and were preserved through military action? However, your points lack depth. Too bad.

For your grasp of “American Freedom” you get a “F”. You don’t get it. Go play with your free Happy Meal toy and come back when you’re ready for real beef.

Don’t you ever examine this bit of dogma?

Can someone name the moment in history in which American freedoms were truly at risk, and were preserved through military action?

1. Suppose there’d been no Revolutionary War? Might we be as unfree, today, as Canada? Or Great Britain? Tough to see any risk to freedom had the war not been fought, or had the other side won. Read the “facts submitted to a candid world” section of the Declaration of Independence: you’ll see that the offenses of the King formed part of a struggle for political supremacy, NOT an organized oppression of freedom in the sense you mean it. But even if we agree that the Revolution itself won us a measure of freedom that would not have been gained otherwise, let’s press on and look at ALL subsequent American wars…

2. The War of 1812 may be the closest call — after all, the country was invaded and the capital sacked — but, again, British domination would not have resulted in any meaningful loss of freedom. And British intent was not to conquer and occupy the US (they’d had enough of that), but to put us in our place

3. The Mexican-American war had little to do with freedom.

4. Slaves were freed as a result of the Civil War — but their freedom was NOT the reason the war was fought. If anything, the North denied the South its “right” to secede; a Southerner of the time might have argued that the South fought on the side of freedom. But surely there’s no way to see the Civil War in the context of the defense of American freedoms.

5. The Spanish-American War? No evident risk to freedom there.

6. At the time of World War One, the United States still had the luxury of geographical isolation. While we helped to win “the war to end all wars”, we surely weren’t defending American freedoms against any imminent danger.

7. In World War Two, we helped preserve the freedom of China and East Asia from Japanese domination, maybe — but there was no serious risk of the denial of American freedom by the Japanese. And Hitler had already stalled at the English channel more than a year before we entered the War. Had the War ended in a stalemate, and had Germany managed to preserve the territory it occupied and to resist Russia, a decade or more of oppression in Europe might have resulted. But a real threat to American freedoms is hard to see.

8. Korea? Well, there really wasn’t any threat of invasion of US territory by the Koreans or Chinese, and in 20/20 hindsight it is pretty easy to see that the “domino theory” of the day wasn’t accurate. And we didn’t exactly win in Korea, either. But again, even considering the geopolitics of the day, it is just not possible to discern a meaningful threat to the freedom of Americans (other than through the McCarthyite reaction to those geopolitics).

9. Vietnam? Even losing that one hasn’t had any noticeable effect on freedom here in the USA.

10. Grenada? Panama? No risk in any of these confrontations.

11. Gulf War One? A threat to Kuwaiti freedom, maybe, but not to ours.

12. Iraq? Still to be seen, I guess. But even if we accept the Administration at its word (in terms of Saddam’s intentions, etc.), it takes a chain of hypothetical events to conjure up a real threat to American freedom that was defended by our attack.

Two American Muslims have been charged with aiding al Qaeda terrorists.

Two Americans Charged With Aiding Al Qaeda (Fox)

Authorities said Sunday that Rafiq Abdus Sabir, 50, a Boca Raton physician, and Tarik Shah, 42, a self-described martial arts …

As a former commander, you should know good and well that it ain’t about ineptness — leastways in the way you intend a la Sommes.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DOCUDRAMA.SOMME.HTM

Your last sentence; “But nothing in our military history has been more poorly executed with deliberate indifference to the guys and gals taking the bullets.” is laughable. If that were true, instead of kevlar helmets, the troops would be jauntily wearing their black berets in the desert heat. Are you sure you were ever a commander?

Jump forward a few years again and there’s a lot of sore and/or retired brass, ie Shinseki, after Rummy got done with them over the transformation, so what! That’s the way it always go thru history.

To disagree over whether or not to go is a healthy debate, but either way, once a political decision is made one either shapes up or ships out. (I guess by your sights, Joshua & Caleb were inept advisors to Moses, Numbers 13 & 14.)

1,600 KIA over 4 years of fighting with an average rotating force of 150K in country is nothing less than remarkable. AND I might add could have been much less IF the brass of 10 years ago weren’t so fixated on the same-old, same-old way of combat.

To wit, the first round of armored HMMWV hit the scene in ’95 in Bosnia and one promptly ran over an anti-tank mine without any getting killed. So the brass began to rush more in. By ’96 we started fielding other types of armored trucks such as the 5-Ton & PLS, which proceeded to prove their worth by saving lives.

Then the debate swirled over whether all should be up-armored. The decision was then made to kill that concept because it was diverting precious R&D resources from cold-war strategies such as the Crusader which would lob shells up to 60 miles away. The resulting compromise was to keep the armored HMMWV production at a low tempo and supply it only to the MPs and Scouts and continue developing the Crusader and other artillery toys.

It would seem that some of your vaunted peers of the day could be faulted for inept shortsightedness! So now in hindsight, 10 years later, those who advocated armored vehicles were proven right.

When Rummy killed the Crusader once and for all as a relic of the future-past, several of the brass walked away in a fit, instead of refocusing their efforts in a new direction. And the MSM had a heyday over that brohaha – ‘Rummy the dictator’. Yeah, riiiight.

In early 2002, the production tempo for armoed HMMWVs picked up. 2.5 years later, the MSM jumps on Rummy for not having the foresight to equip the troops 100% with armored HMMWVs. As if one could just pick one off the dealer lot. Yeah, riiiight.

As for your comment, “Never have thousands of young men and women been placed in harm’s way with so little foresight.” Our loss rate has never been so “good” compared to any other conflict in history, even the brief excursion into Somalia.

I’ll grant you it could have been better nevertheless. The question always remains, how best to get the job with what’s in hand, not what you wish you had! But then, as a former commander I shouldn’t have to tell you that.