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In the entry hall of my home
hangs my father’s senior class picture, Franklin High School, Class of 1945. I
was only 8 when he died, but from what my mother tells me the thing he’d have
liked least about that photo was the fact that he was in it.
It’s easy to see why. I count
51 boys and 131 girls on the bleachers, neatly dressed, mostly in letter
sweaters and slacks or skirts. The missing boys? They would have been in the
European or Pacific theatres of World War II, in transit, or dead.
My father was 17 when that shot
was taken and had tried to enlist several times; a skull fracture from an auto
accident at age 6 made him ineligible. But it was a war for survival, and even
with no shots fired on home soil there was little doubt of our national or
humanitarian interest. The smiles in the photo show that resolve, a knowledge
that the decisions that took their classmates were good, right, and vital.
Americans have rarely felt so
sure since, for a wide variety of reasons. Vietnam is cited of course, and I
don’t doubt our national souring on military action got a boost from that
experience. But I think that perhaps we’ve also forgotten what war is.
Americans have not lived on
battlefields since the Civil War; even such “global” conflicts as World Wars I
and II were courteous enough to find other venues. War in the 1990s has become
something we watch on TV, like “JAG” or reruns of “M*A*S*H.” No one shoots
back, no troops occupy our cities, no bombs destroy our homes or jobs. The
ratio of boys to girls in high school pictures is about fifty-fifty.
The recent downing of one U.S.
stealth fighter in Yugoslavia was treated as a major news event, accompanied by
coverage that lasted for days. Three American soldiers held by Serb forces have
been referred to in the media as “abducted,” with the White House singing along
until someone pointed out that this view would deny the men protection as
prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.
Nonetheless, our
indignation that American planes could be downed or American soldiers captured
is real. In what I can only pray was a lie, the president told the country
“There was absolutely no basis for them to be taken. There is no basis for them
to be held. There is certainly no basis for them to be tried.”
The naivete of
that statement is stunning, Geneva Convention aside. Would any of us feel the
same of Yugoslav captives if that nation (or their Russian allies) devastated
Washington, as we have Belgrade? But for once I’m afraid he’s telling the
truth, at least as many see it.
It has been
reported that the CIA, NATO command, and our own military advised the White
House that bombing alone would not work without ground forces, and might
accelerate the horror of ethnic cleansing. The administration remained so sure
that Yugoslavia would fold after a few air raids that President Clinton pushed
NATO for it anyway. It is also said there is no “Plan B” if the bombing fails.
Why would the president think
they would submit so easily? I don’t know, but I fear it is because that’s what
he would do.
My purpose here is not to decry
our involvement in Yugoslavia, nor do I understand enough of this centuries-old
conflict to know if we have any national interest there or not. The human
tragedy is certainly heart wrenching, even if less enormous than what is
happening in Sudan, or recent civil strife in Rwanda and Liberia, or any of a
half-dozen other current or recent atrocities.
My point is that
if we keep looking we will eventually find an opponent that doesn’t see American
blood as sacred or U.S. soil as inviolate, an enemy that won’t buy into our
notion of one-way war. Before we take that chance, we’d better be sure we have
the stomach for it and that the stakes are worth the cost.
© 1997 – 2002 Brent Morrison
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