Ahhhhhhh

For me, when I read a brilliant piece of summation, it feels like I've slipped into a warm bubble bath after a day of mucking about in the mire. All the dirt and the confusion just slips from my body and my brain is much eased because of it.

Thanks to Martini Boy, I just had that experience. He gently hands Sully a brown paper bag to hyperventilate into:

I read earlier this week that, at 42, Andrew has now spent exactly half of his life in America. Maybe by the time he's 63, he'll get it. What I mean is, this is how America once was, and how America is, and how - I hope - America will always be. Let me quote from Walter Russell Mead's "The Jacksonian Tradition":

Indeed, of all the major currents in American society, Jacksonians have the least regard for international law and international institutions. They prefer the rule of custom to the written law, and that is as true in the international sphere as it is in personal relations at home. Jacksonians believe that there is an honor code in international life — as there was in clan warfare in the borderlands of England — and those who live by the code will be treated under it. But those who violate the code — who commit terrorist acts in peacetime, for example — forfeit its protection and deserve no consideration.

You don't have to be a native-born American of Scots-Irish descent to be a Jacksonian American - although it probably helps. However, being a Cambridge-educated Briton living on the East Coast is almost certainly a hindrance. Sully just doesn't get it.

I don't begrudge Sullivan his opinion. It's his, and I've watched him ably create and defend it. However, when he claims that our rough treatment of rough characters "is not the America it once was," he's displaying an almost-willful misunderstanding of America's wartime mores. In WWII, German POWs were accorded proper respect. Those few Japanese who surrendered were largely not.

Why the difference? Germany declared war on us before attacking; Japan didn't. When a German soldier showed the white flag, he usually meant it; a Japanese solider usually didn't. Germany treated American POWs according to the Geneva Conventions. Japan treated American POWs to the Bataan Death March.

Today we're faced with an enemy who never signed onto the Geneva Conventions. An enemy who hides in plain clothes among civilians, who wages war against civilians, and who began this war with a surprise attack. {...}

Martini Boy's right: Sully just doesn't get it. I've often thought that dear Andrew was a bit wrapped up in the romantic notion that is America and is often afraid to look at the hard reality which allows the romantic notions of America to exist: that we are not afraid to defend what is ours when attacked, and we'll do it by any means necessary. Play fair with us, and you'll likely receive the same. Don't play fair, and we won't either. Sully doesn't get that. He just seems to assume, for some strange reason, that America and her soldiers have some obligation to take what's dished out because we're bigger and better than everyone else. It's like we're the rich taxpayer who keeps getting nailed by the IRS: we're expected to pay up and to hand over the cash with a smile on our face. Problem is, this time the IRS isn't just coming to audit us, he's coming to kill us and, if he has his way, our entire way of life, which Sully holds dear, will go the way of the Dodo. Sully, while well-meaning, seems to think that by holding fast to the principles this nation was founded on will alone ensure our victory.

Ummm, no.

That's a nice romantic notion, and I would like to believe it's possible, but it wasn't the thought of "All Men Are Created Equal" that got the besieged 101st Airborne through the Battle of the Bulge. That lovely notion didn't give those men sustenance while they were having the shit shelled out of them in the Ardenne forest. It was the thought that once the weather cleared and they got supplies in, they could go and get the guys who were shelling the shit out of them. See the difference? It's a big difference. Sully would not have us dirty our hands in defense of our nation. He would have us be the bigger, nobler man each and every time and it's not going to work. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire and, when you do, you can't spend the majority of your time worrying about if you're going to get burned. It's like the enemy is some abstract concept for him, while the concrete is America's principles.

Go read the whole thing. Twice.

Posted by Kathy at July 15, 2005 09:31 AM | TrackBack