Frank’s Case Book

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke. [1,2] “There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.” — Edmund Burke. [3]

Not long ago, I drew the distinction between noble and “squishy” pacifists. The first group recognizes the existence, even prevalence, of evil in the world. Noble pacifists believe that nonviolent resistance should be used to oppose this evil. However, no delusions obscure their clear-eyed moral vision. They recognize that the call to nonviolence could very well endanger their personal safety and the safety of others. Noble pacifism does not relieve adherents from the challenge of confrontation. By contrast, the squishy pacifists try to claim the moral authority of noble pacifists, without shouldering the same responsibility. The squishy pacifists blur moral distinctions and dismiss potential dangers to avoid having to live up to their ethical responsibilities.

Before the war with Iraq, squishy pacifists spent more energy waving anti-war banners in US cities and criticizing American failings than protesting the gross human rights violations by the Iraqi government and the threat Iraq posed to stability and peace. How many anti-war protestors hoisted placards critical of Saddam Hussein’s Islamofacist regime?

In retrospect, we might have thought the US would have been immune from such doubts and muddy reasoning in the World War II era, when the contrast between the forces of good and evil, light and darkness were so very stark and so very clear. Given the aggressive brutality of the Nazi authoritarian regime, how could men of good will not see the need to resist the Nazis, either militarily or nonviolently? Unfortunately, while the Nazis where dragging Jews off to concentration camps where many were killed, many American pacifists and pacifist churches (though not all) in the US were not passively resisting the Nazis. Rather, they where lobbying President Franklin Roosevelt to recognize their conscientious objector status. Recently, Joseph Loconte writing in the Weekly Standard [4] documented that much of the religious pacifism prior to World War II took on the same flavor as criticism of America prior to the Iraq War.

The anti-war activists were happy to charge that President George Bush was not acting out of honorable motives, either to protect the US security or to liberate Iraqis from oppression. They suggested, instead, that Bush’s heart was contorted by the venial pursuit of oil or that perhaps the Bush Administration was trying to generate construction business for Vice-President Dick Cheney’s former company. Similar charges of ulterior motives were leveled prior to World War II. For example, Loconte cites the John Haynes Holmes, a prominent New York minister, as charging “If America goes into the war, it will not be for idealistic reasons but to serve her own imperialistic interests.”

The key tactic of squishy pacifism is to erect a facade of moral equivalency so as to undercut the moral authority of the US to act. As recently as last Fall, US Congressman Jim McDermott of Washington visited Iraq and suggested that George Bush was not much more trustworthy than Saddam Hussein and would lie to foment war with Iraq. By what moral authority could the US act if we too have moral failings?

This tactic had its earlier precedent. In the 1930s and 1940s, how could the US criticize the treatment of Jews in Germany if blacks in the United States were denied their full civil rights? Indeed, that critique of the US was apt, but it was certainly not sufficient to relieve us of moral responsibilities at home or abroad. Fortunately, there were clear-eyed “Christian Realists” at the time like theologian Reinhold Niebuhr who saw that “It is sheer moral perversity to equate the inconsistencies of a democratic civilization with the brutalities which modern tyrannical states practice.” Niebuhr concluded, “Failure to resist this tyranny, meant assisting in its triumph — and in a defeat for the cause of Christ … This form of pacifism is not only heretical when judged by the standards of the total gospel. It is equally heretical when judged by the facts of human existence.”

The War with Iraq like WWII is over. We largely know the immediate outcomes of these wars. We know that if the squishy pacifists had their way, Nazi Germany would have dominated Europe for at least a generation under authoritarian rule and Hitler’s “final solution” would have reached its conclusion with the complete genocide of the Jewish population. We know that if Iraq had not been defeated, oppression, rape and torture would have continued in Iraq while thousands more starved as Saddam’s regime diverted oil money to weapons and Saddam’s palaces. All the while squishy pacifists would have insufferably regaled us with self-congratulatory praise about their compassion for Iraqis and snobbery about their moral superiority over those urging war.

1. Bartleby.com
2. The attribution of this quote to Edmund Burke has been questioned by Martin Portner.
3. Observations on Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation, i., 273.
4. “Onward, Christian pacifists,” Weekly Standard, April 7, 2003, 31-33.

The role of a President’s press secretary is not only to provide facts to the media, but also to cultivate friendly relationships and develop a level of trust and rapport with those covering the President. Such relationships can insure that the President has his policy positions presented in the best possible light. Trust and rapport can be established by being honest and open. Relationships can also be nurtured in other subtle and less open ways. A friendly journalist might find himself or herself given tidbits of news to scoop his or her colleagues. A journalist, who writes a critical article, might find that he or she has less access to the newsmakers.

Indeed, there is a constant tension for journalists between obtaining access and maintaining distance and objectivity. Some journalists are good at maintaining integrity by nurturing different and competing sources so as not to be beholden to any single source. Moreover, if a press secretary is too parsimonious with access and information, the President he represents will have fewer avenues available for propagating his message.

In the book Spin Cycle, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post documented how well Clinton Administration Press Secretary Bill McCurry played the game of trading access for sympathetic coverage. All press secretaries do this to some extent, but McCurry was particular adept. To give a current example, some believe that journalistic matriarch Helen Thomas has been deliberately snubbed at press conferences for her obnoxious questions. Others believe that White House Press Secretary Ari Fletcher cynically exploits Thomas. Her belligerent questions can make the rest of the White House Press Corps appear mean-spirited, painting Ari Fletcher as a beleaguered and sympathetic character.

Professional journalists learn how to play the access versus independence game well. The best manage to find sources and cover the news without being compromised. Loss of independence is a journalist’s occupational hazard and journalists are consequently sensitive to the problem.

This sensitivity makes the guilty admission by Eason Jordan, Chief News Executive at CNN, on the New York Times Op-Ed page so amazing. Now that Coalition forces have crushed Saddam Hussein’s repressive regime, it appears that the Iraqi people were not the only ones freed. Unfettered, Jordan now informs us of the “news we kept to ourselves,” about “the awful things that could not be reported” lest CNN loose its Baghdad Bureau and Iraqis working on the CNN staff be tortured or killed. Eason admits they CNN knew about and did not report on the intention of Hussein’s oldest son, Uday, “to assassinate two of his brothers-in-law who had defected.” CNN knew, but did not report to the public that some in the Iraqi leadership believed that Hussein was a “maniac who had to be removed.”

One can appreciate the concern for their personnel in Baghdad and the moral predicament faced by CNN. However, CNN did have a choice. They could have yielded the Iraqi Bureau and pulled all their personnel out. When circumstances make it difficult to maintain journalistic integrity, it is the professional duty of the media either to leave the situation or tell the entire truth and deal with the consequences as best as possible. It is almost never appropriate for a news service to deliberately conceal what it would otherwise reveal. Instead, CNN let its obsession for access, the ability to have foreign bureau in Baghdad, overwhelm its journalistic judgment.

Seasoned reporter Peter Collins revealed that while working at CNN, Baghdad, CNN was “virtually groveling” to persuade Saddam Hussein to grant CNN an exclusive interview. CNN promised the Iraqis the interview would run world-wide for an uninterrupted hour. Collins was further upset when forced to read an “item-by-item summary of points made by the [Iraqi] Information Minister” in what amounted to “Saddam Hussein’s propaganda.” Later, when Collins gave an on-air report critical of Hussein’s regime, CNN’s Baghdad Chief complained “you know we’re trying to get an interview with Saddam. That piece last night was not helpful.” Rather than continue to work under such constraints, Collins left Baghdad and CNN.

Even worse, until the New York Times piece, CNN even lied to its colleagues about compromises it was making in its Iraqi coverage. According to Franklin Foer:

“For a long time, CNN denied that its coverage skimped on truth. While I researched a story on CNN’s Iraq coverage for the New Republic last October, Mr. Jordan told me flatly that his network gave ‘a full picture of the regime.’ In our conversation, he challenged me to find instances of CNN neglecting stories about Saddam’s horrors. If only I’d had his [New York] Times op-ed.”

If other news organizations follow CNN’s example, totalitarian regimes will learn that they do not need to nurture rapport and trust with the press. All they need to do is threaten and intimidate and they can exchange modest regulated access for favorable coverage.

Once we know that a news organization will modify its coverage to maintain their bureaus, it looses credibility. CNN was the first US-based news service to establish a Bureau in Communist Cuba in 1997 What does CNN know about Cuba that it is not telling us? What compromises have CNN made to insure that Communist dictator Fidel Castro permits the CNN Havana Bureau to remain open? After Jordan admissions, CNN is obligated to answer these questions.

According to the United States Census Department, approximately 60 percent of the population is under the age of 40. The majority of living Americans either were not born or less than 10 years old when US involvement in the War in Vietnam ended. They are thus resistant to what has been labeled as the “Vietnam Syndrome.” Those afflicted by this condition are marked by the conviction that the United States should always scrupulously avoid military intervention abroad. Those with the more benign form of the affliction have concluded from the inept military strategy in Vietnam that the US military is incapable of conducting successful and humane military operations. Why involve oneself in costly operations that will not succeed? The more virulent disorder is associated with the conviction that the United States is an inherently aggressive and evil country. Thus, any intervention must be in the service of imperialistic aims to dominate the world and must be opposed.

Those younger than 40 do not remember a world of American military losses, accompanied by angry divisiveness at home. They remember American power and leadership leading to the end of the Cold War and the liberation of Eastern Europe. They remember the liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi aggression in a remarkably efficient US military operation. They remember the liberation of Panama from dictatorship and the stability brought by American forces to Haiti. They remember that American air power effectively stopped ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Kosovo. They remember the US military, with less than 400 troops on the ground, toppled the regime in Afghanistan that harbored the terrorist organization that killed 3,000 people on US soil on September 11, 2001. The experience of the younger part of the electorate is definitively different from those who came of age in the 1960s.

Of course, knowledge and appreciation of history should extend beyond only our collective generational memories. But it appears that some in the media who came of age in the 1960s were so traumatized by the Vietnam War that they are incessantly haunted by it. They seek feverishly for another Vietnam around every corner.

In 2001, New York Times columnist R. W. Apple quintessentially represented those still afflicted by the Vietnam Syndrome. After several weeks of bombing Afghanistan, Apple was fretting about a potential “quagmire.” In many ways, the Afghan War was fundamentally different from Vietnam. It was not a guerilla war supported by a sympathetic populace and, unlike Vietnam, the US made a total commitment to victory. However, these important differences were dismissed. Most of the time one has to wait a long time to find out if one is in error. Apple learned more swiftly, when a few weeks after his column US troops were in Kabul.

Unchastened by this conspicuous failure, as the National Review pointed out, a week ago Apple already concluded “With every passing day, it is more evident that the allies made two gross military misjudgments in concluding that coalition forces could safely bypass Basra and Nasiriya and that Shitte Muslims in southern Iraq would rise up against Saddam Hussein.” Apple scorned the Administration for “over confidence.”

A week later Coalition forces are in Baghdad and “with every passing day, it is more evident” that US war plans were sufficiently flexible to deal with contingencies and as Shittes begin to feel free of Saddam’s retribution, they are becoming far more welcoming of Coalition forces. “With every passing day, it is more evident” that whatever the difficulties, the speed of the US advance preserved Iraqi civilian infrastructure by not allowing Hussein’s forces sufficient time to blow more oil wells and destroy the bridge approaches to Baghdad.

Perhaps Apple ought to be forgiven his errors given that he probably relied on the “news” portion of the New York Times for his information. Apple claimed that “a commander of American ground forces in the war zone conceded that the war they were fighting is not the one they and their officers had foreseen.” Apple was apparently relying on a front page New York Times article quoting Lt. Gen William Wallace, as saying, “The enemy we’re fighting is different from the one we war-gamed against.” Later, the New York Times corrected the quote to “The enemy we’re fighting is a bit [emphasis added-FMM] different from the one we war-gamed against.” This latter corrected quotation conveys a significantly different perspective.

Drawing an analogy with optimistic exaggerations by US leaders during Vietnam, Apple criticized the Administration for raising expectations too high. According to Apple, after a week, Americans had “been conditioned by predictions of American officials (to quote one of them, Vice President Dick Cheney) that Mr. Hussein’s government would prove to be a `house of cards.”’ Actually, Administration leaders are on the record stating that the Iraq War could be very difficult and take some time. Later the New York Times correction column conceded that, another front page article was in error and Dick Cheney had never used the phrase “house of cards.”

It would be foolish to predict how the war will proceed. Wars are notoriously unpredictable and extrapolation after two weeks is hardly better than extrapolation after one week. However, we should all feel fortunate that so far the direst predictions have not born out. There have been, so far, no terrorist attacks on the US in the wake of the war; no ecological catastrophes from a large number of blown oil wells; no massive numbers of refugees; and no massive use of chemical and biological weapons.

Perhaps we should give credit where credit is due. Kenneth Pollack, a Clinton Administration hawk, articulated the case for going to war Iraq in the book The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq. There, he predicted that liberating Iraq would take four to eight weeks and between 500 and 1,000 American casualties. At this point, Pollack seems to have provided wise and conservative counsel.

“The Communist leaders say, `Don’t interfere in our internal affairs. Let us strangle our citizens in peace and quiet.’ But I tell you: Interfere more and more. Interfere as much as you can. We beg you to come and interfere.” — Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

The New Republic on the Left and The Weekly Standard on the Right rarely have the same perspective on substantive policy issues. Whether it is Clinton’s impeachment, the 2002 elections, or tax cuts, the two political rags usually slug it out in the ring of ideas. It is, therefore, rare and surprising when a senior editor at The New Republic, Lawrence Kaplan, and the editor of The Weekly Standard, William Kristol, team to present the case for war against Saddam Hussein’s regime in The War Over Iraq: Saddam’s Tyranny and America’s Mission. Since both are disciplined by writing regularly for magazines, their prose does not meander lazily around issues. They make their concise and direct case for war to take down Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime in 125 quick pages.

Kaplan and Kristol lay the foundation for their argument by documenting the internal tyranny of Hussein’s regime, Hussein’s history of aggression against his neighbors, and his relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Hussein’s cruelty and immorality is so often conceded in debate, that we sometimes forget just how grisly the regime has been. For completeness, Kaplan and Kristol recount Saddam’s regime’s brutal repression of religious and ethnic minorities, his torture of women and children as a means to punish dissent, and his use of chemical weapons to suppress rebellion among the Kurds. Kaplan and Kristol remind us that Hussein has launched attacks against at least three of its neighbors. Most troubling of all, we are reminded of evidence of Hussein’s inexorable desire to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, Hussein believes that one of his key mistakes in attacking Kuwait more than a decade ago was that he should have waited until he had acquired nuclear weapons. Such weapons would have shielded the regime from attack.

Kaplan and Kristol’s real contribution is placing the war over Iraq and the war on terror in context. The real issue is more than just Iraq. “It is about what sort of role the United States intends to play in the world in the twenty-first century. And it is about what sort of world Americans intend to inhabit — a world of civilized norms that is congenial to the United States, or a world where dictators feel no constraints about developing weapons of mass destruction at home and no compunction about committing aggression and supporting terrorism abroad.”

On one side of the foreign policy debate are the Conservatives of the elder George Bush’s generation, the Henry Kissingers, the Brent Scrowcrofts, and the Lawrence Eagleburgers, who practice realpoltik, the balancing of international relationships to maintain stability and protect vital interests, even if at times it means overlooking American values and ideals. Such an approach is an outgrowth of 19th century European power politics and grew in importance during the Cold War, where stability, i.e., preventing an escalation to a nuclear exchange, was the primary imperative.

Under this paradigm, the purpose of the Gulf War after Iraq’s attack on Kuwait was to return the Middle East to the previous status quo. This approach also meant that the US failed to support authentic internal rebellions in Iraq lest they succeed and disturb the status quo. Kaplan and Kristol argue that such a short-sighted emphasis on stability has led to what is now a far more instable and dangerous Iraq.

On the other side are the “wishful liberals” who are so instinctively distrustful of American power that they excessively rely on multilateral institutions and when these fail on the hope that the gentle soothing hand of commercialism and globalization will moderate brutal regimes. Such a policy led to the gradual expulsion of international inspectors charged with verifying Saddam’s compliance with the regime’s agreement to disarm. This failure was punctuated with fretful launches of sporadic cruise missile attacks. What the “wishful liberals” do bring positively to foreign policy is a concern about wedding American foreign policy to American values, sometimes irrespective of self-interest.

Kaplan and Kristol articulate a third way now practiced by George W. Bush. Actually, they argue for a return to a “distinctively American internationalism,” a practice akin to the approaches of Presidents Harry Truman and John Kennedy. After World War II, Truman realized that America’s vital interests could not be narrowly defined only in terms of access to natural resources and strategic waterways. Truman recognized that a world that nurtured freedom and democracy was also in America’s long-term interest and that America should do what it could to spread democracy. Kennedy was so convinced of this proposition that he promised that America would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” While the US cannot go willy-nilly intervening against despotic regime, the encouragement of liberty and democracy is no less a vital interest than freedom of the seas.

Moreover, Kaplan and Kristol argue that in the age of weapons of mass destruction, the doctrine of preemption needs to be explicitly expanded to not only include imminent threats, but also longer-term threats that would be far harder to deal with later if allowed to fester. Indeed, President Kennedy articulated such a policy during the Cuban missile crisis. He argued that the US had a right to preemptively halt, if necessary through the use of force, the deployment of nuclear weapons in Cuba, even if there were not any immediate prospect for their use.

Perhaps the clearest case of effective preemption was the Israeli destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor before it went online. At the time, the entire international community, including the United States, condemned the action, but in retrospect, the destruction of the reactor delayed Hussein’s nuclear program. If Hussein had had nuclear weapons at the time of his invasion of Iraq, it is likely that the rest of the world would not have intervened for fear of initiating a nuclear (if limited) exchange. Kuwait would now be a province of a stronger, wealthier, and more dangerous Iraq.

The liberation of Iraq has now begun. Kaplan and Kristol help explain why such a war is justified both as a way to prevent proliferation of weapons-of-mass-destruction capability to a vicious and aggressive regime and as a way to promote the advancement of liberty and democracy. A peaceful and democratic Iraq is good for America and even better for Iraqis.

General Tommy Franks is a large, deliberate, plain-spoken sort of man and it showed as he faced the press on March 22, 2003 at Camp As Sayliyah, Qatar. As the General in charge of Coalition troops in the Iraqi theatre, one of his responsibilities is to brief the press. Surrounded by military representatives from coalition partners, the general began the briefing with a short description of the war, describing it as one of “shock, surprise, flexibility.”

Unfortunately, Franks stayed on to answer questions. It was not so much that Franks did a bad job, it was that it was an embarrassment to listen to the press ask rather pedestrian questions, like “What has most surprised you?” A high school student might have asked such a question. If the questions were not simple, they were belligerent. During the first Gulf War, the comedy show Saturday Night Live ran parodies of silly press conferences making fun of reporters’ questions. The press provided ample fodder for a remake of a similar parody.

It was clear that Franks viewed the conference as a duty to be endured. He was supposed to be responsive without revealing tactical information. Moreover, he had to remain calm in the face of deliberately provocative questions from the foreign press, especially the BBC. Franks fielded the confrontational questions with bland directness, not revealing any strong emotion.

The Pentagon is fortunate that I am not responsible for answering such questions because I would have found it far too difficult to disguise my contempt for leading and snarky queries. Of course, it is much easier at a keyboard to conjure up witty responses. It is far more difficult to do it while standing in front of a crowd. In truth, it is likely that I might have frozen under the glare of cameras. Nonetheless, in my imagination I can fantasize about clever responses that Franks would have been far too diplomatic and polite to voice.

One questioner suggested that Iraqi government buildings in Baghdad had probably been evacuated so that any “shock and awe” campaign was obviously directed at non-combatants.

My Imaginary Response:

Government buildings contain documents, communications equipment, and the entire clerical infrastructure that allows the leadership to function. Hence, they are legitimate military targets. To the extent that low-level government employees were home during the nighttime attacks provides more evidence of the Coalition’s efforts to minimize the loss of life.

If you are so confident about the physical placement of Iraqi leadership, then perhaps you would be so kind as to provide the information to us.

Another BBC questioner asked snidely about the “Blitz of Baghdad.”

My Imaginary Response:

Technically speaking any aerial bombardment would constitute a “blitz.” It is certainly convenient for you to refer to the “Blitz of Baghdad” knowing how fond the press is of alliteration. However, it is unwise to allow the allure of literary flourish to tempt you away from an accurate characterization.

As a citizen of the United Kingdom you are certainly aware that the term “Blitz” is burdened with as special meaning for the British. The Nazis attempted to use the Blitz over London to indiscriminately cause civilian casualties as a means to break the will of the British. By contrast, we in the Coalition are attempting to demonstrate that we are allied with the Iraqi people against Saddam Hussein’s despotic and brutal regime. We are, therefore, going to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.

Viewed in this context, the phrase “Blitz of Baghdad” is inappropriate. I respectfully suggest that the use of the phrase is more an indication of your editorial policy than a dispassionate assessment of the situation.

Another BBC reporter snidely asserted he could not make out the 700 Iraqis displayed on a large screen in the press room. The Iraqis were supposedly aligned in such a way as to indicate their intention to surrender. The cynical reporter asked Franks whether the reports of tens of thousands of POWs were just propaganda to induce other Iraqis to surrender.

Franks quickly pointed out that he had never claimed that there were that many POWs. According to Franks 1,000 to 2,000 Iraqis were in custody. After giving the correct number, I would not have allowed the questioner to slink away so easily.

My Imaginary Response:

I will be happy to provide you a hard copy of the image so you can count the heads yourself. If you do not come up with 700, please tell us. For the next press conference, we will have to arrange a seat for you closer to the screen so you can make out the details.

It is clear that you are not afraid or intimidated to ask any question that challenges my credibility. We in the Coalition are attempting to introduce to Iraq a world were you and others in the press are never afraid to question authority. Indeed the belligerent tone of your question is a measure of just how successful we have been.

Thank you for asking challenging questions, for questioning authority. That is your important job. Please continue to do so. Do not be afraid to question my credibility, the credibility of your governments, the credibility of foreign governments, or the credibility of popular opinion. Do not be afraid to question the assertions of your fellow members of the press. Finally, do not be afraid to challenge the authority of your own preconceived notions.

If Franks had responded in this way he probably should be fired for needlessly antagonizing the foreign press, but I am sure it would have felt good.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks by Muslim extremists on September 11, 2001, there was a concern that Americans might vent their anger upon innocent Muslim-Americans. Save for a modest number of individual cases, Americans have not lashed out against their Muslim neighbors. To their credit, the political leadership of both political parties has publicly denounced such indiscriminate vengeance. Certainly, there are no internment camps like those for Americans of Japanese dissent in World War II. Nonetheless, Comedian Chris Rock suggested that if he were a Muslim after September 11, he would dress up like stuntman Evel Knievel, covered in the stars and strips in a hyper-patriotic display.

Rock’s comment was made in jest, but it contains a kernel of wisdom. The personal display of the American flag has become a political symbol. If one observers those lapel flag pins, little flags attached to car antennas, or any of the other ubiquitous flag displays, it is possible to leap unafraid to the conclusion that the displayer supports the President in his potential use of military force to compel Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq to comply with UN resolutions and disarm. This correlation should not be the case. It should not be possible for one part of the political spectrum or one side of an issue to commandeer this American symbol so easily and implicitly associate one position as the “patriotic” one. The loyal opposition must be perceived as “loyal.”

However, the political Left and the anti-war movement has largely eschewed patriotic symbols. Indeed, some on the Left are beginning to refer to conservatives confident of America’s ability and duty to deal with Iraq as “flag conservatives,” further distancing themselves from this symbol. Are these groups saying they are not proud to be Americans? Is their opposition to the war born out love or hate of America? A cursory examination of the web presence of some anti-war groups like A.N.S.W.E.R, Move On, Win Without War, Vote No War, Anti-War.com, United for Peace and Justice, and Not in Our Name shows that only Win Without War has embraced the American flag as a motif. United For Peace has a flag on its home page claiming that patriots are against the war too, but the notion appears there only as an incidental side note.

The display of the flag does not prove patriotism, nor is the lack of a flag a token of anti-Americanism. Nonetheless, if these groups wish to make clear the pro-American roots of their critique, they have an additional positive obligation to seize upon American patriotic symbols like the flag. Their protest placards should be plastered with the stars and stripes. American flag patches ought to be worn on protestors’ shoulders. The dominant colors ought to be red, white, and blue. Small American flags should be in every hand. No one should be able to photograph an anti-war protest without a respectfully displayed flag falling within the frame. Unfortunately, it is probably the case that many in these groups would feel uncomfortable with such displays.

A small incident in La Habra, California illustrates the problem. Residents along Whittier Boulevard had constructed a make shift memorial for the victims of the terrorist attacks on September 11. Since then, local volunteers have maintained the memorial. Flags festooned the memorial to celebrate our unity in sorrow for those who lost their lives, not as a particular political statement. Early this month a group of anti-war Leftists vandalized the memorial, which is located on private property, and replaced the flags with anti-war signs. Tracey Chandler who had helped maintain the memorial reported that the demonstrators “trashed 87 flags [and] 11 memorial tiles made by myself and my children.” The police inexplicably stood by, perhaps misconstruing the First Amendment to protect the destruction of someone’s property. Police finally arrested a young woman later who, according to the Orange County Register, “claimed responsibility for burning some of the flags.”

Now the incident in La Habra was an aberration, but in the light of such incidents the anti-war movement must make greater efforts to distance themselves from such activities or concede the symbolism of the flag to supporters of the war with Iraq. Some on the Left complain that they have been unfairly labeled unpatriotic. Frankly, it is an habitually overused complaint, but the La Habra incident and the general disinclination to proudly display the American flag make it easy to believe the worst about these groups. Anti-war groups should be smart enough to not make themselves so easy to caricature.

One of the advantages of a free commercial society is that it tends to habituate people to monetary transactions independent of other concerns like religion and ethnicity. Of what concern is it to me how another prays or where he came from so long as that person is willing to buy from or sell to me. After a time, this attitude is internalized and tolerance grows. In societies where governments dole out many benefits and determine the winners and losers, people tend to aggregate in groups to garner power and protection. This latter condition afflicts the Balkans.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Balkans were a cauldron of competing ethnic and religious groups. The resulting instability was one of the causes of World War I. After World War II, Marshal Tito took brutal control of Yugoslavia and through repression managed to suppress ethnic and religious violence. However, Tito never created conditions that nurtured tolerance. After Tito died, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of the Cold War, all the old animosities in the Balkans could no longer be suppressed.

Srebrenica is a Muslim enclave in Bosnia that was threatened by the Serbians. In 1993, the United Nations declared Srebrenica a “safe area” where the Muslim religious minority could seek refuge. One condition of residence in the safe area was the Muslims had to relinquish their weapons. The commander of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) Philippe Morillon assured the Muslim population that “I will never abandon you.” It is not clear how assured the Muslims were by this pledge, but in retrospect they should not have been.

At the beginning of July 1995, Serbian troops began shelling Srebrenica. When Muslims in Srebrenica asked for their weapons back from UNPROFOR to defend themselves. The request was denied.

Soon after, the Bosnian Serbs increased their shelling causing even more Muslim refugees to flee into Srebrenica. As they approached Srebrenica, the Serbians captured about 30 Dutch troops that were part of UNPROFOR. Wim Dijkema, a member of the Dutch force later reported, “We were shield, a living shield between the Serbs and the refugees. I heard there were two orders: one was to `defend them,’ and the second was `we won’t allow you to bring any Dutch in body bags back home.”’

In response to Serbian assaults, the local Dutch commander requested air support. According to the BBC, the request was first denied ostensibly because it was “submitted on the wrong form.” After a resubmitted request, Dutch fighter aircraft dropped bombs on Serbian positions. The Serbians forced the Dutch to stop bombing by threatening to kill captured Dutch troops.

The Serbian commander Ratko Mladic entered Srebrenica and seized Muslim men from ages 12 to 77 for “interrogation.” After Dutch troops were released, the Dutch contingent left Srebrenica leaving their weapons behind. Shortly thereafter, 7,000 Muslim men were massacred in the largest mass murder in Europe since World War II. Systematic Serbian attacks against Muslims did not end until the United States forces under the auspices of NATO used massive airpower and the threat of ground troops to force Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic to stop ethnic cleansing of Muslim in Serbian controlled areas and end its occupation of Kosovo.

The lesson to be learned from the sad story of Srebrenica is not that the United Nations is indifferent to genocide. It is not that Dutch troops are cowardly or incompetent. It is that the United Nations is superior at process and bureaucracy, useful in dealings between nations with a respect for law. But as a consequence, the UN can be faltering and ineffective in the face of determined, unscrupulous, and immoral adversaries. It is that the good intentions of Dutch troops, any troops, without resolute and strong leadership, are a weak shield against the truly evil and vicious. This history should be remembered as the United Nations attempts to disarm Saddam Hussein, a universally acknowledge tyrant responsible for the death of thousands, seeking weapons of mass destruction, and adept at exploiting the bureaucratic machinations of international organizations and the natural and admirable reluctance of democracies to engage in war.