Not blaming the military

The Miller Center at the University of Virginia has the audio of a conference on the Iraq War available online, Is Keeping Troops in Iraq in America's Best Interests? 09/18/07. At this writing you have to click on, "Click here to watch video of Jessica T. Mathews' remarks" to get the video. Another link promises the full video, but I can't find it at the link. The "Mathews' remarks" link has a substantial portion of it. The participants are Jessica Tuchman Mathews and Chas Freeman for withdrawal, and neoconservatives Frederick Kagan and Reuel Marc Gerecht for indefinite commitment of US troops.

According to the Event transcript, it appears that only Margaret Warner's introduction and Fred Kagan's brief pitch for staying forever are missing from the video link above.

Mathews and Freeman have a lot of interesting things to say. But one of Freeman's comments jumped out at me as an example of a very bad habit that war critics need to get over now. It occurs at around 39:15 on the video, p. 29 of the transcript:

[The] Iraq [War] now stands as a monument to the discipline and the professionalism of our military and the utter ineptitude of our civilian leadership.

Yes, it's become standard for everyone when speaking publicly about the war to praise the brave, professional, heroic soldiers with various additional superlatives. And that's fine as long as people remember that those are real human beings we're sending off to war, and not some abstractions we call Noble Heroes.

But we should not let our glorious generals hide their own mistakes behind abstract praise of "our military" or The Troops.

Tags: chas freeman, frederick kagan, iraq war, jessica mathews, reuel marc gerecht