It's Memorial Day weekend.  It is dreary and raining and I can't get out and work on the pond like I wanted to.  So, I'm catching up on my reading.

Over at Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall recently published a letter from a reader that, I think sums up very well the feelings and opinions of the small number of Americans who either still support the war outright or support it in concept.  TPM reader JDG writes:

Yes, our war in Iraq is very much like the one in Viet Nam, but not the way its opponents mean the comparison. What's similar is this: Both of these war efforts by the United States have been sabotaged, probably on purpose, and we will probably lose this one as we lost Viet Nam, by the media's practice of showing us the daily body count in color on the nightly news every single day, again and again and again and again!

It is simply impossible for a democratic country to pursue any war, no matter how justified, to a successful conclusion under those conditions.

No matter what you think of the merits of the present war, it's obvious that two choices lie before America: either we go back to our pre-1950 policy (which most countries in the world still follow) of wartime censorship — not just of information that would help enemy commanders, but also of information that would undermine our own public's morale — or we may as well pack it in and invite China to rule our country, since we can never possibly win another war.

As I said, I think it is important to confront this idea head on.  It is, among a class of mostly male mostly conservative individuals a very popular and persuasive notion and it goes like this:  The media prevents us from winning because the American people cannot stand to see their boys and girls bleeding and dying on a daily basis.  It undercuts morale over the long haul and makes victory impossible by undermining the support for the war at home.

More after the jump.

This is wrong and here is why.  War is, for at least one of the participants, an existential threat to the nation.  In other words, loose and your country — at least as far as you currently know (and possibly love it) ceases to exist.  That existential threat tends to bring everyone together not just in spite of the constant parade of death and destruction, but because of it.

America never faced an existential threat in Viet Nam or in Iraq.  They were and are optional wars fought on vague principles of national security policy.  The American nation has not been forced and hasn't even been asked to sacrifice in any way for the support of these wars.  On the contrary, the Bush Administration has encouraged Americans to go on about their normal daily lives.  In the words of the Vice President, “the American way of life is non-negotiable.”

So, it is of very little shock then that the vast majority of the American people, who do not serve and who increasingly do not even know people who serve in the military have no stake in the war.  It is an abstract thing, thousands of miles away.  Their only connection to it is through the media.  And the media shows it for what it is, a disaster.  A disaster for the Iraqi people, a disaster for American standing in the world, and a disaster for those brave men and women who march off to war in our names.

But do think back to the times where America DID face existential threat.  Think back to World War II.  Did the media show such graphic scenes of American casualties?  Not as much, no.  But did every American know a Gold Star Mother?  Did every American have a close family member serving in the military?  Did every American participate in rationing, in scrap drives, in victory gardens, buy war bonds?  The answer to all those questions is, Yes.

Think back to the Civil and Revolutionary wars.  Those wars were fought on our own soil. For many, the battles and the marshaling of forces occurred literally in their back-yards. Did a large majority of Americans personally witness the carnage that results from combat?  Was there TV in 1862?  No.  Was there Matthew Brady and other photographers using that new technology to bring the carnage of the war into people's homes?  Yes.

Photo of African American voulunteers collecting the bones of the dead following the Battle of Cold Harbor.  John Reekie, July 1865.  Library of Congress.

In all those cases America and American's stayed in for the long haul, against the odds (1941, 1863) and ground out the inevitable victory.  In all those cases, the difference between victory and defeat was strong leadership and a strong national sense of purpose.  THAT is what we lack in America today.  The media is merely a long-focus lens that lets us see events ocurring a long way away.  But without the leadership to give us confidence that our men and women are there for a good purpose,  those images from abroad will eat away at the conscience of America.  Without the leadership to give all of us at home a shared vision, shared purpose that can help us set aside the ugly images abroad and see a brighter future, the names of the dead will haunt us.  Eventually, the will to fight will flag and fail.

No, it is not the media's fault for showing us what IS.  It is the Administration's fault for lying to us about what Iraq WAS and for not providing America with a compelling sense of mission in Iraq.  Lord knows they tried.  But you can't just fake this shit.  People know, instinctively whether something is right or wrong.  You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and you can't make 2003 into 1941.  People know the difference.

And THAT is why the vast middle of America has turned its back on the war and on the administration.  America can fight and win any war that has the backing of the American people.  But war has changed.  There probably (God willing) will never be another large, conventional war fought.  The wars of the future will be guerrilla, open-source wars.  It will require very good reasons and very compelling arguments for Americans to get behind those sorts of bloody, drawn-out affairs.

It requires a sense of noble purpose, an inspiring call to arms by our leaders and probably a burden shared with other nations.  It requires that we feel morally and legally justified in doing what we have to do, ideally with international institutions behind us.  It requires some sort of sense that not only is progress towards the final goal possible, but evidence that it is occurring.

All of those things are missing in America's endeavors in 2007.  So, on this Memorial Day, 2007 I, along with so many parents across the country simply ask myself the same question that was asked in 1970, “who will be the last child to die for a mistake?”