-By John Armor
Late last week, in the dead of night. President Obama made an unannounced trip to Dover, Delaware, where he was photographed saluting some flag-covered coffins that were coming in from Afghanistan. There were about 18 coffins on this day. And afterwards, Obama said that this experience “would influence his decision” on troop levels and future policies in the war in that Afghanistan.
Well, first I fault the press. I’ve been saying for years that facts on war casualties, in Iraq, Afghanistan, or wherever, is defective. The national importance of casualties should be gauged by relative casualties in other, American wars. It’s called context. It is especially important in public issues involving deaths of Americans.
Is a disease or condition that kills ten children a year as worthy of public attention and millions of dollars of spending as a another disease that kills a thousand children a year? Put the question that way, and any sensible citizen or sensible politician will say, of course not. The focus and the spending should go where it will save the most lives, do the most good.
But that sort of question cannot be answered without the comparative statistics. Few things matter in the abstract. It is only when put in context that the importance of most fact can be weighed. By and large, the American press does not put death stories – civilian or military – in comparative context.
Let us return to Obama’s midnight trip to salute the coffins at the airbase at Dover, Delaware, where all American casualties return to American soil. Since this Administration is fond of comparisons to the preceding, Bush Administration, here it is: President Bush never went on a single trip to Dover to salute the coffins. Instead, on many occasions he met personally with the families of the fallen soldiers. And President Bush met with them privately, and did not release any photographs of those meetings to the press. Draw your own conclusions about which President was honoring the dead, and which was, possibly, using the coffins of the dead as a backdrop for a photo-op.
Mind you, I have said before and say again, to the family who has lost a son or daughter, husband or wife, mother or father, a single death is a permanent tragedy. However, any nation which bases its foreign policy on the death of one, or only a few, soldiers might as well retreat within its borders and disband its military.
Here is a list of wars that the United States would have abandoned and lost, if the sudden death of 18 soldiers was sufficient to break our resolve to fight:
We would have abandoned the American Revolution after the Battle of Boston, or the Battle of Manhattan, or several other battles lost in New Jersey as Washington’s troops retreated in the face of defeat after defeat.
We would have abandoned the War of 1812 after the British swept aside the incompetent defense of Washington, D.C., and burned that city. There would have been no defense of Fort McHenry, where the Star-Spangled Banner was still flying in the morning, the nation was saved and the National Anthem was written.
We would have lost the Civil War, otherwise known as the War of Southern Succession, at a hundred points where more than ten thousand men fell on both sides of various battles. The result would have been a diminished United States, and a small Confederacy, neither of them of major consequence in the world.
We would have lost World War I, and the Germans would have created their dominance over Europe. But that loss would probably have ruled out the later loss of World War II, since Germany already had its dominance.
We would have lost the Korean War. But then that war was a draw. You DO know that there is only an Armistice in Korea? The original Declaration of War is still in effect.
We would have lost the Vietnam War earlier. We would have lost Gulf War I, and the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The invasions of Panama and Grenada however, would have made the grade by being so relatively bloodless.
Whenever President Obama gets around to making a decision on the conduct of the War in Afghanistan, I urge all readers to look up on the Internet the histories of other military actions in American history, to judge the competence of what he chooses. It may not be a pretty picture, but it will be more accurate than the press accounts suggest.
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John Armor is a graduate of Yale, and Maryland Law School, and has 33 years practice at law in the US Supreme Court. Mr. Armor has authored seven books and over 750 articles. Armor happily lives on a mountaintop in the Blue Ridge. He can be reached at: John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
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