September 19, 2002
War Aims
Examine this photo:
This picture was taken of a meeting between MacArthur and Hirohito right after Japan surrendered.
Steven Den Beste has made a lengthy post about the nature of our enemy. His thesis is that Arab culture has become morass of cultural stagnation and decline, prone to blaming everything that is wrong with Arab Society on Jews, Christians, and the West(specifically the U.S.). This applies both to the islamism of bin Laden and to the Baathists, pan-Arabists, etc. They all share the same basic goal, and have generally similar pathologies under the surface, even if they appear at cross purposes. Den Beste, along with Cato, myself, and others have this view.
Now back to the picture. This picture was taken in the days immediately after Japan's surrender to the Allies. This picture became public, and spread alarm throughout the Japanese. Why? Because it showed that Japan had been defeated. There was an obvious difference in the stature and demeanor of MacArthur v. Hirohito. MacArthur is relaxed, wearing a relatively casual khakis. Hirohito is stiff, in very formal attire, and looking a bit worse for wear. The picture created an impetus among the Japanese to engage in self examination for the first time, and with the active help of the MacArthur, truly changed Japanese society forever.
Now why do I bring up this picture? Because this is exactly the point that Steven is trying to make. We need to inflict a serious, undeniable defeat on the both Islamism and Pan-Arabism. Saddam is a perfect example of low hanging fruit. if we defeat, and hopefully kill him, preferably in some sort of public manner, we will create a reaction in the Arab world something akin to what that picture did to the Japanese. If you listen closely to what is happening in the Arab press now, you will notice that the process of self-examination is beginning, with vague fits and starts. The commonly accepted wisdom is being questioned, and talk of democracy is no longer being pooh-poohed. Our defeating Saddam, and either putting him in irons(publicly) or him dying(preferably in public) will strengthen and enhance that process. The questions from the Islamists about Bin Laden and the pan-Arabists about Saddam will be the same, "This was our hero, he was supposed to be able to fight the Americans, and instead, he was beaten and destroyed in a matter of weeks. Why?" When that happens, we will be able to change the pathology of Arab culture today, and that will make the world a far safer place.
Update: I found an article in Newsweek that is a pretty strong confirmation of the point that myself and others have made regarding Iraq.
Update: OK, not really an update. However, a lot(and I do mean a lot!Wow!) of you are coming here from The Great Glenn, and all the hits are probably maxing out my free webspace on earthlink, which I'm using to host all the pictures here. So, since you are here, please scroll down a bit and read A Silent Fisking, which is a response to a terrorist-sympathising sob story in the UK Daily Mirror. Since you are already here, the bandwidth has already been used for this story, and I'd hate to see it go to waste.
Posted by John Bono at September 19, 2002 07:25 PM | TrackBackAUTHOR:C
DATE: 09/19/2002 10:44:00 PM
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Riyadh delenda est!
Great idea with the photo. I've read several accounts of the early days in the occupation, most make the same point. Most lower class Japanese took the "Son of Heaven" line seriously. To see that their "God" was in fact a small mortal man, tiny next to his American foe, was an immense emotional shock. One that MacArthur well understood.
How to deliver that same kind of shock to the Islamic Arab world? I hope you are right about Saddam, the Arab "street" seems to pin alot of hopes on him. I definitely agree that the faster and more crushing the defeat, the better.
Shucks, I guess Dubya missed his chance to reform the Dems when he passed up an opportunity to have his picture taken with ex-Alpha male, Al Gore when he had his beard.
Posted by: Jack Lillywhite on September 25, 2002 09:08 AMI seem to remember that during Gulf War One, someone observed that the best end would be to deliver Saddam's head in a garbage bag to the Oval Office. The idea was that only an unsubtle symbolic act such as that would get through to the Arab population. Whoever said that was quite right, and think of all the trouble that could have been averted in the meantime.
Posted by: Dave Himrich on September 25, 2002 09:27 AMYou should look for the photo of Sydney Mashbir "greeting" the Japanese deligation as the boarded the New Jersey. It was on the cover of Life, starting to shake hands (with an old friend, who he'd known when he lived there 20 years earlier) then realizing what he was about to do and pulling his hand back. Also summed it all up.
The Japanese were and are an honourable people; they were led by a dishonourable military clique that used the figurehead Hirohito for their own designs. Even so, such men could have been deterred; they were above all rational.
The current enemy is irrational by Western standards. The only things Arabs and Muslims seem to understand is brute force, lots of it, applied without pity or remorse. To talk, negotiate with these toilets of nations is to lose before we start.
The path to success is clear; victory is all, and the West (read: U.S.A. and Britain; all others need not apply) must seek it forthwith. Overwhelming force -- the lesson in the defeat of Imperial Japan is instructive. The U.S. used atomic weapons on the Japanese, killing many, many civilians clustered about military targets of secondary value. This destruction, visited on the home islands of Japan, was the dark symbol that carried the day. The clear implication was that these two bombings, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were but the start of something truly large and hideous for the people of Japan.
The wartime cabinet did the rational thing, and surrendered. Saddam will not likely be so rational. Iraq must be beheaded, down to the waist if need be.
We must stop apologising for alleged sins of the colonial past; we must live in the present and for the future. It is long past time for the West to cry havoc and , and, oh, you know the rest.
btw: thanks for posting those horrific but necessary images from 9.11.01 -- we must never forget.
Thank you for the pictorial Fisking.
dag
Japanese culture possesses a unique trait that greatly facilitated its transformation by America into a modern democracy. In Japanese culture, when someone defeats you that person then becomes worthy of emulation. All the Samurai legends incorporate this idea to some degree.
Early American attempts to treat with Japan failed. Ambassadors went hat in hand before the Shogunate showing respect and diffidence. To the Japanese this communicated weakness and worthlessness. Admiral Perry succeeded by overawing the Japanese with the power of his steam warships and by adopting an arrogant and disdainful attitude. The Japanese interpreted this attitude as indicating Perry's and America's worthiness and high status. Later, in the early Meji era, the Satsuma clan strongly opposed all Western interaction with Japan. They fired on a British ship and a combined British, French and America fleet quickly leveled all their seaside fortresses. The Satsuma became enthusiastic supporters of westernization and members of the clan formed the core of Imperial navy.
In short, a traditional Japanese would fight you like a demon but if you succeeded in pushing his face into the mud he would view with genuine respect. Arabic Islam does not posses this trait. While military defeat will be one component of their transformation I think it unwise to use our success in Japan as a template.
We became a great nation not by slaughtering thousands but by our willingness to help our foes up from their knees. The Emperor/MacArthur picture was a powerful stimulant. Not because of the "look" but because the Emperor was alive at all. MacArthur had long studied the Japanese and drew admiration from them by several gestures. His first meal in Japan was steak something unheard of for most Japanese for years. MacArthur refused the services of a taster, astonishing his host and spreading the story like wildfire. The victor had shown trust in his defeated enemies! MacArthur immediately and swiftly caught, tried and punished any allied soldier who abused the Japanese. Not at all what the Japanese expected. The photo above shows Hirohito arriving for an audience with MacArthur. He has come to declare responsibility for all Japanese actions during the war, something he could have ducked easily, yet did not. There were two brave men in that room. Yes, with the Arabs we will have to find a new paradigm of behavior but, as MacArthur has shown, it pays to do the unexpected. Killing Saddam makes him a marytyr (in ideology if not in emotion). Retiring him to some huge house in the middle of nowhere would shame him - he didn't deserve the courtesy of apocolyptic death.
Posted by: Dana on October 4, 2002 12:05 AMThere is one big difference between Hirohito and Saddam. Hirohito was the man who overrode his cabinet and ordered a surrender. Saddam won't do that. Also, in the middle east, there is a saying to the effect that "martyrs are a dime a dozen." In other words, the martyred Saddam and a buck might get them a cup of coffee.
Also, take a look at what happened with Bin Laden. We probably killed him in Tora Bora, but since noone has been able to find the body, al Qaeda has tried to use the fact that we never got our hands on him to claim that he is still alive.
It would be better if that did not repeat in Iraq. The best alternative is if Saddam is killed by his own people a la mussolini. If not that, then we get him and kill him ourselves. In either case, I think it is preferable to have an actual corpse to show that he is dead rather than to let him live to act as a terrorist magnet or to have him die out of public view so that other terrorists can claim he is still alive.
We aren't out to kill as many as possible, but to defeat them utterly, which isn't quite the same thing. Sherman's march to the sea had relatively few casualties on either side. However, it devastated the South's will to fight.
We can't build up our foes until they have been defeated, though. MacArthur was magnanimous in victory because he could afford to be. The Japanese were completely and utterly defeated. We will be able to be magnanimous in postwar Iraq for the same reason.
Ditto #9. Japan was (is?) a shame culture; the Arab states appear to be a revenge culture.
Posted by: on October 18, 2002 01:37 PMExactly, #12. We are also dealing with a religious fundamentalism that praises death and martyrdom over surrender and peaceful solution (that is, unless they can dictate the solution).
Posted by: C. Matt on October 21, 2002 06:37 PM
