Demosophia

Cindy Sheehan is no Gary Qualls

Gary Qualls was the father of Lance Corporal Louis W. Qualls, who was killed during the Battle of Fallujah on November 16, 2004. Gary observes that Cindy Sheehan refuses to read the last letter of her son. He feels this reluctance marks her cause as one of dishonor and disrespect, rather than the principled objection it claims to be. Gary unashamedly read the text of his son's final letter on the Mall today, in Washington DC... something that apparently strikes fear into the hearts of the so-called "anti-war" movement's followers, for it allows a clear comparison between their "shenanigans" and the uncomplicated notion of "duty" that inspires patriots like Qualls. The result is far from flattering to the Copperheads.

But if people think these demonstrations in DC were just about Iraq, or that after Iraq we can just pack up and pretend we aren't in a war, they've missed the point. Efforts like those of Qualls are important because we're nowhere near the end of this struggle. And in it we have both strengths and weaknesses that we really need to account for. Some of our strengths:

1. We have some people, perhaps even approaching a majority, who "get it." They know that this isn't merely about WMD or oil. This is about, if you will, the "soul" of the human race.

2. We have a pragmatic, and even brilliant, military that doesn't make any of the assumptions about policy that our 21st Century Copperheads make, and that knows how to win a war against the toughest of enemies. Whether or not there were ever strategic WMD in Iraq is, to them, beside the point.

3. We have a "new media" that, while still an infant, lacks many of the institutionalized inadequacies of the old "mainstream media" (and that has even produced a modern Ernie Pyle). It can report coherently on war, while its competitor can't even report coherently on natural disasters.

But we also clearly have weaknesses:

1. A media establishment that pretends to analyze, but is actually just surfing the latest false impression;

2. A tendency toward wishful-thinking, and the belief that fights aren't necessary;

3. A conservative establishment that simply doesn't take public opinion seriously enough to shape it, and that has an absolute aversion to detail and tactics (this criticism from the left actually has merit). It also tends to take our strengths for granted, for some inexplicably perverse reason.

And fortunately we have an enemy that systematically underestimates our strengths and overestimates our weaknesses, which may end up as our sole decisive advantage. The outcome may well be decided by which side has a greater tendency toward self-deception.

(Cross-posted by Demosophist to The Jawa Report)

Posted by Demosophist at September 25, 2005 03:16 PM | TrackBack