It is Good that War is So Terrible
October 5, 2004
In her most insightful article today, Bretigne Shaffer quotes a journalist who makes the point that, to some people, war can be addictive. This is true even of non-combatants in a society like America where the media, movies, books, etc. glorify the state’s wars ad nauseum. A case in point would be the writings of V.D. Hanson, Max Boot, and other neocons (who have never experienced war themselves) who write book after book about the alleged virtues of war.
But as Britigne writes, it is the civilized among us who resist this “addiction.” It is the barbarians who encourage and glorify it. Her discussion reminded me of a famous statement that General Robert E. Lee made to General James Lonstreet as his Army of Northern Virginia was about to engage the Army of the Potomac in the Battle of Fredericksburg in December of 1862. Looking over the field where the enemy was about to embark on thirteen futile charges against his army, with bands playing and tens of thousands of men assembled in battle lines, Lee said, “It is good that war is so terrible, or we should grow to like it too much.”
Contrast that with Sherman, V.D. Hanson’s hero, who said “the only good Indian is a dead Indian,” and ordered the U.S. army to avoid distinguishing by age or gender when attacking an Indian village. He also lamented just before his death that his army failed to kill every last Indian in America. In 1862 Sherman wrote his wife that his purpose was “extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least part of the trouble, but the people” of the South.
This kind of barbariansm has been the American credo ever since the likes of Sherman prevailed in the War to Prevent Southern Independence. It is encouraged today by the Straussian neocon establishment, which is comprised mostly of what historian Ann Norton calls “tiny, thin-shouldered men,” precious few of whom have ever served in the military themselves.
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