Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 22, 1991                   TAG: 9103220873
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-13   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: PAXTON DAVIS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HEADINESS OF WAR'S VICTORY BLINDS US FROM THE REALITIES

The apparent "defeat" of Iraq's wicked legions by the forces of virtue and light led by the indomitable George Bush is the trigger, and the carefully stage-managed "homecoming" of a few servicemen and their units from the Persian Gulf is the persuader; but both depend upon the willing credulity of those whose deception is sought.

Bush, glorying in extraordinarily high popularity ratings and focusing his statements, movements and photographic opportunities on the presidential election of 1992, behaves like a drunken sailor who resents all suggestions that he ought to lie down and have a nap. But his hyperkinetic speech and behavior, though a jaundiced eye finds in both hints that he is, in fact, emotionally unsettled, evoke only laughter and applause and even greater approval from the American people.

In a characteristically overwrought statement Sunday, welcoming troops home to Sumter, S.C., Bush brought the crowd to their feet by telling them that "when you left it was still fashionable to question America's decency, America's courage, America's resolution. No one, no one in the whole world, doubts us any more."

Unpleasant though it may be to disagree with my own pontifex maximus, a vestigial duty to speak the truth as I see it impels me to observe above the frenzy of the mob that Bush is wrong on every point.

I do not remember, and few still sober will remember, that before Bush launched the war on Iraq it was "fashionable" to "question America's decency, America's courage, America's resolve." I recall no one who doubted that Americans usually do what they must and sometimes even do it well. But I recall a lot - including two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and most living former secretaries of defense - who questioned America's judgment (and, by extension, the judgment of its leadership) in initiating a war against an Arab nation.

Bush is being a demagogue, of course, seeking to arouse the simplest mass emotion of what with him passes for "patriotism" and turning it to his own advantage; and in this he is hardly unusual among American politicians, who are prone to use whatever is at hand and seems likely to work, never mind its consequences. But he is fanning fires he or his successors may find it difficult to control.

Not the least of them is the notion, urged by Bush and encouraged by the military "defeat" of a weak Third World enemy, that war is the answer to international disagreements. We "won" in Iraq because - perhaps deliberately - we vastly exaggerated Iraq's capacity to fight back. We "won" because Bush and his minions were willing to kill civilians and enemy soldiers indiscriminately. We also "won" because we were lucky.

We may not be lucky again. New data on the bombing of Iraq and Baghdad in particular indicate that, despite propaganda to the contrary, American "smart" bombs were far less accurate than we were led to believe. Fewer than a small fraction actually struck their intended targets. The failures of advanced military intelligence, characteristic of most wars, may work to our disadvantage next time. The "coalition" may be harder to raise and hold.

The frenetic jingo pride in which the nation continues to wallow discourages thoughtful consideration of such ambiguous questions. Nor does it make us willing to view realistically what the war cost the nation, not only in dollars and thwarted lives, blessedly few, but in continued world hostility; in long-term geopolitical judgment; in the invisible but perhaps permanent damage done American social and economic needs; in deferral of truly urgent priorities - in the cities, in the environment, in America's collapsing economy, in the education of tomorrow's technocrats, scientists, artists, administrators and leaders - from which a "victorious" war has distracted public attention.

We are falling apart, but - like so many unhappy truths - few want to look. "Victory" is more fun.