A warning about peace without victory - in 1942

A little knowledge is said to be a dangerous thing, but perhaps even a little history is better than none. It at least provides the possibility of perspective as we try to navigate the reefs of modernity.

Case in point comes from a World War II era newspaper which arrived at my desk almost arbitrarily two weeks ago, and which shed extraordinary light on our own contemporary wartime crisis with a seven-inch story that appeared on Page Two.

The newspaper was the Coos Bay Times of Oregon, and the date was June 4, 1942. Get that date through your head o June 4, 1942 o less than six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese air force that left nearly 3,000 people dead and the U.S. Navy crippled.

The headline was somewhat suggestive, but unclear to a 21st-century reader: iThurman Arnold Warns Against New Peace Moves by International Units.i

The lead provided a little more explanation: iThurman W. Arnold, special assistant U.S. attorney general, warned last night in an address to the Illinois Bar Association against the influences for a negotiated peace which ewould leave our enemies still strong enough to prepare for another war.ii

That phrasing piqued my interest for what parallels might exist between the peace movement of World War II and the peace movement of 2007. To be honest, I did not know there was a peace movement in June of 1942, so shortly after we had been attacked by an enemy that brazenly provoked us into battle.

But the cautionary note sounded by Mr. Arnold (also unknown to me before this time) was remarkably evocative of the risk that I and others perceive in the Democratic demand for withdrawal from Iraq.

Certainly it is easy to argue about how or why we got into the war in Iraq in the first place. Democrats love to do so. It is also easy to complain about the manner in which the war has been waged. I do so vociferously.

But to fail to realize that we have an enemy in Iraq is sheer folly. To fail to recognize that we have enemies throughout the Mideast is insanity. And to strengthen or embolden those enemies by allowing them to watch us retreat impotently back to our homeland is frightening at best. Indeed, as Mr. Arnold said about the Germans and Japanese, a negotiated peace (or timed withdrawal) iwould leave our enemies still strong enough to prepare for another war.i

The next paragraph of the United Press report from 1942 is perhaps the most instructive:

iArnold cautioned against the possibility of a esecond Munichi through the secret influence of an international cartel thrown in favor of peace without victory when the first opportunity arises.i

Peace without victory… what a pungent phrase! That is clearly what Sens. Barack Obama, Harry Reid, John Kerry, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton are after. They donit deny it. This is not name-calling. It is a simple fact check.

Winston Churchill beseeched the British people to seek victory at any cost in World War II. iYou ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory o victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.i

But such an entreaty must be based on a firm belief in the strength of oneis enemy. No doubt the Democrats I have named above, and others, do not consider the Islamic fundamentalists who spawn terrorism to be a serious enemy, one that can o as Churchill recognized about fascism o threaten the very survival of our way of life.

So instead of seeking victory, these Democrats seek peace. In their own minds, it is a reasonable and wise end, for it will save the lives of hundreds and perhaps thousands of our brave soldiers. Peace is naturally to be preferred over a state of war by all reasonable people, and so it is easy to convince the American people to seek peace o peace at any cost o because only peace will allow us to enjoy the quality of life we have worked so hard to achieve.

Unfortunately, peace is not a permanent condition. As soon as it is declared, it begins to dissipate. Like the universe we live in, which is constantly in a state of transition from order to disorder (known as entropy to physicists) the human condition is constantly in a state of transition from order to disorder (known as human cussedness to front-porch philosophers).

Both kinds of disorder can be kept in check, but only by an expenditure of considerable energy. In the case of the universe, life itself is the most notable exception to the tendency of all things to decay, but even the engine that burns inside all of us also eventually burns out. Chaos eventually prevails.

The disorder of the human condition is kept in check, too, by a variety of external forces such as police, religion, government, mores, and o yes o armies. But so far, there has always been a limit to how long a society can maintain itself against the forces of disorder that constantly seek to tear it apart. iThe glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Romei are no more, except in the poetis words and the historianis pen. Ditto the empires of Assyria, Egypt, Czarist Russia, and Her Royal Majesty. As William Butler Yeats accurately noted, iThings fall apart.i

Perhaps, given all that, it would be better to just surrender to the inevitable, declare the era of American influence to be over, retreat to our shores, and await the conquering army that eventually will visit our shore (or the silent invasion that could nibble us to death from within).

As Neville Chamberlain declared when he returned to England from Munich with that piece of paper signed by him and the devil Hitler, iPeace for our time,i so too it might be worth a listen to the folks who think we can appease our Islamic foes with a timed withdrawal from Iraq. The only problem is that with the sad history of the Munich Agreement behind us, we would no longer be able to declare iPeace for our time,i but rather iPeace FOR a time.i A brief time. In the case of Chamberlainis appeasement, he bought a total of six months of peace before Hitler drove his Nazi armies through the rest of Czechoslovakia while laughing at the British prime minister whom he called ian impertinent busybody.i

Thurman Arnold knew all of this, not from history books, but from living through it. Thatis why his complaint about a isecond Munichi is so potent.

It is interesting, finally, to note that the iinternational unitsi that Arnold feared would get us OUT of war were what he called ithe international cartels which permeate the structure of American industry.i

Today, Democrats fear that such international cartels (or the multinational corporations we more commonly speak of today) are getting us INTO wars and keeping us in Iraq. Such a possibility always exists and must be vigilantly guarded against. Modern warfare should never be waged for personal aggrandizement or corporate or national enrichment. If I really thought the war in Iraq were being fought to increase oil profits for Exxon or Halliburton, I would be against it, too o or else I would be much more pragmatic in my support of it.

But the history of the world is a history of kings, crowns, emperors and tycoons making money in both war and peace. There is no reason to believe ExxonMobil wonit make money after U.S. forces leave Iraq; nor is there any reason to hope they donit make money while the war continues. What happens to ExxonMobil is frankly irrelevant, or should be, to our foreign policy.

Just as Assistant Attorney General Arnold warned against shaping foreign policy during World War II on the interests of ithe small group of American businessmen who are parties to these international rings,i it behooves us also not to shape foreign policy based on the interests of Halliburton.

Let us instead focus on the effect on the nation and world of ipeace without victory.i Let us ask what kind of peace we will buy if we leave Iraq to its own devices, and for how long we will have that peace. The notion of an Iraq carved up by an emboldened Iran, a strengthened Saudi Arabia, a genocidal Turkey, and a suicidal Syria does not give me any hope of ipeace for our time.i

Let each of us make our decision and then live with our conscience as we vote for our leaders and the future they will bring us. Peace is one possible outcome. Survival is another. The question of whether both are possible at the same time has yet to be decided, but certainly the forces of peace are strong.

It was the same in 1938. While still the crowds were cheering Chamberlain for his Munich ipeace agreement,i Churchill lamented in the House of Commons what he called ia total and unmitigated defeat… a disaster of the first magnitude… a defeat without war… an awful milestone in our history…i Perhaps he looked like a grumpy old man, a greedy neo-con, or a lackey for some clansman of George W. Bush, but he made a stand, and he stuck by it.

As he said then, perhaps we will say soon: i[T]he terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies: eThou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.i And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.i

Or perhaps, as empires always do, we will just fade away.

Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake. He writes a column called "Editor's 2 Cents" every Sunday. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com