Distrusting the military

Owen West, who served two tours in Iraq, writes today about how the distrust demonstrated towards General Petraeus is a sign of a very dangerous trend. He fears that the war has become so politicized that the military has been demonized. People fighting over in Iraq are, for the most part, very dedicated to the job that they are doing, but can they contiue the level of dedication that we ask of our armed forces if the country mistrusts them?

In July's Gallup Poll on America's most trusted institutions, the military ranked highest with a 69% confidence rating. Congress ranked last (below HMOs), with a 14% confidence rating.

So it was surprising to see that, according to an August CNN poll, 68% of Americans said Gen. David Petraeus's congressional testimony on Iraq this week would not sway their personal view one way or the other. Worse, 53% of Americans do not trust him to report what's really going on in Iraq, according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll published Monday.

This wrenching inconsistency indicates a deeper problem than a fickle public or an inherent distrust in hierarchy. The poisonous partisan climate in Washington has seeped beyond the Beltway and is now harming the public's trust in the institution that will continue to sacrifice most in the coming years. Extremists from both political parties have used Iraq as a zero-sum emotional battle for votes instead of putting the battlefield in proper context.

The evidence of this is the blatant absence of common ground. First, the Republicans declared the enemy in Iraq defeated before we started fighting, later employing invective to attack rational critics of the order of battle. Then Democrats declared the war lost just as we employed a new strategy. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, has been especially careless, declaring defeat last spring, labeling the new strategy and the surge in troops a "failure" before it began, slandering an elite warrior in Marine Gen. Peter Pace, and continuously undercutting Gen. Petraeus--most recently dismissing his forthcoming testimony as "Bush's report."

Monday's MoveOn.org advertisement, which depicted Gen. Petraeus as a traitor, has been dismissed by Sen. Reid as an inconsequential distraction. But according to the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan research group, the ad reflects the growing distrust of a Democratic Party that may be taking cues from its leadership. Last month 76% of Republicans expressed confidence in the military to give an "accurate picture of the war," while only 36% of Democrats did.

This explains the collective skepticism surrounding Gen. Petraeus's comments but does not excuse it. For while the country can thrive as a politically divided nation, its ability to defend itself diminishes alongside faith in the fidelity of the military. The unbalanced portrayal of the conduct of our soldiers has done damage enough. To impugn our warriors' motives as political is thoroughly corrosive and hurts all Americans.

West makes the common sense recommendation that people step back from their original opinion about whether invading Iraq was the right decision or not. We are there now and that is the reality that we and most particularly our politicians must face as they make decisions about the conduct of the war. Engaging in attacks on the motives of people who are devoting their lives to achieving the objectives that our country and their commander-in-chief sent them to do is destructive of an institution more important than momentary political gains.

That is why I think that Brian De Palma's pseudo-documentary film is such a pernicious moment. De Palma has been very clear about what his purpose was in making a fictionalized documentary about American soldiers raping an Iraqi girl.

"Like Casualties of War, it tells you how things go so wrong with young guys going over to fight for what they think is a good cause. They get over there and they realize the reason they're there doesn't make much sense." When something goes wrong, as it does in Redacted when the unit's sergeant is killed by a hidden bomb, "that's when you get My Lai," referring to the Vietnam massacre of civilians by American forces.

De Palma says the movie is designed to raise many questions about Iraq and about how it is being covered in the press.

"What is the reason we're in there? It's obviously due to some crazy policy that somebody thought they had to get done, or some political thing that had to be repaid or whatever. But in terms of common sense, what are we doing there?"

Redacted is shot in documentary form partly to show audiences how they can be fooled by television.

"It's important to show that you can lie with seemingly real documentary footage. That's another point. You think this stuff is real."

He might want to be making a point about what war does to soldiers, but what will viewers of the film walk away thinking? Isn't it probable that they will walk away thinking that such behavior is common among our soldiers in Iraq. What about Muslims who see the movie? Will they believe that American soldiers in Iraq are typically raping young Muslim women? De Palma might have a post-modern motivation to show that documentaries can lie, but the very format of the film will, I bet, fool many into thinking it is an actual documentary and portrays a greater truth about our military risking their lives in Iraq. What about showing some balance to indicate that the men involved in the story that was the basis for De Palma's movie were arrested and prosecuted under American law and that they represent a very small minority of our armed forces. Will more western Muslims be tempted into jihad because they swallow this sort of drivel? Does Brian De Palma care?