European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 6, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday March 6, 1991 the stars and stripes Ellen Goodman Page 13commentary lest we forget our common right to differ the country i walked through those last Days of War was fully outfitted in its civilian uniform. Yellow ribbons Hung like badges of belonging on every thing from Trees to storm doors to lapels. American flags lined streets and marked Homes As if on permanent dress Parade. Ambivalence had gone underground for the duration and we were expected to respond with the unanimity of a trained troop. Those who doubted those who t  join the regimental cheering had Felt the chill wind of exclusion a patriotic form of shunning. In new Jersey an italian basketball Elayer was hounded off the team because e had chosen not to Wear a Flag. In Erie pa., the anti War Benedictine Sisters beat out Saddam Hussein to win a radio shows title of a bad Guy of the Day. In new Hampshire a Man argued earnestly but civilly about the origins and outcomes of the War. He was interrupted by a passerby who threatened to break his face. Even this Short War with a routed enemy seemed to have chipped away at one of the values americans hold in com Mon the right to dissent from what we hold in common. Just two weeks ago i sat with Nadine Strossen the energetic new president of the american civil liberties Union and talked of this. The Acle was founded in the Wake of world War i and she listed for me a few of the Domestic casualties of that War. There was the Man arrested for sedition after he cynically told a woman knitting socks that her socks would never get to the troops. There was the minister jailed for Reading the Bill of rights in Blic. There was the Nebraska legis nature that outlawed the teaching of German. A. Strossen a Law professor knew about wartime dissent from her family history As Well. Her maternal Grandfather a conscientious objector to world War i was publicly ridiculed before a new Jersey courthouse. Her father spent nine months in a German concentration Camp for opposing hitter. In her own 40 years Strossen said a we have always been in some kind of warlike state a the cold War the War on drugs the War on pornography. Its no coincidence that War speech is used to create the sense of panic that we must give up our rights for something  so War in the persian Gulf filled another set of folders for civil liberties files. One for soldiers who  get bibles sent to the Gulf. Another for Gay and lesbian soldiers. A third for conscientious objectors. A fourth for the Arab Ameri cans. A fifth for press censorship. A sixth for protesters. In the past weeks we were told War pulled America up and out of its Post Vietnam depression. But i have often thought that the enthusiasm for this fighting came from another place from a deep longing for a sense of Community. We have just lived through a decade of every Man for himself individualism. During the �?T80s, it often seemed that our nation our cities our families were divided into the lowest common denominator. Diversity seemed More like a cause of disintegration than the Basic stuff of a melting pot. Against that backdrop War can give a nation a sense of common purpose. I had been among those looking for Community hoping to renew a sense of connection. But the War fever that had bound us together also reminded me that not every Community was benign not every piece of common ground was welcoming. There was a difference Between the Mutual support of a Community and the tyranny of a majority. There was a line of thought that ran from Community to patriotism to nationalism to jingoism. When nearly two thirds of americans think it a Quot bad things to protest Ernest b. Furgurson against the War while we were fighting the Price of admission can be silence. A my impression is that there is More tolerance for dissent than in the past a said Strossen. By historic measures she May be right. This time there had been no intern ment. No Laws against sedition. No hearings about treasonous speech. Not a single tar and feathering. But in the Days of the War in a country decked out in its militant finery i was struck again by How fragile our value system is. When the yellow ribbons Are Down the flags put away the troops Home we Are Only held together by the most contradictory of Bonds a common belief that we May differ. A c the Boston up Foo every conflict might not turn out this Well if maj. Alexander p. De Seversky were around today i would gladly apologize. In his absence i take More pleasure in writing this a i was wrong column than in any such Mea culpa of the past. Our Side has won the persian Gulf War and what did it More than anything else was air Power. Not that the massive Allied ground Force was unnecessary or that we. Can now disband our armoured divisions and Marine expeditionary brigades. But this time More than in any previous War Fie air afm broke the enemy before the ground troops moved in. Forty nine years ago Seversky said we could do it this Way. His Book a Victory through air Power a was a Best seller in 1942, when president Roosevelt was urging . Industry to turn out 50,000 planes a year. It became the Bible of the bomber boys those who believed b-17s, b-24s and later b-29s could win world. War ii and All the infantry would have to do was March in and clean up. Seversky was russian born in Tbilisi. He served in the Imperial Navy a air Wing losing a leg when he was shot Down in the Baltic in 1915. By special dispensation from Czar Nicholas ii he kept flying and As a Purs fit Pilot shot Down 13 German planes. He came to the United states after the russian revolution founding Seversky aircraft in 1922. In the �?T30s, it was one of the major developers of fighter aircraft. Seversky a successor Republic aviation produced the Superb p-47 Thunderbolt. Along the way4 Seversky invented the first fully automatic bomb sight and the first Turbo supercharged air cooled engine for High Altitude flight. He set a transcontinental Speed record in 1938. Because he Wasp deeply involved by today a standards we would have accused him of conflict of interest when he wrote Vic tory through air Power and its 1950 sequel a air Power key to survival a but by Seversky a standards air Power was the National interest. He updated the arguments of Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell who had written a winged defense in 1925 and demonstrated the potential of bombers by sinking a series of ships in the Chesapeake. Mitchell was court Martiale for his outspokenness and vindicated Only by world War ii. Yet even in world War ii air Power did not do All that its most zealous advocates predicted. It softened up the enemy and without air superiority there would have been Many More casualties in Allied ground forces the b-29s that toted the atomic bomb to Japan saved tens of thousands of american lives. But at Stalingrad Normandy Okinawa and elsewhere men with rifles won the War. Close air support for infantry came into its own in Korea and was perfected in Vietnam. But even absolute air supremacy As our Side had Over South Vietnam could not win that War. What we Learned there however helped mightily in winning the current one. In Vietnam we first tried smart bombs which worked so we Ell in targeting strictly military facilities in Iraq and Kuwait. Vve used radar suppression and anti radar missiles. During that period we started drastically improving the guidance systems of cruise missiles one of the most impressive triumphs of the Gulf War. We went into this War with the most advanced technology in history expecting to fight a powerful enemy equipped with modern soviet weaponry. On that basis and remembering How bloody the fight was against a relatively primitive opponent in Vietnam i scoffed in print at the idea that this War would be Quick and relatively painless to our Side. I was wrong. The allies have won the Gulf War in about six weeks. It has not been bloodless there were thousands of iraqi casualties and every one of the do ens of americans who died was one too Many. There May be More. But about the big picture i was wrong and i  be More delighted to admit it. Still there were special circumstances our Side had six months to move planes troops and supplies into place and to map enemy targets. The iraqi air Force s front line aircraft prudently migrated to  was almost no naval air or missile resistance except for scattershot scuds. The War was fought Over open desert Ideal for air strikes. There is every reason for american soldiers to be proud and for All of us to be Happy. But there is no reason to assume from this Success that every future venture will turn out so Well. This Victory through air Power does not prove that such victories Are inevitable. If we Are going to police the much heralded new world order our grunts had better keep their powder dry. C los Angeles  Washington Post news service