European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 07, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Sunday april 7, 1991 the stars and stripes a / v a Page 13 commentary George will when will we learn that wars sow disorder peace is not nearly As much fun As the War was. American enjoyment of the War was supposedly a partial vindication of the War which was supposed to be therapeutic making us a feel Good about but the aftermath is to a we Are in the wars fourth stage. The four have been diplomatic blunders that brought on the War preparing to fight fighting enjoying Charlton Heston and Whitney Houston television specials Cele Brating the War that had been the a. Lions favorite television program. The fifth stage a scrubbing the pitch off our hands a will last longer than the other four combined. Som people want to shove America up to its elbows in iraqis civil War in order to Stop Saddam a Slaughter of insurgents whose insurgency coincided with american Calls for just that. But it is a crashing non sequitur to say that if party a urges party b to overthrow a tyrant then party a is obligated to participate in the overthrowing. An army lieutenant in occupied Iraq says a there is hot a Man who would not go North and finish this but a the jobs is done at least As the Job was defined by the Agency to which we Del coated the defining of it. The United a Lions said the Job was to liberate Kuwait. Kuwaitis have been restored to the misrule of their feckless Royal family. The United states stressed that the legitimacy of the War derived substantially from . Resolutions hence the United states is a As critics warned that it would be now inhibited from unilateralism including unilateral intervention in iraqis civil War. Besides what Are we supposed to do unilaterally or otherwise with the ripped flesh of iraqi society nations Are not machines they Are organisms living things. When their Fles i. Is torn they bleed get virulent infections run raging fevers. We knew this or had no excuse for not knowing it when we went to War. A a a a a. A Ris it americans interest or duty to become protector of kurd shiites and other minorities now suffering the sort of terrors they might inflict if they had minorities at their mercy kurd and shiites David s. Broder Quot the v1baj Wojs Lac amp a amp Fez seem United under Saddam a pounding but there Are factions within factions within these factions and complexities we cannot comprehend let alone control. Kurd bet their lives on and now feel betrayed by the a International blather kills. We went to War pretending the in i Ted n at ions or our coalition featuring the Saddam like Assad was that a a Community incarnate. Such propagandist chatter leads people like a fic the kurd to entrust their lives to a Tion. A when Iraq capitulated Many americans crowed that we had knocked a the Vietnam syndrome into a. Cocked hat. But there actually were two Vietnam syndromes one of which is alas very much alive. Quot. A a a a a it a. Syndrome ii which came at the end of the Vietnam War was the false and Dan Crous a a lessons that military Power could accomplish Little. But a decade before that there was Vietnam syndrome i which is proving to be a durable Weed in the National Garden. It was a is the supreme political hubris of believing in Quot nation belief contradictory to every syllable of Burrean Conser. A Atison is that nations Are like tinker toys to be Carr urged by americans who a have a right to be rearranges because they Are such Elver social engineers. America is to nation in which once every four years armies of Clever journalists and opinion measures flood Placid open democratic Iowa. They study it carefully a and then Are surprised by the results of decorous political caucuses. But now America is supposed to sort out iraqis murderous tribes on the Zany premise that there must a Why must a be a Bunch of democrats in there somewhere. This ambitious undertaking is being advocated by some conservatives who arc not famous for their Confidence in the ability of the . Gover Rhent to do much of anything right on the North american continent. A Wall Street journal columnist adv eating deeper american involvement in iraqis Fate argues that �?o42 Days of bombing create some obligation to play a role in what happens of and then in the next next after the first next suc1i an a a obligation tends to be perpetually renewing deepened by each intervention taken to fulfil it. Remember . Complicity in the 1963 coup that killed president diem embedded americans hands deep in the pitch of the Vietnam tar baby. Iraq currently convulsed is an improvisation ginned up after the first world War which began in Serbia which is currently part of convulsed Yugoslavia another improvisation by the diplomats who thought the first world War launched a new world order. When will we learn that wars sow disorders that last Twenty times longer than the wars do it that docs not mean wars should not be fought Only that their therapeutic value making people a feel Good a is evanescent. C Tho Washington Post a a was a in the 40 years since it Shook off the spell of Franklin d. Roosevelt and regained a Strong competitive position in National politics the Republican party has been led. By three chairmen whose skills were vital to its Success. In the 1950s, Leonard w. Hall the shrewd lawyer and former congressman from Long Island supplied the partisan savvy that Dwight d. Eisenhower lacked. Not so incidentally Hall More than once helped save Richard m. Nixon a career from premature extinction. In the 1960s, Ray c. Bliss the laconic nuts and bolts technician from Akron Ohio Ted the party a recovery from the Goldwater debacle and set the stage for Nixon a two presidential victories. In the 1970s, former sen. Bill Brock of Tennessee provided the same Healing services and an extra dose of Media shrewdness to the Post watergate recovery that built the platform for Ronald Reagan a successive wins Lee Atwater might have been the fourth of those great gop chairmen had a cancerous brain tumor not claimed his life last week at age 40. As it Yas the Young Man Best known to the Public for his readiness to drop politics and play guitar with blues bands had More of an Impact a both Good and bad a on the politics of the 1980s than people much older and More renowned. Atwater had been chairman of the Republican National committee for Only a year when the unsuspected tumor caused a seizure Early in 1990. As he waged a valiant but futile Battle against the deadly disease his political role diminished. But he will be remembered not just for his electric Energy and reckless tactics but for the two great political revolutions he embodied. He symbolized the coming to Power of both political consultants and the Republican South he was the first hired gun political operative to become chairman of either National arty and the first Man from the old South to head the gop. Atwater got his Job As a thank you for helping Pilot George Bush to the White House. But his real credentials were the skills and associations he had acquired As the operative brought in to advise on dozens of other gop races lie was the Center of a Circle of talented Young consultants who represent the new Power elite of american politics Atwater had More genuine concern for his party than most of the Breed but his prime loyalty was to his patrons starting with Strom Thurmond in his native South Carolina and ending with Bush. What he Learned from Thurmond and taught to All the others a including Bush a was a twofold truth the South is the key to National dominance for the gop and the key to the South lies in its disaffected White working class voters. Having grown up among them Atwater knew that Southern constituency the Way a Fisherman knows his catch. He knew exactly what bait to use. He knew that if those textile workers and truck Drivers focused on their economic needs or grievances they would stick to their democratic roots. But he also knew that appeals to race religion and patriotism could touch their nerve ends and. Create enough doubts about democrats in their hearts that they would flee to the promised Security republicans s a even As elitist As Bush a offered them a Atwater was not alone in this insight but no one else a a a a in the 1980s practice that kind of politics As ruthlessly or bragged of it As delightedly As he did. It took Lime a 1 first met him in a losing 1974 South Carolina Campaign a to realize that he could not have played on the status anxieties of his fellow Southern cars nearly so efficiently had he not shared those anxieties himself. Only a Man who had battled his own insecurity could have exploited voters fears and insecurities with the Devilish ingenuity Atwater did. Politics to him was All psychological warfare. One of Michael Dukakis strategists in the 1988 Campaign recalls Atwater saying a a in la pop up where you least expect he would use whatever Edge he had. So it was the insecure Atwater not the supremely self assured James a. Baker Iii the chairman of the 1988 Bush Campaign who took All the criticism for the Willie Horton ads. His friends a and a few reporters a knew that Atwater was a More sensitive Man and a less vindictive politician than the reputation he had acquired. Given time he might have shown he could fun campaigns that offer voters Hope and inspiration rather than play on their fears. That he was denied the time a and Opportunity a deepens the tragedy of his Early death. It May make others in his Field a democratic consultants As Well As Republican operatives a Ponder the fact that they too will be judged by the last Campaign they be run a and done to know which one it w ill be. A the Washington Post a. _
