Talent For War

By: Lisa Kadonaga

Let me be brutally honest here. A lot of us, me included, nurture the secret hope that we go through life using only a tiny fraction of our inner strength and intellect, and that all we need are the right circumstances for us to blossom forth in all our superhuman glory. But while it's true that seemingly-ordinary people can be astonishingly resilient and courageous, abrupt character transformations are rarer than we'd like to believe. You just don't get human beings suddenly changing their personalities and mental abilities (and if there is a discernable reason, like head trauma, the effect is usually negative).

Over the past couple of months, commentators have been trying to outdo each other, praising the new, improved George W. Bush. Even the White House was surprised - one aide said that to hear the pundits, you'd think that his boss's IQ had increased by 50 points overnight.

Some of you are probably saying, "Great, that brings him up to 92!".

This past year, I've been one of the minority of observers who didn't think the man was a total moron. Incurious, definitely - lazy, it sure looks that way - a twit, I'm not going to argue there. But it's possible to have normal or even above-normal intelligence, and be all of those things and more. If the coverage is anything to go by, I'm also part of an even-smaller minority who believe that Mr. Bush is pretty much the same person he always was - and that the total package is not exactly awe-inspiring.

Some of the Americans I know who went home for Thanksgiving reported that, among their relatives who were now giving George W. positive reviews, the numbers appeared to be split between those who thought that he was doing a great job with the most recent crisis; and those who felt it was important to give America and the world that perception, whether or not they actually believed it. (This is disconcertingly similar to that scene in "Peter Pan" when the audience is asked to clap their hands, in order to bring Tinkerbell back to life.)

A recent cover story in Newsweek claimed that Mr. Bush is a born "War Leader" (which startled me, because I'd used that phrase in a piece here on Liberal Slant this summer, though in a different context). The magazine admired his glowing health, decisive manner, and his ability to roar convincingly at the troops. (At his pre-Thanksgiving visit to a military base in Kentucky, one soldier expressed the urge to go out and "kill some enemy" after hearing the Commander-in-Chief speak. Others I know have expressed similar sentiments, though not in the way the prez was intending.)

I am starting to wonder whether the administration jumped the gun on this human genetic engineering thing. I just don't see any other way in which a man in his fifties can go from being indifferent to being completely focused on details. Either he has grown a new brain thanks to stem cell transplants, or he has been replaced by a clone.

Early in the war on Afghanistan, George W. Bush reportedly assumed command of the Special Forces mission. To hear the White House tell it, he's making all kinds of vital decisions, and that everyone's stunned by his "talent for war".

Now, hold up a minute. I don't pretend to know much about military matters, but I gather that modern warfare requires a complex understanding of psychology, geography, and technological capabilities. It's so challenging, klutzes like me aren't allowed to participate. You have to know what you're doing, be good at making quick decisions based on scanty information, and adapt to rapidly-changing circumstances. Particularly if it's going to be a lengthy struggle, you can't afford to get impatient - you have to plan ahead carefully, and not get upset and lose your cool if things don't go as expected.

Think about it. The last time there was an emergency situation, with the spy plane in China, Mr. Bush's idea of micromanaging was to inquire whether they had enough Bibles. He has a difficult time maintaining concentration through an entire game of golf - as an adolescent on the links with his mother, he'd frequently get bored and wander off or start arguing with the other players partway through. And here he's all but promised that this war is going to last for years, possibly decades.

All right, so maybe I'm off base with the "new brain" and "clone" theories. Those aside, the other possibility is that while George W. Bush is nominally in charge of the effort, all the important decisions are being made by his cabinet members, the Pentagon, and the field commanders. Basically, this is a lot more plausible (though less fun) than the cloning thing, because this is how he conducts his presidency anyway. (I wouldn't be surprised if it's how he got through business school too.)

Even though he's suddenly being lauded as a military genius on par with Napoleon, I'm perplexed because the traditional indicators seem to be absent. Mr. Bush studied history at Yale, but he didn't appear to be particularly fascinated by military history or famous battles. He doesn't devour huge tomes on generalship and strategy, any more than he's attracted to policy reports and budget documents. The last historical event he researched was WWII - not the U.S. overseas deployment, but rather the use of secret trials at home. I haven't heard any reports of him being attracted to ancient strategy games like chess, and his favorite computer game is supposedly golf, not "Doom". Leadership takes some degree of practice, and military leadership is no exception. I don't know about you, but I don't feel that leading a group of people out into the field to play stickball at Andover is quite the same thing as graduating from West Point or Annapolis, or even being responsible for a platoon of National Guardsmen out on maneuvers.

There are military veterans who are troubled by the assertion, in the Newsweek article and elsewhere, that Mr. Bush's wartime experiences in the Vietnam era are exactly on par with those of, say, infantry lieutenants his age or younger who were responsible for the lives of their men in hostile territory - or other fighter/bomber pilots (some of them from National Guard units flying more advanced jets which had been deployed in-country), who flew hundreds of missions under enemy fire. Talking to current and former servicepeople, I get the impression that talking down the distinction between those who were in combat, as opposed to just being in the armed forces, is as big a no-no as claiming that a civilian who went camping for a weekend knows everything about their jobs. On behalf of the people I know who went to war, I hope that someone points this out to the Newsweek reporter, and to anyone else who tries to give the impression that like his father before him, Mr. Bush did in fact see combat.

So I don't think it's unpatriotic to keep in mind that George W. Bush is NOT the greatest military leader to come down the pike since Patton, even if he's got a similar-sized ego. Just because he's Commander-in-Chief doesn't mean that the people who really are making the decisions in this war should be ignored. And it sure as heck shouldn't mean that he gets a free pass from now on. Remember: Mr. Bush's hero Sir Winston Churchill was acknowledged as a tremendous war leader, and he was voted out of office.