On October 23, 1983, 241 American Marines were killed by a suicide bomber in Lebanon. “Not easy,” wrote Ronald Reagan in his diary about the painful task of telephoning the parents of the dead. “One father asked if they were in Lebanon for anything that was worth his son’s life.” The answer—not spoken but implicit in the fact that Reagan was shortly to withdraw all American forces from the war-torn country—was evidently “no.” Lebanon’s civil war raged on for almost another decade without further American interference. From the standpoint of history, the Marines had perished in vain.
We have now lost almost 3,400 soldiers in Iraq. Over the weekend another dozen Americans were added to the list, along with a great many more Iraqis. Will they, too, be seen to have perished in vain, their lives “wasted”—to employ the politically insensitive word that Barack Obama used earlier this year and then apologized for?
With each American casualty, the pressure is building for a rapid American withdrawal. The Democratic-controlled Congress wants to impose a deadline on the American presence. It is threatening to cut off funds for the war effort. Yet if the United States withdraws from Iraq, leaving in its wake a raging civil war and a fertile breeding ground for Islamic terrorists, history’s answer to that terrible question—have they died in vain?—will be all too clear.
But supporting a war that is going badly, in which American forces are getting continually hammered, is emotionally, morally, and intellectually arduous. To those of us who do not want to see American soldiers die and die needlessly, it may be time, then, to tip our hats to those in public life—soldiers, politicians, and intellectuals—who are not only being steadfast but are finding a way forward.
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