Basic HTML Version
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JANUARY 28, 1983
PAGE 12
Mr. Luttwak largely blamed the media and the academic community for foster
ing the idea that the Vietnam War, and by extension all war, was futile, and
that the aim of victory in war was no longer a proper goal of statescraft,
an "outdated fantasy." Luttwak further stated:
A false lesson drawn from Vietnam now imprisons our minds and
paralyzes our will....Hence the full gravity of the offense of
the British [in the Falklands War] and the Israelis [in Lebanon]
in the eyes of the right-thinking [meaning the liberal war-is
futile crowd]. Both decided quite deliberately to wage war; both
were determined to win clearcut victories, and both did just that
under the leadership of military officers who were simply told to
fight and win.
With the two wars of 1982 we thus reached the true final stage of
the war that began in Vietnam: Either we rehabilitate the notion
of victory or else the United States will lose its capacity to
use military power, thus consigning the future to those less in
hibited.
The "Vi�tnam Syndrome" shortly extended to Central America. The Soviets
and Cubans shrewdly took advantage of U.S. timidity to seize the initiative
in Nicaragua (America also cut the props out from underneath the late Pres
ident). The U.S. is afraid to act in the only way that can really halt a
further expansion of Communist power in the region. Author Max Singer
writes this in the December, 1982 issue of COMMENTARY:
People around the world, friends and enemies, used to assume
almost as a law of nature that, although the U.S. might make mis
takes, we could not be defeated and would not let ourselves be
humiliated or shown to be negligent or incapable of defending our
interests or our word. Certainly we would not let Communism ex
pand in our own neighborhood. But how many, even in our own
country, where the very idea of American indomitability inspires
shame in the hearts of editorialists and foreign-policy special
ists, are confident of this today?
Of course we might give firm guarantees of protection against any
Nicaraguan invasion. But like the British guarantees to Poland
in 1939, that would be a desperate act. How, then, do we propose
to prevent Central America from becoming, over the next few
years, as Communist as Eastern Europe, and by a similar process?
Fida! Castro believes that the world is divided into "imperial
ist" and "revolutionary" camps. This means, in his view, that
Cuba and the United States are mortal enemies. Nothing we do can
change that view. Castro understands the U.S. and the role of
the media very well. He has gloatingly described how, before
·Batista was defeated, he pretended to be a "Jeffersonian demo
crat" to win bourgeois support. And, at the same time that he was
publicly deriding claims that Cuba was providing arms to the
guerrillas in El Salvador, he was telling visiting German social
ists that of course the claims were true.
Unfortunately the Reagan Administration has not begun to put to
gether a realistic strategy for dealing with Cuba, neither mili-