Mark Steyn is Always Wrong

And not just a little wrong. But profoundly wrong. It's incredible, really. Take his latest column (which has already been given the right-wing nod of approval by Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds). In the column, Steyn laments how the "professionalization of war" has changed the politics of war. That observation alone is not particularly original. Many people--on the left and right--have noted how the fighting of wars with an all volunteer army can significantly alter the public perception of those wars.

Of course after making such an observation, a rational person would go on to discuss how the professionalization of the armed forces has created a real separation in this country between the politician/pundit class and the people who actually bear the burden of the war. A rational person would discuss how much easier it is to maintain political support for a war when the people doing the fighting and dying aren't the sons and daughters of the wealthy and influential. A rational person might even note that the absence of a draft appears to be the primary reason why the Iraq war has not, at least so far, sparked the kind of robust anti-war movement we witnessed during the Vietnam era.

But this is a Mark Steyn column, so instead of discussing the things a rational person might think are relevant, we are instead presented with the most counterintuitive conclusion possible. That's right, Steyn argues that the use of an all volunteer army makes the American public less likely to support the war effort. He writes:

A nation that psychologically outsources war to a small career
soldiery risks losing its ability even to grasp concepts like
"the enemy".

According to Steyn, this psychological distance makes the American public too soft. He approvingly quotes a column by the New York Post's John Podhoretz in which Podhoretz wonders:

What if liberal democracies have now evolved to a point where
they can no longer wage war effectively because they have achieved
a level of humanitarian concern for others that dwarfs any really
cold-eyed pursuit of their own national interests?

In case you're wondering what "cold-eyed pursuit of our national interests" entails, Podhoretz spells it out in grisly terms:

What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we
didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them
and make them so afraid of us they would go along with
anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of
15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic
cause of the sectarian violence now?

Yes, clearly our problem is that we're too soft, and that softness is due to our emotional detachment from the conflict. That makes perfect sense. If only we reinstituted the draft, everyone would suddenly get behind the kind of quasi-genocidal tactics Podhoretz and Steyn seem to think are necessary.

There is something supremely ironic about a person like Steyn--an armchair general who calls for one new glorious war after the next--lamenting the detachment of the public from the realities of war. After all, but for this detachment, no one would pay even the slightest attention to people like Steyn. His brand of faith-based adventurism can only be sold to a public that is already far removed from the actual burden and sacrifice of war. If we went back to a national draft, it would be impossible to maintain support for our current occupation of Iraq, much less any new adventures in Iran and Syria.

Indeed, the entire neo-conservative enterprise depends on the existence of an all volunteer army. It's simply not politically feasible to conscript young men into fighting wars of choice. Such wars can only be fought with other people's kids. The moment when people begin to feel the burden of these wars personally is the moment when the Mark Steyns of the world cease to have any influence over them.

BONUS WRONGNESS: In order to provide further support for the title of this post, I call your attention to another, unrelated point Steyn makes in his piece:

If you watch the grisly U.S. network coverage of any global
sporting event, you've no doubt who your team's meant to be:
If there are plucky Belgian hurdlers or Fijian shotputters in the
Olympics, you never hear a word of them on ABC and NBC; it's
all heartwarming soft-focus profiles of athletes from Indiana
and Nebraska. The American media have no problem being
ferociously jingoistic when it comes to the two-man luge. Yet,
when it's a war, there is no "our" team, not on American TV.
Like snotty French ice-dancing judges, the media watch the
U.S. skate across the rink and then hand out a succession of
snippy 4.3s -- for lack of Miranda rights in Fallujah,
insufficient menu options at Gitmo.

Did Steyn sleep through the news coverage from 2001-2003? I've never seen a more pathetic display of uncritical jingoistic garbage than during that period. Even the media itself acknowledges this in retrospect. No one questioned anything at the time. The press practically cheerleaded the invasion of Iraq (with the New York Times and Judy Miller leading the way) and then served us one puff piece after another from their "embedded" reporters. It would have been comical if the consequences weren't so disastrous. Even now, the American press is far less critical of American (and Israeli) policy than the international press.

And what exactly is Steyn advocating? Is the American press supposed to issue perfect 10s when it covers fiascos like Abu Ghraib or any of the countless colossal mistakes made by this Administration? The Bush administration should be grateful for 4.3s.