Dolchstosslegende

Ah, the legend of the stab in the back is starting already. Conservative commentary is already starting to blame the critics of the war - who obviously hold high positions in military and civilian command, and are thus responsible - for the crap outcome of the war to date. Jeff Goldstein:

From my perspective, there comes a time when, having registered disagreement with the war, the war’s critics (and here I’m not talking about critics of individual strategical or tactical initiatives, but rather those who have been against the effort from the start) simply wait and—if things fail—rush to brag of their prescience and perspicuity. But in the meantime, actively working to undermine the effort by presenting our enemies with a rabidly partisan divided front (one of their chief aims, remember)—whether it be through suggestions that we are in Iraq “illegally”, or that the President “lied” to take us to war, or seemingly hoping, on a daily basis, that the whole thing devolve into a civil war—matters. And not just rhetorically.

I really wonder some days what world the right wing lives in. Apparently, in Goldstein's world Al Qaeda sit around having conversations like this:

Bin Laden: Ayman, did you hear? Those whores of the infidel, the Dixie Chicks, said that they were ashamed of their president! Victory will soon be ours!

Ayman Al-Zawahiri: Osama, my brother, you're behind the times - Kanye West has said that the leader of the Great Satan doesn't care about black people! Surely, we will soon see the Zionists pushed in to the sea!

#3 Al Qaeda guy of the week: Wise leaders, an American blogger named Greenwald has called the war illegal! Ansar al-Islam is at hand!

Of course, the people who back disastrous military expeditions always blame the opposition. The original "stab in the back" at the end of WWI in Germany was a deliberate fabrication by the military leaders who had so misled the German nation. The fact is, the German high command knew by the fall of 1918 that the Entente and the United States would soon be able to invade Germany itself, and that the German army no longer had the ability to win battles in the field after the disastrous campaigns early that year.

So the military commanders - who had run the entire country, not just the war - refused to sign the armistice of Nov. 11 themselves, instead bringing in a civilian government to sign the documents. But the important point is this: Those civilians - who had exactly zero influence on the prosecution of the war, or the negotiation of the armistice - were brought in to government specifically so that the commanders who were responsible for Germany's defeat could evade the blame for the disaster they'd brought upon Europe. It was those very military leaders, unsurprisingly, who later blamed the civilian government they'd saddled with the burden.

Eventually, the Dolchstosslegende had become so powerful - especially to the millions of veterans - that even the civilian government couldn't call it for the bullshit that it was without risking political suicide. The fact that no major German party ever publicly repudiated the "stab in the back" by saying that Germany was defeated in the field, not at home, was a great advantage to the Nazis when they took power. By the time Hitler started blaming the Jews (and advocating his own brand of final solution) the Dolchstosslegende was received wisdom - even if it was totally false.

So no, Mr. Goldstein, you aren't being stabbed in the back, nor is the US Army. The Army - indeed, the United States - has been criminally misled by incompetents who refused to admit the power of the opposition. If the US Army is forced to withdraw from Iraq, it won't be because of anything any blogger wrote or any Democrat said. It will be because the insurgents have managed to shoot and bomb the US Army enough times to leave it unable to maintain any kind of control. In that vacuum, the insurgents won't attack the government of Iraq - they'll be the government of Iraq. And the departure of US forces will be swift.