Reality is in short supply at the Journal’s editorial offices. That is why lavishing enormous funds on the military – unpopular enough though that is – can never suffice for Bartley. He just wants to send our soldiers, sailors and airmen into battle. To what end, he neither explains nor appears to care much about. He is obsessed by our inhibitions about casualties. Let’s be done with them once and for all! This is what an article on the Wall Street Journal editorial page the other day tried to say. Written by the Journal’s editorial features editor, Max Boot, "Will Bush Bury ‘Bodybag Syndrome’?" argues that the American people, unlike the nation’s contemptible elite, are by no means squeamish when it comes to suffering casualties. US "casualty phobia," we learn, "became especially pronounced after 18 soldiers were killed in Somalia in 1993. Since then, the administration has often either avoided risky missions, as in Rwanda, or chosen to wage push-button warfare, as in the ineffectual cruise-missile strikes against Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998." Happily, Boot does not tell us what the United States should have done in Rwanda. Taken it over and set up a colonial administration? Nor, intriguingly, does he spell out what he would have had the United States do in Sudan and Afghanistan. Send in the ground troops? Evidently, the pounding the Russians took holds no lessons for us.

Boot also worries about casualty-aversion in Bosnia. It has made the US Army "reluctant to arrest Bosnian war criminals, making it harder to forge a lasting peace. ‘The Americans want zero risk, which is impossible if you want to arrest a criminal,’ the chief prosecutor of the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal complained last month." Boot, needless to say, accepts the fatuous judgment that what stands in the way of "lasting peace" in Bosnia is not the NATO’s arrogant and undemocratic attempt to create an artificial state by forcing people to live together who prefer to live separately. No, it’s all the fault of the "war criminals" – not the NATO variety, of course. (Boot dispenses even with a show of journalistic objectivity, referring to "war criminals," rather than "war crimes suspects.")

Consistent with his phony display of elite-bashing, Boot praises the military for its supposed willingness to risk casualties, while upbraiding top brass like Colin Powell for their pusillanimity. "Bodybag syndrome has taken root in the Pentagon," he sneers, "run by generals and admirals traumatized by their baptism of fire in Vietnam. One of the foremost proponents of the no-casualties mantra is Colin Powell…. Gen. Powell was even reluctant to launch Desert Storm; before risking his men’s lives, he wanted to wait for sanctions to take effect . . . and then wait some more." The outlook of today’s military is very different from that of Powell. Boot cites a recent Center for Strategic and International Studies survey of 12,500 service members, which found that 86 percent agreed with this statement: "If necessary to accomplish a combat/lifesaving mission, I am prepared to put my own life on the line." Now, this is a truly inane point. Who would admit to a questioner that he is not prepared to risk his own life to save another human being?

There is, of course, something repellent about someone who has never served a day of his life in the military, whose only experience of violence is his weekly kickboxing class in the high-priced Wall Street gym, sneering at a professional soldier like Colin Powell who, having seen friends killed in combat, is naturally reluctant to rush into pointless fights. Moreover, the CSIS report to which Boot refers says something very different about today’s military. Its members are increasingly unhappy about not being provided with a comfortable middle-class life style: "Reasonable quality-of-life expectations of service members and their families are not being met. The military as an institution has not adjusted adequately to the needs of a force with a higher number of married people. While a sense of willing sacrifice remains strong in today’s military, so too does the expectation of a reasonable lifestyle for individuals and families. Despite significant resources now being devoted to childcare centers, programs for single parents, and on-base housing, the data suggest that the efforts to date have fallen significantly short. Many service members are leaving the armed forces for other careers owing in part to the inadequacy of military pay, medical care, family support, retirement benefits, and other quality-of-life factors." This does not sound much like a military hungry for combat and self-sacrifice. The report repeatedly laments the excessive burdens being placed on the mean and women of the armed forces, what with peacekeeping missions, drug interdiction, and humanitarian interventions. Evidently, most of the military personnel would much prefer working 9 to 5 on base, all comforts and amenities provided for, instead of patrolling the streets of Pristina.

Boot’s claim that the American people look on the loss of American lives with equanimity is based on virtually no evidence. It also – in usual manner of the Wall Street Journal – defies common sense. After all, whatever else one may say about Bill Clinton, there is no question he is a gifted politician. One has to assume therefore that he is reluctant to risk American lives for a very good reason. The people may cheer on the blowing up of a bridge over the Danube, but not the dragging of a body of an American soldier through the streets of Mogadishu.

"Messrs. Bush and Cheney are campaigning on a Powellesque platform," Boot warns, "We want to increase funding for the armed forces, they proclaim, but not put its personnel in harm’s way…For those interested in utilizing US military might to police the Pax Americana, this ought to be disquieting news." Pax Americana is just a fancy way of saying American Empire. And the American people have been fairly consistent in their lack of enthusiasm for it. Though during every military caper, the media trumpet the usual nonsense about how the "American people are strongly behind the President," the actual poll numbers invariably fail to confirm this. As usual, it all depends on how the question is framed. For instance, on March 14 1999, just ten days before the launch of the NATO attack on Yugoslavia, ABC News and Washington Post, published a poll based on responses to the question "The United States has said it may bomb Serbia unless Serbia agrees to a peace plan for Kosovo. If Serbia does not agree to the peace plan, should the United States bomb Serbia or not?" 26 percent were in favor; 62 percent were opposed. This was a fair and precisely formulated question and, by a margin of 2 to 1, the American people said they were against the policy the US Government was pursuing. The polls that the pundits preferred to cite were like the one ABC News/Washington Post published on April 26. "Do you support or oppose the United States and its European allies conducting air strikes against Serbia?" people were asked. 65 percent were in favor; 30 percent against. Yet these numbers said nothing more than that by a large margin the American people support their armed forces in war.

Then there was the alleged national enthusiasm to send in the ground troops. Asked "Suppose the bombing does not stop Serbia’s military action in Kosovo. Would you support or oppose the United States and its European allies sending in ground troops to try to end the conflict in Kosovo?" the response was 57 percent in favor, 39 percent against. This is already an extremely tendentiously phrased question, full of dubious assumptions about NATO bombing in order to "stop Serbia’s military action in Kosovo" and ground troops being sent in "to try to end the conflict." However, when asked "Would you support or oppose sending in ground troops if there was a good chance that some US soldiers would be killed in the fighting?," the numbers changed dramatically. Now only 44 percent were in favor, with 50 percent against. When asked the same question, with the slight change "if there was a good chance that up to 100 US soldiers would be killed in the fighting?," the numbers went down even further. Now only 37 percent were in favor; 57 percent against. When the number of US casualties was put at 500, 31 percent were in favor; 62 percent against. These numbers were confirmed by a March 25 Time/CNN poll that asked, "How many American lives would you be willing to sacrifice to achieve US goals in Kosovo?" 74 percent said none.