Squeamishness turns to 'Get the bastards'

American public opinion has always been against fighting far-off wars in which its sons could die. But RUPERT CORNWELL says that is about to change.

The horror of September 11 has put an end to many things in America, among them the country's aversion to wars in which American soldiers die. Methods of warfare, and war we are assured from President Bush down is what this is, are to a large extent dictated by what the public will tolerate.

America's recent obsession with high-tech "virtual reality" combat came to full fruition in Kosovo, fought with high-altitude bombs and guided missiles, where the frontline for America's warriors was a virtually impregnable 4600m in the sky above the Balkans.

But as the civilian death count from the atrocities against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon runs into the thousands, so the squeamishness has vanished about sacrificing the lives of the men whose voluntary profession it is to fight for the United States and die in that cause if required.

It has long been otherwise. The key of course was Vietnam, exemplar of military futility, when 58,000 American lives were lost in a war halfway around the world, which could not be won except by methods which would defeat the ends, and whose nature - nationalist not ideological - the US could not understand.

The experienced changed many minds, including that of a young lieutenant named Colin Powell who would rise to become a key formulator of American military policy.

Wars when Powell was National Security Advisor and then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff henceforth had to be short, clearcut, and conclusively winnable. In them maximum force was brought to bear against the enemy, swiftly breaking his will and minimising the danger to one's own men in arms.

The Gulf War, in which half a million US troops were despatched 9600km to drive Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, was the apotheosis of this doctrine - a logistical and strategic triumph in which the fighting on the ground lasted only 100 hours and less than 150 Americans were lost. But it did not banish the demons of Vietnam.

Hardly had Bill Clinton entered the White House than pictures of US peacekeepers being dragged by Somali mobs through the streets of Mogadishu appeared on television. Straightforward war fought under conditions in which America could not lose, once more became the watchword.

Then came the Balkans, and the celebrated Powell aphorism summing up the Pentagon's aversion to open-ended commitments: "We do deserts, not mountains." The Dayton agreement spared that resolve from being put to the test, but Kosovo was new vindication of it. In this conflict no American soldier ever saw his opponents in the flesh, and the American public preferred it that way.

No longer. The mood may be summed up in three words: get the bastards. Not just in the lust for vengeance shared by editorial columns and commentators, but by such luminaries as Lawrence Eagleburger, the former Secretary of State: "There is only one way to deal with people like this. You have to kill some of them even if they are not immediately involved in this thing."

This is gut patriotism, the sort of patriotism that propelled the sales of US flags at Wal-Mart stores on Wednesday to 88,000, 14 times the number on the same day last year. This patriotism says America must respond and if more American blood must be spilt to achieve that end, then so be it. If New York City has requested 6000 bodybags, the Pentagon cannot be reluctant to make ready some of its own.

Clinton responded to the last terrorist attack against the US - the bombings of two embassies in Africa in 1998 - with cruise missile salvos against Afghanistan and Sudan. They achieved nothing. If Osama bin Laden proves to be the mastermind behind the carnage in New York and Washington, missiles won't be enough.

This time it will not require a Desert Shield or Desert Storm, and half a million men. If the US decides to wipe out bin Laden, his cells and training camps, it will take far fewer. But Cruise missiles surely cannot do the job. It may well take the close support Apache helicopters that the Pentagon refused to risk in Kosovo. It will certainly take men on the ground, some of whom will doubtless be killed.

Even this strategy will not eradicate the terrorist threat. America will have responded to an act of war with an act of war - which prompts yet another act of war, perhaps with weapons even deadlier than fuel-packed civilian jets. It will be a multi-front war, on awkward terrain and with no exit strategy - in those respects, just like Vietnam. But this time it is a war the US is thirsting to fight.

- INDEPENDENT

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