"Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean you don't have enemies."
An open letter to author Susan Faludi, regarding her book The Terror Dream. While it is easy to see the events of the Global War on Terrorism ("GWOT") as cultural archetypes, real people are tested and grow as a result of their service in the GWOT and might prove more fruitful to study.
Dear Ms. Faludi:
I read and much admired your recent book, The Terror Dream. I risk damning with faint praise by stating this, but it is a remarkably well thought out, researched and written book, especially when compared with such works as Laura Ingraham's recent effort (certainly an effort to read, if not to write, or rather, type), We The People.
However, there are certain points I disagree with or believe you have missed.
---Have you noticed that there is and has been little said in the Conservative Media recently about "The Weak Link," how woman Soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors aren't making the grade. The reason for this is simple and twofold: 1) increasingly, "the best man for the job" in the Military, especially in critical but neglected areas like Intelligence, is likely to be a woman; and 2) younger Troops, children of working mothers, not raised on comforting sexist stereotypes, don't buy that story.
---In short, one reason you don't see stories about Feminist view points in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, as you discussed in your book, is that they are increasingly the norm. (I also suggest you try InfoTrak, which is much faster, but I digress.)
---The great lesson I learned from being deployed several years ago to a Combined Joint Task Force by the Army Reserve, after about a 10 year break in service, is that the best and most effective officers, non-commissioned officers and troops are likely to be women.
---My first Intel Sergeant, for example, was a female Army Reserve Staff Sergeant ("SSG"), an Airborne-qualified Intelligence Analyst who also was called out of the Individual Ready Reserve ("IRR") after nearly a decade. She did, and had done for several months prior to my arrival, a very good job in a slot for which she was far too junior in grade and probably too inexperienced. However, based upon her leadership and analytic skills, she earned the respect and admiration of a section composed of young male Marine Intelligence Analysts, despite being someone who was a Soldier, a Reservist and despite being someone who obviously was no longer in the Army's main stream.
---Our liaison to Allied Officers for Intelligence purposes was an female Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel, who had only previously been on active duty to attend Basic Training (to join the Army Reserve as an enlisted musician) and to attend the Military Intelligence Officers Basic Course ("MIOBC"). She quickly developed a strong rapport with the allied officers based on her brisk, optimistic, no-nonsense demeanor and her ability, honed as someone who ran Church choirs among her other civilian endeavors, to get headstrong and self-important people to work together effectively.
---I went through deployment preparation with a female Army Reserve Officer, who was a professor at a major university in civilian life. She served for a year in a war zone and had some questions and concerns, when I met her while out- processing a year later, about the priorities of some of the Army leadership she encountered during her service.
---Finally, the key to the success of the intelligence efforts of the unit I was deployed to was a female Marine Lieutenant Colonel, the Deputy J2, who at the time was newly back on active duty after a break in service. She valued her Marines highly, fought for them unreservedly (no pun intended) and never failed to understand why we were there, something you do not always see with senior officers.
---As an example of the near-reverence with which this officer was regarded, one of the Marines from the J2 section, a gentlemen who hardly seemed to be a feminist in his outlook, said that this lady would be the first Woman Marine to lead a Marine Expeditionary Unit ("MEU") on a cruise, a major leadership billet for a Marine Colonel. That someone would say this of any Intelligence Officer, much less a female Intelligence Officer who was a junior Lieutenant Colonel when this comment was made, is evidence of a sea change (again, no pun intended.) in outlook in the military.
---President Bush, as seen in recent books and articles, is also hardly the steely eyed man described in your book. He appears instead to be emotional, even maudlin. He "does tears." He ran with a young sergeant who was an Iraq War amputee at the White House. He really seems to see our efforts in Iraq as a crusade to change the world.
---He does not, however, seem to be the kind of man who pondered the bloody history of Iraq under the British mandate in the 1920s, or the debilitating insurgencies that France suffered through in Algeria in the late 1950s and early 1960s or Britain endured fruitlessly in Aden in the mid-1960s. In the 1990s, Clinton read and agonized over the Balkans. Many died while he pondered. However, when he acted, there was a workable outcome. My Grandmother used to say, "Act in haste, repent at leisure." It is regrettable President Bush's Grandmother apparently did not say this.
---I was also interested in your use of Indian abductions in Colonial and Frontier America as a metaphor for the Global War on Terrorism ("GWOT").
---However, the metaphor for a "victory" in the GWOT is not The Searchers, it is She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and the real efforts of Crooke and Miles in the Apache wars of the 1880s that this film fictionalizes. These efforts involved not Cavalry charges but knowing the Apache's language and culture, getting to know their leaders and developing diplomatic efforts with the Mexicans to allow "hot pursuit" across the border to deny active sanctuary to the War Bands.
---"Victory" is also inseparable from knowing "Triumph" is impossible. In 1990, when I was in the Military Intelligence Advanced Course ("MIOAC"), I toured Apacheria on a staff ride. The people were as poor as in any third world country I have ever visited. However, they lived peacefully on their own land, with limited intrusions from the US or Arizona governments. Our victory in the Apache wars was predicated, to some extent, on being arguable. Any "victory" in the GWOt will likely be of a similar character. There are no big victories in Small Wars.
---I venture to say that the Crooke and Miles of the GWOT may be female officers. Such individuals might be a worthy subject for your next book.
V/R, R/S, etc.----John Minehan