TALKING BACK
WAR AND ETIQUETTE
BY JOE SOBRAN

When Jim Mattis, a Marine general, caused an uproar by saying he found it �a hell of a lot of fun to shoot some people,� offering as an example Afghan Muslims who slap their wives around for neglecting to wear their veils, he found ready defenders in the media, particularly right-wing talk radio. It wasn�t surprising. More than ever before, it seems, Americans in high places glory in crudity. 

Whether Mattis actually metes out summary death penalties for slapping is doubtful � I�m skeptical myself � but his braggadoccio reflects an attitude shared by others: not only President Bush, but Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales (as well as the interrogators of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo). All these people seem to regard what used to be called acts of torture as minor breaches of etiquette. 

We needn�t call Mattis� remarks Nazi, fascist or genocidal � the overworked thermonuclear epithets of our time � but they do seem a trifle, well, unmannerly. 

Would the women on whose behalf Mattis professed to act really thank him for his chivalry when their husbands were dead? Would he care? 

You get the impression that he�s the sort of man whose dinnertable conversation might be overbearing and who would belch loudly while others were still eating. And he speaks, and burps, for many. 

We didn�t hear such talk from people in positions of responsibility during the Vietnam War. Both the Johnson and Nixon administrations tried to give the impression that their conduct of that war observed the internationally accepted rules of warfare. If there were violations, we were given to understand, they were rare and unauthorized. Robert McNamara, then secretary of defense, shared Rumsfeld�s arrogance but none of his bravado. War was an ugly business, of course, but you weren�t supposed to be enjoying it. Even if atrocities were committed, decorum was publicly respected.

During the �60s, a lot of Americans chafed at the very idea of a �limited� war, just as they chafed at court-imposed restriction on police at home. In Hollywood terms, the good guys were being handcuffed. The double backlash that came in the next decade was naturally registered in movies, when Clint Eastwood�s Dirty Harry and Charles Bronson�s Death Wish series glorified the vigilante; soon afterward, Sylvester Stallone, as Rambo, did the same for the soldier, showing how the Vietnam war should have been fought: maniacally. All these films had huge visceral appeal to mass audiences. 

Seated in those audiences were young people who would soon be presidential speechwriters. I knew several of them well. During the Reagan and (first) Bush administrations, they delighted in peppering their bosses� speeches with the macho rhetoric and postures of Dirty Harry and Rambo. �Go ahead: Make my day.� �Read my lips: No new taxes.� The more liberals hated it, the more conservatives loved it. That includes me, I confess, though it�s understandable that others might feel qualms about the chief law-enforcement officer of the U.S. government playing the vigilante. 

This recent Republican tradition, abandoned by Bill Clinton, has been resumed by the younger Bush. He too loves the gestures that thrill his base and enrage liberals (�Bring it on!�), even if they also alarm the rest of the world. Bush wants it understood that he is prepared to act unilaterally, without the approval of Europe or the United Nations. 

Bush and his rooters see legal restraints much as Dirty Harry sees civil liberties and legality itself: as pantywaist politesse that only gets in the way of real justice. In their view, America alone knows what needs to be done, and to hell with the quavering, quivering Emily Posts who would prevent our mission from being accomplished. For them, the United States is the global vigilante, and they don�t worry about where this may yet lead us.