Is It Possible To Be A Moral Coward?

A clip from VDH's new column:

There is a strange pseudo-culture in America, of which Obama is a perfect example. Millionaire Michael Moore announces, “Capitalism is evil” as he hypes promotion of his moneymaking new movie. Oliver Stones praises Chavez, as the dictator shuts down voices of dissent—yet Stone himself could not make a movie in Venezuela as he does here. So too the murderer Che becomes a popular T-shirt emblem among the college elite.

I was thinking this last night as I watched an interview with an author of a new biography on Curtis LeMay. The author quoted Robert McNamara who said "LeMay is the best strategic general in American history." For those who don't know about LeMay, his story is either one of horror or awe.

In WW2, LeMay was the youngest general in the Armed Services and a member of the Air Force. He is the only American general who led out in front of his troops. By that I mean, when we first started bombing Germany, he literally flew the lead plane to targets. This would be the equivalent of the first man through the door in a police raid. And these weren't easy assignments. Early in the war, inexperienced American pilots fought the Luftwaffe (the best air force in the world at the time) and lost men at a greater rate than the Marines in the Pacific later on in the war. Due to his success against Germany, later in the War he was moved to the Pacific Theater (the only general to fight in both theaters). It was his plan to fire bomb Toyko (the most human deaths in a single night in world history). It was his mission to deliver the bomb. Both times.

Because he was so young, his career didn't end after WW2 like most generals. He created the strategic air command, the round-the-clock bombers carrying nuclear weapons near Soviet airspace who were the front line deterrent against the Soviets. He basically created the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction. Because the Soviets had a much stronger conventional army in the 40s-60s than anyone in Europe, this was the principle line of defense against Soviet aggression. And the Soviets knew - after bearing witness to Toyko and Hiroshima and Nagasaki - that with LeMay around, America would drop the bomb if sufficiently provoked. Many believe - reasonably - this is a reason the Soviets didn't try any major acts of military aggression in the late 40s-60s.

So here you have a guy who arguably saved a million American lives (the estimated death toll of an mainland invasion of Japan), considerably assisted defeating the Nazi regime - arguably the most terrifying army/regime in the history of the world, and may be the person most singularly responsible for keeping mainland Europe free from Soviet rule. At the time he was a hero, per his profile in the New Yorker, being on the cover of Time Magazine, etc. But how do most people in elite liberal enclaves know/picture him? The buffoonish spoof of LeMay from DR. STRANGELOVE, played by George C. Scott. Or as the mass-murdering tyrant of the Japanese.

Now, I'm a fan of DR. STRANGELOVE as a movie, although the first time I saw it as a college student, I found it a bit dated. But it does get me wondering...is making an anti-war film like DR. STRANGELOVE an act of moral cowardice? Is it the equivalent of biting the hand that feeds you? Is it cowardly to mock the person who saves/protects you?

I suppose you can argue back and forth whether LeMay is that guy. And you can argue a movie is a movie and freedom of expression and all that...but thinking of Inglorious Basterds and the Goebbels filmmaking machine and Leni Riefenstahl, etc, it does not seem to me movies are completely out of the realm of moral inquiry. Certainly a movie can be immoral - the Riefenstahl movies are easy examples, so what does it say about a filmmaker who lives and operates in a world protected literally by LeMay who in turn mocks him and profiteers from the mocking?

Sure, it is satire, but does satirizing make one immune to moral questions?

LeMay himself is famous for saying, "if we'd lost the war, we'd all be on trial for war crimes." Little did he know, even though we won, his actions would still be on trial.