"Lone Survivor" is a true, firsthand account of an ill-fated Navy SEAL mission in which the author of the book, Marcus Luttrell, is the only survivor. The author presents a stark moral choice, one few of us are ever called upon to make, of whether to kill unarmed civilians or risk being exposed and killed himself. Full disclosure: Although I have not read the book, I have heard excerpts read over the air on a local talk show and heard all the arguments supporting Luttrell’s contention our military is unnecessarily hampered in war because of the environment created by the "liberal" media.
The essential elements of the story: Four Navy SEALs are dropped into the mountains of Afghanistan where their mission is to assassinate a Taliban warlord. While hiding in the hills overlooking the village, the SEALs are approached by three goat herders (including a 14-year-old boy) and their goats. The goat herders are not armed and claim they are not members of the Taliban.
A debate ensues among the Americans. Do they allow the goat herders to go on their way and risk alerting the Taliban or do they kill them? One argues if they kill them, the villagers will discover the bodies because they can’t get rid of the goats. The Taliban will then alert the "liberal" media, who will force an investigation, and they will wind up charged with murder. This argument carries the day. A vote is taken and the SEALs allow the goat herders to go free. Two hours later, the Taliban attacks the Americans and kill all but Luttrell.
Conservative talk-show hosts and columnists have seized upon the book’s revelations as an opportunity to bash liberals and deflect attention away from the failed war policies of a conservative administration in deep trouble. Luttrell, in the brief excerpts I heard, never refers to liberals without using a four-letter adjective. He seems to have convinced himself were it not for the liberal media, his buddies would still be alive. Only in a country split by red-blue politics can such a tragedy be used as another excuse to play the blame game. Of course, other than in Luttrell’s mind, right wing talk radio and the Michelle Malkin columns of the world, there were no liberals involved in the failure of the mission. It wasn’t The New York Times that caused the death of three Navy SEALs, it was bad timing.
I don’t accept the assumption Luttrell and his men had only two choices. They could have kept the goat herders under surveillance, radioed for help and abandoned the mission. Suppose for a moment, the goat herders were just unarmed civilians, would the opportunity to kill a Taliban warlord justify taking innocent lives, including a 14-year-old? Is the conservative media suggesting it would be better if the killing of unarmed civilians is not investigated? Actually Luttrell has reason to be angry, not at those loathsome liberals, but at the military command that put him and his men in an untenable situation.
According to Luttrell, there were 300 Taliban in the village where they were targeting the chief. Our military’s answer was to send in four men — highly skilled SEALs — but still only four of them. Why weren’t we using our superior firepower to overwhelm the village? While we’re at it, how valuable is it to kill a Taliban warlord that we needed to place our men in harm’s way? Presumably a dead warlord would just be replaced by another warlord, wouldn’t he? These questions are never raised in the simplistic rush to somehow blame liberals for the tragedy.
Unquestionably, Luttrell is a brave and patriotic young man. He also seems to be a man who is being used by the Right. Luttrell describes liberals in his book as being all heart and no brain, but it is a conservative administration that is responsible for the worst military disaster of our time. It is a conservative administration that let Osama bin Laden escape and diverted the troops from the fight in Afghanistan to Iraq where they are caught in a quagmire. It is a conservative administration under which our wounded troops returning home were placed in third-world conditions at Walter Reed. Just who is it that shows a lack of brains?
One can forgive Luttrell his political bias because of his courageous service to this country, but it is hard to forgive the denizens of the right wing media who use him so shamelessly.
