Carr told Today that "the easiest and the most emotionally satisfying thing for most groups or nations to do when their civilians are attacked is to attack civilians in return." Hence, everyone is guilty of terrorism.
"Because if you look at the sweep of American history, what they are basing their actions on is an American tradition that really took form during the Civil War, when various Confederate generals, and then especially General Sherman, specifically worked out a policy that they openly stated of punishing civilians for the actions of their armies in the field. That is a stated tradition in American history and any attempt to deny it is simply disingenuous."
I'm open to corrections, as ever, but I don't recall the Blue and the Grey deliberately targeting civillians. Sherman did lead a scorched-earth campaign, but not a scorched-person campaign. This is a losing argument on Carr's part.
Later, Matt Lauer actually challenges his guest:
LAUER: Let me--let me go back, because you--in the title you say 'why it always fails, why it will--will--will always fail.' To go back to the Japan example, some would argue that the dropping of those atomic bombs ended the world war and we have not had a difficulty with Japan, they're a great ally of ours now. So didn't it work in that example?
Mr. CARR: No. It--it--what ended the--we could have ended the war in any number of ways. The reason we haven't had a problem with Japan since sec--the second world war was because of the--MacArthur's version of the Marshall Plan that we instituted in Japan, which was possibly the greatest example of military and political generosity in history. What was what bought the loyalty of the Japanese, they didn't do it because of the atomic bombs.
Yes, but it did end the war in a damned hurry, didn't it Carr?
Maybe Caleb Carr should just stick to writing fiction. Even in his "historical" work, it seems to be what he does best. Surprisingly, even the New York Times review of his book agrees with me.
See an excerpt from Carr's book at MSNBC.com.
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