[Anyone] the art of war

[Thos Myers]

Dear Mr. President,

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It’s too bad the “Art of War” wasn’t on your summer reading list during your <?xml:namespace
prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Texas ranch holiday.  If
you’d ever read it, maybe we wouldn’t be mired in Iraq. According to the author, Sun Tsu,
esteemed for thousands of years as The Sage of Warfare, you’re doing it all wrong.



Exactly what military principles you’ve broken – and how many -- I learned by chance. On the
first day of classes at Washington College, the title on a shelf of paperbacks caught my eye.
I opened at random and there on page 10: “In war, better take a state intact than destroy
it.”



Then came a critique of your plan to recall reservists for more tours: “The skillful warrior
never conscripts troops a second time. . .”  And, “Supplying an army at a distance drains the
public coffers. . . Six-tenths are spent on broken chariots, worn-out horses. . .”



That last is archaically put, but don’t we have thousands of war-wrecked Humvees and tanks
now – while short of funds to fix them?



On page 13, I found: “Treat prisoners of war kindly, and care for them.” How does that square
with Guantanamo?



Page after page, Sun Tsu seems to be talking to you, even though the principles were stated
something like 2,500 years ago. But your reading list this summer, so the White House said,
included a three-volume history of the Louisiana Purchase. In a summer past, as casualties
mounted, we were told you read a comprehensive history of salt.



That’s hardly so germane as “Art of War,” which states, “No nation has ever benefited from a
protracted war.”



Of course reading lists of politicians are always suspect. You feed doubts when you tell us
that this summer you also read “three Shakespeares.” As filmmaker Michael Moore asked in
another open letter, “George, can you read and write at an adult level?” The question isn’t
wholly outrageous. As Moore points out, when asked your favorite childhood book, you
answered, “The Very Hairy Caterpillar” – and he notes it was published a year after you were
graduated from Yale. Also, various aides of yours have said you don’t read their briefing
papers but direct them to read them to you.



Then why not get those neo-cons who advised you into this war to give Master Sun a glance?
They can slip his maxims it into the daily digest, and after, say, the latest blurb on
slaughter between Sunni and Shiite factions, an aide reads:



“Without knowing the plans of the feudal lords, you cannot form alliances.”



Or, before another retired general or formerly supportive Republican congressman goes looking
for Iraq’s backdoor, your reader can find: “When an army is confused and perplexed, the
feudal princes will cause trouble. This creates chaos in the ranks and gives away victory.”



Sir, you can be certain, if you don’t know Sun Tsu, your enemies do. It’s the revolutionary’s
primer. Mao Tse Tung carried a copy on his Long March. It was Fidel Castro’s campfire reading
when he was hiding out in the Sierra Maestre.



Can the teachings have escaped the notice of Osama Bin Ladin? Not likely. Consider “Art of
War” on evasion: “He changes his ways and alters his plans to keep the enemy in ignorance.”
Also, “The highest skill in forming dispositions is to be without form; formlessness is proof
against the prying of the subtlest spy and the machinations of the wisest brain.”



Concluding, “The place I intend to attack must not be known; if it is unknown, the enemy will
have to reinforce many places . . .but I shall attack few.” And, “Throw your men where there
is no escape, and they will die rather than flee. . .”



Sounds exactly like al-Qaeda. What would it hurt to read the guerrillas’ guidebook? Don’t you
owe it to us, and yourself? After all, as you’ve said to us, as if talking to a nation of
six-year-olds, “I am a wartime president.”





And the Master says, “He who knows self, but not the enemy, will suffer one defeat for every
victory.”







John Lang is director of the journalism intern program at Washington College in Chestertown,
Md. He was chief White House correspondent for U.S. News & World, during the Carter
administration.