Obama and the oil spill: why would anyone expect leadership from him in this crisis?

The New Neo Posted on by

Even many of Obama’s supporters have became impatient with his lack of energetic leadership on the Gulf oil spill.

But why would they have expected any different? Obama has almost never shown that characteristic—and he’s been praised for that fact in the past.

One prominent example was his passivity on the financial meltdown during his candidacy. While John McCain seemed to buzz around like an angry fly trying (impotently, it turns out) to solve things and tackle problems and act, Obama’s perceived calm caused people to praise his coolness and first-class temperament.

The right has always thought little of Obama. But as coolness has morphed to coldness, and restraint has come to seem paralysis, even liberals and the left are frustrated with him. Obama has never successfully run a bake sale, let alone a country. Nor has he shown leadership or executive abilities (except in the service of his own career advancement; that he’s very good at)—even in the absence of a crisis, much less during one.

Did his supporters think there are no special executive skills involved in being president? That giving speeches and looking cool were attributes that would be transferable to handling an environmental disaster and coordinating the response to it? That anyone could do it?

Perhaps so. After all, stupidhead Bush dealt with 9/11, so how hard could it all be?

[NOTE: The Hillbuzz guys ask an excellent question.

And here’s a piece that details Obama’s schedule since the oil spill crisis. He hasn’t exactly focused like a laser on it.]

[ADDENDUM: The Anchoress has a good roundup of oil spill news.]

Maybe Maureen Dowd should start reading Jack Cashill

The New Neo Posted on by

MoDo is puzzled by Obama’s lackluster performance lately:

How does a man who invented himself as a force by writing one of the most eloquent memoirs in political history lose control of his own narrative?

Let’s just start with the idea that it’s not all about the narrative. In fact, with Obama’s presidency, we are no longer in the realm of “narrative” at all, much less controlled ones. We are in the realm of events and action, which have a life of their own.

Dowd continues:

In “Dreams From My Father,” Obama showed passion, lyricism, empathy and an exquisite understanding of character and psychological context ”” all the qualities that he has stubbornly resisted showing as president. It was a book that promised a president who could see into the hearts of other people. But there’s so much you don’t learn about candidates in campaigns, even when they seem completely exposed.

Perhaps the reason Obama has not been demonstrating the qualities shown in his book is that he didn’t write the book, as Jack Cashill has spent many words attemping to prove. We don’t know the truth of this, and probably never will. But Dowd would be less puzzled by the seeming disparity between the written Obama and the man we’ve experienced as president if she began to entertain the thought that the former is a sham and the latter the real thing.

And then there’s what we learned about Obama during the campaign. Maybe MoDo didn’t see his negative characteristics—she was dazzled by the glory of the great man—but a great many of us did. His narcissism, coldness, leftism, arrogance, passivity, querulousness, tendency to blame others, and lack of relevant experience were all glaringly obvious. Obama was plenty exposed during the campaign—at least, for those with eyes to see.

Tipper and Al are splitsville…

The New Neo Posted on by

…and there’s sorrow and consternation in the land.

Seriously, there is. And in order to feel sad about it, it’s not even necessary to be a Democrat, or to like Tipper and Al Gore. It’s almost always upsetting and even somewhat shocking to hear of a long, long marriage gone bad.

People are wondering why? WHY? You made it through all sorts of tough stuff, the way all couples married for forty-one years must. Couldn’t you just hold on till death do you part?

As somewhat of an expert on this in two capacities (having a degree in marriage and family therapy, and being a person who was herself divorced after thirty-one years of marriage) let me just say that sometimes the unfortunate answer is that no, you can’t.

The reasons vary. Sometimes there is infidelity, which can be helped along by the notion that time is running out and it’s now or never to sow those pent-up wild oats. Sometimes one person has undergone huge personality changes that have transformed him/her into someone the spouse can’t tolerate. Sometimes the marriage was always difficult or even bad, or a sham, and the couple was just barely tolerating each other for the sake of the kids, waiting till the youngest children grew up and were on their own.

I have no idea what’s going on with the Gores. But I’ve noticed a lot of changes (for the worse) in Al in the past decade. So perhaps he’s grown to be such a condescending egotist, so puffed up with his own great worth, that Tipper just can’t take it any more.

Or maybe it’s something altogether different. Whatever it is, it’s a sorrowful thing when a long term marriage ends (and particularly stressful for the couple, as well). Even adult children can be deeply (and surprisingly) thrown by the news.

The Gores’s friends are surprised, too, because apparently the couple really did seem to be very much in love for a long time. But one of the basic rules of marriage is that no one knows anything about anyone else’s marriage. In fact, another basic rule of marriage is that sometimes the couple themselves doesn’t know much about the workings of their own marriage, either.

Sometimes it seems to be going really well and then the life just whooshes out of it. Sometimes everything appears fine and dandy and it turns out that one spouse has been conning the other one all along and has been living a double life. Sometimes couples seem contentious, and no one can figure out why the marriage works, but it does. And sometimes the opposite. Sometimes even the couple themselves don’t know exactly why they are miserable; they just know that they are, and bone weary of dealing with each other.

But whatever the reason is for the Gore separation, I hope they keep it to themselves. I don’t want another tell-all book, or separate or joint interviews with Barbara Walters or appearances on Oprah. Some dignity and preservation of privacy would be awfully nice.

And now we will leave them, with an image from happier days—when two high school sweethearts married at the ages of twenty-one and twenty-two, hope and love in their hearts, and their unlived futures before them:

altipperwed.jpg

As usual, the poets have something to say about it:

The Ache of Marriage
—-Denise Levertov

The ache of marriage:

thigh and tongue, beloved,
are heavy with it,
it throbs in the teeth

We look for communion
and are turned away, beloved,
each and each

It is leviathan and we
in its belly
looking for joy, some joy
not to be known outside it

two by two in the ark of
the ache of it.

Whatever happened to those fearsome Israelis?

The New Neo Posted on by

Time was that, whatever one thought of Israeli IDF forces and the policies behind them, nearly everyone agreed that they were super-competent. In security and counter-terrorist operations in particular, they were skillful and tough, and feared by their enemies.

Remember the 1976 raid on Entebbe? Israeli forces (led by current Prime Minister Netanyahu’s brother, who died in the raid) managed to rescue Jewish hostages held in faraway Uganda in an airplane hijacking:

Air France plane with 300 passengers was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists and flown to Entebbe, near Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Shortly after landing, all non-Jewish passengers were released…The [rescue] operation took place under cover of darkness, as Israeli transport planes carried 100 elite commandos over 2,500 miles to Uganda for the rescue operation. The operation, which took a week of planning, lasted 90 minutes and 103 hostages were rescued. Five Israeli commandos were wounded and one, commander Netanyahu, was killed. All the hijackers, three hostages and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed, and 11 Russian-built MiG fighters of Uganda’s air force were destroyed.

Just like today, the world wasn’t too happy about it. Uganda complained to the UN, and Secretary General Kurt Waldheim “described the raid as ‘a serious violation of the national sovereignty of a United Nations member state.'” However, it was Idi Amin of Uganda who lost face and whose regime was undermined, not the Israelis.

The operation was hardly perfect—some of the hostages were killed, and the Israeli leader lost his life as well. But the world was impressed with its audacity, scope, and relative success in freeing almost all the hostages in an operation that was logistically complex.

This impression of Israeli operations as fearsomely competent and bold continued for quite some time, but I think it has evaporated in recent years. Whatever one’s opinion of the justification for the recent Israeli commando flotilla-boarding incident, I think we can all agree that it does not reflect well on the decision-making and execution capabilities of the Israeli forces.

What was the plan? Those in charge seem to have been naive, PC, and unprepared for what they were facing. Israel has been losing the PR war for quite some time now. But, as Max Boot states in today’s WSJ, this was “a tactical and strategic fiasco.” Boot adds:

The details are still confusing, but it’s clear Israeli commandos were wounded in the melee and were in danger of being killed. They had hoped to avoid violence and were armed with paintball guns, but the boarding team felt compelled to open fire to prevent themselves from being overrun…One wonders if it wouldn’t have been possible for Israeli agents to sabotage the ships before they left port so that this incident would never have occurred? Or failing that, to allow the ships to be off-loaded in Gaza and then disable them so as to prevent any further trips.

Boot thinks the Israelis should have dispensed with the boarding approach and accomplished their aims in a different way in order to counter the accusation of using disproportionate force. My personal opinion is that there is no way for Israel to avoid such a charge no matter what they do or refrain from doing; they lost the PR war quite some time ago and have been demonized by the left, the press, and the intelligentsia of the west. They will not be loved no matter what they do, but an additional problem is that now they are now no longer feared.

Israeli forces suffer from their own attempts to be PC, to refrain from violence for fear of the world’s disapproval. They receive that condemnation anyway, of course, and lose respect into the bargain. This only emboldens the forces arrayed against them.

I have no idea what Israel should have done about the flotilla. But I do know that trying to please and placate those who think you are the devil itself is a no-win situation.

Very specifically, this is the sort of thing I’m talking about; never underestimate your enemy or believe its own propaganda [emphasis mine]:

[Israeli] [o]fficials estimated that passengers will show slight resistance, and possibly minor violence…

The first rope that soldiers used in order to descend down to the ship was wrested away by activists, most of them Turks, and tied to an antenna with the hopes of bringing the chopper down…

Navy commandoes slid down to the vessel one by one, yet then the unexpected occurred: The passengers that awaited them on the deck pulled out bats, clubs, and slingshots with glass marbles, assaulting each soldier as he disembarked. The fighters were nabbed one by one and were beaten up badly, yet they attempted to fight back.

However, to their misfortune, they were only equipped with paintball rifles used to disperse minor protests, such as the ones held in Bilin. The paintballs obviously made no impression on the activists, who kept on beating the troops up and even attempted to wrest away their weapons.

One soldier who came to the aid of a comrade was captured by the rioters and sustained severe blows. The commandoes were equipped with handguns but were told they should only use them in the face of life-threatening situations. When they came down from the chopper, they kept on shouting to each other “don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” even though they sustained numerous blows.

You can see the problems and the contradictions. The first miscalculation was in assuming the “activists” were relatively peaceful. That second was that this mindset persisted in the face of evidence to the contrary that emerged right from the start when the attempt was made to bring the chopper down.

If this didn’t cause the IDF plan and approach to change, what would? The paradox of soldiers being attacked and shouting “don’t shoot, don’t shoot” at the same time is a picture that shows how hobbled the IDF has become by its need to appeal to a world that for the most part not only does not care about its fate, but would like to see it destroyed. This is not going to work out well.

[NOTE: Meanwhile, President Obama and the US have not joined the rest of the world in condemning Israel, although they haven’t exactly offered a rousing defense, either. Off the record, an unnamed US official says:

“The situation is that [the Israelis are] so isolated right now that it’s not only that we’re the only ones who will stick up for them,” said an American official. “We’re the only ones who believe them ”” and what they’re saying is true.

There are calls for a thorough investigation. But it’s Aaron David Miller, a former US peace negotiator, who understands full well what the upshot of that will be:

“You can have an independent commission spend three or four months studying this thing and come out with something that is stunningly clear and factual, but it doesn’t matter,” said Miller. “People knew where they were before this episode started.”

It seems that the truth hardly matters any more in the eyes of the world. Did it ever?]

Boarding a ship in international waters

The New Neo Posted on by

Critics of Israel’s action in the flotilla operation keep saying that the Gaza-bound ship was in international waters and that therefore the boarding was illegal. This seems self-evident—to those ignorant of international law on the matter. And of course the press is not in the business of offering information to counter that ignorance, if such an act would go against the liberal cause du jour.

Here’s the law:

Quick question: What is the status of blockade in international law?

The historic British position was that once a blockade was declared, neutral ships could be stopped on the open seas if in transit to a blockaded country. Other powers resisted this interpretation, but since Britannia ruled the waves, they could basically stuff it. During the American Civil War, the US quietly adopted the British position, as we didn’t have enough US Navy ships to guard everything the Confederacy could use as a port.

Also, see this:

I have always understood that international law (Declaration of London 1910) authorizes blockades and permits them to be enforced by boardings in international waters (presumably also permitting force to be used to carry out the lawful boardings). This is why Jack Kennedy was able to declare a blockade of Cuba in which ships bound for Cuba were to be boarded in international waters (I believe some actually were) by the U.S. Navy, which was to use force if necessary to carry out the boardings and to seize any cargo covered by the terms of the blockade. I do not believe anyone at the time or since has accused Kennedy of being engaged in an act of piracy. Someone who knows more than I do about the laws of naval engagement should comment on whether this blockade met the conditions of international law, because, if it did, the boarding and use of force in international waters were lawful and not piracy. Since Hamas has, I understand, declared its goal to be the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state, it would seem to me that the blockade was lawful in the first instance ”” which means that the boarding and the use of necessary force were also lawful.

Then there’s this:

…[T]he civilian Turkish boat announced that it intended to and was on its way to enter Gaza and supply a belligerent, terrorist organization, Hamas, which is the de facto government there, with which Israel is in a state of war or at least belligerence. Under Intl. law as I understand it, Israel has a right to stop ships and make sure that no material which can be used for war or terrorist purposes reaches there. The organizers of the ships were offered to bring their assertedly humanitarian cargo into an Israeli port (Ashdod), and after inspection for contraband, everything else would be transshipped to Gaza.

Of, for that matter, they could have allowed the ship to be boarded peacefully and inspected.

So, no, it is not an act of piracy. Nice try.

Ah, but this is akin to discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Everyone knows the truth: Israel bad, Palestinians (Turks, “activists,” “aid” workers, you name it) good. That’s all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

On Memorial Day: those stories behind the names

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s Memorial Day. Time for picnics and get-togethers.

Time, also, for remembrance of those who sacrificed their lives in American’s wars. This post by Gerard Vanderleun at American Digest offers a poignant poem in honor of a high school acquaintance of Vanderleun’s who died as a result of wounds suffered in the war of our generation, Vietnam, It ends with the following lines:

Now he’s just a name on that wall.

Cut into stone.
Cut to the bone.

Long gone.
That’s all.

Vanderleun provides a link to a site dedicated to alums from his high school who died in that war. The stories there—of these young young men “long gone”—are still heartbreakingly poignant, especially the following, which can stand for so very many:

Herbert Ernest Frenzell, the only child of Army Colonel Ernest H. Frenzell and his wife Chilant Costa, was born June 20, 1944 in Modesto, California. Due to his father’s connections all over the world, Herb became an avid foreign stamp and coin collector from the time he was a child. He attended Encina High School in Sacramento for three years before transferring to nearby La Sierra High School where he graduated in 1962. Herb was attending American River College when a good friend told him that he planned to enlist. Herb decided to go with him, and they enlisted in the US Army together. Herb was deployed to Vietnam in November 1966. He served with the 2nd Platoon, A Company, 4th Battalion (Redcatchers), 12th Infantry, 199th Light Infantry Brigade. At age 22, on January 21, 1967 in Binh Thuy, Private First Class Frenzell was killed by small arms fire. He had been part of a patrol that was ambushed by well-entrenched Viet Cong forces. Even though he had been in a relatively safe position in a tree line, he chose to expose his position by opening fire on the enemy in order to draw fire away from his fellow soldiers who were pinned down. His unselfish act allowed the other soldiers to get to cover. As Herb then attempted to rejoin his squad, he was fatally shot in the chest. Specialist Billy Jones dragged and carried his friend’s body through swamp and jungle for two hours. Once an open field was reached where helicopters could land and evacuate the remaining squad and Herb’s body, Jones was also shot and killed by enemy fire while trying to rescue another fallen comrade. Both Herb and Jones were awarded the Silver Star for their heroism, and their base camp in Vietnam was named Camp Frenzell-Jones in their honor. A memorial service for Herb was held at the McClellan Air Force Base Chapel, and burial was at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC. Mrs. Frenzell has said of her son, “Herb would have given his life for his friends anywhere. It could have been while he was swimming or water-skiing. He was not the kind of person who would stand by and watch something tragic happen to others. It just so happened that he was in combat when he was called to help his friends.”

I am very fortunate that I don’t know what it’s like to get that news. But I do know what it’s like to wait for it and to fear it. For a year, my boyfriend served in Vietnam as a door gunner on a Medevac helicopter, which meant constant exposure to danger. Not a day went by that I didn’t think about it—in fact, the situation occupied my entire senior year of college, which I recall as a vale of tears and tension.

I did get bad news about my boyfriend when, in the middle of his year-long tour, he was wounded in the head. He recovered (mostly, anyway) and went back into combat. Then, unlike the young men on that plaque at Encina High, he went on to live his life. At least, I know he did for a while; we broke up after a few months, and I don’t know where he is now. He would be old—well, oldish, anyway; a few years older than I. But in my memory he remains that handsome twenty-one-year old I knew and loved.

There is a story behind every name on every war memorial—and also for many of the names that don’t appear there, like that of my boyfriend. If you are part of a war like that, you don’t forget it, and it forms you. It teaches you things you would otherwise not know. Some of them are very dark things indeed. But some are very good things like comradeship, selflessness, sacrifice, and courage.

Today we honor those who had the courage to make that ultimate sacrifice, and we hope and pray that this country continues to be worthy of it.