On Veterans Day

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a slightly-edited repost of an article originally written in 2005. This year, however, the celebration of Veterans Day is especially poignant, given two realities: (1) the Ft. Hood shooting and the politically correct inability of the military to pay attention to the obvious troubling signs in one of its officers in time to protect its men and women; and (2) President Obama’s Hamlet-like indecision about the war in Afghanistan, and his lack of leadership in following through on a plan he articulated back in March or the recommendations of his own hand-picked general.

Let us honor those who have served, as well as those who are serving now.]

Yes, indeed, I am that old—old enough to remember when Veterans Day was called Armistice Day. The change in names occurred in 1954, when I was very small, in order to accommodate World War II and its veterans.

Since then, the original name has largely fallen out of use—although it remains, like a vestigial organ, in the timing of the holiday: November 11th, which commemorates the day the WWI armistice was signed (eleventh hour, eleventh day, eleventh month).

I’m also old enough–and had a teacher ancient enough—to have been forced to memorize that old chestnut “In Flanders Fields” in fifth grade—although without being given any historical context for it. I think at the time I assumed it was about World War II, since as far as I knew that was the only real war.

You can find the story of the poem here . It was written by a Canadian doctor who served in the European theater (there is no separate URL for the discussion of the poem, but you should click on the “John McCrae´s Poppies in Flander’s Fields” link on the left sidebar). It’s not great poetry, but it was great propaganda to encourage America’s entry into what was known at the time as the Great War.

The poem’s first line “In Flanders fields the poppies blow” introduces the famous flower that later became the symbol of Armistice—and later, Veterans—Day. Why the poppy?

Wild poppies flower when other plants in their direct neighbourhood are dead. Their seeds can lie on the ground for years and years, but only when there are no more competing flowers or shrubs in the vicinity (for instance when someone firmly roots up the ground), these seeds will sprout.

There was enough rooted up soil on the battlefield of the Western Front; in fact the whole front consisted of churned up soil. So in May 1915, when McCrae wrote his poem, around him bloodred poppies blossomed like no one had ever seen before.

But in this poem the poppy plays one more role. The poppy is known as a symbol of sleep. The last line We shall not sleep, though poppies grow / In Flanders fields might point to this fact. Some kinds of poppies are used to derive opium from, from which morphine is made. Morphine is one of the strongest painkillers and was often used to put a wounded soldier to sleep. Sometimes medical doctors used it in a higher dose to put the incurable wounded out of their misery.

Now a day to honor those who have served in our wars, Veterans Day has an interesting history in its original Armistice Day incarnation. It was actually established as a day dedicated to world peace, back in the early post-WWI year of 1926, when it was still possible to believe that WWI had been the war fought to end all wars.

The original proclamation establishing Armistice Day as a holiday read as follows:

Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and

Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and

Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.

After the carnage of World War II, of course, the earlier hope that peaceful relations among nations would not be severed had long been extinguished. By the time I was a young child, a weary nation sought to honor those who had fought in all of its wars in order to secure the peace that followed—even if each peace was only a temporary one.

And isn’t an armistice a strange (although understandable) sort of hybrid, after all; a decision to lay down arms without anything really having been resolved? Think about the recent wars that have ended through armistice: WWI, which segued almost inexorably into WWII; the 1948 war following the partition of Palestine; the Korean War; and the Gulf War. All of these conflicts exploded again into violence—or have continually threatened to ever since.

So this Veterans/Armistice Day, let’s join in saluting and honoring those who have fought for our country. The hope that some day war will not be necessary is a laudable one—and those who fight wars hold it, too. But that day has not yet arrived—and, realistically but sadly, perhaps it never will.

Obama in video at the Berlin Wall

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama went to Berlin before his election, on a triumphant campaign tour. He had time to go to Copenhagen to plead for a Chicago Olympics. And he will make time for an extra-special Oslo jaunt in order to receive his very own Nobel Peace Prize.

But he only found time to appear at the 20-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall through the magic of video. Otherwise, poor Hillary will have to do.

As part of his taped address, Obama intoned:

“Few would have foreseen ”¦ that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent.”

I have a bit of a quarrel with the word “led” to refer to what Obama is doing to this country. But of course, it’s never about him—except when it is. The man seems compelled to continually bring his personal history into each and every occasion, even when he can’t be bothered to be personally present.

Hasan: “Secondary trauma;” political correctness

The New Neo Posted on by

We’re now hearing about “secondary trauma” as a reason—even a sort of partial excuse—for Hasan’s killing spree at Fort Hood. Here’s the definition:

In medical parlance it is known as “secondary trauma”, and it can afflict the families of soldiers suffering from P.T.S.D. along with the health workers who are trying to cure them. Dr. Antonette Zeiss, Deputy Chief of Mental Health Services for Veteran Affairs, while not wishing to talk about the specific case of the Fort Hood slayings, explained to TIME that: “Anyone who works with P.T.S.D. clients and hears their stories will be profoundly affected.”…

At army hospitals dealing with P.T.S.D. patients, the staff is required to periodically fill out a ‘resiliency’ questionnaire that is supposed to gauge how well they are coping with the burden of their patients’ emotional and psychological demands. “It takes its toll on people,” says one officer at a Colorado military hospital. “You cannot be un-affected by the terrible things these soldiers have undergone.”

Secondary trauma exists. It is one possible reason for burnout, and it can cause helpers and therapists to quit their jobs. It most definitely can cause helpers and therapists to feel stress and depression.

But it most definitely does not cause helpers and therapists to become mass murderers.

So, what did cause Hasan to cross that line? We can start with his clearly-expressed ideological sympathy with jihadis. This editorial asks the very pertinent question:

Did 13 American soldiers die at Fort Hood because officers were afraid of appearing insensitive to Muslims?

The answer, I’m afraid, appears to be “yes.” There is little question that Hasan raised so many red flags, so often and so flagrantly, that he should have been relieved of duty long before he was able to go on his rampage.

Predicting violence is always a difficult task, but in Hasan’s case it wasn’t even the issue: loyalty to this country was. Even if he had not murdered thirteen soldiers, he could have been expected to represent a security risk in other less violent but still very damaging ways.

The bottom line is that there should be no place in the US armed forces for a person who has professed alliance with or sympathy for jihadists. This has nothing to do with purging the military of Muslims, and everything to do with a common sense case-by-case approach to the question of loyalty to this country versus loyalty to our enemies.

During World War II, this question was faced and “solved” in a maximally politically-incorrect way: detention camps for Japanese-Americans. It was a response to a very real problem: that of the potential for a fifth column in wartime due to divided loyalties. But it was a policy in which many innocents were punished and restricted in order to contain the guilty few.

Hasan and current military policy represent the opposite: a policy in which we refrain from punishing or restricting the guilty few in order to protect the many innocent. If we make that choice, we end up with a massacre of other innocents such as happened at Fort Hood, or even worse.

What about an approach that represents some sort of happy medium? How about responding appropriately to the potentially-guilty few who make themselves obvious— those who, like Hasan, have made it clear that their loyalty is to the enemy and who are therefore significant risks for betrayal and mayhem? If we can’t manage even that, I’m afraid that political correctness has morphed into a near-suicidal insanity.

[ADDENDUM: Red flags, anyone?]

Bret Stephens and the neo-neocons

The New Neo Posted on by

It is often said that there is nothing new under the sun. Commenter “Steve G” proves it by helpfully pointing out a WSJ article by Bret Stephens in which the author coins the phrase (that is, he believes he coins the phrase): “neo-neocon.”

Stephens isn’t referring to me, of course. In fact, unless he’s a devoted reader of the Right side of the blogosphere, there’s no particular reason for him to know that I even exist (although Google would have gotten him there). He uses the term instead as a pejorative to refer to people who demand a level of righteousness from Hamid Karzai that they don’t require from other third world leaders:

In the matter of Hamid Karzai (this would be the feckless, warlord-backed, corruption-tainted and dubiously re-elected president of Afghanistan), it’s wonderful to observe how he has single-handedly created a new designation in the American ideological lexicon: the neo-neocon.

Who are the neo-neocons? They’re a bipartisan, single-issue group that has recently discovered the virtues””nay, the necessity””of clean, orderly, democratic governance.

Stephens goes on to excoriate the group he calls “neo-neocons”—on the Left, those who championed Arafat as Palestinian spokesperson; and on the Right, practitioners of morally neutral realpolitic. He himself leans more in the latter direction regarding Karzai; his problem with neo-neocons on the Right is that those who were in favor of the similarly compromised Musharraf but are critical of Karzai are inconsistent hypocritics.

Stephens goes on to say:

It is not Mr. Karzai’s fault that NATO insisted for years that the Afghan National Army be no larger than a constabulary force, leaving it in no position to join the battle against a resurgent Taliban. It is not his fault that foreign aid organizations consistently botched the delivery. Much less is it his fault that the former government of Pakistan essentially ceded its frontier provinces to the Taliban, which promptly turned them into havens of militancy.

None of this means that Mr. Karzai is a saint or even much of a statesman. But neither is he a despot, a fanatic, a sybarite, or an uncouth bigot””qualities that typify the leadership of countries for which the U.S. has also expended blood and treasure in defense of lesser causes. Our failures in Afghanistan so far have mainly been our own, and they are ours to fix.

That sounds quite reasonable to me. In Afghanistan, we are faced with the usual problems of nations that have little tradition of democracy and civil liberties, which also lack the educational levels that must go along with democracy if it is going to be anything other than an empty promise. I’ve written before about these choices, and the difficulty inherent in them (see this and this), and my conclusions actually somewhat resemble those of Stephens.

Karzai is no angel; it does appear that the elections in Afghanistan were seriously compromised. But remember that if Karzai is no angel, Afghanistan is a far cry from heaven. The real question is whether there are better alternatives available to the country at this point, and the answer appears to be “no.”

Dunn’s done

The New Neo Posted on by

Controversial White House Communications Director Anita Dunn—who was only in her position as an interim replacement anyway—is leaving the White House and going back to her previous job as partner in the consulting firm of Squier Knapp Dunn, while remaining an administration consultant.

Pity. Now who will Glenn Beck have to kick around? Somehow, I don’t think he’ll lack for candidates.

Widgets at rest

The New Neo Posted on by

You’ll be happy to hear that the Amazon widgets have reached what I hope will be their final form: stationery and unobtrusive.

There’s a plain Amazon search widget near the top of the sidebar, for the minimalists among you. Then, if you scroll down, you’ll find three larger ones, interspersed at intervals and containing recommendations. But these widgets won’t move, so they’ll no longer distract you nor give you headaches, although every now and then I may fiddle around with some of the selections.

A big thank you to all who have used them so far.

The rise of the Right

The New Neo Posted on by

Fareed Zakaria asks whether the Right’s star is rising around the world. Let’s hope so (and note, his piece appeared in Newsweek, which is not exactly National Review 2).

In it, Zakaria also offers a succinct summary of one of the most basic problems with health care reform as proposed by President Obama (I could quibble about his numbers or the urgency of the crisis, but his general point is well put):

There are two great health-care crises in America””one involving coverage and the other cost. The Obama plan appears likely to tackle the first but not the second. This is bad economics but also bad politics: the crisis of cost affects 85 percent of Americans, while the crisis of coverage affects about 15 percent. Obama’s message to the country appears to be “We have a dysfunctional health-care system with out-of-control costs, and let’s add 45 million people to it.”

While I’m recommending articles to read, there’s always Victor Davis Hanson. Here he imagines what Obama coulda, shoulda , woulda said, if he were a better president (sigh).

Spambot of the day: flattery may get you somewhere

The New Neo Posted on by

Fortunately, this blog has a pretty decent spam-blocker. So only a couple per week of the pesky little things escape its pincher grip to actually be deposited in the comments section.

They tend to rather resemble one another. But one that came through today had a certain extra je ne sais quoi:

Can you provide more information on this? So far the info in your post is awesome . In the mean while I think im gonna stick around and read about 2 of your posts.

I love the casualness of the “gonna”—nice touch, spambot!—as well as the odd specificity of the plan to read 2 posts, a precision negated by the wishy-washy qualifier “about.” Make up your mind, bot!

I thought I’d write a little post about spambots and how they use flattery as a technique to sucker us poor bloggers in. And then I realized that the whole thing had a familiar feel—and I discovered that yes, I’ve passed this way before. Back in my first months of blogging, I wrote a piece on the subject, and nothing much has changed, except the amount of time I have to give over to the task of weeding out the bots (fortunately, a lot less than it used to be). So rather than re-invent the wheel, here’s an only slightly edited version of the original:

For those of you who don’t know what spambots are, a spambot comment (or, to be technical, a UBS, an unsolicited bulk comment) is an automatically-generated message sent out to many blogs at a time and deposited, like little turdlike droppings, in the comments sections of blogs. Spambots masquerade as real people making real comments.

What is their purpose? To make money for somebody, in this case increasing Google rankings and/or persuading you to click on a link and thereby inflate the hit counter of a commercial blog, or a blog front, and maybe even order something (although that must be extra-rare).

The spambots are very friendly. Whoever designs the spambot programs know that we humans are suckers for praise. So the spambots give out a sentence or two that sounds enthusiastic and is apparently music to the ears of many a lonely blogger who’s been waiting in vain to receive a comment or two: “You’ve got a great blog here! I’ve bookmarked it. Hope you visit mine, http://lawnmowers.blogspot.com. It’s all about lawnmowers and other cool stuff like that.”

I once clicked on one of these spambot sites out of curiosity, despite knowing that the comment was spam and would probably lead me to a dummy site and make money for the spambot designers (my lips are sealed as to the URL of the site, but let’s just say the blog had something to do with recipes for a certain dessert). It consisted of two posts—that was the whole blog—each with a short list of recipes.

But that blog had a very active comments section. There were over fifty on one of the posts, as I recall. So it was clear that the spambot had achieved its aim of getting a fair number of people to the site (note how I’m anthropomorphizing the spambot; it’s hard not to do so, they seem so pesky and duplicitous). Quite a few of the commenters on the spam blog, however, were not pleased; they posted little messages on the order of “You effing a-hole spambot, get off my blog and never come back”

But a large number of the commenters seemed touchingly grateful. They said things like, “So glad you liked my blog! Come back soon. Thanks for the recipes.”

At first I thought these might be second-generation counter-spambots, like in some sci-fi movie, evolving to make war on the original spambots and kill them with kindness. But no, they seemed to be real people with real blogs, seduced by flattery into thinking that finally, finally, they’d found a grateful and appreciative reader in the spambot, which of course they took to be a real person.

I’m not meaning to mock these people. I well remember the times when I was getting a grand total of five readers a day on this blog—and three of them were me, because I didn’t know how to block my own IP address; and the other two had reached here in error. So I know what it’s like to plod away in isolation and hope to be discovered. But I like to think that even in those days a spambot wouldn’t have fooled me.

Important notice: if this blog ever goes down

The New Neo Posted on by

My blog’s been down for about an hour and a half—ye olde server problems. Fortunately, this doesn’t happen too often. But every now and then it does, and it can be quite frustrating.

I will be busy for a few hours right now, and I plan to post here later in the day or even tonight. But I wanted to take a moment just to mention that, if in the future you should ever find you can’t reach this blog for any significant amount of time, go to a back-up blog I set up a while back at http://backupneo.blogspot.com . I’ll be posting there in the interim if there are any significant problems here.

So, please make a note of that, just in case.

Crossing the health care reform bridge

The New Neo Posted on by

Mark Steyn says it well:

If “health care” were about health care, the devil would be in the details. But it’s not about health or costs or coverage; it’s about getting over the river and burning the bridge. It doesn’t matter what form of governmentalized health care gets passed as long as it passes. Once it’s in place, it will be “reformed”, endlessly, but it will never be undone.

That’s the reason that what happens next in the Senate is paramount. Yes, contact your Senators and let them know what you think. But does anyone really believe that most of them will be swayed by a write-in campaign from their constituents?

I don’t. A few undecided moderates perhaps, but only a few (if any). Nearly all the rest will vote Party line, and the real drama will be in what strategies Reid can devise to get past the problem of the filibuster (it’s unlikely there would be sixty votes because of Lieberman, and probably a few others). If Reid is creative enough and ruthless enough, he will do it, and the bill will pass.

Is Steyn correct that then there will be no going back? I fear he may be, but I’m not sure. It really depends on how dreadful the results of the bill are. If they’re bad enough, and an overwhelmingly Repubican Congress is elected as a result (and I mean overwhelmingly), repeal could happen.

But once this bill or something like it takes effect, the present system of private health care insurance and choice will over the next couple of years be essentially destroyed. Repeal of the bill would then require reconstruction of the private system in some new and (we can hope) improved fashion—rebuilding the burned bridge, to use Steyn’s metaphor.

Conservatives and moderates may not get that opportunity. And I’m not at all sure I would trust any Party in Congress to accomplish the feat in a competent manner. To use another metaphor—best to avoid making an omelet out of these particular eggs, because you can’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again.