Petraeus reports the surge is surging: in time, or too late?

The New Neo Posted on by

The BBC, for all its negativity towards the Iraq war, is reporting that the violence:

…has subsided in Ramadi over the past six months—largely, correspondents say, because tribes have turned against al-Qaeda. The Americans have taken parts of Baquba, but it is still unclear how much they control.

They quote General Petraeus as attributing this success to the surge. He also points out that civilian deaths in Baghdad were down in June, and mentions that increased US troop numbers have only recently reached full strength. Although the BBC surrounds this encouraging news with the usual negative counterpoint, it’s still interesting that they’re even airing an interview with Petraeus in the first place.

Ralph Peters has also reported today on his own interview with Petraeus. It’s clear that, whatever the Iraq war was originally about, the occupation has turned into a fight against al Qaeda there, as Petraeus reports:

Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq’s key weaknesses are an ideology that does not resonate with Iraqis and an indiscriminate brutality that alienates the people. Popular sentiment has begun to shift against them….Successful operations of this nature have played out in recent months in Ramadi, Hit and Baquba. In each case, Iraqis turned against al Qaeda and sided with the Coalition.

Perhaps a surge such as the present one might have had better results if it had occurred some time ago. But a more chilling thought is that it might not have, because al Qaeda had to demonstrate its horrific brutality in order for the Iraqi people to understand what they are up against and to cooperate with the US troops.

Petraeus goes on to discuss the morale of those troops, the political realities in Iraq, and campaigns in other regions of the country. Read the whole thing, as they say. But it’s a statement towards the end of the interview that most resonates for me:

…if I could only have one [thing] at this point in Iraq, it would be more time.

Time is on our side. But it is, paradoxically, the one thing that seems to be in short supply—because of the political realities in this country and not for any other reason.

I wrote yesterday about what might be behind the extreme impatience of the NY Times and the Left. However, rumors that Bush is about to cave based on wavering Republican support have been scotched by yesterday’s report that he is not considering a troop withdrawal:

…[Tony] Snow said any debate happening right now among Bush and his aides is a continuation of discussions they have always had about the goal the president set from the beginning: bring troops home eventually, but only based on improvement “on the ground, not on politics.”

“There is no intensifying discussion about reducing troops,” he said. “We are continued to be committed to letting the surge work.”

And Harry Reid continues to be committed to refusing to allow it to work. Even the BBC acknowledged that the surge troops have only recently reached full strength, but Reid doesn’t let that stop him from declaring the campaign a failure:

The surge (in troops) was supposed to provide Iraq political leaders the space to make the compromises necessary to unite this nation. It hasn’t happened, despite the bravery of our troops,” said Reid…

Patience is not Reid’s strong suit, nor is history. Contrast this with what General Petraeus has to say on the same subject:

Iraqi leaders are grappling with first-order questions—akin to our own debates at the birth of our nation over states’ rights and so on. And the progress has been less than what all of us—the Iraqis as well as Coalition leaders – had hoped to see.

There have been some encouraging signs, such as progress on some critical legislation and the rise of opposition to extremists in many areas, but, ultimately, the political issues must be resolved by Iraqis in an Iraqi way. Our role is to create an environment in which political compromise becomes possible—by breaking the cycle of sectarian violence and lifting the pall of fear.

Reid can mouth all the platitudes he wants about the “bravery of our troops,” but he has a way to go before he actually understands what is going on there, and the fact that such things cannot be accomplished in a couple of weeks, despite “bravery.”

Reid’s extreme impatience is contrasted with Petraeus’s cautionary words:

None of us, Iraqi or American, are anything but impatient and frustrated at where we are. But there are no shortcuts. Success in an endeavor like this is the result of steady, unremitting pressure over the long haul. It’s a test of wills, demanding patience, determination and stamina from all involved.

General Petraeus and his troops are up to the task. Is Congress—and are the American people?

Sanity Squad: on summer vacation

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You may have noticed that there hasn’t been a new Sanity Squad podcast for a bit. That’s because personal and professional matters have been consuming so much time that we’ve decided to take the summer off. We plan to return in the fall, rested and raring to go.

In the meantime, blogging continues at a steady clip for Dr. Sanity, Shrink, Siggy, and me. And of course all the archived Sanity Squad podcasts are available here.

Why the rush?—The New York Times, the Iraq pullout, and the Nixon scenario

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Jules Crittenden has a well-worth-reading takedown of the NY Times’s editorial demanding that we get out of Iraq ASAP. I’m not going to spend a great deal of time exhaustively fisking the Times piece; Crittenden and others have done so quite effectively.

But I do need to add my own observations on the murky thinking evinced in the editorial, including the lack of any support for two linchpins on which the entire thing appears to rest: the idea that it is already a foregone conclusion that what is going on there now (the “surge”) will be ineffective; and the idea that a pullout will not effect a cure worse than the present disease, and that therefore it represents some sort of solution.

And yet the Times not only thinks these things are truths, but it holds them to be self-evident. The authors assert that additional troops have not changed anything without offering any evidence of this, too impatient to even wait for even the extremely modest September deadline that was proposed by Congress, and unable to assimilate or even acknowledge any contradictory news (such as that of Michael Yon). The editorial asserts that “keeping troops in Iraq will only make things worse” and then proceeds to list the many ways in which withdrawing them is highly likely to make things even more dangerous and bloody.

Perhaps the worst part of the piece, however, is when the authors suggest how to deal with those problems. The UN is trotted out, of course, in a shorthand manner that suggests that even the august personages at the Times who wrote this thing don’t believe much in that corrupt body, but simply have to pay lip service to it and get it out of the way. Here’s the entire quote on the subject:

Congress and the White House must lead an international attempt at a negotiated outcome. To start, Washington must turn to the United Nations, which Mr. Bush spurned and ridiculed as a preface to war.

Forget the fact that the UN has no bona fides in negotiating the end to conflicts of this nature, those that are still extremely “hot.” Forget that Bush not only did not “spurn and ridicule the UN as a preface to the war,” but instead lost precious time (and alerted Saddam and his forces as to what would be happening, and how best to prepare for it and its aftermath) in a vain attempt to gain some much-needed credibility for the UN by trying to get it to stand by and enforce its own resolutions. Once again, the editors feel no need to present any details of what this spurning and ridicule might consist of; it is enough for them to state that it happened, and to expect their readership to swallow that assertion whole.

The Times then goes on to list what I call the “musts” or the “have-tos” or the “shoulds”—those things that will happen just because the Times says so. Forget about whether such things are possible or realistic; like a two-year old, the Times editors believe in the omnipotence of their own wishes.

Here are a few of their “musts” (with my commentary added in brackets):

Washington also has to mend fences with allies [citing the new governments in Britain, France, and Germany as being angry with the US, and ignoring the fact that those new governments are either just as friendly to the US, or even friendlier, than those in power there at the start of the war]….those nations should see that they cannot walk away from the consequences. To put it baldly, terrorism and oil make it impossible to ignore [oh yeah? Just try ’em]….

One of the trickiest tasks will be avoiding excessive meddling in Iraq by its neighbors ”” America’s friends as well as its adversaries…Just as Iran should come under international pressure to allow Shiites in southern Iraq to develop their own independent future, Washington must help persuade Sunni powers like Syria not to intervene on behalf of Sunni Iraqis. Turkey must be kept from sending troops into Kurdish territories [and how, pray tell, is that to be done? Only the Times knows.]

For this effort to have any remote chance, Mr. Bush must drop his resistance to talking with both Iran and Syria. Britain, France, Russia, China and other nations with influence have a responsibility to help [okay, teach, if you say so; they will all now work and play well with others].

Why is this all so poorly thought out on the part of the editors? Is it that they are unintelligent? Is it that they really believe that wishing can make it so? Or is it that thinking through these matters may not be the main thing on their minds?

If not, then what is? I propose that the following is where the Times editors disclose their true concerns, including the reason for the extreme haste about the pullout:

It is frighteningly clear that Mr. Bush’s plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the mess on his successor.

The Times is indeed terrified, not by the consequences of a pullout—either for the Iraqis (possible genocide, in the Times’s own words), or the resultant chaos in the region as a whole, or for the resultant loss of trust and respect for the US and its ability to keep its word (an issue that goes unmentioned and unnoticed by the Times).

What is the source of the terror the Times feels? It’s what’s known as “the Nixon scenario.”

Reader Eric Chen described it well in this comment on July 6:

Nixon came to office on a promise he would end what was painted as LBJ’s war. As far as our commitment to Vietnam, the Republican president accomplished what he said he’d do. However, popularly much blame for our history with Vietnam has been laid on Nixon; essentially, he is blamed by partisans for delivering on his promise because the actual extraction of America from Vietnam was not – could not be – as immaculate as the domestic political rhetoric.

I believe the Dems want very much to avoid a Nixon scenario where the next president – presumably a Democrat – would be forced to take charge and become accountable for the realities of the Iraq mission. Withdrawal from Iraq will be costly and ugly, with consequences and costs that will reshape the historical narrative. Rather than be responsible for their own political advocacy regarding Iraq, the Dems would rather that the current president take the political costs of the consequences of withdrawal from Iraq onto himself.

Thus, the undue haste. The Times drops another hint about this concern when the authors write:

Accomplishing all of this in less than six months is probably unrealistic. The political decision should be made, and the target date set, now.

The Times editors also state, earlier in the piece, “The political leaders Washington has backed are incapable of putting national interests ahead of sectarian score settling.” They are referring to those in charge in Iraq. But they might just as well be referring to themselves: score-settling—and, as Chen says, covering their own asses—is the name of their profoundly cynical, poorly-reasoned, and highly self-centered game.

More about those “inept” terrorists

The New Neo Posted on by

I recently read two diametrically opposed pieces about the dangerousness—or lack thereof—of the recent terrorist bombing attempts in Britain.

The first, by Steve Schippert at National Review Online, criticizes the reasoning of those who would buy into what I’ve called the Keystone cops view of terrorists. The second, by Matthew Parris in the TimesOnline, subscribes to that very view: the terrorist doctors weren’t evil, just sad and inept crackpots (and you can find my own post on the controversy here).

Schippert analyzes the known data on the bombs—realizing that some details of the information may also have been kept secret by authorities—and concludes that there’s no indication of anything especially inept about these bombers, who apparently made only one small mistake:

[The error in the design of the trigger] is a minor issue technically. Important, but minor. And it will be overcome by an intelligent and adaptive enemy.

And here, in a slightly longer version of the same article, Schippert also points out that ABC’s publication of this particular detail managed to inform the terrorists what the problem was so that they can work on fixing it for next time. How kind.

Parris, of course, is not concerned. Nor does he appear to be interested in evaluating whether the bombs actually were a serious effort or not before he dismisses them as worthless. No, Parris gives up on the question after quoting an amateur’s letter on the subject, and why? Because he doesn’t have an editor to help him out:

When it comes to the War on Terror, by which we usually mean explosions, we defer to political editors. They know no more chemistry than you or me. I can talk up a storm on the folly of George W. Bush or the evil that is Osama bin Laden, but I don’t actually know if that shoe bomber was in with a chance of bringing down an aeroplane; or whether blowing up an airport terminal in Scotland was ever a goer from the alleged terrorists’ point of view.

I don’t know either. But if I were a journalist writing for a major newspaper and discounting the seriousness of this terrorism attempt, and with access to all the resources (time, money, contacts, credentials) available to such a reporter, I would at least try to interview some bomb experts to get some hard information on the subject. But it seems to be beyond Parris’s powers—or maybe it just doesn’t interest him.

What does? This:

…something is changing in the public mood, and I think it’s this: terrorism is beginning to look a bit stupid. Those pictures of that idiotic and slightly overweight fellow with his clothes burnt off looked pathetic, undignified. It has occurred to even the meanest of intellects that concrete doesn’t burn.

And it isn’t just the technical competence of alleged British terrorists that people are beginning to doubt: it’s the whole jihadist idea. What world are they aiming for? Most British Muslims, just like most British everyone-else, think it’s all pie in the sky: all rather silly.

Yes, silly. Not “evil” as the red tops would have it. Take care, neocon editors, prime-ministerial speechwriters and opposition spokesmen, with that word “evil”….We’re not talking anything as clever as Evil here: we’re talking Weird, we’re talking Crackpot, we’re talking Sad.

Well, I could apply that same last sentence to Parrish himself, I suppose, if I were in a certain mood. And his choice of words to characterize the photos of the seriously burned terrorist are “weird,” as well—what do the man’s lack of dignity or his extra weight have to do with anything?

But far more importantly, there is absolutely nothing to be gained by lack of respect for an enemy that would—and has—successfully committed multiple mass murder. And, in fact, despite what Parris seems to think, there’s nothing new about considering the terrorists inept—it’s exactly what was thought here prior to 9/11.

Back then, even though there was plenty of evidence that much of the time terrorists were all too successful and “clever,” at least those who believed they were not had the excuse that the largest and most successful attack of all time—9/11—had not yet occurred. What’s Parris’s excuse?

Michael Yon and Matt Sanchez: boots—and word processors—on the ground

The New Neo Posted on by

Michael Yon has been doing some fine work lately in writing about how the surge is going in Iraq. It’s sad that independent journalists dependent on donations (such as Yon) are forced to do this on their own because the MSM seems to not want to touch such stories.

Yon’s efforts have been highlighted here, in a piece that describes how he has been trying to get the word out about what’s been happening in areas such as Diyala. Take a look and spread the word; the MSM won’t do so.

And this excellent must-read by Matt Sanchez, a corporal in the Marine Corps reserves and an embed reporter in Iraq, says a great deal about what’s driving media coverage in Iraq and thus shaping the hearts and minds of most Americans. He decries the utter lack of accountability demanded of the media, and the ignorance of most journalists about war itself and this conflict in particular:

Unlike any other player on the board, the press has no oversight, no mandate, few penalties, and even fewer consequences. In Fallujah, a suicide bomber kills one victim, but an “unidentified police officer” reports 20 dead and just as many casualties. Because there are not enough reporters on the ground, too many bureaus have outsourced both their reporting and standards to third-party “stringers” whose spectacular videos of explosions and inflated body counts have shown up on both jihadist recruiting sites and American television screens, simultaneously. These hacks-for-hire literally get more bucks for each bang.

Nothing happens? No cash from an image-driven 24-hour news cycle. Have the media made mistakes in coverage? No doubt. But in an industry where some claim to be “keeping them honest,” there’s no penalty for false or misleading reports. With accountability about as valid as last week’s newspaper, reporters still maintain carte blanche in their work. For a group that habitually decries abuse of power and unilateralism, who watches the watchmen?

Well, people like Yon and Sanchez do. But their voices are not being disseminated in a way that can even begin to compete with that of the MSM.

I try to do my own small part in trying to spread the word. I hope you do yours.


Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: fattening up

The New Neo Posted on by

Everybody knows how fashionable it has become for Western women to starve themselves for beauty. And recently I wrote this post on how many other ways we’ve pummeled and badgered and beaten the body in the quest for greater attractiveness (and by “we,” I mean both sexes, although in our society and many others, women do seem to pursue these things more—um—vigorously).

Beauty, of course, is not only in the eye of the beholder—it’s in the society of the beholder. And it turns out that in Mauritania, thin is most definitely not in. The retro, Rubenesque look is so popular that young girls are fattened up with special diets—and even steroids—not for the kill, but for the opposite sex. Mauritanian men prefer them that way.

I said they weren’t being fattened up for the kill, but doctors believe the process may end up killing some of them anyway, from diseases such as diabetes that are far more prevalent among the overweight. There’s a campaign going on to educate people in Mauritania on the risks involved, but it’s not getting too much traction. Old habits die hard.

The Mauritanians are not alone in liking their women more corpulent than we do, but apparently they have taken it to unusual extremes. For decades women there were subjected to a procedure known as gavage (after the French process of force-feeding geese to create the delicacy known as foie gras). The details were quite ghastly indeed, and such extremes are now rare in the country, although overeating and drug abuse to gain weight are not.

Like most of these practices, it is probably the case that women tend to perpetuate them on themselves or their daughters. But in this they are driven by the desire to be the objects of male desire—an understandable motivation, to be sure, but one that, taken to extremes, can certainly lead to problems. And although these problems are hardly confined to Mauritania, the particular form they took there—the human, rather than the goose, gavage—is (as far as I know) unique to that country.

Gavage is bad, and I’m happy to hear it’s mostly been phased out. But the mulafa sounds awfully fine—ladies, your search for the most slimming garment on earth may be over:

Mohamed el-Moktar Ould Salem, a 52-year-old procurement officer, blames the brightly colored, head-to-toe mulafas that hide all but the most voluptuous female curves for shaping the men’s preferences. A slender woman, he said, “just looks like a stick wrapped up.”

The power of words: let’s just say we won in Iraq

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In a remarkable column by Terence Samuels at The American Prospect, the author praises Montana’s Democratic Senator Jon Tester for the following suggestion regarding the dilemma of what to do about the war in Iraq:

He begins with the idea that the war in Iraq is won, not lost, and that we should pat ourselves firmly on the back and get the hell out. Clearly, with casualties rising and the situation increasingly hopeless, it requires a high quality conceit [to] declare victory in Iraq. But if the aim is to get out, a little rationalizing may be a small price to pay.

Samuels clearly does not believe the war has been won, not by a long shot. But does Tester? He has stated that our initial goals in going into Iraq—the search for WMDs, the deposing of Saddam, and free elections—have in fact been achieved.

That is true, as far as it goes. But it’s also true that without a more stable government there, achievement of the last goal will not be true in any meaningful sense for long.

It’s also true that initial goals in a war are not the same goals as the reconstruction after a war, and that’s the stage we are in, like it or not: occupation. The Marshall Plan and the postwar occupation of Japan were not part of the original war goals, but without them World War II would have inexorably led to even greater problems it did.

So Tester’s “solution” is short-sighted at best. But Samuels hits the nail on the head when he says that the real goal is “to get out,” and declaring victory is just a political tool to make the getaway more politically palatable domestically.

How it plays in Peoria, however, is not how it plays in the world. And if all the world is a stage, it’s the world stage we should be interested in here, not petty domestic politics (the latter, I’m afraid, a concern not historically limited to the Democrat side of the aisle). And the world will see through this particular ploy immediately, and find it contemptible, laughable, and weak.

Another characteristic Tester’s proposal has is that it indicates a strong and almost delusional belief in the power of words to create reality. Yes indeed, labels do influence perceptions, but not that much. If Tester or Samuels actually believe that the Islamicist totalitarian jihadis will suddenly say, “ooops, I guess we lost after all” if victory is declared along with a premature pullout, leaving the Iraqis vulnerable to terrorist and/or Iranian/Syrian takeover, then Tester and Samuels are either remarkably naive, remarkably stupid, or both.

Samuels ends his piece on a cryptic note. After quoting Tester as saying that he can no longer give Bush the benefit of the doubt that he will end the Iraq war, Samuels writes:

For Democrats, even as they disagree on how to respond, that is the bottom line. As more Republican lawmakers come to the same conclusion, so too will the war come to its end. It’ll be clear then who will have won.

It will be clear who will have won what? The war in Iraq? Or the war Samuels seems to consider the more important one, the political battle over which party’s vision of that war will prevail?

[ADDENDUM: I’ve written at length previously about the conundrum presented by the lack of definition of what “success” would look like in the war in Iraq. Please see this and this.]

Giving smallpox to the Native Americans

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When the Europeans came to this continent, it was already inhabited by millions of indigenous peoples, originally and (erroneously) called “Indians” by the invaders, and later known by the more PC term “Native Americans” (although, just to confuse things even further, it appears that those Native Americans now consider certain variations of either term acceptable).

What happened to the native population of North America? Why did its numbers plummet so drastically?

In the 60s it became commonplace to emphasize the anti-Indian racism of early settlers in this country, as well as their predilection for wiping out Native Americans. There’s no question that these accusations are not based on complete fabrication. But you may or may not be astonished to learn that the vast majority of indigenous peoples on the North American continent were not deliberately eliminated by the Europeans (and I mean the vast majority—scroll down in the following link to the category “depopulation from disease” for details) but were instead killed by diseases the Europeans inadvertently brought with them.

According to the evidence and our best knowledge of what happened, these illnesses were spread by initial sporadic contact, so that by the time permanent settlers were arriving the native population was already quite sparse in certain areas. For example, close to 90% of the Indians in some parts of the continent (100% in some islands) are estimated to have died of disease fairly soon after first contact (see this and the previous link for more details).

Europeans died in droves of disease, as well, and syphilis may or may not have been a “gift” the Indians inadvertently gave them in return. But although diseases such as smallpox ravaged European populations, they were far more virulent among Native Americans, who had not been exposed to them before.

In circles in which it has become fashionable to attribute the worst of all possible motives to Westerners, it is an accepted truth that the history of US settlers vis a vis the native population is one of unrelieved murder and mayhem. And make no mistake about it, there was plenty of that to go around. The settlers believed it was their business to take over, and were ruthless about doing so.

It is far beyond the scope of this post to review the history of European and Native American contacts and relations, but any idea that the latter were some sort of ideal people, free from violence and conflict prior to encountering the settlers, is absolutely false. Native Americans had their share of inter-tribal conflicts, and in fact some of the early wars between the settlers and the Indians exploited these already-existing rivalries.

If you read the links, however, you’ll discover that the earliest contacts between settlers and Indians were basically friendly and mutually respectful. But clashes were inevitable as the settlements grew and began to be a greater threat to traditional Indian life. In this there is nothing unusual about American history; such is the way of the world, unfortunately, and conflicts between previously-existing groups and new arrivals are often bloody and vicious.

The acknowledgment that Native Americans had been mistreated in this country for centuries is certainly a statement of fact. But, as with so much of history, misconceptions abound, and the tendency is to err on the side of imputing even greater villainy to the settlers than is warranted. Many people who are not aware of the role of disease in the picture have the idea that the settlers came in and wiped out millions by indiscriminate and intentional slaughter, certainly an erroneous point of view (and see this, by the way, for the difficulty of even estimating the actual pre-Columbian indigenous population figures).

Both the early settlers—and the Indians themselves—tended to believe that the decimation of the native population by disease, and the relative immunity of the Europeans, were examples of the workings and will of the deity. This reaction is not hard to imagine psychologically—such things are often seen as punishment for sins by those (in this case, both groups) who don’t understand the science of viruses and disease resistance. The resultant fear and depression in the native populations, as well as the disorganization of communities that had lost so many important members, could arguably have contributed to their marginalization, as well.

The vast majority of us no longer see disease as a consequence of divine will. But it is still seen by some as an aspect of political ill will, perpetrated by those nefarious Western invaders. Thus, the legend of the smallpox-infected blankets, given by settlers to Indians to deliberately infect them with disease.

Legend, you say? Isn’t it amply documented that this in fact happened?

It turns out, however, that the story rests on two foundations, one utterly discredited and one not. The first we can deal with quickly: our old friend Ward Churchill (yes, the very same) fabricated a story (thoroughly discredited here by a scholar relatively reluctant to debunk him) that the US army attempted to give smallpox to native Americans in the 1830’s. Not true.

The second allegation has more legs to it. There is strong evidence that such a plan was at least discussed in letters exchanged between General Jeffrey Amherst and Colonel Henry Bouquet, British (not American; the time was pre-Revolutionary) commanders during the French and Indian War. Although there is no indication that they ever followed through on their plot, they certainly contemplated it while at the same time expressing intense hatred for Indians.

Another allegation to back up the previous story is the mention of blankets donated from a smallpox hospital in order to “have the desired effect.” It occurs in the Journal of William Trent, commander of the local militia. However, a more careful reading of Trent’s journal indicates that the “desired effect” in Trent’s eyes (there’s no evidence he knew of the plans of Amherst and Bouquet, or of whether smallpox could be spread in this way) was to cement good relations, not bad (see this; scroll down about halfway].

That’s it, however. Hardly a lengthy history of death-by-intentionally-donated blanket. The truth of this aspect of US history—treatment of indigenous peoples—is bad and sad enough, although hardly unique in the annals of the planet. But the temptation to portray the conduct of the settlers as even worse than it was is apparently irresistible.

[ADDENDUM: This post was sparked by a discussion in the comments section of yesterday’s entry, see this and this. Regarding the subject matter of the first comment—whether smallpox was in fact brought over by the first Europeans to come to the new world, I believe the answer is that indeed it was. Columbus’s first voyage, for example, took thirty-two days (from the Canaries), and if some of his sailors had been infected with smallpox at the outset and infected others on the ship, there could easily be sailors still infectious when they disembarked. Most smallpox victims survive (and some have relatively mild cases), the disease is spread through aerosol dispersion, and the infectious period lasts up to three weeks after symptoms appear, which in turn can be up to seventeen days after initial exposure to the infection. Thus, the period between exposure and the end of the possibility of transmitting the disease to others can be up to thirty-eight days. And this, of course, does not even factor in the previously mentioned sailor-to-sailor spread, which could increase the time period for infectiousness of the crew significantly.]

Independence Day, heroes, and villains

The New Neo Posted on by

Today is the Fourth of July, our Independence Day. Although the focus is on fireworks and barbecues—a tradition I intend to perpetuate this evening—deep down, this particular holiday is really about American history.

John Adams, one of our founding fathers, knew this, although he was off two days on the date. As he presciently wrote to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776:

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

“Forever more” is a long time, to be sure. But so far the celebration is holding.

History often seems inevitable after it happens, and we tend to forget it is not—and that, most especially, the outcome is not known to those who live through the events in real time. The United States had a precarious existence at first, and Francis Scott Keys’s uncertainty about America’s continuance was not a ploy when he wrote of the fledgling United States in terms of a question, not a statement, “O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave/o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

Abraham Lincoln was determined to make sure the answer to Keys’s question would be, “Yes.” My old-fashioned education required that we fifth-graders memorize the Gettysburg address, and although at the time the I thought its opening phrase “Four score and seven years ago…”—referring back, of course, to 1776—sounded like a long time had passed, as I got older it occurred to me that when Lincoln spoke the nation was still relatively young and facing the greatest test of its existence, with the outcome unknown.

Lincoln wondered whether a nation devoted to liberty and the proposition that all men are created equal (and for “men” read “humans”) could continue to endure. He knew full well that such “equality” was imperfect under the law of the land; correcting flaws in its application to blacks was part of the reason for the Civil War that was being fought under his remarkable and eloquent aegis.

Independence Day isn’t about being perfect and celebrating that perfection. It’s about acknowledging the wonderful and optimistic vision of the original founders, being thankful for those in the past who have preserved it, and trying to honor it in the future. There are those who think our present government to be so pernicious that it has perverted the intent of the Declaration of Independence. There are others who, like me, think our government flawed but basically sound and that no such perversion has occurred, although course corrections are sometimes required—and have always been required—in our not-so-long history as a nation.

Speaking of that history—I’ve written before about the fact that the criticism of Lincoln by his own contemporaries was at least as bad (and very similar) to that meted out to Bush. This does not mean I’m equating the two in terms of statesmanship or vision or judgment; I am not. But my high estimation of Lincoln—and yours—was not shared by most of his contemporaries.

Here’s a quote on the subject from the excellent book American Brutus, Michael W. Kauffman’s biography of John Wilkes Booth:

The Civil War was unlike anything known in modern times, and the nation came closer to collapse than most people realize today. Emancipation of slaves, confiscation of property, and the draft often led to deadly clashes between the public and civil authorities. The political storm threatened not only the federal government, but state governments as well”¦In the middle stood Abraham Lincoln, blamed for the war and fired upon from all sides. It was not just the fringe element who hated the president; judges, senators, editors, and otherwise respectable citizens left no doubt of their contempt for him as well. One senator compared Lincoln to the tyrants of history, saying “They are all buried beneath the wave of oblivion compared to what this man of yesterday, this Abraham Lincoln, that neither you nor I ever heard of four years ago, has chosen to exercise”¦”

As I’ve written before, this isn’t the sort of thing one hears about in grade school or even high school history classes. Ordinarily one has to be in college level courses to be exposed to these rather startling facts of history as it was actually lived. But most people stop taking history courses before reaching that point, unfortunately, and therefore have little of substance to refer to when attempting to compare our present situation to the past.

Some believe the teaching of the history of the United States should involved focusing on the bad—the errors and misdeeds—over the good, and that teaching the latter is somehow jingoistic. Some believe that anything offending the tender sensibilities of some child or group of children or parents should be excluded, as well, and that history should be a PC endeavor to cater to all interest and ethnic groups.

I would like instead to see the teaching of a realistic and representative balance between the good and the bad in our history; and an awareness of the fact that although this nation is indeed flawed, that is only a reflection of the flawed human condition rather than some special and unique failing of our own. On balance, the US has a more heroic and inspiring vision than most, and has lived up to it far better and far more often than one might have expected, given the nature of humanity. And this is something to celebrate.

Mark Steyn has written that Prime Minister Howard of Australia has said the teaching of history in that country should be taught as a “heroic national narrative.” That’s a novel thought, is it not? But I think our history could honestly be described that way. Remember, real-life heroes are not Supermen; they make errors and have weaknesses, and they struggle to overcome them. Our own Civil War was an example of one of these struggles to correct a major flaw in the execution of the concept that all are created equal, and to more perfectly fulfill the original vision in the Declaration of Independence. There will be other such corrections, no doubt, in our future—hopefully, neither as wrenching not as bloody.

But we must be careful not to overcorrect or overreact; the Fourth of July is not a day of national breast-beating. It’s as good a day as any, and better than some, to celebrate the remarkable and laudable vision under which this nation was founded, and to be deeply grateful for those who have preserved and expanded that vision. The fact that its execution will always be imperfect is no reason to consider ourselves the villains of the piece. There are enough true villains out there for comparison, if anyone cares to look.

On liberty

The New Neo Posted on by

[I’ve been too busy to write today, so in honor of the Fourth, this is a repeat of an old post. See you tomorrow.]

I’ve been visiting New York City, the place where I grew up. I decide to take a walk to the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights, never having been there before.

When you approach the Promenade you can’t really see what’s in store. You walk down a normal-looking street, spot a bit of blue at the end of the block, make a right turn–and, then, suddenly, there is New York.

And so it is for me. I take a turn, and catch my breath: downtown Manhattan rises to my left, seemingly close enough to touch, across the narrow East River. I see skyscrapers, piers, the orange-gold Staten Island ferry. In front of me, there are the graceful gothic arches of the Brooklyn Bridge. To my right, the back of some brownstones, and a well-tended and charming garden that goes on for a third of a mile.

I walk down the promenade looking first left and then right, not knowing which vista I prefer, but liking them both, especially in combination, because they complement each other so well.

All around me are people, relaxing. Lovers walking hand in hand, mothers pushing babies in strollers, fathers pushing babies in strollers, nannies pushing babies in strollers. People walking their dogs (a prepoderance of pugs, for some reason), pigeons strutting and courting, tourists taking photos of themselves with the skyline as background, every other person speaking a foreign language.

The garden is more advanced from what it must be at my house, reminding me that New York is really a southern city compared to New England. Daffodils, the startling blue of grape hyachinths, tulips in a rainbow of soft colors, those light-purple azaleas that are always the first of their kind, flowering pink magnolia and airy white dogwood and other blooming trees I don’t know the names of.

In the view to my left, of course, there’s something missing. Something very large. Two things, actually: the World Trade Center towers. Just the day before, we had driven past that sprawling wound, with its mostly-unfilled acreage where the WTC had once stood, now surrounded by fencing. Driving by it is like passing a war memorial and graveyard combined; the urge is to bow one’s head.

As I look at the skyline from the Promenade, I know that those towers are missing, but I don’t really register the loss visually. I left New York in 1965, never to live there again, returning thereafter only as occasional visitor. The World Trade Center was built in the early seventies, so I never managed to incorporate it into that personal New York skyline of memory that I hold in my mind’s eye, even though I saw the towers on every visit. So, what I now see resembles nothing more than the skyline of my youth, restored, a fact which seems paradoxical to me. But I feel the loss, even though I don’t see it. Viewing the skyline always has a tinge of sadness now, which it never had before 9/11.

I come to the end of the walkway and turn myself around to set off on the return trip. And, suddenly, the view changes. Now, of course, the garden is to my left and the city to my right; and the Brooklyn Bridge, which was ahead of me, is now behind me and out of sight. But now I can see for the first time, ahead of me and to the right, something that was behind me before. In the middle of the harbor, the pale-green Statue of Liberty stands firmly on its concrete foundation, arm raised high, torch in hand.

The sight is intensely familiar to me–I used to see it almost every day when I was growing up. But I’ve never seen it from this angle before. She seems both small and gigantic at the same time: dwarfed by the skyscrapers near me that threaten to overwhelm her, but towering over the water that surrounds her on all sides. The eye is drawn to her distant, heroic figure. She’s been holding that torch up for so long, she must be tired. But still she stands, resolute, her arm extended.

Who’s afraid of the big bad terrorists?

The New Neo Posted on by

Police speculate that three recent car bomb incidents in Britain are related. Perhaps al Qaeda is part of the picture, perhaps not. But all three car bombs had a similar modus operandi to one another, and the outcomes of all three were exactly what you would want from a terrorist attack: no one was hurt, or it was only the terrorists themselves that were injured.

This allows us to add these particular events to the fairly long list of what you might call the Keystone Cops school of terrorist activity—would-be perpetrators who don’t seem to be able to do much more than harm themselves. It also allows those on the Left who are so inclined, to pooh-pooh the threat of terrorism and to mock those who take it seriously (I’m not going to link to the particular Leftist blogs in question and add to their traffic—but if you’re especially interested, a typical such site can be found if you follow the appropriate link here).

I’ve written at some length previously on the topic of the Left’s accusations that the Right is motivated by irrational fear. What interests me more right now about the current terrorist activity in Britain, and the reaction of the Left to it, is the use of the “incompetence” meme.

Until 9/11, Islamic terrorists in Western countries had a reputation as bumblers. This despite their deadly success on foreign soil: the Khobar Towers, Pan Am Flight 103, the US Embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, and the USS Cole.

This “bumbler” reputation should have been put to rest by 9/11, but it was not. And the long list of exceedingly successful attacks on Western allies since 9/11 ought to indicate a very serious intent and threat, as well: the London subway bombings, the Bali nightclub carnage, and the Madrid train bombings, to name just a few.

But the lack of major attacks in the US since 9/11 has allowed many people to think of that day as an anomaly, and to focus instead on failed attempts. Successful terrorist attacks may not be easy to execute perfectly, but there’s absolutely no reason to think they cannot and will not be, simply because so many fail. The pattern is to try, try again if unsuccessful, till they get it right. In that respect 9/11 itself is a good case in point.

The WTC attack of 1993 was an extremely serious one that killed six people and injured over a thousand others. But it was not taken all that seriously by many in the general public because the number of people murdered was so small compared to the grandiose plans of the perpetrators, and because of certain details of how they were caught—particularly the fact that one of them was arrested while trying to collect a deposit on the rental van involved in the explosion (a “Saturday Night Live” touch if ever there was one).

But the intent was every bit as deadly as the 2001 attack that toppled the buildings. In fact, the intent was the same—mastermind Ramzi Yousef fully intended to destroy the towers, and only missed accomplishing that goal by a slightly faulty placement of the bomb, according to the WTC architect’s testimony in the trial.

The difference between a plan that can be viewed as farcical and almost comical, and one that is as horrific and deadly as 9/11, can be surprisingly small. If something had gone wrong with the terrorists’ plans and/or execution on 9/11—bad weather, perhaps, or a greater ability of the intelligence community to connect the dots—they would have seemed to be incompetent bumblers like the earlier plotters. And the same might have ended up being true, in reverse, of these most recent would-be terrorists—if they’d been just a bit more technically competent, they might have perpetrated a horrific mass murder.

Nothing prior to 9/11 prepared us for that day, although many things should have. Nothing subsequent has indicated terrorists have given up on attacking us.

One thing is certain: if another large attack occurs, we cannot say it came as a surprise, or that the perpetrators were incompetent fools.