RIP Claudia Taylor Johnson, aka Lady Bird

The New Neo Posted on by

Lady Bird Johnson has died at the age of 94. I’ve referred to her by her given name in the title of this post, not just because I always thought her nickname silly, but because she did:

Lady Bird Johnson received her nickname in infancy from a caretaker nurse who said she was as “pretty as a lady bird.” It was the name by which the world would come to know her. She disliked it, but said later, “I made my peace with it.”

Lady Bird met her fate in the titanic Lyndon and embarked on a wild roller coaster ride. I’ve written before about some of the more difficult aspects of their marriage. And take a look here for a fascinating description of their courtship.

It couldn’t have been easy, but I doubt she regretted it. By all accounts, the lady was a real class act.

56-41 and fight: the Senate’s latest vote on Iraq

The New Neo Posted on by

It wasn’t really a vote about Iraq, not directly. The bill was a proposal by Senators Hagel and Webb that members of the US military be given the same amount of time at home as they’ve served overseas. If passed, it would have effectively limited the number of troops serving in Iraq at any one time.

But the bill never made it to an actual vote on the merits, because the preliminary poll on the question of limiting debate failed to muster the needed sixty “ayes.” This is an indication that, at least at present, at least in the Senate, the support does not exist to override a Presidential veto (two-thirds), even if the bills in question were to come to a vote and to pass with a simple majority.

This particular bill was a mild one compared to some others; so if it was a trial balloon, it was a bust. And since Bush has recently made it clear he’s not caving—despite many earlier wish-fulfillment articles in the MSM speculating that he might—it seems that current attempts to curtail the Iraqi campaign are probably not going to work.

That doesn’t mean that things can’t change, and momentum build for successful antiwar legislation a bit later in the game.

The jihadis, of course, are probably watching the whole thing with great amusement.

Meanwhile, the almost comatose campaign of the beleagured John McCain limps on. But McCain himself does’t sound beaten, especially on this topic. Yesterday he gave a speech that masterfully summed up the situation in Iraq and in Congress. Read it.

The MSM continues to trumpet every possible Republican defection—or even any Republican voicing of doubt (see this, for example, in which Elizabeth Dole repeats what Bush already has said about the amount of time available to the Iraqi government not being indefinite; see this for a fuller explanation of where Dole actually stands at present and her relatively mild differences with the official party line).

And Harry Reid continues to exist in his own alternate reality:

“If there were real signs of progress or real reason for hope, that might make sense,” he said, before adding: “Mr. President, there is no evidence the escalation is working.”

It’s clear that Reid doesn’t read the Wall Street Journal. Or if he does, he doesn’t believe it. Or if he does read it and believe it, he doesn’t think his constituency does either, so he can safely ignore it.

But Reid and ilk don’t need no steenking evidence, nor do they really want it. What they want is out, and they want it ASAP, before they are left holding a rather large, unwieldy—and steenking—bag.

Reid to Iraqis: do as I say, not as I do

The New Neo Posted on by

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has presided over a legislature that so far has done very little that the Democrats set out to do when they won the 2006 election, except to further political squabbling. The country remains bitterly divided on most issues, and Congress’s approval rating reflects the extreme dissatisfaction most Americans feel for that body.

With that background, you’d think Reid would cut the fledgling Iraqi government a bit of slack. But no. In his haste to deplore the surge before it has a chance to truly get underway, Reid made the following extraordinary statement:

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.

I can’t resist pointing out the irony of Reid’s expectations for the Iraqis. In an atmosphere of internecine violence there (much of it perpetrated by outsiders), the country’s lack of a democratic tradition of compromise, and the legacy of decades of torture and a police state, Reid faults that government for its failure to accomplish in just a few weeks of “surge” exactly what he and most other politicians in Washington—under far less pressure and strife—have also failed to do: make the compromises necessary to unite the nation.

Physician Reid, heal thyself.

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

The New Neo Posted on by

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

The New Neo Posted on by

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

The New Neo Posted on by

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

The New Neo Posted on by

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.]