Blinking first: what did the Democrats think was going to happen?

The New Neo Posted on by

The consensus appears to be that the Democrats in Congress have blinked on the issue of troop withdrawal (see this and this and this, for starters).

This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has followed the story. From the start, it’s been clear that the Democrats spearheading the effort did not have the votes to override Bush’s certain veto of any such measure.

That’s why I’ve referred to the Democratic campaign to force withdrawal and/or fundcutting as “theater” and “games.” There never seemed a realistic chance of the measures actually becoming law; to do that would require Republican support of a magnitude that was extremely unlikely to be forthcoming.

The surprise to me is not the Democratic flinch in the face of Bush’s “stubbornness.” The surprise is that this course of events is a surprise to anyone. The MSM—and some of the Democrats—are certainly acting as though it is (although perhaps this is a bit of theater as well; sometimes it’s hard to tell the players without a program).

The Democratic base is angry. This is not surprising. After all, the base in both parties is composed of the diehards, the fanatics who don’t pay a whole lot of attention to practicality or the law of thirds, or whether something actually has a chance of being implemented or not.

But the leaders themselves should be more hardnosed, since they’re the ones who have supposedly logged years of experience in political realities of the legislative kind. Who among them could ever have truly believed that this particular portion of the battle was likely to end any other way? Posture to the antiwar base, gain support for your efforts, ignore the message it sends our enemies, then back off when you see you don’t have the override votes, and hope you get an “A” for effort.

Some Democrats seem to recognize this, such as Representative James P. Moran, Democrat of Virginia, who says, “It [the backoff] was a concession to reality.”

Others, including Presidential candidate John Edwards, seem rather out of touch with reality (or more in touch with their own continuing theatrical performance). Edwards, who has staked out the antiwar wing of the party as the bulwark of his support, is in favor of drawing the following line in the sand:

Congress should send the same bill back to [Bush] again and again until he realizes he has no choice but to start bringing our troops home.

Them’s fightin’ words, all right. But what do they actually mean?

This is a sincere question on my part, not rhetoric. Even if I were an antiwar Democrat I don’t believe I’d understand exactly what Edwards is trying to say here, and that I’d consider his statement an exercise in illogic and futility.

There’s an old adage, variously attributed to Ben Franklin and Albert Einstein, that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So I wonder why John Edwards thinks that spending Congress’s time passing versions of the same bill over and over again, and sending them to the same President, who has vowed over and over again to veto them, would somehow get different results.

Perhaps Edwards is merely indicating to his base that he resembles them in his devotion to principle, and would ignore reality with the same doggedness they do, and thus is their champion and soulmate. What does it matter to them if the whole thing is a waste of time for a Congress that really ought to be paying more attention to passing meaningful legislation that might actually be of some benefit to people?

It’s not that I’m against perseverance. I understand that some tasks take time, and that hanging in there and trying again can ultimately accomplish them, especially with a slight but sometimes significant change of strategy. After all, that’s why I think the so-called “surge” and the appointment of Petraeus have at least a fighting chance of changing some things for the better in Iraq.

But this case is different. Pushing the same bills towards the same single and immovable object (Bush) is not going to have a different result. There are few imponderables and unknowns in the equation, unlike so many other human endeavors.

What leverage did the Democrats ever have over Bush, anyway? He’s not running for re-election, nor does he appear to think the political futures of moderate Republicans such as Susan Collins or Norm Coleman or Gordon Smith are worth paying the price of retreat in Iraq.

Whether you like Bush or hate him, it’s clear that Iraq is the single most important battle of his Presidency by far. In my opinion that’s not just because he’s loathe to admit he might have been wrong, but because he thinks it’s one of the most important battles in the world today. Whether you agree or disagree about his motives, it’s difficult to think of a single thing the Democrats (or Republicans, for that matter) could have done to make him back down and sign these bills. Certainly the action of repetitively passing the bills and sending them to him never had a chance of doing so.

Reading between the lines, I imagine that the Democrats really thought that the constant repetition would build a powerful groundswell of popular feeling that would put increasing pressure on the Republicans in Congress to change their vote and ultimately to override Bush’s veto. I suppose that could still happen. But my prediction is that Bush himself will never back down on this one, and that any Democrat who thinks he will is living in a dream world—or a political theater.

The Palestinians: when does a victim stop being a victim?

The New Neo Posted on by

Reflecting on the current carnage between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza, and on the ongoing violence in the Tripoli Palestinian refugee camps, Ralph Peters has written an article in today’s NY Post claiming that the Palestinians have been victimized for a long time, but not by the Israelis: by other Arabs, and by their own home-grown Palestinian leaders.

There’s no doubt about it, if you study history. The Palestinian refugees have been kept in a state of misery by the fellow-Arabs among whom they’ve stayed for decades (and now generations) as a sort of prominent window display of suffering. The goal? To prove Israeli perfidy, deflect attention from Arab failings, and get the world’s attention and sympathy.

If at any point there had been any true intent to absorb the Palestinians into the local population in the way of refugees almost everywhere (and in the case of the Palestinians the task would have been relatively easy, because they differ so little both ethnically and culturally from the people in the countries in which they found their somewhat dubious “refuge”), it would have been done long ago.

One of the sad things about the Tripoli violence is that it’s an example of the exploitation of the Palestinians by their brethren Arabs. As often is the case with a weakened host, the Palestinian camps in question have apparently been taken over by foreign al Qaeda elements that seem to have been the initial cause of the violence. The camps themselves were previously off-limits to the Lebanese, who’ve steered clear of them in a long-established agreement with the PLO, a group clearly incapable of keeping out even more violent elements than themselves.

As in the case of most long-term welfare recipients, the Palestinians have been ill-served by their singular history of having been on the UN dole for almost sixty years. As journalist (and Hemingway wife) Martha Gellhorn presciently wrote back in 1961 (quoted in this post of mine, which I urge you to read in its entirety):

The unique misfortune of the Palestinian refugees is that they are a weapon in what seems to be a permanent war….[T]oday, in the Middle East, you get a repeated sinking sensation about the Palestinian refugees: they are only a beginning, not an end. Their function is to hang around and be constantly useful as a goad.

The goad has worked; the Palestinians became masters of propaganda, if nothing else. Oh, and of killing. As Peters points out, now that they’ve had a chance at self-government in Gaza since the Israeli withdrawal of 2005, they have made a bloody (literally) mess of it.

But why expect anything else? Despite their status as victims of their Arab brethren, and as poster children for victimization in general, they have become victimizers—not just, or even primarily, of the Israelis their suicide bombers target—but of other Arabs, and of themselves.

This is not a new story. In fact, it’s a very old one. Arafat was probably the most corrupt and violent victimizer of Arabs in the post-WWII age. He robbed his own people blind, yes, and killed so much of the opposition that many moderate Palestinian voices (and they did exist in greater numbers in the past) were silenced effectively, and forever, by death. (If you are curious to know some of the details, please pull up a chair and read “In a Ruined Country: how Yassir Arafat destroyed Palestine,” an article written by David Samuels that appeared in the September 2005 issue of The Atlantic).

But Palestine was not alone; Arafat’s modus operandi was to wreak havoc wherever he went. Where, for instance, did the name “Black September”—used by the Arafat-affiliated terrorist group that put the PLO on the map with the 1972 Munich Olympic Massacre—come from?

“Black September” originally referred to the events of September 1970, in Jordan. The Palestinians are, after all, virtually identical in ethnicity to most of the population of Jordan, and originally Arafat and many Palestinian refugees found a home there. But he tried to overthrow the government of that new home, and so King Hussein saw fit to do a little housecleaning—to the tune of approximately seven to eight thousand Palestinian dead—in September of 1970, eliminating the Palestinian presence there in order to preserve his own rule.

The Left is relatively silent about events such as these—after all, the perpetrators were not the Israelis, so who cares?—but the result was that Arafat and thousands of his troublemakers were expelled from Jordan and took up residence in a little place known as Lebanon, where they proceeded to wreak more havoc. The until-then relatively stable Lebanon has never been the same since their arrival.

Wading back into the history of the formation of the state of Israel always brings out bitter contention and argument. I’ve no desire to refight that battle at the moment, although it almost inevitably comes up in the comments section (and I’ve noticed that posts about Israel tend to be powerful troll-magnets).

So I’ll just say here that, whether you believe the Israelis cruelly drove the Palestinians away, or whether you think the Palestinians—with the strong encouragement of their fellow-Arabs—cooked their own goose by refusing the country they were handed by partition and leaving Israel to make room for the easy Arab victory and takeover they thought would follow, their subsequent history has been as equal-opportunity dealers of destruction, chaos, and death.

So, when do victims such as the Palestinians stop being objects of sympathy and become acknowledged as the perpetrators of misery, some of it their own? When will the world demand that the Palestinians cease riding their victimization and using it as an excuse for corruption and brutality? I think that time is long overdue.

Martha Gellhorn thought so too, back in 1961:

It is hard to sorrow for [the Palestinian refugees] who only sorrow over themselves. It is difficult to pity the pitiless. To wring the heart past all doubt…[they] cannot have wished for a victorious rewarding war, blame everyone else for their defeat, and remain guiltless”¦.

Arabs gorge on hate, they roll in it, they breathe it. Jews top the hate list, but any foreigners are hateful enough. Arabs also hate each other, separately and, en masse. Their politicians change the direction of their hate as they would change their shirts. Their press is vulgarly base with hate-filled cartoons; their reporting describes whatever hate is now uppermost and convenient. Their radio is a long scream of hate, a call to hate. They teach their children hate in school. They must love the taste of hate; it is their daily bread. And what good has it done them?

And remember, that passage was written before the 1967 war.

Leadership and style: Sarkozy, JFK, LBJ, and GWB

The New Neo Posted on by

Nidra Poller’s article about Sarkozy’s first few days in office reminds me once again of how important leadership can be in setting a new tone for a country and giving it a fresh breath of hope.

Maybe this is just a honeymoon, and the energy flowing through France right now will stagnate once again. But maybe not. For the moment, at least, it appears that a country that seemed mired in listlessness and old patterns of special interest groups has a new belief in itself, and a notion that things might actually have a chance of changing for the better there.

Among the reasons I find Sarkozy a fascinating figure is that he seems to possess qualities of leadership that are rare these days. “Leader” has been a somewhat tainted word in recent decades, perhaps because we associate it with brutal tyrants and/or mindless followers. In addition, the rebellious spirit of the 60s is not dead; those “question authority” bumper stickers are still in evidence, and those sporting them are inclined to question whole notion of leadership.

But leadership shouldn’t be questioned or rejected reflexively. A true leader can be bad or good; he/she is rarely indifferent. One of Bush’s great lacks is his inability to convey true leadership—a quality hard to define, but people know it when they see it.

Leadership is always somewhat connected with style, which seems an unfortunate and trivial thing until you think about it—because, after all, “style” is made up of many things, some of them deeply connected with character, and only some of them superficial. Sarkozy’s can-do and energetic style communicates the perception that he has the ability to act effectively, something France has apparently been hungering after for quite some time now.

France is lucky that Sarkozy appeared when he did—although that raises the ancient question of whether leaders make history or history makes leaders (I believe both are true). The US is hungering for something or someone similar, I think, and none of our candidates for 2008 quite make the grade.

The initial rush of enthusiasm for Obama reflected this desire, but unlike Sarkozy, Obama seems fuzzy around the edges and very green in terms of experience. McCain has the disadvantage of seeming like yesterday’s papers. Clinton and Giuliani have been around a long time, as well, and we’ve grown somewhat tired of them. The others seem to lack a certain je ne sais quoi, or to be too slick, or to be too narrow in their politics, to generate much excitement.

One of the most important things a leader conveys is hope. Despite being an older candidate, Reagan (whom I didn’t like at the time) had this quality in spades. The extremely youthful JFK had it as well, in addition to a wit and charm that was entertaining and refreshing (take a look at some of his old press conferences to see what I’m talking about, although the clips in question aren’t his best, at least according to my recollection).

I distinctly remember that one of the many sorrows of the Kennedy assassination was the contrast between Kennedy’s freshness and energy and his successor LBJ’s leaden qualities. And this despite the fact that Johnson had proven himself to be a Congressional leader of towering proportions. But the role of Senate Majority Leader, which Johnson held for six years until he was elected Vice-President under Kennedy, requires different qualities of leadership than that of President.

Johnson was a wheeler-dealer and arm-twister (as well as intimidator) extraordinaire in the Senate, but these qualities didn’t help him when confronted with the morass of Vietnam, and his ability to communicate with the American people was poor. When he spoke in his capacity as President, this man—who in private had a sharp and scatological tongue—seemed plodding and almost dim-witted.

In fact, the much-later-released private tapes LBJ made of his telephone conversations show a very different man from his public persona. As Harry Middleton, former Johnson aide and director of the LBJ library says:

The presidential president was very formal and very stiff in many of his press conferences and public statements. One on one, to small groups, he was colorful, witty, funny, a marvelous character. And that’s the way he was in the telephone tapes.

The tapes show, however, that Johnson’s mind was cloudy and muddled on the topic of what to do about the Vietnam War. His doubts were voiced almost every step of the way—at least in private.

Leaders can have doubts, but they need to be decisive after they weigh the issue, and to somehow convey that sense of conviction. LBJ did not, and his inability to plot a Vietnam course that made sense to him as well as convey that he had done so were part of the tragedy of his Presidency and of that ill-fated war.

In George W. Bush’s case, I don’t think he’s plagued by internal doubts to anywhere near the extent that Johnson was. His critics would say that he’s not plagued by enough of them, even when evidence is overwhelming that things need changing (the surge was too late, for example). I tend to agree somewhat with those critics. But in addition, Bush suffers from another LBJ affliction: an uninspired public delivery that fails to communicate whatever it is that the public perceives as the leadership it needs. And that has been part of the tragedy of his Presidency.

The occupation of Iraq: forty years in the wilderness?

The New Neo Posted on by

I was at a talk recently given by one of my favorite Boston journalists and bloggers, Jules Crittenden. The conversation turned—as conversations often do these days—to the war and occupation in Iraq.

One of the themes that came up is the pace of change in a nation such as Iraq, previously subject to decades of bitter strife and vicious violence. This is where the realms of the political and the psychological intersect; generations brought up under a system such as was present in Iraq under Saddam are likely to hold different assumptions about the social contract, cooperation, and violence as a political tool than people brought up in a more civil and peaceful society tend to share.

That’s one of the reasons I always thought the postwar occupation of Iraq was going to have to be longer, and more directive, than those planning it seemed to think it would need to be. I had hoped they were correct, but it turns out they were not. Part of the reason, it must be said, is not anything about the Iraqi people themselves, but rather the intervention of their non-good neighbors Iran and Syria. But part of the reason is the understandably heavy and destructive psychological, political, and sociological legacy of the Saddam years.

I don’t believe, as some therapists do, that the mind is set virtually in stone very early in childhood. But I do believe that fundamental change is difficult, and that it is much easier to work with a younger generation to effect change in a society than it is to count on the older people.

The Palestinians know that full well, as do the makers of cigarettes. Still another example is the Biblical Passover story.

As the tale goes, after the Jews were freed from slavery they wandered in the wilderness (that’s the correct translation; it was not technically a desert) for forty years, one of those numbers in the Torah that is meant to stand for “a long time.”

Why? Why weren’t they rewarded by being shown the Promised Land instantly, or at least more quickly? The text says that they sometimes pined for the safety of their days of slavery in Egypt, and yearned after some of the good food that wasn’t available to them any more (manna from heaven apparently wasn’t quite as tasty as good old Egyptian melon).

The interpretation that I learned years ago, and that appeals to me most, is the following:

The [story] teaches us that there are no short-cuts to the Promised Land, and no instant transformation from bands of liberated slaves into responsible, self-governing nation; no generation of redemption (dor geulah) without a generation dying out in the desert (dor ha-midbar) preceding it.

So it’s not surprising that things are going slowly and laboriously in Iraq, and as I’ve written earlier, I never expected otherwise. Trying to create fundamental change in a broken society is one of the most difficult things to effect, and always has been, but as I wrote in the piece just linked, all the alternatives we faced (and still face) were worse.

It would be great if the Iraqi people had forty years in which to wander in the wilderness. But they don’t; the forces trying to destroy what they are trying to build are too powerful. But they certainly need and deserve more than a couple of months of our continued patience.

Hormones, heart disease, and breast cancer: first, do no harm

The New Neo Posted on by

For years, hormones were touted as the panacea for the menopausal and post-menopausal (dare I say, “aging”?) woman. HRT (hormone replacement therapy) was seen to be a fountain of youth in all respects, and who wouldn’t want that? Skin benefits, heart benefits, sexual benefits—you name it, hormones had it.

But in recent years the bloom is off the HRT rose. First it was the sad fact that, contrary to earlier reports, hormones not only didn’t prevent heart disease in women but even seemed to cause more of it. And recently the news from researchers is similar about breast cancer: hormones appear to either encourage new cases or accelerate the growth of already-present but as-yet-undiagnosed ones.

It’s a real bummer, to be sure. Although I’ve never taken the things, most of my friends do, and they’ve all had to make some tough decisions about symptom alleviation vs. risk of death.

The other question that comes to mind is: how on earth could medical researchers and doctors have gotten it so wrong, and for so long? And how do we know they are right now?

The short answer to the second question is: we don’t know. Our need to make our lives close to risk-free, although understandable, is unattainable. The short answer to the first question is that scientists use the best data possible at the time to make recommendations.

For example, as this article makes clear, the early data on hormones and heart disease was so promising that doctors felt secure in recommending them. In fact, the long-term studies on the topic were undertaken with such optimism, based on earlier and more limited studies, that doctors were convinced the larger studies would only serve to prove how very beneficial hormones were in preventing heart disease. They were shocked when the evidence proved them exceedingly wrong.

There is a certain amount of hubris in medicine, and a bit more caution when prescribing potentially dangerous drugs and interventions would be in order, so that the old oath of “first, do no harm” could be fulfilled. But doctors are also responding to our own demands for a pain- free life and eternal youth, and our impatience with the slow pace of medical knowledge and its fits and starts progress.

The West vs. jihadis: what sort of horse are we?

The New Neo Posted on by

I wrote yesterday that the current machinations of our Congress can only hearten the jihadis.

I just came across an opinion piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that drives home that idea. In it, Bernard Lewis—Princeton professor, scholar of Arab history and thought, and neocon advisor extraordinaire—makes a further point, which is that Muslim jihadis believe that they, not President Reagan or the West in general, were the real instruments of the downfall of the Soviets.

Makes a certain amount of sense, actually, despite its simplistic narrowness, because the Afghan War—interminable, unpopular, and above all costly—is widely regarded as one of several straws that broke the Soviet back.

Lewis also indicates that Osama (he of the famous strong/weak horse quote) and his followers considered the Soviets the far more powerful and ruthless “horse” compared to the United States, whose track record of response to terrorism, kidnappings, and the like displayed a muddled and well-meaning tolerance that was seen by the jihadis as weakness. Once the stronger opponent of al Qaeda, the Soviets, was defeated, it would be a relatively simple matter to overcome the weaker one, the US. In fact, we would probably cooperate in our own defeat.

The attacks of 9/11 were planned with that understandable mindset, but the muscular response of the US was a surprising break with precedent. Now there is evidence that the big stick we’ve been carrying has grown way too heavy for us to tolerate, and we ache to put it down and rest awhile.

Lewis is correct, I think, in saying that the jihadi perception of our weakness may be faulty; no one knows at this point what our response would be to another attack, for example. It may be that when push comes to shove, both parties in the US would unite to retaliate effectively and with strength no matter which party happens to be in charge at the time.

Or it may be that the whole thing will descend into political wrangling and impotence. But it seems clear to me that the signals we are now sending to the enemy only reinforce the idea that the US, despite all its weaponry and bluster, is a weak horse after all, and make future attack more likely.

More politics as theater in the Feingold-Reid bill: we know the players, but who’s the audience?

The New Neo Posted on by

The proposed Feingold-Reid bill to cut funding to the Iraqi troops by March of next year was resoundingly defeated in the Senate by a vote of 67 to 29. And yet it gained some previously equivocating adherents: Presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The proponents of this bill knew going into the show that it had no chance whatsoever of even passing, much less of surviving the veto it would surely encounter if passed. So, why waste everyone’s time voting on it? The answer is that, as Forbes put it, the vote was “a symbolic measure” designed to crank up pressure on President Bush.

The Times article mentions that the dispute over these bills on funding has taken many weeks of Congress’s time. How nice, especially considering that all of them were known in advance to have either no hope of passing (like the bill in question) or no hope of overriding a veto (like previous ones that have passed).

This is a time-honored political device, and the Democrats sponsoring the bill have every right to use it, of course. It plays very well with their base, and in fact this is why the previously reluctant Obama and Hillary voted for this particular piece of legislation. Democratic Senator Dodd, also running for the Presidency, had thrown out a challenge, highlighting their dilemma: not voting for the bill would cost them in the Democratic primaries, and voting for it could easily cost them votes with moderates if they actually won their party’s nomination.

And so the delicate balancing acts continue. Obama tried a sort of Kerry-esque “I’m sort of for it and sort of against it” routine when he said the bill was not the “best answer” and yet he was supporting it with the idea of sending “a strong statement to the Iraqi government, the president and my Republican colleagues that it’s long past time to change course.”

Mrs. Clinton voted in the interests of party unity, “because we, as a united party, must work together with clarity of purpose and mission to begin bringing our troops home and end this war.”

Perhaps all this playing politics to make a statement is one of the reasons that, although Bush’s approval is in the basement, Congress’s is in the sub-basement.

I’ve never quite understood this “pressure on Bush” business, anyway. Bush is not only known for his stubbornness, he’s on record as telling key Republicans (at least, according to Bob Woodward), “I will not withdraw [from Iraq] even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me.” He’s nowhere near down to just the wife and dog, although that country and western scenario seems to be the goal the Democrats have in mind.

Bush, of course, is not running for office again. So that source of pressure is not going to be operating. The other source of pressure would be, of course, how his actions would influence the election of other Republicans in 2008, including whomever the Presidential candidate might be. But somehow I don’t think Bush cares all that much; he sees Iraq as a larger issue.

You might say that’s a flaw in his character. Or you might say it’s what makes his character, and places it above domestic politics in this instance, because the true audience for all this theater isn’t just the tryouts in the boonies, the domestic audience of US voters: it’s the world, and particularly the Arab and Moslem world. They are watching very very carefully, and weighing our resolve and our ability to stand by what we said. And our enemies can only be exceedingly heartened by the way this show is playing so far.

This week’s podcast: Rabbi (“Shalom in the Home”) Shmuley Boteach on the Sanity Squad

The New Neo Posted on by

The Squad interviews special guest Rabbi Shmuley Boteach this week, the host of TLC’s series “Shalom in the Home.” If you’ve never seen the show, it’s definitely worth a look; in each episode, Rabbi Shmuley takes a large van and spends ten days visiting a family in need of therapy. If this sounds like some sort of Saturday Night Live sketch, it’s not. Trust me, Rabbi Shmuley (columnist, author of many books, Oxford-trained theologian, and father of eight) does some marvelous things to help the families involved.

Join Siggy, Dr. Sanity, Shrink, and me as we discuss the prevalence of conspiracy theories today in the first segment, and then talk to our guest in the second half.

“Supporting” the troops—or patronizing them?

The New Neo Posted on by

The Democrats in Congress—and the few Republicans who agree with them—who’ve been pushing for a troop withdrawal continue to maintain that what they’re proposing is not only in the best interests of the American people, but it’s in the best interests of the troops themselves.

That would appear to be a no-brainer: surely the best way to protect the troops is to put them out of harm’s way, and that means their leaving Iraq and coming back home where they belong.

But what do the troops serving in Iraq think about it all? Sometimes I’m convinced that the aforementioned Congressional members don’t really much care about the answer to that question.

Those who are pushing withdrawal and the cutting of funds are concerned with a variety of matters, first and foremost politics. But I would guess that some of them do indeed have a sincere concern for the safety of the troops. Unfortunately, that concern is all too often embedded in a combination of patronizing condescension (“those poor, benighted, undereducated, oppressed troops”) and disapproval (“those babykillers, brutes, torturers”).

I’ve searched for polls that might offer some information to answer the question of what the troops themselves think or want, but I’ve found nothing especially relevant. Petitions, either pro-withdrawal or anti (see this and this) tell us virtually nothing except that there are two thousand active military personnel ready to sign the former, and three thousand ready to sign the latter.

There are some older polls that questioned the military on Iraq-related issues, here, but no data on the current withdrawal or fund-cutting proposals. There’s some interesting information available, though; in the most recent poll, which was taken at the end of 2006 among active military personnel (50% of whom had served in Iraq and 12% in Afghanistan). Morale was very high, support for the Iraq War was higher than lack of support, and more people thought success was likely than thought it unlikely.

But to me the most interesting responses were the answers to the following questions: how soon do you think the Iraqi military will be ready to replace large numbers of American troops, and how long do you think the U.S. will need to stay in Iraq to reach its goals?

Only 2% of the troops thought the answer to the first question would be “less than a year,” and only 2% thought the answer to the second would be “1-2 years.” The overwhelming bulk of the responses were in the “3 to 5 years” or even “5 to 10 years” categories, with a substantial minority thinking it might even take more than 10 years to accomplish either goal.

Contrast this with the impatience of Congress and much of the American public, who want it done by September or sooner or it will be “pull the plug” time. The members of the military who bear the brunt of it all understand the difficulty of the task, probably because they have studied the history of fighting insurgencies, guerilla wars, and terrorism far more than most of us have.

And yet, morale is high among them. They don’t have the benefit of easy optimism, but they don’t allow themselves the luxury of easy pessimism, either. I think what they are engaged in is actually realism, and that implies not only an awareness of the length of time this might take, but the extreme importance of the mission.

W. Thomas Smith Jr., a former US Marine infantry leader and now journalist on military matters, has written this piece about Iraq for the National Review. Smith dispenses with some misconceptions the general public, fed on a steady diet of MSM misinformation, have about the Iraqi people themselves. (Also see this article for a list of the accomplishments of the so-called “surge”; they are far from negligible.)

Smith mentions that most of the troops are stunned that anyone takes seriously Reid’s contentions that we’ve already “lost” in Iraq. And he reiterates what so many have said before: premature withdrawal from Iraq (and withdrawal any time soon would, by definition, be premature) would jeopardize the trust our allies (and enemies) have that we will keep our word.

Smith also thinks a premature withdrawal would have a more direct effect on the troops:

Success in Iraq is also about the morale and well-being of the U.S. military. Our forces would suffer in ways most D.C. politicians cannot begin to imagine if we were to retreat from Iraq.

That sort of suffering—the deep frustration of working hard for a vitally important goal and having all possibility of reaching it taken out of your hands just when things are beginning to improve—that sort of suffering is not the concern of those crying that their actions are only to “protect” the troops.

Congress, of course, knows better than those stupid, exploited, brutal (choose your own adjective) troops themselves know about what is good for them.

Waging war: “total” and otherwise

The New Neo Posted on by

Right now, at the top of the list of recommended reading at Real Clear Politics, are two articles that can be seen as companion pieces of a sort. The first is “Why Iraq’s So Hard” by Ralph Peters of the New York Post; and the second, by Christopher Shea of the Boston Globe, is entitled “War Without Limits.”

The message of Peters’ article can be summarized as, “In the fight in Iraq, we weren’t””and still aren’t””prepared to be ruthless enough to win.” Shea, on the other hand, offers a review of two books that describe the concept of “total war,” and are mainly critical of the concept and the practice.

Are we at fault, as Peters writes, for trying to wage a PC war on the cheap in Iraq? How “ruthless” should we be, and what is the definition of ruthlessness, anyway? And how ruthless are we required to be in order to win a war against an enemy prepared to be utterly unforgiving itself, an enemy that practices as “total” a war as its tools allow it to wage, and that is bent on acquiring ever fiercer tools?

The books Shea reviews seem to be asserting that total war is a product of the advanced technology of the last century or two, and part of the practice is the extension of war to the civilian population. But this ignores the fact that the ancients were no slouches at killing large numbers of the enemy, and ordinary citizens at that, as well as destroying their cities—purposely. Witness the Mongols, the sack of Carthage in the Third Punic War, and countless other incidents in which to be conquered meant to be destroyed.

“Total war” is a term that’s not all that well-agreed upon and ultimately not all that useful. To be total, does a war have to be worldwide in scope? If so, the war again Islamist totalitarianism fits the bill. Does it have to include the killing of civilians? Again, our role in the present war fits the definition, but not if what is required is the purposeful targeting of civilians, which we (unlike the other side) do not practice.

What Peters really may mean in saying we are not ruthless enough in this war isn’t that it should be a total war in the classic sense (if there is a classic sense), but that it should be waged without so many PC considerations, and with less concern for the economic bottom line. He indicates that, had we done both of those things from the start, things would be going much better than they are now.

We’ll never know, because that didn’t happen, although I tend to agree with Peters. But I don’t see this as ruthlessness, simply as common sense. There’s no point in starting a fight with one hand tied behind your back, unless it’s a benefit sporting event that doesn’t matter.

Peters is expressing the Jacksonian point of view that wars should be waged at a high level of intensity. Do Jacksonians advocate this because they are inherently bloodthirsty? No. In fact, as I wrote when discussing that most famous of American’s Jacksonian decisions—the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan—one goal of the intensity of warfare that Jacksonians advocate is to end a conflict as quickly and as decisively as possible, and thus avoid protracted wars that end up causing even more destruction and loss of life.

One of the books Shea reviews in his Globe article is by David A. Bell, on the topic of Napolean’s Europe and birth of modern total war. Shea writes:

In his book, Bell stresses how ferocious nationalism and revolutionary fervor led the French to view their enemies as people who needed to be exterminated, not just defeated — a decisive shift from an earlier Great Power style of warfare…Anti-revolutionary opponents, whether French peasants or Austrians, were now “sanguinary hordes,” “barbarous,” and “vipers”: all deserved disembowelment.

It’s that kind of invective Bell has in mind when he hears phrases like “the evil ones” today.

It seems that the word “evil” itself is now suspect; one can’t use it without being accused of drumming up an imaginary villain. But if the Islamic terrorists and jihadists today don’t fit the defintion of actual evil, then I don’t know what does. My guess is that, if Bell were writing today, calling Hitler “evil” would, likewise, be evidence of a bad mindset on the part of the Allies.

And “evil” is, after all, a mere word. If it’s not acceptable to even use the word “evil” today, how much less acceptable it is to fight evil with vigor. Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me, but one wonders sometimes if war critics would prefer that we go back to using sticks and stones.

As Peters says:

We face merciless, implacable enemies who joyously slaughter the innocent with the zeal of religious fanaticism. Yet we want to make sure we don’t hurt anyone’s feelings.

We’ve tried many things in Iraq. They’ve all failed. It’s a shame we never really tried to fight.

Hate for sale: the thriving BDS industry

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday I was in one of those stores that proliferate in the streets of the coastal resort towns of New England featuring items that aren’t at all needed but might be desired by the roving tourist with a heavy wallet: tavern puzzles and hacky sacks, retro postcards, windup toys from Asian countries, ironic baby shower gifts for cynical young folk who are nevertheless reproducing themselves, rubber (or maybe nowadays they’re plastic?) turds for the classic jokers among us.

And, of course, Bush memorabilia. Or rather, Bush paraphernalia of the hate variety: an amazing assortment of stickers, cards, paper dolls, and—most plentiful of all—refrigerator magnets featuring photos of the President with sayings describing how dreadful he is and, by implication, how infinitely wise and compassionate the buyer/displayer is.

They were various riffs on that old and always-good-for-a-laugh theme: Bush=stupid. Every now and then Cheney came into the picture as well (Cheney≠stupid; Cheney=evil). And there was a new theme—at least new to me, because I guess I don’t have my finger on the pulse of popular Americana: the countdown to the 2008 election.

Like prisoners scratching out on a dungeon’s gloomy walls their time yet to be served, those suffering from (or reveling in) Bush-hatred are charting the hours, days, minutes, and even seconds until their longed-for liberation. Here, for example, is a site devoted to these products and prominently displaying the hopeful countdown clock. Emblazoned with the glorious day, 1.20.09, are the bumper stickers, mugs, t-shirts, keychains, dog biscuits, and combo packs to purchase for the self or for the liked-minded friend or loved one.

I try to think back to other times of Presidential disfavor. Clinton, of course, as well as Nixon, must have had their products of mockery. But I can’t remember anything remotely resembling this cottage industry of ridicule, so casually and readily available in almost every shop. I wonder how well the products are actually selling, and whether people actually find the repetition of the same one-note themes endlessly amusing, or whether they tire of the knick-knacks almost as soon as the goodies are brought home.

I also wonder whether Bush-hatred will survive the retirement of its object from the Presidency on that long-hoped-for and long-delayed day. Will the products go on, always good for a superior laugh? Or will they be tossed into the dustbin of history, the owners not having Bush to kick around any more?

The larger question is whether, on that day of all days, the Bush-haters will get that Democratic President they so desire. If so, will the present BDS wares be replaced by new products featuring the next electee—say, Hillary, who certainly has her share of haters? Or will there be a surprise for the Democrats, and will Giuliani or McCain or Romney or fill-in-the-blank become the new focus of ire and the entrepreneurial spirit associated with it? I guess we’ll find out in (as I write these words) 618 days, 1 hour, 49 minutes, and 49 seconds.

For Mother’s Day: neo revealed

The New Neo Posted on by

Okay, who are these three dark beauties?

A hint: one of them is the very first picture you’ve ever seen on this blog of neo-neocon, sans apple. Not that you’d recognize me, of course. Even my own mother might not recognize me from this photo.

My own mother, you say? Of course she would. Ah, but she’s here too, looking a bit different than she does today–Mother’s Day–at ninety-two years of age. Just a bit; maybe her own mother wouldn’t recognize her, either.

Her own mother? She’s the one who’s all dressed up, with longer hair than the rest of us.

The photo of my grandmother was taken in the 1880’s; the one of my mother in the teens of the twentieth century; and the one of me, of course, in the 1950s.

Heredity, ain’t it great? My mother and grandmother are both sitting for formal portraits at a professional photographer’s studio, but by the time I came around amateur snapshots were easy to take with a smallish Brownie camera. My mother is sitting on the knee of her own grandfather, my grandmother’s father, a dapper gentleman who was always very well-turned out. I’m next to my older brother, who’s reading a book to me but is cropped out of this photo. My grandmother sits alone in all her finery.

We all not only resemble each other greatly in our features and coloring, but in our solemnity. My mother’s and grandmother’s seriousness is probably explained by the strange and formal setting; mine is due to my concentration on the book, which was Peter Pan (my brother was only pretending to read it, since he couldn’t read yet, but I didn’t know that at the time). My mother’s resemblance to me is enhanced by our similar hairdos (or lack thereof), although hers was short because it hadn’t really grown in yet, and mine was short because she purposely kept it that way (easier to deal with).

My grandmother not only has the pretty ruffled dress and the long flowing locks, but if you look really closely you can see a tiny earring dangling from her earlobe. When I was young, she showed me her baby earrings; several miniature, delicate pairs. It astounded me that they’d actually pierced a baby’s ears (and that my grandmother had let the holes close up later on, and couldn’t wear pierced earrings any more), whereas I had to fight for the right to have mine done in my early teens.

I’m not sure what my mother’s wearing; some sort of baby smock. But I know what I have on: my brother’s hand-me-down pajamas, and I was none too happy about it, of that you can be sure.

So, a very happy Mother’s Day to you all! What would mothers be without babies…and mothers…and babies….and mothers….?

[NOTE: This is a repeat of last year’s Mother’s Day post.]