Whatever happened to Chechnya?

The New Neo Posted on by

Remember Chechnya? A country torn by a separatist war, terrorism, a Russian crackdown? A truly hopeless cause?

Well, guess what? When you weren’t looking, peace—albeit of a very troubled sort—came to that very troubled land.

Make no mistake about it; Chechnya has not turned into paradise. But the city of Grozny, a ruin just two short years ago, is being rebuilt. The Russians have cracked down on a Chechnya that supposedly could not be pacified, and have installed a tough man to control those who would oppose them.

MIght the cure be worse than the disease? This is a harsh place where harsh remedies have been installed. New leader Ramzan A. Mr. Kadyrov illustrates a phenomenon I wrote about here, which is that, in countries in which civil order has broken down, the choice often seems to be between two dreadful alternatives, anarchy or tyranny.

We are trying to implement another type of solution in Iraq right now: to tame the anarchy without substituting another tyranny. It is difficult and requires money, troops, commitment, will, staying power, and perhaps a touch of brilliance (which General Petraeus is attempting to provide).

But, short of that, it seems that tyranny will do in Chechnya.

The NY Times describes the paradox of Chechnya thusly:

Kadyrov’s human rights record is chilling, and allegations of his government’s patterns of brutality and impunity are widespread. Yet even his most severe critics say he has developed significant popular support, in part because of the clear changes that have accompanied his firm and fearsome rule.

The fighting is only sporadic now in a country that had, just two years ago, seemed unfixable, the violence unstoppable. The Russians had cracked down on Chechnya time and again to no avail. But now resident Zulika Aliyeva says, “I compare how we used to live, and it is like we are in a fairy tale now.”

Kadyrov’s program has featured “a two-stage formula: extraordinary violence, followed by extraordinary investment.” The violence has, paradoxically, created enough order that Kadyrov has been able to reconstruct much of the city, and attract more people to come and live there again. There’s even a fledgling effort at a tourist industry.

It sounds as though Chechnya was a nightmare before, and now it’s a different sort of nightmare. Law and order has begun to return, but at a great price.

One of the most interesting aspects of this chain of events is the fact that no one seems to have predicted it; the pundits were taken by surprise, as they often are.

[ADDENDUM: Kim Zigfield thinks the Times is far too kind to the Kadyrov regime.]

Congress the unloved

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Congress’s approval rating with the American public is currently at a cool 24%.

But that’s probably high compared to the contempt with which the Iraqi government and the US Embassy in Iraq seem to hold them. Congress’ latest foray into micromanaging the Iraqi government, a nonbinding resolution that it be partitioned into separate regions, isn’t too popular with anyone. Perhaps Congress should stick to managing itself.

In related news, I don’t think the anti-surge faction of Congress has yet reacted to the announcement that killings of civilians and US forces in Iraq are substantially down. It’s difficult to attribute the downturn to anything other than the effects of General Petraeus’ approach and the surge.

Did I say deaths are down? Not all of them:

Over the weekend, U.S. and Iraqi forces killed more than 60 insurgent and militia fighters in intense battles, with most of the casualties believed to have been al-Qaida militants, officials said.

Harry Reid, where are you? Back in April, Reid said, “This war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week.” Strangely, I haven’t heard much from him about the latest statistics. If he’s so reactive to figures on violence in Iraq as a measure of how successful the surge is, one would think…

The New York Times watches Freedom Watch

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The front page of today’s NY Times features an article entitled “Big Coffers and a Rising Voice Lift a New Conservative Group.” It’s about the rise of Freedom Watch, formed to combat the anti-surge movement and the propaganda clout of MoveOn.

It’s a masterful demonstration of the Times’ ability to publish a piece purporting to be objective (don’t all Times articles purport to be objective?) and yet subtly shaded by what is left out more than what is put in—or the placement of whatever might be included.

Here’s the beginning of the second paragraph of the article:

Founded this summer by a dozen wealthy conservatives, the nonprofit group is set apart from most advocacy groups by the immense wealth of its core group of benefactors…

If Freedom Watch was founded to counter MoveOn, the latter is one advocacy group it’s most certainly not set apart from by the immense wealth of its core group of benefactors. MoveOn has some rather deep pockets as well—the benefactor in question being George Soros, no slouch in the wealth department himself.

The Times article is a substantial one—1664 words long, according to my computer. And yet it goes on for most of its length describing the wealth of Freedom Watch’s founders and their connections to the Bush Administration (and wouldn’t it be odd if a group of wealthy Republicans with strong political interests didn’t have some sort of ties to that Administration?), hinting strongly that the group is a mere front for the nefarious Bush. At the same time, it intially describes MoveOn only as a nine-year old group “which vehemently opposes the Iraq War” and whose influence is “derived in large part from its grass-roots efforts.”

What of controversial billionaire MoveOn benefactor Soros? Well, he finally does get mentioned—about 1,100 words into the article. By that time many if not most readers have probably deserted the piece, having gotten the gist of it and Moved On, as it were.

This is the way the Times finally refers to Soros, in a single bland sentence:

Like Freedom’s Watch, MoveOn had its origins in an attempt by wealthy political donors, including George Soros, to shape the debate in Washington.

And what of that other rather cumbersome and awkward elephant in the room, the Times’ own participation in the fray—the “Petraeus Betray Us” ad placed by MoveOn in its pages, receiving a cut-rate deal (probably due, no doubt, to the poverty of the group compared to behemoths like Freedom Watch [/sarcasm off])? Well, the Times does get around to mentioning it, way way down in the article’s final paragraphs, modestly referring to itself in the third person:

Freedom’s Watch also pounced on MoveOn.org’s full-page “General Betray Us” advertisement published Sept. 10 in The New York Times. Mr. Bush called the advertisement “disgusting.” Both chambers of Congress passed resolutions condemning the advertisement. The New York Times was also embroiled in the debate after giving MoveOn a discounted price for the advertisement, which the newspaper later acknowledged was a mistake. MoveOn has since agreed to pay the difference.

All’s well that ends well, right?

Meanwhile, Freedom Watch’s founders are not going away any time soon. In a closing sentence that may strike a tiny bit of fear into the hearts of the Times editors, former Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, a member and benefactor of Freedom Watch, is quoted as saying, “We will still be here after George Bush is gone.”

I wonder if the same could be said for the Times.

Revisiting—and revising—Vietnam

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Here’s a great summary of a recent symposium on Vietnam history. It was written by Cinnamon Stillwell, another “changer”—and, in the interests of full disclosure, a friend of mine.

Stillwell writes:

The significance of the Vietnam War, both from a historical and a political standpoint, cannot be emphasized enough. It was the most controversial of all America’s military ventures and it led to a rupture in American society that continues to this day. If allowed to hold sway, this rupture threatens American success in Iraq and beyond.

Speakers at a four-day symposium titled, “The Vietnam War: History and Enduring Significance,” at Hillsdale College this month came to much the same conclusion.

Some of the speakers were of the “Vietnam revisionist” variety. These historians and journalists are challenging the accepted “narrative” of Vietnam, which began to be established in the late 60s and through the 70s. This process of revisiting the recent past in the light of the passage of time is part of historical perspective, but in the case of Vietnam it threatens those with a vested interest in the earlier evaluation of the war and those who fought it.

Even on this blog, whenever the subject of Vietnam comes up, one can see how raw the feelings are and how wide and deep the divisions. The 2004 election, Kerry’s nomination, and the Swift Vet controversy also opened up many of these barely-healed wounds. And of course, as I’ve written many times, Vietnam is the template used not only to evaluate the Iraq War, but to plan the Democrats’ strategy in opposing it (see this, as well).

“Revisionist” has become a derogatory term, conjuring up the Soviet tendency to “improve” on history by making it into a fiction that reflected Soviet propaganda needs. But, as I wrote here:

But sometimes that “first draft” of history”“such as the Vietnam War as perceived in real time and told in the MSM”“cries out for revision, as in “to revise.” To look at again with fresh eyes and new information, and to question whether the standard viewpoint of the time was correct.

Critical thinking demands it.

And the difference between prison and assisted living is…

The New Neo Posted on by

Today’s a traveling day, so this will be quick. I’m driving down to NY to see my family and especially my elderly mother.

Last night I called her at around 8:15 to see how she was doing. She sounded a bit tired when she answered the phone, so I asked whether my call had woken her up. My mother used to be somewhat of a nightowl, but when she got into her eighties and now, her mid-90s, she understandably started fading a lot earlier in the evening.

But she said no, she hadn’t been asleep. As a matter of fact, she’d just gotten back to her room. Why? Because, she said, “This place is getting like a prison.”

Oh oh, doesn’t sound too good.

I asked her to elaborate, and she said “They have a new rule. We go down to dinner at five, you know (oh yes, I know; it’s the highlight of the day) and we’re not allowed back into our rooms till eight.”

I pointed out that this was actually more the opposite of a prison. After all, in prisons, they take you back to your room and lock you in, not out. Actually, it reminded me of summer camp—although a great deal less fun—with compulsory evening activities, everything in groups, and no solitude allowed.

Could she be allowed back to her room if she pled tiredness? Wanted to watch a good TV show? Read a book? Entertain a visitor? She hasn’t a clue, but I imagine I’ll find out a lot more about this new edict over the weekend.

My mother’s assisted living facility is one of the nicest possible, but it still leaves a lot to be desired. We’ve always joked about the residents being “inmates” (one of the faculties my mother most definitely has not lost is her sense of humor). But this sort of effort at control and forced socialization is ridiculous. I understand it’s not good for residents to isolate themselves, but the loss of freedom and autonomy is already profound there, simply by dint of being in such a setting. No need to add to it unnecessarily.

“Understanding” evil

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We may not be able to define evil, but most of us think we know it when we see it.

Unfortunately, that leads to equations such as Bush=Hitler, or the bumper sticker I saw on a car yesterday that said, “War is just terrorism with a bigger budget.”

And it also leads to the false notion that we can truly understand the genesis of evil, when sometimes it’s hard enough to simply recognize it, and to deal with it in an appropriate and timely fashion.

Hannah Arendt caused a hue and cry when she watched the Adolf Eichmann trial and described the defendant’s demeanor as showing “the banality of evil” (scroll down to #6, here). Suzanne Field’s piece on evil, in today’s Real Clear Politics, refers back to Arendt and describes instead what Field calls the “frivolity” of evil. Although I think “frivolity” is a poor choice of words, Field is making a good point nevertheless:

The devil wears many disguises, and one of them is the appearance of normality, perhaps the most dangerous phenomenon of all, because it’s a disguise unto itself.

Evil is real, but evildoers are all too human. Continue reading →

The dictator at the tea-party: if you invite, must you be polite?

The New Neo Posted on by

The Columbia/Bollinger/Ahmadinejad controversy has had several stages. First there was the shock that the university had extended the invitation. Then there was the event itself. And now there’s the reaction.

The notion of freedom of speech has come to include the idea that in order to protect it we must bend over backwards to provide a forum for enemies to promulgate their ideas. But I really can’t imagine that freedom of speech would have meant that, in the 30s, a major university would—or should—have given Hitler a similar invitation.

Of course, there’s always the argument that greater exposure to such pernicious leaders makes more people aware of their dangerousness, and thus enables us to evaluate and prepare to counter them. But that doesn’t really convince me; it’s not as though heads of state such as Ahmadinejad (or Hitler, in his day) lack the ability to speak, and for their words to be covered and spread around the wolrd by the press. There are few people with more opportunity to spread their word; we’re not talking about silenced voices here. Continue reading →

More Totten, more “getting to know you” in Iraq

The New Neo Posted on by

Michael Totten has written another fine piece on recent developments in Iraq.

He interviews Colonel Mike Silverman, whose words echo a fact that other interviewees have emphasized in a recent article of Totten’s (one I discussed in depth here): al Qaeda appears to have overplayed its sadistic hand in Sunni areas of Iraq that might otherwise have been its natural allies, and greater exposure to the US military has convinced the locals that we just might be the good guys after all.

I wonder sometimes, when I’m feeling optimistic, whether it isn’t some intrinsic characteristic of evil to always overplay its hand. This may be one of the built-in advantages to the human race of evil being so very evil.

But this doesn’t inevitably lead to its downfall. The article also makes it clear that, without the help of the US, the locals were virtually powerless to fight off the sadistic violence of what was in fact a relatively small number of frenzied and extraordinarily vicious thugs.

All I want for Christmas is some tater mitts

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Yesterday I was watching TV and was transfixed by an ad for Tater Mitts.

Yes, I admit it was very late at night, so perhaps my judgment was just a trifle clouded. But here, folks, is another bizarre product you never knew you needed but now simply cannot do without (see also this).

Tater Mitts haven’t yet inspired me to poetry, as this invention did. But I think they will revolutionize the onerous task of potato peeling.

Then again, maybe not.

Happy Birthday, Sputnik

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From the NY Times comes a reminder that it’s Sputnik’s birthday soon.

The article begins begins like this:

Fifty years ago, before most people living today were born…

Ouch.

I, of course, remember (if only vaguely) the news of Sputnik’s launch. It goes along with remembering those house calls, although those were the wave of the past and Sputnik the wave of the future).

The Times describes the reaction of the US as “wonder and foreboding,” and this jibes entirely with my own memories. For years after the launch, Sputnik was the stick they used in school to goad us to achievement.

And what a strange-looking stick it was, with mysterious protruberances sticking out from its basically round form:

sputnik.jpg

How was Sputnik’s launch interpreted? The US was falling behind in the all-important space race. We children were at fault for not learning enough science, even if we were toddlers.

We had to accelerate, and accelerate we did. As the article describes, the US countered with its own space program and satellites. Then, when the Russians sent the first man into space—Gagarin—we countered some more. Lift-offs were now seen on a television wheeled into an auditorium where the entire grade school had gathered to watch, and the sense of excitement was palpable.

These days the space program is ho-hum, the sense of urgency gone, the agency clouded by accidents and scandals. In retrospect, the whole thing seemed to have a fairly short trajectory, as did Sputnik itself.

[NOTE: Interesting arcane fact presented in Wikipedia (and who am I to doubt them, even though the article says “citation needed?”):

The launch of Sputnik 1 inspired writer Herb Caen to coin the term “beatnik” in an article about the Beat Generation in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958.]

They make house calls—for a price

The New Neo Posted on by

When I was very young, safe in bed with the usual flu or the occasional chicken pox or other standard childhood disease, I would dread the doctor’s tread on the stairs and the opening of his little black bag, which seemed vast to me. It was made of thick black leather and smelled of medicine and disinfectant—just like his office did, the one with the transom window above the door, the tiny uncomfortable wooden chairs, and the table with a map of fairyland on it that looked ancient even then.

He was a small man, our pediatrician. But I was even smaller, and he was scary, without the jovial bedside manner common to the genre nowadays. He had a tiny, trim mustache, and when he gave shots—and he gave them quite readily—they hurt.

But he made house calls. Any time my brother or I were sick enough to stay home from school, we knew we could not avoid his visit.

By the time I was the mother of a young child the house call was a thing of the distant past. Continue reading →