Comment on comments

The New Neo Posted on by

WordPress tells me that so far I’ve written 1,266 posts, with 32,417 comments from readers. Whew.

When I do the math, this means that the average number of comments for a single post here has been 25 and a fraction.

Back when I started this blog, one of my goals was to have a lively comments section. I initially envisioned it as a place where “changers” could hang out and talk—and there has been a bit of that, although eventually the comments have evolved a bit differently. But it’s still one of the major satisfactions of my blogging experience that this blog has become a place for (mostly) intelligent debate on a wide range of topics from the regulars and the infrequent flyers, the mix of people from around the world, and even now and then the trolls and the near-trolls (well, those last two categories help make it lively, anyway).

Yeltsin, Humpty Dumpty, and the death of naivete

The New Neo Posted on by

Ron Rosenbaum has written his reflections on the mixed legacy of Boris Yeltsin, who died last Monday.

Rosenbaum focuses on the hope those times represented, when the once-mighty Soviet Union withered away and died and was replaced by a fledgling democracy. But of course—as even most neocons know, although we are not commonly seen as understanding this fact—democracy is no panacea (see this for some of my thoughts on the subject).

No panacea indeed; but still, on the whole, an improvement over what went before. Rosenbaum indicates that, when the Soviet bloc fell and Yeltsin came to power, the promise of liberty was “thrilling and beautiful…and yet…unsustainable.” Russia became chaotic during the 90s under Yeltsin. He was succeeded by Putin, who has reined in that chaos at the expense of freedom.

But not totally. The Russia of today is a far freer and more democratic place than the old USSR, and its people have at least some of the benefits of a more robust economy. I disagree with Rosenbaum’s contention that this represents the death of hope; perhaps just the death of naive hope. As Yeltsin himself said:

I want to ask [the people of Russia’s] forgiveness for not fulfilling some hopes of those who believed that . . . in one go . . . we would be able to jump from a gray, stagnating totalitarian past into a bright, rich, civilized future. I believed in this myself. It didn’t happen in one jump.

No, it didn’t. And what’s more, it never has and probably never can.

That brings us—of course—to that other formerly stagnating totalitarian state: Iraq. Anyone who believed that Iraq could go easily, “in one jump…into a bright, rich, civilized future” (and that includes any neocons who actually thought so, as opposed to the ones who are misrepresented as having thought so) was sadly mistaken and profoundly naive.

From the outset of the Iraq war I expected the task to be fraught with difficulties, and fully expected it to take at least a decade (if not more) of careful occupation. When the looting began at the beginning of the postwar period it troubled me greatly, because it seemed that we weren’t doing what was needed to get the inevitable chaos under some sort of control.

Previously, the crime-ridden and nearly-disintegrating Russia of the 90s had made me wonder something similar—whether there was anything more that the US and Europe could do to prevent its slide. We were not in charge of Russia, of course, but its potential instability would affect us, and the world. And with our present occupation of Iraq we have an even greater responsibility to see that the chaos there comes under control.

Although it’s a child’s nursery rhyme, the parable of Humpty Dumpty expresses a profound truth, which is this: it is exceedingly difficult to put together that which is broken. By the time Yeltsin came to power Russia was a broken nation and, without the strong and harsh cement that tyranny provided, its fragmentary nature became more and more apparent. In fact, Soviet unity had been illusory, and almost immediately many of the satellite nations seceded from the USSR and became autonomous once more. Russia itself, which had been a nation for centuries prior to the Communist takeover, was in deep disarray, and Putin’s harsher hand has brought it a measure of stability at no small cost.

This ebb and flow between chaos and tyranny is the legacy of every state trying to repair itself from a broken and violent past—and that includes Iraq, one of the most broken and violent of all. The United States, on the other hand, has had the luxury of not having been broken at its outset—it was, rather assembled from various parts that came together with a common vision, although not without some disagreement. The fragmentation that might have occurred following our own Civil War was averted and the damage slowly repaired. And, despite the cries of those who shout “tyranny” and think our civil liberties deeply threatened, we have always—throughout our long history—been among the freest nations in the world in terms of the individual. That remains the case today.

Russia’s post-Communist path has been so difficult that there are many citizens who believe life was better under the Soviets despite the suffering of those times—although they tend to be the older people. Dictatorships, after all, have their pluses—“Hitler built the autobahn,” “Mussolini made the trains run on time“—and generations who were brought up under their firm control may have difficulty with the crime and chaos, as well as the social inequality and “unfairness,” that goes with the beginnings of a free market democracy (Dickens had a bit to say about the suffering inherent under those conditions, as well).

It may be human nature to believe that, once a tyrant’s yoke is loosened, paradise will magically ensue. If so, it’s a dangerous belief. But even though the road is hard, that doesn’t mean a tyrannical regime should stay in power. It just means that extraordinary patience is needed in the attempt to put Humpty back together again afterwards. The task requires—if not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men—then a great many of them, and a great deal of time as well.

As I’ve said, I don’t think I was as naive as those who thought rebuilding Iraq would be easy. But I do admit to having been naive in a different way, and that is that I expected the majority of people in this country to understand what would be involved and to be willing to stick it out much longer than seems to be the case at the moment. That particular naivete of mine is now officially dead.

The margin of the pullout vote and public opinion: not your father’s Vietnam

The New Neo Posted on by

The Democratic leadership is pushing vigorously for further confrontation with the Bush administration over a timetable for a pullout. They clearly seem to think they have a winner for themselves in the political sense, whatever the fallout for Iraq itself.

The Vietnam playbook for the role of Congress in the early-to-mid-70s is being followed, as predicted here and here.

There are two very important differences, however. One is the fact that the war in Iraq is arguably far more important than Vietnam ever was, and the second has to do with how much support the Democrats have for their Iraq agenda.

Don’t get me wrong; in human terms both wars were/are very important, and the regional bloodbath that followed our withdrawal from Vietnam was probably just as large as the one that would follow our withdrawal from Iraq. But although the North Vietnamese were a featured part of the lengthy global battle between Communism and capitalist liberal democracies known as the Cold War, and defeat there had an effect on the duration of that struggle, a pullout in Iraq would have even more direct consequences for the US. It would embolden an enemy far more apocalyptic in its goals and far more able to bring the war directly to us in terms of terrorism.

Therefore, the stakes now are more immediate, and higher, for the US itself, although the Democratic leadership is bent on denying that fact.

The second difference is the amount of support the Democrats have for their approach. Polls from February (the most recent ones I could find that contained some all-important details) put support for a pullout timetable at 53%, not a huge margin. And this margin was soft: only 46% of those who favored a pullout wanted it to be accomplished within a year (a year, that is, of February). The rest—54% of those who favored a pullout—wanted it to be more gradual.

I could only find one poll on the subject that is more recent, and it appears in the subscribers-only Wall Street Journal, so I have none of the all-important details. But here’s mention of it. In the new poll, 56% favor a withdrawal date, a very slight increase over February’s poll considering the incessant drumbeat of despair. But the summary doesn’t mention the breakdown of the timetable favored, and it’s quite possible that it’s similar to that of the earlier poll. And hmmm, that Oct. 1 deadline set by the House is only five months away.

Is it possible that the Democratic leadership is miscalculating when it figures its actions are a sure-fire crowd-pleaser and vote-getter? Perhaps.

Polls, of course, are notoriously unreliable, but despite their well-known flaws they’re the best tool we have for gauging the true extent of Democratic support. One indisputable fact, however, is that Congressional support for the Democratic position (which, of course, is not supported by all Democrats in Congress, and is supported by a few Republicans) is weak, as well.

What was the vote count on this bill in the House? 218 pro, 210 con. A majority is a majority, I suppose, and “passed” is “passed.” But no wonder it’s not veto-proof; this barely made it through.

The Congressional situation for the Vietnam pullout was very different indeed. I can’t find a record of the actual vote in late 1974 that effectively ended funding for the South Vietnamese, and thus, the war (here’s President Ford’s reaction to it). But at the time of the bill’s passage, the composition of the House was 242 Democrat and 192 Republican, and support was hardly limited to Democrats (to the best of my recollection).

Contrast that 50-person Democratic margin to today’s 31-person one. Even more importantly, an election had just occurred in late 1974 at the time the funding was cut, and a new Congress was about to be installed. This new Congress would be Democratic by one of the largest margins in history: 291 to 144, or a surplus of 147 Democratic votes. Bucking this overwhelming tide was hopeless, and Ford knew it (similar figures for the Senate of the time were 56/42 for the years 1973-1975, and 60/38 for the incoming Senate of 1975-1977. The present Senate, in contrast, is quite equally divided.)

The members of Congress who voted for a Vietnam pullout knew their votes had teeth and that President Ford was powerless to stop them. Whether or not you approve of what they did (and I do not, although I did at the time), their acts were not a cynical ploy nor a largely political battle against Ford himself. Their battle against the Republican President, Nixon, had already been won, with his full cooperation via Watergate.

Broder on Reid

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, he may be “relentlessly centrist.” But still, David Broder writes for the liberal Washington Post, and he’s out for Harry Reid’s blood (as well as Gonzalez’s).

I’m not sure I agree with Broder, though, that “the Democrats deserve better” than Reid. They chose him, and as long as they continue to allow him to be Majority Leader, we can assume they are getting exactly want they want and deserve.

The larger question is whether the country deserves him. I certainly hope not.

If I were still a Democrat, I’d be angry that my party was represented by leaders such as Pelosi and Reid. I wish I heard more dissension from the Democratic ranks, rather than fuzzy attempts such as Schumer’s (described in the Broder column) to soften Reid’s remarks. Surely the Democrats can do better than that, and they can find a better leader than Reid.

Reid’s proposal: not quite treason, but cynical managed care for war

The New Neo Posted on by

I haven’t been especially easy on Harry Reid lately. I think his behavior despicable, shortsighted, pernicious, self-serving, and bordering on the traitorious.

But it doesn’t fit the definition of treason, even though Tom Delay recently has called it “very, very close.” Treason has been defined by the US Constitution in such a way as to make it difficult to prosecute, and traditionally in most countries it has included intent to give aid and comfort to the enemy.

Reid’s intent is manifestly different: to defeat George Bush, placate his own party, and win the 2008 election. He said as much when he addressed the Democratic base:

I understand the restlessness that some feel. Many who voted for change in November anticipated dramatic and immediate results in January. But like it or not, George W. Bush is still the commander in chief – and this is his war.

Note the distancing from any sense that are all in this together, and might need to pull together to face a difficult enemy. No concept of the message such intense divisiveness gives to that enemy.

No, the war and everything to do with it is all tied to the personage of the hated Bush—the true enemy—and when it goes away, his power goes away. And then all the problems go away. We need to look no further than that.

This, of course, is demented, although a powerfully seductive point of view that has taken hold among a large portion of the populace. And so the latest in Reid’s battle against top enemy Bush is to propose a bill that will force a troop withdrawal by October 1 (beginning as early as July 1), if Bush has not proven to Congress’s satisfaction that the surge is working.

It’s a variation on a theme that’s become more and popular in this country of late: managed care. The executive branch and the military who have been tasked with such decisions since the beginning of this country, subject only to Congress’s ability to fund or not fund, is now to be micromanaged by the middlemen (and women) of Congress, who will set up demands for quantifiable and provable results by a certain date or they will pull the plug on this patient.

In the insurance business, it’s all about money. But this is most manifestly not about money, not really; it’s about power. Domestic power, played out on a world stage, with possible horrific consequences for Democratic victory, consequences about which Reid and his supporters couldn’t care less.

When questioned about those possible horrific consequences, Reid tossed them off with an answer almost breathtaking in its failure to take responsibility for what he is proposing:

Reid was asked what the U.S. should do if U.S. troops leave and Iraq collapses into chaos. “We know this is an intractable civil war going on now,” he responded.

I couldn’t find a transcript of the full interview, and I sincerely hope that’s not all Reid could find to say on the matter. But what he appears to be saying here is: “Not my fault; it’s already hopeless, so anything that happens after a pullout has nothing to do with the pullout itself.”

That, by the way, is the key to why Reid is so hot to define the war as already a failure: he hopes that any subsequent consequences cannot be laid at the Democrats’ feet. His hands, he is saying, will be clean—and this, as I’ve written before, is one of the most pressing concerns of many liberals.

Reid’s proposal is a profoundly cynical move, as well, a bone tossed to the ravening bloodthirsty (thirsty, that is, for Bush and Republican blood) hordes on the Democratic Left.

Why do I call it cynical? Because Reid knows his bill has virtually no chance of going into effect, since Bush has declared at the outset he will veto it, and the votes are there to sustain such a veto. And so it is merely a move in the ongoing chess game against Bush, and Reid sincerely hopes it’s checkmate (note the derivation of the word “checkmate:” the king is dead).

[ADDENDUM: Austin Bay isn’t too fond of the weather on Harry Reid’s planet, as well.]

“Your words are killing us”: note to Harry Reid

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s Naval officer Jason Nichols’s letter to Harry Reid on the subject of Reid’s recent declaration of defeat in Iraq. He makes the excellent point that statements such as Reid’s strike fear into the hearts of any Iraqis who might be thinking about cooperating with the US by reporting on terrorists and insurgents.

If Reid wants less violence rather than more, he should think more deeply before he speaks.

Feeling too much of your pain: therapists and clients

The New Neo Posted on by

Are clients best served by therapists who’ve had life experiences and backgrounds similar to theirs? Clients certainly often seen to want this, but do they need it for the most effective therapy to take place? And, in fact, can such similarity of experience sometimes be counterproductive?

Ann Althouse discusses an article on the subject by psychiatrist Richard A. Friedman that appears in today’s NY Times. Friedman says similarity of background is not necessary, and that empathy and understanding are not limited to those who’ve shared a certain experience, but are products of imagination. Althouse asks how a patient is supposed to know how good an imagination a therapist has.

Therapy is a funny thing—funny-strange, that is, not funny ha-ha. Although it’s an experience that’s morphed from something exotic and only for the rich and leisured into something relatively mainstream, the process is still poorly understood by some clients (and even some therapists, as well). From an endeavor that initially focused on the psychoanalytic, it has branched out into so many schools and approaches and theories of personal change that the bewildered client can be forgiven for not knowing where to turn or whom to call.

There’s a school of thought that gay patients are best served by gay therapists, abused women need counselors who’ve been there too, alcoholics require those who’ve been through a twelve-step program themselves, and so on and so forth.

But I think this idea springs from an oversimplification and misunderstanding of the process of therapy. And I think Dr. Friedman’s emphasis on empathy and imagination is simplistic, as well.

It’s not that those traits aren’t important: they most definitely are. And anything that helps a client to trust a therapist enough to speak freely is a good thing—and that trust can often be fostered by having a therapist who seems to share a similar life experience and background.

But therapy is a great deal more than empathy and understanding, or being able to give good advice because one has walked in the same shoes. Therapy requires a peculiar set of traits on the part of the therapist: an ability to understand through leaps of intuition and empathy, as well as an ability to distance and to look with an objective and evaluative eye on the situation.

Therapists are human—all too human, I’m afraid—with the full complement of humanity’s foibles and emotions. And yet, in order to be effective, they must develop the ability not only to look at their patients in that dual intuitive/objective way, but also at themselves.

Two of the pitfalls all therapists must traverse, no matter what school they belong to, were recognized by Freud early on, and are known as transference and countertransference. These terms relate to the sometimes very powerful emotions the therapeutic relationship can foster in both parties, “transference” being the feelings a client brings from his/her earlier relationships (such as, typically, his/her parents) and redirects towards the therapist while in therapy. “Countertransference” is a similar phenomenon a therapist feels towards the patient.

There are special perils inherent in dealing with clients whose experiences are too close to the therapist’s own. Both transference and countertransference can be enhanced in such a situation.

This can make for a great feeling of bonding (especially if the transference and countertransference are mostly positive rather than negative). But it can also lead a therapist down false paths, imagining he/she knows more than he/she actually does about this patient, using the therapist’s own experience as a guide when it is inappropriate.

Unless the therapist has done an exceptional amount of working through of his/her own related issues, the emotions that still remain can cloud judgment. For example, a therapist can think that the way he/she worked through a similar issue is the best way, the way a client should follow, and fail to pay attention to the unique characteristics of that client that would dictate otherwise.

So, paradoxically, it’s often best to have a therapist who hasn’t had an experience too close to one’s own. Therapists aren’t just glorified friends or hairdressers who listen well—although, again, that’s certainly a skill they need to have. They are understanding listeners who can also detect a client’s patterns of behaviors and reactions; and can suggest to that client other ways of perceiving, feeling, and acting, in the interests of fostering desired change in that client’s life.

One of the most fascinating and moving aspects of therapy for some clients is the growing realization that, despite the fact that the therapist does not share the exact (or even similar) life experiences, that therapist can still understand deeply and listen with compassion to the client’s story. Many people who come to therapy (and many who don’t) have the idea that “no one can understand me,” and whatever expands their idea of the universality of their experience and the ability of even the “other” to understand them is a good thing.

Althouse asks how a patient can know that a therapist is sufficiently imaginative to empathize well. My answer is that, surprisingly enough, that’s one of the things most patients ordinarily can tell about a therapist, although not from the yellow pages or a recommendation. The only way to sense this is to have an initial consult, and usually the feeling of being understood or not understood will come through very quickly, on a gut level. Not all therapists are alike, and not all therapists are good matches for certain patients, but the patient is the one who has the final say in the matter, and should leave the therapist if there isn’t that feeling of basic rapport.

As referenced in the Friedman article, patients often come with pre-existing prejudices and preferences about what they want in a therapist. Some of these are considered therapeutically valid, such as a woman who’s been severely abused by men being more comfortable with a woman therapist. Some are arguably less so, such as a request for a therapist of the same race. I disagree with Friedman that the latter request should be refused; if a client is that uncomfortable with someone of a different race, whether it be a black person uncomfortable with someone white or vice versa, than the therapy can and should deal with the issue. But it’s not best dealt with by placing the client with a therapist who makes him/her acutely uncomfortable at the outset.

A lesser-known issue is that of therapist discomfort with certain clients. Theoretically, therapists can work with anyone, but in actuality they tend to specialize and refer out those patients who press their buttons (such as, for example, child molesters).

And, although this sounds like some sort of bad joke, I know quite a few therapists who say they would have difficulty treating a client whom they know to be a Republican. So it’s not just clients who want therapists who are as much like themselves as possible—some therapists return the favor.

The break-away fence

The New Neo Posted on by

While I was away there was another “storm of the century”—the third, by my count, since this century has begun.

I was overjoyed to have been safely away when it happened; my neighbors, hearty New Englanders all, report cowering in their beds without electricity or heat, listening to gale-force winds and the CRACK! of huge evergreens dropping with the regularity of metronomes throughout the night.

The arborists are still so overworked that they are doing emergency service only—“emergency” as in “a gaping hole in your roof.” My tree doesn’t quite qualify, since my house is intact, but only by a fraction of an inch.

The tree resembles a huge lance pointing at—but not quite spearing—the house. Here’s a trunk’s eye view:
fallen-tree-4.jpg

The thousands of broken branches that littered every inch of the front, side, and back yards have mostly been cleared away. And it’s an extraordinarily beautiful day today, seventy and sunny and June-like, making the fallen tree seem like the relatively minor noncrisis that it is.

I have a fence on the side of the backyard, a rickety thing that doesn’t do a bit of good keeping anything in or out but serves as a sort of rustic scenic boundary marker. After the storm, it lay littered on the ground, covered with tree limbs and debris, and looking for all the world as though it were irreparably broken.

But no. It turns out that the fence’s design allows it to disassemble itself at the first hint of trouble, the posts leaping out of their holes in the ground and the rails jumping out of their nests in those poles. And then, like a tinker toy, it can be easily reassembled when the storm is over and ends up looking as good as new. Or, that is, as good as old: good-fences.jpg

There’s some sort of moral to the story, I know. It’s not Frost’s “Good fences make good neighbors,” but something about flexibility and rigidity, and the ability of the former to bounce back from adversity whereas the latter would break.

And hey, the crocuses are out.

French elections: a choice, not an echo

The New Neo Posted on by

The first round of the elections in France have produced the two candidates for the runoff: Sarkozy and Royal. It turns out after all that most people were not lying to the polls because they were ashamed to say they were voting for Le Pen: in fact, they weren’t voting for Le Pen, who came in a distant fourth.

So now France faces a real choice, between a candidate somewhat to the right (for France, at least) and one to the left, a man and a woman, an idea-focused candidate with a track record of action and another who specializes in vague generalizations and has never held a senior ministry post, a pro-American who actually (sacre bleu!) visited President Bush, and one who is following the recent French tradition of America-bashing and going it one better, thanking Hezbollah legislator Ali Ammar for:

“being so frank” when he described U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East as “unlimited American insanity.”

Royal is banking on an “anyone but Sarkozy” syndrome to help her in her fight for the Presidency. And Sarkozy is banking on the fact that she will continue to put her foot firmly in her mouth as she already has done on almost every foreign policy issue she’s mentioned so far.

I wrote earlier that Sarkozy reminds me a bit of Rudy Giuliani. Royal reminds me a little bit of a French, female, and much more abrasive Barak Obama: relatively inexperienced; and counting on her personality, platitudes, and the voters’ dislike/fear of the other candidate to attract voters.

Harry Reid’s failure—to appreciate the larger consequences of his own words

The New Neo Posted on by

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has called the war in Iraq a failure.

How does he know this? Because of the “extreme violence in Iraq this week.” And what did that violence consist of? A series of terrorist bombings that killed around 200 Iraqi civilians.

Originally, Reid voiced his “failure” viewpoint to the President at a White House meeting. I have no problem with that. But to make such a declaration publicly shows a narrow focus on politics as usual that is almost breathtaking in its self-absorption and its ignorance (or dismissal) of the consequences of his words.

So now it appears that the enemy can win a war simply by killing enough civilians to demoralize the Democrats. Their own civilians, that is; not ours.

That may seem like an odd definition of victory—I certainly find it so—but it’s the inescapable conclusion to draw. As such, I think it not only odd but unique in the annals of warfare.

Make no mistake about it, it’s very easy for our enemies to kill their own civilians. Not all that much is needed, really. You don’t need the support of many people in the country involved. You don’t need an army. You don’t need an enormous amount of money or a functioning state apparatus.

You don’t need, in fact, to be actually winning under any traditional (or even rational) definition of winning.

What do you need? You need a supply of high-powered explosives, and not an exhaustive one as that (Iran and others will foot the bill nicely). You need a small number of people willing to die in the process: check, no problem, in a society raised on the otherworldly rewards of suicide bombing. You need a group (once again, not that huge) able to plan and organize such bombings, which isn’t all that difficult either.

If Reid’s motive for his statement is the laudable and humanitarian one of aiming to stop the killing of civilians in Iraq, it would be hard to make the argument that an American withdrawal will aid that cause, either. It’s hard to escape the idea that he is cynically using concern for those citizens as a pawn in his own political game.

Reid’s new definition of success/failure in war paradoxically makes it even more necessary and desirable for the enemy to go on killing their own civilians in just such a manner. After all, whatever else could give such a huge payoff at so little cost? It is “victory” on the cheap.

[NOTE: When I say the enemy is killing its own, I’m well aware that not all the killers here are Iraqis. But virtually all the killers are either Arabs or Iranians, Muslims in neighboring countries with an interest in American defeat, and willing to murder other members of the so-called umma in order to achieve it.

On a related note, you might be interested in listening to a recent podcast in which I participated, a very relevant Blog Week in Review discussion of the attractiveness of defeat in Iraq.]