The New Neo

Garden, late fall

Posted on November 11, 2006 by neoJuly 25, 2009

Those of you who follow this blog know that when I bought my house I bought the responsibility of gardening, and I’ve tried to step up to the plate and do right by it.

I’ve posted photos of the garden bed in the front, the sunny one–in spring, in summer (can’t find those, so no link), and in fall. It’s always beautiful.

And here it is now, in very late fall, before being cut down and put to sleep for the winter. Although you might say it’s dead, it’s really not; it’s just resting.

Even in this brown and faded state, it seems quite beautiful nonetheless, in a sad and subtle way. At least, I think so. And strangely enough, the roses are still in bloom.

Last year I published this same poem around this same time. It’s Robert Frost’s “Reluctance,” very appropriate to the season:

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ”˜Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

On withdrawal from Iraq: heed the Law of Thirds

Posted on November 10, 2006 by neoJuly 25, 2009

Here’s another demonstration of the Law of Thirds (via Pajamas Media)

It’s a post by Bill Roggio that analyzes what the midterm election might mean in terms of future policy on the Iraq War. He cites STRATFOR analyst Fred Burton, who mentions polls suggesting that, whereas two-thirds of US citizens “disapprove” of the war in Iraq, only one-third seems to favor a full withdrawal of troops.

Polls are polls, of course, and subject to all sorts of criticism. In my training and experience as a social science researcher, I learned just how easy it is to find flaws in all such studies. However, I’ve also noticed–over and over–the Law of Thirds operating. And here it is again; only a third seem to advocate the most radical solution, while two-thirds are more moderate. Which group will be heeded by our new Congress?

For myself, I can’t quite imagine answering “approve” to a question about the war. One can agree with the decision to go to war given the facts we had at our disposal and the alternatives. One can think things are going better there than the MSM regularly reports. I fall into both these categories, and yet even I would not have answered “approve” if polled–war is too terrible, and there are too many ways in which the war could have been executed better (or at least we think so, with the benefits of 50/50 hindsight and the knowledge that, since we have no authority to implement our suggestions, our thoughts on the matter will never be subjected to the harsh light of reality. )

Like most of the two-thirds who answered “disapprove” to that poll, I’ve had quarrels with the conduct of the aftermath. It started with a terrible disquiet I felt at the outset, when widespread looting occurred and was allowed to continue. It set a tone of anarchy and lawlessness when a crackdown would have sent a different message. Yes, I understand the troops were busy fighting a war and wanted to ingratiate themselves with a population that they thought was only giving vent to anger at Saddam. Yes, they wanted to avoid the appearance of an occupation. But it seemed to give the wrong message, which was that anything goes.

As I’ve said many times before, I never expected this war to be easy or short. Actually, I fully expected it to be much worse than it has been; both in terms of initial casualties, and the subsequent battle. Whether you want to call that subsequent battle an insurgency, guerilla war, civil war, or terrorist war, I expected it to go on for a long time and to cause a great deal of suffering, as all such conflicts do.

As for mistakes in planning, failure to anticipate future events, and whether the administration expected the war and its aftermath to be easy or difficult, I’ve written at some length, here and here, about these questions, including the “cakewalk” issue. Please read both pieces; I have no wish to reiterate what I said then. Suffice to say that it’s impossible to anticipate these things fully, and of course the administration did not.

What I never expected, however (and should have expected) was the way the media–and some Democrats and Republicans, just to be bipartisan–demonstrated a lack of knowledge of the nature of war and wars. We’ve been spoiled, both by our ideals (who doesn’t want a cleaner war, one in which hardly anyone gets hurt? Count me in on that one) and our recent history (the Gulf War as the template, rather than World War II).

There is no question that if we expect perfection and give up if the going gets hard, we will become unable to fight any war. Some would say that’s wonderful. If we give up on war, all will be peace and light. I say: tell it to the jihadis.

In a piece found at The Corner, a reader sounds a warning:

It seems to me that Americans believe wars end when we say they end. Whether we win (WWII), lose (Vietnam), or draw (Korea), our wars have ended when we said they ended. The defeated Germans, victorious North Vietnamese, or stalemated North Koreans never came after America when hostilities ended. But the jihadists are coming, no matter what happens in Iraq. Make no mistake..

Have we lost the will for any fight that’s difficult or at all uncertain, that takes longer than a few weeks, that involves ambiguities and unknowns? I think we have. I hope we have not.

I hope the words of David Warren aren’t true:

…in trying to build a secular democracy over the ruin of Saddam’s regime, the Americans tried something they had not the stomach for. From the outset, they imposed upon themselves restrictions that would make that fight unwinnable. As in Vietnam, they adopted a purely defensive posture.

So far as President Bush can be blamed, it should be for showing insufficient ruthlessness in a task that could not be accomplished by half-measures. Alternatively, for failing to grasp that America was psychologically unprepared for real war, not only by the memory of Vietnam, but by the grim advance of “liberal” decadence in domestic life over the generation since.

Read the whole thing. Read the whole thing. And then read it again . And then hope and pray that Warren is a lousy prognosticator:

If Iraq is abandoned, the credibility of America and the West is lost. Iran’s hopes of regional hegemony are assured. The Americans will have cut and run after enduring less than one-twentieth of the casualties they suffered in Vietnam; and from a battle more consequential, for it is against an Islamist enemy that is rising, instead of a Communist enemy in decline…

…the consequences of abandoning Iraq will come home to the United States and the West, in a way Vietnam never touched us.

[ADDENDUM: I don’t mean to imply that decisions in war ought to be made by reading polls. However, since the majority of Americans don’t appear to want an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, if the Democratic leadership thinks they do and acts on that supposition, they may find themselves out of office next time round.

Many people (even among those who don’t want an immediate pullout) seem to have lost touch with the difficulties and uncertainties, as well as the inevitable mistakes, that are part and parcel of any war, and demand that wars be easier and faster than they ever are. This means that many wars–and the Iraq war is among them–are fought with half measures, and with the knowledge that public opinion is fickle and that people don’t have the stamina for the long haul. This can lead to decisions that are not strategically sound, because of knowledge of the impatience of the public. And our enemies know that, and count on it, and act accordingly.]

Bolton: the people’s ambassador? Pass the hat

Posted on November 10, 2006 by neoNovember 10, 2006

Here’s an interesting suggestion from a reader:

I’m just an ordinary middleaged housewife who is very upset that our country might lose John Bolton’s service at the UN because of partisan politics. I read that if Pres. Bush went the recess appt. routine again, then Bolton would have to work in a capacity were he does not receive an official salary. Well, it occurred to me that if 2000 citizens made only a $100 contribution, we could cover a year’s compensation. I really think this is doable for those of us in the blogosphere and I am writing to my regularly read bloggers to see if they would add their voice to this idea.

Bush: playing politics

Posted on November 9, 2006 by neoNovember 9, 2006

I found this via Pajamas Media today, with the following tagline: Question: “If President Bush had [fired Rumsfeld] two, three, four months ago would [the midterms] have been different?” (RCP)

I clicked on the link, hoping to find a discussion that might be a jumping-off place for a post of my own about the subject. But all I saw there was a single sentence, an echo of the question.

So I’ll take up the gauntlet and give a nice, hedgy answer: maybe.

I don’t think things would have been substantially different. Despite the sound bite of “this was all about the war,” it really wasn’t. It was about the war and the people’s perceptions of it, to be sure. But it was about a lot of other things as well, including corruption in Congress and inadequate handling of it (so, what else is new?), conservative disgruntlement with the current administration and Congress, the usual historical change of Congress during a President’s second term, relentless media spin, and Britney Spears’s impending divorce (oops, I guess that didn’t get announced till after the election. My bad.)

But if Bush had canned Rumsfeld earlier, it might have made a partial difference, and that might have been enough to change the outcome of a few close races here and there.

I don’t think it’s because of Rumsfeld himself, either, although he certainly had become a highly criticized and polarizing figure. I think it was more the perception given by Bush’s retention of Rumsfeld–and I believe it’s a correct perception–which is that Bush is one stubborn and unresponsive fellow.

That’s not just a perception; it appears to be the truth, a truth that’s been known for a long time. Bush digs in, he is very loyal to people and doesn’t switch horses easily, and of course he’s not the great communicator. That stubbornness of his is a double-edged sword; it makes him resolute but inflexible. He is the antithesis of someone like Clinton, for example, who almost never met a principle he couldn’t change if the polls indicated it might be politically expedient for him.

Bush’s natural tendency towards stubbornness and decisiveness–not a bad thing in a leader, unless it’s carried to extremes, as it has been at times in his case–may also be a reaction to Clinton, and reflect Bush’s deep desire to be the Un-Clinton. That he is, but it’s an overcorrection. And almost nowhere is that fact in greater evidence than in his handling of the timing of the actual Rumsfeld firing.

Not only did Bush not do what would have been politically expedient, which is to have gotten rid of Rumsfeld at least three or four months ago (to go back to RCP’s question), but he didn’t even let the press and the people know that Rumsfeld was on his way out even after it actually had been decided, which was apparently before this election.

This is, if you believe Bush’s story; I’m sure many don’t. I do, because it’s consistent with his personality. It tells you that Bush was willing to shoot himself (and his fellow Republicans) in the foot in order to demonstrate both loyalty and his un-Clintonian, non-pandering-to-politics, bona fides. That sort of behavior has cost him votes, approval ratings, the epithet “nonresponsive,” and the ire of fellow Republicans.

Now that the other shoe has dropped and the Democrats are in charge of Congress, Bush seems to have changed his tune a bit. So has the media, in a subtle but noticeable way. Now that they have gotten what they wanted–a Democratic victory–they can afford to be ever so slightly magnanimous towards Bush, who’s seen as mortally wounded. At least, that’s what I discern in articles such as this one form today’s San Francisco Chronicle, entitled, “An immediate and dramatic change in Bush’s tone.” The article states:

In words and tone, Bush conveyed an unfamiliar flexibility and rare willingness to work with his political adversaries Wednesday on his war strategy.

It goes on:

On Wednesday, [Bush] lamented that “somehow it seeped into (people’s) conscience that, you know, my attitude was just simply stay the course.”

It could be because Bush himself used the phrase “stay the course” dozens of times to explain his administration’s steadfast determination not to abandon the mission in the face of catastrophic circumstances in Iraq.

These two sentences sum up the problem between Bush and the people, and between the media and Bush. It’s true that it did seep into people’s conscience (sic: consciousnesses?) that Bush was inflexible. The problem wasn’t so much his oft-repeated desire to stay the course, but the perception that he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) adjust the details of that course in order to find a more effective way of getting from point A to point B. The media had a role in getting that perception across, but Bush didn’t do anywhere near enough to counter it.

And then there’s the phrase “catastrophic circumstances in Iraq.” The Chronicle takes it as a given that the situation in Iraq warrants that particular adjective rather than one a bit less–well, less catastrophic. I’d hate to have seen how the current-day writers and editors of a paper such as the Chronicle would have dealt with the early years of World War II, or the Civil War, or any number of other conflicts. Fortunately, they weren’t around then.

Not our first rodeo

Posted on November 8, 2006 by neoJuly 25, 2009

I caught the second half of Bush’s post-election press conference today.

Say what you like about politicians, but one thing they almost always display is an uncommon ability to pick themselves up and dust themselves off, and to do it on what must be almost no sleep at all. Oh, and to at least mouth words, post-election, that make it sound as though working together will be possible, no matter what foul mud has been slung beforehand.

In addition to that, Bush seemed especially–and I know some of you might find this word odd in relationship to that particular person–but especially articulate and focused. His speech pattern, for example, was much more rapid than usual. Virtually gone was the strange hesitation that often ties and muddles his tongue. He spoke rapidly and forcefully, somewhat impatiently, mostly very graciously, and decisively. I heard more off-the-cuff humor than I usually do when he speaks.

Sometimes when bad blows finally come after a period of trying to avoid them, there’s a calm that sets in. It’s over; now move on. And this election must have been a pretty bad blow, although not a totally unexpected one (in a phrase that is sure to be trumpeted by the MSM, he called it a “thumping” despite the closeness of many of the races).

As most of you know, the focus of my support for Bush is his general approach to the war on Islamic jihadi totalitarianism. I have some quarrels with his domestic agenda, and some disagreements with details of how the aforementioned war has been handled. So I was heartened by two things: one was the resignation (and the acceptance thereof) of Secretary Rumsfeld, who’s become a lightning rod for criticism. The other is that Bush is determined not to become a Gerald Ford.

Why the reference to Ford? He presided over the pulling of the plug in funding Vietnam, although “presided” is hardly what he did in terms of leadership. He abdicated, barely making any effort to stop Congress from cutting off all support from the South Vietnamese when a little (relatively speaking) might have gone a long way.

That’s the only Vietnam analogy I tried to make here. I’m aware of vast differences between Vietnam and Iraq, and the bottom line is that Iraq is far more strategically important. I don’t have quotes from Bush’s press conference, but he made it clear that he is dedicated to staying the course in Iraq with a different approach. What a different approach means remains to be seen, and what Congress will do about it is unclear, but there’s no question a course correction is needed.

Bush indicated we’ve been correcting our course right along. That’s true, but we need more visible success. It’s also true that the milblogs have been trumpeting our successes there right along, but most of America doesn’t read milblogs (or blogs at all, for that matter). The nature of the beast is that people need something more visible to counter the body daily count, some measure of success that they can perceive and understand.

My biggest fear with this election has been that the Democrats in the “cut and run” camp will dominate. I’m hoping much of that was just campaign rhetoric, and that more sober minds will prevail now that the Democrats have won. After all, as Bush himself said when asked whether he could work with people like Pelosi who’ve dissed him previously in such vicious terms: that’s politics; this isn’t “my first rodeo.”

A rodeo’s a tough game. But it’s a game. Politics may appear to be a game, and it’s a rather nasty one at that. But it influences affairs of state and global events, which are more than a game. And after the rough and wild rodeo of a political campaign, the cowboys who have been thrown by the bucking broncos, as well as the ones who haven’t, have to get up and get to work.

[ADDENDUM: Austin Bay makes some interesting points about what the change at Defense might signify. And I agree with this that Rumsfeld’s “resignation” would have been more strategicially sound had it been accomplished before the election rather than after. It’s been a while since much of anyone has been a Rumsfeld supporter–except for Bush, it seems, and the latter’s loyalty to him in the face of bipartisan opposition has caused bipartisan resentment.]

New Democrats: listening to the middle third

Posted on November 8, 2006 by neoJuly 25, 2009

I’m encouraged by the following:

The complexion of the Democratic presence in Congress will change…Party politics will be shaped by the resurgence of “Blue Dog” Democrats, who come mainly from the South and from rural districts in the Midwest and often vote like Republicans. Top Democrats such as Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., see these middle-of-the-road Democrats as the future of the party in a nation that leans slightly right of center.

I’m in the center myself. And I’m for parties that don’t ignore the Law of Thirds.

What’s the Law of Thirds? Take a look here. It still holds, I believe, and I’m glad of it:

Basically, my law refers to the fact that the populace of the US seems to be divided roughly into thirds, at least in the political sense: one-third on the entrenched left, one-third on the entrenched right, and one-third in between. It was something I’d noticed over and over in public opinion polls, and it seemed to be stable over time.

You all know where I stand–in that middle third. I think it’s actually where I’ve always stood, although I used to be positioned towards the leftish end of that middle, and now I stand pretty much in the very middle of that middle. It’s from this moderate middle third that elections are generally decided…

And here’s my warning to those on either side who ignore that all-important middle third:

Those who are considerably to the right or left often seem to have another thing in common: when their party happens to get into power, they believe it means that the Law of Thirds has been repealed, just for them. It hasn’t. As far as I know it’s still in operation, and has been for quite some time. Anyone from either radical third who thinks the American people will be happy to give his/her third a permanent ascendance in American political life is quite wrong, IMHO, and that person will be soundly rejected by said American people if he/she arrogantly and openly displays the hubris of thinking so–whether that person’s name be Howard Dean or Newt Gingrich or whomever else would be an even better example of the genre.

So the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party begins. Or continues.

One more thing: I’m heartened by the re-election of Lieberman and the defeat of Lamont in Connecticut. It’s a signal from that middle third; let’s hope the Democrats heed it.

Election central…

Posted on November 7, 2006 by neoNovember 7, 2006

…I’m not.

If you want a lot of updates, though, you might want to go to Pajamas Media, as well as Kesher Talk.

Earlier, Blogger was being uncooperative and wouldn’t let me post. I’ve had a busy day; just got back home and will be doing other things for much of the evening. But I’ve got the TV on in the background. I’ve been channel surfing, and so far it’s going more or less as expected: the Dems are having a very good evening indeed.

Years ago this would have been happy news for me. Now it’s not really news at all. The real news will be whether the Democrats get control of the Senate as well as the House, and what they do or don’t do with their victory.

I voted today, marking my little paper ballot in black–no newfangled voting machines here! Strangely enough, for the first time in memory (unless memory is playing tricks on me), there were no curtains on the voting booths. But no one seemed to be looking over my shoulder. Plus, there’s a new gadget that takes the ballots. It’s something like those gizmos that grab a dollar (if you put it in just right) and give you change, only this one doesn’t give you change. In the past we used to fold our ballots in half and put them in a slot.

I always find voting to be a moving experience. It’s a cliche to say so, but voting is a privilege. The white-haired ladies (they are always white-haired ladies) who man (is that a mixed metaphor?) the polls are calm and polite, and have their poker faces on. Voting took all of three minutes today; no lines.

And now we wait. But I’m going to make a prediction: Democrats take both House and Senate.

It’s as bad…

Posted on November 7, 2006 by neoNovember 7, 2006

…in Egypt as it is in France. Who knew?

Troll IDs

Posted on November 6, 2006 by neoNovember 6, 2006

By the way, for all who are interested in this sort of thing, “spotter” and “just a guy” are one and the same person, originating from Auckland, New Zealand. For those whose memories here go back a ways, probligo the troll hailed from the same place.

Pre-election musings on Vietnam and Iraq: the bitter end?

Posted on November 6, 2006 by neoJuly 25, 2009

Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to hanging. Nothing is likely to save him, not even the antics of lawyer Ramsey Clark, who was thrown out of the courtroom yesterday for disrespect.

But despite all the charges against him, no one’s ever accused Saddam of being dumb. Here’s an interesting tidbit that shows how smart he really was: in the buildup to the Iraqi war in 2003, Saddam was already making the Vietnam analogy:

In the days leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, television stations there showed 1975 footage of U.S. embassy support personnel escaping to helicopters from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon. It was Saddam’s message to his people that the United States does not keep its commitments …

Of course, Saddam’s enemies in Iraq had already learned that particular lesson the hard way–from bitter personal experience after the Gulf War, when they were encouraged to revolt against Saddam by the US, which then looked the other way when they were slaughtered. But Saddam wanted to remind them, complete with visuals, that this was a recurrent US pattern.

Tomorrow’s election has been billed as a referendum on the Iraq war, and the Democrats feel poised to win. But they are divided and planless, with some fearing an early pullout in Iraq and others desiring one. The former probably have studied the bitter lessons of the end stages of the Vietnam War, while the latter probably consider those end stages to have been a victory for their side.

Here’s an article describing the debacle of the end game in the Vietnam War. Worth noting: once the US had withdrawn its forces, the North Vietnamese correctly surmised that we hadn’t the stomach to return, no matter what the provocation. So they decided they could violate the terms of the Paris (how apropos!) Accords with impunity. When they did just that, the US responded by doing essentially nothing, giving the de facto green light to the North’s final offensive against the South.

In a fascinating although lengthy article by Nixon’s former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, published about a year ago in Foreign Affairs, Laird writes:

Mine is not a rosy view of the Vietnam War. I didn’t miss the fact that it was an ugly, mismanaged, tragic episode in U.S. history, with devastating loss of life for all sides. But there are those in our nation who…wait for opportunities to trot out the Vietnam demons whenever another armed intervention is threatened…

…during [1973-1975, when US combat forces had withdrawn], South Vietnam held its own courageously and respectably against a better-bankrolled enemy. Peace talks continued between the North and the South until the day in 1975 when Congress cut off U.S. funding. The Communists walked out of the talks and never returned. Without U.S. funding, South Vietnam was quickly overrun. We saved a mere $297 million a year and in the process doomed South Vietnam, which had been ably fighting the war without our troops since 1973….

Vietnam gave the United States the reputation for not supporting its allies. The shame of Vietnam is not that we were there in the first place, but that we betrayed our ally in the end. It was Congress that turned its back on the promises of the Paris accord.

Laird supervised the slow withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam, known as Vietnamization. It took four years. He makes it clear that it’s not Congress that should be setting some sort of artificial timetable in such a process, it’s the executive branch that should be responding to conditions in the field:

In those four years of Vietnamization, I never once publicly promised a troop number for withdrawal that I couldn’t deliver. President Bush should move ahead with the same certainty. I also did not announce what our quantitative standards for readiness among the South Vietnamese troops were, just as Bush should not make public his specific standards for determining when Iraqi troops are ready to go it alone. In a report to Congress in July 2005, the Pentagon hinted that those measurable standards are in place. However, it would be a mistake for the president to rely solely on the numbers. Instead, his top commander in the field should have the final say on how many U.S. troops can come home, commensurate with the readiness of Iraqi forces.

Sounds reasonable to me. But I don’t have confidence that a Democratic Congress won’t try to force the issue and bring the troops home as soon as possible. After all, they may feel they won the election on that platform, and that their constituents demand it. As a USA Today article points out:

Bush has said repeatedly that he refuses to end the war according to an artificial timetable set by politicians in Washington, but if the polls are borne out in Tuesday’s elections, the public will be setting timetables, and they will only accelerate if the situation inside Iraq continues to deteriorate.

This would be a tragedy of major proportions, both for the Iraqis, the US, and our reputation for staying the course. My hope is that, if the Democrats do win control of the House, enough of them will have learned all the lessons of Vietnam, including that of the bitter end:

Just days before his execution at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodian statesman Sirak Mitak penned a final note to the U.S. ambassador refusing his offer of evacuation.

“I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty….You leave and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under the sky.

“But mark it well that, if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is too bad because we all are born and must die one day. I have only committed this mistake in believing in you, the Americans.”

[ADDENDUM: What those serving in Iraq think, according to the Washington Post.]

Another rhyme of history: military service and family strife

Posted on November 4, 2006 by neoJuly 25, 2009

During the Vietnam years, it wasn’t unusual for fathers and sons to stop talking to each other over issues connected with the war and military service. Most often the father, usually a veteran who’d served in World War II, couldn’t understand or accept the son who felt his conscience dictated leaving the country or faking an illness.

Now the worm has turned. Certain fathers–perhaps in some cases those very same sons of long ago–are rejecting children who enlist:

My brother is an Army Ranger in Afghanistan…His choice to join after 9/11 was not easy. He was one year away from graduating from ASU with a law degree, and he believed the nation needed another soldier more than it needed another lawyer. His choice did not come without consequences, though.

His choice was not supported by our father, and his reaction to my brother’s choice was typical of a 1960s throwback; my brother is no longer welcome in my parent’s home.

My brother told me that he can understand our father’s reaction to the decision. They come from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.

There are many tragedies in war, and one of them is this estrangement of the generations. Note that in this particular case, the son seems to have an unusually mature–you might almost say “liberal,” in the generic sense of the word–reaction to the father.

[ADDENDUM: Austin Bay, whose radio request for responses from military members to John Kerry’s recent gaffe led to the letter I’ve quoted in this post, has written an eloquent soliloquy on Kerry. Hint: Austin is not one of Kerry’s biggest fans.]