Election in Italy: another close one

The New Neo Posted on by

I see a trend here, although it’s not one I claim to understand: the Italian election is another cliff-hanger, too close to form a clear majority and give a clear mandate:

Final results showed Prodi’s alliance taking control of the Chamber, winning by a margin of just 25,224 out of more than 38 million votes cast. Berlusconi’s coalition held a one-seat lead in the Senate, with the results of six seats for Italians living abroad to be determined later today.

Shades of Germany last fall:

The outcome of the Italian vote has parallels with the inconclusive election result in Germany in September. Christian Democrat Angela Merkel eventually formed a “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats after two months of talks which led to outgoing Social Democrat Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s retirement from politics.

Our last two Presidential elections were rather close, too, as you might recall.

What does it mean? Beats me. A sort of equal-opportunity disillusionment with all parties?

Only the Shadow Knows: Seymour Hersh on Iran and the neocons

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Seymour Hersh, who’s hardly ever met a source he was willing to name, has written an article about Iran, the nuclear threat it represents, and what Hersh alleges are the Bush Administration’s plans to bomb it with nuclear weapons. The article appears in the current (April 17) New Yorker.

The Hersh piece is written in an especially flat style, with sentence after plain declarative sentence and not a whole lot of analysis: a sort of Dragnet-speak, as it were. It is somewhat impenetrable at first, but then Hersh’s agenda (or at least, part of his agenda) slowly emerges: the thing is the fault of those jumpy trigger-happy neocons again, looking for the shootout at the OK Corral.

It’s a curious article, because even Hersh seems unable to deny that the current leaders of Iran are dangerous nutcases, talking trash about wasting Israel and the US. And, as with most Hersh articles, it’s virtually impossible to evaluate the truth or falsehood of the unsourced assertions he piles up: is the Bush administration actually intending to carry out such an attack and, if so when? And would such as attack consist of a minimal number of bunker busters that would cause relatively few casualties, or would it be much more than that? Or is this all merely one of countless contingency plans that any administration would draw up while brainstorming, in order to be prepared for anything and everything?

Only the Shadow knows–or rather, Hersh’s shadowy but nevertheless opinionated sources.

The thrust of Hersh’s article is that Bush and the neocon cowboys are jumping the gun in order to effect their real goal, regime change in Iran, and that “all the cooler heads are saying, is give diplomacy a chance” [emphasis mine in the following quote]:

“This is much more than a nuclear issue,” one [nameless] high-ranking diplomat told me [Hersh] in Vienna. “That’s just a rallying point, and there is still time to fix it. But the Administration believes it cannot be fixed unless they control the hearts and minds of Iran. The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next ten years.”

A [nameless] senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror expressed a similar view. “This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,” he said. The danger, he said, was that “it also reinforces the belief inside Iran that the only way to defend the country is to have a nuclear capability.” A military conflict that destabilized the region could also increase the risk of terror: “Hezbollah comes into play,” the adviser said, referring to the terror group that is considered one of the world’s most successful, and which is now a Lebanese political party with strong ties to Iran. “And here comes Al Qaeda.”

Hezbollah comes into play? And here comes Al Qaeda? And where have they all been until now? Biding their time, just waiting peacefully until Bush (courtesy of Seymour Hersh’s article) declares that he might bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities?

More on the evil neocons:

The [nameless] Pentagon adviser said that, in the event of an attack, the Air Force intended to strike many hundreds of targets in Iran but that “ninety-nine per cent of them have nothing to do with proliferation. There are people who believe it’s the way to operate”””that the Administration can achieve its policy goals in Iran with a bombing campaign, an idea that has been supported by neoconservatives.

Yes indeed, the speaker knows the administration is planning to bomb random sites which clearly have nothing to do with a weapons program that is, after all, secret, in order to effect regime change–just like those mean old neocons did with Saddam, whom everybody knew at the outset didn’t have any WMDs.

The following passage illustrates what things have come to, these days (and includes a rare named source of Hersh’s):

Robert Gallucci, a former government expert on nonproliferation who is now the dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, told me [Hersh], “Based on what I know, Iran could be eight to ten years away” from developing a deliverable nuclear weapon. Gallucci added, “If they had a covert nuclear program and we could prove it, and we could not stop it by negotiation, diplomacy, or the threat of sanctions, I’d be in favor of taking it out. But if you do it”””bomb Iran””“without being able to show there’s a secret program, you’re in trouble.”

It seems that the burden of proof is on us to prove something that by definition cannot be proven–the existence of a secret program, as with Saddam. Nowadays, intelligence is required to be perfect. It matters not that an obviously insane regime is making wild threats that indicate it is developing a bomb and will use it once it has gained the capacity, or even provide it to terrorists. No, that’s not enough; we must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the program is in place and the bomb actually developed before we are allowed to even consider–or, apparently, to even make contingency plans for the possibility of–defending ourselves and others against it.

The fact that by then it may be too late seems irrelevant to this argument. At the present time, all dictators are innocent till proven guilty.

Then there are those neocons again, causing so much trouble, and even causing bombmaker-in-captivity Khan to lie to please them:

In the most recent interrogations, [the Pakistani bombmaker] Khan has provided information on Iran’s weapons design and its time line for building a bomb. “The picture is of ”˜unquestionable danger,’ ” the [unnamed] former senior intelligence official said. (The [unnamed] Pentagon adviser also confirmed that Khan has been “singing like a canary.”) The concern, the former senior official said, is that “Khan has credibility problems. He is suggestible, and he’s telling the neoconservatives what they want to hear”””

And here it is, the heart of the Hersh article (you knew it was coming, didn’t you?):

The Administration’s case against Iran is compromised by its history of promoting false intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Note the clever phrasing–“history of promoting false intelligence.” It stops short of saying “lying,” although it leaves room for the insinuation. And the fact is that, unfortunately, the failure to find clear evidence of WMDs in Iraq has had this very effect–that any later claims of the same sort would be subject to a sky-high burden of proof, and would be met with “it’s just those neocon boys crying wolf again” skepticism. This was always going to be part of the fallout of any errors made on that score–and even if some think the jury is still out on the subject of Saddam and WMDs, there has been no smoking gun found in Iraq as yet, and probably never will be.

Hersh’s article is filled with multiple and varied estimates of how close Iran might be to actually having the bomb. But they are all just guesses; it’s fairly clear that, in reality, no one has a clue. But our foreign policy must always rely on this sort of imperfect knowledge.

Unfortunately, the potential penalties for a wrong guess in either direction are extremely large: international condemnation and perhaps retaliation if we were to bomb Iran prematurely, especially with any sort of nuclear weaponry (and how could we ever prove ourselves to have been correct in our estimate of their nuclear capacity, ex post facto?); the destruction of Israel, and/or of several US cities, if we were to get it wrong in the other direction. (Oh, but at least, in the latter case, we’d occupy the moral high ground, wouldn’t we?)

Here’s one of my favorite passages, from an unnamed diplomat:

All of the [IAEA] inspectors are angry at being misled by the Iranians, and some think the Iranian leadership are nutcases””one hundred per cent totally certified nuts,” the diplomat said. He added that ElBaradei’s overriding concern is that the Iranian leaders “want confrontation, just like the neocons on the other side”””in Washington. “At the end of the day, it will work only if the United States agrees to talk to the Iranians.”

How this passage manages to go from the thought expressed in the first sentence (“the Iranian leadership is nuts”) to that of the second (they are like the neocons, who want confrontation) and then on to the third (negotiation with the Iranian leadership can work, if only the US is willing to talk) is–well–it’s practically nuts, as well. I fail to see even a semblance of logic here. Just to recap: murderous apocalyptic madmen in charge of a country are the equivalent of the people who are eager to stop them, and the latter are to be faulted for not engaging in negotiation with said madmen, which of course would work if attempted.

The Europeans seem to be every bit as dedicated to the maintenance of the current Iranian regime as they were to that of Saddam–which is to say, very dedicated indeed:

The Europeans are rattled, however, by their growing perception that President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney believe a bombing campaign will be needed, and that their real goal is regime change.

The rest of the article explains all the dire consequences of attacking Iran, assuming that any attack would unleash forces that would otherwise be held in check. The idea that diplomacy and sanctions can work–against a regime that has shown itself to be profoundly uninterested in either–is not a compelling one. But hope springs eternal, does it not?:

One reason for pursuing diplomacy was, [an unnamed diplomat] said, Iran’s essential pragmatism. “The regime acts in its best interests,” he said. Iran’s leaders “take a hard-line approach on the nuclear issue and they want to call the American bluff,” believing that “the tougher they are the more likely the West will fold.” But, he said, “From what we’ve seen with Iran, they will appear superconfident until the moment they back off.”

“Iran’s essential pragmatism.” Oh yes. Of course. Right. This unnamed diplomat knows the minds of the mullahs, and that they are just bluffing, and can be worked with. Nutcases and madman who threaten to destroy other states, and who seem to care nothing about the survival of their own people, are like that: very pragmatic, very amenable to sanctions and diplomacy.

Look, the Iranian situation is profoundly terrifying. It is far from clear that there is any solution that wouldn’t be catastrophic, although to my way of thinking the best thing to do would be to encourage regime change clandestinely, from within (although the likelihood of success for such an option is unclear–and, unfortunately, time may be running out). But the entire Hersh piece, from beginning to end, is nothing more than a host of mostly nameless people playing guessing games.

The truth is that we may once again be facing (now, or at some unspecified date in the not-too-distant future) the need to make some very hard choices among crazinesses. Which of these is the least crazy–adopting a “wait-and-see” attitude, relying on diplomacy with madmen–or attacking, and dealing with the consequences? I think no one should pretend the answer is either easy or obvious.

In World War II, the “good guys” got the bomb first and then used it to shorten the war, with catastrophic loss of life for the Japanese of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (this was the “choice among crazinesses” that the US leadership made at the time). Some say that, by dropping those bombs on the Japanese, we forfeited our claim to be the good guys, but the argument that those bombings prevented even further bloodshed is quite compelling (I discuss the matter in this post, and in this one as well).

We may soon be facing a similar moral and tactical dilemma in which there is no good solution, although I profoundly hope not. But make no mistake about it: if we do, the fault lies with the Iranian leaders. Their intentions have never really been hidden; it’s only now that they appear to be on the verge of acquiring the means to achieve their long-stated aims.

[ADDENDUM: The White House responds to the Hersh article, here, calling such reports “wild speculation.” Here’s the basic stance:

The White House sought Monday to minimize new speculation about a possible military strike against Iran while acknowledging that the Pentagon is developing contingency plans to deal with Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. The Pentagon has refused to describe its planning further.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan refused to confirm or deny The New Yorker report. “Those who are seeking to draw broad conclusions based on normal military contingency planning are misinformed or not knowledgeable about the administration’s thinking,” he said.]

[ADDENDUM II: Ralph Peters weighs in with this interesting analysis (via Austin Bay).]

The usual suspects

The New Neo Posted on by

Light blogging today. It’s Sunday, beautiful weather, and–among other things–I need to do a bunch of work on my mother’s taxes.

But I just wanted to point out that, overnight, something seems to have eaten my tulip leaves (“Eats, Shoots and Leaves“–indeed!).

Take a look; it’s a sad and sorry sight, and I want some sympathy:

(The photo doesn’t really do justice to the jagged, amputated quality of the leaves, but it’s the best I could do).

Each year it happens, if I forget to spray the things with the noxious brew (eau de rotten eggs and hot peppers) known as “Deer Off” in time. This year I tried–I tried–but the friggin nozzle was clogged and could not get unclogged, and I just today managed to get a substitute spray thingee.

But alas, too late. The usual suspects–be they deer, squirrels, dogs with strange culinary tastes, neighbors with same, whoever and whatever their identity–have had their way with my tulip foliage, providing a graphic and all-too-poignant demonstration of the phrase “nipped in the bud.”

But at least I got a post out of it.

See you tomorrow.

Wafa Sultan, Jacksonian, vs. the Boston Phoenix: feeding that ravenous crocodile

The New Neo Posted on by

[CORRECTION: It’s been pointed out by several commenters that the linked article appears to be by one Amit Ghate, not Wafa Sultan, although it appeared on the latter’s blog. The link was originally sent to me and identified as being from Wafa Sultan’s blog. Under the influence of mental set and expectations, I assumed that it was by Dr. Sultan herself, without thinking to check the byline. I usually try to be extraordinarily careful about such things, but I’m only human, and certainly some things can slip by me, as this one did. So, I stand corrected: it was published on Dr. Sultan’s blog, but it is by Amit Ghate. And, although Dr. Sultan is still the same brave person, she didn’t write the “extraordinarily hard-hitting article,” although it certainly seems to be simpatico with her point of view.]

No, Wafa Sultan hasn’t directly challenged the alternative newspaper known as the Boston Phoenix. But she mentions the paper in passing in this extraordinarily hard-hitting article which appeared on her website “Annaqed.”

Dr. Sultan, whom I wrote about previously here, is Syrian-born. She is what Islam would consider an apostate from the faith, a psychiatrist who lives in America now. She recently achieved some notoriety through an outspoken interview she gave on Al Jazeera, praising Western Enlightenment thought and criticizing the oppression and ignorance she feels is rampant in many Moslem countries.

Her new piece is worth reading in its entirety (although I have some disagreements with her reading of ancient history–but that’s another topic, perhaps for another time). It’s the part of her article that deals with recent history that I find especially interesting and provocative, particularly her take on the passivity of the Western world since the Iranian kidnappings of 1979, which she feels was an act of war and should have been treated as such.

Dr. Sultan pulls no punches, to say the least; she sets up a Jacksonian challenge to Western countries to begin defending themselves and their culture with greater vigor, or to face continuing to be perceived by the Islamicist jihadis as weak and therefore relatively easy prey. Here’s some of the flavor of Dr. Sultan’s article:

…our government, under the pacifist Jimmy Carter, wrung its hands and negotiated with a regime which had just broken the most basic law of diplomacy. (Two half-hearted, under-manned and under-planned rescue attempts were made, but the fiascos only underscored how unwilling the government was to use its military force to remedy the problem).

This event signaled to all observers, that though the West still had abundant physical means to defend its citizens, it had lost its will to do so. In fact, not only would it not defend its citizens, it would even act against them, as did the US State Department when, after the eventual release of the hostages, it quashed their attempt to seek redress in international courts, simply to avoid “stirring up” trouble with foreign nations!

The absence of any military response and the complete abdication of the government’s responsibility to its citizens was the first sign to the Islamic world that it could act with impunity against any Western citizen — and act it did. A series of attacks throughout the Middle East followed.

What do I mean when I refer to Dr. Sultan’s position as “Jacksonian?” It’s part of Walter Russell Meade’s famous schema of strains in American foreign policy (and one of those many topics I’m saving for a longer post); see here for a summary, here for an article by Meade on Jacksonians, and here for his book Special Providence.

This is a summary of the Jacksonian position:

The driving belief of the Jacksonian school of thought is that the first priority of the U.S. Government in both foreign and domestic policy is the physical security and economic well-being of the American populace. Jacksonians believe that the US shouldn’t seek out foreign quarrels, but if a war starts, the basic belief is “there’s no substitute for victory” ”“ and Jacksonians will do pretty much whatever is required to make that victory happen. If you wanted a Jacksonian slogan, it’s “Don’t Tread On Me!” Jacksonians are generally viewed by the rest of the world as having a simplistic, uncomplicated view of the world, despite quite a bit of evidence to the contrary.

If you read Dr. Sultan’s piece with an eye to Meade’s categories, you’ll see how very Jacksonian it is. Dr. Sultan links together the last thirty-five years of terrorist acts with responses from the West that treat them, not as acts of war, but with various degrees of appeasement, capitulation, and/or ineffective responses. Towards the end of the piece, Dr. Sultan offers the following very Jacksonian declaration of intent:

…let us resurrect Dumas’ famous Musketeers’ rallying call: “One for All and All for One” emphasizing the latter phrase. For only by standing together to defend each individual can a peaceful society exist. Thus we must stand together and protect the lonely author who dares question a religion and who is sentenced to death because of it. We must stand together to defend his publishers who are firebombed for printing the book. We must stand together to defend the individual film-maker and political dissident who criticize Islam and are sentenced to death because of it. We must stand together to defend the benign cartoonist, who pens a simple cartoon, and is then forced into hiding by death threats and bounties.

To stand together means to assert our rights with our government as our agent. To those who threaten us with force, asserting our rights means responding with force, in fact, with overwhelming force. We must say to Iran (which on February 14 just reconfirmed the Rushdie fatwa) “oust and turn over the regime which sees fit to condemn a single citizen of ours to death, or face all out war.” And if they refuse, give them the war they started, but be sure to win it decisively, not protecting their mosques and infrastructure, but instead doing everything necessary to ensure they have no capacity to ever threaten us again.

The statement of an all-out no-holds-barred Jacksonian impulse is sobering, is it not? What Dr. Sultan is proposing is no less than the threat of a World War III, and a hot one at that.

I personally hope that this is not necessary, and that Dr. Sultan is wrong, although at times I fear that she is right. Because the distinguishing characteristic of this particularly enemy is its emphasis on the world to come, and its willingness to embrace the death of hordes of its own people in the cause of establishing a new Caliphate. Unfortunately, although vast numbers of “moderate Moslems” may be against this cause (and we have no way of knowing how many there are who fit that description), it may not matter, if leaders such as those in Iran are for it, and if they’ve shown their the willingness to sacrifice their own people to establish their version of heaven on earth, and to defeat the Great and Little Satans.

How does the Boston Phoenix enter into this? It’s a tabloid freebie paper, a relic of the 60s, and one I’ve read off and on for all these long years. It intersperses notices and reviews of cultural events–concerts, theater, poetry readings, all that good stuff–with actual news stories from a basic leftist/liberal perspective. You know the type of thing; probably every big city has its equivalent.

In Dr. Sultan’s article, she deals with the recent Mohammed cartoons issue at some length. That’s the context in which she mentions that the Boston Phoenix had refused to run the cartoons.

That fact alone didn’t surprise me, but their stated reason for not running them did. Here it is:

…fear of retaliation from the international brotherhood of radical and bloodthirsty Islamists ”¦ This is, frankly, our primary reason for not publishing any of the images in question ”¦ we are being terrorized, and as deeply as we believe in the principles of free speech and a free press, we could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix ”¦ in physical jeopardy ”¦ this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year publishing history.

I did not expect such a bold statement from the Phoenix, using phrases such as “bloodthirsty Islamists,” and freely admitting their fear of retaliation was the reason they desisted. Other publications (for example, the NY Times) had emphasized their sensitivity to Moslem feeling, instead.

Interestingly, the Phoenix actually pointed out the Times’s hypocrisy, here, in an article in which the Phoenix called out the Times for refusing to show similar cultural and religious sensitivity when it insisted on publishing the photo of an ultra-Orthodox Jew who had already protested the publication of said picture for religious reasons.

Columnist Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe, one of their few conservative writers, got into the act as well, here:

Journalists can be incredibly brave, but when it comes to covering the Arab and Muslim world, too many news organizations have knuckled under to threats. Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, a veteran foreign correspondent, admitted long ago that ”physical intimidation” by the PLO led reporters to skew their coverage of important stories or to ignore them ”out of fear.” Similarly, CNN’s former news executive, Jordan Eason, acknowledged after the fall of Saddam Hussein that his network had long sanitized its news from Iraq, since reporting the unvarnished truth ”would have jeopardized the lives of . . . our Baghdad staff.”

Like the Nazis in the 1930s and the Soviet communists in the Cold War, the Islamofascists are emboldened by appeasement and submissiveness. Give the rampagers and book-burners a veto over artistic and editorial decisions, and you end up not with heightened sensitivity and cultural respect, but with more rampages and more books burned. You betray ideals that generations of Americans have died to defend.

Appeasement doesn’t seem to work–it merely feeds the crocodile, as Churchill famously said–but I can understand why it’s used so often. If I were a journalist working for the Phoenix or any other publication, would I want to lay my life on the line to publish those cartoons? I’m happy I don’t have to answer the question.

And I can well understand the West’s denial, for so many years during the last decades of the twentieth century, of the nature and seriousness of the enemy we face–after all, in my own small way, I was part of that denial. Some are still in denial, and this is also understandable: who among us can face the sort of destructive prospect Dr. Sultan is suggesting be unleashed? Can there not be a Wilsonian solution instead? Please? Oh, pretty please?

Because the alternative seems very grim, indeed.

I’ll close with more words from Winston Churchill on a similar matter:

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

[NOTE: You might want to take a look at this post by Vodkapundit Stephen Green, which discusses the same issue from another angle, that of a recent time-travel short story by Dan Simmons. Vodkapundit also discussed the issue yesterday, in this post about the meaning of the phrase “whatever it takes.” He writes:

“Whatever it takes” is what we’re trying to avoid. Whatever we’re doing might just be working.

I certainly hope so.]

The return of word verification

The New Neo Posted on by

Sorry to inconvenience everyone, but the spambots came back–rather, that is, one spambot came back. But one was enough for me; like mice or ants or other pests, where there’s one, more ordinarily follow. I’m actually surprised it took this long.

And so I’ve turned on the word verification feature again. Hope it’s not too much of a pain of you all. But it’s really helpful in making sure this blog doesn’t become a spam dump. Thanks!

More Kipling: history repeats itself (“the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger”)

The New Neo Posted on by

Part of an interesting piece by Dr. Horsefeathers on the subject of Kipling, posted some time ago (ignore the spambot dump that the comments section of that post has managed to become) , is the following observation on Kipling and pacifists, written by George Orwell:

In discussing the pacifist left Orwell wrote, “A humanitarian is always a hypocrite, and Kipling’s understanding of this is perhaps the central secret of his power to create telling phrases. It would be difficult to hit off the one-eyed pacifism of the English in fewer words than in the phrase, ‘making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep’.

That quote of Orwell’s, “A humanitarian is always a hypocrite,” brought me up short. Certainly, humanitarians are sometimes hypocrites, but always? Always? And Orwell was usually so careful with words! Which made me wonder what he was getting at here.

So I went back to the original source of the quote, this article Orwell wrote on Kipling. I found a few other interesting points about Kipling (about whom Orwell had mixed feelings, to say the least) before I struck pay dirt, such as this discussion of the ways in which Kipling is misquoted and misunderstood:

An interesting instance of the way in which quotations are parroted to and fro without any attempt to look up their context or discover their meaning is the line from “Recessional,” “Lesser breeds without the Law.” This line is always good for a snigger in pansy-left circles. It is assumed as a matter of course that the “lesser breeds” are “natives,” and a mental picture is called up of some pukka sahib in a pith helmet kicking a coolie. In its context the sense of the line is almost the exact opposite of this. The phrase “lesser breeds” refers almost certainly to the Germans, and especially the pan-German writers, who are “without the Law” in the sense of being lawless, not in the sense of being powerless. The whole poem, conventionally thought of as an orgy of boasting, is a denunciation of power politics, British as well as German.

And here is the full Orwell quote about humanitarians and their hypocrisy:

All left-wing parties in the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy. They have internationalist aims, and at the same time they struggle to keep up a standard of life with which those aims are incompatible. We all live by robbing Asiatic coolies, and those of us who are “enlightened” all maintain that those coolies ought to be set free; but our standard of living, and hence our “enlightenment,” demands that the robbery shall continue. A humanitarian is always a hypocrite…

So, in this context, he seems to be using the word “humanitarian” to mean “leftist” in the economic sense, not to refer to people who, for example, provide earthquake relief. The latter may be idealistic or simplistic, and they may at times be ineffective, but I don’t see how the vast majority of them could be described as hypocrites–unless one happens to be an utter Malthusian and Social Darwinist and believes that people who really have humanity’s best interests at heart should follow a strict non-interventionist policy in the struggle for existence, and that intervention only leads to a cascade of increasing problems.

But to get back to Kipling, in his essay Dr. Horsefeathers also reproduces a famous Kipling poem entitled “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” the last two stanzas of which I found especially thought-provoking. “Copybook Headings” is one of those archaic Britishisms that needs explanation for us benighted and ignorant moderns, especially of the American variety:

“Copybook” is the British for notebook; a “Copybook heading” was a proverb or other essential truth that a teacher assigned to his class to write an essay on.

Here are those last two stanzas:

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.

I would assert that it’s hard to get any more pessimistic than that about humankind, history, and humanity’s inability to learn from history–or, perhaps, any more correct. Not to mention that–at least to this reader–one of the things he seems to be describing is the end result of Communism and Socialism.

I suspected that the poem was written after the profound disillusionment of World War I–and, sure enough, it was: 1919.

That incredible line, “…the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire,” is one that probably could be used by either side these days, to accuse the other. But to me it symbolizes in a profound, graphic, and bitter way the tendency of people to forget the lessons of history, even recent ones.

Rudyard Kipling, New Englander (Grieving parents in war, Part III)

The New Neo Posted on by

Rudyard Kipling’s name has come up in the comments section twice recently. The first time was in the context of this comment, in which Richard Aubrey mentions that:

Kipling, in his “Kim” has a retired officer of Indian cavalry talking to a Buddhist monk. I believe the officer’s comment to the monk’s reproach to his career of fighting went like, “War is an ill think, as I surely know. But ‘twould be an ill world for weaponless dreamers if evil men were not now and then slain.”

Not a bad description of the way in which the military makes the world safe for pacifists.

And then, in my poetic thread of yesterday, commenter Ymarsakar mentions Kipling’s poem “If,” and offers up a sampling of his other work, including “The White Man’s Burden.”

That was enough to get me started on doing some research on Kipling–a man who was a giant in his own day, then faded in public estimation, but is undergoing a recent revival. The reasons for his rise, fall, and then slight rise again involve both literary fashion and the political.

Kipling was a very traditional poet; and in particular a rhyming, storytelling, and dialect-using poet; certainly not the type of thing that’s been in vogue for quite some time. But, as Ymarsakar points out, his is a type of poetry people can really understand; it’s very accessible.

Of course, the second (and perhaps even more relevant) reason for the ups and downs of Kipling’s career is his politics. He is seen–rightly or wrongly–as an apologist for colonialism and imperialism, and the “White Man’s Burden” poem (and the phrase itself), are considered un-PC to the max, the very essence of what’s wrong with imperialism.

I’m not a Kipling expert, and I’m not yet ready to write the definitive post on his work; this certainly isn’t it, if that’s what you’re looking for. But in doing my research I was reminded of the fact that Kipling, the quintessential author of the age of the British Empire at its zenith, was also a New Englander.

What, you ask? Yes, a New Englander. Kipling married a Vermont woman and they lived there for four years early in their marriage. I once knew that fact (although I’d certainly forgotten it) because about thirty years ago, while snowshoeing with some friends who lived in the town, I happened across the house where they’d lived in Brattleboro. They pointed it out; at the time, it wasn’t open to the public, but now it is:

They make an unlikely group of New Englanders: Mowgli, the boy raised by wolves and who talked with the animals; Shere Khan, the ruthless tiger; Bagheera, the fearsome panther. Indeed, though the jungle boy and the creatures who inhabit The Jungle Books of Rudyard Kipling were conceived in India during the author’s childhood, they were given birth half a world away in the thoroughly unexotic setting of a small Vermont village. The first portion of The Jungle Books was published in the U.S. in 1894 (a second followed in 1895).

…Recently, the house where Mowgli was born has been restored by the Landmark Trust, a British nonprofit foundation devoted to preserving historic British homes. Landmark Trust properties are not restored to be museums, but for use as unconventional guest homes.

On a bluff outside Brattleboro, the library, gardens and spacious living quarters at “Naulakha” are active again, reincarnated as perhaps Vermont’s most unusual summer vacation home/winter ski chalet.

So, this is where some of the Jungle Books were written and Kipling’s first two children were born. He and his wife had retreated there after being repulsed by New York City:

If his American surroundings are any indication, the Kipling of Naulakha hardly resembled the imperial father figure he later became. Wandering the house, a visitor inevitably attempts to conjure the man with the assistance of an amusing contemporary newspaper report: “he wears shabby clothes, drives shaggy horses, is always saying, ‘Begad’ and plays with the baby.”

Rural Vermont or not, though, he never failed at Naulakha to dress for dinner. Remarkably, Kipling even played games at Naulakha — the USGA credits him with inventing snow golf there (a winter version played with distinctive red balls and tin cans for cups), and é  la Mark Twain, he installed a billiards table in the attic. On a visit from Britain, Arthur Conan Doyle brought Kipling a pair of skis and, it is said, introduced the sport to Vermont.

The thematic principle of the house’s design is decidedly playful, too. In a curious conceit, Kipling intended Naulakha to resemble a ship. At 90 feet by 24 feet, the house is unusually long and narrow with the author’s library and office at the “bow,” the kitchen at the “stern.” According to David Tansey, an architectural historian and the Landmark Trust’s US representative, the author was possibly inspired by elegant Kashmiri houseboats he had known in India.

I don’t know about you, but the idea that skiing came to Vermont via Kipling via Arthur Conan Doyle fills me with wonderment. And I love the fact that Kipling invented winter golf, a sport I didn’t even know existed.

Kipling’s American sojourn–though filled with joy at the beginning–had a sad, and then an even sadder ending:

When a family quarrel erupted between Kipling and an alcoholic brother-in-the law, the fallout obliterated whatever joy had formerly illuminated Naulakha. The author’s family left Vermont in 1896, and they returned to America only once with tragic consequences. Following a rough Atlantic crossing to New York in 1899, Kipling and six-year-old daughter Josephine fell seriously ill. He fought pneumonia and recovered; his “little American” and the “best beloved” child to whom he had recited the Just-So Stories in the Naulakha nursery did not. The Kiplings soon left America heartbroken and forever.

And then things got even worse; Josephine was not the only child Kipling lost. His son John was killed at the age of eighteen in World War I, leaving only one surviving child, a daughter.

The death of his son fighting in WWI engendered a lifelong grief in both Kipling and his wife. The body of John (“Jack”) Kipling was never found, although there were false claims in the 1990’s that it had been:

Triumphant official claims to have ended the 83-year search for the body of John Kipling, only son of the patriotic author Rudyard Kipling, are wrong, according to a six-year investigation due out this autumn.

The soldier, only 18 when he was killed in September 1915, remains one of Britain’s half million “lost boys” missing in the first world war. His headstone, placed on a grave in France by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in 1992, is false.

This is the verdict – reached “with much sadness” – of My Boy Jack?, a study by two long-established military authors. Their finding is endorsed by an expert panel, which includes a judge and the museum curator of Lieutenant John Kipling’s old regiment, the Irish Guards.

Last night, Michael Smith, secretary of the Kipling Society, said: “This is a shame. Most people had been led to believe by the commission that John had at last been laid to rest – and that Rudyard’s soul need no longer be in torment”.

The “My Boy Jack” reference is to a poem Kipling wrote on the subject after his son’s death:

“Have you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Has any one else had word of him?”
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind””
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

[NOTE: See, also, my series “Grieving parents in war,” Part I and Part II.]

Those poets have a way with words

The New Neo Posted on by

After writing today’s post about toothbrushes and bacteria, I somehow thought of the poem “Crazy Jane Talks With the Bishop,” by William Butler Yeats, which says the same thing. Or, sort of the same thing. Or a related thing.

So, without further ado, I hereby reproduce it in its entirety:

I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
‘Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty.’

‘Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,’ I cried.
‘My friends are gone, but that’s a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart’s pride.

‘A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.’

The fact is that the body has its attendant messinesses. Probably best to accept that as some sort of yin-yang truth about life.

Next “change”post

The New Neo Posted on by

I find it’s about that time again: another “A mind is a difficult thing to change” post is in the works–at least in my head.

I’ve found in the past that it’s best if I make a public announcement of such. That seems to goad me into actually writing the thing within the next few weeks rather than to procrastinate further, which would otherwise be my wont.

So, stay tuned!

Your toothbrush is your friend

The New Neo Posted on by

I was watching TV the other night right before bed. I usually do a bunch of stretching exercises then, and I often turn on a cable news station to accompany the action (although, come to think of it, that may not be the most relaxing thing to have on in the background while trying to unwind).

While I was changing channels to try to find the best station, my attention was grabbed by an ad for this product, called “Violight,” a little gizmo that purports to sterilize your family’s toothbrushes through the wonders of UV light.

The commercial (actually, I think it must have been an infomercial–it was long!) featured the usual smiling hosts and satisfied customers, as well as “scientific” proof of how many germs ordinarily live on one’s toothbrush, lying in wait like muggers ready to pounce on the unsuspecting users of old, unsterilized, non-Violighted toothbrushes–that is, most of us. Quelle horreur!

We were told just how many bacteria dwell on our innocuous-seeming toothbrushes–nine million? sixteen billion? I forget; the mind boggles. The customers on the infomercial looked properly stunned at the news, and who wouldn’t be? They were grateful to have been told about the Violight, and will be sure to use one in the future to safeguard the health of their families.

I’d read about this toothbrush contamination business before. But it always seemed rather bogus to me. Not that I doubt there are plenty of bacteria–and viruses, let’s not forget the viruses–on our toothbrushes. But ordinarily, these things come from—our mouths!

Yes, I know it’s hard to accept, but our bodies are breeding grounds for bacteria, most of them innocuous, some even beneficial (that’s why taking antibiotics can sometimes cause people to come up with yeast infections, or intestinal troubles: the good beasties have been killed off by the drugs, as well as the bad).

There’s a book on the subject of bacteria and people that made the deepest of impressions on me back when I first read it in 1969, when it came out: Life on Man by Theodor Rosebury. Despite its so very un-PC title, I never forgot its message (caveat for the squeamish on the following passage):

The figures that [Rosebury] grapples with are quite mind-boggling. For example, he counted 80 distinguishable species living in the mouth alone and estimated that the total number of bacteria excreted each day by an adult to ranges from 100 billion to 100 trillion…From this figure it can be estimated that the microbial density on a square centimeter of human bowel is around 10 billion organisms (1010/cm2) [==> 1.5 x1013 or yielding a total of 15 trillion microbes, based on 2 m2 surface/person].

Microbes inhabit every surface of a healthy adult human that is exposed to the outside, such as the skin, or that is accessible from the outside — the alimentary canal, from mouth to anus, plus eyes, ears, and the airways.

Rosebury estimates that 50 million individual bacteria live on the average square centimeter (5×107/cm2) of human skin [5×107/cm2 x 20,000 cm2/person = 1011 bacteria], describing the skin surface of our bodies as akin to a “teeming population of people going Christmas shopping.”

I’m not sure why Christmas shopping would come to mind, but you get the point: Houston, we’ve got a lot of bacteria here. And then there are the parasites–but at this point, I’ll draw a veil over further discussion of this delicate issue. Sometimes it’s best not to look too closely, believe me (for example, I just did a Google search for images of the hair follicle mite that hitches a ride on us all, and concluded that I could not in all good conscience assault my readers with those pictures).

But one thing it is good to know is that most baceria do not harm us, and some actually help us. Not only that, but there’s even evidence that exposure to bacteria in early life toughens the system in various ways, such as the reduction in the incidence of asthma.

It seems that people–and even children–were not meant to be free of all bacteria. It’s true that advances in hygiene have saved lives, particularly from such contaminated-water-borne diseases as cholera and typhoid. But we have over-corrected when we are afraid of our own toothbrushes; the bacteria that live there, in general, originate within our mouths. As long as we don’t share toothbrushes with each other (and even the grungiest of us usually knows better than to do that), I think we’re quite safe.

After all, the Violight people have an interest in drumming up fear of contaminated toothbrushes: to make money for themselves. And they’re not the only ones; recent decades have seen the rise of two other similarly over-the-top anti-bacterial products: soap and sponges.

Ah, remember those days when a sponge was just a sponge and soap was just soap and a kiss was still a kiss? The fundamental things don’t seem to apply as time has gone by: it’s actually become somewhat difficult to find non-antibacterial soap or sponges.

There is no need to disinfect ourselves as though we were in an operating theater. But that seems to be the aim of companies who make these products and advertise them, who would dearly love to see us all turned into a bunch of obsessive-compulsives, the perfect consumers.

In pursuit of this goal, the Violight people have mastered the art of the out-of-context quote. Their website features the following, which sounds nicely convincing:

Even after being rinsed visibly clean, toothbrushes can remain contaminated with potentially pathogenic organisms.”
”” The Centers for Disease Control, January 2002 report

If one Googles the sentence and finds the original report, it’s true that Violight has quoted it correctly. However, let’s take a look at the rest of the story [emphasis mine]:

To date, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is unaware of any adverse health effects directly related to toothbrush use, although people with bleeding disorders and those severely immuno-depressed may suffer trauma from tooth brushing and may need to seek alternate means of oral hygiene. The mouth is home to millions of microorganisms (germs). In removing plaque and other soft debris from the teeth, toothbrushes become contaminated with bacteria, blood, saliva, oral debris, and toothpaste. Because of this contamination, a common recommendation is to rinse one’s toothbrush thoroughly with tap water following brushing. Limited research has suggested that even after being rinsed visibly clean, toothbrushes can remain contaminated with potentially pathogenic organisms. In response to this, various means of cleaning, disinfecting or sterilizing toothbrushes between uses have been developed. To date, however, no published research data documents that brushing with a contaminated toothbrush has led to recontamination of a user’s mouth, oral infections, or other adverse health effects.

So, as long as you keep your toothbrush to yourself, don’t worry, be happy: brush, rinse, and go forth into the world and meet the day, secure in the knowledge that your toothbrush is not out to get you.

Women and the perpetuation of female genital mutilation

The New Neo Posted on by

Dean Esmay has flung out a challenge to the female blogosphere, and I thought I’d take him up on it.

In this post, he points out that the practice of female genital mutilation (known also as “female circumcision”) is neither Islamic nor the sole province of men. In fact, it occurs in a cultural band in northern Africa and predates Islam there, and women themselves are generally the agents of its transmission: they perform the majority of these “surgeries.”

I am in agreement with Dean that the custom is not primarily an Islamic one, but rather, a cultural practice. However, it tends to follow a geographic distribution that intersects in many places with Islam, so the two are sometimes linked together in actuality, if not in origins. And some Moslems have used a passage in the Koran to justify the practice, although most think that’s an ex-post-facto stretch.

Dean has titled his post “Understanding things: a first step towards fixing them.” I agree with this notion as well: understanding something can help us in knowing how best to intervene to change it, and why it may be very difficult to do so.

Dean writes (and I believe this is the part of his post that he considers a challenge to the female blogosphere):

Historically, and even today, in most places where female circumcision is practiced, it is primarily done to women by other women…You aren’t going to change this horrific, barbaric practice until you get all those aunts, mothers, and grandmothers in places like Egypt to agree that it needs to be changed. And I doubt you’re going to get much mileage by blaming their brothers, fathers, and husbands for a tradition that goes back to long before any of them was born.

So, how can we best understand the practice, and is there any way to intervene to change it? There’s a vast amount of literature on the topic, both online and off, and this post of mine will hardly scratch the surface–the problem has great complexity.

When one looks at a cultural practice of any sort, especially an ancient one, there are a host of interrelated issues involved, and it can be very difficult to tease out what influences what.

For the ancient practice euphemistically known as “female circumcision” (see this), the milder forms may be roughly analogous to male circumcision, but the more extreme (and more common) forms are most certainly not. They represent a horror of major proportions.

Dean is quite correct in pointing out that women have traditionally perpetuated the practice. This, by the way (at least as far as I know) tends to be true of other similar cultural practices that subjugate women physically (such as, for example, foot-binding, now fortunately eradicated).

In cultures where such mutilating customs are practiced, one reason that women tend to be in charge of performing them on other women (on little girls, actually) is that, in such cultures, men have been traditionally discouraged from touching women’s bodies intimately–except sexually, that is, in the proper sanctioned relationships. But the more important reason that women are the agents of their own mutilation is that, of course, women are part of the culture, too. The custom is all of a piece, as is the culture, and women are not separate from it.

In the case of areas in which female circumcision is the custom, it is usually a cultural norm for men to only want to marry a circumcised woman. Of course, women want the girls in their own family to be marriageable; an uncircumcised girl would be a terrible liability. Still another goal of female circumcision is to enforce chastity by reducing female sexual desire, which is felt to be threatening and dangerous. Older woman, therefore, are also trying to control the tendency of younger women to run around and be sexually wild, and thus to reflect badly on the family (sleep around, get pregnant, etc.–all of which is absolutely forbidden in shame/honor cultures).

If you think of each girl who is born as a commodity that only gains worth when married, and if sexual activity prior to marriage (and intact genitalia) would make her unmarriageable, then the entire family–men and women both–will do everything in their power to stop that.

Who comes first, women or men, in perpetuating this endeavor? I don’t think there can possibly be an answer; the two are intertwined. But there is no question that it is the cultural demand (expressed as a male demand) for a chaste and sexually tractable wife that’s driving it, and the perception that female circumcision is an excellent way to accomplish this.

How could it be changed? Men or women–or both together–could take steps to do so–but, realistically speaking, to make this widespread would require a fairly massive cultural change in the entire way of looking at female sexuality, marriage, and the position of women in society. Although every journey begins with a single step, how do women or men get the courage to buck such a deeply ingrained system?

In the areas where female circumcision is common, it is a fact that women tend to have less political power than men, just as it is a fact that they are usually the actual agents by which the genital mutilation is performed. Most of their power is within the home, as Dean points out. And if female circumcision is the price they feel they must pay to be married and even to have a home and a family, then one can hardly expect them to cast off these chains all by themselves. It is a conundrum.

There are movements in that direction, however. And intervention can occur either through changing male or female attitudes, or both. This rather outdated article (from 1989)–which admittedly comes from a feminist and male-blaming perspective–details some suggestions for efforts in this direction, stressing the importance of education, including education of the women traditionally responsible for performing the procedure:

* Adoption of clear national policies for the abolishment of female circumcision;

* Establishment of national commissions to coordinate and follow up the activities of other bodies involved including, where appropriate, the enactment of legislation prohibiting female circumcision;

* Intensification of general education of the public, including health education at all levels, with special emphasis on the dangers and the undesirability of female circumcision;

* Intensification of education programs for traditional birth attendants, midwives, healers and other practitioners of traditional medicine, to demonstrate the harmful effects of female circumcision, with a view to enlisting their support along with general efforts to abolish this practice.

And here is a very recent article on the topic, which outlines some of the areas in which the UN is actually performing a positive service; general public education seems to be the way to go:

UNICEF is supporting programmes to end FGM/C in 18 countries and conducting initial activities in four. They use a variety of approaches:

In Senegal, largely thanks to the work of TOSTAN, a non-governmental organization that focuses on educating communities about human rights and human dignity, tens of thousands of people have declared their abandonment of the practice.

In Egypt, the FGM-Free Village Model project brings together government and UN partners to encourage villages in the southern region to make public declarations against FGM/C. UNICEF works with individuals who have renounced FGM/C and are willing to speak out and persuade others in the community to do the same.

In Sudan, religious leaders are using their authority to affirm that FGM/C is a violation of spiritual and theological principles. On Monday, government officials, the National Council for Child Welfare and UN agencies will hold a commemorative event that will include an exhibition, religious and secular songs on abandonment of FGM/C and children’s performances. The exhibition will include images of girls who died of FGM/C.

…The Maputo Protocol, a regional legal instrument which explicitly prohibits and condemns FGM/C, was ratified by 15 African countries and entered into force in November 2005. A month later, 100 African parliamentarians adopted the groundbreaking “Dakar Declaration,”
which underscores the importance of community involvement as well as legislative change in ending FGM/C…

As I’ve said before, a mind (or, in this case, minds) can be a difficult thing to change. But not an impossible one. The same goes for that aggregate of minds known as a culture, and the practices that make up that culture.