Iraq War changes: maybe it’s a Civil War in more ways than one (see 1864)

The New Neo Posted on by

Recommended reading on a Sunday: this article by Barry Casselman, comparing Bush and his new proposals for the Iraq war to the situation Lincoln faced in the spring before the 1864 election.

Bush, Lincoln–huh? you say.

Well, read it. Casselman is clear that Bush lacks Lincoln’s eloquence, and even much more basic communication skills; those are certainly not the similarities he’s suggesting between the two. But he points out that, even as late as 1864, many in the North considered the Civil War a lost cause, and the antiwar movement was strong and included violent draft riots.

The opposition candidate in the election, McClellan, was a “peace now” advocate. And the peaceniks of the time had a lot more to complain about than today’s in terms of bloodshed; the casualties in the Civil War (all of them, of course, were US casualties, like it or not–and the Southerners didn’t like it) were far greater than today, both in actual terms and compared to the smaller population of the time. Follow the link if you’re not familiar with the figures; they are shocking.

Lincoln changed course with a new Supreme Commander in the West, General Sherman, who was promoted to that post in the spring of 1864 and began the relentless campaign that resulted in Union victory. Sherman was:

…ordered by Grant to “create havoc and destruction of all resources that would be beneficial to the enemy.”

A year later the South had surrendered, roundly beaten in one of the first total wars.

We look at history from the viewpoint of–well, of history. We have the advantage of the passage of many years and the knowledge of where events were leading. But if a history of the Civil War and evaluations of Lincoln had been written in early 1864, they would look awfully different.

A good recent example of the perspective that comes with time are the lovefests that attended the deaths of Presidents Reagan and Ford, with appreciations galore of administrations that had been excoriated by many in their own time (and are excoriated by many still, to be sure, especially Reagan’s).

Whether or not Bush’s new Iraq campaign will be successful remains to be seen, of course. Whether or not General Petraeus will be the turn-around general that Sherman was also remains to be seen (he certainly is no advocate of total war, however).

Whether Congress will allow us to find out remains to be seen, as well.

The return of the missing: two kidnapped boys found

The New Neo Posted on by

This is the sort of story that can easily make any parent’s–or nearly any human being’s–eyes mist up. I know it did mine.

One of the worst things on earth to imagine–and, fortunately, for most parents, it’s an event that remains in the realm of imagination–is the disappearance of a child. For the Akers, 15-year old Shawn Hornbeck’s family, it’s been a gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, four-year struggle in which they’ve dedicated their lives to finding their kidnapped son, and to other missing children. And now their faith, hope, prayers, and work have been rewarded.

For 13-year old Ben Ownby’s family, it was “only” a week of suffering. A week that probably lasted twenty lifetimes, all of them bad.

Amidst the joy, one caveat: the reentry, especially for Hornbeck, will probably not be smooth. I am reminded of another story, that of Steven Stayner, who was kidnapped in the early ’70s at the age of seven (much younger than these boys) by a pedophile, and kept for over seven years.

Stayner’s captor used sophisticated methods of “re-education” on him, convincing the boy that his parents had forgotten about him and didn’t want him back, sexually abusing him, and encouraging him to regard him as his new father. Stayner was only found when his kidnapper hauled in new prey, a young child for whom Stayner developed a feeling of compassionate protectiveness. He planned to guide the boy to a police station, but the child was fearful and wanted Stayner to go in with him. In doing so, Stayner himself was detained, and the entire story ended up spilling out.

But Stayner’s re-entry into his joyful family was fraught with psychological problems for all concerned, some of them detailed in an unusually fine made-for-TV film entitled, “I Know My First Name Is Steven” (the words Stayner voiced to the police when he was first being interrogated.) There was a book, as well.

The problems were not surprising considering the dreadful trauma and dislocation all had endured–the fact that they had lost a young child and yet a teenager was returned to them, one who’d seen and endured things no child should ever have to face.

Stayner married young and had two children, but tragically, was killed in a motorcycle accident when he was only twenty-four. But the tragedy doesn’t end there.

Decades later, his brother Cary Stayner was found guilty of the 1999 murders of four women in Yosemite National Park, where Cary worked at the time. The vicious murders had gripped the nation, and I was glad to hear the news that the killer had been found. But when I heard the perpetrator’s identity, I couldn’t help but think of Stayner’s parents as well, who had emerged from one long nightmare only to enter another, and then another.

It is highly unlikely that the present case will lead to anything remotely like that. I make no excuses for serial murderers, but one still wonders just how much the kidnapping of his brother and the family trauma affected the elder Stayner boy. It certainly is not the case that something like that causes a person to become serial murderer; that much is certain. But it is also true that those who kidnap children harm far more people than those children themselves. They set up a ripple effect with a long reach.

But today is a day of rejoicing. And I add my hopes that these two kidnapped boys have a smooth and relatively trouble-free re-entry into their families, and that they all resume their lives so that this incident fades away into distant memory, except for the added preciousness it gives the rest of their days together.

Nyamko Sabuni: an Afro-Swedish breath of fresh air

The New Neo Posted on by

Who’s Nyamko Sabuni? She’s the new Swedish Minister for Integration and Gender Equality.

Sounds awfully PC, doesn’t it? But Sabuni is anything but. In fact, she’s already raised a storm of controversy in Sweden with her statements on the subject of assimilation.

Sabuni herself has impeccably PC credentials, a fact that probably infuriates her enemies, much as the African-American-ness of Condoleezza Rice or Bill Cosby infuriate their Leftist critics in a special way. Her father was a political refugee from the Congo to Zaire and then Sweden, jailed in his native country for opposing the government. Sabuni was twelve when she made the journey to Sweden with her family, learned the language, and thrived in her new environment.

Her father is Christian and her mother Muslim, but Sabuni herself was raised without religion (although Wikipedia’s entry on Sabuni has a different tale to tell than the NY Times on her parents–it says both are Muslim).

What has Sabuni done to ruffle so many feathers? Oh, just a couple of little things: called for a ban on wearing the veil for girls under fifteen, proposed that schoolgirls be checked for evidence of genital mutilation, criticized “honor culture” mentalities, and asked that arranged marriages and the state financing of religious schools be banned.

It’s hard to argue with the fact that the institution of such policies might indeed foster “integration and gender equality” in Sweden. Nor do they run counter to the prevailing customs of Sweden. But argument most certainly has been mounted; Sabuni is considered unsympathetic to the plight of immigrants (read: Muslim immigrants), despite her own status as an immigrant and daughter of Muslim[s].

Sabuni, who calls herself “Afro-Swedish, maybe,” answers her critics thusly:

We have a society that has failed to adapt to new times. We don’t offer people their rights, but we are also unclear about their obligations. So people end up in a kind of no man’s land, where they are neither Swedes, nor Turks nor Congolese.

Hmmm–with rights come obligations. And immigrants to Sweden should end up becoming–Swedes! How revolutionary is that?

{NOTE: Peaktalk wrote an interesting post on Sabuni back in October.]

About cutting off those war funds: beware the veto

The New Neo Posted on by

The news is replete with stories about how the Democrats and some moderate Republicans are against Bush’s “surge.” And many articles also suggest that Congress might even be prepared to cut off funding for the military, or specific funding for that mission, in order to stop it.

This article, more detailed than most, explains some of the legal ramifications of such an act. It’s certainly possible to do it, as evidenced by what Congress did during the 70s vis a vis Vietnam (see here for some of that history).

However, one rather large difference between Then and Now is the size of the support in Congress for such a tactic. Since any such cutoff of funds would of course be vetoed by President Bush, therefore its sponsors would need two-thirds support in Congress for an override.

If they don’t have that, they might try it anyway, of course–just to get everyone on record as “pro” or “con” for use in the next election. But it would not be implemented; the vote would be an act of protest that would have no repercussions as far as funding itself (the only repercussions would probably be the satisfaction the enemy would feel in the knowledge that, once Bush is gone, they’d be relatively unopposed by a weary US).

In the 70s President Nixon, and then President Ford who followed him, were facing a Congress more strongly Democratic (and even more antiwar on the Republican side, as I recall) than Bush faces at the moment (see here for the history of the composition of the House, and here for the Senate). They knew that acts of such Congresses were practically veto-proof.

I’ve not noticed any head counts in present-day articles to indicate whether the votes are there for an override. My guess is that they are not. But I’d be interested on any information on that score.

The MSM and the not-so-subtle art of writing the lede

The New Neo Posted on by

I could probably spend all my time on this blog just analyzing the myriad variations on one theme: how the MSM skews the news by editorializing when it should just be reporting.

Sometimes it’s done overtly. Far more often, though, it’s a relatively subtle use of language and–if you’ll forgive the expression–nuance. But once you know where/how to look–well then, like Chickenman, it’s everywhere, it’s everywhere (those who were anywhere near Chicago and a radio in the late 60s know what I’m referring to by that phrase).

Here’s today’s example from the NY Times: an article about Tony Blair (the first one I looked at when I clicked on their website) entitled “Blair Urges Europe to Stay Aggressive Abroad.” The headline is actually one of the better ones (although I’d prefer the substitution of the words “vigilant” or “militarily prepared” for “aggressive”).

It’s the lede that’s so “interesting.” Here it is:

As he seeks to define his legacy and stamp his imprint on the future, Prime Minister Tony Blair urged his successors today to maintain the warlike foreign policy that he promoted, sending troops into battle in Africa and the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq.

An excellent example of the approach the media has used for some years now, what I’ll call the “what’s in it for me?” outlook. A prime minister or president is always regarded as a self-serving, narcissistic politician rather than a statesman (is this word even in the vocabulary of the MSM any more?).

Of course, politicians do tend to be narcissists, and concerned with their own images. It goes with the territory. But to report, in a straight news article, on a speech by Blair about the central defining worldwide issue of our times–the current war against Islamist totalitarianism–as though Blair’s primary concern is his himself and his legacy (oh, how I’ve grown to hate that word!) is a profoundly cynical and destructive way of looking at things.

It would be different if the article were actually about Blair’s self-aggrandizement, or offered any evidence of it. That would at least explain the focus of the lede. But it isn’t; it’s a straight news article, or purports to be. And there isn’t even a hint of any support for the premise of self-concern, at least in the body of the article. On the contrary; Blair’s speech is a serious one that focuses on the need for Britain to maintain the ability to fight against the threats that face it today.

Does this sound like the speech of a guy obsessed with himself?:

The frontiers of our security no longer stop at the Channel. What happens in the Middle East affects us. What happens in Pakistan, or Indonesia, or in the attenuated struggles for territory and supremacy in Africa for example, in Sudan or Somalia–the new frontiers for our security are global…It has taken a generation for the enemy to grow. It will, in all probability, take a generation to defeat.

Sounds like a reasonable assessment of a sobering situation, by a man concerned with the future, yes–the future of his country, Western civilization, and the world.

Telegraphing the plan

The New Neo Posted on by

This is my question: doesn’t a speech like Bush’s, in which a strategic plan is outlined, give the enemy the advantage of knowing in advance what the approach will be, and take away any element of surprise? True, the details aren’t known; but the broad outline is.

Democracies demand such things, especially modern democracies. But it seems to be a potential problem of some magnitude in waging any war, conventional or assymetrical, does it not?

Bush’s talk: we can and will, if we can and will

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: The full text of Bush’s speech can be found here.]

Bush’s speech last night was a tight and subdued performance in terms of rhetoric and delivery. But, what else is new? Although a Churchillian sweep and grandeur would be awfully nice, it’s not going to be forthcoming, not from this guy. That’s not my main concern.

In content, it sounded okay to me. But what do I know? I’m just an evil bloodthirsty Bush-worshipping neocon warmonger, out to kill as many Iraqis and members of the US armed forces as humanly possible.

Seriously, folks (and no, the third sentence of the above paragraph of mine was not serious, although some would take issue with me on that), what Bush has proposed seems more than a simple “surge.” Those who hate and distrust him will consider his speech mere words, just more of the same old same old. And it’s true, speeches are always “mere words;” the only thing that matters is action and results.

But those of us (myself included) who believe that although Bush and his generals have made errors, such errors are not only common in all wars, but especially unavoidable in a counterinsurgency/assymetrical-warfare/nation-building situation such as that in Iraq, and will give the plan the benefit of the doubt and let it play out.

Because, make no mistake about it, it is exceptionally important that the situation in Iraq be stabilized. As Bush said, if we withdraw:

Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and…would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people.

There are some interesting possibilities hidden in the speech as almost throwaway lines. One is this:

[Previously t]here were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have. Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes.

Without actually using the phrase “rules of engagment,” it sounds as though these restrictive and controversial rules have been–or are about to be–expanded and changed. This is huge, if it happens.

What’s different about the counter-insurgency methods? According to Bush, now we will have enough forces to stay and hold after clearing neighborhoods; before we could not. (After the speech, I watched Major-General Bob Scales explain details of force ratios, and why this plan has a decent chance of succeeding where previous ones failed.) There was also a suggestion by Bush that troop levels will be increased across the board, not just in Iraq.

For me, one of the strongest parts of the speech was this:

This new strategy will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings, assassinations, or IED attacks. Our enemies in Iraq will make every effort to ensure that our television screens are filled with images of death and suffering.

Sadly, he is correct there. The strength of our enemy is that it has realized our deep susceptibility to casualties and media reports of bloodshed. We are a compassionate society, not a hardened one, and such sensitivity is ordinarily a good thing. But in this war against an enemy that cares not one whit about such bloodshed and even feeds on it, these emotions on the part of Western society are cynically exploited and turned against us. Our compassion has become (to borrow a phrase from Churchill) our “soft underbelly,” the very best way to attack us.

Bush asks for patience and resolve on the part of the nation. I doubt he’ll get it, especially from those Democrats bound and determined to oppose him and withdraw ASAP. Consequences of such an abandonment? They don’t need no steenking consequences.

After the speech, I was watching a Fox News interview with Newt Gingrich, not one of my favorites for his role as Speaker in the 90s. But I liked this: when asked “What part should polls play in military strategy decisions?” Newt answered (correctly, I believe), “None,” and cited appropriate historical references (Lincoln, for example). He then went on to say that, when the people are fed a steady diet of despair, they respond to what they’ve heard; and that, if this approach brings victory, a year from now the polls will be quite different.

Bush’s speech was sobering and comprehensive: he acknowledged mistakes, made it clear how important success is, described details and strategy, was realistic about the long hard fight ahead, attempted to define success, and declared limits on what we’ll give Iraq if they don’t cooperate. But, as Bill Kristol said in an interview later (paraphrasing here): the plan is more important than the speech, and the implementation of the plan is more important than the plan.

As for me, I deeply wish Bush had done this before. What took him so long? Why did it require the Republican loss of the election to motivate him to hatch a new plan? That’s one of Bush’s biggest flaws. Call it loyalty, call it stubbornness, call it whatever you want–he waited too long. I hope the wait has not been fatal to victory; it certainly has hampered and delayed it.

One of Lincoln’s strengths was that he was able to change a strategy that was not succeeding. His grasp of military matters was apparently unusual for a civilian. Like all wars, the Civil War differed in some respects from those that had gone before it, and innovations were required to meet new challenges. But it was still essentially a conventional war, with armies arrayed on battlefields, and territory lost and won.

The current war, featuring assymetrical warfare against this particular enemy, seems as though it may be more profoundly different than what’s gone before in the long sweep of history, although in some ways it does resemble other long-drawn-out conflicts such as Vietnam and Algeria (especially in the terrorist tactics of the enemy). Those who expect an easy or textbook victory will be disappointed and angry, ready to pull out and abandon Iraq as good riddance to bad business. As Bush said:

It can be tempting to think that America can put aside the burdens of freedom… Now America is engaged in a new struggle that will set the course for a new century.

And then he added:

We can and we will prevail.

We will, if we have the will to do so.

Sophia’s available: now get in line, all you guys of a certain age

The New Neo Posted on by

Sophia Loren’s husband Carlo Ponti has died at the age of 94 (hat tip: Pajamas Media).

Sophia made my list of ten all-time favorite movie stars back in May of 2005. She was (well, I suppose she still is, but I haven’t seen a movie of hers in decades) that rarest of rara aves: a sex symbol, a comedienne, and a serious actress, all in roughly equal measure.

Apparently she’s an intelligent and witty woman, as well. Her marriage to Ponti–one most people would not have bet on for longevity, back when she was 23 and he, at 45, had left his first wife and defied Italy’s restrictive divorce laws to wed Loren in Mexico by proxy–withstood the test of time.

Ponti and Loren were one of those odd couples whose attraction to each other was somewhat opaque to outsiders (that is, of course, hers to him. His to her was plain enough). He must have been a charming and charismatic man, however, at the very least.

I especially liked the Loren-Mastroianni cinema combination. In “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” as well as the wonderful-but-virtually-unobtainable-on-video “Marriage, Italian Style,” she showed her comedic talents as well as her physical assets.

But it was her Oscar-winning performance in “Two Women” (produced by Ponti, as were so many of her films) that was a revelation. I saw it when I was very young–perhaps too young. But I couldn’t help but be awed by the deeply emotional and yet utterly naturalistic performance of Loren as a mother trying (and failing) to protect her daughter from the chaos of war.

At any rate, the statuesque Loren and the diminutive Ponti had been married for nearly fifty years when he died, a record unusual for anyone these days, and almost unheard of for a star. One thing is certain: Loren’s loyalty to Ponti wasn’t for lack of opportunity: Cary Grant fell head over heels in love with her, to name just one of many.

But I think this sums it up best, found at Loren’s Wikipedia biography:

The Archbishop of Genoa once said that although the Vatican opposed human cloning, “an exception might be made in the case of Sophia Loren.”

[ADDENDUM: By the way, when I was looking up Mastroianni I discovered in the Wiki article that he himself was married close to fifty years, to one woman. However, in classic marriage, Italian-style, he had a longtime mistress, with whom he had a child. The name of said mistress? Catherine Deneuve. Poor guy.]

“Some Iraqis Express Doubts About New US Strategy:” why, who woulda thunk it?

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a wonderful headline that caught my eye, from, of all things, the Voice of America: “Some Iraqis express doubts about new US strategy.”

Why, goodness gracious me my, they do? I’m so astonished I hardly know where to begin. But I’ll try.

I’ve noticed lately (and by “lately,” I don’t mean in the last few days, I mean during the last decade or so) a growing propensity for the media to chew, swallow, digest, and excrete a story before it has even happened. A good example of the genre was the ISG report–remember that? Heard much of the report lately? No; despite the pre-report hype, it died a merciful death shortly after its release because it was so–to be blunt–profoundly stupid and misguided in its suggestion of negotiation with Iran and Syria, the biggest of a couple of whoppers that didn’t sit well most segments of US public, political, or pundit opinion.

And now it remains to be seen whether Bush’s new plan for Iraq, when announced tonight, will be the same one the media has been discussing endlessly. My guess, by the way, is that at least the broad outlines will be similar; I’m not sure about the details. Maybe it’s just me, but wouldn’t it be awfully nice to wait and see what the man actually says before we get incessant, 24-hour a day, worldwide coverage of the reaction to it?

In addition, this particular story struck me as especially meaningless, and transparently so. It is the quintessential “dog bites man” story–after all, a certain segment of a population is going to have an opinion pro or con virtually anything. Just listen to the late-night program “Coast to Coast” (I seldom do, but every now and then I turn it on for a moment) to get an idea of how many people believe, oh, in just about any wacky theory anyone can dream up.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Having doubts about the new US strategy is most definitely not akin to thinking the earth is flat, that we never got to the moon, or that Jesus was a mushroom (the latter was the subject of one especially flabbergasting “Coast to Coast” segment I happened to flip onto late one night. Ten minutes were quite enough, thanks you, but they were memorable.)

And as for doubts–well, even I have doubts about Bush’s strategy, whatever it might be. Doubts are part of human existence, especially in war. I’ve quoted Helmuth von Motke the Elder’s (love that name!) famous dictum before, but I’ll do it again: No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

And I am certain that the average Iraqi has plenty of doubts at this point about a plan he/she doesn’t know the details of yet, that hasn’t been implemented, and that follows so many dashed hopes raised by previous campaigns and promises. This is news?

The Voice of America article hits some sort of reporting low–at least, I hope it’s a low. It quotes three average unnamed Iraqis as expressing some rather reasonable-sounding reservations, then mentions the official Iraqi government line that states the plan will succeed (surprise, surprise!).

Why am I picking on this particular obscure story? Well, for one thing, I found it in the first place because it was highlighted by Google as one of its top stories for today, so it’s getting an awful lot of attention relative to any merit it might have. For another, even though it’s an extreme example, it shows the naked media tendency towards shaping the news in a negative and often meaningless way: write a headline that makes it look as though Iraqis have already rejected Bush’s plan (and perhaps they have, but you wouldn’t know it based on the evidence in this story), do a cursory job of interviewing a couple of people who subscribe to the views you’re seeking, and call it a day.

They say there’s no bad publicity: Pajamas makes the Times (sort of)

The New Neo Posted on by

In this story about how bloggers won’t let go of the controversy over the existence of quoted AP source Jamil Hussein, Maria Aspen writes (in the business section of the NY Times):

In a reference to a memorable swipe that Jonathan Klein, CNN’s head of domestic operations, once took at bloggers who work from their living rooms, Ms. Wagner wrote in an e-mail message: “Our reporters are not ‘pajamas media.’ ”

She added, “Our reporters tell what they’ve seen and heard to editors who ask tougher questions than many of these bloggers might imagine.”

Oh, I dunno; I can imagine some pretty tough questions, although not maybe NY Times-tough or AP-tough. “Have you stopped beating your wife?” for example. Or even, “Do you have independent corroboration of this source?”

Be that as it may, I have a sneaking suspicion that, unbeknownst to Ms. Aspen, Ms. Wagner’s reference was a double one–not just to Klein’s original memorable (and sexist!! Let’s not forget sexist!) statement (“You couldn’t have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of check and balances [at ’60 Minutes’] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.”) , but to the media group of which I’m a proud member, Pajamas Media.

They say there’s no bad publicity, but unfortunately, Ms. Aspen doesn’t seem to have heard of Pajamas; my guess is that Ms. Wagner has.

Now, here’s a Democrat who makes sense

The New Neo Posted on by

I like Joe Donnelly’s style.

Who’s Joe Donnelly? A very freshman US Congressman from Indiana, one of the Blue Dog Democrats (in fact, being a freshman, Donnelly might better be called a “blue pup”–and no, I didn’t make the term up, as you’ll see if you follow the link).

Donnelly isn’t all that pleased with Nancy Pelosi. Nor is he–despite his “pup” status–all that awed by Ms. Speaker:

If Pelosi “goes too far one way or another, we’re not coming back,” Donnelly says. He sees his party’s victory in the November elections as less an endorsement of its agenda than a rejection of Republican rule: “People just got real tired of this bunch, and they fired them.”

It turns out that there are thirty Blue Dogs in the House right now. And it also turns out that the Democrats outnumber the Republicans there by a margin of thirty-one. So you don’t need to be a math wizard to see that those Blue Dogs are the key to the whole thing for the Democrats.

In recent decades it seems that, more and more, each party’s leaders tend to come from the more extreme wings of their respective parties. And it’s the nature of such politicians to look on any victory as a mandate for their point of view. But–as I’ve said before–ignore the law of thirds at your peril.

Pelosi may be in the act of making the Newt Gingrich error. Coming on so strong against whatever plan Bush announces for Iraq might not only be counterproductive in terms of the war itself, and the world’s perception of our will and our ability to keep our word–but it may even be counterproductive in terms of what Pelosi really seems to care about, victory for the Democrats in ’08.

I’ll let Donnelly, no Bush sycophant (Donnelly refers to the war in Iraq as a “disaster”), have the last word on this one:

[Donnelly] doesn’t support the fixed timetable for withdrawal proposed by Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha that Pelosi, 66, has endorsed. Instead, like Bush, he opposes any withdrawal until Iraq is “stabilized.”

“My goal is to help the president,” he said in an interview. “I am not going to rip him to shreds. If he does a better job, then our soldiers can be more successful, Iraq can be stabilized and our troops can come home.”

Works for me.