Dangerous Nation: another look at the Spanish American War (Part II)

The New Neo Posted on by

[See Part I.]

After Proctor’s turnaround speech, more and more former naysayers came on board in support of war with Spain for the liberation of Cuba. But still, McKinley tried his best at negotiations to avoid it, machinations that ultimately failed.

Finally, when McKinley felt war to be inevitable, his stated reasons for the conflict (and, Kagan believes, his deeper reasons, as well) were mostly—although not totally—humanitarian. The proximity of Cuba to our shores was part of the motivation, as was the fact that the US was flexing newly acquired muscles; it liberated Cuba in part because it could. But the liberation nevertheless had deeply idealistic motivations.

Europe, however, wasn’t having any of it. Many monarchs there quite naturally sympathized with Spain and were against US intervention. Queen Victoria’s reaction summed up this attitude about the perceived threat to European interests, “They might just as soon declare Ireland independent!”

But it wasn’t just the royals who were against the US drive for war. Europeans had long had a love-hate relationship with America, with the accent often on the hate. The asserted the superiority and refinement of the Old World over the crass New, and world-weary European cynicism trumped American claims of altruistic motives:

European commentators of all ideological stripes took the occasion of the war to revive long-standing images of American “materialism, greed, vulgarity, selfishness, hypocrisy, and barbarism.”…[E]ven outside Spain few accepted American claims that the war was for the liberation of Cuba or to relieve Cuban suffering. This was seen as more rank hypocrisy…Across Europe there was an “astonishing scarcity” of any discussion of Cuban suffering or aspirations.

But there was more. Even many of those who had previously seen America as a beacon of light, advocating and defending its republican principles, were disillusioned. It’s not all that clear why, but one of the reasons was that the US move was seen by many as a threat to the international legal order in which they’d been placing much hope.

Many US commentators were no less upset than the Europeans, and no less doubtful that the US could not possibly be truly going to war for mainly humanitarian motives. They sought to explain the war drive as a sort of mass psychosis; quotes such as “hysteria” and “emotional outburst” were not uncommon. Kagan writes:

Other historians have solved the problem differently, insisting that American expressions of moral outrage and humanitarian concern were just a cover for selfish economic reasons…Still others have argued that the American goal was, above all, to prevent Cuban independence and thereby gain control of the island; that this was a war, “deliberated and by design, for the purpose of territorial expansion.” This, even though McKinley made it clear he did not want to annex Cuba and even though the United States did not, if fact, annex it.

I doubt I need to point out how familiar this all sounds.

Kagan places the Spanish American War squarely in a prior tradition of a humanitarian and idealistic United States, one not entirely reluctant to intervene when necessary in the affairs of others. Some, of course, consider this a tradition that needs to be ended. But those who look at US activities in fighting WWI, WWII, and the Cold War, even though the conflicts were not on our own shores, find that our interventionist and freedom-defending proclivities might not be such a bad thing, after all. Certainly they are not above asking for our help when needed, even in haughty Europe.

There’s no doubt, of course, that the US—like every other nation on earth that ever has been and ever will be—has had its own selfish interests at heart, as well, in all these activities. Countries are not saints, nor could they ever be.

But the US, a country founded on an idealistic set of ideas, is an unusual combination of altruism and self-interest. This is a brew that has indeed led to our entry in wars in the past, and certainly the Iraq War is an example of such a war in the present.

Kagan mentions that, in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War:

The United States succeeded in putting an end to the civil war in Cuba and to the suffering of the reconcentrados. The intervention saved many lives, probably tens of thousands. But it left the United States saddled with the occupation of Cuba for the next four years, an occupation that ultimately produced mixed results that fell far short of most Americans hopes and expectations when they had entered the war, as well as most Cubans’ hopes and expectations.

It also led to some other unforeseen consequences, including the war in the Philippines, a much more morally ambiguous and problematic endeavor.

Kagan points out that the Spanish American War [my emphasis], “like all wars, solved one set of problems but unleashed another set.” It seems that in recent years this simple truth has been forgotten by many, war supporters and antiwar activists among them. War is the answer to certain questions, but it doesn’t come easy, and it sets up a host of other questions that may have other answers—including more wars.

But then again, so does the decision not to go to war.

Dangerous Nation: another look at the Spanish-American War (Part I)

The New Neo Posted on by

Remember the Spanish-American War? You probably learned about it in your history classes–which was a long time ago, perhaps.

If you were anything like me, you only remember a few key phrases: “yellow journalism.” “Remember the Maine.” The American people whipped up into a frenzy of warmongering by the hungry press. Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, looking like overgrown boy scouts. The US as an imperial power.

Robert Kagan’s Dangerous Nation has the unwieldy subtitle “America’s place in the world from its earliest days to the dawn of the twentieth century.” The book advances Kagan’s thesis that the US was never all that isolationist to begin with—and that, from the founding of our nation, the US had demonstrated a strain of self-interested economic and geographic expansionism combined with an idealistic universalism about liberty and its spread.

This is only the first volume of a projected two-volume work. It ends with the buildup to the Spanish-American War. The next volume will pick up where the book left off, with the conduct of that war and its aftermath.

Kagan goes back to original sources to maintain that the impetus towards the Spanish-American War was not the lies told by a jingoistic and overreaching press eager for the conflict. In fact, by the time the war began, bipartisan support was strong, even among many of those who had originally opposed it. And the newspapers hadn’t gotten it very wrong.

Kagan points out [emphasis mine]:

It was true that the press did print some fabrications–sometimes fed to reporters by the Cuban junta–just as it did in every other conflict in American history. But the main thrust of what the press reported about events in Cuba was accurate. Even Hearst could not exaggerate the horrors of the [re]concentration camps, or tell a story more “sensational” than three hundred thousand Cubans dying of starvation and disease….The pressure [for war]…was the product of Cuban reality and American outrage over actual human suffering.

You’ll have to go to Kagan’s book to read the details of the political and diplomatic maneuverings engaged in with Spain by the McKinley administration in its efforts to avoid the war. Suffice to say there were many.

A turning point, after the explosion of the Maine, was a visit to Cuba and a subsequent speech by Senator Redfield Proctor of Maine.

Proctor had heretofore been against going to war over Cuba. He had traveled there to see the situation for himself and to evaluate it, with a “strong conviction that the picture had been overdrawn” in terms of the suffering of the Cuban people.

What he saw there profoundly shocked him. What the press had said about what were euphemistically known as “reconcentration camps”—places of widespread death and suffering in which huge numbers of Cubans who had wanted to be free from Spanish rule were housed—was quite true. Addressing the Senate, Proctor reversed his previous antiwar stance, stating that the reason for this war was neither the Maine nor revenge, it was “the spectacle of a million and a half of people, the entire native population of Cuba, struggling for freedom and deliverance from the worst misgovernment of which I ever had knowledge.”

In other words, liberation from oppression.

[Part II, dealing with the continuation of the buildup to the Spanish-American war, and how it was seen by Europe and subsequent US historians—as well as how it might be compared to the war in Iraq—will appear tomorrow.]

Democrats and Republican: civil rights and history

The New Neo Posted on by

I keep reading (slowly, ever-so-slowly) the Robert Kagan book Dangerous Nation, his take on the history of what he contends was a non-isolationist United States from its very inception (and yes, you might call him a neocon historian.)

I plan a couple of posts soon on his discussion of the Spanish-American War, including a comparison that comes to my mind about the Iraq War.

But for today, instead, here’s a bit of history about the Democratic and Republican parties. The 1960s are widely acknowledged to have been a time of great transition and upheaval, and this was true of the parties, as well. In a few respects, it seems as though they actually changed places. In other respects, they just changed.

You’ll have to read Kagan’s book to get the details and the full flavor of it all, but here are some excerpts:

…the Republican Party throughout the last half of the nineteenth century was the party of federal power and the active state, of “nationalism,” the Democratic Party remained in the 1889s and the early 1890s the party of States’ rights, local control, and suspicion of federal power.

Doesn’t sound very familiar. Of course, the Republican post-60s reputation as the party of smaller government—at least on domestic issues, spending, and local vs. federal control—has been attenuated to the point that many strict Libertarians feel they haven’t a home there any more. But they have even less of a home in the Democratic Party.

The post-Reconstruction period was the era of southern yellow-dog Democrats, a time in which the South was so solidly Democratic that the only contest was between members of that party for the nomination, and no Republicans need apply. This lasted for nearly a century. The long legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction (championed, of course, by Republicans—a fact the South did not forget) meant that Democrats were essentially the only game in town, and they were dramatically opposed to voting rights for blacks. One reason, of course, is that blacks were assumed to be on track to becoming overwhelmingly Republican voters were they ever to get the vote. And there was no reason to believe otherwise.

Kagan points out the interesting fact that the post-Civil War South was the only part of the country that had known defeat in a major war (prior to Vietnam, that is, which I believe should also be counted as a defeat—whether self-imposed or not, we could argue ad nauseum). Subsequent to losing the war, the South underwent occupation as well, which was designed to radically alter that society.

Here’s Kagan:

Since the end of that occupation [the Reconstruction], southern leaders had aimed to restore the South’s economy, to win a measure of economic and political independence, to restore white supremacy and “home rule,” and to gain freedom from federal, which is to say northern, dictates. Not surprisingly, it was the common view in the South, as one southern leader put it, that “[n]o man has the right or duty to impose his own convictions upon others.”….If Republicans celebrated Lincoln and the Civil War, therefore, and looked fondly back to the nationalist tradition of Clay and Hamilton, Democrats looked back to the era of Jackson and adhered to the Jeffersonian principle that the federal government “governs best that governs least.”

I am old enough to remember this position. “States’ rights” was still the banner of the South when I was a child, and Orville Faubus standing in that Little Rock school door to block integration was one of its last gasps.

But this era came to an end in the 60s, and with it ultimately went the solidly Democratic nature of the South. It was left to Lyndon Johnson, a southerner and a Democrat, to change all that. Maybe that’s how it had to happen, just as it was Nixon who opened China. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a watershed not only for the country as a whole, but for the South and the Democratic Party:johnson-civil-rights.gif

It puzzles me how the Republican Party has subsequently become linked in some people’s minds with racial bigotry. Surely there are individual Republicans who are bigots, as well as individual Democrats—and we’ve heard a bit from both in recent years. But historically, civil rights is an arena in which the Republican Party shone, with the Democratic Party coming rather late to the game.

Of course, what matters now is the stance of the parties at the moment, not their history. But, once again, the Republican Party certainly continues to believe in equality for people of all races. The only difference I can see between the two parties on that score is that Republicans are more likely to favor equality of opportunity and Democrats equality of outcome—which, for the latter, means supporting policies such as affirmative action based on group membership.

And many Democrats are also inclined to think that African-Americans who are Republicans are anomalous traitors to their race. But nothing could be further from the truth.

[ADDENDUM: Obama should brush up on his history, as well.]

Sanity Squad: The Oslo Syndrome

The New Neo Posted on by

In a clever turn on the phrase “Stockholm Syndrome,” Dr. Kenneth Levin, author of The Oslo Syndrome: delusions of a people under seige and the Sanity Squad’s guest in its podcast this week, offers some answers to the question of why Israel ever felt it had a partner in peace in Arafat, who called for their destruction even as he negotiated with them.

Psychiatrist Dr. Levin joins Squad regulars Shrinkwrapped, Siggy, and Dr. Sanity for some thought-provoking conversation. Along the way, we also discuss how the Oslo Syndrome might apply to the US today.

Dance me to Leonard Cohen

The New Neo Posted on by

I reacquainted myself with the music of singer/songwriter/poet Leonard Cohen recently, as a result of this post by The Anchoress. It links, not to the lugubrious Cohen himself, but to a YouTube video of John Cales singing Cohen’s much-covered “Hallelujah.” Then there was this rejoinder by Siggy, which originally linked to a version of Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love.”

Don’t bother looking for the latter. Unfortunately, it’s been taken off YouTube due to copyright difficulties. It featured Cohen standing in front of a sceen showing couples’ wedding pictures from long ago, and then those very same couples, elderly and nearly unrecognizable as themselves but still dancing together slowly as he sang the haunting, beautiful tune. Some of the older couples were actually just a single person and an empty chair where the other would have been sitting, if still alive.

I challenge anyone with a heart to have watched that thing and remain dry-eyed.

The two links started me on a YouTube jaunt. You know how it goes—you watch one video, click on related ones, they lead you to others, and suddenly a couple of hours have passed and you don’t know how it happened. That’s how I ended up re-evalutating Cohen, that sad-eyed chanteur of my youth.

Back in the 60s he was vaguely popular, mostly as the creator of “Suzanne,” covered by Judy Collins. I was avant-garde enough to own his record “Songs of Leonard Cohen” when it first came out, so I’m sure I saw that photo of him on the cover (follow the link), but I can’t say I remembered it. Who was interested? He was so old, after all—well over thirty! Since MTV and music videos had not been born, all I had to go on was the sound.

I wasn’t much of a fan of Cohen’s sound. Yes, many of his songs were pretty good—but sooooo slooooow. And that voice—strange, slightly nasal, a featureless toneless drone. Good for insomniacs and not much else. Anyone and everyone sounded better singing his songs than he did.

And then I didn’t hear or think of Cohen again, till those posts and that YouTube search. And I discovered something odd—the guy’s amazing.

He’s still got that monotonous voice. But it’s morphed into something different and even stranger—low, lower, lowest. Watching the video clips from different decades and eras, I could see the man change and age, but not in the usual ways.

Most of us get heavier; Cohen remains elegantly thin. Most of us have a face that gets puffier. His merely gets craggier, with only slightly deeper fault lines—and they started out pretty deep already. Not a hair on his head has been lost; it’s just gone gray, now that he’s in his early seventies (yep, he’s still a lot older than I am). Or maybe he’s finally stopped dyeing it.

Early on, Cohen was totally deadpan in his delivery. He never smiled. His mournful air combined with that voice and the slow delivery had a hypnotic effect; here was a man who knew the value of stillness.

In recent years, though, a slow smile curves his mouth every now and then, and even reaches a bit into his eyes. His Wiki biography says he’s suffered from depression all his life, but it has lifted in his older years. Cohen’s “lifted,” however, is most people’s “been down so long it looks like up to me.”

One of the reasons Cohen might be feeling happier lately is that, despite his advanced age, he’s got himself quite a girlfriend.

I think if I’d seen Cohen in performance earlier, or a video of him, I would have understood better what all the fuss was about. The word “hypnotic” seems to have been coined for the sole purpose of describing him. He doesn’t just sing; he weaves a spell, and strange as his delivery and stage presence is, it works.

He’s a poet, as well—a real one. In fact, he was a prize-winning poet before he became a songwriter. His lyrics are especially complex and evocative, and can bear many repeatings. The melodies, likewise. Many of them feature a vaguely Eastern European Jewish flavor. His themes vary, but the vagaries of love—especially love lost—is a favorite, and one look into his eyes tells you he knows whereof he sings.

Cohen is a famous and renowned womanizer. Almost all of his live performances through the 80s to the present follow a certain formula: backup instruments such as the violin, slow and catchy rhythms and melodies, and two female singers, one blond and one dark. The women seem mesmerized as well; they sing almost as in a trance, swaying slowly as though floating underwater. Cohen appears linked to them in some way; he often gazes into the eyes of one or the other as he sings. Some almost-palpable electricity seems to be arcing gently between them, and then rippling out to the audience like a force-field.

Cohen’s songs are frequently covered, and many people prefer those more tuneful versions to the idiosynchratic Cohen-groan. But I guess you could say I’m not one of them; I’ve become a Cohen fan after all these years.

[Note: Want to see (and hear) the aging process, right before your eyes (and ears)? Here’s the young higher-voiced Cohen. Then, the dreamy, deepening middle years. And finally, the not-sadder and wiser croak of the old guy.]

[ADDENDUM: I’m happy to report to anyone who still might be reading this that I’ve found the “Dance Me To the End of Love” video that I described above.]

“Most of my Chinese friends are Jewish”

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an article from the NY Times that I came across through that “most frequently e-mailed articles” function the Times has. The title caught my eye, “Journey From a Chinese Orphanage to a Jewish Rite of Passage.”

It’s not a very deep piece. But it describes one of those interesting unforeseen social phenomena. Over a decade ago, adoption of Chinese infants became possible and popular in the US, due to the shortage of adoptable babies here and a surplus there. At the beginning, because of a combination of restrictions on family size in China and a preference for boys, the vast majority of adoptees were girls.

And so now we have the result: a fairly substantial group of female teenagers of Chinese ethnicity, some of them adopted by Jewish couples and coming of Bat Mitzvah age.

The article spotlights a few of these girls, who sound pretty well-adjusted to me. In the case of Cece, the girl most featured, this is despite a rather complex familial background, including—in addition to her transracial adoption—Lesbian parents, one of whom is a convert to Judaism.

But as another girl, Olivia, says, “Judaism is a religion, Chinese is my heritage and somewhat my culture, and I’m looking at them in a different way,” she said. “I don’t feel like they conflict with each other at all.”

And Olivia is quite, quite correct—perhaps more correct than even she knows.

Contrary to what many people believe, not only is Judaism a religion that accepts converts of any race or ethnicity, but there are already Jews in virtually every nation on earth (or there were until they were killed, driven out of some of those countries, and/or emigrated to Israel in recent years).

And so yes, even China has had a Jewish community–for over a thousand years. Take a look:

Archaelogical evidence suggests that Jews were in China as early as the 8th Century, having arrived from Persia along the Silk Road. In 1163 the Emperor ordered the Jews to live in Kaifeng, where they built the first Chinese synagogue. Marco Polo recorded that Kublai Khan celebrated the festivals of the Muslims, Christians and Jews, indicating that there were a significant number of Jews in China in the 13th Century.

There were other Jewish people in China who were more recent arrivals, but this earlier community ended up being physically indistinguishable from the other Chinese people surrounding them. In other words, they looked ethnically Chinese. Ultimately, they appear to have assimilated:

Of those [six Jewish communities in China], only Kaifeng Jewry flourished sufficiently to survive for a millennium, preserving some traces of their Jewishness until their synagogue was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1840s and the last of them assimilated. The only remnants of the community today are a knowledge of the site of the synagogue, upon which another building now stands; a stele from the Middle Ages with inscriptions of major events in the history of the community carved into it, but no longer legible; and a practice, still preserved by some, of avoiding the eating of pork.

But for Cece and Olivia and the others—who, to be sure, are extremely unlikely to be the actual biological descendents of these original Chinese Jews—it all begins again. As Cece herself says, “Most of my Chinese friends are Jewish.”

War death statistics: dueling casualty figures, and how they are used

The New Neo Posted on by

During a war, it used to be that the body counts published in the newspapers focused on the number of enemies killed. And the populace reading those accounts were supposed to be happy, not sad; the statistics were supposed to make them feel that the effort was a success, not a failure.

Whatever deaths occurred to a country’s own combat forces were reported, but in a different way, a manner meant to inspire with the message of their courage and to praise their selfless sacrifice (here’s an interesting example of this, by the way).

These editorial policies were no accident. They were part of a tradition that glorified war and considered civilian morale something that needed boosting, not deflating.

Was this a good thing? Depends on the worthiness of the cause, I’d say. Which is always in the eye of the beholder. To an absolute pacifist none of it is worthy. To a relative pacifist most such causes are not worthy. And to the rest of us folks, the answer is variable, personal, and often political.

I’m not suggesting we go back to the days of automatic war boosterism. But I continue to be stunned by the fact that our media, since Vietnam, has adopted the opposite tack.

Here’s the method: because we in the West have become far more respectful of other countries, cultures, and people the world over, enemy battle casualties are reported in order to discourage further war and induce guilt in our populace and rage towards those who wage it. Our own casualties are reported on a daily basis, highlighted in headlines that emphasize the number of deaths without giving context to why they are there or what it might mean.

The idea, once again, is to emphasize what World War I poet Wilfred Owen called, “the pity of war”—that is, the suffering involved—in order to discourage it.

Owen was a poet and a soldier. Actually, he was a poet (and a pacifist, by the way) before he was a soldier. The war in which he served was considered the first modern war, the first in which disillusionment and futility (the latter word the title of one of Owen’s most famous poems) were the mark of those who served.

Checking enthusiasm for war is a good thing. No one should consider war easy or glorious or desirable in and of itself. But now the climate makes it very difficult to prosecute a war successfully, even against an enemy as vicious as this one, even in an arena in which it is clear that pulling out now would constitute a disaster.

I’m not going to argue the war itself or the wisdom/stupidity of what the Washington Post calls the Democrats “war plan.” I’ve done so many times before. This post is about war casualty statistics.

Statistics are notorious for their ability to be used for whatever purpose one wants. That’s because statistics seem understandable on their face but are actually extremely complex. They seem to say one thing but can really mean another, and thus the partisan among us can mold them to fit the rhetorical need at hand. And war casualty statistics are an especially useful and emotional tool for playing on the hearts and minds of the American public.

There is no doubt that thousands of US servicemen and women have died in this war. There is also no doubt that casualties are light compared to most other wars in our history. There is no doubt, too, that every one of these deaths is a sorrowful and tragic occurrence. And there is also no doubt that those who have served there are heroic, and that we should be thankful that they are.

Vietnam seems to have been the turning point, as it was with so many things. That war started out with controversial body counts of the enemy. It ended with the Vietnam Wall, on whose stark dark face are engraved the names of all our dead. And this sentiment—which I support—to memorialize, honor, and grieve the dead has led to the current trend to use the dead as potential weapons in the enemy cause.

The killings of our service men and women by IEDs can’t possibly do much damage to us militarily; their scope is way too small. They do matter, however, as propaganda, and very much—as the enemy is well aware (most US combat deaths are now from these devices).

And our own MSM, in emphasizing the number of those deaths, is subtly complicit in that propaganda cause. I’m not jaded enough to believe that this complicity is intentional on the part of the MSM. I think their idea and their motivation is the thought that death is bad, war is bad, this war is especially bad (and any war advocated by the Bush administration is exceptionally bad), and it’s best to not only publicize but to emphasize and drive home those facts to make sure the public is against the war.

Commenter Hyman Rosen wrote in a thread here yesterday, in response to another commenter’s assertion that US military deaths in the last year of the Carter Administration were higher than they’ve been during the years of the Iraq War:

The document you pointed to says that the number killed in 1981 by hostile action is zero. 69% of military deaths that year are listed as due to accident. Meanwhile, this site notes that we now have over 25,000 US casualties in the Iraq war. Maybe it’s just me, but I find it disrespectful of our troops to suggest that the danger they face in Iraq should be equated with the danger of, say, driving an automobile.

No doubt Mr. Rosen is sincere in his sympathy for the war dead. But his comment—and the statistics themselves—point out the difficulty in evaluating the figures referenced.

If one looks at the chart involved, here, several relevant facts can be noted:

First of all, the last year of the Carter Administration was 1980, not 1981 (the numbers for both of those years are not significantly different, however. We’ll take 1980 as the target year, but a similar argument could also be made for 1981, the first year of Reagan’s administration.) It’s clear that US military active forces were larger during the Carter—and Reagan—administrations than they are at present. So a correction should be made for that.

It turns out, at least by my preliminary calculations (having done the math rather quickly, and with pencil and paper) that our active forces in the last Iraqi war year reported on the chart, 2004 (1,711,916), constituted about 79% of the number serving under Carter in 1980 (2,159,630) . And the ratio of deaths of active forces in 2004 (1887) compared to the number in 1980 (2392) is also approximately 79%.

This was surprising even to me. But the fact is that, statistically speaking, the increase in military deaths of active forces due to the Iraq conflict represents an increase of essentially zero, rather modest for a war.

Of course, I would imagine that, but for the Iraq war, the death rate for active military in 2004 might indeed have been lower than in 1980, rather than virtually identical. That seems intuitively true, although one can never be sure. But the statistics do clearly point out the relatively low rate of military deaths in this war.

Commenter Rosen points out the percentage of deaths due to accident in the early 80s, but fails to acknowledge that about a third of US combat deaths in 2004 were also due to accident. He (and often the MSM) lumps together accidental deaths and combat deaths when it suits his purposes. In addition, he talks of casualties rather than deaths (apples to oranges) in order to be able to discuss a larger figure (note, by the way, that in the year 1983, 11.6% of US military casualties were inflicted by terrorist attack: the Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 American servicemen).

But the real question is: what do these numbers mean? And how are they being used? Is there an equation by which we can weigh one death versus another, and is there a distinct point at which the numbers would become unconscionable? If the cause is considered unworthy (as this one is by many opponents) then no death is acceptable. If worthy, how many deaths are too many? Is criticism of the deaths and the war motivated mostly by partisanship? Does talking incessantly about these deaths help the enemy? Is there an enemy (this last question would seem absurd, but I submit there are many who think the proper answer is “no”)?

Rosen’s quoted comment insinuates that deaths in war count differently from deaths in auto accidents (although, to be technical about it, those military vehicular deaths probably involved mostly Humvees and planes rather than cars). Yes indeed, deaths in war do have a different meaning and resonance than deaths in civilian auto accidents, although both are dreadful losses. I would submit (along with commenter Ymarsakar) that deaths in a war can have a meaning and purpose quite lacking in an automobile accident.

Those who believe this war was for oil, or Bush’s ego, think it especially offensive to die in such a war. Those who believe the motives were to liberate the Iraqi people from a murderous tyrant’s yoke and enable them to at least have a chance at determining their own future, and to stop Saddam from flaunting the terms of the Gulf War Armistice and the UN inspections, believe the cause was a worthy one and the deaths a meaningful sacrifice.

Congress and the Iraq War timeline for withdrawal: proceeding right on schedule

The New Neo Posted on by

The Democratic leadership in Congress seems to be proceeding right on schedule with the slow bleed technique against the prosecution of the Iraq War. After a somewhat tepid reception for their antiwar resolutions, they’ve got a new plan: a timeline for the return of the troops by early 2008.

Never mind two blatantly obvious facts: (1) such a timeline is a consummation devoutly to be wished for the enemy (just hold out a little while longer and all will be well) and a death knell for our Iraqi supporters; and (2) it’s an exercise in empty rhetoric and grandstanding (although it plays nicely to the Democratic base) because it is certain to be vetoed.

Did I call it a new plan? Pardon me, my error. Actually, the strategy isn’t all that new. Not only was it taken from the Book of Vietnam, but it was planned—in advance—by the very same people who brought you those helicopters on the roof in 1975.

But don’t take my word for it—take Tom Hayden’s. Here he is, writing in November of 2004, when the Iraq War wasn’t going so very badly at all. Hayden was a man with a plan, even then. Here are some excerpts from his article, entitled “How to End the Iraq War:”

The anti-war movement can force the Bush administration to leave Iraq by denying it the funding, troops, and alliances necessary to its strategy for dominance…the first step is to build pressure at congressional district levels to oppose any further funding or additional troops for war. If members of Congress balk at cutting off all assistance and want to propose “conditions” for further aid, it is a small step toward threatening funding.

…we need to build a Progressive Democratic movement which will pressure the Democrats to become an anti-war opposition party. The anti-war movement has done enough for the Democratic Party this year….The progressive activists of the party should refuse to contribute any more resources—volunteers, money, etc.—to candidates or incumbents who act as collaborators.

…we must build solidarity with dissenting combat veterans, reservists, their families and those who suffered in 9/11….Every person who cares about peace should start their daily e-mail messages with the current body count, including a question mark after the category “Iraqi civilians.”

Hayden knows whereof he speaks; it seems all is going according to plan.

[ADDENDUM: Here’s an excellent companion piece on the subject of whether Congress has the power to micromanage a war.]

Mrs. Giuliani: the first third-lady First Lady?

The New Neo Posted on by

I noticed this today via Instapundit: a post pointing out that Giuliani, if elected, would not be the first divorced President. Ronald Reagan holds that honor.

I can remember when, not that long ago, a divorce was thought to be the absolute kiss of death for a Presidential candidate. And now how many people (myself included) don’t even recall that Reagan was divorced, until reminded of that fact?

Perhaps it’s because Nancy’s adoration of the man was so deeply stamped into the public consciousness. And I have to say that her stock rose with me in his later years, when she conducted herself with dignity and courage in what had to be a dreadful time for her.

But Giuliani, if elected, would be the first thrice-married (and twice-divorced) President. Personally, I’ve never been all that keen on judging Presidents by their sex lives or their romantic lives (and sometimes the two even intersect). I also have a feeling that there’s something about Giuliani’s appeal that means his marital status won’t make a whole lot of difference to many of his supporters, even on the Right; he’s already seen as brash, bold, and a bit edgy, and divorce is in tune with that.

But I thought I’d do a little research on his present wife, Judith Nathan, to see how she’d stack up as a prospective First Lady. All I knew about her until now was that the couple had been criticized by some for being a bit too gushingly googly-eyed about each other in a Harper’s Bazaar spread (the content, with photo, is described here).

It turns out that Judith Nathan Giuliani is of Italian ethnicity, like Giuliani. She grew up in what appears to be a working class community in small-town Pennsylvania, and has a nursing degree. She married wealth (first husband Nathan) and lived a fancy New York life as a result, but in-between she’s worked at her profession as a nurse, and also as a pharmaceutical representative (detail: at one point her job was to sell surgical supplies in Bedford-Stuyvesant).

Her nursing background came in handy during the early days of her relationship with Giuliani, when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. And then, of course, she was around for 9/11, and has done quite a bit of fundraising related to that and other causes.

I haven’t seen an interview yet. But it’s not a bad resume for a First Lady, not bad at all.

However, at the risk of being catty, I have to say: please, Judith, lose the frou-frou dress with the hip-puffs. Most of us—including you—can do without hip puffs:

The case of the captive koi: Maine and New Hampshire, live free or…

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m not sure whether anyone else would read this article and think, “That’s the difference between New Hampshire and Maine.” But I did.

You may have already heard this fish story about the ones that got away—and were returned. It occurred in Freeport, Maine (proud home of the never-closing LL Bean, for all of you who’ve never been to New England).

The state of Maine had confiscated ten koi, a variety of carp that Cuong Ly, Vietnamese emigrant and owner of the China Rose, had put on display in the restaurant’s aquarium tank.

No doubt you’ve seen such fish before, ornamentals that are often featured in Chinese art. I just happen to have a photo at hand, from a trip to—of all places—Buenos Aires. It was taken at feeding time at a park featuring a pond brimful of the voracious lovelies:

So what was the problem with Ly’s ten fish, safe in their tank at the China Rose? Koi, if released, threaten native fish, and Maine has a law against doing so.

Of course, Ly never had any intention of releasing his fish, but the state was worried anyway–as though Maine has nothing else to worry about, such as the fact that it’s experiencing a constant drain of young people due to lack of business oppotunities and high taxation, not to mention the weather. But yes, it’s a beautiful state.

The Maine koi concern was about some sort of accidental release, or perhaps theft of the fish and then a release–although why someone would steal a fish in order to release it is a bit obscure.

Ly went through quite a battle with the state to regain his fish, incurring expenses of $20,000. But now the koi are back at home in Freeport, complete with a lock on their tank and a sign informing patrons that possession of such fish without a permit is illegal in Maine.

What was the state ruling that Ly was fighting? Maine had initially allowed him to keep the fish, but only if they were not displayed, and a microchip was planted in each so they could be tracked if released.

Now, I understand the dangers that introducing a new species can pose to an ecosystem, and I’m not making light of them. After all, the dandelion, a personal non-favorite, was purposely brought here by early Europeans. And anyone who visits New England in August can see that purple loosestrife, although quite lovely, has taken over the wetland areas, causing problems.

But Maine, please use some common sense! Somehow your neighbor New Hampshire has managed to get along without a similar law. During the long legal battle, Ly kept his fish at a pet store right across the border in New Hampshire. Nevertheless, New Hampshire’s ecosystem managed to survive, and the fish remained there safely even without microchips or electronic ankle bracelets.

You might think that all New England states are more or less alike. But they most definitely are not.

New Hampshire has long had a libertarian streak: witness its license plates that still sport the state motto, “LIVE FREE OR DIE” despite several attempts to change that fact. New Hampshire was the first of all the states to declare independence, and the first state to have a constitution (ratified six months before the Declaration of Independence). Maine, on the other hand, was part of Massachusetts for a long time, only joining the Union as the 23rd state, in 1820.

Nowadays the differences are lessening, as both states have become more Democratic, with the growth of their urban areas and the influx of liberal people from “away”—often, Massachusetts. But it’s no accident that Maine has one of the highest tax burdens in the country, whereas New Hampshire is known for its low taxes. Take a look if you don’t believe me. Maine is an unproud first, New Hampshire a proud forty-ninth.

As for the koi, fortunately they haven’t heard of the New Hampshire motto. They may not be living free, but they’re not dying, either. As Ly says:

I’m sure [the koi are] happy to be back…They can’t talk, but I can represent them. It’s a happy day today.

I’ve got podcast studio envy

The New Neo Posted on by

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds has posted a photo of his podcast studio, here. Take a look; it’s a state-of-the-art beauty.

Like the Sanity Squad, Glenn and his wife Dr. Helen do a weekly podcast that’s available at PJ.

But that’s where the resemblance ends. Glenn is a techie of major proportions, with a studio sleeker than most people’s living rooms. It’s certainly a great deal more lovely than my—ahem—podcast studio, and no doubt a great deal more functional.

My studio has a certain rustic charm. It consists of my computer, a Skype headset, and Hot Recorder software loaded onto said computer (ah, but it’s the premium version). My fellow Sanity Squad podcasters Shrink, Dr. Sanity, and Siggy can attest to the fact that I’m not merely being humble when I allude to my lack of technical eptitude.

But here Glenn, eat your heart out. It’s a photo of my very own podcast studio (taken last summer, and substantially cleaned up for its portrait):

podcast-studio.jpg