Thursday, May 6, 2010
G.O.P. Plot
Consider this headline at Politico and then quickly guess the ideological bias of the piece's two authors. To be fair, unlike the headline, the piece itself is a somewhat prosaic and wonkish report about how an out-of-power party re-organizes itself for victory in the next round of elections. (Although the premise is a bit silly, implying as it does that they are somehow revealing a secret.)
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Defending One's Own
Jonah Goldberg over at "The Corner" in National Review Online makes a very important point about the guessing/wishing game that was played before we knew who actually placed the bomb in Times Square. Far too many liberals publicly expressed their hope that the undeniable terrorist would turn out to be "homegrown", while some conservatives no doubt hoped for just the opposite. Prejudices such as these, as Goldberg points out, do great harm to the effort to discover the real culprit and, as the real culprit was bent on accomplishing mass murder, this can be dangerous.
All well and good. But there remains a crucial difference between these two reactions. Confronted with an embarrassment, not to mention a crime, it is altogether natural, understandable, and even forgivable that before the facts are known, one sincerely hope it not involve any of one's own. Not one's family, not one's friends, not one's countrymen. But to wish for the opposite is by comparison, unnatural, sick, and ultimately suicidal.
The liberal reflexes in the war on terror are not just wrong, they're malignant.
All well and good. But there remains a crucial difference between these two reactions. Confronted with an embarrassment, not to mention a crime, it is altogether natural, understandable, and even forgivable that before the facts are known, one sincerely hope it not involve any of one's own. Not one's family, not one's friends, not one's countrymen. But to wish for the opposite is by comparison, unnatural, sick, and ultimately suicidal.
The liberal reflexes in the war on terror are not just wrong, they're malignant.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Another Cost of Containment
In yesterday's post, my purpose was to highlight one of the costs associated with pursuing a policy of containment with Iran, a country whose leadership is hostile to us, our allies, and our mutual interests, and apparently determined to produce a nuclear weapon. That cost is that to the American mind, containment is at best a necessary evil, an extremely frustrating concession to the fact that confronting an enemy more directly and thereby defeating it, the preferred policy option, is simply too dangerous, the associated risks too great. This was the case during the Cold War and our long struggle with the Soviet Union.
Today I want to highlight yet another cost: Over the long run, a policy of containment slowly but surely corrupts the otherwise clear purpose of an armed force and in the process erodes the discipline that keeps it at its most effective.
In the fall of 1999 I was assigned for several months to Ali al Salem Air Base located in northern Kuwait near the Iraqi border. (It's still in use today. In fact, my son went through there on his way to Iraq last year.) Anyway, our presence there then was as a small part of the larger Operation Southern Watch, which itself was part of the policy of containing, yes containing, Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of our successful liberation of Kuwait in the Gulf War of 1991. As part of my duties, I attended a conference held in Bahrain at which representatives of the various fighter units in the region would gather routinely to discuss and evaluate the tactics employed in holding Saddam at bay. My attendance there was more as an observer than as a participant.
At that particular conference, I witnessed something that caught my attention at the time and I have remembered ever since. To an audience that contained several flag rank officers from both the Air Force and Navy, an Air Force full colonel, as a diversion in an otherwise dry briefing that unavoidably included lots of slides with lots of graphs and numbers, told a story about how some of the fighter units were deliberately trying to lure a particular Iraqi pilot into the air in order to engage and destroy him. I was never quite sure how they had identified this particular pilot, but by then we had been flying over Iraq for more than eight years, and what with radar and satellite technology they had nevertheless become convinced that he was one of their best.
Engaging this particular pilot had absolutely nothing to do with the larger effort to contain Saddam within Iraq's borders. So how had it become important? No, that's not fair. Even as the colonel briefed us, he, along with everyone else in the audience, was laughing. No one was under the illusion that shooting down this pilot was in any sense important to the overall mission. What struck me was not that they had foolishly come to think it important, but, rather, that it was even discussable in this fashion and at this level. The whole episode seemed to me even then as something of a breach of discipline, something a bunch of generals wouldn't want "60 Minutes" cameras in the room recording.
As I thought more about what had transpired at that briefing, it occurred to me that perhaps this small incident was not isolated after all, but was rather itself a product of pursuing a policy of containing rather than defeating Saddam Hussein. At that point, we had been over there for eight-plus years and the mission had become, and I'm afraid I can't think of a better word, a bore. In order to relieve the boredom, the pilots had turned the mission into a game, in this case a game of luring a particular Iraqi pilot into the air in order to shoot him down.
Now imagine that attitude, our mission is a bore, spreading to an entire army. At the very least this is not conducive to the maintenance of a highly disciplined fighting force. With respect to Iran, containment may well be the policy our political leadership finally decides to pursue. Or, in the absence of more decisive action, it may come to be so by default. In either case, we should be under no illusion that it's a strategy of defending the nation on the cheap. The costs are considerable and they are not always immediately apparent.
Today I want to highlight yet another cost: Over the long run, a policy of containment slowly but surely corrupts the otherwise clear purpose of an armed force and in the process erodes the discipline that keeps it at its most effective.
In the fall of 1999 I was assigned for several months to Ali al Salem Air Base located in northern Kuwait near the Iraqi border. (It's still in use today. In fact, my son went through there on his way to Iraq last year.) Anyway, our presence there then was as a small part of the larger Operation Southern Watch, which itself was part of the policy of containing, yes containing, Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of our successful liberation of Kuwait in the Gulf War of 1991. As part of my duties, I attended a conference held in Bahrain at which representatives of the various fighter units in the region would gather routinely to discuss and evaluate the tactics employed in holding Saddam at bay. My attendance there was more as an observer than as a participant.
At that particular conference, I witnessed something that caught my attention at the time and I have remembered ever since. To an audience that contained several flag rank officers from both the Air Force and Navy, an Air Force full colonel, as a diversion in an otherwise dry briefing that unavoidably included lots of slides with lots of graphs and numbers, told a story about how some of the fighter units were deliberately trying to lure a particular Iraqi pilot into the air in order to engage and destroy him. I was never quite sure how they had identified this particular pilot, but by then we had been flying over Iraq for more than eight years, and what with radar and satellite technology they had nevertheless become convinced that he was one of their best.
Engaging this particular pilot had absolutely nothing to do with the larger effort to contain Saddam within Iraq's borders. So how had it become important? No, that's not fair. Even as the colonel briefed us, he, along with everyone else in the audience, was laughing. No one was under the illusion that shooting down this pilot was in any sense important to the overall mission. What struck me was not that they had foolishly come to think it important, but, rather, that it was even discussable in this fashion and at this level. The whole episode seemed to me even then as something of a breach of discipline, something a bunch of generals wouldn't want "60 Minutes" cameras in the room recording.
As I thought more about what had transpired at that briefing, it occurred to me that perhaps this small incident was not isolated after all, but was rather itself a product of pursuing a policy of containing rather than defeating Saddam Hussein. At that point, we had been over there for eight-plus years and the mission had become, and I'm afraid I can't think of a better word, a bore. In order to relieve the boredom, the pilots had turned the mission into a game, in this case a game of luring a particular Iraqi pilot into the air in order to shoot him down.
Now imagine that attitude, our mission is a bore, spreading to an entire army. At the very least this is not conducive to the maintenance of a highly disciplined fighting force. With respect to Iran, containment may well be the policy our political leadership finally decides to pursue. Or, in the absence of more decisive action, it may come to be so by default. In either case, we should be under no illusion that it's a strategy of defending the nation on the cheap. The costs are considerable and they are not always immediately apparent.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Jack-Booted Thugs?
Referring to the British Petroleum (BP) owned and operated oil well that continues to leak thousands of gallons of black gold into the Gulf of Mexico, Obama Administration spokesman Robert Gibbs, repeated Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's promise to "keep the boot on (BP's) neck."
BP is a legal corporation that is confronting, because of the oil spill, a public relations disaster. It is also losing for the same reason a not insignificant amount of the very product through which it makes a profit. The cost to the company as a result will no doubt be huge, hurting the company's bottom line, placing many of its employee's jobs at risk, and potentially raising the price of gasoline for us all.
And yet the Administration's public approach to this very unfortunate turn of events is to treat the company as if it were the equivalent of some terrorist organization that actually planned the explosion and the resulting oil spill, an effectively al-Qaeda-trained suicide bomber.
Can there remain any doubt as to what this Administration and its allies think of business, big or small? You know, the organizations that produce the goods and services you and I consume? The same ones that provide the jobs through which we earn the money to purchase the same?
BP is a legal corporation that is confronting, because of the oil spill, a public relations disaster. It is also losing for the same reason a not insignificant amount of the very product through which it makes a profit. The cost to the company as a result will no doubt be huge, hurting the company's bottom line, placing many of its employee's jobs at risk, and potentially raising the price of gasoline for us all.
And yet the Administration's public approach to this very unfortunate turn of events is to treat the company as if it were the equivalent of some terrorist organization that actually planned the explosion and the resulting oil spill, an effectively al-Qaeda-trained suicide bomber.
Can there remain any doubt as to what this Administration and its allies think of business, big or small? You know, the organizations that produce the goods and services you and I consume? The same ones that provide the jobs through which we earn the money to purchase the same?
Containing Iran
Everyone, and I do mean everyone, needs to check out Michael Anton's excellent piece at National Review Online about the real costs of pursuing a policy of Containment with Iran. It's a bit long, but well worth the read anyway.
Anton opens the article with a brief survey of the history that led to the doctrine of Containment during the Cold War, beginning with the famous "Mr.X" article penned by George Kennan for Foreign Affairs magazine in 1947. He makes the very important point that, at least initially, containment was understood by everyone as at best a necessary evil. As it ultimately succeeded in helping topple the Soviet regime, it only looks like the policy of choice in retrospect.
In his survey, Anton mentions briefly that "rollback", actually confronting and defeating militarily the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, was the alternative policy choice at the time. But, given the presence of nuclear weapons, it was judged at the time as too dangerous, potentially mutually destructive, and was abandoned.
But while rollback, as a policy alternative, was dismissed, the idea it represented never was. And during the long struggle with the Soviet Union it was finally voiced again, in a fashion, by none other than Ronald Reagan when he famously said over 30 years later, "Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose."
Containment, accepting as it does not only the reality, but also in an important sense, the legitimacy of an otherwise intractable foe was, and is, frankly, un-American. Prior to the Cold War, our long diplomatic and military history had evolved in a single direction: In war, nothing is finally acceptable to Americans but total victory on our part and unconditional surrender on the part of our enemies. Anything less than that outcome sticks in our collective craw. Witness: Vietnam. (The single best place that I know of to go to inform yourself of this development is Russell Weigley's superb The American Way of War.)
Hence, the frustration experienced by many, and I would argue most, Americans during the period of the Cold War. Swallowing the Mexican standoff that was Mutually Assured Destruction under the broader policy of Containment was extremely tough on the average American's psyche. He wanted an end to the conflict with the Evil Empire through victory even as he understood the great danger of too direct a confrontation with it.
A similar price will be paid by the average American if we pursue a similar policy with Iran. No, that's not right. I think the price will actually be even steeper. Why? Presently, we are overwhelmingly their military superior and, to this point anyway, a potential global holocaust is not one of the costs we would have to be willing to bear. But if we wait, trusting that a policy of containment will protect us and the world, the price of victory, the only acceptable outcome, will go up with each passing day.
Anton opens the article with a brief survey of the history that led to the doctrine of Containment during the Cold War, beginning with the famous "Mr.X" article penned by George Kennan for Foreign Affairs magazine in 1947. He makes the very important point that, at least initially, containment was understood by everyone as at best a necessary evil. As it ultimately succeeded in helping topple the Soviet regime, it only looks like the policy of choice in retrospect.
In his survey, Anton mentions briefly that "rollback", actually confronting and defeating militarily the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, was the alternative policy choice at the time. But, given the presence of nuclear weapons, it was judged at the time as too dangerous, potentially mutually destructive, and was abandoned.
But while rollback, as a policy alternative, was dismissed, the idea it represented never was. And during the long struggle with the Soviet Union it was finally voiced again, in a fashion, by none other than Ronald Reagan when he famously said over 30 years later, "Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose."
Containment, accepting as it does not only the reality, but also in an important sense, the legitimacy of an otherwise intractable foe was, and is, frankly, un-American. Prior to the Cold War, our long diplomatic and military history had evolved in a single direction: In war, nothing is finally acceptable to Americans but total victory on our part and unconditional surrender on the part of our enemies. Anything less than that outcome sticks in our collective craw. Witness: Vietnam. (The single best place that I know of to go to inform yourself of this development is Russell Weigley's superb The American Way of War.)
Hence, the frustration experienced by many, and I would argue most, Americans during the period of the Cold War. Swallowing the Mexican standoff that was Mutually Assured Destruction under the broader policy of Containment was extremely tough on the average American's psyche. He wanted an end to the conflict with the Evil Empire through victory even as he understood the great danger of too direct a confrontation with it.
A similar price will be paid by the average American if we pursue a similar policy with Iran. No, that's not right. I think the price will actually be even steeper. Why? Presently, we are overwhelmingly their military superior and, to this point anyway, a potential global holocaust is not one of the costs we would have to be willing to bear. But if we wait, trusting that a policy of containment will protect us and the world, the price of victory, the only acceptable outcome, will go up with each passing day.
Greece is the Word
After some dithering, it appears the European Union will come to Greece's financial rescue after all, to the tune of some $147 billion. Did they really have a choice? Anyway, among the conditions for receiving the cash are severe cutbacks to the country's overly-generous public worker salary and pension plans.
By American standards, the Greek's original employment and retirement conditions look almost ridiculously extravagant. Therefore, the deal's cutbacks seem not only necessary, but altogether reasonable as well. But as a result, we should be ready for more and more stories pinning the blame for that country's financial woes on the unreasonable, and even selfish Greek worker or retiree.
I suppose it's true that one deserves, ultimately, the government one has. But the more immediate blame in Greece should be placed squarely on the shoulders of that country's political leadership. This is also the case in every other country that comprises the European Union where similar fiscal catastrophe looms. Those politicians have routinely and irresponsibly promised for their citizens an increasingly unfunded and finally impossible financial future.
But more to the point, those promises have been informed, almost without exception, by a socialist, or quasi-socialist ideal. Regrettably, that ideal informs as well far too many in our own country's political leadership. Beware! Or Greece's present, and worse, will be our future.
By American standards, the Greek's original employment and retirement conditions look almost ridiculously extravagant. Therefore, the deal's cutbacks seem not only necessary, but altogether reasonable as well. But as a result, we should be ready for more and more stories pinning the blame for that country's financial woes on the unreasonable, and even selfish Greek worker or retiree.
I suppose it's true that one deserves, ultimately, the government one has. But the more immediate blame in Greece should be placed squarely on the shoulders of that country's political leadership. This is also the case in every other country that comprises the European Union where similar fiscal catastrophe looms. Those politicians have routinely and irresponsibly promised for their citizens an increasingly unfunded and finally impossible financial future.
But more to the point, those promises have been informed, almost without exception, by a socialist, or quasi-socialist ideal. Regrettably, that ideal informs as well far too many in our own country's political leadership. Beware! Or Greece's present, and worse, will be our future.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
The Business of America is...Dangerous
The Obama Administration supported Financial Reform Bill currently before the Senate contains the authorization of broad federal power to collect and monitor data on the business practices and spending habits of individual Americans, as well as American business. This bill is coming from the same crowd who, even after 9/11, vigorously opposed nearly every aspect of President Bush's Patriot Act because, they insisted, it violated the privacy rights of American citizens.
I'm afraid, however, the motivations for the new bill do make their own kind of sense. You see for liberal Democrats the real threat to America was never a deadly and determined Soviet Communism. Nor is it now a terror-practicing radical Islam. The real threat to America is American business itself, producers and consumers.
Does somebody out there still want to defend these guys as true friends of liberty?
I'm afraid, however, the motivations for the new bill do make their own kind of sense. You see for liberal Democrats the real threat to America was never a deadly and determined Soviet Communism. Nor is it now a terror-practicing radical Islam. The real threat to America is American business itself, producers and consumers.
Does somebody out there still want to defend these guys as true friends of liberty?
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