by Andrew
It must be considered an incredibly bad thing when a Marine Colonel issues an assessment of Anbar province that concludes not just that the West is losing, but that we have lost. Anbar province encompasses much of western Iraq, including Ramadi and Fallujah, two major trouble spots for the Coalition since the insurgency began. COL Devlin, the chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq, has come to that conclusion after six months on the ground, citing a shortage of troops and the inability of the Iraqi government to maintain institutions in the area.
I cannot speak to the accuracy of COL Devlin’s assessment, but I see no reason to discount it. The ‘whack-a-mole’ strategy for counterinsurgency has always been a loser, so it only makes sense that we would see the problem arise first in Anbar province, which has always been the heart of the insurgency.
So, what do we do? I do not believe additional troops would help at this point, as the insurgency is too well entrenched in the area; adding troops now would only lead to more city fighting that would alienate the population as surely as anything we can do. It will fall on the Iraqi government to take control of Anbar province, if it can, once the Iraqi army is capable of such actions. While an Iraqi move into the area will still be opposed, there is a significant difference between western troops attacking Iraqi cities and Iraqi troops attacking Iraqi cities. Nonetheless, I do not believe we can simply allow the insurgency to have a completely free hand within Anbar. Doing so would undermine our ability to fight the insurgency elsewhere in Iraq, and because Anbar province abuts Syria, if we do not take certain actions there, we would be ignoring a massive supply line for the insurgency. Therefore we are going to have to find a way to at least interdict the insurgency’s ability to supply itself via Anbar province. That may still require more troops, but because supply interdiction can be performed away from cities, it will be far less disruptive than attempts to root the insurgency out of the cities and towns of Anbar province.
All this is dependent, however, on our ability to bring the Iraqi army up to speed, and on the assumption the Iraqi army will serve as a truly Iraqi force, rather than an ethnic force. It is the answers to those questions, particularly the second, that should guide the closing acts of our time in Iraq.
Bonus points for whoever can determine the source of the post title. (Hint: it is not from Babylon 5.)
Therefore we are going to have to find a way to at least interdict the insurgency’s ability to supply itself via Anbar province.
You know, that’s a really long border with Syria, isn’t it?
It may even be that by the time the next provincial elections roll around in Anbar, the insurgencies, and Sunni Islamists, will be domesticated enough to take meaningful part. Containment isn’t as exciting as ‘drive your enemies before you and hear the lamentation of their women’ but it might actually work.
Andrew: when I saw that you were writing about this story, you have no idea how much I hoped that you were about to point out some devastating flaw in the report that had escaped those of us without actual military training.
About the supply issue: Anderson is right, it’s a long border. Plus, I don’t know whether this is still true, but my understanding was that the insurgency didn’t need a lot of the supplies a normal insurgency would need, since the entire country was full of ammunition dumps, many of which we left unguarded.
Still our failure to even try to secure most of the border has always been one of those things that makes me say: I know I don’t know anything about strategy and all that, but surely this is a mistake. Lack of troops, I imagine.
Thanks for the post — it’s good, though depressing.
hilzoy,
I haven’t read the report, so I have no way of knowing if it contains a flaw. I wouldn’t bet on my knowledge against a Colonel who is trained in intelligence, though.
Yes, it’s a long border, but I think interdiction is the best option we have, and it’s not necessary to lay down a line of men in the sand to disrupt the supply lines. I can’t speak to what the insurgency requires, but from what I have read, they are not self-contained enough that a disruption in their supplies wouldn’t hurt them.
But for Me, It’s Monday
I can only suppose that you are alluding to the Sunni apocalyptic belief that the world will end on Tuesday.
If only I were so learned. But I only learned of that belief from your post, so that wasn’t the inspiration for the title.
It’s the last line of “Garfield’s Two-Minute Hate.”
All this is dependent, however, on our ability to bring the Iraqi army up to speed, and on the assumption the Iraqi army will serve as a truly Iraqi force, rather than an ethnic force.
Is there any reason to believe, at all, that the Iraqi army will not be plagued with the same ethnic tensions that wrack the country?
Would the Sunnis in the government tolerate a predominantly Shia force invading Anbar? Would the Sunnis in the army take such punitive action on behalf of the majority Shia government?
There is no realistic possibility that the Iraqi army will try to quell Anbar.
I agree with your assessment that sending in more US troops in unlikely to help much (unless its half a million), and also that it is a very bad thing for the long term success in fighting insurgents.
The loss of Anbar basically reflects a de facto partitioning of the country along ethnic lines.
Rather than having the Iraqi army take action, I would imagine that the Iraqi solution to the problem would be to grant the poor souls in that impoverished portion of the country some degree of autonomy, and allow the insurgents a place in the local and national government. Heck — they might even put the insurgents in the army, like the other militias.
I would certainly not expect the Iraqis to continue US policies — it goes against their self-interest.
can we just leave Iraq now?
put another way, is there any substantial evidence that further US training of the Iraq Army will do any good?
mmm, cross-posted with dmbeaster. my apologies.
The only real solution to Anbar is one that the Maliki government seems to be working towards, namely a negotiated settlement. Given that the best result for the insurgency at this point is the Unrecognized Rump State of Anbar and that quelling Anbar is going to be close to impossible for the IG, it’s in the best interests of everyone but Al Qaeda to actually work something out.
Oh, that above was me, not the Andrew commenting at 8:46 P.M.
I’m no military expert but I’ve been studying this stuff since 2002.
Here’s my two cents: Col. Devlin is right, we have lost Anbar (except for the heavily-fortified bases).
The New! Iraqi! Army! is mostly Shiite and bears a grudge. Against whom I’ll let the reader guess. Sending it to pacify Anbar Province would, perhaps, be effective — but only in a Roman sense of the word. (“As they stand up, fix bayonets, and smile, we will stand down…”)
The Syrian border is probably un-police-able. Certainly with the few troops we now have, it is hopeless to imagine that we could seal it. And the idea that the insurgency needs resupply from Syria seems unproven. If this is the old Iraqi Army and Mukhabarat gone underground, they have plenty of fun toys stashed away, and in any case Donald Rumsfeld made sure we didn’t look for them when Baghdad fell. Or for months afterward. (RDX, anyone?)
Finally — and, obviously — we pulled men out of Anbar to pacify Baghdad. This clearly was a failure in every definition of the word. Neither place is “pacified,” and our military is paying the price for cockeyed planning. The price is not going to go down. The gnawing question is, how expensive will this horrific folly end up being?
One point left out of Andrew’s otherwise worthy post is that the Marine Colonel also pointed out that Al Qaeda is establishing itself in Anbar province.
This, and the resurgent belligerence of Iraq’s neighbors — Iran and Syria — makes me believe that Saddam Hussein was an asset to U.S. foreign policy.
I suspect he would have had things in hand in Anbar.
Awful to comprehend, is it not, that loving America and preventing the colossal apocalypse that is coming might have been at least forestalled by kissing Saddam on the cheek rather than blowing his relatively stable and murderous regime to bits.
But, you know, a 15% flat tax for Iraqis in the short term is worth the big effing pile of dead meat that is around the corner. Ain’t it?
So I write that half-assed comment above and then I pop over to the Cunning Realist to see what’s what and he has a post up comparing the Daniel Pipes of today (hoping for the worst) and the Daniel Pipes of yesterday (wiser when younger when he knew “God-awful” was better than the worst).
I was channeling the younger Pipes, more or less. Not that I’m proud of it.
Andrew- I pretty much have to disagree with you right off the bat here; you say “It must be considered an incredibly bad thing when a Marine Colonel issues an assessment of Anbar province that concludes not just that the West is losing, but that we have lost.”
I think it is a good thing that a Marine Colonel is recognizing that we have lost Anbar province. It would be better if we had some Generals smart enough to see that the war is lost, but progress is progress.
It was obvious that the US was defeated in 2004. (3rd November 2004, if we’re being precise.) It was just a question, from then on, how long it would take the US to acknowledge it and leave. And the answer to that question is political, not military. Since we don’t know why Bush & co wanted to invade*, we don’t know when or why they’ll decide the US can leave, but we do know their reasoning has not, in the past, ever been based on any regard for the lives of Iraqis or of US soldiers.
*Since every public reason they’ve given for invading has since been proved to be a lie.
“So, what do we do?”
Here is what I think.
It no longer matters what we do. We are no longer in a position to determine what happens in Iraq. Events are riding us, and not the other way around. It is no longer our ball game.
We should recognize that and, going forward, make our policy based on that reality.
It’s the last line of “Garfield’s Two-Minute Hate.”
Close, but you’re way off.
Is that a Simpsons hint?
That was a Simpsons reference, but the title is not from The Simpsons.
John Thullen,
Isn’t The Cunning Realist a she?
“Presidents’ Day”?
Socratic you, I guess I don’t know.
I’m not cunning enough to be realistic about it.
How does anyone still support a President whose chief issue is security and terrorism, who has lost the province to — of all people — an enemy (perhaps *the* enemy) that wasn’t even there before we invaded?
I’m going to third dmbeaster and Francis’ question: what purpose, at this juncture, does an American presence in Iraq actually serve, especially given realistic assessments of their constraints (e.g. no ramp-up to 500,000 troops in-country)?
Ara: the argument will probably be a glorified version of “Shit happens”. It’ll be gussied up with “civility” and sober hand-wringing and all that happy horseshit but really? That’s what it’s going to boil down to.
Oh, and: 9/11 9/11 9/11 TERROR FEAR AAARGH 9/11 9/11 9/11 CHANGED EVERYTHING 9/11 9/11 OBEY 9/11 9/11 ad nauseum.
“what purpose, at this juncture, does an American presence in Iraq actually serve”
It gives us the devil we know, and it allows us to say when the violence is pointed out, “Well, at least we’re trying”.
“Isn’t The Cunning Realist a she?”
No. At least, not judging by first names.
I’m going to third dmbeaster and Francis’ question: what purpose, at this juncture, does an American presence in Iraq actually serve, especially given realistic assessments of their constraints (e.g. no ramp-up to 500,000 troops in-country)?
You really don’t expect Republicans to let go of a major profit center? Even FEMA can’t generate this kind of cash flow.
Yeesh.
“Privately, off line, what commanders, again, from Baghdad to Ramadi, will tell you is that they need at least three times as many troops as they currently have there now, be that Iraqi and American or, even better, just three times as many as American troops.”
Fortunately I haven’t had lunch yet.
rilkefan beat me to the link
Having been thru Vietnam, I am sick and tired of the irresponsibility of the High Command or General Staff of Joint Chiefs or whomever. They serve the nation first, their soldiers second, and the chimp-in-chief third.
If the chimp-in-chief tells them to paratroop a division into Tehran without air support, they do not salute and throw lives away for nothing. And I believe a whole lot of Iraqi lives have been lost because too many generals and colonels wanted promotions at any cost.
The hell with them. I blame them first, Bush second. They are supposed to be the professionals.
“If the chimp-in-chief tells them to paratroop a division into Tehran without air support, they do not salute and throw lives away for nothing”
Addendum:They do not quietly resign like Shinseki and wait for the chimp to find someone who will do his grunting will. He will.
The Cunning Realist is male, I think. In his 7/28/06 column, ‘We Get Mail’, he mentions having been married to a woman.
In his 7/28/06 column, ‘We Get Mail’, he mentions having been married to a woman.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in the US since 4/17/04, in Canada since 06/10/03, and I know a good many couples who referred to themselves as married years before it became legal. I’m just saying. 😉
Well, I decided not to add that he gave the impression that that was in the not very recent past, and that given his writing style, it was unlikely that he would use the word “married” in other than the sense involving a license, etc., but I thought it would be fussy and overprecise.
Fussy and overprecise is our middle name. Are our middle names. “Fussy” and “Overprecise” are our middle names.
Golly, I feel a rant coming on.
1)America cannot lose this war. Whatever loses this war will cease to exist, and will not be recognizable to liberals ten years from now. Losing a war is not something to exult over. Defeated countries do not turn to the left. You, Have. No. Clue. How. Bad. It. Be.
2)”Band of Brothers” is my storehouse of military wisdom. Three times Winters overrode the orders of his superiors to accomplish the mission and/or minimize casualties. Once staring his general straight in the eye as he did it. I presume Winters, while considered a very good soldier, is not considered uniquely competent or honorable.
Mission. Soldiers. Orders/Chain. Maybe I would be a lousy soldier for such a ranking.
I do not hate officers for losing soldiers or the inescapable collateral damage. To say I admire them for such decisions is… understatement is inadequate. I don’t hate them for incompetence. Incompetence happens at all levels.
But wasting assets in a predictable failed mission when alternatives are available, because of cowardice, and cowardice happens with stars on your shoulders, is despicable.
I about to see the second event in my life when treason was the more honourable course,
and many avenues short of treason were available. I can’t stand it.
My hatred of the military gets very dilute toward the bottom of the chain of command.
“Fussy and overprecise is our middle name. Are our middle names. “Fussy” and “Overprecise” are our middle names.”
And “Surprise”. And “A Fanatical Devotion to the Pope”. And “Nice Red Suits”.
To further the point of rilkefan’s link (CNN Raw Story about military off-the-record comments that a 3x troop commitment needed to win) and bob’s comments.
It may be snivelly and it may violate what bob properly describes as the moral duty of senior military commanders, but there is no surer way for the senior military to doom Bush’s vanity war than to let the rumors waft that “really winning” will require a 3x troop commitment. The Republican pols will hear that and quake at the political nightmare of what it would take to raise more troops. The Bush mantra of “Stay the Course” will re-echo the rumor of “3x troops needed to really win.”
Nothing like conflating “Stay the Course” with “Not Enough Troops” to undermine the war and bring it to an end.
Of course, Bush will continue to tell them to stuff it through 2008, no matter what the outcome of the 2006 elections.
bob mcmanus: America cannot lose this war. Whatever loses this war will cease to exist, and will not be recognizable to liberals ten years from now. Losing a war is not something to exult over.
I am not exulting over it.
Really, I’m not.
I was in a state of flat despair about it for months after November 2004, and indeed am not far off that now, if you push me – it’s just that, well, what’s the point of sounding like Eeyore all the time? Nevertheless, facts are facts: it didn’t look likely that the US could win in Iraq before 3rd November 2004, but I had to acknowledge it was possible that a new administration might do it. But, face reality: with the Bush administration in charge for another four years, things would go on as they were, which meant the US had lost.
I spent months after September 11 trying very hard to remember things that had seemed worthwhile before it, because it seemed clear that the world was heading into a very, very bad time. Some of the things I feared then have come true: others haven’t. But the things that haven’t, I can only say “not yet”. I don’t know that they won’t.
DaveC asked me not that long ago why I was so aggravating over the dishonesty of US elections when I couldn’t even vote in them. Well, aside from a principled belief that people should be allowed to get the government they voted for, according to the rules of their elections, it’s especially because the results of the 2000 Presidential election being rigged, and the 2004 election having most probably rigged, have brought more death and despair and destruction into the world than I think anyone could have imagined. Bush should never have been President, in all senses of “should never”.
I am not exulting over the awful results. If it sounds like I am, I apologise.
Eh? What was unrecognizable about the US after Vietnam? We traded Nixon for disco, which was sort of a wash.
‘Losing’ the war in Iraq means failing to obtain the utopian and impossible vision that arose after WMD were not found and the administration needed a post facto excuse for invading. By that light, we already lost and the brain is just waiting to figure it out. ‘Losing’ will mean the ejection of those elements that create pre-lost wars and replacement with elements that might be more effective at reducing terrorism and hopefully improving the lives of people in the US and worldwide, which. . yes, I would exult over.
Incidentally, Bolton’s bailing on Darfur today (or was it yesterday) has, at least for me, raised an interesting point.
The liberal tack on Darfur is that it’s a horrible civil-war-slash-slaughter and the US is negligent in not commiting troops and cash to ameliorating the conditions there. However, sans US troops, Iraq is likely to escalate as a civil-war-slash-slaughter, possibly to a point rivaling Sudan. At which point, do liberals agitate for the return to Iraq to commit troops and cash to ameliorating the conditions there?
For me, I think we need to re-evaluate Iraq as being a pre-Sudan, and behave appropriately. Meaning we get off the nation-building bandwagon and continue to commit a small number of troops to preventing full-scale civil war. Obviously this would require fewer troops than we have and less than the trillion dollars already commited to rebuilding. But I don’t think a full pullout is anymore ethical than leaving Darfur to burn.
I think we’re back to wishing for ponies here. I’m sure we can all think of ways to “fix this”, but there comes the simple fact that so can the US Army. Somehow I doubt we’re plowing new ground here.
So if the military understands the problem, has undoubtable reached similiar conclusions, why have they failed to act?
Because they can’t. Not enough troops. Not enough soldiers. Not enough boots on the ground.
We lack the manpower and the resources to seal the Syrian border. We lack the manpower and the resources to train the Iraqi Army (which means weeding out all the folks that shouldn’t be in there). We lack the manpower and resources to even keep things looking marginally safe.
We can’t do any one thing in Iraq — yet success depends on doing them all. Securing the country. Training a trustworthy and professional army. Interdicting supplies heading towards insurgents.
Push for a draft or admit the truth that we’ve lost. Anything else is merely a lie.
“Eh? What was unrecognizable about the US after Vietnam? We traded Nixon for disco, which was sort of a wash.”
I was there, and comparing 1990 to 1970, we had two different countries. Honestly, electing Reagan was like electing Goldwater. It should have been impossible.
After 30 straight years of rising wages and declining inequality, we have had 30 years of declining wages and rising inequality. Break point:1976. This nation I live in is unrecognizable to me.
Correlation is not causality? You are going to get to watch it happen.
The Sixteen Acre Ditch
Some Billmon to slit your wrists over. He is younger than I, of course.
sidereal: “However, sans US troops, Iraq is likely to escalate as a civil-war-slash-slaughter, possibly to a point rivaling Sudan.”
The increasingly-common liberal position is that “Iraq is likely to escalate as a civil-war-slash-slaughter, possibly to a point rivaling Sudan” full stop. The question is whether we want to be there when it happens – maybe we can arrange a softer landing, maybe we’re making things worse – will we be seen as cutting/running or as turning our back on the slaughter.
In any case, my understanding of the logistics involved is that we are unable to stay there for many more years.
Lengthy, must-read Spiegel article, optimistically entitled The Iraq War: Mission Impossible (which I’m sure is giving TNR’s resident doctrinaire neocon Lawrence Kaplan the vapors).
related: Spiegel interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski
Online Quiz
In Which WWII Army Should You Have Fought?
Thanks to kingdaddy
I am Poland…Greece, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands.
With all due respect to those countries, you may now ignore all my military related comments.
If it makes you feel any better, bob, I scored as Poland as well (tied with Finland).
Man, Shineski must be either laughing or crying somewhere….
Count me in as one more person thinking that we should either bite the bullet , commit 400,000 troops and complete the mission, or declare ” Mission Accomplished” and leave.
Finland came in at the top for me, followed by a three-way tie for second between the Brits/Commonwealth, Soviets, and Italy.
Oddly, I scored British and Commonwealth.
Woohoo. Finland big time. Not a result I can disagree with.
Finland 88%
Poland 75%
British and the Commonwealth 69%
United States 50%
In Which WWII Army Should You Have Fought?
Heh. I scored as British and the Commonwealth. I wonder why? (On the other hand, I scored almost as high for Finland, Poland, Italy, and France, Free French and the Resistance.) Apparently there’s a low but measureable possibility that I’m Germany, the Soviet Union, and Japan – and, er, even a possibility that I’m United States…
even a possibility that I’m United States…
No, anything but that! 😉
And, just because I can’t resist, I will point out that the title remains an unsolved mystery. I will further hint that, while it is inspired by a movie, I have changed one word from the quote.
I got Finland 94%.
Suomi ikuisesti!
But is it countries you would have fought for, or countries you would have fought against?
Well…
“You scored as United States.
Your army is the American army. You want your home front to support the G.I.’s in their pursuit to liberate world from more or less evil tyrants.
British and the Commonwealth 75%
United States 75%
Soviet Union 75%
Italy 69%
Poland 63%
Finland 56%
France, Free French and the Resistance 50%
Japan 31%
Germany 31%”
Apparently, I’m a superpower of some sort, and only my answer on the tiebreaker made me the US. I’m not sure what to make of this.
Well, that explains a lot.
I think the tiebreaker asked me to choose between two statements, both of which I disagreed with: ‘ammunition should be used in massive quantities’ (me: not necessarily; sometimes less is more, for instance when you have to choose between using a sniper and a machine gun to get one guy and you don’t want to give away your position. Do what tactics indicate.) and ‘a small army is more efficient than a huge horde’ (me: why on earth would one assume that that’s true?) I chose #1, on the grounds that it was true more often than #2. So I guess using tons of ammo is what distinguishes the US.
Street Fighter: the Movie. I should not know this.
Hilzoy: Apparently, I’m a superpower of some sort
I only wish you were.
” ‘a small army is more efficient than a huge horde’ (me: why on earth would one assume that that’s true?)”
Really? I took it as functionally tautological. Of course, you have to define efficiency, but I think we can all agree that the numerator is something like ‘ability to advance a military goal’ and the denominator is something like ‘soldiers’. Efficiency is pretty much universally understood to be better in small groups (due to improved communication, less organization-maintenance, less regression to the mean, etc). This might explain why I ended up in the Finnish army with all those guerillas.
Side-note: while efficiency is improved the smaller you go, the numerator obviously gets smaller as well. A numerator like ‘Bring democracy to Iraq’ is, in fact, so huge that the denominator (troops) must also be huge, regardless of the cost in efficiency. This is, I think, the fundamental misunderstanding of the Rumsfeld approach, will seems (via pre-war rhetoric) to value efficiency over all else.
Street Fighter: the Movie.
Nope.
the numerator is something like ‘ability to advance a military goal’ and the denominator is something like ‘soldiers’.
It was my understanding there would be no math.
I am now an honorary soldier of the British Commonwealth.
Bob McManus, I think the longterm consequences to US politics of a defeat in Iraq depends on which party gets blamed for the defeat. The Republicans successfully blamed the defeat in VietNam on the Democrats and that became their basis for being, supposedly, better or stronger on defense, which they milked for decades. If Iraq is preceived as a defeat and the blame lands where it belongs, the republic will be better off because the Republicans will have to go sit in the corner in shame for a long, long time. Americans love a winner and hate a loser, and place far more importance on the winnng and losing than on the purpose for the fight. Rove and Bush understand this. Hence their determination to manipulate appearences.
By the way, I am not saying that a defeat in Iraq would be good for the US (or the Middle East)in terms of national security, foreign relations, or any other sphere. I am only daying that a defeat would bring down the Republican party and THAT would be a good thing for our domestic political health.
sidereal: I was assuming that the question didn’t assume something like ‘other things equal’ (in which case, yes), but was asking the somewhat dumber question: given any two armies A and B, where A is smaller than B, is A the more efficient? — in which case the answer is: duh, no. If A is the US army and B is anything commanded by disorganized me, A will be much more efficient.
Those quizzes always amaze me. ‘Heroism is for the most part a sacrifice’, I’m thinking well, probably, but is a sacrifice a good thing or a bad thing? Or ‘I want to fight on the best army in the world’, well, if it were football, any team but the Cowboys, but armies, geez, I’m not into come from behind victories predicated on hail mary passes.
Maybe if we made joining the armies sort of a free trade, power of the markets thing, we wouldn’t need wars and could just use market share.
lily, I still don’t understand how the GOP managed to hang the defeat in Vietnam on the Democrats, so it’s hardly outside the realm of possibility that they’ll manage to wiggle their way out of blame for the Iraq Fiasco as well.
Bush has already said he’s going to leave Iraq for the next President to deal with. If a Democrat takes the WH in ’08, and decides to pull the plug, the GOP will have its scapegoat right then and there. Count on it.
Oh I am counting on it. The Republicans,who have no decency and no sense of responisibility, are going to talk talk talk about winning while doing nothing to make it happen. They are counting on the Democrats having the decency and sense of responisbiity to necessary think about possible solutions. No matter what the Democrats decide to do it will provide the Republicans with what they are really seeking–not a victory in Iraq,but a way to dump the blame for their mess on the Democrats.
It’s a dilemna for the Democrats. Either they do the responisble thing and propose action, thus exposing themselves to blame, or they do nothing which is safe but not responisble.
Not that anyone cares, it’s just… maybe I’ve got it wrong, but I’m pretty sure
Shinseki wasn’t saying “This is what we’ll need to pacify post-invasion Iraq,” he was saying “Well, if we DO invade Iraq, this is what we’ll need, but I gotta tell ya, it’s a shitload.”
To me that just kinda speaks to the doability of it, even disregarding the risible leadership. Which is impossible to disregard, I know.
CaseyL’s right, of course. The Pubs are gonna trade the next four years for the twelve after that. It’ll be nothing but endless coverage of a Dem wading through the mess these bastards left.
Not to make sweeping, authoritative assertions about stuff I know nothing about or anything.
For America’s right-wing, victory is a state of mind.
Only materialists and atheists worry about reality.
“Fussy and overprecise is our middle name. Are our middle names. “Fussy” and “Overprecise” are our middle names.”
Rilkefan– I think you had better not be so careless in your writing. Could you elaborate, so I can make sure I understand?
Finland 88%, British and the Commonwealth 81%, United States 75%, Poland 69%, Italy 56%, Soviet Union 38%.
I was curious how Bob got the Netherlands, since it shows the perception of the creator, but 4 attempts didn’t get the Netherlands mentioned even once…
However if you fill in ‘neutral’ at everything you get a tie braker. I chose accuracy above rate of fire, and became Brittish. When I chose hugh ammo I became the US, military marches made me German, effective infantry made me Finnish (ah, Andrew, that’s why you are Finnish 🙂 ), favor for the resistance made me French, uniforms are cool made me Italian, believe in getting stronger through desperation got me Poland and a soldiers death is a beautifull death got me Japan (hmmmm… these days that means support for suicide terrorists doesn’t it?).
Five attempts and as far as I am concerned the Netherlands is still not in the quiz. I give up 🙂
apropos to Dutch’s comment, there was this LATimes article (I googled it from the Boston Globe thought) about the kamikaze and how they feel about suicide bmombers. The dateline is where a museum is for the kamikaze. Interesting place, but very disturbing.
“I was curious how Bob got the Netherlands”
I can’t get the results page back, and can’t replicate my choices. But what I listed were not “percentage countries” but
“You are Poland…blah blah . Similar are Greece, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands.”
Followed by the percentage countries. I presume everyone got that same type result. I considered those smaller countries closer in some way than the pcts below.
And I am pretty sure it was Netherlands, but I might have read wrong. But I am out of N countries.
It must be considered an incredibly bad thing when a Marine Colonel issues an assessment of Anbar province that concludes not just that the West is losing, but that we have lost.
Considering that none of the supporters of this war(BirdDog, Sebastian, young Republicans), nor are the children of our political leaders (Chelsea, Jenna, Barbara, etc) are willing to serve, is this a surprise?
LOL Bob, friends of mine did the quiz and one got Poland too – at which point I understood the Netherlands isn’t a seperate army but one in a group of occupied countries represented by Poland. Better late than never I quess.
Interesting article LibJap. I actually never realized there would be kamikaze survivors, nor did I know that it was a slur in post-war Japan.
There is no one-on-one comparison, but there is a hugh overlap and grey area of course. But people have sacrificed themselfs for the group, their country or their family all through history afaik. The organisation behind it is what distinguishes the kamikaze and suicidal bomber (not all of whom have civilian targets) imho, but I am no historian so maybe there have been organised groups like that before.
Considering that none of the supporters of this war(BirdDog, Sebastian, young Republicans), nor are the children of our political leaders (Chelsea, Jenna, Barbara, etc) are willing to serve, is this a surprise?
Unless you’re aware of some correlation between success in war and number of war supporters/children of war leaders under arms that has not been made public, then I’d argue that it is certainly a surprise relative to the metric you’re using for prediction.
If the leadership of a country ain’t willing to fight, why should anyone else?
In WWII, FDR’s relatives fought and died for this country. Where are the equivalents of FDR’s family today?
I had no idea that Jenna Bush was the leadership of this country.
Although it might explain a few things, were it true.
If the leadership of a country ain’t willing to fight, why should anyone else?
That’s a decision each of us make for him or herself. But, while I’ll concede I do not have children of my own, I am reasonably certain that children are not slaves. Therefore, the fact the children of the country’s leadership have not chosen to sign up does not demonstrate that the leadership is necessarily deficient.
Further, you claim that failure is no surprise because the leadership has not signed up to fight. Do you have any evidence from history that victory in war comes from a willingness of a leader’s children to join the military? I myself am aware of none, unless you are prepared to argue that FDR’s relative’s actions won WWII.
A cause is just or unjust on its own. It does not depend on extraneous issues such as how many political leaders have children who have served or are serving. Surely you are not going to argue that we could win in Iraq if only the Bush twins would join the military?
Unless you’re aware of some correlation between success in war and number of war supporters/children of war leaders under arms that has not been made public…
The “children of war leaders” argument is, I’m fairly sure, a bankrupt one. The war supporters argument? A damn sight closer to true in a fairly obvious sort of way, and one which shades into the children of war leaders argument precisely because many of those children are (as you noted, autonomous) war supporters themselves.
To clarify, I don’t think anyone’s claiming sufficiency — which, incidentally, somewhat ruins your point about the Bush twins — but I think it’s pretty clearly necessary for a supposedly-existential war to receive actual in-uniform support from those who suppose it existential. [In fact, I’d regard it as almost tautologically true; any such war won without significant in-uniform support cannot, ipso facto, have been existential in the first place.] This is basically the refined chickenhawk argument, which — when phrased precisely (pace, well, everyone) — I think has significant and brutal merit.
Surely you are not going to argue that we could win in Iraq if only the Bush twins would join the military?
The fact that the Bush twins are too good to fight in a war to defend civilization, convinces me beyond any doubt that my children & relatives are also too good to fight.
As a military officer, you of all people should know that the best leadership is leadership by example.
It’s certainly amusing to point out that George W. Bush’s “military experience” is that of slacker and draft dodger, and Dick Cheney “had other priorities” – that although they both claimed to support the Vietnam War, both of them were committed to not fighting in it. And it may even be relevant: we can look at Bush’s irresponsibility when he was in his 20s, and compare it to his irresponsibility now: we can look at his lies about his military service, and compare them to his lies now.
But arguing that if someone supports the war in Iraq they ought to be ready to go fight in it is really a bad argument – so bad it makes me embarrassed. (The one really bad section of Fahrenheit 911 was Michael Moore touring the streets of Washington DC with a loudhailer trying to find a Senator’s child who was prepared to join up.)
More to the point, someone who says they support the war in Iraq ought not to support an administration that doesn’t care about it. Bush and Co don’t care about Iraq, as Hilzoy has already pointed out in much better posts than I could write. Bush & co don’t care about the US military dying and injured in Iraq. No one who genuinely supports the war in Iraq could have voted for Bush in 2004 – unless they were paying no attention to reality, and had been completely suckered by the Bush administration’s lies.
But it’s tough to admit you were suckered.
Wonder if Steward Beta has met DonQ – ’cause this particular line of argument is rather familiar…
(btw must give props for the Walter Jon Williams reference).
Considering that none of the supporters of this war(BirdDog, Sebastian, young Republicans), nor are the children of our political leaders (Chelsea, Jenna, Barbara, etc) are willing to serve, is this a surprise?
This sentence, to me, seems to clearly suggest a causative relationship: we are losing in Iraq because insufficient numbers of Iraq war supporters and the children of politicians have joined the military. (It should be noted that I favored the invasion of Iraq and was then and am now in uniform; I am not of the opinion that this should give me any particular weight in the argument simply because I was and am willing to go to war.) It is this causative claim I am disputing.
Would it be a good thing if the children of political leaders chose to serve? I think so, but it certainly can’t be forced, and it should be noted that most of this country’s great war leaders were not warriors themselves: Lincoln served ~60 days in the Black Hawk War and never saw combat, and FDR never wore a uniform. Conversely, Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ and Nixon all served during WWII yet all managed, to varying degrees (no equivalence intended or implied), to bollix up Vietnam.
In any case, I am not arguing that people shouldn’t be willing to serve by any means. Only that the implied correlation of Steward’s comment is implausible.
Oh dear — are we going to get into ‘chickenhawk’ territory? If so, preemptive distinctions:
First, whether or not someone’s kids fight is irrelevant. The fact that someone other than Jenna Bush might think she’s too good to die has nothing to do with whether she goes to fight — that’s her decision, and hers alone.
Second: to me, there is a very serious distinction between people who do not enlist now, when enlistment is voluntary, and people who in some way ducked the draft back in the 60s. Nowadays, people might have all sorts of reasons for not enlisting. Some of them might be bad, but others are good: if, for instance, someone has a health problem they do not want to make public, but that would preclude their serving, or if that person is gay. It is, imho, not our business to make assumptions about whether or not any of those things is true of anyone who is currently not enlisting.
It’s completely different to talk about someone like Cheney not serving in Vietnam, since it wasn’t optional to serve, and since we know why he didn’t. Though when we talk about what someone did or didn’t do in Vietnam, we also need to bear in mind that time has passed, and the person under discussion might not do the same thing again.
Third: there is a difference between not wanting to serve in a war you think is wrong, and not wanting to serve in a war you support. In the second case, you think that someone should be fighting and dying; but that you should not be that someone. If the reason is that you have some disqualifying medical condition, or that you are doing some service to your country that wouldn’t happen without you (say, you are Robert Oppenheimer in WW2), that’s a good reason. If the reason is that obviously you are just too good to risk your life like everyone else, that’s a bad reason.
Fourth: there’s a difference between not voluntarily enlisting when enough other people are, and not enlisting when the army is facing recruiting problems. In the second case, if you support the war, it’s worth asking yourself why you don’t feel any need to help alleviate the shortage of the troops needed to win it. Other people get to ask this only if they know that your not enlisting is not due to any of the reasons noted in my second point, above.
Red State Patriotism, vote for a warmonguer, but make sure your kids don’t serve…
Rocy Mountain News – Students pass on Uncle Sam
Smart kid, obviously following the example of our political & economic leaders…
Much as I hate to bring facts into an argument clearly based on emotion, you do realize that Boulder is a pretty liberal town, right?
Looks like it’s more than Boulder.
Steward, if I didn’t make it clear enough the first time: I am anti-war. I am anti-Bush. I am so anti-war and anti-Bush you could build an ant hill out of me.
And your argument is so bad it’s embarrassing. Hilzoy nailed it. Now you’re just providing an easy target for the pro-Bush evil warmongers* among us.
*Sorry.
Yep, definitely DonQ.
Still, Anarch’s point is a relevant one — if one truly feels that the actual existence of the West (let alone the US) and its culture and values are at risk of destruction, one would have to truly not care about the outcome to figure one’s best role is to sit on the sidelines and kvetch about the New York Times, you know?
Exactly, Anonymous. Which is why:
HILZOY FOR PRESIDENT!
That is all.
Kidding, to be clear. I don’t really wish that sort of nonsense on hilzoy. Or, really, anyone that I’d want to hold office. Kind of an inverse Groucho Marx thing.
mattbastard: Yep, definitely DonQ.
My recollection is that DonQ couldn’t spell.
Italics begone!
The war isn’t even existential enough for our leaders to risk Halliburton’s profit margin. Kind of irrelevant to talk about their kids.
And your argument is so bad it’s embarrassing. Hilzoy nailed it. Now you’re just providing an easy target for the pro-Bush evil warmongers* among us.
So bad that you, Andrew, Slarti, Anarch all had to reply and Hilzoy practically wrote an essay to rebut it.
Steward: So bad that you, Andrew, Slarti, Anarch all had to reply and Hilzoy practically wrote an essay to rebut it.
Well, that’s us told.
It’s a slow day, but I promise not to do it again.
Until next time, that is.
Just a couple of points.
Colorado is an odd place politically. True, Boulder proper is traditionally liberal. It is referred to as the People’s Republic of Boulder by Colorado Republicans, who think that local littering ordinances are the second coming of Ho Chi Minh. However, the further you get away from Gary Farber’s apartment into the rural area surrounding the town, things might become rather conservative.
Jefferson County (home of Columbine High School, one of the best high schools in the Nation, by the way, if you ignore the explosions), judging by local elections over the past 30 years, is a hotbed of far-Right nutcase anti-government hatred. Though I notice that once elected the nuts on the Right like their cushy offices up at the Taj Mahal County Building in Golden. Douglas County is very conservative, too. They hates their taxes and they loves their guns, though everyone seems pretty nice at the grocery store.
Then we have Colorado Springs. My favorite story from there (or nearby) is after the wackos got themselves elected on an all-gun, all-God, no-tax platform, some wag (of indeterminate political persuasion) started showing up at City Council meetings and sat in the gallery fiddling with a high-powered rifle. Didn’t take long for the gun-lovers on the high chairs to pass a motion outlawing guns being in THEIR vicinity, which seems a little chickenhawky, if you’ll pardon the term.
Speaking of which, I don’t want the Bush twins in the Iraqi meat grinder. I do harbor rhetorical fantasies of Lucian Goldberg’s kid or say, Erick at Redstate, doing some frontline duty in Falluja (sp?), but that has something to do with finding out what brand of diapers machismo tough talkers would prefer when their bowels liquify. It’s kind of a Kimberly-Clark marketing survey.
And I can imagine, in my lesser moments, Dick Cheney, outfitted in a clearly marked uniform, swinging by a harness under the arms from a very tall crane every night in the center of Baghdad with a large spotlight trained on him, but only as a tourist attraction.
Beyond those feeble fantasies, I hope the U.S. Armed Forces keeps their ban on openly gay and lesbian folks intact, to spare as many people as possible from this ill-advised meatgrinder. I know Jes won’t like that, but I make up for it by also hoping EVERYONE somehow becomes openly gay and lesbian to spare EVERYONE from the aforementioned meat-grinder.
Which has the advantage too of ticking off mullahs everywhere, whether they’re in Tehran or Colorado Springs.
Andrew, are you going to tell us what the friggin title is from, or are you going to keep us twisting in the wind? If you’re afraid that someone out there might not be ready to see the answer yet, you can post it in rot13.
Ihaven’t figured out why Steward Beta’s argument is so bad. Horribly embarrassing for me, I’m sure, but I haven’t. I’m not interested in debating it and plan to vacate this thread, but I read the rebuttals and while hilzoy’s essay made sense, I’m still left thinking that if most people really believed this war was a war for civilization, with the same stakes as WWII, one that requires three times as many troops in Iraq as we actually have, you’d expect to see hordes of people signing up for the military. The fact that one doesn’t see this suggests that, most people do not in fact think this war is as serious as WWII. One can make this argument without descending to the vulgarity of singling out a particular individual and saying “Why aren’t you volunteering?”, since there might be various good reasons why individuals aren’t volunteering. But I’d guess that in the majority of cases people don’t think this war is worth risking a bullet for, and not worth disrupting their lives over it. Quite sensible of them, really.
This is a perfect example of revealed preferences.
Jonah, Ramesh, Glenn R., the Cornerites and assorted other heroically brave typists: (a) clearly support the war, (b) clearly think its WW Whatever, a clash of civilizations, an existential threat, etc., etc., etc. (“etc.”); and yet (c) fail to join the military to help the U.S. fight etc.
I can only conclude that their true preference, as revealed by their actions, is that the U.S. lose etc. and that they be slaughtered by the terrorist hordes forthwith.
As such, they are clearly loser-defeatist traitors who must be rounded up and hanged, which, while not quite the same as being slaughtered by terrorist hordes, produces the same result.
Note, I’m not advocating this, just revealing their preferences and the logical policy response.
John: I hope the U.S. Armed Forces keeps their ban on openly gay and lesbian folks intact, to spare as many people as possible from this ill-advised meatgrinder. I know Jes won’t like that
You kidding? I love it. My idea of perfect equality is that the US Armed Forces extend their ban to openly heterosexual people as well as gay, lesbian, and bisexual, and ban EVERYONE from serving in the armed forces – except eunuchs and Will Turner.
(No one. He’s no one. Distant cousin of my Aunt’s nephew twice removed. Lovely singing voice. Eunuch.)
Ken,
Sorry, nobody had guessed in a while, so I assumed no one cared.
It’s from Rocky. When Rocky goes on his first date with Adrian, it’s Thanksgiving Day, and Adrian is uncomfortable and says “But it’s Thanksgiving.” To which Rocky replies, “Yeah, to you. But to me, it’s Thursday.”
Getting back on subject, today’s WaPo contains a follow up article by Ricks on offical response to the Devlin report:
One wonders how meaningful political, social and economic progress can be achieved unless the security issues in Anbar are dealt with first.
But I’d guess that in the majority of cases people don’t think this war is worth risking a bullet for, and not worth disrupting their lives over it.
In which case they should not have voted for Shrub or any other Republican.
One can make this argument without descending to the vulgarity of singling out a particular individual and saying “Why aren’t you volunteering?”, since there might be various good reasons why individuals aren’t volunteering.
If I know that you are a Republican/Bush supporter and you look healthy and young enough, why should I not not ask you why you are not in the Military?
It ain’t polite but neither is war.
If I know that you are a Republican/Bush supporter and you look healthy and young enough, why should I not not ask you why you are not in the Military?
Because double negatives are bad for your teeth.
…and gums, too. Which leads, inevitably, to bad breath.
More Troops …New Republic via Kevin Drum
“After failing to meet its recruitment target for 2005, the Army raised the maximum age for enlistment from 35 to 40 in January — only to find it necessary to raise it to 42 in June. Basic training, which has, for decades, been an important tool for testing the mettle of recruits, has increasingly become a rubber-stamping ritual. Through the first six months of 2006, only 7.6 percent of new recruits failed basic training, down from 18.1 percent in May 2005.”
Hmm, 50+ but did 15 miles in 3 hours with 30 lbs on my back today. I still don’t think they would take me. Intelligence test, and personality profile. But it has crossed my mind about going to help. Less to lose than so many.
Re-enlistment Puzzle …kingdaddy
Recruitment sucks, but reups stay high. Breaks me heart.
If they keep upping the max age, I might have to enlist. Which wouldn’t do the Army a great deal of good, because my wife would kill me.
Now that’s an issue I would love to see the Democrats tackle. We missed our chance to expand the force immediately after September 11, and now we’re watering it down rather than admit there’s a problem.
Ok, I still say this joker has gotta be DonQ using a clever alias (for those who haven’t read Voice of the Whirlwind, ‘Steward Beta’ is the clone of a murdered war hero) but I may be wrong. Note that s/he hasn’t disputed my conclusion re: his/her ‘true’ identity.
Regardless, standard DNFTT protocol should be exercised, as ‘Etienne’ doesn’t appear interested in meaningful discussion (although if s/he wants to discuss VOTW, a vastly underrated work of political SF…)
matttbastard: if so, s/he is using new IP addresses.
The watering down of recruitment standards goes beyond merely raising the age cutoff for enlistment. The New Republic article Drum cites refers to this SPLC report from earlier this summer detailing the growing number of white supremecists who have infiltrated the US military:
This story, although not directly related to lowered recruitment standards, also seems apt (apologies if the following has been previously mentioned in this forum):
Hilzoy: dynamic IP’s are the bane of webmasters/mistresses worldwide;-) And I really do like his/her choice of blog handle (whoever s/he is).
Hardwired was better in my opinion, no stange Aliens, no weird planets, just capitalism unleashed.
Andrew and hilzoy: I reiterate my point above — which was subsequently endorsed by Donald Johnson and Ugh, I’m pleased to say — which is that I think the descriptor “chickenhawk” does have merit in some cases, specifically when someone maintains that this is a Clash Of Civilizations (or something equally overblown) but is unwilling (not unable) to serve because, for example, they got into the number-one business school in the country or they’re 35, have a baby daughter and “their family couldn’t support the lost income”. I’m sorry, but let’s be blunt: those are really really sh***y reasons to avoid serving when Civilization Itself is on the line. They’re even sh***ier reasons when pretty much all observers agree that one of the reasons we’re losing in Iraq, if we haven’t already lost, is lack of manpower.
The common defense against this charge is, “Well, you believe that fires should be fought but you’re not a firefighter, chickenfirefight!” or something similar, but that misses the point. If a fire began to rage out of control, threatening to consume the entire city — threatening The City Itself, IOW — and I railed against all the people who weren’t fighting the fire but, when the time came for me to step up, ran the other direction with a lame-ass, selfish or outright narcissistic excuse, you’re goddamn right I’d be a coward. And if I used my bully pulpit to whip the crowd into a fire-fighting frenzy, sending other able-bodied souls off to fight, get crippled and die in my stead while I fled the scene, yes, I would be a chickenhawk (or chickenfirefighter or whatever) and deservedly pilloried as one.
As for the charge about the children, I think specific instantiations of that notion are incorrect as I said above. The war will not be lost or won purely because the Bush twins do or don’t serve — although obviously the extra manpower would come in handy, right? That said, there’s a larger point there which I didn’t address: the war has enabled a form of class warfare to insinuate itself through the fabric of our society. When the leaders of the upper class are unaffected by the sacrifices they impose on others; when their children regard service as something for Other People to do; when the youths banging the drums of war to garner political accolades recoil at the thought of actually putting themselves in harm’s way; then what we have is a social rift where the rich, the powerful and those aspiring to riches and power regard the less fortunate as objects to be manipulated and discarded instead of people to be helped (or left alone, as the case may be). In this sense, the failure of the Bush twins is not in itself a determining factor in the war, but it is representative of a great failing in this country and, as such, is a profound indictment of the jingoistic class.
None of this is to denigrate the service of those in uniform, nor the integrity of those who believe this to be a clash of civilizations and have acted accordingly. None of this is to claim that those waging this class warfare are fully cognizant of their failings, twirling their moustaches while they plot the doom of our military and our country. All of this should be taken to say that, until those people put their money where their mouth is, they should shut the hell up or be branded a chickenhawk and driven from out the public sphere. The war isn’t costing them a damn thing — in fact, many are profiting (either financially or politically) from it — because other people are paying their bills; and that kind of despicable opportunism should be unacceptable to any American, or indeed anyone who believes in integrity, justice and honor.
mb – from a review of that book you linked – “I like this book so much there’s a passage from it tattooed on my thigh.” No mention of which passage, sadly.
Anarch,
The problem I have with the chickenhawk concept is this: if you cannot advocate a military policy unless you are willing to serve yourself, then what you are advocating is rule by the military. Now, as a military guy, I’m not wholly opposed to that (said tongue firmly in cheek), but I think it’s a questionable way to run a railroad. Should the liberals who call for intervention in Darfur be run out of the public sphere if they don’t volunteer for service there? Or does this only apply for existential threats, and it’s perfectly ok to militate for use of the military for minor stuff, which sounds to me like a convenient way of making the ‘chickenhawk’ argument nothing but a convenient way to marginalize the opposition.
Just tell me this: if someone calls for an action that is the correct action, but is unwilling to undertake it him or herself, should that person not be permitted to speak? Where does it end?
Steward: I thought Hardwired was quite good when I first read it, although in retrospect now seems a bit dated by its self-consciously ‘cyberpunk’ atmosphere.
(Then again, I get off on strange aliens/weird planets;-))
Another SF book that delves introspectively into the subject of war (as opposed to masturbatory techno-wankery like Ringo/Drake/Pournelle, etc) is Lewis Shiner’s superlative anti-war anthology When The Music’s Over. Out of print, but well worth the effort of procuring.
rilkefan: hopefully it’s not too long a passage.
My personal test was: would you support a draft, and willingly serve if they picked your number in the lottery, if that was necessary to win this war?
I don’t know if that works for continuing wars, though–I honestly would not be willing to serve in Iraq; does that mean I am morally obliged to support withdrawal? I don’t know. So I can’t form a firm position about what we should do in Iraq now.
Andrew, the way I see it, if there were a draft for a humanitarian effort in Darfur, and liberals like me avoided it, and then cast aspersions on conservatives opposing the next humanitarian effort, your analogy would follow.
Anarch: not disagreeing with you when you put it like that, but (given the distinction between “Not being drafted” and “Not volunteering” which Hilzoy outlined) the difficulty I have with demanding of any individual “Why didn’t you join up if you think this war is necessary to the survival of civilisation?” is the same difficulty I have with demanding of someone (even if she’s a pro-natalist pro-lifer anti-birth control in-a-mixed-sex-marriage thorough bitkah) “So why haven’t you had ten children?”
Because the answer, in both cases, may be something so nakedly personal that the person being asked of it would think twice before sharing it even with a close friend.
Andrew: The problem I have with the chickenhawk concept is this: if you cannot advocate a military policy unless you are willing to serve yourself, then what you are advocating is rule by the military.
Hardly. I think your political ambitions are showing. (Said tongue-in-cheek.)
I pretty much agree with Andrew, but I can see that there’s not exactly nothing to Anarch’s point as well. But I’m unswayed by the emotion with which it was put.
And I’m wondering…do you advocate law enforcement, Anarch? Trash collection? Continued existence of our system of justice? And if so, are you volunteering to do all those tasks you believe should be done? How about having a peacetime military, do you believe in that? And if so, are you in it?
Again, not saying you have no point, just that an unconvincing point put forcefully isn’t any more convincing.
My personal test was: would you support a draft, and willingly serve if they picked your number in the lottery, if that was necessary to win this war?
Well, I certainly wouldn’t, but then, I consider the draft a violation of the 13th Amendment.
And, once again, I ask: if an action is the correct action, does the fact a person is unwilling to do it himself render the action incorrect? Does the willingness of a person to perform an incorrect action make it correct?
I think your political ambitions are showing.
Ack! I’ve been busted.
“And I’m wondering…do you advocate law enforcement, Anarch?”
I would guess that Anarch doesn’t feel (considers that our society doesn’t feel) that there is an existential threat to us from burglars and tax evaders and so forth – that our democracy has reached a decision about the resources to devote to the certainly real problem, and that there are an adequate number of police officers catching criminals for the most part (ignoring complications like the war on drugs, which I imagine many here find a misallocation of effort). It sounds like we need 3x the current number of troops in Iraq and can’t get them.
Mark Kleiman on the above.
I think the “chickenhawk” concept relates to our discussion of moral authority before — if someone is advocating an action that requires sacrifice but is not himself willing to participates in that sacrifice, then his arguments lose much of their *power*, though not necessarily their *validity*.
One sometimes sees the same sort of reaction with anti-poverty programs — if someone is advocating that we raise taxes on the rich in order to fund an anti-poverty initiative, that person will have more credibility if s/he is in one of the tax brackets getting hit than if s/he’s just reaching into someone else’s pockets.
Oh, and Andrew, thanks for posting the answer. I don’t even remember that line (or much else about the movie, since it’s been over two decades since I saw it), so I had zero chance of getting it (glad I didn’t waste too much effort on it).
“if someone is advocating an action that requires sacrifice but is not himself willing to participates in that sacrifice, then his arguments lose much of their *power*, though not necessarily their *validity*.”
I wouldn’t call such a person a chickenhawk, esp. if he or she doesn’t declare me immoral for disagreeing with the said action.
Well, before the discussion continues, maybe we should all agree on a definition. It seems to be used in a wide variety of ways, some more sensible than others.
Anarch: all I did above was draw distinctions. In fact, I am perfectly willing to say of someone who avoided (=got out of it for a trumped-up reason, not a good one) the draft while supporting the war in Vietnam that that person was a chickenhawk. In the case of people we know enough about to say that they have not changed in the relevant respects, like, oh, Bush and Cheney, I am willing to say that they are chickenhawks.
About people who don’t volunteer: I think a lot depends on the circumstances. Leaving aside people who either wouldn’t be accepted or are performing some other essential service to the nation, someone who doesn’t volunteer when there are plenty of volunteers is,I think, off the hook. (I think this is the answer to the police question, by the way: to my knowledge the police force is not facing a recruiting crisis.) Someone who doesn’t volunteer when there’s a shortage, and when that shortage is affecting the prosecution of a war s/he thinks is vital to the nation’s interest, is a lot more problematic.
Generally, though, I’m more comfortable not using the term, since it seems to mean different things to different people. To me, the basic problem the term gets at is: advocating a policy that is dangerous and (for some people) unpleasant, and assuming that the people who will have to do it are not people like me — that I am too upwardly mobile or smart or generally valuable to be used in this way; or that wars are to be fought by all those other, less fortunate people. That’s an odious attitude in any context, military or not; and it’s why, when someone tells me that the reason he hasn’t signed up is that he just got accepted to business school (so that I don’t have to ask for his personal details, which he would be under no obligation to reveal to me), I am inclined to suspect that he feels something like this.
I wonder if sometime in the future, historians will suggest that what happened with Iraq was the inevitable result of a failure to adapt the military to the changing situations after the end of the cold war. It seems to me that because of a number of structural points (including the MIC and the pork barrel factor, hotspots reduced to small definitive locations, the desire for the US to abandon bases on foreign soil, among others), the US engaged in creating a smaller , more mobile military with a higher lethality, composed of volunteers who would be more politically reliable. Sorry about that last turn of phrase, and I don’t want to put the blame on one side. Part of the blame goes to the left who demanded that ROTC programs be banned from campus, which had an effect of diluting the impact of those who may have had more liberal impulses.
Had a force that was designed more for peace-keeping/maintanence of order, Iraq would not have really been a possibility. Recall how Rummy is quoted as saying that there were no good targets in Afghanistan, or how the wired battlefield played out so much better as an armored flying V streaming across the desert that it would have with people trying to get a signal in the valleys of the Afghanistan, and it’s clear that we didn’t commit there not simply because we had bigger fish to fry, but because the military we have constructed would not have functioned in that environment. If you buy a nice suit, you don’t then wear it to MacDonald’s, you want to show it off where it will look it’s best.
Most people (but sadly not me) don’t spend a lot of time going out and buying garden tools and then never actually using them. A number of factors crafted the military that we have, and have led us to this impasse, and I think that some future historians might argue that it would not have mattered who was in office or who was playing chickenhawk or if the notion actually exists.
Hmm..not sure I have much to add to Anarch’s 8:29. I will say in reference to my tongue-in-cheek-Jonah-wants-to-be-slaughtered post above, that my point was that his/their constant hyping of the, what I termed “etc.” threat, yet seemingly obvious lack of sacrifice to combat that threat, causes me to question whether they really believe it’s that much of a threat. And, if they don’t, I wonder why they hype it so much and rarely come to a nice non-partisan answer.
On the “chickenhawk” argument more generally, I disdain the “you can’t advocate military action unless you are/have/are willing to serve” line of argument, obviously that’s incorrect. But to argue that fighting the etc. threat is essential to survival of the country (or the west or whatever), and yet make no sacrifice yourself, does seem to be ripe for rhetorical, if not completely substantive, picking. And if Jonah et. al. were willing to, say, advocate for and pay higher taxes so we could pay each troop $X per year and have all the troops we need to fight etc., I’d have a bit more respect for et. al.; but it seems to me that tax cuts for those who don’t need them are somehow essential to… well, I’m really not sure. Of course, I’ll bet they consider themselves essential cogs in fighting the etc. threat somehow (we must type over here so we don’t have to type over there).
Andrew – if an action is the correct action, does the fact a person is unwilling to do it himself render the action incorrect?
Well, ceteris paribus, no. But other things are rarely otherwise the same. As I mention above, if et. al. were saying something along the lines of “the etc. threat must be combated and here’s how the US needs to sacrifice to do it; I’m personally willing to [insert something more than typing here],” then good for them. But, it seems to me, they’re not.
slarti: the difference between Anarch’s argument and Andrew’s turns on two points: the degree of the threat and the failure of our society to respond adequately.
Is crime a serious problem? yep. Existential? not so much. Crime is plummeting across the country in almost every category. So unfilled slots in police departements does not appear to be a major issue.
Does the war in Iraq / WOT … present an existential threat to our way of life? Not to me. But plenty of conservative commentators have made that argument.
Going onto the next point then — has our society responded adequately? Apparently not. Our armed forces need more high-quality troops.
This argument, to me, puts young conservative commentators on the horns of a dilemma: are they lying or are they cowards?
Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a coward; i expect i’m one. but i’m not trying to persuade smart americans to enlist or that america is facing an existential crisis.
there is something extremely unseemly about people who wish to be future leaders of america to demand such a dangerous service from fellow americans when they’re not willing to do it themselves.
what’s unseemly? I’m having a hard time articulating it. Partly I think that cowards will make bad leaders. Partly I want our future leaders to have more integrity.
[let me sleep on this; maybe i can clarify my thoughts tomorrow.]
p.s. QandO has an interesting post on the moral case for continuing occupation. While much of it has been said before, it’s a good recap of the major issues.
{my comments are, of course, brilliant (or not).}
It’s generally hard to make the “chickenhawk” argument on an individual basis, because most of the time we simply don’t know enough about the individual and his (her?) situation. (By the time someone runs for President or VP, the information gap is much narrower, so this does not apply.) I’m not saying accusing someone of being a chickenhawk may not be a valid political tactic in some cases, but it’s an awfully weapon.
OTOH, it seems to me as a historian generally concerned with broader phenomena that if we can identify an entire class of people who are conspicuously not volunteering for a conflict, especially one that they publicly espouse, there’s trouble for the war effort.
IOW, if the Bush twins didn’t enlist, but we could at the same time point – as we could in WWII – to many other relatives of the rich and powerful, sports and movie stars, sons of politicians, &c. who did enlist, this would be trivial. We might seize the opportunity to tweak “Bush family values,” but this would rightly be regarded as inconsequential in the larger sense.
This, however, is not the situation today. We are, AFAIK, not getting any meaningful share of the scions of the rich and powerful taking part. No sons of Senators (which is why Michael Moore’s underlying point has some validity, even if his tactics are crass). One professional athlete (Pat Tillman) at the highest level that I know of. No movie stars. Not even, to the best of my knowledge, the politically ambitious sons of the elite trying to build up their war cred (think JFK in WWII, Al Gore in VN?).
To my mind this class abdication matters more than the motives (hypocritical or not) of most individual war-supporters.
Of course, YMMV.
Andrew – if an action is the correct action, does the fact a person is unwilling to do it himself render the action incorrect?
No.
How about this version:
If an action is the correct action, does the fact a person is unwilling to do it himself render the person incorrect?
Finally something on which to (perhaps) disagree with Andrew, gotta grab it while it’s still warm 🙂
Andrew: Just tell me this: if someone calls for an action that is the correct action, but is unwilling to undertake it him or herself, should that person not be permitted to speak?
In general? Yes, they should be permitted to speak. But note that I didn’t make the general claim there: I made the specific claim that when proclaiming an existential crisis an unwillingness to undertake the actions necessary to deal with said crisis while loudly beating the drum of their necessity render that person unfit for the public sphere. That’s a very restrictive criterion, and one not met in, f’rex, Slarti’s examples.
Slarti: And I’m wondering…do you advocate law enforcement, Anarch? Trash collection? Continued existence of our system of justice? And if so, are you volunteering to do all those tasks you believe should be done? How about having a peacetime military, do you believe in that? And if so, are you in it?
This was exactly what I was talking about when I invoked the firefighting example in my post above, and which rilkefan noted subsequently. Quick recap: were any of those genuinely necessary responses to existential crises — if, for example, we were experiencing a crime wave of epic proportions; or the legal system were about to come apart at the seams; or we were, um, about to drown in a sea of garbage? — you’re damn right I’d be doing those or be rightly labelled a coward/chickenhawk/whatever. Since they aren’t, no, I don’t think participation in any of those should be mandatory.
Well, before the discussion continues, maybe we should all agree on a definition [of “chickenhawk”]. It seems to be used in a wide variety of ways, some more sensible than others.
I gave mine above; others can play too if they wish 🙂
Andrew: Just tell me this: if someone calls for an action that is the correct action, but is unwilling to undertake it him or herself, should that person not be permitted to speak?
As Hilzoy and Jesurgliac have answered before me, the sensible answer is “it depends on the circumstances”. The nature of the risk and the grounds of the refusal both matter.
dr ngo: To my mind this class abdication matters more than the motives (hypocritical or not) of most individual war-supporters.
Yes. Comparing and contrasting: just as Moore driving round in a van with a loudhailer was so bad it was embarrassing, one of the most interesting parts of Fahrenheit 911 was where Moore shows that joining the military has really become one of those jobs that only people below a certain income will do. I was half-aware of this from the reasons that people usually gave me why they’d decided to join the military (I rarely ask: I would have considered that impolite except to a close friend and then only with the qualification “if you don’t mind talking about it”).
As has been pointed out elsewhere, the US has very low income mobility: what income-level your parents were, is likely to be yours. But, if you have no moral qualms about joining the military, I could see that it was – and especially of course for someone who couldn’t afford to go to college otherwise – a very good job, with excellent benefits, and much stronger legal and social protection against racial discrimination than virtually anywhere else in the US. (Which is especially impressive to a Brit: our military still tends to be strongly stratified by social class, and no one from it denies that racism’s a factor.)
But, a job that only low-status people take, becomes a low-status job.
(Oh, I meant to add: I rarely ask, but when soldier meets pacifist face to face, and pacifist behaves politely, I have noticed (as a pacifist) the soldier frequently comes out, quite unasked, with their reasons for becoming a soldier. It’s kind of like declaring myself a vegetarian to a confirmed carnivore.)
And similar. Some people can say that they feel exactly this way about the GWOT. During the first couple of years of our involvement in Iraq, additional troops were not being requested, but despite this, “chickenhawk” was exercised early and often. But you’re saying that the validity of “chickenhawk” is a function of…something? What is that? Urgency? What is it about urgency that has things follow logically where they didn’t before? And who says we don’t need more policemen, just because more aren’t being requested?
Some people see it as hypocrisy: those who maintain that their way of life is under dire threat, yet still won’t fight to defend it. I see it as exaggeration: these people don’t really believe their way of life is significantly threatened; that kind of talk is simply hyperbole. This is, I think, a legitimate question: if you really feel that we as a nation, or you as an individual, are actually, physically or culturally, threatened, shouldn’t you be doing something about that?
I’m not all that interested in power. I think what I think; you think what you think. Do I get more than one vote, simply because I’ve got convictions that have power? And again, if Anarch is reading this, I’m not ridiculing, just pointing out that your feelings in the matter don’t readily translate to persuasion, as far as I’m concerned.
And even more credibility if he/she reaches deeply into their own pockets with or without the tax. By the rules of personal sacrifice, anyway. Maybe emptying out your bank accounts would be called for.
If your point is that politicians are not shanghaiing their own children into service, agreed. If your point is that the convictions of politicians aren’t being absorbed by their children to any large extent, agreed (if one accepts the premist, that is). Otherwise: not sure what your point is.
There are a few members of Congress with kids who are in or have been in Iraq, though, which even a casual Google search would reveal. Kit Bond, Todd Akin, Tim Johnson and Duncan Hunter. Four out of 545. Not stunning, but higher than, for instance, the national average.
But probably this is just me being slippery again, so I’m braced for that.
“premise”
Note to self: more coffee.
dr ngo–
“the politically ambitious sons of the elite trying to build up their war cred (think JFK in WWII”
Maybe, although there’s no question that JFK went to nearly heroic lengths to get into the military. He was a 4-F if ever there was one. The 11/18/2002 Atlantic has a lengthy article about his (incredibly numerous) health problems.
There are a few members of Congress with kids who are in or have been in Iraq, though, which even a casual Google search would reveal.
Really? I’m curious: how do you google for that category? “children of congresspeople” Iraq?
Can’t recall how I found it, but here‘s the article. Took me all of a couple of minutes to stumble across it.
Foxnews, certainly, but it’s an AP article. It’s over a year old, so places where it has been previously published now are linkbusted.
Also found it here.
I’m not all that interested in power. I think what I think; you think what you think.
Well, this is probably true for the sort of people who use their free time to engage in political discussions on blogs; but there are a lot of people out there who aren’t sure what to think about a complicated issue and are apt to take the word of someone that they respect. It seems to me that such people are more likely to be convinced by someone who’s ready to put his/her own life on the line than someone who would just be watching the war on TV.
But probably this is just me being slippery again, so I’m braced for that.
If you are slippery, it is probably difficult to brace yourself…
But seriously,
but despite this, “chickenhawk” was exercised early and often.
This seems to suggest that the use of the term earlier means that the term can’t ever be used. I’m not sure how that is. The fact is that I would have been pretty dismissive of people who used the term a few years ago, but my reservations have lowered (though not disappeared) as it seems clearer that the administration want to have us feel like we are in a war for our fundamental values, but doesn’t want to argue that we are.
That’s a good point; one that I’ve been hitting now and again, but it seems to fall on deaf ears: to persuade, it’s best to be persuasive. Probably not best to, on the other hand, pelt anyone who doesn’t agree with you with the verbal equivalent of rotten vegetables.
Only tangentially related to the preceding discussion, but there has been some rotten-vegetable-pelting aspect to the great and ongoing debate that tends to make me ignore the source rather than listen to it. I know I’ve said this before. Not directed at you, kenB, nor at anyone else in particular. If this makes me “slippery” once again, I can name names.
If you are slippery, it is probably difficult to brace yourself…
Mmm…good point. But I could be slippery in a directional sense.
But I could be slippery in a directional sense.
or arguing in your spare time…
one of the most interesting parts of Fahrenheit 911 was where Moore shows that joining the military has really become one of those jobs that only people below a certain income will do.
That would be a misconception, according to this
I think dr. ngo’s point is a good one, and it’s what I was trying to describe the individualized version of earlier, when I was talking about feeling as though it was obvious that other sorts of people were the ones who should do the actual fighting and dying. It is what has always bothered me most about GWB’s military record. It was an enormous problem in Vietnam, and one of the downsides of the volunteer army is that it has allowed it to become more legitimate, since privileged kids no longer have to go to the trouble of faking disabilities or in some other way lying to evade service.
I absolutely do not think that to advocate a war, one has to be willing to serve in it, still less that one has to have actually served. I do think two other things: first, that if someone does assume that obviously, it’s other sorts of people who will be fighting that war, that’s odious all by itself, and second, that people who make that assumption are more likely (not certain, just more likely) to underestimate the costs to others of the wars they advocate than they would be if they assumed that it would be their leg that might be blown off, or their children who would grow up without a parent.
Slarti: Can’t recall how I found it
Pity. That was actually what I was interested in: how one would search, generically, on Google, for which children of Congresspeople are now (or have been) in Iraq.
DaveC: That would be a misconception, according to this
That looks suspiciously like research done to prove a point which just happens to prove the point the researcher wants proved….
Ok, since it’s important, I looked at my history. Hard to tell, because history does some things that are…well, non-intuitive, but this is my best reconstruction:
This Google search led me here.
Since that last link led to a linkdead end, I googled the words in the title of the link, in order, thus.
The Foxnews link is on the first page of finds.
I didn’t look any deeper than that, other than Googling the partial title of the AP article, which led me to the Chicago Sun-Times article.
That looks suspiciously like research done to prove a point which just happens to prove the point the researcher wants proved….
Is there any evidence to back up that statement?
Slarti, I think you’re personalizing part of the argument in a way that I don’t quite find legit. When you say that you personally didnt’ feel that we were facing an existential crisis, I believe you. In my mind, you often sound like a late-night jazz DJ, with that relentless consistent tone, and an existential crisis would be something like a persistent shortage of remastered Miles Davis albums. When you recover from that… 🙂
Anyway, there’s a distinction here between what you, person with well-developed and distinctive views, think and the war we got. To argue “but I didn’t endorse that part of it” strikes me as a bit like Thomas Friedman’s delayed recognition that he wasn’t going to get the war or reconstruction he personally wanted, but would have to deal with what the administration wanted. The people actually waging the war do present it in terms of existential crisis, and so do their favored advocates outside the administration. We don’t quite get the option of “one war to go, hold the existential crisis”.
In any event, I’m certainly willing to cut you as the aforementioned individual slack on this, but I don’t see how that bears on the general issue. Bush and Cheney tell us that the fate of civilization hang in the balance. So do the folks who support them without the equivocations or nuances you bring to bear. (Presumably they also have to do it without the Miles Davis albums, but then maybe they’re not troubled by it.) So what may matter in dealing with you doesn’t seem to me to matter in dealing with them.
That looks suspiciously like research done to prove a point which just happens to prove the point the researcher wants proved….
Let me rephrase my question less belligerently. Could you elaborate on why you believe that? Thanks.
Is there any evidence to back up that statement?
Well, in partial defense of Jes, I would point out that it is from the Heritage Foundation, which is not exactly a neutral source.
But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and looking at this
Although all branches of the armed services have been able to meet recruiting goals in recent years, the Army’s difficulty in meeting its goal of 80,000 new soldiers in 2005 has been widely reported, and some view it as a symbol of the need to reinstate the draft. However, this shortfall should be placed in the proper context. The Army is projected to fall just 7,000 (about 9 percent) short of its 2005 recruitment goal, which is less than 1 percent of the overall military of over 1 million personnel. Furthermore, there is the unexpected rise in re-enlistment rates. In other words, the total force strength is about what it should be.
It doesn’t mention the raising of the enlistment age to 42 and the use of stop loss to maintain total force strength to name two.
But what is interesting is that this article and another one that he has written seem to concentrate on debunking Rangel’s call for a draft, which seems to be something that you support, though perhaps not Rangel’s call. I’m assuming that you have reasons for feeling that we are ‘watering down our forces’ that would contradict what Tim Kane writes, so it seems that busting Jes for her skepticism is a bit rash.
Sorry, cross-posted, I appreciate the rewording, Andrew.
Ok, now we’re back to leaders. Is it your point that the leaders themselves ought to be in the Army, or that their children (who may or may not be in agreement with them) should be? If not, I’m at a loss. Please elaborate.
“The people actually waging the war do present it in terms of existential crisis, and so do their favored advocates outside the administration. We don’t quite get the option of “one war to go, hold the existential crisis”.”
They may say it is an “existential crisis” but that does not mean 1) they actually believe it is an “existential crisis, or 2) are acting or are going to act as if it were such, or acting because they believe it is one.
This is important. They lie. They lie on the record, off the record, to each other, to themselves. It is important to at least accept as a possibility that Bush does not really believe:”Whatever we believe, our enemies believe the opposite.” Like the joy of children, the beauty of flowers, gravity.
It may be comforting to think that Bush is stupid, or mad as a March Hare, but like open your minds to the slim possibility that he is not being completely candid.
lj,
Stop-loss doesn’t affect recruiting, as far as I know, although I am not an expert in that area. But stop-loss is normally a retention issue, not a recruiting one, maintaining a unit’s integrity around a deployment to minimize unit turmoil during the deployment.
I would love to the Democrats take on the issue of lowered standards in recruiting, and to aggressively address the question of quality in our service, rather than simply quantity. (Lenin notwithstanding.) But I would be very opposed to a draft, because that would reduce quality, not improve it.
I concur that the piece is clearly aimed at undermining Senator Rangel’s case for a draft. But that does not mean that his numbers are therefore incorrect. I’m curious is Jesurgislac saw something in the numbers that raised suspicion, or if she was privy to a different dataset.
Speaking strictly anecdotally, I have met an amazing cross-section of people in the 18+ years I’ve been with the Army. While my own assessment would draw the distribution weighted towards the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, my experience is that it is not as sharply weighted as Senator Rangel appears to believe. But that is based strictly on my own observations, which is why I’m curious if there is good reason to doubt the data presented in the Heritage study.
Andrew: Could you elaborate on why you believe that? Thanks.
I could probably analyse out in boring detail how the researcher phrased his sentences that suggested why I’m of this opinion, yes. (I also googled Tim Kane PhD in Google Scholar, and got three hits (once I distangled out the other T- Kanes.))
But, as I read that essay Dave C linked to, it reads as if the person who wrote it had something to prove, and the research they did just happens to prove that.
And the second paragraph in, Dr Kane says that in fact the army has no recruiting problem anyway. (Would you agree with that assessment? Do you feel that the talk of more personnel being needed is just wrong, as Dr Kane says it is?)
If you want me to analyse out, sentence by sentence, turn of phrase by turn of phrase, exactly what gave me that impression, I’m not willing to do it in an ObWing comment: I’ll do it in a post on my own journal. Might even be interesting. But it won’t happen this evening.
But that does not mean that his numbers are therefore incorrect. I’m curious is Jesurgislac saw something in the numbers that raised suspicion, or if she was privy to a different dataset.
As I said, it was partial defense, in that Heritage has a bit of a rep. However, in the paragraph I quoted, ‘total force strength’ is something that can offset poor recruiting, so it is a bit misleading to include that. Furthermore, multiple deployments and the use of guard units make the invocation of ‘total force strength misleading, I think.
I also think, given all the stories about recruiting problems, which are anecdotal but include recruiter malfeasance, privatization, raising of the enlistment age, lowered standards, increased enlistment bonuses, the fact that the Army only has a shortfall of 7,000 can be viewed as bit of smoke and mirrors.
Add that to the fact that officers are becoming more and more bold to reveal that they need more to reporters but are being refused by their superiors suggests that Kane is playing with numbers rather than trying to present an honest picture.
Furthermore, he uses data from 1999, before 9/11, which can’t really be said to relate to the trends we see now. He also uses postal codes to determine household income, and argues that those from wealthier areas sign up. But areas are certainly not uniform, and the assumption that there is a perfectly even distribution so that the postal code represents the median income seems a bit off. It may be correct, but it is not proving that Rangel is wrong, since the level of granularity in the data does not permit that conclusion to be so strongly drawn.
Also, he quotes Rangel’s claim that “A disproportionate number of the poor and members of minority groups make up the enlisted ranks of the military, while most privileged Americans are underrepresented or absent”. Note the ‘poor AND members…’. Kane suggests that Rangel is wrong because
In April 2005, the Chicago Tribune cited a statistic that 35 percent of those who died in Iraq and Afghanistan were from small, rural towns, in contrast to 25 percent of the population.[7] This point runs counter to the picture, painted by Rangel and others, of heavy enlistment reliance on poor, black urban neighborhoods. Indeed, recruits are disproportionately rural, not urban, and as rural concentration[8] rises, so does military enlistment.
Note that Rangel said poor and minorities, so presumably he is not making a claim that it is solely urban blacks. Perhaps Rangel made some claim about urban blacks (given his district, it wouldn’t be surprising), but the statement Kane uses doesn’t say that.
And I would also point out that Kane is trying to make two points, one, that we have enough men and two, that we are recruiting a wide range of people. Each of those points can be treated independently, so even if he is correct about one, the other can still be wrong.
Finally, the paper closes with
Logically, this suggests that if terrorists strike America again, young Americans will be more— not less—willing to volunteer for military service. We can also anticipate that successful terrorist attacks will result in a resurgence of popular support for a draft. All Americans hope that day will never come, but if it does, Congress needs to remain steadfast in opposing coerced conscription and expose the myths of racial and class exploitation in military recruiting.
But the point is that absent successful terrorist attacks, we still need more men so arguing that we will have enough because another successful attack will have people signing up in droves is not evidence that there is not a problem.
Sorry, I should say that he also uses 2003 data, but I think that those two data slices should be separated more clearly. Unfortunately, the links to the full size graphs are broken, so I can’t be precisely sure about their content.
Slarti: Some people can say that they feel exactly this way about the GWOT.
Naturally: I’m one of them. Your point?
But you’re saying that the validity of “chickenhawk” is a function of…something?
…
Yes, of course. Same as any other word.
Urgency? What is it about urgency that has things follow logically where they didn’t before?
I’m not really sure how to answer that except “It’s bloody obvious, innit?” If the boat is sinking, it’s all hands below. If the fire is burning out of control, it’s all hands to the water line. If the enemy is actually invading, it’s all hands to the guns. Increasing the urgency of the crisis almost invariably increases the necessity of the response; and when the crisis is (nominally) existential, that necessity of necessity dwarfs whatever personal allegiances you might normally have.
And who says we don’t need more policemen, just because more aren’t being requested?
Are we facing a crime wave of epic proportions that threatens to rock our civilization to its very foundations? Did I maybe miss something when I slept in this morning?
The issue wasn’t whether we could use more — that’s clearly a debatable proposition and I’m not equipped to address — but whether, as a matter of existential necessity, we need more policemen. If you’d like to assert that proposition, replete with the requisite justification, I’m all ears.
This is, I think, a legitimate question: if you really feel that we as a nation, or you as an individual, are actually, physically or culturally, threatened, shouldn’t you be doing something about that?
I’m curious: where on God’s green earth did you get the impression that I think we as a nation (or I as an individual) are threatened in an existential way? I would’ve thought my post made it damn clear that I don’t hold this proposition to be true and was in fact castigating those who held that proposition but failed to take the necessary measures. Was I in some way unclear?
In fact, the more I read your question, the more I have to ask in return: did you not realize that my post asked exactly the same question?
[Only apparently with a lot more feelings which, contra your assertion above, were apparently pretty dang persuasive after all.]
Ok, now we’re back to leaders. Is it your point that the leaders themselves ought to be in the Army, or that their children (who may or may not be in agreement with them) should be?
YES!!!
If not, I’m at a loss. Please elaborate.
It would do wonders to concentrate their minds.
matttbastard,
I thought Hardwired was quite good when I first read it, although in retrospect now seems a bit dated by its self-consciously ‘cyberpunk’ atmosphere.
You can never be too cyberpunk or cynical…
I like cyberpunk, in that it is the scifi style that has been the most accurate in predicting the world we live in, a new guilded age, powerful global amoral corporations and a large population of technologically saavy individuals thriving in black/grey markets.
If you like your future distotian, I would recommand Eclipse (A Song Called Youth) ,Moreau Omnibus, A good old fashionned future, pretty much anything by William Gibson, and recently picked up Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan.
I think a book recommendation open thread in time for the weekend might be nice right now.
Slartibartfast: If your point is that politicians are not shanghaiing their own children into service, agreed. If your point is that the convictions of politicians aren’t being absorbed by their children to any large extent, agreed (if one accepts the premist, that is). Otherwise: not sure what your point is.
I’m a little surprised that you only mention scenarios in which the politicians’ expressions of conviction are sincere, but the kids just won’t cooperate. I guess kids these days are just no darn good, and there’s nothing, short of enslaving them, that parents can do about it. Is raising their children to value service and sacrifice just not something that folks who sincerely, and quite vocally, value service and sacrifice do these days?
Are we facing a crime wave of epic proportions that threatens to rock our civilization to its very foundations?
Nope. We do have some problem areas, though. Or has America turned into Sweden while I wasn’t looking?
As for the rest…well, I guess I’m confused. What kind of person do you think the “chickenhawk” label fits? Do you have anyone specific in mind?
You don’t have any kids, do you? You do what you can, and then you have to let them go.
Is that a “no”, or just a non sequitur? Yes, some kids rebel against their parents’ values. Of course the outcome isn’t going to be 100% enlistment. But among those who supposedly think we are in a “war for civilization” wouldn’t you expect the number be little bit higher than practically none? Dick Cheney can talk his daughter into campaigning for a man who wants to modify the Constitution to make her a permanent second-class citizen. Parents still have some influence on their kids, even those who might not live entirely up to their expectations.
And, to be clear, I don’t think Jenna and Barbara’s contributions would turn the tide of the war or any such nonsense. This phenomenon is a symptom, not a disease.
Still not getting you, Gromit. People make their own decisions, for their own reasons. My parents are no more responsible for my decisions as an adult than you are.
People make their own decisions, for their own reasons.
Yes, and contributing to those reasons is, quite frequently, their upbringing. Unless you mean to suggest that children don’t typically get any of their values from their parents?
Slarti: My parents are no more responsible for my decisions as an adult than you are.
You assert that your parents had absolutely no influence on the kind of person you grew up to be? Because that is the only way you could truthfully say that your parents are no more responsible for the kind of decisions you make as an adult than Gromit is (assuming that Gromit had no hand in bringing you up, of course). Which I suppose he might have done. (Said tongue in cheek.)
Parents do influence the decisions their children make as adults. That doesn’t mean parents make decisions for their adult children. It does mean that, if George W. Bush is a lazy, selfish man with a sense of entitlement up the wazoo, and no sense at all that having grown up with more privileges than most he had better work to deserve what he got, that we can guess he’s like that because that’s how his parents brought him up to be: and we can make a fair guess (though his daughters are still pretty young) that this is how he brought his daughters up to be.
re: recruitment and class — those numbers would be a lot more meaningful if they were broken out by officer/enlisted and by MOS. It’s entirely possible that more recruits are coming from wealthy backgrounds, and that those recruits are going into support roles as officers.
The report from the Heritage Foundation also does not tell us where most of the losses in the services are coming from and if recruits are filling those roles or other ones. I’ve read in several places that the services are losing Captains at a higher rate than anytime since Viet Nam, mostly due to decisions not to re-up. It takes time to replace an experienced Captain. I’d be interested to find out if the same is true for Sergeants.
Slart: ‘What kind of person do you think the “chickenhawk” label fits? Do you have anyone specific in mind?’
Cheney (Vietnam booster [I think] but multiple deferments, ominous hints that war opponents won’t defend America or are traitors) is a standard example – Rush Limbaugh is another.
I doubt I would label anyone I could have a civil conversation with about US foreign policy is someone I would label a chickenhawk. To me it requires a combination of moral censoriousness and refusal to follow the espoused principles.
Another bit of input – anyone in public is much more susceptible to this charge than private citizens. If (e.g.) Jonah Goldberg had announced he was enlisting and urged his readers to do the same, that might have gotten the army a number of decent recruits – my friend Joe War Supporter isn’t going to start a trend by signing up.
No, I assert that my parents are not responsible for my choices, just as I am not responsible for theirs.
No, I assert that my parents are not responsible for my choices, just as I am not responsible for theirs.
I think this goes along with your claim to be an annelid worm – sorry, to be a simple person without agenda or subtext.
Your parents are responsible for the kind of person you became, and are therefore responsible for your choices. They don’t get to make your choices for you, and it’s even possible that the kind of choices you make are a deliberate reversal of the choices your parents made: your parents are still responsible for them.
Children don’t usually bring up their parents, and so you are not responsible for the kind of person either of your parent is, or for the choices they made. You are responsible, as a parent, for the kind of person your child may become: not merely by the choices you make that directly affect your child, but the choices your child sees you make.
People seem to have varying ideas about what “responsible” means. The web starts off:
# Liable to be required to give account, as of one’s actions or of the discharge of a duty or trust.
Here I can see Clinton being responsible for the failure to stop OBL – I think he was ok on the issue, but he did need to account for his actions.
# Involving personal accountability or ability to act without guidance or superior authority: a responsible position within the firm.
# Being a source or cause.
Here’s the point of disagreement I think on parenting. I don’t think the word’s up to bearing the distinctions being made here – maybe using “accountable” would help.
Nope. We do have some problem areas, though. Or has America turned into Sweden while I wasn’t looking?
The word I keep using, Slarti, and which you keep failing to address, is “existential”. I did not say that one is obligated to put up or shut up on all matters because, as I’ve noted a few times in this thread, I don’t believe that. I very specifically limited my statement to existential crises. One could, if one were so inclined, try to make generalized or localized adaptations of this thesis; I didn’t, because the language it would require is too subtle for me. You’re welcome to try if you feel so inclined, though, because I’d like to see whether it could be done in any useful way.
As for the rest…well, I guess I’m confused. What kind of person do you think the “chickenhawk” label fits? Do you have anyone specific in mind?
I hate to do this but: you really didn’t read my post, did you?
I’m not saying there’s no influence, Jesurgislac. Just that at some point in your life, you’re a free person. The degree to which one assigns responsibility for one’s life to one’s parents is, I submit, the degree to which one has abdicated responsibility for one’s own life.
A lot of one’s, I know. But I’m not going to rephrase.
you really didn’t read my post, did you?
Read it, but didn’t understand it. I suppose this is what I get for trying to understand.
Slarti: The degree to which one assigns responsibility for one’s life to one’s parents is, I submit, the degree to which one has abdicated responsibility for one’s own life.
Or the degree to which one doesn’t wish to look at and think about how one acquired one’s opinions and values. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” (Of course, the man who said that died shortly afterwards, so you may wish to disregard his ideas of what made life worth living.)
There is a very critical aspect to being a “chickenhawk”, and it is one that I see a few people have brought up but has never really been seriously acknowledged by most of the folks arguing against the label. This is unfortunate, as in my mind it is the most critical attribute of the person in question, and it obliterates any of the sillier arguments or analogies like police and firefighters.
That attribute is this: the willingness to repeatedly and viciously slander others as cowards and defeatocrats, or otherwise smear them as being unserious, weak on terror, et al. The variations on this theme are numerous, and nobody reading this should be at all in doubt about what kind of thing I’m talking about or who the worst offenders are.
None of us is free from constraint, and for a great many of us our upbringing and the desires and wishes of our parents contribute significantly to these constraints. This is not in any way to say that we are our parents’ slaves, nor that our parents must answer for all our actions.
But to suggest that our parents do not play a critically important role in shaping our decision-making processes (including those that motivate us to fight for what we believe in) is to not only immunize them against blame for our faults, but to deny them credit for our virtues. I think the reality of responsibility is a lot more complicated than that, and that responsibility is not atomic. Tiger Woods’ dad gets a lot of much-deserved credit for his son’s accomplishments, for example. The ultimate judgment goes to the person actually making the decision, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of shared responsibility, and for kids just on the cusp of adulthood, a tremendous amount of this goes to their parents, for good or for ill.
Of course, we can’t really point to this or that individual family and determine the extent to which the parents share blame for the faults of their children without knowing the specifics of each case in excruciating detail (and even then, maybe not). But looking at a group of 535, a very large number of whom are strongly supportive of this war, and seeing such a tiny portion living the ideals being expressed so passionately is another question entirely.
And, at the risk of being crass, does anyone doubt that the Bush apples fell far from the tree?
Slart, see the links in Anarch‘s comment here for examples of chickenhawks-according-to-him.
I’m a little tetchy and I apologize, Slarti — hard times in Researchland today — but as rilkefan noted I already linked to two specific examples of people I considered chickenhawks. [The second article, I think it is, consists of numerous more examples of varying weight; the “number-one business school” guy really sticks in my craw, though.] I had also anticipated the “firefighter objection” — although in your case it was phrased using policemen, garbage collection etc. — in that post; and given that your questions to me were, in fact, almost identical to the questions (well, accusations) I was making towards others, ones which I had thought were clearly inapplicable towards me, I hope you’ll forgive me for thinking you hadn’t actually read the post. Comity?
Hmm, “doubt” should be “really think” in my last comment.
But looking at a group of 535, a very large number of whom are strongly supportive of this war, and seeing such a tiny portion living the ideals being expressed so passionately is another question entirely.
The catch is that that group of 535 — i.e. the Congresspeople — is the wrong group to be looking at. We should be looking instead at the war promoters, which consists of almost all the GOP members of Congress, some of the Democratic ones (not entirely sure how or where to draw the lines there), their aides and — this is key — thousands if not tens of thousands of GOP operatives and abettors across the country. I’m talking about the College Republicans, the NRO staff, the arrangers of those “pro-America” rallies, the Washington Times crew, the WSJ editorial board, the right-wing radio demagogues and so forth. [If you want to be expansive, throw in the pro-war lobbying groups and executives in the pro-war business community, coming from places like Halliburton, Wal-Mart, Clear Channel, Club For Growth, etc.] Considered as a class, what is their rate of enlistment? Considered as a class, where do their personal priorities lie? Considered as a class, how seriously do they actually take the war?
And to be pointed: considered as a class, how have they profited from the war?
Like Jes I have no idea how to go searching for hard statistical data on those questions but what little I know of them suggests the answers are: low; elsewhere; and not at all. Oh: and way too goddamn much.
I agree with Catsy. The critical attribute that makes a person a chickenhawk rather than just a non-vet supporter of a war is that chickenhawks attack the patriotism of others. The chickhenhawk claims to have a superior commitment to defending this country. I am a proponent of calling the chickenhawks out on their crappy behavior. I’m sick to death of people who hide behind family ties or deferments, cheerlead for wars, and then demean the political discourse with the bullying tactic of claiming superior patriotism or attacking as inferior the patriotism of others. Bush and Cheney are classic chickenhawks. In fact that pattern is a staple with Republican politicians. Calling them chickenhawks is necessary in order to fight back against their bullying. Anyone who doesn’t want to be called a chickenhawk has the option of not behaving like one. They can advocate for a war without attacking the patriotism of others.
Anarch: “abettors”
That’s sort of a fighting word – maybe “supporters” would be safer.
lily: “that pattern is a staple with Republican politicians”
Seems rather broad.
Calling them chickenhawks is necessary in order to fight back against their bullying.
Ah, yes, the classic tu quoque that historically has served to elevate so much discourse.
Wes Clark writes me and notes in passing:
“Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) offered an amendment to give the Guard and Reserve $1 billion to procure additional equipment, including body armor, in April 2003. But every single Republican, including George Allen, voted to kill that amendment.”
That’s sort of a fighting word
It was intended to be.
Plus, there are plenty of Republican supporters to whom I wasn’t referring. To name but three right here, Slarti, Sebastian and Andrew have at some point all been Republican supporters if not outright Republicans, but I bear no onus towards them. [Other than in the petty, personal kinda way *grumble grumble* 😉 ] I’m specifically referring to people in positions of power — whether political, financial, operational, distributional (if that makes sense) or in the media — who [ab]used that power in order to further the GOP war agenda.
Or, to be less pleasant about it: to abet the GOP’s crimes.
Andrew, I’m not sure discourse can be unilaterally elevated, particularly this close to the midterm. It’s a great goal, but it falls way behind things like returning control of our government to responsible adults in my list of things to do at this point. If we get to November and the only thing my side has accomplished is to elevate the discourse (and then only on balance, because the folks now pushing the term “terrorist tribunals” are pretty much impervious to reform at this point) then I won’t feel particularly good about that outcome.
Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Republican Party?
Gromit,
True, it is impossible to unilaterally elevate both sides of a discussion. But as long as the code of the schoolyard prevails, we will continue to engage in a race to the bottom.
Now it may be that such discourse is effective. If so, I understand why people use it; I know that negative ads work despite people’s claims to dislike them, this speech may be similar. But I still find it distasteful, and while I hold out no hope of convincing others to change, we all need windmills to tilt at to make life worth living.
No, it isn’t broad. The Republicans are good at coordinating their attacks and presenting a unified message. Right now the message is that Democrats are weak on fighting terrorism. Cheney has said it, Boehner has said it, and that message will pop up in every race all over the country. As for the tu quoque, well sometimes you have to call things by their real names. I am not advocating that Democrats lie about Republicans. I am advocating an assertive, forceful response to people who advocate a war, while claiming superior commitment to defending our country and while making sure they don’t have to risk their own necks.
I correctively repeat myself:
“I doubt I would label anyone I could have a civil conversation with about US foreign policy a chickenhawk.”
If it gets to “chickenhawk”, the discourse is already down the DiaperChamp.
Andrew: True, it is impossible to unilaterally elevate both sides of a discussion. But as long as the code of the schoolyard prevails, we will continue to engage in a race to the bottom.
Like I said, I agree with the goal. But for Democrats at this point in the electoral cycle, worrying overmuch about hurting their opponents’ feelings is a bit like graciously holding the door for the guy who’s burgling your house.
I’ll give anexample. Out here in Washington state Nethercott ran an ad against Patty Murray wherein he did the usual Republican politician thing and called her an apologist for Bin Ladin. She ran a counter ad calling him a liar. Her ad used the word “liar” twice and ended with “Shame on you”. That’s the way Democrats need to respond to Republican attacks on their patriotism or commitment to defending this country. I don’t know if Nethercott is a vet or not. If he isn’t then the term chickenhawk appies.
I don’t think Murray’s ad was negative. I don’t think calling a chickenhawk a chickenhawk is negative. I do think it is negative to bring up irrelevancies or root around in the distant past for long forgotten dirt or make mountains out of molehills, etc. For example I don’t give a rip if MacGarick or whatever his name is got arrested for drunkdriving, and I would not respect the Cantwell campaignn if they made an issue of it. . It doesn’t lower the discourse to defend forcefuly and assertively. Forceful assertive defenses aren’t negative. In the long run if our politics ever gets back to normal it will be because people fight back , not because ethey “take the high road” and get run over.
Gromit,
I suppose it would be. I am not advocating eliminating name-calling for the purpose of ensuring people’s feelings do not get hurt, however. (I kill people for a living; hurt feelings are well down on the list of things I worry about.) I am more interested in avoiding such terms because they are imprecise and do not add anything meaningful to the discourse.
Andrew: Ah, yes, the classic tu quoque that historically has served to elevate so much discourse.
Yes, but… the classic of Karl Rove’s/George W. Bush’s campaigning style is something I don’t have a convenient Latin term for. When Rove was campaigning for Bush/Cheney against Kerry/Edwards, his candidates’ weak spot was that both of them had public records of evading service in Vietnam for a war they had publicly supported; whereas John Kerry was a bona fide, decorated war hero, and John Edwards was born just late enough that he had a respectable excuse for not being drafted. Rove’s strategy was to hire a bunch of disgruntled veterans and pay them to tell lies about Kerry’s war record. End result: a Republican National Conference where everyone is mocking a war hero with a Purple Heart and voting for a deserter. Very effective.
When that’s the standard of debate of your opposition, as it is for the Democratic Party, you really are exercising extreme double standards by claiming it’s the Democratic Party that is lowering public discourse. Rove already dragged public discourse into the sewers.
Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Republican Party?
…is the exact opposite of what I just said. Thanks for illustrating! 🙂
Jes: I’ve heard that philosophy ascribed to Musashi, namely attack your enemy at his strengths. [IIRC, Sun Tzu advocates attacking where the enemy is weak (and a quick Google confirms this).] I can’t find the reference though.
Jesurgislac,
If you can point to where I accused the Democratic Party of lowering public discourse, I will cheerfully apologize.
Anarch,
I just thought the line was funny re: your preceding post. It was, in retrospect, an error to post it since I have a well-documented problem with posting comments intended in a lighthearted manner only to realize that without my trademark twinkling eye, the comment landed far more heavily than intended. Thanks for taking it in the spirit it was intended.
No, I hadn’t read those links, because I had a decent idea what sort of material would be at the other end. I was half right.
Ah, poor Sid Blumenthal. Sid’s article could pretty much be funneled down into look, I found some petty and stupid Republicans, but that’d have been much less fabulous, and probably failed to meet the word count, and it’s not as if they’re hiding.
Anarch, it sounds as if a chickenhawk is anyone who’s vocally pro-war, not fighting, in some position of power or other (although why College Republicans fit this is a mystery to me), and at least maintains that they believe that the war is crucially important to the continued existence of this country, and that you don’t like. Possibly some of that is redundant. Am I close? At least I’m out of breath.
As for the responsibility bit, consider that I have been raised by a pack of wolves. Which isn’t all that far from the truth.
rilkefan, re your 4:24 PM, I just ran across this comment from Jon Henke at QandO, defending his candidate on that charge:
Dunno what’s closest to the truth in this case, but in general I would never take an accusation that “X voted against a bill/amendment to do obviously good thing Y” at face value.
kenB, could be, dunno – I find Clark trustworthy though. I’m more concerned today with Allen’s thing for the CSA.
Here‘s what Senator Landrieu submitted as an amendment. And here‘s the wording of her proposal.
I could have missed something, but nowhere do I see mention of body armor.
rilkefan,
You do realize that Clark could be telling the truth and still be somewhat misleading in this instance, do you not? I mean, surely you weren’t someone who thought that claims Senator Kerry opposed the M1, M2, AH-64, and many other weapons programs was a valid complaint just because he voted for some bills that provided funding for those programs?
Oh, and here‘s the ad.
np, Andrew. Guessed right, thankfully 🙂
Slarti: Sid’s article could pretty much be funneled down into look, I found some petty and stupid Republicans…
…who happened to be key people at the College National Republican Convention, which happens to be a semi-professional funnel for mainstream GOP talent. These weren’t just random “petty and stupid Republicans”, Slarti, these were the next generation of GOP superstars. [Probably eminences grises types like Rove rather than front-and-center electoral candidates, but arguably the operatives are more important in determining the character of the party.] You can’t just dismiss them as random people met on the street or what have you; this is a deep and virulent pathology that strikes directly into the heart of the Republican Party.
And as for not hiding… so what? Are the corrupt less corrupt for being brazen about it? Are the morally bankrupt less bankrupt for being open in their sins? It’s a black mark for this country that they can admit their failings out in the open without meaningful condemnation, I agree, but that’s another matter entirely.
Anarch, it sounds as if a chickenhawk is anyone who’s vocally pro-war, not fighting, in some position of power or other (although why College Republicans fit this is a mystery to me), and at least maintains that they believe that the war is crucially important to the continued existence of this country, and that you don’t like. Possibly some of that is redundant.
Well, the latter part is sometimes a consequence; it’s certainly not a criterion. You’re also missing “Is capable of fighting” or some variant thereof. I have innumerable problems with He-Who-Shouldn’t-Be-Named, for example, but he’s no chickenhawk since he tried to re-up and was denied.
As for position of power, that’s true but it’s a little more expansive than I may have relayed above. “Power” in this case doesn’t just mean in government or running an institution or what have you; it can also refer to those creating bully pulpits from which to castigate people who don’t (adequately) support the war in their eyes — and that relativization there is crucial, since that notion means different things to different people — claiming that the war is some kind of existential crisis [not just pro-war, IOW, that’s insufficient], but who copiously fail to illustrate that support in their personal lives. That’s what I meant by “operational” or “distributional” power above; a kind of mass-media networking power that isn’t accurately encapsulated by one’s official position but is garnered by one’s ability to transmit (and enforce) ideas reinforcing the prevailing [GOP] ideology. This includes bloggers, radio broadcasters, that CR guy who organized the “Pro-America” rallies, anti-evolution activists and the like. I don’t have a good working definition for this yet, though, so I can’t really clarify this particular facet any further.
And incidentally, having hit Preview more than 50 times today: yes, Anderson, I’m goddamn aware that that’s a really long border with Syria. You can shut up about it any time now.
Slarti, these were the next generation of GOP superstars.
You know, I work with a guy like that. He’s been the next generation of GOP superstars for over a generation, now.
I think this particular point is a stretch, Anarch. As for the rest, not bad. If you want to use chickenhawk as shorthand for all of it, well, it’s a damn sight better than trudging through all of this back-and-forth, I guess.
Andrew: If you can point to where I accused the Democratic Party of lowering public discourse, I will cheerfully apologize.
I understood this to be the substance of your comments to this thread since your comment on [September 14, 2006 at 04:23 PM], yes. If not, I’m at a loss to know what you could have meant, since, at the most charitable interpretation, you seemed to be trying to imply that both parties were equally guilty of lowering public discourse – which, given what the Republican Party and the Bush administration have done to the standards of public discourse in the US in the past six years, is a monstrous slur on the Democratic party and its supporters.
“just because he voted for some bills that provided funding for those programs”
(“against”, I assume.)
Sure. All I know is that I saw a bunch of complaints about armor (e.g. soldiers asking for folks back home to buy them better gear) and that I find Clark to be trustworthy. Will keep half an eye on this for reference.
Claim:
“Democrats also strongly supported an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2003 Supplemental Appropriations bill, offered by Senator Landrieu, that would have appropriated $1.047 billion for National Guard and Reserve procurement. Despite the fact that National Guard and Reserve troops serving in Iraq are the most likely to lack appropriate body armor, Republicans tabled this amendment on April 2, 2003, in a 52-47 vote (Vote No. 116). Finally, during the course of last year’s appropriations process, Senator Leahy successfully worked with his colleagues on the Appropriations Committee to add $220 million to the National Guard and Reserve discretionary equipment account.”
Maybe nobody really bothers about just a billion these days.
Landrieu link.
Ack, just got a time-critical piece of equipment, have a good afternoon everybody.
Given that it’s not clear why it was tabled, I marvel that they’re voting on Year 2003 appropriations in Year 2003. Could be my ignorance, though.
Oddly, rilke, no mention of body armor in that link, either.
Not to speak for Anarch, but:
Anarch, it sounds as if a chickenhawk is anyone who’s vocally pro-war,
Yes
not fighting,
Yes
in some position of power or other
No
and at least maintains that they believe that the war is crucially important to the continued existence of this country,
Yes
and that you don’t like.
No.
In place of the two “no” criteria, add:
— Regularly characterizes war opponents as cowards, traitors or both.
AFAIC, Exhibit A would be Jeff G0ld5tein:
1. Regularly criticizes war opponents as cowards, traitors, or both, while he
2. Loudly and continuously advocates not only this war but expanded war throughout the Middle East, because
3. The very existence of Western culture is at stake, but
4. He clearly isn’t going to be fighting in any of these wars, even though
5. He could definitely use the paycheck, and
6. He regularly indulges in flights of violent fantasy, which he could have the opportunity to fulfill if he joined up.
I think “chickenhawk” is reasonably accurate shorthand even with all the baggage it carries.
Jesurgislac,
My comment was, as should have been clear from the attached quote, directed specifically at lily’s argument that Democrats should use the chickenhawk slur because Republicans use other slurs. This is a perfect example of tu quoque and I am at a loss to understand how you might consider it possible for name-calling to elevate debate. The point is not (and I never said, outside your imagination) that the debate is currently at a particularly high point. As you noted, it most certainly is not. My point is merely that dropping to their level is unlikely to elevate the discourse.
If you wish to take that as a slur on the Democratic Party, knock yourself out. But that is not what I said. It may be what you inferred, but I have no control over that.
Kenb re your 5:37: Yes, ‘his’ candidate, ie, his employer, ie, the man he is paid to support. Jon Henke frankly has no credibility re: George Allen’s bona fides, as he can’t be objective and still effectively do his job. Not saying that Clark is or isn’t correct about the piece of proposed legislation in question, but the fact that Henke works for Allen makes it hard for me to take any defense offered seriously. (sidenote: Andrew – what do you think about Henke trying to present Allen as a ‘libertarian’ candidate?)
Steward Beta: I’ve read all the books you listed (included everything by Gibson – if the SF-minded folks reading this haven’t checked out Pattern Recognition, please do so ASAP) except for Moreau Omnibus, which I’ve now added to my ever-expanding must-read list. Have you read Distraction by Sterling or Market Forces by Morgan? My favourite cyberpunkish novel is When Gravity Fails by the late George Alec Effinger, a gritty Chandleresque tale of crime and intrigue set in a colourful, futuristic Mideast locale.
And let me second LJ’s bleg for a weekend book thread (not that this discussion of ‘chickenhawk’ semantics isn’t fascinating;-))
Popping back while something churns to find this, in fact vague speech – kind of a tangle to find that, maybe there’s something better – I’m not about to figure out how to read that website or mess with Landrieu’s. Certainly won’t claim “equipment” = “body armor”.
mb: “Jon Henke frankly has no credibility re: George Allen’s bona fides, as he can’t be objective and still effectively do his job.”
Maybe if he was a journalist but I’m not comfortable with this argument in this context.
matt,
I am of the opinion that if Senator Allen is the best libertarians can do, we should consider moving to Estonia.
My brief not-spoilery review of PR. Even briefer: really liked the first half, thought it went off the rails after.
Slarti marvels at: voting on Year 2003 appropriations in Year 2003
It’s the norm in this Congress. Two and a half days of in-session work a week, individual budget bills not being passed until right at the end of the session. Just on grounds of not doing the basics of their jobs, Republicans should lose them. Not that there aren’t additional Congressional-procedure reasons.*
It used to be that the entire package of authorization bills that make up the budget were worked on first thing in a session, and the House and then Senate kept at it until the whole budget was set. The trench warfare was at the appropriations stage, but starting off with a budget framework meant that appropriations, too, could be accomplished in time to take up other business.
Democratic leadership in a retaken House and/or Senate will insist on a more serious work schedule. Obey, Frank, Davis, and a rep from Maine have been pushing for a year a bill to reform many of the procedural lapses and abuses that came in with the Republican majority. Committees have been hit particularly hard by the three-day workweek.
—
*Such as the unprecedented, outrageous abuse of the reconciliation process — conference committee meetings held and votes taken with only Republican members present, bills signed into law different from what either house passed, “reconciliations” that selectively thwart the will of Congress by gutting provisions passed by both chambers. But who’s counting, eh?
Slarti, from Landrieu’s speech
During the debate on the budget resolution, I offered a resolution to increase spending for the National Guard and Reserve forces by $1.1 billion to meet unfunded equipment requirements. Our Guard and Reserve forces make up over 40 percent of our armed forces personnel, yet for years they barely received 8 percent of the funds in the defense budgets. Our Armed Forces could not have performed as brilliantly as they did in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom without our reliance on our National Guard and Reserve. Over 320,000 guardsmen and reservists have been activated since September 11, 2001. Many have been called up two and three times, which places tremendous stresses on the lives of our troops and their loved ones. Our citizen soldiers are being asked to perform the same tasks as our active forces, and they are doing so with expertise. But, they often have hand-me-down equipment. There are people near and dear to me stationed right now in Iraq in the Reserves. When their lives are on the line, I do not want them wondering if their Vietnam era equipment will work.
Now take a look at the body armor ad against George Allen.
Rilkefan isn’t going to say equipment=body armor, but it seems awfully bloody minded to stand on that point. Honestly, I feel like I’ve fallen into a blog remake of Groucho saying ‘say the secret word, you win $100. It’s a common word, something you find everyday around the house.’
Speaking of Landrieu, here’s a moment of zen, though some may call it tu quoque.
Asked if he were accusing Democrats of treason, Boehner backpedaled. “No. I made it clear sometimes I wonder — that is what I said,” he added. Asked if he thought Democratic leaders in Congress were more interested in shielding terrorists than fighting them, he said no, he was referring to some Democrats, not the leadership.
If the Dems would just stop noticing this sort of stuff, I’m sure it will disappear.
rilkefan: What would you describe Henke as, if not a ‘journalist’ or ‘pundit’?
I mean, does the fact that Henke is a blogger and not employed by a traditional media outlet make him any more or less likely to be objective when discussing someone who is paying him to help get elected? Let me clarify – I don’t have a problem with Henke continuing to blog while acting as netroots coordinator for the Allen campaign. He has made his affiliation crystal clear, and should be commended for that. But I fail to see why his comments are any more legitimate than, say, Tony Snow defending Bush.
Andrew: I’ll take that as ‘not much’.
😉
Well, Estonia has great wi-fi, so you’ll still be able to blog, Andrew.
Andrew: This is a perfect example of tu quoque and I am at a loss to understand how you might consider it possible for name-calling to elevate debate.
Then you haven’t been paying attention to the state of political discourse in the US for the past five years. Really, Andrew. You haven’t. When the standard for political campaigning, for Republican candidates, is to make up slanderous lies about their opponent, and put them into the public arena so that the Democratic candidate will find it difficult/impossible to deny/disprove the lies, then, yes, name-calling elevates the debate in the same way as someone crawling along the sidewalk is elevated above someone splashing about in the sewers.
My point is merely that dropping to their level is unlikely to elevate the discourse.
Then your point is that you are asserting that for a Democratic supporter to call names is on the same level as a Republican supporter telling slanderous lies. You are imposing a double standard: either that, or you’re just closing your eyes (and your nose) to the malodorous depths to which Karl Rove and his ilk have sunk.
Slart: this particular point [about leadership of College Republicans] is a stretch, Anarch
Have to agree with Anarch here.
Slart, in a long-ago discussion here you professed never to have heard much about Grover Norquist, either. I took from this that you were a Republican voter and supporter of Republican policies who hasn’t been involved in campaigns or followed the party’s internal workings at all closely.
It’s just a fact that the College Republicans have been a much more important ladder for R organizers and operatives than the Young Democrats have for the national Democratic party.
Well, this has come and gone, but there is a non-political child raising thread over at TiO.
rilkefan: re PR – agreed, the second half does come across a bit ‘Hollywood blockbuster’, especially the telegraphed denouement.
However, the way Gibson makes the here-and-now feel alien (for lack of a better term) is arresting. There are very few ‘contemporary’ (mundane?) novels I’ve read that convey SFnal ‘sensawunda’ so effectively. (Of course, as Jackmormon said in comments, that may be due to Gibson getting older, the here-and-now quickly leaving him and his generation behind.)
mb: “rilkefan: What would you describe Henke as, if not a ‘journalist’ or ‘pundit’?”
Is he a professional blogger?
Anyway, I think it’s relevant that he’s got a gig with Allen, but unless that’s his job tout court I’d still listen to his arguments.
Also I’m a bit confused about attributions – that looks like “mcq”, not Henke.
If you click on ‘jon’s posts‘, you get just henke’s stuff (an interesting idea to code over here, methinks).
I realize that he’s just gotten started in his job and it’s not a clear line, but looking at the posts he’s put up since he took the job, half of them seem to be simple cheerleading posts and if you look at the links to the ‘America Weakly’ post, you see there is a dig at Webb in the links.
So that leaves one post, that has you wonder how a libertarian can advocate some sort of program to have Afghanistan grow crops for ethanol
rilkefan: so the issue is payment (or lack of)? I thought the primary obligation of a writer was to the truth, professional or otherwise. Bloggers shouldn’t be given carte blanche to make sh*t up (not to say this is your contention, nor that Henke has done so).
Re KenB’s (mis)attribution: well, so it is. Next time I’ll Google an unsourced quote before indignantly spouting off 😉
lj,
That’s good to know. 🙂
Actually, Andrew, I don’t think Democrats should use the chickenhawk slur because Republicans use other slurs. But the misunderstanding is probably due to me writing in an unclear way.
For the last thirty years, dating back to Lee Atwater, the Republican party leadership has promoted amongst its politicians, pundits, opinion leaders and spokespeople a policy of demonizing Deomcrats and polarizing the populace. Negative ads and negative frames are a huge part of this. Ever since 911 this has taken the form of claims by a myriad of Republican politicians, pundits etc. that either an individual Republican is more patriotic, more committed to defending America etc, or that their party is. Quite often the person making the false claim of superior machismo in our national honor is a person who has aslo avoided ever having to put that macho to the test in a real war. I think it is as appropriate to attack that person’s credibility as it is to say the emperor has no clothes. The chickenhawk term means a person who falsely claims status as a warrior hero. It is an appropriate term to undercut the crediblity of a pundit or politician who is, in essence, a fake.
Political discourse in the country is mostly from a politician or pundit to an audience. In a conversation between me and some other person “chickenhawk” would be a rude and would end communication. However, in the context of say, a letter to the editor about some chickenhawk like Cheney, the purpose isn’t to communicate to the chickhawk. It’s to communicate about the chickenhawk to other people. If calling that person a chickenhawk effectively contradicts their false claim to superior patriotism, then that’s a good thing for me, the citizen, to do. I guess I don’t see it as being any different than calling someone a fake. It’s just a particular kind of fake and it is important that that particular kind of fake be a recognized political phenomenon. That sort of behavior needs a label and needs to be called out whenever it happens.
[The Democrats calling the Republicans would be] a perfect example of tu quoque and I am at a loss to understand how you might consider it possible for name-calling to elevate debate.
First, “name-calling” implies that the name has no merit, that it’s pure ad hominem. What I spent far too much time and energy on this thread illustrating was that it’s not purely ad hominem; that not only is there a grain of truth in the description but that in fact it describes a fairly large, very powerful subclass of people in the political sphere nowadays. That’s not “name-calling”, that’s framing (at worst) and bringing a measure of truth back to the debate (at best).
Second, “name-calling” can serve a very important function: calling others on their BS. I think it’s perfectly legitimate to call the administration a “failure”, to say that the President is “incompetent” and other things which could be taken as name-calling if one were so inclined. [And there are plenty of other, harsher descriptions they warrant as well.] The only thing that differentiates this sort of name-calling from any other kind is whether people choose to accept the truth of these descriptors or whether we (as a nation) get hung up on the rhetoric instead of the substance.
The point is not (and I never said, outside your imagination) that the debate is currently at a particularly high point. As you noted, it most certainly is not. My point is merely that dropping to their level is unlikely to elevate the discourse.
Finally, elevating the discourse is by far the be-all-and-end-all of today’s politics. Elevating the discourse is, unfortunately, at present a red herring. What you’re advocating would be nice in a genteel world where politics was something other than the bare-knuckle, knock-down drag-down fight it is right now — and I’d argue, as I’ve done before, that we’ve entered a new era of deliberately calumnous and destructive perma-campaigning — but as it is, those who are most likely to follow your example are also those who are most likely to get crushed beneath the weight of hollered “Defeatocrats” and “Loser-defeatists” and “Objectively pro-terrorist” and “America-haters” and on and on and on.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not necessarily advocating the use of the word “chickenhawk” as a rhetorical strategy, but it’s strictly for means of realpolitik. They’ve earned it. They’ve earned it in spades. And I think it’s a sad, sad day when the truth is continually forced to cavil beneath the oppressive weight of “civility” — but to argue that things should be otherwise is to fall into exactly the same trap that I elucidated above, so I’ll be done.
Re KenB’s (mis)attribution
That is a vicious calumny, sir, and I’ll have you retract it this instant. And don’t try to pass any blame back to me for the mere insignificant fact that I didn’t offer a link. I was citing Jon’s comment in this thread, the third comment down (wish they had permalinks, or even timestamps, on their comments).
Anyway, as many times as that tactic has been used against Democrats, I’m surprised to see so much support for it here going the other direction. It’s a rare bill or amendment that is so clear and single-minded in purpose that you can conclude much from the bare fact that a congressperson voted a certain way on it. Usually the bill is for “(mumblemumblemumble) and America and apple pie and (mumblemumblemumble), and I’m shocked! and appalled! that my opponent voted against America and apple pie!”
matttbastard, I just offered Jon’s comment as additional information, not definitive proof of anything. But I have enough respect for him still to assume that he wouldn’t actually lie about Allen’s voting record.
Anyway, as many times as that tactic has been used against Democrats, I’m surprised to see so much support for it here going the other direction.
Well, this is what I keep going on about. I terming it ‘egg breaking’ now, because it doesn’t focus on any one person. Obviously, the name is framing in itself, because it suggests that if the Dems want an omlette or two, they are going to have to extract a little yolk.
If anyone would like to write a guest post about the topic on TiO, let me know.
It’s the norm in this Congress.
I guess what I’m saying is that I had thought appropriations for a given year were worked in the year prior. Otherwise you’re trying figure out what to spend money on in the middle of the spend cycle. Probably, though, my surprise is due to ignornace, as I suggested.
Now take a look at the body armor ad against George Allen.
Thanks for linking to that again, even though I linked to it upthread.
Rilkefan isn’t going to say equipment=body armor, but it seems awfully bloody minded to stand on that point. Honestly, I feel like I’ve fallen into a blog remake of Groucho saying ‘say the secret word, you win $100. It’s a common word, something you find everyday around the house.’
Well, um, that’s the point. Now, Landrieu might maintain, ex post facto, that her amendment was for body armor. But the point of the ad was that George Allen rejected an appropriation for body armor, which so far is unsupported. One could equally accurately say that George Allen voted to reject appropriation for boots, or ammunition, or for night vision goggles. Or, maybe, tanks.
It’s the kind of inaccuracy that, I think, would drive you insane were it coming from a Republican and directed at a Democrat.
Now, I’m not a fan of George Allen. He may in fact have voted specifically against that amendment because it funded body armor purchases. So far, though, I’ve yet to see any substantiation for that claim, or anything like that claim.
I do, though, think that I don’t much care for the blogger-defense of Allen by someone who works for Allen. I think it’s great that he disclosed, but I think if you’re going to write about your employer, you’re pretty much a paid flack. Which is just one of the many, many reasons I rarely even mention my employer.
All that said, I’m not all that shocked that a 1.048 billion line item amendment for, as far as the level of detail is concerned, “stuff” was tabled. And, what kenB said: if it’s dishonest when Democrats are the target, it’s dishonest when others are the target.
Thanks for linking to that again, even though I linked to it upthread.
Sorry I missed that, I tend to skip over the one line responses because they have a bit higher ratio of snark to content.
Now, Landrieu might maintain, ex post facto, that her amendment was for body armor. But the point of the ad was that George Allen rejected an appropriation for body armor, which so far is unsupported.
But it seems like you are complaining that Landrieu didn’t call out George Allen and specifically mention body armor. That’s a bit unrealistic, given that there is 1000 miles between their constituencies.
It’s the kind of inaccuracy that, I think, would drive you insane were it coming from a Republican and directed at a Democrat.
No, I would just say same ole same ole. That’s politics. What drives me insane is Republicans utilizing institutional perquisites to create situations to tar Dems, like the ‘Murtha bill’ that wasn’t actually by Murtha, or holding voting open to pass a bill, or raising flag desecretion amendments, or redistricting. Landrieu did not propose this bill to catch Allen out, and the fact that those opposed to Allen are using it is just the state of play as it stands. I don’t particularly like it as a general rule, but I’ve continuously tried to make the point that I am believing that it is time to break eggs, which I said in my reply to kenb. I’m not perfect, but on this, I can say that I have been pretty damn consistent.
He may in fact have voted specifically against that amendment because it funded body armor purchases. So far, though, I’ve yet to see any substantiation for that claim, or anything like that claim.
That’s a pretty narrow strip of land to build on, which I imagine is the point. There are a lot of other possibilities that I think would be just as problematic for Allen
1) he didn’t realize that it was for body armor
2) he prioritized body armor over whatever he thought was important
3) he felt it important, but didn’t want to let a dem get credit for proposing it
Of course, these would be just as hard to ‘prove’, but it’s a matter of framing. I don’t want to force you to check out this link from Kos, but the point is that is what is happening. Perhaps Dems have been driven insane by this, but when someone keeps giving you a quick elbow when they drive to the basket and it doesn’t get called, you’d really be stupid not to do the same thing if you want to win the game.
But it seems like you are complaining that Landrieu didn’t call out George Allen and specifically mention body armor.
No, I am noting that this ad has no factual basis that I’ve been able to determine. The claim that Allen killed a body-armor amendment is, as far as I can tell, unsubstantiated.
What drives me insane is Republicans utilizing institutional perquisites to create situations to tar Dems, like the ‘Murtha bill’ that wasn’t actually by Murtha, or holding voting open to pass a bill, or raising flag desecretion amendments, or redistricting.
Democrats don’t do redistricting? I’d bring that one back if I were you. The party in power does redistricting while they’re in power, and redistricting done by Republicans accomplishes exactly the same thing as redistricting done by Democrats.
If you’re complaining that the Republicans have pursued redistricting to greater effect, I might consider that a point.
Most of the other things are less sneaky-and-evil than just plain stupid; either way, fair points of contention.
There are a lot of other possibilities that I think would be just as problematic for Allen
But none of those are problematic. Again, as far as I can tell, there’s absolutely no detailing of what that $1.048 billion was destined for. Neither is there any way to assess whether funding for general supplies was not taken care of in any of the various budget supplementals.
So, in summary: a) there’s no wording at all that I have been able to discover that any of the money was to be spent on body armor, and b) if Landrieu didn’t bother to mention it, you can’t reasonably expect those who opposed the amendment to read her mind.
I did visit the kos link. kos has, so far, been remarkably unsuccessful in assessing what’s going to be effective in politics. This is tactics, not morals. kos is, by appearances, decrying Republican tactics while advocating adopting those same tactics. To which I say: eh? Anyone doing the above is utilizing moral commentary solely as a tactic.
Which hearkens me back to some different sorts of hypocrisy discussed upthread.
Of course, I could have that all wrong. And of course, it may be just spiffy to use tactics that you hold as amoral against people you believe to be amoral, but I think that’s a highly flawed idea.
lily,
Rest assured, I am not blind to the appalling choice of rhetoric used by many on the right side of the political spectrum. If it seems I turn a blind eye to that, it is only because I see no profit in ‘preaching to the choir’ by pointing out that which is patently obvious to the ObWings commentariat.
Anarch,
My apologies, let me try to be clearer. (Doubtless a vain hope. 😉 My objection to chickenhawk is that, unlike comments like ‘failure’ and ‘incompetence,’ chickenhawk has too many connotations to be used effectively. Conceding your particular definition of chickenhawk, I have seen far too many other people utilize it as an all-purpose slur against those who support the war without rushing out to enlist. The term is simply too broad to be used effectively (much like ‘fascist,’ which in current political discourse appears to mean simply something people don’t like). If you say that the administration was incompetent in its prosecution of the war, you can move directly into a discussion of those instances of incompetence. If, on the other hand, you throw out the ‘chickenhawk’ accusation, you immediately turn off a sizable fraction of your readership who see the term as a slur based on past uses, and even those who stick with you will need some explanation as to the provenance of the term (as we’ve seen in this post). It has the effect of shutting down debate rather than encouraging it. I therefore speak out against it. As I said, we all have our windmills to tilt at.
Finally, I will note that while I would like to encourage civility, I also see a practical aspect to this. As soon as certain words appear in discourse, people start to tune out. If the goal is to convince others, using such terms is counterproductive.
I’m not sure where one finds ‘proof’ sufficient to convince. Landrieu proposed the legislation, Allen voted against it. Maybe Allen should have written his own legislation instead of trying to steal Durbin’s.
If you’re complaining that the Republicans have pursued redistricting to greater effect, I might consider that a point.
‘pursued redistricting to greater effect‘ Charming way of putting it.
As far as moral commentary (and italics are concerned), we have a Democratic amendment here that Allen (and all the other republicans) voted tp table that was to fund unfunded equipment requirements. Jon Henke notes ‘Needless to say, that advertisement is as big a lie as the claims that Kerry ’voted against protecting the troops’, which suggests a certain order of events. You acknowledge yourself that it is ‘tactics’. Allen deserves the same benefit of the doubt that Kerry got. And the notion that Kos ‘decries’ the Republican tactics is a bit strange, as he says
Republicans are masters of building the “narrative”. They don’t throw these kinds of numbers at voters and expect to move them their direction. They build a narrative based on their (positive) values and their opponent’s (negative) ones.
It sounds like you are the only one clutching your pearls here. My feeling is basically of watching the class bully get beaten up by the kid he always picked on. This ad is not going to make things any lower than they already are. This is the world that SwiftBoatVets brought us, don’t blame me for just pointing out that this is the way it is. That’s just my opinion, so take this as simply an observation.
Henke says ‘Allen voted for a great many armor bills; he also voted against one bill that had an armor appropriation tucked into it so deep that the sponsor didn’t even mention it.’ So, give us some numbers. Tell us which bills he felt covered what Landreiu’s proposal covered. But Allen’s counter attack is to get “five female U.S. Naval Academy graduates on Wednesday said Webb fostered an air of hostility and harassment for them with a magazine article he wrote in 1979.” (link) Good luck with that, George
At any rate, no one has pointed to any democratic links to the ad group, but since the vote against the amendment was party line (and Zell Miller, though I repeat myself), it is going to get run against Republicans.
I would also point out that the line that Webb has the same flaws as Allen (which surfaced after the Macaca debacle) takes a rather ironic tinge.
Finally, all this talk about hypocrisy directly after I point out to my previous discussions and musings about the topic, while surely unintentional, gives the impression, because of its close juxtaposition, of ascribing such notions to me. I’m sure that someone can feel strongly about hypocrisy in this case, but those feelings aren’t necessarily going to persuade me that hypocrisy is going to prevent the Dems from taking back the House or the Senate, unless you can make an argument that hypocrisy is an election losing strategy that has damaged the Republicans so badly that the Dems would never want to consider it. For that, you would need to list some examples of hypocrisy that have backfired on the Republicans. Given that we are talking about Allen, I don’t think you will be able to use Trent Lott though…
Andrew: I think at this point we’re now saying the same thing, so I’m going to disagree with you on principle (:
Anarch,
Well, I wouldn’t know what to do if someone agreed with me on this forum, so that’s probably a good thing. 😉
I see by this comment at Instapundit that Porphy is OK, although it’s not clear whether he is back from Iraq. James is an example of a right wing blogger who did enlist and serve. His complaint about progressives who couldn’t lend more than tepid support to elections in Iraq is the flip side of the “chickenhawk” complaint.
Well, I wouldn’t know what to do if someone agreed with me on this forum
I agree!
(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
*offers Friday afternoon donut and coffee*
I’m not sure where one finds ‘proof’ sufficient to convince. Landrieu proposed the legislation, Allen voted against it.
Yes, but read the legislation. All that can be said about it is that it’s for some unspecified stuff.
Charming way of putting it.
You mentioned redistricting; I simply pointed out that redistricting has been pursued by both parties. If you’d said redistricting in Texas, I might have had a different response. I suppose I might have heard Admiral Ackbar whispering in my ear, there.
You acknowledge yourself that it is ‘tactics’.
Everything is tactics. Not everything has to be evaluated strictly in terms of tactical merits, though.
This ad is not going to make things any lower than they already are.
Ok, then. Well, that was never my point. If this is you admitting that the ad was deceptive and possibly an outright lie, we’re done.
The Pentagon’s 12-Step Program to Create a Military of Misfits
and the whiskey bar take on it Be all you can be
I think it’s time for the supporters of this war to put up or shut up.
From the ad: “Senator George Allen voted against giving our troops this [holding up body armor]”.
From the ad: “Senator George Allen voted against giving our troops this [holding up body armor]”.
I don’t see any lie in there. The resolution said unfunded equipment requirements for the National Guard, a bunch of guys who got deployed said that they didn’t get the proper body armor. I see a simple juxtaposition. Why do you insist on looking at this deeper than that? As you said, everything is tactics. If you think this is going to backfire, I’d love to know why you think so. You could do it historically, by telling me exactly how this has blown up in Republicans faces, or you could complain to the organization that ran the ad, VoteVets.org. Or you could complain to this guy, maybe Von might know him. Or you could complain a little more vigorously when loser-defeatist or traitor are deployed here.
You seem to feel that it is an ‘outright’ lie, (which is a step further than saying that you don’t know what the 1 billion was supposed to buy, I should add) and I don’t. There’s not much else to discuss about this, unless you want to keep sliding sly ad homs about me saying such outright lies are ok. I don’t think it is an ‘outright’ lie or even a lie, so the fact that I don’t protest about this ad shouldn’t permit the insinuation that I am ‘admitting that the ad was deceptive and possibly an outright lie’, unless you are claiming that I am lying about what I believe. Or you might want to use question marks instead.
At any rate, I have a feeling that this is going to be like British weather, you don’t like this one, wait 15 minutes, you might like what comes next. The organization tried presenting a laundry list of problems with Santorum, but they seem to have decided that going bill by bill and amendment by amendment will be a bit more impactful, and I agree. I also think that Allen was carefully chosen because they could have chosen any Republican voting to table the amendment. It would be interesting to discuss why they chose Allen (I think closeness to DC media market, Allen’s campaign doesn’t seem to light on their feet, Allen is not the most nimble politician you’ve seen, weighing in in a race where the opponent is James Webb prevents some attacks) Hey, it’s all tactics. But if you want to do X (where X is something that everyone on this list is horrified by), we’re done.
Yep, the ad is unfair. It’s also very effective. And given that this administration has been maintaining its support largely on its willingness to exploit our military and their families I don’t see any reason why our veterans should not fight back with their own spin. The Republicans in power are not pro-military, only pro-use-of-force, and the people bearing the brunt of it are starting to push back. Hard.
ALAMEDA
Car bomb kills 52-year-old reservist in Afghanistan Merideth Howard is oldest female casualty in both wars
What will it take to shame the young Republicans who supported this war & voted for this administration into joining the fight?
a bunch of guys who got deployed said that they didn’t get the proper body armor
Which guys were those? And how did they know they didn’t get the proper body armor because this amendment got rejected?
You could do it historically
See, after this point we’re way off the topic of whether this ad is fabrication, and more onto whether it’s asymmetrical warfare, so to speak. The point I’m making is that it’s fabrication. Again, it’s possible that it’s not a fabrication, but if that’s the case the evidence is very well-hidden.
And no, I’m not becoming a crusader for media truth and justice, just looking at this one case. I don’t have the stomach or the time to look into each and every case.
Slart: I had thought appropriations for a given year were worked in the year prior. Otherwise you’re trying figure out what to spend money on in the middle of the spend cycle. Probably, though, my surprise is due to ignornace, as I suggested.
My comment was, unusually, an effort to support your point: that this should cause surprise and disapproval.
Up until recently, appropriations were decided in the year prior to their being spent. Now, sometimes even authorizations are undetermined well into the year, and appropriations just barely pass in time to start the next fiscal cycle.
Slarti: The point I’m making is that it’s fabrication.
And what part of it are you asserting is untrue? Are you saying Senator Allen didn’t vote against the funding? Or that you know for a fact that the funding didn’t in any way relate to National Guards in Iraq not getting the proper body armor?
And no, I’m not becoming a crusader for media truth and justice
I don’t think anyone said you were.
, just looking at this one case. I don’t have the stomach or the time to look into each and every case.
Of course not. Looking into each and every case would mean looking at the ads where Republicans told lies, instead of one where a vet organization tells an uncomfortable truth about a Republican. I can see why you wouldn’t have the stomach to do that.
Wow.
Is there anyone around with too much time and good enough mathmatical modelling skills who can build a model for predicting which blog threads will go on forever?
Obviously, Allen did vote against the Landrieu amendment. What that amendment was for is another question entirely. Wes Clark seems to know, though; maybe someone can ask him.
For some reason I had thought that Allen was a libertarian. Not that I, you know, care. And not that it matters.
Unless it’s your contention that it does matter. It’d be interesting to hear why, if so.
Slarti: For some reason I had thought that Allen was a libertarian.
Well, Allen himself seems to think he’s a Republican – as a swift Google would have told you.
And not that it matters.
It is kind of amusing to see you posing as a faux-nonpartisan, but only kind of, for reasons already given. You’re a Republican, Slarti: you take the side of your own party. You’ve done so for years, and you do so now: why this pose? Do you hope to deceive newcomers?
New information just sort of bounces off, doesn’t it?
The idiocy about “my party” aside, though, tell me why you think it matters.
So, I wonder how many times Jesurgislac will have to be told in front of everyone that Slarti is no longer a registered Republican before she decides to stop lying about it?
Nell:
I’d just like to say that this point is difficult to over-emphasize. If one doesn’t understand the history of the College Republicans of the past thirty/forty years, one is absolutely clueless about the Republican Party, how it works, where the movers and shakers came from, what their history is, and where their ethics were formed.
We’re talking Karl Rove, Lee Atwater, Jack Abramoff, Grover Nordquist, Ralph Reed, and the rest of the crew, as well as those who have come up since, and those coming up now.
If one doesn’t know this history to some degree, one is incompetent to discuss American politics of the past couple of decades.
See here,
See here.
Here:
Here’s what they like:
Robert Parry:
You can confirm this info from a million less partisan sources.
Back in the day:
On and on and on. This is, like, basic knowlege about the modern Republican Party, Republican Party 101.
Be sure not to miss this, along with the rest of the full stories at the other links. And I, or anyone, could go on and on.
Can some American explain this to me?
Slartibartfast is still, plainly, notably, loyal to the Republican party. He may well have changed his voter registration, but his reaction to seeing Republicans justly criticised is as prompt and kneejerk as it ever was, and, as I recall, when discussing his voting intentions, he thought he was most likely either to vote Republican or to abstain. (I may be misremembering that last, or Slarti may not have been clear, or both.)
So, why is he claiming he isn’t a Republican any more, since as far as I can see, he’s as much of a Republican as he ever was, voter registration or not.
Well, not everyone. 🙂
Welcome back, Gary. You’ve been missed.
“The party in power does redistricting while they’re in power”
In point of fact, in Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Jersey and Washington, it’s done by independent bipartisan commission. Here is a state-by-state guide. Here is another.
Andrew: “My objection to chickenhawk is that, unlike comments like ‘failure’ and ‘incompetence,’ chickenhawk has too many connotations to be used effectively.”
I agree, and as well, it tends to imply that decisions about use of the military in the U.S. should be restricted to those with military experience, which is an essentially fascistic idea, and I don’t understand how anyone can use the term without having thought that through.
Andrew: “Well, I wouldn’t know what to do if someone agreed with me on this forum, so that’s probably a good thing.”
Uh-oh.
LJ: “impactful”
Arrgh.
“Can some American explain this to me?”
I wouldn’t try to “explain” Slarti particularly, because I only know what I read, and that only offers a veritable sliver of insight, particularly given how cryptic Slart typically tends to be, and how close he tends to hold his cards to his chest.
I’d venture to guess — and that’s all it is — though, that what might possibly be something along the lines of what goes on with his positions is that he once was something of a Republican, with relatively little actual knowledge of the Party and its modern movers and shakers, their history and methodology and actual positions, but based on the vague cover story positions that Reagan popularized: smaller government, less taxes, strong defense, more freedom and individualism, that sort of thing.
And that since then, he’s recognized that things aren’t quite that way and has formally renounced whatever degree of Republicanism, or at least general tendency towards some alignment with positions he perceived as traditional Republican positions, but still hasn’t looked very far into the actual details of modern Republicans insofar as the actual facts of the personnel, their history, positions, ethics, procedures, and so on, and so continues to respond with his familiar reflexes.
I stress again that this is purely speculation, based on very little actual information, and may be wildly wrong, and I also hope he doesn’t find said speculation overly rude or intrusive or un-called-for.
Thanks for the CR links there, Gary; I got unexpectedly busy (i.e. I finally figured out what was bugging me with my research) and I wouldn’t have been able to get to that for another few days.
Anarch: “Thanks for the CR links there, Gary;”
Andrew: “Welcome back, Gary. You’ve been missed.”
I live to serve.
I might also have emphasized the other point Nell mentioned, which is that Young Democrats organizations are largely irrelevant and meaningless to the larger Democratic Party; there’s no parallel at all.
If only Republicans were as organized in running the government as they are in running for office.
I don’t understand how anyone can use the term without having thought that through.
In my case because I dispute the connection between the use of the term and the idea that the President must have prior military experience. Not just in terms of personal belief, but that the one ineluctably implies the other.
Although that raises an interesting point: can anyone name another liberal democracy where some kind of military service is seen as an almost-essential prerequisite for high office? I can’t think of a single example of the Brits, Canadians or Aussies cleaving to that distinction; nor the Germans (well, duh), the Japanese (ditto), the French (kind of a duh there too), nor any other European country, nor India, nor Thailand (if we expand the notion of democracy somewhat) nor, well, any country that isn’t functionally a dictatorship. Am I missing something obvious here or is this a specifically American trope?
Andrew: you have no idea how many times I’ve said that the past five years…
Anarch: Israel.
“Anarch: Israel.”
That’s kinda an unfair comparison, given that to not serve in the military in Israel, you have to be either extremely religious and not want to, or not Jewish and not want to, or immigrated at a late age, or otherwise be an exception to mandatory service.
This is very different from living in a country without mandatory military service, of course.
I was thinking far more of the use of “chickenhawk” against members of Congress, and bloggers, and in general, than in the sole, by definition exceptional, case of the President, actually, Anarch.
I’ve been in this discussion a zillion times before, of course. I don’t object at all to specific individuals being criticized for dodging service, yet advocating lots of military interventions (*cough*, Cheney, *cough*), but I agree completely with Andrew that tossing around a vague term like “chickenhawk” offers far more heat than light, practically tends to shut down persuasive conversation with the non-converted, and is generally counter-productive.
As a datapoint, I’m extremely unimpressed whenever someone uses it, for whatever little that’s worth. But I’m quite sure I’m hardly alone in that.
Attack on the issue, not by throwing a sloppy term and thinking that will do the job. I really don’t think it will do the job.
Gary:
Roughly correct; some errors, but small enough not to be worth arguing about. How can the truth offend?
Previous comment referred to this, to clarify.
Slart: “How can the truth offend?”
With many people, in various circumstances, worst of all.
Yeah, that was just about what I thought, right after I hit “Post”. Probably this would have offended if I didn’t acknowledge it to be true, to myself.
Odd, how that works.
can anyone name another liberal democracy where some kind of military service is seen as an almost-essential prerequisite for high office? I can’t think of a single example of the Brits, Canadians or Aussies cleaving to that distinction
Although the interesting thing is that the British royal family has a very strong history of military service, specifically including combat service.
I knew impactful would draw Gary out. It’s a gift, I tell you, a gift…
You know, the reason that the chickenhawk retains such power is that in the US, military service implies sacrifice and devotion and thus provided an unbeatable moral high ground, especially as the US system of electing officials became more and more populist. Starting with Andrew Jackson, then moving to Harrison at Tippicanoe, Lincoln in the Black Hawk war, Jefferson Davis*, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, McKinley and Harrison from the Civil War, Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, Truman* from WW1, Eisenhower, JFK, Bush 1 (and don’t forget the campaign to draft McArthur as a presidential candidate), the blurring of such service with Reagan and you’ve got a pretty solid background that can easily be filled in with other offices and other candidates (John Glenn’s run, the fact that Kerry and Dole got the nod), so it seems to me that military service has always been lurking as an unstated prerequisite for higher office. Thus, ‘chickenhawk’ strikes at a very particular nerve in the body politic. While I agree with Gary and Andrew on the (lack of) applicability to the vague charge of chickenhawk, it seems that trying to disqualify the term completely is a bit like demanding that the opposing team get a three run lead before the game starts.
on the (lack of) applicability to the vague charge of chickenhawk
Sorry, since Gary’s here, I guess I need to proofread more. Translation, Gary and Andrew have a point, but sometimes, attempts to make a total disqualification of the word chickenhawk seem like more like attempts to avoid the difficult questions about our current military situation than attempts to preserve civility.
I did star the people who I thought Gary might take objection to being on the list, but got too tired to spell those out.
“I did star the people who I thought Gary might take objection to being on the list, but got too tired to spell those out.”
I don’t object in the slightest to Truman being on the list; he got endless political mileage out of Battery D. It’s highly unlikely he would have been elected to the Senate without that experience. Being a failed haberdasher doesn’t tend to impress people.
Ditto Jefferson Davis. He graduated from West Point, for goodness sakes! He fought in the Blackhawk War, among other assignments.
Then, after resigning after several years of service, he returned to military service in the Mexican-American War, was colonel of his regiment, fought in battles, and was shot in the foot. Polk offered him a brigade, which he turned down!
Later he was Franklin Pierce’s Secretary of War. I don’t understand how anyone would claim this was insignificant in his political career.
Phil- Jes wasn’t lying, Slarti does with every breath he takes though.
Andrew and Anarch- The Republicans are just as organized running the government as they are in running for office. They just have a different idea about what government is for; emptying the treasury and filling their pockets.
LJ- I thougth Jes had a good point with: “yes, name-calling elevates the debate in the same way as someone crawling along the sidewalk is elevated above someone splashing about in the sewers.” except I would say that calling Republicans chickenhawk is ordinary street level politics, whereas the Republicans dig ruts in the bottoms of the sewers.
“Phil- Jes wasn’t lying, Slarti does with every breath he takes though.”
Both of these would seem to be posting rules violations, though the latter infinitely larger.
Frank: posting rules violation, as well as being wrong. You have been warned. Don’t do it again.
Slarti does with every breath he takes though.
On the in-breath or the out-breath? Maybe Slart only ever posts here during the opposite breath.
Maybe we can get him to hold his breath and post “this statement is a lie”.
I thought that one might object to saying that Truman got to be president because of his military service, or that Jefferson Davis wasn’t actually President of the USA, but of the CSA, since I was just listing Presidents. Or maybe I was just trying to figure out where ‘impactful’ came from ;^)
“I thought that one might object to saying that Truman got to be president because of his military service, or that Jefferson Davis wasn’t actually President of the USA, but of the CSA….”
I hadn’t thought we were discussing only Presidents, or just of the U.S., since I’d already said that’s not who I had primarily in mind, and since you mentioned Davis, Glenn, Kerry, and Dole.
(I’d be more inclined to asterisk that Glenn got to the Senate via his Mercury First American In Orbit flight, not particularly his military service, per se, but that it did him squat in his presidential run. And of course Kerry’s service wound up almost a liability, due to his lack of swift response to Swift-boating. Dole probably helped counteract his service with his “Democrat wars” remark, although I think that larger factors were that a) WWII was a long time ago by then; b) military service has obviously been helpful, not compelling; c) he was a lousy Presidential candidate in general.)
Yeah, Truman didn’t get to be President because of his military service (obviously, but more to the point, it wasn’t a big deal in his re-election), but as I said, he wouldn’t have gotten to the Senate without it, I’m sure. Though also not because of it.
Military service has been a helpful gain to sufficiency in getting elected to office, but it being the primary factor has been considerably less frequent.
And it’s notable that the current generation in Congress is considerably less filled with veterans than at most times in our history, though there are still a noticeable number. For obvious reasons, the overwhelming majority of new candidates in ’46, ’48, and ’50, were vets. Even supply clerks like Nixon, who never saw a shot fired in anger (though he played a good hand of poker during the war).
Well, I since I listed only presidential candidacies, I thought I might get busted on that point. At any rate, I’m hard pressed to think of another country where military service is so much a standard part of the resume. Part of it is because American has eschewed a professional army like one of England or France. Looking at the numbers, it seems less like a helpful gain, and almost (but not quite) a necessary but insufficient aspect. Almost.
I do believe that part of the reason why the current generation in Congress has fewer veterans is not simply because of the shift to a volunteer professional force, but because ROTC programs were pushed out of universities, which I think was a mistake, because it reduced the possibility of adding a more liberal component of people to the armed forces.
“Part of it is because American has eschewed a professional army like one of England or France.”
Um, hmm? What do you mean?
I think a big part of it, in the 20th century and after, is that the U.S. didn’t particularly suffer during either WWI or WWII.
And in Britain, in the 19th century, the military officership was usually relegated to the 2nd or 3rd son, or for the dumber one, who wasn’t deemed able to make it in more prestigious professions. And Parliament was overwhelmingly upper-class, though of course the real upper crust were restricted to the Lords (or renouncing their title).
“I do believe that part of the reason why the current generation in Congress has fewer veterans is not simply because of the shift to a volunteer professional force, but because ROTC programs were pushed out of universities, which I think was a mistake, because it reduced the possibility of adding a more liberal component of people to the armed forces.”
I agree, except that you’re reversing cause and effect. ROTC programs were pushed out during Vietnam, which is also when liberals and the center-left started to largely separate out from viewing the military positively, and the great cultural divide between civilians in general, but particularly liberal ones, and military culture, was cemented with the end of the draft.
An awfully high, though I don’t have a measure handy, percentage of liberals started to simply lack any sympathy with, or understanding of, the military, per se. We had some discussion of this here not long ago, though I left in the middle.
But “the shift to a volunteer professional force” was also a huge part of why we have fewer politicians who are veterans.
“Part of it is because American has eschewed a professional army like one of England or France.”
Um, hmm? What do you mean?
My understanding is that the US model has traditionally been to have a smaller standing professional army that was augmented by draft/volunteers in times of war. On the other hand, England famously thought that the BEF would be able to handle the Germans not once but twice. Admittedly, the nature of modern war tends to obscure this, but one of the most poignant parts of the US Civil war is the fact that people who fought together were standing on opposite sides.
Also, it is an important point that politics was (and still is to a certain extent) confined to the upper class in the UK. One could suggest that while Brits sent the dumber son into the military, Americans sent them into politics. (I think that is related to a observation, maybe by Gore Vidal?)
Reversing cause and effect, possibly, but the fight about maintaining/permitting ROTC programs wasn’t, I think, simply a follow on from Vietnam, but an item that could have been separately considered, which it wasn’t.
I remember the conversation on liberal perceptions of military service, but I don’t think I participated because it seems to have precisely the same problems that any argumentation about the beliefs of a larger group of people, in that it tends to cause more problems than it clarifies. Plus the fact that I’m not really sure how I feel about the military. FWIW
“My understanding is that the US model has traditionally been to have a smaller standing professional army that was augmented by draft/volunteers in times of war.”
Ah. Yes, historically, that’s entirely true.
“On the other hand, England famously thought that the BEF would be able to handle the Germans not once but twice.”
Gosh, but that’s wildly wrong, though.
First of all, in WWI, the BEF was never, ever, ever, ever, ever, thought capable of “handling” the Germans. The role of Britain and military involvement in Europe had always essentially been that it would counter any international aspect of a European war with the Navy, and blockades, while contributing relatively small forces on land to an overall alliance. Thus it was against Napolean, and thus it was originally intended at the start of both WWI and WWII.
In WWI, of course, the war which was intended by all to be over by Christmas turned, as everyone knows, into an endless meat-grinder stalemate, overall, and each attempt to outflank resulted in fairly short order, for the most part, into meat-grinder stalemate again (save for outlying events that didn’t change the center of gravity of the war, such as the Arab Revolt, battles in Africa, and so on). Britain did then raise a large draft Army, but also was unable, even in concert with France, and unsteady and faltering ally Russia (I won’t run through the full list of allies; it would be tedious), to win against Germany and its allies, although it’s extremly arguable that they were on the way to finally doing so at the very end even without the clincher of America entering the war.
And in WWII, the original plans, such as they were when it became clear there would be war, during and prior to the Polish crisis, and after the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, was to have no ground forces at all in Europe, leaving that to the massive French Army, and, they hoped, other allies.
In that year before the war, it became evident that the couple of divisions Britain had would have to be committed to Europe after all (and that it seemed unlikely there would be help from the other nations of the Empire, or at least that such could be counted on, unlike in WWI), but a couple of divisions was trivial compared to the hundreds both France and Germany had.
I’ve been meaning to blog this monograph for some time (a couple of weeks or more), and really should; it’s excellent on what “appeasement” meant, and why Munich is a rotten analogy for any other situation, including Iraq, Iran, and other contemporary ones, and it also has some good stuff, as an essential part of that, on Britain’s WWII war plans, so I commend it to your attention.
As it mentions:
I really should blog it; I’m embarrassed that I’ve forgotten which fairly prominent blog called it to my attention, though. (Anyone remember?)
Anyone, the point is that, essentially, in modern times, the 20th century and some part of the late 19th, both Britain and the U.S. were reasonably similar in policy of having a small professional Army, with a plan to use that as cadres for rapid expansion in true major wartime, which is why I wondered what distinction you were drawing by writing that “Part of it is because American has eschewed a professional army like one of England or France,”; I’m afraid I’m still baffled at what distinction you were intending to draw.
“…the fight about maintaining/permitting ROTC programs wasn’t, I think, simply a follow on from Vietnam, but an item that could have been separately considered, which it wasn’t.”
Well, yes. That was part of my point.
“Plus the fact that I’m not really sure how I feel about the military.”
This seems to imply that you’re in conflict. Just out of curiosity, and to be a trouble-maker (:-)), can you briefly outline the essence of your conflict?
(Certainly I think few would disagree that war is terrible, and so is killing; many, including I, would say that being prepared to engage in it is still, unfortunately, necessary at times, though obviously some disagree, and, of course, the true devil always comes in the specifics. It should also, I’d certainly agree, be a very last resort.)
“Thus it was against Napolean”
Whoever he was. Also against Napoleon.
Anyway, the point I may have still not stated clearly enough above is that the British plan was also to have a small professional Army, which expanded massively with the draft, and this was also precisely the same structure the French Army had prior to, and then during, WWII, while they thought it.
Since America, Britain, and France, all had that same model, I don’t know what distinction you are drawing in observing that America had this model, which made it, you say, different than France and Britain. Thus my huh, wha?
In WWI, of course, the war which was intended by all to be over by Christmas
When I said ‘the BEF would be able to handle it’, I didn’t mean whip all comers, sorry if I left that impression, but, as you say, that a small professional army in conjunction with an intelligent foreign policy, would be adequate. Britain didn’t start conscription until April 39 and the war began in Sept. Also, it took place in incremental stages, so the first was just men between 19-21, then increased to 20-23 in Oct, and then, after the fall of France, took on the characteristics we think of. (a small aside, when my grandfather, who served in the Black Watch regiment in WWI, was called up to serve in the Territorial Army, he took the call up notice and gave it to my uncle, who had the same name. My uncle was 16, I think, and he said that was when he had his first pint. He later ended up in the RAF).
You are right that the characteristic of France is conscription, but the nature of it seems to mitigate against requiring candidates for high office to serve, unless it was to torture Algerians (sorry, just Mitterand snark there) While Napoleon was the first to initiate the draft, that was in response to the threats that France felt because it was the center of revolutionary thought, and certainly, the other countries of Europe during that time were not too happy about the notion of exporting the ideals of the French Revolution. Thinking about other countries, none seem to have the necessity(-ish) of having military service on the political resume that exists in the US, with the possible exception of Germany, though for obvious reasons that was a bit disincentivized post 1945.
can you briefly outline the essence of your conflict?
Not sure. There’s equal slices of service and passing on service in my family tree and there is a great suspicion of discipline, especially military. As a kid, I thought (like a lot of other kids that age) that being is the military was something special, and entertained the childhood thoughts about going into the military, and spent huge amounts of time reading military histories, playing war games, making models, but very bad vision at a very early age knocked out the options that I imagined. And as I’ve gotten the stories from relatives, it certainly takes the gloss off those childhood dreams (just two quick ones, my uncle was drafted and served in Korea. Wounded by shrapnel that he still carries around, he was supposed to be choppered out, and heard one of the orderlies say something to the effect of ‘take the gook last’, which provoked a stream of profanity from him that made them realize that he was an American casualty, another is the efforts of my mom to find her step brother who, after my English grandmother was widowed, was adopted by her husband’s relatives in Alabama and ended up a navigator of a B-17 that we always understood went down on a raid on St. Lazaire, but when my mother started looking into it a few years ago, there were differing accounts given, but trying to get the original records, she was told they were destroyed in a fire and still several things don’t really add up (Trent Lott’s office was very helpful, which is why I hesitate a bit on pouncing on him))
So, I am a bit embarassed by my childhood fascination, but I am also aware of the tendency you point out about liberals not understanding the military, so I’m worried if I was fooled as a kid, or if I am just reacting as a liberal now. Really hard to tell. Being from the South, I know and have 1 degree of separation from a lot of people in the military, and so I can still burrow into a military history, or be interested in a campaign in a way that seems a bit unhealthy. (I’m also think that part of my rather blase reaction to the Allen commercial is the fact that it is generated by people who served recently, though that is no guarantee that they are right, I know) I do know that if there were something like what rilkefan says in his 8:59, assuming that it was run well, I would feel drawn to it, though obviously, being in Japan with a family and a mortgage, I can’t say I would drop everything to do it. Probably a lot more than you wanted to know, but there you have it.
Sorry. Errors and my failure to preview caused the beginning of my comment to be discarded.
I was responding to lj’s she was told [the original records] were destroyed in a fire.
lj,
I’m not Gary, but I’m still going to react to your inclusion of Lincoln on the list of candidates helped by military service. Lincoln served as a volunteer for a whopping 60 days during the Black Hawk War, never saw combat, and didn’t both to volunteer for a second tour after his first 60 days was up. I find it difficult to believe that was a factor in his gaining the GOP nomination in 1860.
“I find it difficult to believe that was a factor in his gaining the GOP nomination in 1860.”
And yet it was a small factor.
For instance:
Here:
Of course, Lincoln as President also mocked the idea of military service as politically relevant, as that was in his interest, given the number of generals who desired to run against him, and he was doing this earlier, given how many Democrats were in the militia, using his own experience, as was typical, to mock.
For instance:
Since we haven’t defined what a “factor” is, whether his service was or was not is debatable, to be sure.
It’s fair to say, I think, that military service wasn’t as politically important prior to the Civil War as after, but on the other hand definitionally the early American politicians were all revolutionaries, and Andy Jackson was elected President on the basis of his generalship.
LJ: thanks for your elaboration on your feelings on the military.
“Thinking about other countries, none seem to have the necessity(-ish) of having military service on the political resume that exists in the US, with the possible exception of Germany, though for obvious reasons that was a bit disincentivized post 1945.”
It’s odd to read this in present tense, since there’s obviously no such “necessity” in the U.S., and hasn’t been since the WWII generation of politicians, which is to say over forty years. Neither was WWI service ever a “necessity.”
Basically, we’ve had in some 230+ years, two periods of about 20 years — post Civil War and post WWII — where a huge proportion of national politicians were vets, and that’s it. What is this “necessity” you speak of in American history?
On the contrary; I always value Frank’s insightful and intelligent commentary.
Well, as you noted, for the US, the civil war marked a turning point, and I feel that this has been the underlying notion (if you put on some poignant folk music and slowly allow your gaze to move across the computer screen for the Ken Burns effect while reading this, it will be a lot more convincing :^))
(and the current absence of a ‘necessity’ is based on a lot of conflicted feelings about Vietnam that, as the conflict recedes, then to get forgotten, which is why you had so many people wax poetic about Bush’s Mission Accomplished bs, or why the images of a president as a former soldier (Harrison Ford, Bill Pullman) end up being key points on which popular movies turn)
But, to flesh this out on the fly, the Civil War was the first war that utilized the kind of mechanisms required for a war that was industrial and not completely supported by the populace, that relied on a level of nationalism and propaganda about purposes. To return to the question way way back, why is it that the notion of chickenhawk is such a sensitive one and one that requires so much discussion? I’d suggest that it isn’t that it is simply a vague word, cause there are tons of vague words that get thrown around that don’t evince the same reaction. You may come back and suggest that loser-defeatist and traitor are two that get the same reaction, but I’m thinking that loser-defeatist is one that has arisen a lot later, while traitor isn’t the same. Also, I don’t think the notion has an currency in other countries, so I would suggest that theree must be some aspect that is a wrinkle in US history and the one that seems obvious is an underlying demand for military service that arose after the Civil War.
I also think it is interesting (but not surprising) that chickenhawk’s older etymology is sexual and pejorative and suggests why it will be a lot harder for the US to have a female president than a lot of other countries, though again, your mileage may vary on that. It might also explain why a politician in a strong position is often described (as a bad taste joke) as only going to lose if found in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.
Chickenhawk seems to be a particularly potent epitaph that strikes at a peculiarly American notion of public service, and that’s just my suggestion at trying to explain it. It’s why two James Stewart movies, _The man who shot Liberty Valence_ and _It’s a Wonderful life_ have a particular kind of resonance with Americans, because they both question that notion that martial ability are necessary in determining the worth of a person.
But all this is just very very late night philosophizing on my part and should be taken with the same amount of salt that one would take with any college freshman bull session.
Got an error posting this the first time, apologies if this doubles.
“_The man who shot Liberty Valence_”
An electrifying role for Stewart, but would you say more of a positive or negative character?
Stewart’s character was the lead, so I’d say he was pretty positive. He was the guy who helped get the territory to statehood and was still serving as a senator.
Of course, he got to do all that because people believed he had more martial experience than he did…
“Of course, he got to do all that because people believed he had more martial experience than he did…”
Well, yeah. It’s been an awfully long time since I’ve seen it, so the details aren’t remotely fresh in my mind, but as I recall, the entire point of the film is that he’s not really what he seems, that he’s not “the man who shot Liberty Valance.”
And being the lead is hardly the measure of being a good guy (“positive”). One would hardly say that of The Godfather, to name just one example. I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of the anti-hero.
Gary,
That was kind of my point. Stewart’s character is believed to be the man who shot Liberty Valance, and that’s what set his career in motion. And if it’s been a long time since you last saw it, you should watch it again. It’s a great film.
And yes, I realize the lead isn’t always the hero. But we’re talking about Jimmy Stewart here. Trust me, he was the hero. It’s one of my favorite films, and he’s the hero. John Wayne is the anti-hero.
“And yes, I realize the lead isn’t always the hero. But we’re talking about Jimmy Stewart here.”
It’s a fascinating oddity of Stewart’s persona that he, in fact, played numerous truly dark characters, but people think of him as nothing but a cheery, upbeat, almost saccharine fellow.
Even It’s A Wonderful Life gets dismissed as a saccarine, Frank Capra, film, by most people, who completely miss how dark much of it is (and other Capra films can be.) I mean, it’s a film about a guy who’s so frustrated and bitter that he tries to kill himself.
Here is a good — and accurate — piece on the subject from just the other week.
I do mean to watch Liberty Valance again; I miss the days when broadcast tv (all I can afford) used to have lots of old movies; unfortunately, my Netflix queue will only let me have 500 films at a time, and it’s filled, with quite a few things left over waiting to get in. (Last night was V For Vendetta; today, Pi: Faith In Chaos, and Pirates of The Carribean, which I’ve not yet seen, standing by.)
would you say more of a positive or negative character?
tough question. I don’t think you can just check positive or negative. Part of me is in love with the notion of John Wayne’s sacrifice, giving up his happiness for the greater good, but what strikes me about Stewart in this movie is that he never deludes himself that he actually did it, something, sadly, that happens far too often.
But also, there is the notion that some lies are necessary for things to move forward, which is another notion that (probably over)fascinates me.
As always, the Wikipedia entry for both Stewart and the movie are quite interesting. The latter notes that the movie had a unique solution for who was advertised as the lead, something that was used for Hoffman and Redford in All the President’s Men.
I knew about Stewart’s war service mentioned in the Slate article, but I didn’t know that he flew in the Scheinfurt raid, which had about 20% of those participating killed nor did I know the info about Stewart and Vietnam.
“tough question.”
More of a pun on your “Valence”/Valance” error, actually.
Sorry, I missed that completely.