Jon Taplin’s Blog

154 responses so far ↓

• Morgan Warstler // March 13, 2008 at 10:01 am

  “Would it be churlish of me to ask what goals? ”

  No sir, here they are…

  1) Increasing their social fabric. They just had elections (that dwarf ours BTW). Passed their first laws, and came up with a way of splitting their oil receipts. Almost anyone over there says things are getting better. I know you’ll accept that analysis, however grudgingly.

  2) Getting ourselves situated in some long term bases. We have bases everywhere, why are you acting like having bases in Iraq is a problem? They are asking us to stay, they are democratically elected, what fool wants to leave entirely? None. Not Obama, not Hillary. I think edwards said, “no bases” but he was pandering.

  Having bases is not leaving. So, we are not leaving. You want to see the fighting stop? Me too. We’re on that path. Why do you disregard the feedback from the boots on the ground guys? You think they are wrong?

  3) Oil prices are higher mainly because of China and India, and the OPEC cartel. It is silly for you to use $27 -> $110 a some war thing.

  Iraq has a fine chance of being the true US / ME friendly with the largest (and cheapest to extract) supply of oil. You’ll be grateful later.

  And please answer me this:

  Are you going to be pro-US in Iraq, if Obama wins and suddenly he says, hey, we’re gonna calm down the fighting, but we’re keeping our bases there?

  You’re a communications guy, you understand debate. How’s about answering the questions asked?

• Morgan Warstler // March 13, 2008 at 10:16 am

  On other question, if god forbid, this thing continues turns out ok, and we actually figure out how to not have a Vietnam on our hands, which country do you want to invade next?

  Is that your fear, that if this one doens’t end in dread, we won’t learn our lesson?

• Clayton // March 13, 2008 at 10:41 am

  Great post, Jon. Always a joy.

• Another Jon // March 13, 2008 at 11:16 am

  Morgan,

  Oh how I remember so succinctly Colin Powel in front of the United Nations holding up that vile of the Iraqi’s “social fabric” decrying how it is our job to increase their oh-so-lowly quantities of this essential substance of civilization OR ELSE. The thing about “communications” is that it is easy to mis-direct and change the expected outcomes in the minds of people with a short memory or attention span. What you stated you wanted to see and what everyone (I think) would like to see is an end to the fighting. The point that Jon and Mr. Polk were making is that history is telling us that the fighting will not stop as long as we are there occupying their country…so let’s not confuse the issue.

  By the way Jon….love the posts. Keep it up.
  Thanks.

• Zhirem // March 13, 2008 at 11:50 am

  Captain Morgan:

  1.) How (please be specific) are we increasing their social fabric? The accounts I have been reading for 5+ years now, and the news reports, and the stated reports of the military seem to indicate a significant amount of the Iraqi population reverting to overt tribalism (political divisions based upon lineage, religious sect, etc.), barbarism (stonings with rocks not weed, beheadings, mutiliations, etc.), and a devolution into increasing lawlessness.

  Thousands of professional-class citizens fleeing their country in order to pursue their livelihoods, or their sexes, or simply to pursue life period?

  Do you mean new threads of a social fabric, in that they are being exposed to other cultures in the form of contract workers being brought in from the Philipines, India et. al, to do manual labor for the Haliburton families of companies?

  2.) How, pray tell, did their elections dwarf ours? Individuals were threatened with bodily harm, death, disfigurement for planning to vote. Families of individuals were threatened with the same.

  3.) Division of oil revenues being a goal you point to, when the plan was proposed, finalized, tweaked to the Nth degree by… (wait for it) … oh, yeah, the Oil Companies? If I am to understand the broader context of the Oil Revenue Sharing program, the Iraqi people get to pay the oil companies for infrastructure and maintenance of same, and get to keep something like 25% of the profits to distribute amongst their citizens while the oil companies net 75%? Now, granted, given your stance on capitalism as evidenced by your comments on this site, that is a helluva deal brokered by some lucky bloke(s), and we should be proud of them for garnering such expected wealth for themselves.

  Now please tell me how this helps the capitalists of Iraq?

  Lastly, how does this thing continue to turn out ok? Are you positing that this whole misadventure has been ok? In what sense please, and for whom?

  As for which country to invade next, I am assuming that you are either a.) joking, b.) maniacally sociopathic, c.) have considerable stocks, options or other interests in the military-industrial complex, or d.) mind-bendingly perceptionless or daft.

  Here is a nice little thought-experiment for you: Say that come November of this year, that China and Russia get together and determine that our elections were flawed, not transparent, and were such a mistake as to require them to invade our country to ‘put things right’ and give the American people back our democracy. Assuming they manage to bring enough guns and boots to take and hold territory in the U.S., and assume please that the market (my precious) responds favorably and rampant uncontrolled (at least perceptibly) capitalism is set to take new hold on our soil. Would you be standing shoulder to shoulder with me saying “Pass the ammunition”, or would you side with our ‘liberators’ in the spirit of free markets and continued booming enterprise?

  I can’t conceive of how you think that the Iraq war in any sense is right, just or moral. If I am to understand correctly, as the economists crunch the numbers, we would have been money ahead to just buy oil on the open market at $200 / barrel. And it looks like we are headed there anyway. If OPEC is filled with good little capitalists like yourself, wouldn’t they be happy to turn their spigots to 11 if we were paying them say, a 50% premium to sell their oil to us in the quantities we want to buy?

  *boggle*

  - Zhirem

• zestypete // March 13, 2008 at 1:15 pm

  Frankly Zhirem, if you were here right now, I’d be offering you a massive high five.

  And Morgan, having bases in a country isn’t the issue. Acting as the default militayr/police force/enforcement agency for the local government is.

• Patrick Freeman // March 13, 2008 at 1:23 pm

  Zhirem, Well-done.

  The great American MSM are still taking guidance from the geniuses in the White House and Pentagon. If troop deaths are down because we’ve flooded Baghdad with US forces, then the surge must be working. Right? Never mind what appears to be happening elsewhere. Never mind that little guy behind the curtain.

• Morgan Warstler // March 13, 2008 at 1:27 pm

  Zhirem,

  Iraqi turnout, even the the face of all those threats you list was 57-72% (dependning on who you ask). So voting was something they were down for…

  Then in February this year, the Iraqi parliment passed its first budget. This was a serious endeavor. Many different factions all represented and passed three measures:

  “1) The 2008 budget.

  2) a law outlining the scope of provincial powers, a crucial aspect of Iraq’s self-definition as a federal state

  3) an amnesty that would apply to thousands of the detainees held in Iraqi jails.”

  That’s not impressive to you? AID groups are getting in. There is less violence. Look things are better.
  —-

  It seems your annoyance is that, if you admit things are better, you don’t get to scream about mistakes made. Let me make it official, you can still scream about mistakes made, now please admit things are better. And since they better, we need not spend so much time listening to “get out now.”

  On oil:

  Oil was always going to be $200, but having oil companies control like 60% of Iraq’s oil fields means full throttle production for the next 20–30 years. It is the anti-OPEC solution. Which means a much better chance to realistically convert to alt.energy. What *boggles* you about that?

• Alex Bowles // March 13, 2008 at 2:00 pm

  Meanwhile, President Bush has simply declared his judgment on Iraq to be ‘forever correct’.

  That’s not a joke. It also explains why, in the infallible judgement of our dear leader, no cost can be to be too high, no risk can be too great, and no dissent can be tolerated.

  Nor does it make historical precedent - no matter how convincing - worth the slightest thing. All you’re going to do is irritate a man who feels like he’s got a free pass from God to operate above the law, and beyond all reason.

  Even the Pope would blush before making the claims like this.

• Morgan Warstler // March 13, 2008 at 2:06 pm

  Bush is the decider!

• STS // March 13, 2008 at 2:09 pm

  Jon,

  The key step in manufacturing consent is to frame the question to ensure an acceptable answer. Hence no mention of “what price” or any details about “what goals.”

  The key step in Republican governance during this decade has been to eliminate the budget constraint. We can have all the tax cuts we want, all the aggressive military foreign policy “we” want, all the prescription drugs through Medicare we want (well almost), all the … well … you get the picture.

  With an eye to the economic horizon, I have a feeling the United States is about to be reintroduced to the concept of a budget constraint. The Fed is trying to sustain the illusion a while longer, but is losing credibility by the day.

• hughvic // March 13, 2008 at 2:20 pm

  And I here I thought conservatism was dead!

• John Hurt // March 13, 2008 at 3:18 pm

  Morgan

  Your contribution to this blog is really great. Seriously. And thank God, with a capital G, that all Bush will soon be deciding is how long a bike ride he wants to go on. Did you see his display at the correspondent’s dinner, whatever it is called? Man. That cat is super tone deaf. He can’t possibly be from Texas. Maybe the Dixie Chicks were talking about his singing. I’m pretty sure that’s right. And then his dancing, so to speak, on the White House steps! He is definitely ready to get the fuck out of there, if you will pardon my Freedom. And still not a fraction of how ready almost everybody else is for him to get the fuck out of there. The Great Decider. How in the wide world of sports did this ever happen?

  All the best

  JH

• Jon Taplin // March 13, 2008 at 3:48 pm

  Morgan- The Sunnis have already backed out of the 2nd legal provision you cited and as far as I know they have not let many detainees out of Jail

  STS-The dollar hit an all time low against the Euro today. The notion of “what price” will indeed be reintroduced to our national conversation.

  JH- Bush’s singing was pretty awful. Remember he was born in Connecticut, so that lets Texas off the hook for him being so tone deaf (literally and figutatively). But his joking about how Scooter was gonna miss him was pretty sick.

• John Hurt // March 13, 2008 at 4:03 pm

  Tom Lehrer is rolling over in his grave, and he’s not even dead yet.

• Jon Taplin // March 13, 2008 at 4:15 pm

  Morgan- Zhirem and I would like nothing more than to truly think “things are better” and that ultimately we could achieve some “goal” in Iraq. But we are members of the Reality Based community, unlike our President & Vice President. You are a strange combination of romantic pragmatist–you should do a cost benefit analysis of your 100 year strategy to dominate oil with military power. YOu will find that you are wrong and that without the war, Oil would be $50 a barrel.

• hughvic // March 13, 2008 at 5:01 pm

  Well shheee-OTT, Jon, thanks for de-fending the honor of Connecticut, but that shore don’t spill no beer in Midland!

  Well, I’ve been on Chapter 2 of “Einstein for Dummies” for three months now, and that yellowjacket still stings me from beneath my nightstand stack, but I can already tell you that that Einstein feller was one genius who shoulda stuck to his what he knowed, ’cause his definition ain’t the one fer “Insanity”; it’s the definition of something else.

  Morgan shot us the Confessions of the apostate Mamet yesterday, and the playwright opened with a quote from J.M. Keynes that got it right: “When the facts change,” saith our Lord Keynes, “I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?” Now, if Keynes isn’t High Church enough for you Proggies, I call as my witness none other than your very own John Dewey. Because to that great American philosopher’s mind, what Einstein defined was textbook “obstinacy”, whereas Keynes was defining its pragmatic opposite: discipline.

  President Bush is a disciplined man. Evidently he was not always so, but he is so now. On Iraq he has proved, in the end, disciplined. He set his sights on a change in the Middle East, decided with Prime Minister Blair and other allies on a course to getting there, and he held to that course. When the course was shown, at bloody great length, to require reexamination, he had the discipline to take his coordinates, review the data, and make a course correction. That, in a nutshell, is the application of the only known native American philosophy, and in the case of that “idiot” from Connecticut, Yale and Harvard, it worked just like Pragmatism is supposed to “work”, provided you apply it with discipline.

  I’m not biting on the invitation to read out anew our miliary objectives in Iraq. Morgan has done that here today, and I did it last night, and the President and General Petraeus have, in my opinion, made those objectives just a bit too clear for comfort. So if mature and informed people want to give me some jazz about how they don’t know what the plan is, then I’m with Satchmo: “Man, if you don’t know, I can’t tell you.”

  As for Lippmann’s consent factory, I mean WTF? The scene now is BABEL. It’s pande-frigging-around-the-clock-MONIUM. Lippman, that carpet tack who spent his life pretending he was a hammer, would take one long look at “journalism” today and not know which way is effing UP!

  So many outlets; so little content. So much journalistic training; so little call for it. So much 24-hour publicity stuntwork, so little gumshoeing. So much spinning of so few narrative cliches. So much, so much. SO GODDAM LITTLE TO SHOW FOR IT. Awaiting every dawn, a CASCADE of quotable inanities—some of them even telegenic!—and none of them vetted with so much as a keystroke. CONSENT? WHAT?

  Is there a phenomenologist in the house, please? Quick! Get a pot of boiling water and some clean sheets! We need to clue in some very smart people on something for which Lippmann required a prosthetic ear: ideology. The real workings of that phenomenon, not some “True Tales of Yellow Journalism” or “Shocking Scandals of the Great Press Barons” or “Real Forensics of Think Tanks, Then and Now”.

  Nope. The real thing. The thing that requires no factory, except one single huge one, for children. The younger the better.

• Jon Taplin // March 13, 2008 at 5:18 pm

  Hugh-Maybe in the land of the BBC, its hard to manufacture consent, but I can assure you, in the run up to the war, everyone of the major media companies (not just Fox) was beating the drums of war, like we were going to the Ultimate Superbowl. The Internet may be a huge source of news, but the agenda can still be Broadcast only on TV.

  The problem, as the French discovered with counter insurgencies, you have to be willing to stay for a long time, and in the end you still could loose it. Between us and the French we were in Vietnam for 20 years or more.

• hughvic // March 13, 2008 at 5:43 pm

  Well that goes with the territory, now, doesn’t it? Maybe all that SERIOUS kriegspieling over what we’d learned from Vietnam and since, and what we ought to do better about insurgents and counterinsurgency, paid off. Maybe we ought to have had a whip-smart military science nerd do a frigging dissertation on the subject, and to have run some fuzzy imponderables through RAND and the Energy Labs and Hopkins and the War College.

  Look, I’m sick of sarcasm everywhere at all times. Especially in myself. It all comes down to how in hell we can trust Systems when we are ourselves but fecal pellets of Systems. If you guys want to take that on—because Halberstam don’t cut it—then good. I’m just saying, start by looking to your own skirts. My skirts and yours. And as long as I’m milking dry metaphors, let’s throw in “apron” and “purse” strings. I’ll flip, you call it: Ibn Saud or al-Saud? Carnegie or Rockefeller? Annenberg or Milken? ARPA or Army Research Board? NEA or AFT?

  God bless you bronze surfers, really. But you’re in a rip tide. The media ebb clawing you offshore, the liberal God-complex towing asunder. A sea of shrinking petrodollars. Tread water and ride it out? Go under? Fight ashore? Do you Trojans remember how to escape a rip, Jon?

  It’s your call.

• Azmanon // March 13, 2008 at 5:59 pm

  The importance of looking at the condition of the social fabric of Iraq cannot be understated, yet it is often overlooked. The social fabric is something that simply cannot be measured in numbers, commodity values, washed over with political rhetoric or even made real through human interest stories. The human fabric exists before, during and after the war. To consider the condition of the social fabric is to put a human face on every aspect of foreign involvement and, as I think Jon is suggesting, put yourself in the shoes of the Iraqi people. I have yet to meet someone who was from a country that was occupied in some form or another (and having lived in several former eastern bloc countries this is quite a few), who can say that there was any long term benefits to that type of situation. Many in fact, felt that as long as they held on to their determination to regain sovereignty, the clock was ticking for the forces that occupied. In a sad twist of fate, I’m sensing that people here in the US are believing this to be the case with their own government.

  Just a plug here for Dahr Jamail’s independent reporting from Iraq, a good source for broader perspectives from the inside the social fabric.
  http://dahrjamailiraq.com/

• Zhirem // March 13, 2008 at 6:07 pm

  Morgan,

  Thanks for the feedback. Now I understand some
  of what you are/were saying.

  1.) Stronger, Throbbing, Harder Elections - I get it. The turnout was huge. Gotcha. And I concur, that their turnout on a national basis, is comparatively large when the comparison country used is the U.S. - Saddam won all the previous elections by 99% or so, which somewhat lessened the poll-going patriotic Iraqis at that time, I am sure. About 1 in 4 Iraqis eligible to vote outside of the country actually did so, and Sunni turnout was at about 12% (if I recall correctly). You are quite right in that the Shiites really took to voting with relish, as well they should being the collective whipping-boys of Saddam for years. The results of that election was a government that certainly represented the interests of the long-oppressed majority, but the other two key factions (Kurds and Sunnis) were a little less than well-represented.

  2.) Eek! More Government! - The budget of Feb. this year. Fantastic. They are on par with our own Congress of only requiring roughly 26-odd months or so to get to agreement on a budget. Now, I grant you, this is their first one. So doubtless it was tough. Even with the help of the Big Oil companies assisting them with all the details and the wording of the oil revenue sharing part of the income columns on their balance sheets… Kinda like the insurance and credit card companies helped our hapless and hopeless Congress rewrite the bankruptcy laws that insure these entities certainly get paid and that one cannot escape from their money-purse clutches. (I do however, agree that bankruptcy laws needed to be looked at. I just don’t think that business has much of any role in actually *writing* the legislation.) That said, I agree with you that it is a significant achievement. A needed one. Now, if some of those monies are set aside for the much-needed security measures so they get back to a “tolerable level of car-bombings per week” (see one of our previous exchanges in an older post), then I am willing to forgo my intuitive sense of forboding a while longer.

  Now, I also concur with a previous poster that your voice and contributions to this blog are noteworthy, perhaps needed, and doubtless thought-provoking (no one learns anything in an echo chamber); but please, please do not piss on my head and tell me it is raining. The precipitation stinks a bit to much to be falling from clouds. Acidic or otherwise.

  The end of your previous post, you state that my

  “annoyance is that, if you admit things are better, you don’t get to scream about mistakes made. Let me make it official, you can still scream about mistakes made, now please admit things are better. And since they better, we need not spend so much time listening to “get out now.”

  Annoyed? Yes. Far more than that. I am ashamed for my country in this debacle. I am saddened, anguished perhaps at the loss of life. What seems to me to be a wholly *avoidable* loss of life. For all parties.

  As for screaming, I really try not to be shrill in my tone, nor bombastic in my statements. Try anyway. I don’t use ALL CAPS FOR PURPOSES OF CONVEYING SHOUTING. That is not a subtle dig at your style or previous posts, just something I choose not to do.

  Side note: I love Ben Franklin. He said: “You are raising your voice instead of reinforcing your arguments.” Or something like that. Very wise and sage man that Ben. Fitting that he is on the highest denomination of circulated currency. BTW, The First American is a book I am currently reading, a biography of the man, and it is quite good.

  Now back to work: and hers is the key point I want to make to you:

  Things are better now.

  Are they? According to what standard? Better now that Americans and corrupt militias / peace officers / police / whole departments of the Iraqi government are the ones directing the torture, killings, reprisals, et. al? Now, Please, Please, Please do not mistake that statement for my implying that our military is over in the Tigris/Euphrates valley raping, beheading, pillaging the local populace and their property. I do not have such a dim view of our military, the great, vast majority are serving with honor, distinction and sacrifice you and I and the rest of the citizenry will not know the full measure of which, possibly for decades, if ever.

  But…

  Abu Gahrib was certainly not a shiny, happy place. Nor the discovery of the acts and deeds done there something that you, I or our fellow citizens should be proud of. I wholly doubt that it was the work of a few low-level soldiers and other miscreants.

  That is one, and perhaps the gravest example.

  But what I ask you to consider, is that Iraq had roughly 26 or 27 million citizens before we invaded. The U.S. has roughly 300 million. What I would like to know, really, truly like to know, is what is the butcher’s bill on the Iraqi side? How many Iraqis are no longer breathing (or if you prefer spending any dinars) in direct correlation to our country’s involvement in their liberation from Saddam? When you think of all the reports of casualties, the bombing victims, the beheadings, the reprisal killings, the honor killings, the blood, death and gore - - Multiply those figures in the news by 12. Then ask yourself, would the U.S. tolerate such a level of loss, such a significant death toll at the hands of a foreign power on our soil, all under the guise of liberating our people from a despot who threatened them.

  George W. Bush has threatened. He is not a complete idiot, therefore he does not threaten China. Nor Russia. Nor India. He does not threaten anyone he thinks we cannot absolutely roll-over the top of militarily.

  But he threatens Iran.

  He threatens Syria.

  He threatens North Korea.

  And perhaps he should. I do not know the full measure of his calculus, nor would I hazard a guess as to whether or not I could understand his reasoning process. It certainly has been quite beyond me for pretty much his entire term in office. Perhaps he is indeed crazy like a fox. Then again, perhaps he is just quite simply: a complete and utter doorknob.

  But enough of my pontificating and creating 3000-word posts… If I am to understand your recent postings and previous ones, and please correct me if my assumptions are amiss, you believe that calling this a war for oil is the right moniker. Furthermore, you really (honestly) have no problem with that.

  I ask you to consider, despite your proclivities, were the shoe (somehow, just work with me here) on the other foot, how would you feel about that?

  Again, even in the face of increased capitalism provided by my thought experiment of my previous post, would you not be standing with me, as I drew the sights of my rifle along the heads of our occupiers saying: “Make sure you adjust for the crosswind.” ?

  Thank you for reading, and once again, I actually do appreciate your input and viewpoint. We are not as far apart as you might think.

  - Zhirem

• Zhirem // March 13, 2008 at 6:23 pm

  Hughvic, great post. I agree with most all of it. Damn, but I am really liking this blog. The conversations for the most part are civil and thought-provoking. How is it that most of you don’t hold elected office? I have more faith in your reasoning and discernment than 99% of the people that are supposed to represent us. How is it that these voices are *not* being heard in the mainstream media? Give me some intelligent, reasoned debate. Start from the same givens, and as Moynahan said: Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts.

  The only problem I have with your post Hughvic, is that of the liberal god-complex. I see where you are coming from with that, but I think that the great majority of liberals I know do not have such delusions of grandeur, it is just that many if not most of them I know want a simple return to sanity. To honesty. To knowledge, information and the dispersal thereof. Sans spin. Sans agenda. The American people can take it. Murrow tried to raise the discourse, to provide not only information but some analysis. Reasoned, (mostly) partisan-less analysis.

  However, that and $1.75 might get you a cup of coffee these days. That is if the cafe still takes dollars. I hear the ones in New York are partial to Euros now…

  - Zhirem

• hughvic // March 13, 2008 at 6:45 pm

  Yes, Azmanon. Yes, indeed. And in the U.S. military services, it would be Army Special Forces and one David Petraeus who would agree with you. As a matter of fact, I think it’s even historically responsible to say that President Kennedy agreed with your emphasis on embedding within the social reality of the indigenous citizenry. That in fact is the military tradition in which Petraeus steeped himself, and which he has sought throughout his career to further.

  While we’re at it, nation building. Boo. It’s a concept drawn from Sociology, as you may know. Do we like nation building when we approve of the President doing it and want the nation where he’s doing it upbuilt? Do we ridicule it otherwise? Secretary Rice, when she was still in the traces of her tenure track, worked under a Ford Foundation grant to study what external nation building efforts could and could not do to achieve peace and stability in the new states calving off the USSR. If we happen not to like Dr. Rice and her boss and the diplomatic doctrine she serves, do we then reject nation building because it is associated in part with her?

  Should we have given up on ultra-variate simulation modeling because RAND botched it in Vietnam? On war gaming because we failed to anticipate the oil fires and sand storms of the Gulf War? On Skunk Works because we just didn’t feel that Carter and Reagan could be trusted to go black for Stealth? On space defense because Kubrick made Teller look like, you know, a mad scientist?

  To me, what makes a more indigenous approach trustworthy is that it pursues democratic aims—in Iraq and Afghanistan, now, on the ground—by devolving power from the most frighteningly powerful people in the world, to the all but powerless. All this business of polling the public to second-guess the Surge operation—I mean, what?? But at least we’re trying to regain some agency in these highly professionalized, specialized, systematized matters—science, defense, diplomacy—by making them more democratic.

  If only the sidelined “experts” would accept that that is exactly what Gen. Petraeus is charged to have our forces and our civilian personnel do. Not here, but in Iraq and Afghanistan. So that’s the place from where I’d like to start in all of this. How do we do something here worthy of the democratization and empowerment that our countryfolk and friends are doing overseas? How do we take our most precious possessions out of the reach of our grasping systems—those jealous gods—and spill those possessions abundantly, without depletion?

  As the chief told Frank Laubach, “Each one teach one, or I will kill him.”

• hughvic // March 13, 2008 at 7:09 pm

  You’re right, Zhirem, and I was cartoonish. I’d like very much to put my finger on the ideological mechanism—I’ve been trying, believe me, for 20 years—but so far I have only bookend data and a fairly rank hypothesis. The hypothesis is that most people of the liberal persuasion are attracted to social meliorism, especially to Justice, but that their goodwill redounds instead to social control. The STD in the loving act is power lust. If it’s not already incubating within you by the time you commit to meliorism, then you soon will catch it from the controllers. Because Orwell may have been crude and depressive, but he got this right: the Party really does seek power for its own sake.

  Jon and his colleagues are, it seems to me, in part working up an updated and refreshed Jeffersonian Pyrrinism. It’s astute, just as it was in Mr. Jefferson. But intellectually and morally it’s a land of shadows and demons just waiting to be ignored or denied. To do what Jefferson and his brethren did, you have to force yourself to see the State devouring, before you can know how it can be contained and fed without devouring you. This is terrible.

  And the Nazi metaphors, while they allude to a kind of torah, are not even the last war; they are the war before the last war. We’d go one step closer to facing Jefferson’s beast, in our time, were we to pay very careful attention to our colleagues and immigrant neighbors from Central and Eastern Europe, especially to those who have come through the Refugee Program. When we tell them about Spitzer, do they laugh it off, or do they become chilled? What portents they might tell.

  Again, it’s terrible, but straightforward and honest. It must be done honestly, however. It should go without saying that it won’t work unless one listens too respectfully to indulge in tendentious agendas. And I know that this must sound absurd and grandiose, but I think it could save the university. The 12th Century one. The real one.

• Jon Taplin // March 13, 2008 at 7:28 pm

  Zhirem-I feel the same way about this blog. Why can’t civil society carry on like this?

  Hughvic-The state already has devoured us. The devolutionary changes I seek under the notion of New Federalism are certainly Jeffersonian, but your use of the word “pyrrinism”-assumed to be from a root of pyrric–seemed to indicate that our victory would come at too great a cost. Is that what you meant?

• Jon Taplin // March 13, 2008 at 7:31 pm

  Azmanon-How long will it take to repair the fabric of a country like Iraq, once we leave?

• hughvic // March 13, 2008 at 7:33 pm

  Duh. Pyrrhonism. There now. That’s better.

  Oh, and I say let’s draft Jon, Zhirem, even if he doesn’t have my politics. He can handle his own media and I guess I could play bag man one more time. You ask me, that right there is a good start toward a winning campaign. What do we run him for? Maybe we should ask him…

• hughvic // March 13, 2008 at 8:00 pm

  Oh. Jon, I meant his extreme, and extremely wise, skepticism, especially in the form of his distrust of the State. I like the New Federalism moniker, but of course he would have disapproved. (But then he could be a silly old cracker.) The one time I studied him in earnest, I enjoyed the privilege of a very enlightening conversation as a guest at the home of the late Jeffersonist Dumas Malone. Mr. Malone told me that Jefferson was disappointed that the states did not take a more forthright and explicit approach to establishing social contracts, e.g. in the rights and duties set forth in the state constitutions. (He had his vanities obviously, but I’m not sure that he ever truly realized how isolated he was by his brilliance; he seemed to have expected that every state would have its Jeffersons and Adamses and Franklins to draw up its charters, when mostly what they wound up doing was cribbing Adams and him, making the states mini-feds, which for Jefferson and Virginia wasn’t the idea at all.) Anyway, in short he wanted a clear-cut contractual tit-for-tat, while the theoretical signatories, State and individual, were still coequal bargainers and, per you, yet undevoured. Precisely a Von Neumann thing, it seemed to me. What exactly does the citizen owe the State, and in exchange what does the State owe the citizen? Spell out the debts, the reasons, the obligations and boundaries, explicitly. Not only so that there won’t be so much constructionist food for the lawyers, but so that the People will know the score for themselves. (Like the Reformers and their vernacular Bibles.) Then—then—set the game afoot.

  I mention my correspondence and visit with Mr. Malone in connection with your New Federalism. Merrill Peterson at UVA knows far more about this line of Malone’s Jeffersonian understanding.

  You’re right, we have been devoured; we’re schooled. Jefferson never wanted that to happen the way it did. I remember I asked Mr. Malone what Jefferson meant by “asportation” of schoolchildren. The professor’s answer: “Kidnapping.”

• Aaron // March 13, 2008 at 8:23 pm

  Regarding bases, wasn’t our military presence in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia given as a major reason for the campaign of terror attacks culminating in September 11th? How will permanent bases in Iraq lay the ground for anything more than massive blowback.

  Not saying that we should be knuckled under by al Qaeda etc but if we don’t listen to what drives terrorism and try to make adjustments how are we ever going to win the so-called Global War on Terrorism?

• Rick Turner // March 13, 2008 at 9:14 pm

  In any give month, try taking the number of Iraqis reported killed and dividing it by 27 million. You’ll get the percentage of Iraqis now suddenly dead. Now multiply 300 million by that percentage. You’ll get the equivalent percentage that would be dead in the US if they were us and we were them…

  The numbers are frightening, even in the best of months…

  That’s progress…for those who think there are too many people in the world and want a quick fix…

• Morgan Warstler // March 13, 2008 at 9:35 pm

  Hmm, where to start?

  Jon manufactures consent, or atleast tries I guess. But I’m not complain, I support it just like the war for oil. I’m a little disappointed that whenever someone loses a policy decision, political campaign, girl at the bar, or a child to drugs they assume the opposition had an unfair advantage.

  The best debaters never blame the judge or the other side, because it establishes a mental barrier, for it establishes on of the following:

  1) You just aren’t good enough.
  2) The audience is retarded.
  3) The other guy cheats.

  None of those assumptions take you to your best game. So stop it. Jon, I get that you are a communications guy - but so am I. There is no “they” who control the media, there is no sheeple who aren’t good judges, and the other team might just be smarter.

  And then there’s facts. Ideas and opinions are nice, but ultimately you gotta make policy, and policy has gotta work or eventually it gets found out. Deficits are facts. Voting yourself someone else’s stuff is an idea. Vietnam was a bad idea. That’s now a fact. The jury is still out on Iraq. No calling the people stupid. No calling the other guy cheaters who are manufacturing consent - you gotta raise up your game.

  New Federalism and Jon’s arguments in general - YES, but you gotta put something on the table first. The way to prove,this is really a new thing is to hammer away at the scary parts liberals won’t like states/cities having more control - which means speaking against the federal government. I want to see lots of “while it would feel great to regulate that at a federal level, they need to back off…” That convinces me. That makes me want to run you for office.

  hugh, who are you man? I wanna party with you dude.

  War for oil. Damn. Is there anyone who didn’t know this was a war for oil? Seriously. Comedians say it. Military history says it. Oil corporations say it. And if comedians, military history, and oil corporations agree on something, by Allah, it has to be right.

  Why are we pretending the American citizens wouldn’t authorize a pure war for oil? If OPEC as cartel is really, really effective and sees oil at $200 a barrel - you think we won’t fight for it? Why in a world where everyone knows instantly how to behave on a reality TV show, do you think they are not smart enough to do what people throughout history have done? And be responsible/culpable for it?

  Now before everybody gets all amped up, let me issue some qualifiers:

  1) 9/11 was the Saudis. Maybe not the house of Saud, but proof they couldn’t keep their house in order. Iraq was our backup for oil. If 9/11 hadn’t happened, we’d be probably have still toppled Hussein, just not with a full blown war.

  2) Eventually, Hillary, Obama, or McCain is going to have to explain why Iraq is not Darfur, or wherever. I differ slightly with Hugh here, because I’m pretty sure everybody - the masses - the “everybody” Jon thinks consent gets manufactured on, we all know it makes more sense to fight where the oil is, than where it isn’t. So, while I grant that people will tend to support nation building, if it is their guy doing the building, I disagree that it is that simple. People hear “blood and treasure” and they sense there is treasure we are fighting for.

  3) Free state. Democratically elected. Asks us to keep our bases there. U.S. Oil companies owning the fields on 25-35 year contract. If it isn’t a counter-insurgency nightmare in 5 years, it’ll be much harder getting Jon into office.

• Azmanon // March 13, 2008 at 10:04 pm

  A friend of mine once concluded that it is unlikely that humanity, under the guise of “civilization”, has ever gone more than 5 generations without facing war and in many cases, near self annihilation. We just don’t know what lies beyond 5 generations of “peace” in a civilized world unless it actually lies outside of civilization. This implies that war is inherent in the process of “civilizing” which runs in direct contrast to our idea of behaving in a civil manner brings peace. Under modernism some called it creative destruction. Now its is called things like stabilization or normalization. But either way, there is a cruel paradox that confronts all of us so called civil people every day. The conservatives can use honest discipline to justify it while the liberals can deny it through elaborate exercises of the intellect (as puritan Americans we tend to embrace the full spectrum, say one thing but do the other). The question still remains though, are there really peaceful alternatives to war within civilization or is this the illusory nature of the beast?

  Civilization, it seems, must be built at someone’s or somethings expense. So the game, or should we call it strategy then is to try and be on the winning, or lets say constructive side of civilization and pay as little of the price as possible. Now looking back through history and on up into the modern era I would argue that there were alternatives to civilization and societies that did lie outside its domain. Call them what you will, there were tribes and remote societies existing relatively autonomously in the world up until and even into the 20th century. Along come two world wars and those alternatives start to thin out dramatically and become rather obsolete in comparison to a singular dominant civilization (that eventually tries to impose a singular dominant culture etc…).

  Civilization certainly did not end with those wars. In fact it was spring boarded into action and spread like virus until it matured into globalization. As I’ve said, civilization does not (and I doubt has ever) come cheap and now with fewer options and resources available, the costs are starting to become insurmountable. To reformulate one of the themes in this blog into a rather existential sounding question; can civilization borrow its way into productive development? I think the answer is unraveling before us and might be more confounding than we can imagine considering that civilization is now a global phenomenon.

  My answer to Jon’s question may not sound like overly optimistic one (simply because I dare not speculate as to when or how this crisis might end). If we look at the recent wars since the second world war, one could say that the US never really left (Europe, Japan, Korea, Vietnam). Sure some sovereignty was gained, but many social fabrics were lost for good. As some people understand, the social fabric of Iraq is torn, in some places, torn apart and into shreds not only from the recent US interventions but also the Iran-Iraq war. Much of this can never be repaired or rebuilt but will have to be transformed. That is not to say that life won’t go on, it will and with the possibility that radically new forms of culture and ideas will develop out of the sheer necessity of rebuilding such a devastated society.

• Pete Wolf // March 14, 2008 at 6:01 am

  I’ve come into this discussion somewhat late, and I’m going to stay away from the major issues for the most part, I just thought I’d comment on a certain kind of argument Morgan made recently.

  Firstly, to quote: “So stop it. Jon, I get that you are a communications guy - but so am I. There is no “they” who control the media, there is no sheeple who aren’t good judges, and the other team might just be smarter.”

  As far as I can tell, Morgan is making an inference of the kind:-

  1) There is no centralised force controlling the media (’they’).

  2) Therefore, there can be no general trend distorting the information the public receives.

  There is also the additional caveat that:-

  3) Even if there were such trends, they would not overly affect the decisions made by the general populace, because:-

  3a) People do not just passively take in what they are told (they are not ’sheep’).

  3b) Therefore they must make there decisions in a way which is for the most part independent of the kind of widespread media bias which some are positing.

  What seems to be involved here are two very potent false dichotomies, which enable falacious inferences:-

  1) That either something is completely intentional (planned and orchestrated by a centralized force, or ‘they’), or it is completely unintentional, or accidental.

  2) That either people are passive zombie sheep, or they are fully self-determining individuals who make all of their own decisions without any form of deferral to the opinions of others.

  If you get someone to accept one of these dichotomies (either explicitly or implicitly), you can infer from the absurdity of one side to the necessity of the other. The first dichotomy is the most well used in mainstream political discourse, as a great way of deferring responsibility for something. All you have to do is show that there was at least one aspect of the blunder which was not planned, or unintentional, and people then implicitly leap to the conclusion that there were no bad intentions involved at any point. Its what I like to call the conspiracy theory dichotomy: either you think there is some massive conspiracy behind the phenomena in question (i.e., you are loony) or you must recognise that no one has any kind of blame for any of it.

  The second dichotomy is just as problematic, because it prevents us from seeing the reality of the way in which people form opinions and make decisions, namely that there are different levels of relative autonomy that people display in reasoning, depending upon what context of reasoning they are in and what social groups they are situated in.

  It is obviously the case that the media does not just tell people what to think, but you are not therefore justified in concluding the opposite extreme, namely, that the selective choices the media makes have little to no influence over the opinions people form and the decisions they make.

• John Hurt // March 14, 2008 at 6:11 am

  To elaborate on my rather thin premise of how ready Bush is to get out of the White House- interesting that he chose to parody as his valedictory song, a story about a condemned man sleeping on death row, dreaming of a happy life on the night before he is to be hung. His return home is under ground. Macabre. Gallows humor. Not a War President, A Death President.

  The old home town looks the same
  As I step down from the train,
  And there to meet me is my Mama and Papa.
  Down the road I look and there runs Mary
  Hair of gold and lips like cherries.
  It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.

  Yes, they all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly.
  It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.

  The old house is still standing
  Thought the paint is cracked and dry,
  And there’s that old oak tree that I used to play on.

  Down the lane I’ll walk with my sweet Mary,
  Hair of gold and lips like cherries.
  It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.

  Then I awake and look around me,
  At four grey wall surround me
  And I realize I was only dreaming.
  For there’s a guard and there’s a sad old padre
  Arm in arm we’ll walk at daybreak.
  Again I’ll touch the green, green grass of home.

  Yes, they’ll all come to see me, as they hang me from that old oak tree,
  At last I’ll touch the green, green grass of home.

• Another Jon // March 14, 2008 at 7:04 am

  This is an excellent forum and conversation to be had for sure. It is good to know that (for the most part) there are people that understand the situation as it exists and how we got to where we are. Yes, it is a war about oil. Yes, it is a war meant to establish some military presence in another oil rich region, with the excellent advantage of having a base next to our new military enemy of the moment. But there is still the question of now…looking past the mistakes already made….the question remains. Is there a way for this fighting and killing to stop with our continued presence in Iraq? It is a question the the presidnetial candidates will have to answer in greater detail in the coming general election, and it is the central question of the initial post. It is good to see Morgan being intellectually honest and saying that the jury is still out, but that his feeling is that we have learned from past mistakes and will do this one the right way. I will let history be my guide, and that has influenced my thinking on this central issue. This history is not only of the somewhat distant past of Vietnam or the American Revolution, but the recent past of a completely mishandled war up to the moment Gates and Petraues brought some calm. Nothing about the way our political ideologues and their military armature have acted in the past give me any confidence in their ability to do any better this time around. Gates is a politcal anomoly and Pertraeus is in the right place at the right time. He is not a military genuis, he has just been put in a position where the politicians are forced to listen to him and it will not last.

  So who is the optimist now?

• Morgan Warstler // March 14, 2008 at 7:12 am

  John Hurt, I’m absolutely sure George Bush is comfy going home. But, not for your reasons. Like Reagan before him, you see in Bush, having done his two tours, the sense of, “sure, I’d rather be someplace else.”

  I want someone to cling to long (see the Clintons). I don’t think being president was the best job Reagan had, it is the best job George Bush had. I have this way of looking at most Republicans and Democrats, it always strikes me that elected office, being a bureaucrat, is the best job most Dems ever hold in their lifetime, and its just the opposite for the leaders of the GOP. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of anomolies, but all the way down to the local level it rings true.

  Going and serving should feel like a sacrifice, not a power grab.

  Pete, I didn’t create false dichotomies. I granted you that all speakers/media, Jon in this example, deploy ther force of their opinion artfully or in-artfully.

  My point was that overtime, the truth is found out, because the ideas have to become policy, and policy has to work.

  I think civil rights, gay rights, low taxes, free speech, and a slew of other negative rights all have proven to work. The fact that they work, is why no amount of consent against them can be manufactured for too long. History is a long march towards negative rights. Everytime someone throws up a positive right, eventually it is found out and discarded, and it all serves to dramatically slow down history.

  The people are not sheeple means just that. What they believe they believe willingly and willfully. Folks who claim the masses are mislead by the mass media are the same folks losing the argument. And I have some news for ya: They are losing their arguments in part because they are lowering their game. Everytime they complain about the unfairness of the system, or the stupidity of the people, they teach themselves they are not capable. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Manipulating the media is easy. Getting your point out there gets easier everyday. Simply most ideas, most points don’t have the ring of truth - and I mean truth as in it works as a policy. Most ideas suck. So most idea havers are pissy types. Raise your game.

  Finally, social fabric. What the hell are you talking about? It sounds to me like this mythical stuff sure rips easy and often, I can’t believe there is any left anywhere.

• John Hurt // March 14, 2008 at 8:04 am

  Morgan

  I was recently having a macro type non political conversation with a friend of mine, the guy that installed Bush as president of the Texas Rangers and has known him for some time, and at some point in the conversation, I mentioned that I thought he, my friend, would probably make a good president. He said that he would never get into politics. He said look at George Bush, he’s a smart guy, but politics has destroyed him.

  I feel for Bush. I’m reading a great book right now called The Art of Power by Thich Nhat Hanh. It comes from a talk he gave at Davos. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Here is something he has to say.

  “Power is good for one thing and one thing only: to increase our happiness and the happiness of others. Being peaceful and happy is the most important thing in our lives and yet most of the time we suffer, we run after our cravings, we look to the past or the future for our happiness.”

  “Who has more power than the president of the United States? President George W. Bush is the commander in chief of the most powerful army in the world, the leader of the strongest and richest nation in the world. Not many people have that kind of power. But this does not mean the president is a happy person. Even with all these so-called powers, I believe he still feels powerless and suffers deeply. He is caught in a dilemma: to continue or not to continue in Iraq? Continuing with the war is difficult, and not continuing is also difficult. It’s like when you eat something and it gets stuck in your throat.You cannot spit it out and you cannot swallow it. I don’t think President Bush sleeps well. How can you sleep well when young people are dying every day and every night in Iraq? How can you avoid nightmares when hundreds of thousands of people are dying because of your policy? You are very lucky you are not the president of the United States; if you were, you’d be suffering a lot right now. It is very clear that if political leaders do not have compassion and understanding as their foundation, they will misuse their power and make their own country suffer, and make other countries suffer.”

  That, I believe, is wisdom.

  We can theorize all we want about what the future may bring and all the rest of it, but next to what Thich Nhat Hanh has to say, it is all just a video game. A game of Risk.

  Respectfully,

  JH

• Jon Taplin // March 14, 2008 at 8:19 am

  Just when I am girding myself to respond to libertarian brothers, new voices like Pete, Azmanon and Another John enter the conversation. I’m not sure I can top them.

  Azmanon- I’m implying from your email address that you are in Estonia. Correct? Does some of your understanding of “tribal” behavior stem from the experience in your own country?

  Morgan-Your qualifier to the manufacturing consent debate is that “over time” the truth will emerge. This is true. Overtime it emerged that the New York Times, Washington Post and every major network were conned by Cheney over Aluminum tubes, Mobile bio warfare labs and nuclear stockpiles in Iraq. But “over time” was too late to avoid the jingoistic consent of the invasion of Iraq. Hysterical conduct can be sustained for a few months by lies. Thats all it takes.

• Ian Masters // March 14, 2008 at 8:20 am

  WINNING A LOST CAUSE

  Before retracting his “straight talk” John McCain said Monday that if
  the surge doesn’t work in Iraq he will lose the election. While this
  sounds right, he could be proven wrong. Many patriotic Americans feel
  vindicated by superficial evidence of a dramatic turnaround in Iraq.
  However the few Arabic-speaking Intelligence officers and members of
  the Iraq Study Group who know Iraq, have warned in recent interviews
  that the “surge” is just the lull before the next storm. The drop in
  U.S. casualties they argue has less to do with troop levels but is
  more the result of the belated deal with the devil the White House
  eventually made to arm the insurgents who were killing us, to kill off
  Al Qaeda. But the Sunni Awakening militias will soon turn on the
  Shiite “Persian” government, army and police we put in power and the
  whole place will blow up. The best hope is to contain the pending
  civil war inside Iraq but a regional war is likely. This leaves us
  with the choice to retreat now, or later under fire.

  You might ask; having made us less strong, less safe and less free,
  with an economy in freefall and a lost war in Iraq about to blow up in
  their faces, how could the Republicans get away with it? Assuming
  Obama wins the nomination, his opposition to the war will have surely
  helped him, but it won’t play against McCain in the general election.
  As Obama has reminded Kerry, Edwards and Hillary Clinton, it was the
  loyal opposition who authorized this disastrous war, and although Bush
  already declared he won it, they are stuck with a war we’re told we
  can’t afford to lose.

  Now Democrats are gifting their tormentors again, this time by buying
  into the surge myth, while trapping themselves into a meaningless game
  over troop numbers. How did George W. Bush’s mistakes become their
  problem and his blunders our burden? If you can answer that, as the
  Democrats have consistently failed to do, then Senator Obama will be a
  shoe-in. So why doesn’t Obama take a stand and turn the tables,
  forcing the war party to explain their strategy and objectives and
  account for their losing record?

  In spite of the clear and present evidence, a silent majority of
  Americans don’t want to swallow defeat and John McCain is offering
  them the chimera of victory, claiming the surge he championed is
  working. The Republicans may well be grasping at illusions, but
  unless Obama stakes a claim based on the real situation in Iraq, he
  will lose.

  This presidential election will be a platform for the “Straight Talk
  Express” to combine John McCain’s candid criticism of past tactical
  errors in Iraq with a promise to restore American pride, patriotism
  and power. McCain’s recycled neocon fantasy will appeal to wounded
  patriots who resent being told the world has turned against us. They
  believe the “Islamofascists” hate us for who we are, not for what we
  do and McCain’s call to arms will immunize voters against the apparent
  prospect that America could be defeated by uncivilized fanatics in a
  war to defend Judeo-Christian values.

  If the expert’s predictions are right, who will be better situated
  when a new war erupts in Iraq? No matter how unpleasant the “October
  surprise” might be, McCain will be able to claim his steady hand is
  needed and this is no time for on-the-job-training. Meanwhile Obama’s
  vague talk of a withdrawal timetable will be spun as “surrender in the
  war on terror”.

  However, if Obama were to insulate himself now, by pointing out the
  best way to avoid humiliation is to get out of its way, then when
  reality inevitably collides with the Bush/McCain Express, he will not
  suffer collateral damage. Meanwhile, in the absence of an alternative
  strategy, conservatives, independents and swing voters will rally
  around the promise of victory, especially coming from an authentic
  hero who defied Rumsfeld and the North Vietnamese torturers.

  Will old nightmares overpower new dreams as fear beats hope? Can an
  angry man harking back to Ronald Reagan’s atavistic world of black and
  white win over the rainbow coalition of young fresh faces from
  America’s melting pot? You bet! Especially if there’s a war going on
  that the Democrats bought into and were left holding the bag.

• Another Jon // March 14, 2008 at 8:23 am

  The future is not theory, unless we are to make the jump into the metaphysical discussion. Actions now mean consequences later and pontificating on power’s effects on one man’s phsyche is not going to stop people from killing each other. We should not be interested in the underlying reasoning behind a person taking specific actions. We should listen to what they have to say, agree with them or disagree with them, and then hold their feet to the fire when they go against their word.

  Pop psychology does the discussion no good.

• Morgan Warstler // March 14, 2008 at 8:26 am

  Nhat Hanh vs. Ayn Rand, are you kidding me?

  Look, there are no greater souls than ours. No massive deep insights. No magic bullet statements. We are not drunk and we do not need a moment of clarity.

  JH, is it really that sad in your eyes? Look here:

  http://www.militarycity.com/valor/honor.html

  Make that your home page in your browser. Then support the war. Many do. The ability to hold two opposing view points / differing ideas / competing emotions and not turn into a personal train wreck, who doesn’t sleep at night and is sad all say - is the mark of a worthy human.

  I find it weird, backwards even, that you think George Bush can’t decide whether to continue the war in Iraq. I think Hillary can’t decide. I think Obama can’t decide. But Bush and McCain, they have decided.

  JH, there is a time when the flags are lowered, and there is a time where you live life. That said, I 100% wish, that everyone had that as their homepage - that this country was in war garden mode. I’m a believer that the quickest way to end this world wide struggle, is for all of our enemies to see the determined look in our eye. It’d be nice if Jon didn’t spend his time broadcasting a wavering commitment. But he is a liberal and others are here to rebut it.

• Morgan Warstler // March 14, 2008 at 8:36 am

  “More than a year after the initial success of the invasion, Obama explained, “There’s not much of a difference between my position and George Bush’s position at this stage.” And he was correct. In July 2004, he argued that America had an “absolute obligation” to stay in Iraq until the country stabilized. “The failure of the Iraqi state would be a disaster,” he said. “It would dishonor the 900-plus men and women who have already died.”

  Two months later, Obama criticized Bush’s conduct of the war, but repeated that simply pulling out would further destabilize Iraq, making it an “extraordinary hotbed of terrorist activity.” And he signaled his openness to the deployment of additional troops if this would make an eventual withdrawal more likely.

  In June 2006, Obama still opposed “a date certain for the total withdrawal of U.S. troops.” “I don’t think it’s appropriate for Congress,” he said, “to make those decisions about what happens in the field.”

  By late 2006, as public support for the Iraq War disintegrated and his own political ambitions quickened, Obama called for a “phased withdrawal.” When Bush announced the surge, Obama saw nothing in the plan that would “make a significant dent in the sectarian violence that’s taking place there” — a lapse in his prophetic powers.”

  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/obama_and_iraq.html

  “Recently, this pledge was called into question by Obama’s now-former adviser, Samantha Power: “He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. senator. He will rely upon a plan — an operational plan — that he pulls together in consultation with people who are on the ground.”

• John Hurt // March 14, 2008 at 9:29 am

  Ayn Rand? I’ve had her. She’s nothing.

  One other thing. Regarding your theory about the best job people have had. What better job did Reagan have? Hosting Death Valley Days, hawking Twenty Mule Team Borax? Getting his legs sawed off in King’s Row? President of the Screen Actor’s Guild? (Maybe governor of California is a better job than president of the United States. The weather is certainly preferable. By a light year or two. Funnier people to hang out with as well. Or rather people who are funny at all.)

  I would agree that being an actor is, in almost every case, a more noble profession than being a politician. You may have found the one exception. In fact, I can’t think of one example that proves your theory. It seems to be based on the romantic notion that great men of business step down to selflessly serve their country, or something along those lines.

  In Texas we have a word for that. Or maybe it’s two words.

  At any rate, I admire your spirit. I’m a fan.

• John Hurt // March 14, 2008 at 10:10 am

  Another Jon, you are really stomping my buzz.

• LH // March 14, 2008 at 10:58 am

  Morgan -

  Do you ever stop to read the stuff you are writing? Your posts, while always thought provoking, border on schizophrenic at times. I suppose it’s my fault if your all-elbows approach causes me to lose sight of where you are coming from.

  In on sentence you claim that being able to hold opposing viewpoints is virtuous, and in the next you criticize Obama for supporting the troops without supporting the war.

  As I’ve heard Obama say before, he wouldn’t have chosen to drive the bus into the ditch, but he is certainly going to help get it out.

• melissa // March 14, 2008 at 11:48 am

  I meant to post this awhile ago, and never got around to it:
  I read David Harvey’s The New Imperialism (http://www.amazon.com/Imperialism-Clarendon-Lectures-Geography-Environmental/dp/0199264317/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product) for school a couple of years ago, and since it was a thought provoking but accessible read, I thought you folks might want to check it out. I’m thinking that it might add a bit more complexity/depth to this discussion. Harvey’s book might also be an interesting read given the US’s current economic situation and the “threat” of China…

• Morgan Warstler // March 14, 2008 at 12:20 pm

  “the next you criticize Obama for supporting the troops without supporting the war.”

  Huh? I think you mis-read Obama. Those quotes simply say Obama supported the war at times. I’m sure he always supports the troops.

• Another Jon // March 14, 2008 at 12:31 pm

  Sorry John Hurt.

  It is not that I do not know what you are saying (or in some way empathize) but my Zen approach is to not confuse the issue when the rhetoric is already thick.

  As an aside…..I do find it to be a waste of an intellectual excercise (that I have unfortunately partaken in myself) to try and understand the philosophical underpinnings, and physchological responses to, bad decisions being made at the highest level of authority.

  And generally when someone tells me that George Bush probably sleeps poorly….my knee-jerk reaction is to let the elbows fly.

  But as far as I am concerned, Ian Masters summed the discussion up well enough for me so I will remain quiet for a spell and let you return to your happy place.

• John Hurt // March 14, 2008 at 3:45 pm

  Another Jon

  I was joking around. Your point is well taken. At the same time, Thich Nhat Hanh is no pop psychologist, and The Art of Power is from a very smart address at the Davos Economic Forum in 2001. It’s not about trying to understand George Bush, it is about, well, the artful use of power. That is something we need to consider deeply. And I seriously will take him over Ayn Rand every day of the year. By a long, long shot.

  I agree with Morgan about the determined look type deal, but if that hearts and minds meme means anything, we are not going to win that war with a steely gaze and tough talk. I believe we have to out think them. We have to confound them. Ayn Rand is not going to get us there. For me, that is a match race between Secretariat and a bag of hammers, or better, a bird and a rock.

  I also think Ian Masters nailed it. I forwarded that on to the Obama camp. I hope he reads it. I hope he internalizes it, if that is not too bronze surfer a thought. I hope he acts on it.

  Anyway, I won’t bring up George Bush’s sleep habits anymore. It was only a metaphor in the first place. I don’t really give a flying fuck about his sleep habits. I really should have just posted the whole book. I knew I was probably going to get in trouble with that post.

  I have great respect for everyone in this Jon Taplin zone. I am asemi metaphysical abstract artist, and I don’t much like this kind of thing, but I like it here. Thank you for your kindness. You’ve got great things to say.

• hughvic // March 14, 2008 at 7:41 pm

  Ian Masters, you’re the first I’ve seen to do what so many dare not do: openly root for a “humiliation” of the U.S. in Iraq that will vindicate the Democratic Party. You’ve coddled yourself in unreality in a manner reminiscent of the Jimmy Carter who knew not of the existence of sin, until the Soviets showed him what sinning can do for you.

  I’m sorry that your defeatest cause is lost, but you don’t have to take it so hard. I mean, maybe the Iranians will turn things around or something. Maybe the not-all-bad gray people are massing for the long-awaited Spring offensive after all, and can give the U.S.-led allied forces a really whupping and send them running home defeated and humiliated in time for your nominee to be a “shoo-in”. Maybe it is all “illusory”, this U.S. success in Iraq. Maybe you can dream “new dreams”. They’re better than old dreams, after all. They’re newer, these dreams of defeat and humiliation.

  Let’s hope the Democratic nominee will act on these dreams, eh? Someone should forward them on to her…

• originalthinker // March 15, 2008 at 12:40 am

  Oh the wonders of differing opinions.
  I like your post, however I do not agree with it on many different levels.
  Let me be clear as someone who has bleed in the ’sand’ of Iraq, Ive seen the difference first hand.
  It has been pointed at many times what ‘our’ goals should be and what they are, as well as why we should and or should not be there in the first place helping people out.
  All of which are of genuine concern to those who ask them.
  My biggest problem is not that we went there. It is not that many say it turned into a quagmire, it is not the politics of the pundents. It is however the hypocriscy of the left leaning crowd who on a daily basis decries some cut in government spending as away to somehow ‘hurt’ people.
  This’hurt’ is exactly why the left crowd should be up in harms about staying in Iraq and other places in the region. Violations of human rights happen more on a second basis than on a daily basis. Kids, women, indigent souls getting the worst treatment on the planet, and yet they have no voice. When is the left ‘the party for equality’ going to stand up and actually do something that represent what they preach to the rest of society?

• Pete Wolf // March 15, 2008 at 4:07 am

  I’m just going to respond to Morgan’s response to my criticism of his argument.

  To simply claim that the ‘truth will out’, is not only an incorrect statement but also a very dangerous one. More than this, to posit some overarching trend of history whereby the positions you hold (negative freedoms and the like) are destined to become prominent is just plain silly.

  I’ll take the latter point first, and then I’ll tackle the claim that ‘truth will out’ in general in a separate post. On said latter point, you’re just as bad as the Marxists who claimed that the inconsistencies of capitalism were destined to reveal themselves, and to bring it down from within, citing the numerous revolutions in the 20th century as evidence. We all know how this turned out. As an additional point to this, how does the development of states who have tended towards positive freedoms (e.g. the scandinavian states, lots of europe and increasingly parts of south america) or massive centralised governmental structures (e.g. China, Russia and some of the above) square with this overarching trend? Are these just blips on the path of progress, or is your inexorable historical swing toward negative freedom and small government a unique feature of the US’s destiny?

  Simply put, teleological (or ‘destinal’ views of history are intellectually bankrupt. This isn’t to say you can’t make claims about historical trends in opinions and ideas, but you need to base these on concrete observations, and separate them from any claims that we are coming closer to the Truth.

  Another problem here, is that you seem to be depending upon the opposite move as well. This is to say that you’re using what you take to be the actual shift in mainstream discourse toward your position to be a reason for claiming its truth, i.e. you are inferring from this claim that ‘the truth will out’, and the current trends in political opinion, that they add support to your position.

  This is somewhat implicit in your rebukes against those of us who think that media bias is a problem. An additional point I’d make here, is that these rebukes seem to be contradict the arguments you were making when we were discussing global warming, where you were all too happy to claim (and cite articles about) media bias against your position.

• Morgan Warstler // March 15, 2008 at 8:37 am

  Implicit to my rebuke to those who argue media bias: you are hurting yourself. You are demeaning the audience. It is a weak argument to make.

  Let’s use global warming as an example. Either there is global warming or there is not. It won’t take 30 years to decide. If it keeps getting colder, in three, five, ten years, Al Gore won’t be allowed near a TV camera again. If it keeps getting warmer, he might eventually be made king of the world. I totally understand “why” The Weather Channel decided to support global warming (it makes money). I understand why conventional socialists have re-aligned to pitch market controls to appease the weather god. I think they themselves are biased. I don’t think they control the media. I’m the media. You are the media. And my side is whooping your side.

  Global warming is either right or wrong. Democracy (voting yourself someone else’s money) is either right or wrong. Communism was either right or wrong. In all of these cases, the “market” decides. I don’t even think that the market doesn’t support government, it clearly does.

  But there obviously is a limit on the growth of positive rights in our country. The experiment we are currently running called Democracy (as opposed to a Republic) ran into a wall in 1980.

  We are all talking about the worst financial crisis since the depression, and this time the only way out is cutting planned social spending increases. We’ll see who is right soon enough. Money and capital will flee this country if the deficits aren’t fixed. Money supply is going to have to be tightened. That’s a product of democracy. In a Democracy, those against taxes and social programs are incentivized to deficit spend.

  The gorgeous reality of the Europeans holding the line on budget deficits is because they are essentially a new federalist state. All those governments sharing the same currency, means they can’t / won’t let each other deficit spend, because it “unjustly” inflates everyones currency, not just the turks, or the italians.

  The Euro was the best thing that ever happened to Europe, because now, each nation’s government is financially constrained. Deficits matter to each european nation more than they ever have! If they raise taxes to much, the economic base flees, if they provide too many services, they get in trouble for deficits. And so, unless they all give up their cherished national identities (President of Europe), the nation states are forced to be competitive.

  Pete those are real observations. I’m not being teleological, tautological, and any such thing.

• Azmanon // March 15, 2008 at 1:39 pm

  I’ve lived outside the US for more than 8 years working for cultural and humanitarian NGOs. Most of my time has been spent in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Seeing American Foreign policy at work from another angle definitely sheds new light on things. The US influence is huge to say the least. One thing I’ve heard from numerous people abroad is the complaint that US foreign policy is so influential, affecting them on a daily basis, that they see it fit to demand the right to vote in US elections. What does one say? Well you don’t pay taxes in the US. And they say, but our soldiers are fighting and dying right there with yours, your media is our media, your president supports our president, etc.

  Having been to Bosnia a half-dozen times and to Serbia just after the NATO bombing I have a bit of experience seeing the effects of war and trying to figure our how to “rebuild” afterwards. I could write volumes on (bad) policies, both foreign and local, but I’m not sure it would do any good. There is never enough time to go back on whats already been done and as a consequence people fail to learn. As with any policies towards foreign conflicts you’re bound to make mistakes and when you make mistakes, more policies are often made to cover those mistakes. Similar patterns go for budgets, especially with budgeting policies that adhere to strict spending cycles (which most are). The bigger the failure the larger the budget needed to attempt to repair the damage.

  I certainly don’t feel as sharp as others here toward these political debates and will try not to fill the space with too many abstract and tangential remarks. I do appreciate Jon’s willingness to put the issues he’s concerned with on the table and allow others to freely engage with their feedback (sorry Morgan, this is not what ‘manufacturing consent’ looks like). I wish there were similar possibilities with mainstream media outlets and elected officials, who it seems to me, are far more out of touch than most of us.

  And yes, I’m living in Estonia at the moment. Its a small country full of contrasts. On the one hand you have politicians like Mr “flat tax” “economic miracle” Mart Laar who helped develop the nations economic policy (he later admitted only reading a single book on economics, ‘Free to Choose’ by Milton Friedman). On the other you have minority groups who’s culture and traditions have survived more than 1000 years through war and countless occupations yet are starting to feel more threatened by the recent arrival of capitalism. I’m rather intent on following the case of the latter.

• John Hurt // March 15, 2008 at 6:25 pm

  hughvic

  I see why you are sick of his own sarcasm.

  The War in Iraq is a war the United States did not have to fight.

• John Hurt // March 15, 2008 at 6:27 pm

  Sorry, hughvic, I see why you are sick of your own sarcasm.

• hughvic // March 15, 2008 at 7:11 pm

  John, about the sarcasm, fair enough. But count up the modifiers and intensifiers in Ian’s tendentious paragraphs 3-5, and you’ll see how venemously snide that post is at its core; how it snides into position rather than bothering to argue into position. Moreover, the truth claims are bogus. So I might say that Ian’s is a losing argument, except that he doesn’t make an argument. So how about, it’s losing snidery. It’s “losing” because it is so hatefully defeatist.

  Anyway, that’s why I took the “sarcastic” approach you remark upon. (In lit. the device actually has a name, “satire by exaggeration”. It’s a way to hold up, not a mirror, but a funhouse mirror to a writer.) And anyway how can I be nice when someone’s licking his chops over the prospect of my countryfolk and our best friends falling in the field in “humiliating” fashion?

  And as for your statement that the U.S. did not have to fight, yes. That’s absolutely true. I can’t think of a war that the U.S. did have to fight, but I suppose that’s a digression.

  In any case, I’m proud of what the U.S. did with her allies in Iraq, and am proud of the forces now. They’ll be home soon, in large numbers. Many of them will exercise their higher education options, and I expect them to cause some real shake-ups on the campuses when they find out that the professoriat has been pontificating about them, without knowing anything of what they know. I further would guess that a surprisingly large proportion of returning vets, who will not allow themselves to be “reeducated” whilst they are pursuing their education, will soon assume positions of leadership in civilian society, and will exert a disproportionately large and beneficial influence in shaping American society.

  At some more convivial time I hope you will tell me in what media you work as an artist, and what form your art is taking these days.

• John Hurt // March 16, 2008 at 12:27 am

  hughvic

  Thank you for your kind, honest, and thoughtful letter. I didn’t read Ian Masters’ post as being snide, but I can understand and respect your sensitivity. Now I am afraid that I am going to get a little abstract here, but, as I understand it, thought itself is abstract, so if one desires to be non abstract, he must stop thinking completely, a phenomenon that is happening with great frequency in these modern times. (Fortunately, there does not seem to be a great number of concrete blockhead type deals in this forum, though there is an avalanche of them on the World Wide Web, I think you would agree.)

  I don’t disagree with what I, in general, understand to be your emotions regarding the sacrifices our men women have made in this adventure. I do not mock your genuine feelings about the humanitarian mission you perceive our men and women to be involved in. As I have written elsewhere on this blog, I would prefer and think it more appropriate for people to be grateful for the sacrifices of our troops than proud of their sacrifices, since their sacrifices are not something we, ourselves, have accomplished. Pride seems to be a somewhat distorted response to their sacrifices and their accomplishments. And, if I’m not mistaken, Mr. Masters is not an American, so perhaps he can be forgiven for not experiencing the same sort of national gratification you seem to be describing.

  I don’t think what Mr. Masters wrote was not coming from a place of love. I do think it was coming from a place of utter frustration. There are many of us that feel we have been lied to and manipulated (even as we knew we were being lied to) into a war we never sought, and which we feel is destructive to our country in many ways. Some of us believe that the damage done to our reputation in the world and to our economy in this, for better or for worse, global economy has been profound. Some us find the reverse engineering of a noble motivation for this invasion hard to swallow. Some of us feel the war in Iraq has been a distraction from larger issues we face and which we see unfolding now to disastrous effect in the financial sector. Perhaps terrorism is the great challenge to our country. Or perhaps we face a greater threat from within in the form of our own greed and hubris, our own egotism. Our own concupiscence. Our own fear. At any rate, we cannot concentrate on terrorism to the exclusion of all other concerns. We cannot turn a blind eye to our own corruption. Some of us find the idea that in fifteen or thirty years this will all be proven to have been a wise action to require a kind of faith that is hard to conjure, hard to arrive at. Some of us, including many in the military, believe that our private army has been put in the service of private interests which in the end do not benefit us, who are paying for this adventure, but rather benefit a very few who are enjoying windfall profits that flow through the blood of many thousands of actual human beings.

  As far as wars we had to fight, the Revolutionary War, The Civil War, and World War Two would, I think, fall obviously into that category. I think in this day and age, with the stakes as high as they are, with all the apocalyptic rhetoric (especially coming from the fundamentalist thinkers whom George Bush claims as his spiritual guides including some extremely bloodthirsty and in some cases homophobic closeted homosexual war mongers, such as Ted Haggard who, until his unfortunate outing, advised George Bush every Monday; and segregationist type pompous, false prophet war mongers such as Jerry Falwell and his “ilk” as his “ilk” is so fond of saying), the constant threat of nuclear destruction and what not, I think we should be intensely careful about the use of our force, especially in that region which has been so widely publicized as the epicenter of the destruction of our world. We are under a constant threat of self fulfilling prophecy.

  Some of us believe George Bush is living in a dream world, and it is not the American Dream we have heard so much about, the dream we have been sold so hard. Fred Kaplan had an interesting point to make in Slate this weekend. http://www.slate.com/id/2186554/
  Gail Collins had an interesting observation in yesterday’s New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/opinion/15collins.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

  As far as returning veterans, please remember that the second worse terrorist attack in our history was carried out by a returned Desert Storm veteran, and that we already have had many returned veterans from this war commit homicides, suicides, and familicides. I appreciate the optimistic picture you paint, but that picture is a one eyed jack. Many of our returned veterans are and will be time bombs. It is crucial that we provide them with the kind of medical and psychological attention they require. Caring for our veterans is an area that gets a great deal of my attention. Here is the web site of IAVA, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, an organization I work with, if you are interested. http://www.iava.org/

  Let’s choose this time to be convivial. I seriously appreciate your conviction and your intelligence. I am curious as to what you mean by writing that you were or are a bagman, if I have not confused you with someone else. I am, as I tried to write earlier, a semi metaphysical abstract artist. I work in music and in film.

  I hope I have not been contentious in the letter. I have not meant to be. I have meant to write to you with the respect your passion and commitment deserve.

  All good wishes

  John Hurt

• John Hurt // March 16, 2008 at 8:47 am

  Post Script

  I would like to add the war in Afghanistan to the list of wars we had (and, in this case, still have) to fight. It looks as if we are going to have to make incursions into Pakistan, as well, a nation state that has claimed several underground nuclear tests. Bin Laden must be brought to justice. Even if he is dead, he cannot be allowed to exist as a phantom. It makes me sick that he is still at large as our president, who promised to bring him in dead or alive, dances on the White House steps and makes light of the malfeasance and mismanagement of our government and our financial institutions in song and speech. I am concerned that the president, who hears the still, small voice, has lost his mind.

  And thank you for your elucidation of sarcasm. I am not unfamiliar with that particular literary device. I would like to respond with no literary device whatsoever that a funhouse mirror would, in my view, necessarily contain some element of fun. It’s that thing about humor- it has to be funny. Humor that is not funny is, well, confusing.

  But, as I hope you know, I’m joking around there. I think I understand that you are using the term fun house mirror to mean the object’s reflection is distorted to the make the object appear grotesque- or to make clear the object’s own distortion.

  At any rate, I sincerely do appreciate your thoughts. I hope I have not offended you. It is not my aim. With all this commotion, I am afraid I am opening myself up here to a just criticism of becoming obsessive. Maybe I can ratchet all this back a little. I really don’t like to hear myself talk this much. More than anything, I hope I have not wasted your time.

  All the best

  JH

  As I go to press with this comment, as it is called, I have just finished what seems to me an interesting and fairly balanced article on the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq in the New York Times. It can be read here:

  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/weekinreview/16jburns.html?hp

• John Hurt // March 16, 2008 at 1:36 pm

  Finally

  There are some of us who, if we were not willing to suspend our critical facilities, to override our powers of discernment, to abandon our common sense, and accept a whole set of transparent deceptions, were called traitors by a loathsome group of power mad, greedy, self interested, self asserting, belligerent, ersatz patriot mother fuckers. I use that as a technical term.

  Meanwhile, all of the power grabbed during that din was used, among other things, to eviscerate the Fourth Amendment. Yesterday, my girlfriend said she is afraid that if we didn’t have somebody to stop this, eventually much that we recognize as our Constitutional rights will have been compromised in the name of keeping us safe- that we would live in a police state. In reality, we are already in many ways living in a police state more completely than that of, say, the Soviet Union or East Germany. In East Germany, the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit had to rely on informants, bugging, stolen undergarments, and low tech gimmicks of that nature. In our country, everything we transmit electronically is recorded. All of personal communications, business disclosures, financial transactions, research, viewing, reading, and listening habits, and all the rest of it are available to those in power. Those who do not see that are blinded by the rockets’ red glare.

  The Bill of Rights is one of the things in this country that is worth dying for. I wonder who is willing to do so.

  Okay. Now I seriously am finished. I hope you will hold no malice toward me for the heated language of that last outburst. I suppose I just had to get that off my chest. I think I’ll go hit some golf balls. Hard.

  Peace.

• Another Jon // March 16, 2008 at 1:46 pm

  Well said JH…

• What Web 2.0 Democracy Looks Like « Jon Taplin’s Blog // March 16, 2008 at 4:15 pm

  [...] 16, 2008 · No Comments I don’t mean to boast, but this is as good a conversation on Iraq as you will find on the web. Thank you to all the contributors across this [...]

• rj // March 16, 2008 at 6:16 pm

  http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/30316.html

• hughvic // March 16, 2008 at 7:20 pm

  John, I’m not sure whether you strictly intend it, but you may be even more manipulative than Ian is. Are you a full-time artist? I mean, I hope that you are—not enough of you—but you seem to hail from The Therapeutic Class of officious elites.

  You begin the first installment of your trilogy with a warning that your thinking will be “abstract”, by which you make it immediately clear that you mean to “abstract” my reasoning into dewey-eyed emotivism. Before you even get under way, you have me pegged as a “sensitive” with tender “feelings” and “emotions” that lead me, in my “passion”, to romanticize what is really at best an “adventure” in Iraq as a heart-tugging “humanitarian mission”.

  I don’t know a soul who answers to this woozy description, and I did not describe the Iraq war and occupation in terms either emotional or sentimental. On the contrary.

  You mock my pride in my country’s conduct and that of my country’s “closest friends” (are you sure Ian is excluded here?) in Iraq, and you actually call it self-gratification! (I should think it would be more like the opposite of your obvious shame.) You have no idea what grounds I do or do not have for expressing such pride, as you would rather specify my grounds for yourself than ask me what they are. You do not even know to what conduct I refer.

  I fail to discern the referent of your term “our private army”. Are you referring to private soldiers, the noncommission rank and file of the U.S. Infantry? Are you suggesting instead that the United States Armed Forces have been appropriated, such that serving personnel have been rendered bought mercenaries? Is this how you expressly regard the veterans with whom you work? As military prostitutes and “ticking time bombs”? Haven’t we all seen this compelling story line before? You know how it goes…the troops are dupes and “baby killers” who return, blood on their hands and heads full of KILL programs, to walk among us like secret cannibals, the drums beating ever louder in their heads.

  We’ve been through that Hollywood jive, John. Nobody’s buying this time except some nostalgic graybeard Hippies and the kids whose first political memory is L’Affaire Lewinsky. Anti-war sentiment once again becomes, by the time it penetrates the strange brown glare of Hollywood, anti-military sentiment, and so far the onscreen expressions of the Industry’s smog-filtered anti-military movement nostalgia aren’t even selling to cable-direct. (Meanwhile the most revealing and cinematotropic comedy of errors is playing out Stateside: the Presidential Race of Races making fools daily of the pundits and even of the vestigial journalists, while meanwhile the public, despite the media, is proceeding apace with the formerly elusive “National Dialogue on Race”. But Hollywood, ever on the bunny slopes of politics, prefers to teach Peoria that war is hell and military men and women are at best pathetic and at worst crazed murderers.)

  As for my prediction regarding the effects upon and through higher education of the return of large numbers of military personnel of unprecedented sophistication, I do not think that I implied in any way that it was summative of today’s vets. Rather, it was an hypothesis (actually grounded in research) of a very specific phenome