Christopher Hitchens' "steel-toed kicking" of John Kerry is entertaining and on point. Underneath his dismantling of a man who is and always has been less than he seems, however, lies a point that doesn't get a lot of discussion in America - military service as a class issue.
It's wholly unsurprising that a Brit should notice it so quickly, whereas Americans have such a blind spot on the subject that this aspect remains largely undiscussed. The thing is, it's impossible to spend very much time in "Blue America" amidst the American "New Class" (vid. also the "Skybox Liberals" sub-segment) without running into their pervasive image of military people as lower class servants on par with the illegals who cut their lawns. Service of that kind isn't something one is expected to do - it's something vaguely beneath one that "lesser" people are hired to do for you per your whims. I've discussed this issue before here at some length, in "Where They Get Young Men Like This" - which also covered where they very conspicuously do not. Let's just say that my hopes for improvement and resolution remain largely unfulfilled.
Democrat voter Phil Carter, in his Nov. 3 post "A military that looks like America," is ringing the same alarm bells- and he's right to do so. It's a problem for the Democratic Party, of course, which is going to have a hard slog as long as thinly-veiled comtpempt and snobbery continue to set their cultural tone vis-a-vis all matters military. The fakery around this topic, followed by slip after revealing tone-deaf slip, isn't fooling as many folks as they think. But the divide's effects have other manifestations, and it's certainly a larger problem for America as a whole. One that will need to be fixed across party lines as part of any longer-term salvage-restore-improve project for the Republic.
The all-volunteer, professional military has a lot of things to recommend it - but it depends on underlying cultural foundations that include a certain level of (a) belief in shared service, and (b) shared recognition that the polity is worth defending. If those underpinnings collapse, the all-voulunteer military also has significant disadvantages that perpetuate the problems at the foundation, and even feed back into its ability to do its job. Which is why I'm moved to spend time blogging about this - Hitch has hit on a genuine Big Issue, one that isn't getting the kind or level of discussion it deserves and needs.
Not least of the problems is that if the 'warfare class' really did come to see itself as distinct from the rest, that leaves the way open to direct military control of politics. After all, they have all the guns....
If what you say is true I guess that you may find it surprising that there are more veterans serving in Congress that are Democrats than Republicans.
Quite frankly I wouls much prefer to have a citizen army that was more representative of the whole of American society, even if it were done by a national draft. To me "professional" smacks a bit to close to "mercenary".
The "warfare" class comment speaks to the tone-deaf idiocy IMHO of the Skybox Liberals. Lamont and Co.
Middle and working class Americans serve because they view their country as needing and deserving protection; and military careers proud and noble not "evil" and other labels used by Volk Marxists.
The idea that the military is a coup in waiting speaks in and of itself that Dems/Liberals/Press don't identify with America, American ideals, as much as a transnational elite and fuzzy multiculturalism. Who cares about America and Americans when you're jet setting at Davos, after all.
In the way that the Medieval Church heirarchy viewed itself above and beyond the reach of national interests and institutions, so too do the transnational progressives of the Dem/Liberal/Press self identify as "citizens of the world."
Sorry, guys, need to take this post out of circulation for a bit....
What is shocking is how ignorant of military affairs Dems are.
For example the debate between the Angry Attritionists, the RMAs, and the Counter-Insurgency folks passes them by. They couldn't even identify the implications:
1. The Angry Attritionists want to fight WWII all over again, replaying the Normandy Campaign for example (around 10,000 casualties A DAY) with "the Highway of Death" on the other side, a lot of Americans dead and factor X 10 to X100 on the other side. With the naturally flowing consequences of around 20% of the civilian population also dead. "Kill enough of them and they stop fighting" ala Curtis LeMay. Big armor, tanks, arty, etc. Cold War forces plus.
2. The RMA folks (Rummy chief among them) argue technology allows small US forces to dominate the battlespace by using networked forces down to the individual soldier able to call down air, "smart arty" etc. Forces a lot smaller but more deadly, and focused on irregular terrorist forces. Ditch the existing hardware and get a few of more expensive new stuff, put tech EVERYWHERE.
3. Counter-insurgency folks. Forget the hardware concentrate on language and cultural knowledge, forment insurgencies among your enemies who are divided and vulnerable, backed by Green Berets and such. Afghanistan "plus."
A debate worth having and understanding the implications, but one Dems because of their institutional contempt for the military itself and the IDEA of the use of force (imagine Pelosi authorizing the KILLING of bin Laden for laughs).
Sorry, guys, need to take this post out of circulation for a bit....
Whatever changes you made, if any, didn't improve it. Try engaging John Ryan's point: somehow the Democrats ran more veterans (and esp Iraq veterans) in this cycle than the Republicans. Would a link to the resume of Sen.-Elect Jim Webb (and that of his son) be helpful?
Whatever the faults of the liberals—and I think liberals are a lot less anti-military now than during Vietnam, where the armed forces were indisciplined and ultimately not successful—I tend to think they pale before the sins of the Republican (esp neo-conservative) attitude towards the military as a tool for constructing some sort of national greatness. It goes without saying that members of this class of Churchill wannabes seldom have military service on their resume, and what's more, they tend to reside in the sociocultural milieu of the bluest urban centers and to participate in the culture thereof. Their admiration of the military is a strictly vicarious experience. I was going to suggest that if the culture of rural Idaho is so much to your liking, you move there, except looking at the election results, even the real Idaho no longer looks so much like the stereotype Idaho I was referring to. And speaking of the election results, talking about the Democrats' "hard slog" the day after their (rather, our) best electoral result in a generation—including the unprecedented failure of the GOP to take over even a single Democratic House, Senate, or Governor position—is ridiculous.
A perhaps more important topic is whether the "big tent" of the democratic party can work well (or work at all) given the bifurcation between the (1) netroots-Lamont crowd, who ousted a long time democrat from the party, and (2) the Webb (and Liebermann wrt defense) type crowd who may be the more traditional WWII type of democrats.
While these sort of internal conflicts in ideology are not new, I do believe that with the nature of both international terrorism and the media/internet info-war... that projecting a unified face to the outside world is important. As such I think the Kos-kid/Fahrenheit911 types do a great deal of wrong to America.
Question is ... which way will the Pelosi/Dingle/entrenched-democrats lean. Will they play to the Kos types (e.g., endless investigations of "camps", Halliburton, etc) just to snipe at Bush, or will they accept that engaging the world means more than just showing up cocktail hour at the UN?
Webb... Mr. anti-Semite campaigner. Not really interested in his resume at this point. Not surprised he's the guy you present as your model, though, Andrew.
Number of veterans running doesn't address my point, which the pervasive attitude toward the military within Democratic Party ranks and particularly its activist set. Of course you'll deny that problem or attempt to distract from it, because that's your iron-clad MO with respect to Democratic Party defense/ foreign policy issues. But the attempt is too pathetic to even bother with, and whether or not you choose to acknowledge the problem changes nothing.
There is one minor connection, mind. It may be that having more veterans and adding moderates running for office under their ticket will have a beneficial effect on those attitudes and make the Democratic Party less tone-deaf. I hope so, insofar as it may be helpful in addressing the issues above.
Likewise, note my point that the problem is not confined to the Democratic Party and has a clear class dimension. It certainly feeds big-time into the media, for instance, and has lesser but still noticeable effects on the GOP side of the aisle as well.
The GOP has the benefit of a voting base that has a much stronger record of military enlistment/service... if the traditionally Democratic black vote is removed from the equation, it becomes even more lopsided. It also has the favourable regard for the military you discussed, which is indeed a major contrast, and makes a difference. These greatly attenuate the problems discussed above, but do not wholly remove it.
I do believe that given the nature of our enemy and therefore our war, the GOP would do well to tap its strong military base, using its reasonably well-developed approach to advancing talent at various levels in order to advance people with front-line military experience (note distinction) within the party and its associated infrastructures. That opportunity now beckons as part of a larger rebuilding project, and I hope and expect that they'll take it.
I don't think 'skybox liberals' are a large group. The higher a person's income, the more likely they voted for Bush and are a conservative.
The more typical 'leftist' is someone who is highly educated in a non-marketable field, a person who is under 25, or a 'bum' unkempt, misshapen, and smelly.
Very few of these can afford a skybox.
You know, Joe, I don't know whether Webb is an anti-Semitic campaigner or an anti-Semite, although for an anti-Semite he sure did well among Jewish voters. (Nationwide Jews voted Democratic 87 percent, an increase from the last few elections.) I do know that when Allen found out (or more likely just claimed to find out) that he was of recently-converted Jewish ancestry on his mother's side, he immediately announced that she made great pork chops, which sounds like an attempt to placate anti-Semitic voters. But then, Sen. Macaca wasn't above raw appeals to bigotry with racial slurs, now was he?
And for all of you who don't read Daily Kos, I warmly suggest you read it before you talk about it, instead of making it into a horrible bogeyman. Webb, former Republican and veteran, was repeatedly praised by Kos as just the sort of talent the Democratic Party needed. This wasn't only in the general election, when Kos was supporting every Democrat except William Jefferson, but in the Democratic primary, where Webb came from behind to defeat a colorless executive. And Kos was urging his supporters to give Webb cash when he was 30 points down to Allen. The idea of a dichotomy between the Democratic netroots and Webb shows reckless disregard for just which candidates the netroots supported.
You have again evaded my point, which is that the alleged Republican favorable regard for the military is of a most peculiar kind, talking up martial virtues (from a TV studio) while not allocating money for body armor. I also have to say, by the way, that greater support for the Republicans in non-African-American members of the military is conflated with the fact that the now-Republican South has a cultural tradition of enlistment and military service that predates the Civil War, and to some extent is related to the very existence of the Civil War, for example, because of the need to train (white) Southern men for armed patrols against possible slave insurrection.
I'm always amazed by Katzman's twisted view of reality. Is he really delusional? Or is he purposely distorting the truth to take the heat off the Republican elites?
1. Fact: No one in the Bush Administration -- except Powell -- ever served in the military. Well, Dubya did, but his attendance record was rather spotty, wasn't it?
2. Fact: As far I can tell, none of the Replublican leadership in the Senate or the House served in the military, either (correct me if I'm wrong).
3. Fact: The Repubs voted down funding for body armor, and Rummie was all too happy to throw "the army we've got" into the Iraq meat grinder with a callous disregard for our troops physical welfare.
4. Fact: Repubs have decreased veterans benefits to returning soldiers -- going as far as to cut medical benefits for our returning wounded.
5. Fact: Kerry served in the military -- in Viet Nam -- honorably.
Conclusion: Despite the all the Right-wing noise about supporting our troops, they have shown little true respect for our men and women serving in Iraq. Sounds to me like all this talk about Dems (liberals) not respecting our military is a mendacious distortion.
Moreover, there seems to be something inherently shameful in the collective psychology of the Right that it needs to deny the basic decency of those who served honorably (Kerry, Murtha, et al).
--Beo
Beo, what's your position on ROTC and college campus recruitment?
I really don't give a rat's ass about what Kerry or Murtha did or didn't do. (Conversely, anybody who actually get's through flight school and is then assigned to pilot not-so-stable fighter jets probably deserves tne benefit of a doubt, but hey.) What I do care about is what is good policy today, not what someone did 35 years ago.
Fact: I'll trust Democrats when I see them advocating policies that I think are sound.
Oh yeah, that was the last-minute smear against Webb before the primary. "Anti-Semitic."
In the primary, Webb ran against a Jewish guy, Harris Miller.
The Jewish guy Miller looked, well, Jewish: he had a Semitic nose and black curly hair. He was also a lobbyist who had represented corporation which had outsourced jobs overseas.
A Webb campaign worker produced a flyer which had a cartoon caricature of Miller. The caricature was a pretty fair image of Harris Miller. Because Miller looks Semitic, the caricature was attacked as being that of a stereotypical Jew, as if you should draw a Jewish-looking Jew to look like a Swede.
The point of the cartoon was to attack Miller's well-paid advocacy for corporate outsourcing of jobs. All true, and all fair comment.
Why was this canard raised by the right-wingers? Well, because Allen would have beaten the corporate hack and "liberal" Miller easily.
The irony is that if Miller had won the primary, then no "macaca," and probably no revelation of Allen's own Jewish ancestry. The Allen campaign probably would have subtly (or not so subtly) drawn attention to Miller's Jewishness to their redneck voters themselves.
As far as the "pervasive attitude towards the military among skybox Democrats," do you have any evidence, one story or even an apocryphal anecdote, or are you just blowing out the usual bullshit?
I say the candidacies of Webb, Sestak, Murphy, Duckworth and others are proof of the contrary. I see more condescention and contempt among the Young Republicans who profess hawkish views, proclaim the supreme importance of "the War on Terror," but don't think it's important enough for themselves to enlist, or for the troops to be well-paid and have the benefits they deserve.
The callousness of the finally-departed idiot Rumsfeld, who opposed expanding the size of the Army from 2001 until 2005, thereby sending Soldiers and Marines to frequently-repeated tours in Iraq or Afghanistan.
There is a problem with recruiting now. Do you think that "elite" (i.e. educated and informed) parents and young people might be reluctant to recommend enlistment or enlist themselves because they see the incompetence of the war effort, the extent to which they tried to do it on the cheap, the extent to which it was understaffed and underequipped at all levels?
Do you think that "stop-loss," IRR callups, long one year tours in Iraq, extended to 16 months, would have anything to do with "elite" reluctance to enter the military?
How about moral hazard? Abu Ghraib and the prosecutions of lower-ranking personnel when all indications were the policy proceeded from Yoo's torture memos though Major General Miller down to PFC Lynndie England. How about the unprecedented legislative defense of torture? Do you think some idealistic young people might not want to take a chance of getting involved in that?
How about Pat Tillman and the lies which were told about his death? Do you think some "elite" parents have read about that in Sports Illustrated or the New York Times?
I served in the military, I used to recommend it to my young relatives and others. Not now, not until there are some major changes. Rummy gone being only a first step.
Hey Joe, the American people aren't buying your bullshit anymore, the elections show that.
observer:
Like it or not, there is a pervasive alienation between the cultural and political left that controls the Democratic Party and the U.S. military. You may not like this, you may scream "chickenhawk" all you want, but the thrust of Katzman's argument is that it is bad for democracy when the elites avoid the military like the plague.
Harvard and Yale don't go to the Infantry. They should; they would make great officers, I bet.
Ask yourself: why haven't there been any motion pictures out of Hollywood about this war? Hollywood, for example, is run by liberal Democrats, rather wealthy ones at that, who do not believe it is important to make films honoring the valor of our fighting men. It's as if they have no skin in the game!
Why can Nancy Pelosi, right out of the bat, call Iraq, "not a war to be won, but a situation that needs to be solved".
The Cultural Left, the Kos Kiddies, by and large don't volunteer to serve the country under arms. Period. That's a problem for this democracy.
Yes, the Kossacks love Webb and the other "moderate" Democrats about like the Freepers love Jeffords, Chafee, and Snowe.
The main difference within the military is, at the lower levels, a commonality : this is a volunteer military. The barrack level mindset has no rebels, or protest. The circle jerk of ever growing oneway thinking is self reinforcing. The draft piled a wide variety of drafted people into the barracks. The was room to think.
#13 from observer 5,
I predict that Joe and others who stand with him on the general outlines of the military/political problems in the world today will be vindicated, like Churchill, at a very high price.
It will be interesting to watch the clash of policies between the President and the new Congress.
I predict a Democrat fracture.
frontinus, you can go over to DKos and see the very warm endorsement of Webb, or you can close your eyes and make up the version you want. Personally, I'd say someone who tells the direct opposite of the truth about a web site (or is that a Webb site) even after a suggestion to clue up should have his keyboard taken away until he grows up.
Observer, great post.Money talks and bullshit walks. Pat Tillman was apparently a liberal and opposed the invasion of Iraq. Joe K and his ilk have a strange kind of hero worship that, as I said before, is a strictly vicarious participation in battle. Some even have the temerity to think their "brave" attacks on liberals are as "dangerous" as military service.1. Fact: No one in the Bush Administration -- except Powell -- ever served in the military. Well, Dubya did, but his attendance record was rather spotty, wasn't it?
On what planet is that a "fact"?
Don Rumsfeld will be surprised to learn that those Navy fighters he used to fly, and train people to fly, weren't associated with the military.
I rest my case on the intellectual sclerosis of Winds of Denial.
We have an election. We get a new SecDef. And what's the post here at WoC? Post number five on John Kerry.
Honest to God it's like the recent exhibition that showed the self-portraits of an Alzheimers victim. You can watch the brain cells dying.
The volunteer army is a disaster.
Sure, you get rid of the protesters and run-away yellow-bellies, but in return you have a much bigger problem: lack of public understanding and support of national service and armed conflict matters.
It's a bad idea and needs to go. If we are going to send kids into harm's way, it should be everybody. I respect the heck out of our current military. The kids on the ground are doing great, but the domestic end of supporting the armed forces is badly sick.
Beowolf--
1. Fact: No one in the Bush Administration -- except Powell -- ever served in the military. Well, Dubya did, but his attendance record was rather spotty, wasn't it?
Fact: the Joint Chiefs of Staff currently serve in the military. Okay, sure, that's not "served" as in, the past tense, but still--they're actually there and they're actually part of the administration.
2. Fact: As far I can tell, none of the Replublican leadership in the Senate or the House served in the military, either (correct me if I'm wrong).
Okay. You're wrong. Apparently you haven't heard of the Senator from Arizona named John McCain. You might want to learn about him. He's a Republican Senator from Arizona who was in the Navy (the branch with the boats). He was a pilot (he flew in airplanes--I know, I know... you're thinking, "why does the branch with the boats also need airplanes?" Just trust me for now...).
3. Fact: The Repubs voted down funding for body armor, and Rummie was all too happy to throw "the army we've got" into the Iraq meat grinder with a callous disregard for our troops physical welfare.
I'm sure he was real happy about that. In fact, I bet he was so happy about it that he TOLD the Republicans in Congress not to vote for body armor. But still... the Defense Secretary doesn't actually have any appropriations power, so he actually has to go to war with the Army he's got, whether he's happy about it or not. That really sucks but it's a fact.
4. Fact: Repubs have decreased veterans benefits to returning soldiers -- going as far as to cut medical benefits for our returning wounded.
In addition to Sen. McCain you also apparently haven't heard of something called "Combat Related Special Compensation." Just do a Google search and check the years that it passed the Congress and the name of the president who signed it into law. Don't want to? Okay--it passed on 2 December 2002 and was signed by W and started as a program on 1 June 2003. CRSC provides (as in, "gives," "hands over," "does not cut") compensation ("benefits") to uniformed service personnel ("veterans") who suffer combat related injuries ("wounds").
5. Fact: Kerry served in the military -- in Viet Nam -- honorably.
Yeah yeah yeah. He was so honorable when he served in Vietnam that he couldn't wait to get back and do a tremendous disservice to his fellow soilders by testifying in front of the Senate about how dishonorable everybody else was. That's real honorable.
Matt Shultz (#1)
Not least of the problems is that if the 'warfare class' really did come to see itself as distinct from the rest, that leaves the way open to direct military control of politics. After all, they have all the guns....
Guns? What for? To threaten?
To control politics all what is needed is mass media, and then first frighten and after that, persuade.
As a draftee, in my country, I enjoyed the experience a lot. If I hadn't do so, I could not see a person in uniform without regretting not having been one of them at least for a while.
I think military service has a deep positive impact on cohesion of a society, but that today's people simply cannot stand drafts.
There is a point here, but to tie is to partisanship is an error. The issue is primarily regional and cultural as described by described by David Hackett Fischer. The disproportionate presence of Southerners in the military and especially the senior command positions is a cultural reality that goes far back in our history. It was a reason it took the North so long to defeat the South, and then in a very inelegant fashion. It's also part of the reason we have so many military installations in the south. That most southerners are currently Republicans is a coincidence. A lifetime ago most of them were Southern Democrats. So what?
The question is, when did the US have a military that "looked like America"? Certainly not in the eighteenth century. Perhaps in the Civil War, but not in any other war of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century we have the Great War and the Good War both fought by Armies that "looked like America" as recorded by Frank Capra and lots of the little wars we'd rather forget about. So what do the Armies that "look like America" have in common?
They are huge wars that involve conscription to give the central government total control over the lives of all early adult American males to fight some supreme evil. The balance of America spends most of its time and effort supporting the "boys" as they go off to irradicate evil. After evil is overthrown, the army rapidly melts away because most Americans are not militarisic people and would rather have nothing to do with the military if given the choice. And armies that "look like America" are expensive, whether paid for by market wages or involuntary servitude and foregone productivity.
There seem to be two poles in this debate, both of which contain elements of truth and virtue. Those who want to make the military "look like America" so they can have the government control the lives of the young to serve their greater national purpose and those who fail in their duty to serve their country because they abhor involvement with militarism and killing absent a really good reason.
The next really good reason seems pretty apparent. The American people have just done a good job of egging it on to demonstrate just how evil it can be. As soon as that has happened, we'll agree to build a military that "looks like America" to irradicate the evil. We'll all agree, Republicans and Democrats alike. It's going to happen soon enough. No need to rush.
AJL, I have been to Kos many times, and I'm here to tell you, even the most cursory glance at the comments puts paid to the notion that conservatives have a monopoly on morons. There is one commenter whose contribution to every discussion is "Fuck Bush!" They repeat lefty slogans as though they were fundementalists quoting scripture, and they have absolutely no tolerance for anyone, however much s/he may agree with them generally, who deviates in the slightest from any point of Kosian dogma. So I wouldn't hang any argument on a defense of Kos, even if you are right about their support of Webb.
M Takhallus, Great contribution to the discussion. You remind me of the Kossacks.
Remember the good old days when Progressive heroes burned their draft cards?
Now it seems the old lions are just dying to give a new generation of heroes the same opportunity.
Yep, we'll all be better if the military becomes something kids are raised to resent again.
Mark Poling (#26)
Perhaps kids are supposed to resent the military. We should be suspicious of standing armies, and society as a whole benefits from shared responsibility. "Taking the pain away" from the military sounded good, but it is totally screwed.
As far as the military looking like America, I could care less. I want voters and debates among people who have a real understanding of exactly what we are talking about when it comes to using force. If that means college kids burning their draft cards, so be it. It's not those kids, or even the military, that I am concerned about -- I am concerned about the future of a country where the dirty work is handled by somebody else.
Beowolf--
1. Fact: No one in the Bush Administration -- except Powell -- ever served in the military. Well, Dubya did, but his attendance record was rather spotty, wasn't it?
Fact: the Joint Chiefs of Staff currently serve in the military. Okay, sure, that's not "served" as in, the past tense, but still--they're actually there and they're actually part of the administration.
2. Fact: As far I can tell, none of the Replublican leadership in the Senate or the House served in the military, either (correct me if I'm wrong).
Okay. You're wrong. Apparently you haven't heard of the Senator from Arizona named John McCain. You might want to learn about him. He's a Republican Senator from Arizona who was in the Navy (the branch with the boats). He was a pilot (he flew in airplanes--I know, I know... you're thinking, "why does the branch with the boats also need airplanes?" Just trust me for now...).
3. Fact: The Repubs voted down funding for body armor, and Rummie was all too happy to throw "the army we've got" into the Iraq meat grinder with a callous disregard for our troops physical welfare.
I'm sure he was real happy about that. In fact, I bet he was so happy about it that he TOLD the Republicans in Congress not to vote for body armor. Cites would be nice, because the military has been buying an awful lot of body armor for several years now, including improved ESAPI plates - and that's a fact.
I'll add that the Defense Secretary doesn't actually have any appropriations power, so he actually has to go to war with the Army he's got, whether he's happy about it or not. That really sucks but it's a fact, too.
4. Fact: Repubs have decreased veterans benefits to returning soldiers -- going as far as to cut medical benefits for our returning wounded.
In addition to Sen. McCain you also apparently haven't heard of something called "Combat Related Special Compensation." Just do a Google search and check the years that it passed the Congress and the name of the president who signed it into law. Don't want to? Okay--it passed on 2 December 2002 and was signed by W and started as a program on 1 June 2003. CRSC provides (as in, "gives," "hands over," "does not cut") compensation ("benefits") to uniformed service personnel ("veterans") who suffer combat related injuries ("wounds").
5. Fact: Kerry served in the military -- in Viet Nam -- honorably.
Yeah yeah yeah. He was so honorable when he served in Vietnam that he couldn't wait to get back and do a tremendous disservice to his fellow soilders by testifying in front of the Senate about how dishonorable everybody else was. That's real honorable.
Yeah, Andrew, Kossacks aren't crass political animals like their counterparts on the opposite fringe. Someone call Darwin. I sure wish I could delude myself into believing Webb's support is somehow more principled and consistent than that given to Lieberman. Let's hope Webb didn't march for civil rights or anything lest he find himself in black face to the rapturous cheers of his one-time supporters.
After 30 minutes of reading this thread I found nothing extolling Webb's stand on the issues. But then again my eye isn't as trained at picking gnat shit out of pepper as your's may be.
But don't get your panties in a wad, Andrew. You guys are just like everyone else. And as historic opponents of exceptionalism you should wear that proudly. Pin it right up next to "Screw them" on the lapel.
By the way, should I expect Markos' great plan for Iraq to be unveiled before the Iraq Study Group reveals their's? Haha. Sorry, low hanging fruit ya' know.
Let's see.
Hitchens, Katzman, AL...
Any vets in this group?
But hey, they talk a big show right?
Still waiting on AL's Iraq post, it seems Joe can't even bring himself to address it anymore.
Color this veteran unimpressed with the cheerleaders.
Jesus, what have you people done.
Most of what Joe Katzman writes is propaganda, like this post. It's the same sort of thing that the loathsome Limbaugh does.
The country rejects the Republicans, Bush and the war policy, Rumsfeld gets fired, and what does Joe write about? Some vague bullshit about "Blue America" . . . the "New Class" . . "Skybox Liberals" [yada, yada] ". . . their pervasive image of military people as lower class servants on par with the illegals who cut their lawns."
All this without a single example, which you would think would be easy to find if it were all that "pervasive."
No matter that if there is an identifiable "warrior class" in this country, it probably includes in large part Hispanic-Americans, as any look at Iraq casualty reports will attest to. Hispanic-Americans mostly vote Democratic.
Is the problem with military recruiting from elite colleges due to the colleges, the students, or the war itself?
After all, there are conservative students, Young Republicans at all these schools. The schools don't force anyone to go there or prevent anyone from joining the military after graduation.
One thing though, is that the students are pretty smart. When the recruiter tells them, like is recent reports, that the Iraq war is over and they won't be sent there, they know it's bullshit.
Maybe they've studied a little history, and they see the Iraq war in 2006 is like the Vietnam war in 1972 - the US is on the way out, there is no plan to mobilize the forces and money it would take to even try to win, and there's a good chance you could end up dying for naught but political face-saving in the short-term, just to forstall the harsh judgment of history to follow in years to come.
As far as M.Simon's comparison to Churchill, Rummy had the gall to compare himself to Churchill because of the criticism they both received. You might as well have a skid-row bum compare himself to Churchill based on their common love for alcohol.
This is just wrong.
Name one, just one, of our current Republican leaders who actually served (Bush's time in the "special" reserve doesn't count).
Name any of the current Republican leaders who have children serving in the military.
Cut the crap, it's Democrats that serve. Republicans are too busy making sleazy money deals to finance wars they created to actually serve in the military.
No Andrew you are missing the point entirely (note the adroit run-away). No Democrat AT ALL is considered an expert in Military Affairs. They've run vets yes but these vets have RUN AWAY from the implications of using force anywhere in the world to protect American interests.
What happens if Musharraf is killed or overthrown by an Al Qaeda coup? What then? What policies, spending priorities, and actions are Dems prepared to take:
1. RUN
2. HIDE
That's it.
The Blue Dog Dems such as Tester or Webb will be tossed out like Lieberman if they don't toe the line on Gun Control (now that Congress has been won), Gay Marriage, Open Borders to Mexico, Miranda Rights for Al Qaeda, and the Global Test.
"Best results in a generation?" Please Bush is both incompetent and unable to satisfy his base on secure borders, no to illegal immigration, and "rubble doesn't make trouble." That he's at 40% approval is symptomatic of the insanity of the Dem Party. I'm sure Impeachment, slashing the military akin to Clinton's cuts from 18 divisions to 10 in the Army (so much for Pro-Military Dems) etc. will hammer that nutroot point home.
Lazarus's comments show his party stuck in Vietnam (a pointless other than deterrence signalling proxy war constrained by fear of Soviet/Chinese escalation into Global Nuclear War). His solutions are appropriate for the world of 1965. In a world where 10 nuclear powers will become 17 in the near future, deterrence ala MAD no longer works, and bin Laden and Nasrallah's argument that if you kill 3,000 Americans max they run away in defeat ... for that Dems have no answer.
The fundamental question that has NOT been answered is how do you stop the nuking of an American city by state-sponsored terrorists? GWB offered idealistic freedom and democracy which has failed. Dems offer ... nothing. They run away from the choice. Don't waterboard KSM the 9/11 architect? Fine but then thousands die, including Americans.
It's a fantasy ideology of the world as a Disneyland ride. ALREADY terrorists are celebrating the Dem win as a "victory" towards the goal of the world-wide Caliphate and the destruction of Israel (the latter most Dems support). The new Muslim Dem Congressman supports Hezbollah and Hamas, Sharia Law in this country. Daily Kos supported and celebrated the Iranian Holocaust Cartoon Contest. They want to end America's support for Israel. That's your Dem Party.
Add: people are talking about the social goals internally of how the Military should be sized: Angry Attritionist WWII style draft/mass army etc. without regard to the ability of such an military to defend against threats to the nation (Iran's and North Koreas Nuclear tipped ballistic missiles for example). That in and of itself speaks volumes.
Last add:
"No matter that if there is an identifiable "warrior class" in this country, it probably includes in large part Hispanic-Americans, as any look at Iraq casualty reports will attest to. Hispanic-Americans mostly vote Democratic."
WRONG. The vast majority of combat deaths and injuries are to working and middle class white guys. They do the fighting and dying; Hispanics and African Americans in the military are in small numbers and mostly non-combat units. Another PC fuzzy multi-culti myth where the actual facts represent thought crimes (no wonder Orwell modeled the Ministry of Truth on the BBC). Volk Marxism at it's most debased. A caste system of oppressor and oppressed, with complex valuation based on identity.
"Bush's time in the "special" reserve doesn't count"
How many hours have you spent flying first generation all whether jet fighters? Because Bush flew 326.4 hours in F-102s, documented by the Pentagon. It sure does count.
I'm far less concerned with 'military experience' amongst this administrations braintrust than the fact that that dont have an actual full time military man who has devoted his life to strategic thinking in the decision loop.
Leaving aside the absurdity of an "Al Qaeda coup", how exactly do you think Musharraf came to power in the first place?
And what exactly are we getting from Mush for our 3 billion dollar investment in Pakistan? A honest effort to capture bin laden? Nope. A serious effort to gain control of Waristan? Nope.
Joe et all are lost. Unable to cope with reality, they lash out at any inane and irrelevant issue they can find.
Heck if it weren't for the great Andrew, we wouldn't hear anything on Winds of Denial about serious issues in foreign policy.
Well, your new Sec. of Defense has a whole 2 years Air Force experience.
And apparantly is familiar with the procedures to sell weapons to Iranians (while keeping the sixth fleet at sea for over 100 days to threaten Iranians).
And of course, he's got that whole lying to congress thing down.
Ya think Ollie North just flat refused the job?
So many cliche'd observations, so little time.
Look at the Heritage Foundation's recent study on military demographics. Key findings included that greatest majority came from middle class or upper middle class incomes. The fastest growing category of military members was from upper-middle class. The number of whites is greater among combat troops than in the general population.
There are many Ivy Leaguers in the military. The University of Pennsylvania spews forth a top-notch number of them every year. The current lead officer on the new counter-insurgency doctrine, John Nagle, is an Ivy Leaguer and Rhodes Scholar.
In large part because of that, these young leaders are part of a current force that has unprecedented morale, discipline and mission focus. Even to the point of walking the streets of Baghdad with one arm tied behind their backs courtesy of the "elite" enlightened, educated politicos that make policy. Still, they're not as shy as previous generations about stating their opinions, or their own contempt for those elites.
Their high profile in the Democratic Party is due to that pary's self-conscious straining to recruit such as Duckworth, Hagget, et al to burnish the Democrat's weak national security credentials.
I've seen increasing evidence of a younger generation of citizens gravitating toward service academies and the officer corps in total opposition to their hippie anti-military leftist parents. This is, of course, anecdotal, but as in the sixties it follows along the usual generational ebbs and flows. Apparently this younger generation isn't buying the "Just like Vietnam" sell, but do seem to think there's something to "Never again."
The volunteer military doesn't need to reflect the same income and ethnic proportions of the general population. It's not a social experiment, but an organization whose mission is to defend the Constitution, the country and the American people.
Liberal minded Americans may eschew the use of force, but they cannot prevent our adversaries from clobbering us without it. It would be nice to not have to have a military, but this is the planet earth, and none of us can escape the basically violent and competitive nature of man.
Eclectic Floridian
here ya go. Feel Stupid, please, this is just the Senate from the 108th Congress.
Bennett Robert F. R UT
Burns Conrad R MT
Campbell Ben Nighthorse R CO
Cochran Thad R MS N
Craig Larry E. R ID
Enzi Mike R WY
Graham Lindsey Y R SC
Hagel Chuck R NE
Inhofe James M. R O
Jeffords James M. I VT
(sorta counts, he was elected as a Rep)
Lautenberg Frank R. Y D NJCpl.
Lugar Richard G. R IN N
McCain John R AZ N 58
Miller Zell D GA MC
(might sorta count too!)
Nickles Don R OK
Roberts Pat R KS
Sessions Jeff R AL
Specter Arlen R PA
Stevens Ted R AK
Thomas Craig R WY
Warner John W. R VA
Can we kill that stupid meme yet? Or is gonna be like that WMD thing "Okay, Okay, you found some, but it's NOT ENOUGH so I'm still right!"
Point of fact: Vincent Mikko ran as candidate for Representative from NJ. Being a recent veteran (served in Iraq) and an intel specialist, he actually knows stuff about the Iraq war- real stuff and not BS from web sits and news stories. More stuff, I'd bet, than the rest of congress PUT TOGETHER.
If experience and truth is so important to the Democrats, why would they run against and defeat a person like that?
Ben
Ben
Observer, Takhalus
You hit the nail on the head. Katzman is writing propaganda here, and every day, it is becoming more and more obvious as well as more and more disconnected from both the facts on the ground, and events as they play out day after day.
It's fascinating however, because of the style of the propaganda.
a. Focus on one or two points, that have some basis in reality, or in the cultural scene (Kerry joke, or "latte liberals")
b. Connect that point, illogically and without merit, to some other point that basically impugns, dishonors or smears the political enemy.
c. Do the above smearing under the guise of a "noble" reason - honoring the troops, courage, integrity, being smart, being practical, being real etc. Name the virtue, it will be represented.
I think commenting here now, should really be an exercise, an analysis, if you will, in Katzman's obvious use of propaganda.
The more that is exposed - the obvious propaganda, rather than any interest in objective analysis - the more Katzman's voice will become synonymous with propaganda - and thus even more distrusted.
My God, I hope Bush's administration experience with and within the Iraqi goverment may help in his relations with the Congress.
Why go by the study of a blatantly partisan organization when the military has already done the work for you?
Repost of something caught by the spam collector so pardon the multiple posts if it happens. Not that I care or anything....
Yeah, Andrew, Kossacks aren't crass political animals like their counterparts on the opposite fringe. Someone call Darwin. I sure wish I could delude myself into believing Webb's support is somehow more principled and consistent than that given to Lieberman. Let's hope Webb didn't march for civil rights or anything lest he find himself in black face to the rapturous cheers of his one-time supporters.
After 30 minutes of reading this thread I found nothing extolling Webb's stand on the issues. But then again my eye isn't as trained at picking gnat shit out of pepper as your's may be.
But don't get your panties in a wad, Andrew. You guys are just like everyone else. And as historic opponents of exceptionalism you should wear that proudly. Pin it right up next to "Screw them" on the lapel.
By the way, should I expect Markos' great plan for Iraq to be unveiled before the Iraq Study Group reveals their's? Haha. Sorry, low hanging fruit ya' know.
I don't get it. Granted that correlating the household income of enlistees to the mean household income of the zip code is a suspect methodology, but assuming for the purposes of argument it's true - it seems to contradict Joe Katzman's thesis.
Unless -
Is it that "upper middle class" youth and Ivy League grads are serving in growing numbers, but just not those who are from "New Class," "Blue State," or "Skybox Liberal" families?
All those upper middle class kids are coming out of Republican entrepreneur families, not from those librul professional or government bureaucrat/educrat NAGE/NEA families?
There is some proof that those middle and upper-middle class youth are not lattle liberal families?
No kids of "BoBos" in uniform, to borrow David Brooks's term?
This is what happens when some Canadian polemicist makes generalizations about a military he's had very little contact with.
#42 Observer,
Your points are great.
Detailing the contradiction between "upper middle class" serving, and yet those upper middle class somehow NOT including some "latte liberals" is a great point.
Probably though"This is what happens when some Canadian polemicist makes generalizations about a military he's had very little contact with.", is - again - PROBABLY untrue. (But it could be true).
As Joe works for a Defense paper of some sort, he probably runs into military types a lot - although "the grunts", maybe not so much.
The funny thing is, the original point of the article - how the WHOLE OF THE UNITED STATES has a hands off relationship with its "Warefare Class", is actually a subject worth talking about.
What is the future of the Warfare Class - those that serve? Will it always be dependent on the Military-Industrial Complex as such? What is a way for the majority of America to get more exposure to those who serve, beyond a car bumper sticker?
But of course, those questions don't get asked in Katzman propaganda-land - the issue just because another propaganda-fest of latte-liberal-left bashing.
The army demographics study ref'd above is interesting, but sheds no light on the class question. If you take education as perhaps one indicator of class it does confirm the higher percentage of college graduates in the military versus in the general population (58.6%) Now, why is there a higher education level in the military than in the general population? It seems to defy the stereotype.
As for the latte libs versus Republican entrepreneurs providing the manpower, my experience is with that group of young people who's parents could be described as latte liberals and are lukewarm about their children entering academies or the military. It's unexpected, and that's why it stuck out for me. Again, anecdotal. If there are any other studies out there, I'd be interested.
FWIW, historically, the upper classes tended to have military experience. The British royals still have to check that block, including Princes Harry and William who just graduated from Sandhurst. In the olden days, Princes and the nobility were actually expected to hop on the steed and lead any defense their kingdoms, unlike today. Of course now, we've got the Blackwater phenomenon, which opens up a whole other can of worms.
Hispanic American prefer the Marines, where they are the biggest minority, 13.2%, roughly the same proportion than in overall population.
What is the future of the Warfare Class - those that serve? Will it always be dependent on the Military-Industrial Complex as such? What is a way for the majority of America to get more exposure to those who serve, beyond a car bumper sticker?
I am afraid we will get more exposure, sooner or later, to similar conditions as the ones that suffer those who serve. It is simply a matter of time.
You guys need to fine tune your spam catcher. I don't see how a post made on November 9 can be considered an "old" one whose activity is likely to be spam.
Granted, there's usually little more than combative baiting in my posts but I've never once mentioned an Indian casino or Texas Hold 'em. Though I'll never again be able to make that claim. Thanks.
Yes there is a class seperation forming in the military. I spent a generation, as an NCO (you know, those crude guys who run around saluting their patrician betters and screaming profanity at the poor, childlike, privates) in "line" units of the Army and the shift was fairly obviouse. Yes, in the Army overall the shift is still not that great but go where it actually happens, to the combat units, not the finance units, not the perscom units, not the veterinarian detachments but the combat units.
I actually saw a few who resembled the more droll posters here. I don't remember seeing any of those type working in combat MOS's though.
As far as a fix there is none. Only a change in society can remedy such a shift. Any society, except when it's a life or death war of attrition, is not worth serving if it must draft it's youth to fight. As a side point to the quaint comment of "mercenary", a government is in far greater danger of a coupe from a draft military than from a volunteer military.
Kerry, ahh Kerry, I enjoy people holding up his war record. I study Kerry as I would any other venomous vermin. A truer example of an amoral creature has never been put forth. Study the youth, study the man and in particulare study what is not said about his military record. I find it humerous watching people who trumpet Kerry's very suspect record when a few years earlier they rediculed Dole's record and war wounds.
Mr. Katzman, you have made some fine points. In your place, I would take it as a compliment to have some of these characters spending so much time trotting out such obviouse bs tryng to refute you.
davebo, I think a Musharaff coup was postulated because of the nuclear force upon which he sits. I wouldn't rule out a radical Islamic rise to power there, and agree the Dems don't have an answer for it.
Jim Rockford #33,
"The fundamental question that has NOT been answered is how do you stop the nuking of an American city by state-sponsored terrorists?"
This question is very much in need of an answer. But I wonder if an answer doesn't also have to address two further questions:
1. Won't ad hoc preemptive strikes to stop the spread of nuclear technology shift enemy efforts toward technologies of mass destruction that are harder to detect and preempt? Bioterror weapons will be easier for suicidal private groups to develop and conceal than nuclear devices, and the private bioterror threat may only be a few decades from becoming real.
2. If deterrence no longer works, can a strategy that consists of plugging WMD leaks endure if presently reliable larger states can later become threats or accomplices to terrorism? If Russia becomes a failed state with nuclear weapons, or if China allows North Korea to black market nuclear warheads, do we respond in the same way as we would directly to a smaller rogue state?
I wonder if the danger we confront isn't so much choosing the wrong response as trying to respond selectively in the face of a growing breakdown in the world order. There may be no practical way we can deal with this. But I don't understand why we should defer planning for the foreign policy action we would take if an American city does get nuked. Telling the world what we would do might be a good way to persuade other governments to work with us more closely to prevent an attack from happening.
I think that is not the point. The point is what you would do if an American city is nuked by a group of Islamic terrorists coming, for instance, from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Yemen; that have mounted the bomb in Nicaragua, used passports provided by an European terrorist group to disguise as Latin Americans in the U.S and a network set by Colombian drug traffickers to cross the wall with Mexico. Uranium from the bomb might be stolen in Pakistan, but other components may come from purchases to the Russian mafia...
Who do you nuke in response? Saudi Arabia? Yemen? Russia? Nicaragua? Colombia? Mexico? Pakistan? Egypt? Europe?
I can't keep track of the plot changes any more. So which is Musharref--a thug front man for the jihadi-loving ISI or a pawn of the neocon cabal in Washington? Oh wait...both! Phew..thought Alzheimer's was setting in. All I could see in my mind's eye was the scattered, shredded corpses of a few dozen Pakistani soldiers. Yeah, rot pikers!
I can't wait for the "reality based" response...today it's "Musharref isi neffectual and powerless!"...tomorrow "Musharref is an oppressive brute crushing opposition with an iron boot!"....Talk about formulaic scripts.
What does billions a year get us? Probably the same thing billions a year got us back in the '80s, surprisingly enough--a pretty good ally.
J Aguilar #50,
I agree that nuking particular nations will not address the underlying problem. In the aftermath of a nuclear attack, I am quite sure the American people would demand a systemic change in the world and not just retaliation that leaves others free to attack us again or that leaves out culpable states.
We would have the right to demand that all nations change in a way that would redefine the limits of national sovereignty everywhere. Nations that do not agree to this change would be enemies and would be treated accordingly.
None of the above means that other nations will agree to our demands or that we will agree to limits on ourselves that we demand of others. If other nations or our own people don't want to change the world order that permitted a stealth nuclear attack on us, then we will have a world war on our hands.
My question is whether it would be useful to specify in advance the change in the world order that we would demand if one of our cities is nuked by terrorists. I would think that nations unwilling to have their sovereignty cut back will have an incentive not to allow their countries to be used as transit points for nuclear attacks or to serve as countries of origin.
Spam-catcher-generated spam.
Fourth re-posting.
Yeah, Andrew, Kossacks aren't crass political animals like their counterparts on the opposite fringe. Someone call Darwin. I sure wish I could delude myself into believing Webb's support is somehow more principled and consistent than that given to Lieberman. Let's hope Webb didn't march for civil rights or anything lest he find himself in black face to the rapturous cheers of his one-time supporters.
After 30 minutes of reading this thread I found nothing extolling Webb's stand on the issues. But then again my eye isn't as trained at picking gnat shit out of pepper as your's may be.
But don't get your panties in a wad, Andrew. You guys are just like everyone else. And as historic opponents of exceptionalism you should wear that proudly. Pin it right up next to "Screw them" on the lapel.
By the way, should I expect Markos' great plan for Iraq to be unveiled before the Iraq Study Group reveals their's? Haha. Sorry, low hanging fruit ya' know.
Pull the other one please.
Well, tried a fourth re-posting on the queued post replacing the Kos url's with Tiny ones to no avail. I'm at a loss as to why that particular post is treated differently than any of my others that passed muster.
Oh well, I guess Andrew can suffer under another delusion--that I ignored his post.
I'm putting on my nice face before I respond to you, Ryan. I wish "American society", whatever that is exactly, were more representative of the men and women in the military.
If it were - Guam, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico would not only be states, they'd have more electoral votes than New England. Racial and personal politics would be treated with contempt. A black or Hispanic president would be so unremarkable as to be hardly worthy of comment. People would be expected to stow their personal grievances and get with the mission.
We would still have all the grief that human flesh is heir to, but there would be less littering and less unsoldierly behavior.
Yes, there are many poor people who join the Army. It has for many generations been a path to a skilled career for people of limited opportunity, while social welfare has been the high road to ruin. I wish your "American society" were one quarter as indifferent to class and race. I would think a Democrat would approve.
The military is not devoid of the children of the rich and middle class, either. If you want even more of them, join me in demanding that universities open their doors to ROTC and military recruiters.
Finally, drop the "mercenary" shit. For as long as I've paid attention to politics, beginning in the 80s, I've heard Democrats mouth that word. They don't know what it means. It has nothing plus dick to do with the Armed Forces of the United States.
Agree, David. If something that drastic happens we'll return to the old jungle rule....
Apologies to Thucydides for the paraphrase. Also to those who think it will be otherwise.
The only problem with outlining our response(which, I presume, must be shocking enough to nudge nation-states into doing what we want) is they act rationally as well. If you tell the world "we will topple governments and nuke cities if X, Y, or Z happen" then you can be pretty certain that before any of those take place our erstwhile allies will make damned sure that we aren't in a position to do any of those things. Expect those governments to retaliate with words to the effect of MAD. Or worse yet expect them to collude with our enemies to ensure they only do A, B, or C. Whether or not they do those often enough to accomplish the aims of X, Y, or Z probably won't matter much. You can't tip your hand and expect everyone else at the table to act ignorant(I can't believe I typed that this close to election day).
Sorry for using your blog space for off-topic personal business but....whenever "mercenary" comes up I like to give props to the most honest lefty blogger(that I visited regularly anyways) on that topic. Digby(of Hullabaloo) jumped on the "mercenary" train after the Markos drama queen meltdown and when challenged, nobly admitted his emotional error and chided the irrational peanut gallery. Digby will always have my respect for doing that little bit atleast. Just as AL will have my undying respect for admitting he was wrong on the AT&T profiteering flap. Oh...SNAP!
David #49
the private bioterror threat may only be a few decades from becoming real.
Here's something I can usefully contribute to this (somewhat meandering) discussion. The near term prospects for private biowarfare as a poor man's WMD don't look good. It's a great terror weapon (cf anthrax in the year after 9/11), but the track record of Aum Shinrikyo (the apocalyptic Japanese Buddhist terror cult) might be instructive here. With Japanese scientists and technical expertise, millions of dollars, years of development time and modern lab facilities, the the cult only managed to kill several of their own lab techs (through exposure contamination rather than efficacy testing, as I recall). The madrassas won't have anything like Aum Shinrikyo's skill pool for a long time, certainly relative to the near term threat posed by nuclear proliferation.
As a brief political comment, it'll be interesting to see if W can play an opposing congress/senate as well as Clinton did.
Ben, I don't think you quite got my meaning.
With 535 members of the Senate and House, there is no doubt that some of them must be vets, though you list IS surprisingly slim even there.
I clearly requested the name of one, just on, Republican "Leader" with service. Maybe I should have been more specific.
Name one, just one, Republican in the executive branch which sent our people war who has served in the military.
The fact that Bush has 300+ hours in military jets doesn't count, since he never used the skills the military paid to give him.
Spam-catcher-generated spam.
[ This comment was held for 4 1/2 hours in the spam queue because it contained more than two hyperlinks. Sorry, but that's how it is for now. -- Marshal Festus ]
Third re-posting.
Yeah, Andrew, Kossacks aren't crass political animals like their counterparts on the opposite fringe. Someone call Darwin. I sure wish I could delude myself into believing Webb's support is somehow more principled and consistent than that given to Lieberman. Let's hope Webb didn't march for civil rights or anything lest he find himself in black face to the rapturous cheers of his one-time supporters.
After 30 minutes of reading this thread I found nothing extolling Webb's stand on the issues. But then again my eye isn't as trained at picking gnat shit out of pepper as your's may be.
But don't get your panties in a wad, Andrew. You guys are just like everyone else. And as historic opponents of exceptionalism you should wear that proudly. Pin it right up next to "Screw them" on the lapel.
By the way, should I expect Markos' great plan for Iraq to be unveiled before the Iraq Study Group reveals their's? Haha. Sorry, low hanging fruit ya' know.
#60,
The most intelligent comment on this post in quite some time.
Tnx
How many children of democrat office holders are:
FIREFIGHTERS
COPS
EMTs
TEACHERS
PLUMBERS
OR SOLDIERS?
Sorry, Festus. Although I never tire of reading my own posts....
Taking this topic in a slightly different direction, I can easily see a growing separation between the middle class and the military based simply on a decline in social stratification of exposure to violence.
Simply put, a soldier has to be willing to kill another human being. Without that ability, a soldier is ineffective. That ability or even the desire to gain that ability is going to separate a soldier from social groups who in all likelihood will never experience extreme violence first hand. This is not to say that the soldiers would be reviled or looked down upon. After all, anyone with an ounce of sense knows the debt owed to those who risk their lives for society.
But there will never be a level of comfort with an individual who is that "different".
Small wonder that those from such a background don't choose to cut themselves off from their peers and become soldiers.
This is not unlike the situation with defense lawyers. They're absolutely a requirement for a just society. But how many people are comfortable with someone whose job it is (and must be) to prize their client more than justice?
Kos like many democratic activists is a veteran. Katzman however, like the other conservative keyboard warriors, never served.
Democrats and progressives have far more service veterans than do conservatives. This is because veterans know what is worth fighting for.
Appreciate the useful contributions and references to useful materials by Ms. Davis (#24, historical background), Jordan (#37, demographic studies that appear to show some hopeful trends), Ben (#38, Congressional research), JD (#47 - long personal experience), even Davebo (#41 - military PPT).
Daniel in #21 appears to have grasped at least one potential implication worth discussing, which ironically returns to ideas we've discussed here that were raised by Kevin Drum. Of course, if the only thing that can come out of your mouth in response to all inputs is some austistic-type tic about BusHitlerTheocratDespot is Evil, you'll probably miss that sort of thing.
Knock me over with a feather, but hypocrisyrules (#43) actually steps in, grasps a potential implication, and makes an argument and a point that relate to one of my post's central themes. The relationship of America to its "Warfare Class" is an excellent issue to discuss, and one of this posts' main points.
Good job all, and thanks.
In the "less good job" area...
Points to hypocrisyrules in #39 for honesty re: his own style of propaganda. Newsflash: simply claiming that someone who disagrees with you is a propagandist is not = an argument, but itself a crushingly obvious propaganda trick. Of course, we've seen often enough in the past that your argument "analyses" can generally be made to fit your own style quite exceptionally closely, so why am I not surprised?
The hostility and condescension shown by large swathes of the liberal-left to all things military is a trans-national phenomenon that's incredibly obvious to all but the true believers with an interest in denying it. Long-time Winds commenters tend to recall quite a few examples the phony-issue moralizing about 'white phosphorous' in Fallujah (a legal item, but geez, the hired help - or should I use the word 'mercenary,' as some here have - shouldn't use it to kill the enemy and save their lives if it makes me feel bad). Complaints about fights with the Us military not being 'fair' (I love that one... you can't root for American casualties and show a view of military folks as not-people more clearly than that). Etc. That sort of thing has larger cultural effects, and the linked articles above offer a number of examples and observations. And of course, there's also my personal experience, which has been pretty consistent, not to mention a number of other posts here on this site that have touched on it in various ways over the years. Most folks who are paying even minimal attention have noticed it, frequently.
We'll keep hammering on it as long as the liberal-left keeps doing it. We'll stop when you stop.
On to AJL:
Unfortunately, Andrew now finds himself on my professional ground. There has been plenty of money allocated for body armor, including the improved ESAPI inserts, and production has been very high. His claim is simply a lie... some Republicans voted against some bills on totally different subjects that included unrealted body armor earmarks, but defense budgets with significant expenditures were approved by Republicans and so were supplementals. Mostvoters against were... guess.
I realize truth has little value to Andrew, but he might at least try a subject that wasn't quite so easy to verify.
On to a related point with some substance instead... if Andrew was a bit smarter and more engaged, he might have noted that body armor is one reason it would be useful to have combat veterans in more positions of leadership as this war goes forward, and noted a real failure within the last several years.
I've been following the Dragonskin armor controversy, including its recent NIJ LVL 3 (and likely NIJ LVL 4 soon) certification, vs. the Army's tests that raise an awful lot of questions for me. That's an area in which personal experience pays dividends, and would improve the thus-far poor level of supervision on this issue from Congress and the think tank circuit as a whole.
If Dragonskin, which is less encumbering and provides a larger protected area, hits LVL 4 NIJ certification in early 2007, it'll make for a very strong case that legislative oversight on this issue has failed in a bi-partisan way that created avoidable casualties. Which would lead in turn to some natural questions about why it failed.
The simple answer, and partly true, is that it often fails like this for reasons that have to do with basic human behaviour in organizations. In wartime, however, those kinds of 'normal' peacetime failures become less acceptable. The question is what we can introduce to the system in order to drive them down, and that inevitably touches on the America - Warfare class relationship.
But that kind of discussion might require informed criticism, which does exist out there but quite clearly not among some of our commentators.
The regular BS interference from the JAG corps in combat operations is another frequent front line soldier complaint, and again more people in leadership positions who had been facing the sharp end as a result would be helpful in getting that little organizational dysfunction killed - before more Americans get killed because of it.
As this war continues - and our enemies ensure that it will - the importance of people in decision-making positions who have served or have people close to them who have served or are serving in front-line roles is going to rise. Hence my points in #7 hoping and expecting that the GOP will begin to reach into and help its base in that area.
But that dynamic will not occur in a vacuum. It will also be significantly affected by a larger group of folks, and by a larger subset of attitudes and relationships in their parties/ political allies at large.
Calling attention to those attitudes is the first step, and for that we can thank John Kerry for his candor. But we shouldn't stop there, because there's a bigger and more important 'there' there worth discussing.
Well,
My admiration for #60 was based solely on the original post which was "blank".
However, the actual isn't half bad.
Of course, everbody posting/reading has read Jim Taranto's total take down of the Kerry theory of a voluntary Military at Thursday's Best of the Web posting.
Probably not from the idiocy many commenters continue to exhibit!
Thanks, Mike. Always warms the cockles to know one's thoughts are better than half as good as a blank page. I joke, of course.
Eclectic (#59):
Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld! (Like Rand said in #19.) And Powell.
And also Bush himself. If you want to argue this, then please don't say it to me. Instead, find some currently-serving members of the TANG, preferrably some who've been deployed to Iraq, and try to convince them they aren't really part of the military!
Eclectic:
America's greatest wartime presidents, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, were not veterans. (Lincoln served in one of the comical pre-Civil War militia units, and claimed to have once participated in an assault on an onion patch.) Albeit, both of them acquired considerable military knowledge in civilian life - but Lincoln did not have one-tenth the military knowledge that Jefferson Davis did, yet he far outmatched him as a leader.
The veteran Harry S. Truman, on the other hand, gave us the relatively uninspiring Korean War. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon were all veterans. Blame whichever one you want for Vietnam.
America's distinguished combat soldiers have had mixed results as presidents. Eisenhower was good. Grant, one of a long line of people who unwillingly contracted the presidency like a disease, was not so good. Andrew Jackson was the most dangerous man ever to hold high office in this country, and it's lucky we didn't have Tomahawk missiles back then.
Zachary Taylor, hero of the Mexican War, died after barely a year in office. In the election the Democrats portrayed him as a butcher sitting on a mountain of Mexican skulls. The Democrats had apparently forgotten that they started that damn Mexican War. Some things never change, do they?
In short, the correlation between a president's military experience and his success as a president and/or a wartime leader holds up only as long as nobody cracks a history book. This is in keeping with the well-known fact that expertise does not transfer from one field to another, even though some people will persist in thinking that it does. Or persist in not thinking at all.
I forgot to add: Lincoln is the model of how civilian leadership of the military should work - even in the face of a powerful enemy, a disharmonious party, and a barely-loyal domestic opposition. But that's another and much longer story.
He's my hero.
Could we please stop with the chickenhawk bullshit? Its really annoying and pointless.
Shorter Joe Katzman:
I'll defame a Senator-elect, a former Secretary of the Navy, accomplished author, a war hero and a far better man than I as "anti-Semitic" with no factual basis, the Big Lie, because he's from the opposing party.
I'll also attempt (with my trusty sidekick Tonto, aka AL) to peddle lots of vague bullshit about imagined "Skybox Liberals" being opposed to the military, or their kids not enlisting.
But I'm not a propagandist.
Observer 5,
You're about 1 milimetre away from removal from Winds, permanently. Racial insults involving my colleague aren't on here, and if you think making fun of his background that way is funny think again.
You have 24 hours to apologize.
James Webb, "accomplished author." Now THAT was funny. I'd invite you to kiss my dick in response, but I'm not a child so it wouldn't qualfy for his books.
The Webb - Allen race did serious and deserved damage to the reputations of both men, and the Webb campaign's is-he-a-Jew schtick re: Allen is well known and public. My characterization of him is more than apt, and this is hardly the only disturbing incidence of prejudice he has shown.
But of course, now that he's a Democrat the same people who would have savaged him for it as a Republican are perfectly happy to give him a pass. Oddly, many are the same folks blathering on about... wait for it... propaganda. Uh huh.
When they're not casually throwing racial epithets around themselves. As they complain about the quality of discussion here.
Res ipsa loquitur.
My personal take is that Webb is a creep on multiple levels, and his military background doesn't erase that basic fact - or excuse it. We do need people with military backgrounds in leadership positions, but not at any cost.
Excuse me, but what happened to the discussion of ideas?
I'm tired of hearing folks with their own dull axes to grind calling Joe and AL propagandists. Anyone else out there in cyberspace ever hear of RHETORIC? To anyone who's bothered to study it, it should be readily apparent that Joe is using some rhetorical techniques to get a discussion going.
I'm also sick of the liberals vs neo-cons meme. The fact that everyone doesn't agree is why there are two main political parties and several smaller ones. Now get over it. Try to see someone else's point of view. Try something other than name calling to persuade people you have a valid, interesting, well thought out point of view of your own. It's cheap and easy to say something rude about someone you disagree with, it takes effort to actually offer an alternative view.
The problems facing the USA are real. There are folks out there who don't like us and they've got nukes and biologicals. We're stuck in a very difficult war. The deficit is enormous. The disparity between the affluent and the poor has rarely been so apparent. We don't have the money to fund the social safety net we need. We have damaged our environment. These are all issues that need to be discussed, because as a nation, we will embark on a course of action. It can be an action based on groupthink and party-lines or it can be action based on rational discussion of the issues.
I'd like to think that the people who read and comment on Winds are the people who can and will make a contribution to determining our course of action (and BTW, forgive a old joke, but De'Nile is a river that flows from Lake Victoria). Winds is about anything and everything but denial.
Further, Joe and AL don't get paid for this. It takes a lot of time - and unless you have contributed - their own money. They aren't doing this as propaganga - they're both smart enough that they'd get PAID for that. They're doing it because they care about the future, and they're passionate about ideas.
Commenters who would rather drag the tone of discussion down than argue their own ideas are just dragging the place down. Disagree with an argument, at least - the rest of us can respect that.
"The empires of the future are the empires of the mind." - Winston Churchill
"We do need people with military backgrounds in leadership positions, but not at any cost."
I suppose everyone must make up his own mind about Webb. The campaign was particularly nasty, and if I may say so (as a very recent resident of Virginia) unfair to both men.
I myself strongly support Webb, in spite of the fact that it's come between me and a lot of my readership -- including especially a Major of Marines whom I respect greatly.
Nor am I alone. VDH says 'no apologies' for the same support.
Grim's Hall readers say I should take a look at Webb in two years, and see if he's lived up to my expectations. Fair enough! I'll be glad to do so.
May I suggest that we all do that? The man has, as VDH says, led an exemplary life. The campaign in Virginia was harsh and defamatory on both sides. He may need a bit to get used to the Senate.
Keep an open mind, though, and look again in a year or two. It may be he'll suprise us. It's also possible he'll disappoint. I have hopes for the man, however -- as well you might, for a Marine awarded the Navy Cross, and the author of Born Fighting.
[JK: That wasn't an apology. Bye.]
Hmm-
I spent a lot of time digging into the depths of this post including the part(s) on Skybox liberals - which really resonated with me, as I will explain in a minute - made me laugh, too. But, I have been reading the comments and have to refute some folks or at the least ask them some questions:
beowulf - "5. Fact: Kerry served in the military -- in Viet Nam -- honorably." Uh, did he? No one can tell the truth here, just what he claims and his claims are suspect. He never did release his Vietnam service records did he? Despite state that he unequivocably would. And now his gaff about today's soldiers? Makes me like him less, and I hated him before for his winter soldier testimony.
Mark B - (Your refutation of beowulf)"Bush's time in the "special" reserve doesn't count"
How many hours have you spent flying first generation all weather jet fighters? Because Bush flew 326.4 hours in F-102s, documented by the Pentagon. It sure does count." Yup, it sure does!!!!!
-Hey, beowulf, how about going to Bill Whittle's blog and reading about the F-102 as the hardest airplane to fly? It takes steel 'ones' to fly that thing. I for one like Bush. He isn't perfect, but at least he has the intestinal fortitude to try. No Dem has or will, just watch.
Okay, I apologize, I just picked on beowulf.
Now, Skybox liberals:
I grew up in north central NM in the '60s. The hippies there were almost to a man (or woman) 'trust babies'. The spoiled children of rich Capitalists living on their trust funds or their hangers-on. The Hog Farm (famous commune familiar to Ken Kesey and others) was founded by a guy who did not have to work a day in his life. Many don't know it, but the place is still around. It now resembles garbage dump, but it is still there. The point is those who were "turning on, tuning in and dropping out" could afford to. The local populace in Taos hated those spoiled brats and used them for target practice at every opportunity. The locals had to work and scrape to just get by at farming small family farms and low paying service jobs.
The hippies in Santa Fe were just the same. They could afford to do tie-dye or make bad silver jewelry and sell it for peanuts. I am sure their ilk in Berkeley were the same or tried and true Communists.
I came from an upbringing in the progressive socialist tradition. My dad was a card carrying Communist all of his life. My Mom a progressive Democrat. They were true believers. They about freaked out when I got drafted back in the early 70's and went into the US Army. While I served I got an education that I will never forget and that made me the conservative I am today. I found out that all those Commies and socialists I had been raised around were the worst type of elitists. They would no more hang around a black, hispanic or working man than consort with conservatives.
The point is that John Kerry and his compadres have not changed, they believe, as do most progressives, that us common folks need to be led and guided. They will 'man the barricades' with us, but we won't get invited into the Skybox.
I am now a business man who travels internationally and have had a small bit of success in life. I will continue to fight to see that the progressives do not get their way and lead the US to ruin.
The Hobo
Grim,
I'm with the Major. There have been no shortage of scum and scoundrels who have served in elected positions within the Republic over its history. Many worse than Webb by a goodly margin.
If Webb is to serve out a term, then we can simply hope that he proves better than he has proven thus far, and that on balance he puts such skills and knowledge as he has to the Republic's benefit. We can, as you say, review the record in a couple years and then 4, and see if VDH's hopes re: catalyzing a defense-smart set of Democrats or yours re: his honour are upheld. Or not.
That does not change what I personally think of him, which is unprintable.
Such respect as he ever earns from me is going to be grudging after this election's hijinks; he can do it, but it will take deeds. The area noted in this post being one potential area of opportunity... but given what we've seen from him recently, I'm not holding my breath.
I understand that. All I ask -- and pledge in return -- is to be open to evidence. Like this, for example -- a pretty good start. Better, at least, than the campaign would have led you to believe either man could manage.
Having observed both over the course of several years, I admit that I found the nastiness of the campaign mystifying. It was one of the few races in which there were really two good candidates, either of whom would be a credit to his state; yet if you judged from the campaign alone, you'd have thought we'd have been best off if both could have lost the election.
As the spam-catcher stalls link-rich posts (as happened to frontinus), I find my style a little cramped.
Since I now have to carry observer5's load too, I'll try to be blunt. Hitchens and those who are agreeing with him support the troops in the same sense that an arsonist supports the fire fighters.
The MSM carried many stories about troops calling home for body armor bought at family expense and using any scrap metal the could find to reinforce their vehicles, but I suppose it could have been their usual distortion. Or not. I had intended to use the body armor issue somewhat more metaphorically than it has been seen here. We committed "just enough troop to lose", as former war-supporter Thomas Friedman puts it. We directed them to the wrong places for economic and political reasons: safeguarding the Oil Ministry and little else, not even ammunition dumps. By pretending there was no insurgency, and ignoring such experience as we had, we lost whatever chance there was to nip it in the bud. We've exhausted our budget and time available for reconstruction with very little to show on the ground. You can find a more complete assessment of Rumsfeld's failed strategy from Phil Carter here. That doesn't reflect on the troops, but on the civilian leadership and perhaps the most senior generals.
So now comes Hitchens full of Dutch Courage to tell off the Skybox Liberals. Although I think that this is a grossly unfair characterization, I would accept it more readily from someone who is actually in harm's way. You, Joe, and Hitch are not. Don't pretend that sending troops into battle slops over onto you the physical courage that the soldiers have to show to survive. That form of condescension is even worse.
PS: I had no idea that Armed Liberal has American Indian ancestry, and I doubt if observer5 did either when referring to him as Tonto.
PPS: Ye of the great antennae for anti-Semitism: The Republican candidate for Senate in Wyoming, who leads the Democrat by less than 1000 votes at present, ran ads pointing out that the Democrat, Dr. Trauner, was "from New York". Given that the Republican, Rep. Cubin, is herself from California, and no more a Wyoming native than her opponent, what message do you think she was trying to send? Would you be surprised to learn that Dr. Trauner is a member of the tribe?
Andrew,
Observer 5 was thrown out for his reply, which could have simply apologized for (inadvertently, perhaps, though AL has written about his background) using a racial slur. That would have been the decent thing to do, and the expected response of any well brought-up individual. He chose instead to respond with a refusal to apologize backed by bellicose rhetoric.
We don't need that sort here, and we won't have 'em.
RE: The links in comments - afraid the morons at SixApart have left us no choice if we want spam protection, and so we're ALL bound by it. We're looking to move to a new platform, as you know. WP migration has been exhibiting issues on other blogs I work with, and we're looking at Django. It's frustrating, but at least it's frustrating for us all in equal measure.
As for the rest of your argument, it's just a tired rehash of the same fascist Chickenhawk argument whose logical end point is government by military junta. All coupled with a basic misunderstanding of industrial production dynamics. Neither does you one iota of credit.
Though I know it pains you, we live in a free society where ALL citizens have the right to discuss policy and issues that affect the health of the republic. One's experiences may change the level of expertise and commitment one brings, and this is why I think a greater presence of people who have been on the front lines in leadership positions would be beneficial. It is not, however, a requirement for those positions, and certainly not for intelligent participation in meaningful debate.
Joe, I couldn't agree with you more that all citizens have a right (I would be tempted to say, obligation) to discuss issues of importance.
The chickenhawk meme is going to recur as long as advocates (in some cases, enthusiasts) for warfare criticize opponents for cowardice. It doesn't always take courage to send other people to death, unless you think Osama bin Laden is courageous.
Nobody's perfect. Our current exhibit:
Yes, it is going to recur. And it is going to continue to be a bogus response. Calling someone a coward does little good for intelligent discourse, but the set-piece chickenhack rejoinder is intellectually bankrupt.
I'm sure you feel righteous when you indulge. Boy, you're sure showing them who's a coward, aren't you? No, actually, you aren't. You're:
I expect we'll see this as long as we are identifiably human. But it's still bogus.
Utter mucus-laden sophistry of the worst kind. I've uttered similar, from time to time. I usually regret it later.
Can you(-all) do better? Between stimulus and response, there is always a moment. Are you using it, or is it using you?
Cut the crap, it's Democrats that serve
That's one of the stupidest things I've read recently. The active duty force runs between 70% and 80% Republican affiliated. Among the senior leaders in the Bush Administration since '01 who have served are former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge (Army infantry NCO, two tours, VietNam), Donald Rumsfeld (Naval Fighter Pilot, mid-50s), VA Secretary Jim Nicholson (LTC, Retd, Army Infantry, two tours VietNam). Yep, that's only three cabinet secretaries out of what, 21 appointments or so, but I'd guess 3/21 (or 14%) is a higher percentage than the percentage of the general population with military service.
Gotta admit, Katzman, the mental illness afflicting the left is not getting better with winning elections.
Hi there,spent the last coupla hours reading the blogs,really enjoyed*82,robohobo,though must admit don,t agree with him,but it came from the heart,unlike some of the pseudo-intellectual crap designed to impress-who exactly.The debate about whether the dems or reps have the most military,and whether their records are genuine or not doesn,t mean diddly squat.Who can trust the politicians to tell the truth anyway?Truth is its always the poor folk that do the dying.The big debate as to whether George Dubya flew jets etc(wasn,t there some query as to the veracity of those flight logs)The real question is,how far away from vietnam was he at the time?There was no chance of multimillionaire daddykins allowing georgie porgie to go anywhere near a combat zone.Didn,t see any of his daughters in iraq didyou,or Cheney,s,or rumsfeld,s.There is a national malaise in america that everything involves a military solution,and that a military background is somewhat desireable in a politician,that argument would never be used in the uk for instance,in fact it would be looked upon as maybe a handicap.It is commonly quoted that the first thing the army does is "remove your brains"And come to think of it,where has your best military thinking got you?Answer a helluva mess.There is no military solution to al quieda.You are their greatest recruiting sargeant,there was no al quida in iraq before you opened the door for them,you may think musharraf is an ally because you give him 3 billion a year,but the same is true of a paki as it is of an afghan,you can never buy them,you can only rent them.The truth of the matter is the root cause of the al quida 9/11etc is the grave injustice that is being done in the middle east,ie israel and palestine,must be resolved for a lasting peace.Perhaps the $10 billion in military and financial aid that is given to israel annually could be withheld until they seriously negotiate with the palestinians.Justice must also be seen to be done.