War Words

All my life the words "appeasement" and "Munich" meant cowering before the totalitarian bully, a metaphor that encouraged war sooner rather than later.  I heard it about the Soviet Union.  I heard it about Vietnam.  Fortunately, we avoided war with the Soviets but went to war with the latter and took  me personally to the farthest edge of that dark national experience for no good reason.  So I've always discounted the bias against negotiating with adversaries.  For me "appeasement" and "Munich" are catchphrases meant to avoid serious discussion and debate. 

Now it turns out that recent scholarship shows those canards to be as empty as I thought.  With greater access to wartime records, researchers are able to paint a more nuanced picture of the difficult choices facing Great Britain as Germany re-armed under the Nazis.  Instead of the cowering democracy afraid to confront the threatening Nazi bully, Neville Chamberlain played a weak hand as best he could.  In return Britain got one more year to prepare for a war it was in no position to win in 1938. 

Chamberlain's biggest mistake was declaring that he had secured "peace for our time" when all he'd done was buy time.  At least he got that much--time--of his grandiose statement.  A more useful result than a more recent grandiosely stated accomplishment.

Whiz-Bang Propaganda

Kudos to the Washington Post for questioning the provenance of this weekend's military blockbuster, "Act of Valor", complete with real, live SEALs and lots of "gee whiz" military hardware. The movie is the result of a Navy initiative to increase the number of SEALs to meet demands projected in a Quadrennial Defense Review. It's a feature-length recruiting film. It's also a further acclimation to constant war. It looks so cool.

If I think about it from the Navy's point of view, I would welcome the opportunity to show off. The US Navy and other military services are capable of some amazing shit that would make civilian heads spin. The teamwork needed to make all that technology work just right is testament to human spirit and ingenuity. I won't gainsay the skill and dedication of the men and women who put it all together.

I will question how much we need to make it all work and why. And that is where a film like "Act of Valor" is so pernicious. The viewer is so taken with the wonder of it all that the purpose of SEAL and other special force operations are never questioned. Do we really need 500 more SEALs? And to what ends? Rescuing hostages from Somali pirates is good but that type of capability is usually an afterthought to a primary national security mission. And even a high-profile takedown like Osama bin Laden is unlikely to be all too frequent. So what else will be done in our name? Why? "Act of Valor" doesn't go there.

The film makers talk of telling the story of "...this brotherhood and this depth of character amongst men, and the sacrifices they’ve been through in the last 10 years in sustained combat.” Without a doubt, the bonding and sacrifice are in the finest military tradition. But what about that ten years of sustained combat? Ten fucking years of war to in support of a regime that cannot prevent its own forces from attacking us. Ten years of war that have shattered soldiers, families and communities. "Act of Valor" doesn't go there either.

Where "Act of Valor" goes is after the 18 to 20 year old male who doesn't know to ask these questions. For the target audience, all that matters is mission, brotherhood and purpose. A chance to Kick Ass!

That Old Time Depression

Reported from a Mitt Romney event:

“I’m crazy about him,” said Blanche Gibbes, a stately 91-year-old Columbia matron in a gray sweater and matching hair. She stood for more than an hour to see Romney, although she said that any Republican will get her vote in November. “We’ve got to get this country back in order. This depression feels so much different than the last one.”

That would be the Great Depression. She was a teenager for that one.

If it felt like the last one, then things would be okay?

Ms. Gibbes is right that "any Republican" is capable of making this depression just like the Great Depression.

Holy Contradiction!

Roman Catholic bishops are weighing in on the health care finance debate. Not surprisingly they want proscriptions on abortion funding and protection for conscientious objection to abortion among medical proviers. Some are also warning against "socialization" and "monopolizing" and big government. They assert the Catholic social teaching of "subsidiarity" - essentially, that decisions are best made at the lowest level possible.

It's a most attractive idea--very American--but certainly ironic in a religion that boasts an authoritarian heirarchy and rule by decree of a supposedly infallible bishop selected from a small coterie.

Just sayin'

Summary Judgment

"If it's in some dump in Seattle, why would I draw attention to it?"

William Donohue, head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights,explaining why he is selective in venting outrage at "blasphemous" art.

Seattle just doesn't cut it back east, I guess.

It Used to Be MAD. Now It's Just Mad

In today's news:

Both the congressional panel and the Council on Foreign Relations task force agreed with Obama's view that prevailing conditions do not allow the elimination of nuclear weapons. They agreed that a safe and secure U.S. nuclear force is needed to reassure America's allies, which without that protection would seek to develop their own weapons. (emphasis added)

We have nukes so that other nations will feel secure and not build their own. It's a dirty job but that burden is America's gift to the world, or at least that part of the world that agrees with us. Several of these allies--Israel, Britian and France--are so thankfully secure that they built their own nukes anyway. And nations that don't agree with us, well, they'll build nukes too.

So it all works. Or not.

The Mess in Washington

Somebody's gotta handle it.

Bombs Away!

They’re at it again. They being the cult of Air Power as the ultimate weapon. Even as counter-insurgency is the goal of military operations in Iraq, Air Power will not be left out. Air Power is rarely excluded from American military operations. Air Power claims to have won WWII. Complete dominance of the air space over Vietnam combined with sophisticated American technology was supposed to easily subdue a local insurgency. Air Power is not new to the mideast; Winston Churchill hoped Air Power would be an inexpensive substitute for direct rule when he created Iraq after WWI. We all know how well that worked out.

Still, the myth dies hard, if at all. Last week, the Washington Post carried a paean to Air Power worthy of any of its early high priests.

"Part of this is announcing our presence to the adversary," said Kahl, who recently returned from a trip to the air operations center. "Across this calendar year you will see a reduction in U.S. forces, so there will be fewer troops to support Iraqi forces. One would expect a continued level of airstrikes because of offensive operations, and as U.S. forces begin to draw down you may see even more airstrikes."

Nowhere in this scenario is the option for fewer airstrikes, only the same or more.. Pretty slick. The Air Force and Navy (I guess) keep flying no matter what, always a good strategy for demonstrating indispensability. And here in the Washington Post, readers learn how precise and thoughtful Air Power can be, how it always works and is not used carelessly. The story is almost a bloodless (for Americans, mostly) one. Accurate. Necessary.

I don’t buy it. War is always messy, technology sometimes unreliable and everything s subject to human error. If you accept that American military operations in Iraq are legitimate, air operations are a logical part of that effort. Even granting, for the sake of discussion, that the American occupation is legitimate, I don’t trust in the infallibility of Air Power.

The Washington Post sure does. Filled with whiz-bang language and technical jargon, the article describes ”... a very deliberate process honed by intelligence, targeted and aligned to get the desired effect in a particular area.” An AGM-114P Hellfire missile kills three extremists. The 250-pound GBU-39 small-diameter bombs makes “...blasts safer for civilians.” A show of force clears the area of civilians before engaging a house and fighters with a 500 pound bomb. Everything works.

The United States has, without doubt, the most sophisticated, technologically advanced aircraft and weapons in the world; American arms can blow just about anything up, including large portions of the Earth at a moment’s notice. Whether all this comes to anything like a meaningful policy for engaging with other nations and peoples is another matter all together. And that’s where stories like this one ring hollow to me. Sure we can do all this. And, yeah, it’s good that it protects our troops–tactical close air support is always welcome when you’re on the ground against an adversary. Even that limited, focused action can wreak significant harm to civilians. Quintuple those operations, with greater tonnage and the cost to civilians, property and infrastructure escalate dramatically? We may win the engagement but lose the trust of the people who are destroyed and dispossessed.

Maybe it’s just the Army grunt in me that resents Air Power ideology. After all, pilots kill without seeing their adversary; they aim at targets in what seems to me to be a real separation between killer and killed. The risk is usually far less for the pilot than the infantryman; few targets of America’s recent wars offered significant anti-aircraft defense. The pilot sleeps in a bed at night unless he’s one of the unfortunate few taken prisoner. Then it really sucks. And, in the end, Air Power cannot secure an objective. Air Power can reduce an objective to rubble or shape the battlefield but someone else must fight that battle and hold that position. That some one is the infantryman.

What amazes me most about the story is the amazing willingness to buy the idea that America can win a war from the air, that such a “war” is somehow less costly and bloody. The language and precision quoted in the Washington Post are today’s versions of the “surgical strikes” in Vietnam that only killed bad guys.

Air Power separates us from the human beings who are our targets. We don’t need to think about them when they are blips on a screen.


addendum

My thoughts about Air Power do not include helicopters. Unlike the Air Force and Navy, Army aviation is relatively close to the ground and far more vulnerable. These guys are are the ones who provide virtually all close air support for troops on the ground. In many respects, they are grunts who operate flying gun platforms. And my Air Force nephew, trained to parachute out of helicopters and rescue downed pilots, is stationed in Iraq. I suspect he gets more calls from the Army than the Air Force. None of this is part of the Air Power cult. We're still talking close combat here.

Jerry Falwell

Yesterday I was looking at the Whole Wheat Radio chat. For some reason, the part of tdiscussion was about Jerry Falwell and someone commented that he was sorry about something. I piped in that he was just a sorry individual. Later, I learned that he had just died and regretted my comment. As sorry an individual as he was, Falwell was a human being who was loved by his family and, I am sure, loved in return. I also learned via, skippy, that I violated the Thurman Munson rule of improve, which is never to make fun of someone on the day they die. I'm not an improv performer but I can see giving the newly deceased and his family a moment of peace in their sorrow

So now Falwell's been dead for over 24 hours, I can resume my normal perspective: Falwell was a bigot, a small minded individual and hateful. The world is no better for his life or even his passing. He institutionalized his hatred so that others may carry it on even as they claim to follow the Prince of Peace. If you need evidence, Timothy Noah has neatly catalogued Falwell's litany of hate and distortion at Slate.

Bring your own barf bag.