More from the Vietnam Wars

A rather lengthy but useful passage from The Vietnam Wars, by Marilyn Young, illustrative of how we Americans "think":

"There were 800 American military personnel in South Vietnam when Kennedy took office and 16,700 when he died in November 1963. The National Liberation Front [NLF] controlled the majority of villages in the South when Kennedy took office; they continued to do so in the year of this death, and basic American policy was also unchanged. After a decade of intense engagement in Indochina, the categories of America's understanding of the Third World remained pristine of historical experience. The abstract mythological model, applicable to any nation, upon which United States policy based itself, reflected not so much ignorance of the history, culture and society of others as indifference. This in turn reflected American history, culture and society, which had always denied that traditions and social constraints had to matter. The United States had created itself and it could help other nations do the same. The United States declared South Vietnam a new nation, born in 1954, and did not take seriously the evidence that this new nation was really half of an old one, whose long struggle for independence against outside invaders informed the social and personal imagination of every Vietnamese. Vietnamese society was insubstantial to U.S. policy makers except as it must be overcome, its cities modernized, its passive peasantry urbanized, its government placed in the hands of strong men, though not too strong to be removed when necessary. In time, no doubt, South Vietnam would even be ready for democracy. Meanwhile, there were technological answers for every problem and managerial solutions to every crisis." [p. 103]

Not only was the United States' policy unaffected by historical experience, it was also unaffected by historical knowledge, as Young makes clear here. Historical experience and knowledge does not matter insofar as one thinks that there are techniques by which one can "manage" or control the world. Robert Strange McNamara, his real full name, was appointed Secretary of Defense because he was a "manager." He knew, or thought he knew, how to manage human beings and, to him, it did not matter if those human beings were American or Vietnamese, auto workers looking for higher wages or soldiers and citizens fighting to unify their country. Management is management by this mindset and historical, social and cultural factors are, ultimately, unimportant. And this is why McNamara could never see himself as an imperialist. Managers don't lord it over others; they just manage them! The means might change - higher wages in one case, napalm in another - but it was still just "management."

This is relevant today, in Afghanistan. Obama thinks he can manage Karzai and his brother....just as McNamara and others, JFK included, thought they could manage Diem and his brother. The world turns and turns and seems to repeat itself almost as if there is really only one human story, a story that is perhaps not so changeable as we Americans would like to think. For real.

The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990

Another discovery of a good book, [The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 by Marilyn B. Young] a good history of Vietnam that is not too detailed but enough so as to be educative. You can get it on Amazon used for under $2.00!!! One passage that I like:

"The French recognized the intimate connection between the Viet Minh and the population without bothering to contemplate its meaning. Rather, it was seen as a technical problem, to be dealt with tactically. Early in the war, an effort had been made to separate the people from the Viet Minh through the construction of thousands of forts that would keep the people in the Viet Minh out. [When this did not work] General Navarre...abandoned this static approach in favor of establishing a series of strong points, linked by highly mechanized mobile forces intended to seize the strategic initiative and 'mop up' the guerrillas. In some villages, mopping up meant arresting the entire male population between fourteen and sixty, and everywhere, a French observer wrote, the military 'had a record of pillage, violence, assassination, and of burning of the villages and the execution of the innocent.' In response, the Viet Minh turned their attention to ambushing the new mobile units, and at Dienbeinphu Giap directly engaged one of Navarre's 'hedgehog' forts by a feat of arms literally beyond the imaging of the French military.

"The meaning of Dienbienphu, Giap wrote on its fifth anniversary, was that it established a 'a great historic truth: a colonized and weak people once it has risen up and is united in the struggle and determined to fight for its independence and peace, has the full power to defeat the strong aggressive army of an imperialist country.' The French journalist Jules Roy, reflecting on the defeat many years later, understood. 'Apart from the French high commissioners who supported his government,...who indeed would dare to imagine that anybody could be expected to fight to enrich the big landlords and the provincial governors?...What kind of honor could be found in the ranks of H.M. Bao Dai's army, trained by the French and paid by the Americans?' Honor lay elsewhere, in a 'faith, which we had contemptuously dismissed as fanaticism, in which our military leaders refused to believe, and which had broken our battalions, our tanks and our planes.' An American aide to President Kennedy, however, after reading Giap's account of the battle, drew the ominously obtuse conclusion that 'in Southeast Asia today...there is not pervasive national spirit as we know it.'" [pp. 35-36]

Given this level of "analysis" it is little wonder that we were defeated in Vietnam. We, like the French, had no idea of who we were fighting and why our adversaries were fighting. We treated Vietnam as, by and large, "a technical problem, to be dealt with tactically." Of course, this is how we treat almost all our "problems" from education to drug use to terrorism and terrorists to Iraq and Afghanistan. We keep coming up short and wonder why. We are blinded by the light as it were.

Black Hearts

Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent Into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death, is an excellent book by Jim Frederick. It describes with an honesty that is all too rare what it was like for soldiers in a part of Iraq after the American invasion, the dilemmas faced by these men and how and why some of them descended into what Frederick calls "madness." In particular, their madness led them to gang rape a 14 year old Iraqi girl and kill her family, father, mother, brother, and her to try to make the event look like it was undertaken by the insurgents. Here is one interesting passage:

"When the Americans invaded, the people in the neighborhood and throughout the region were optimistic. The U.S. bombing campaigns had ruined what little infrastructure there had been under Saddam, but the people were sure that the Americans wold bring not just peace and democracy but all of the electricity and water they would ever need, as well as new roads and sewer pipes. But soon, as they waited and waited, they realized...that was not going to happen - and that's when the trouble started. The area began to fall apart from neglect and violence....
"In the fall of 2005, the people of Yusufiyah started seeing a lot more Americans, but even this brought no relief. It was no exaggeration to say, in many locals' eyes, that the Americans were as bad as the insurgents. Not only did the locals not feel protected, they felt persecuted. The patrols the Americans ran were brutish. 'When they came to search a house, they would come without warning,' remarked Abu Muhammad. 'They would throw a flash-bang grenade by the door, storm in, scare the whole family.' The Americans would break things or even steal money and jewelry as they upended the house looking for evidence. They'd leer at the women, point guns at the men, shout at them in English. If the homeowners were lucky, after the soldiers had found nothing, they would get an insincere apology...."

The Insurgency Continues

Yes, the Republicans continue to battle "the insurgency." No, not in Iraq. Right here in the good, old US of A.

Senator Robert F. Bennett of Utah faces questions about whether he is "conservative enough" while running for re-election for a fourth term. He has drawn seven challengers and may not even be the Republican on the ballot and this despite the fact that he has been given consistently high ratings by the NRA, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the American Conservative Union.

Also, John McCain is facing a "consistently conservative" challenger and is threatened enough that he had to turn to Sarah Palin for support, or for hopes of support from Tea Party types. He seemed to need Sarah's imprimatur! Everyone knows by now that Palin and McCain did not jell - to say the least - during the presidential campaign. What to do? Grin and bear it, John, along with your wife, Cindy, who reportedly really did not care a whit for Palin or her clan. This might help McCain and it keeps Palin in the spotlight.

So the battle within of by the Republican Party with an insurgency continues. The party's "regulars" want to hold onto their power and privileges and, therefore, need to control or co-opt the Tea Partiers. The requirements of this battle will determine what the Republicans say and do, not a concern with the nation's well-being, to say nothing of a concern with the Democrats and defeating them. Hence, even if what they say and do leads to Democratic victories, like the recent victory on health care, the Republicans don't really mind - that is, so long as they preserve their power.

More on Health Care Reform and the Republicans

There was a quick and harsh reaction to David Frum's argument that the Republicans had blown it by adamantly opposing Obama on health care reform, which seems to confirm my argument that the Republicans have little choice but to take such a stance in order to try to quell the insurrection, the insurgency of the Tea Party types. Representative Issa, from California, put Frum down because he was a staffer: "When you're a staffer, you're unaccountable...." Exactly! You are unaccountable to the Party and the prevailing Party hierarchy and, hence, your advice does not speak to our situation. In another situation this advice might be heeded but we need to protect our seats, our power, and that means, right now, trying to quell the Tea Party insurgency. If that means allowing Obama to prevail on health care reform, so be it. Or as another Congressperson put it: "'I will only incorporate your idea if you vote for the bill'....is tantamount to a bribe." Wow! Now that is some logic but it is a logic required by the situation. So the Republicans will maintain their defiance, perhaps even increase it, to please the Tea Party types and hold on to their power.

Politics is all about power, always has been and always will be. And the Republicans would just as soon allow Obama to pass legislation they, the Republicans, could have improved in order to maintain the status quo. Will it work? Ah, there is the rub. In a republic or a political order that always aspires to be a republic, outcomes are never certain. But as of now, the Republicans have little choice. Even John McCain, who once was a proponent of bipartisanship, is drawing lines in the sand. And, of course, he has to because he has a challenger from the Tea Party side of the aisle.

Obamacare: Thank You, Scott Brown

The New York Times on Sunday, March 21, ran an article purporting to explain how health care reform came back from the dead, so to speak. The article cited the proposed 40% increase in premiums by an insurance company in California and a letter from a woman in Ohio who had to choose between keeping her house or her health insurance. She chose the former. Now maybe these events changed things, maybe. But here is a better or at least another explanation.

The election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts' special election to fill the seat of the deceased Ted Kennedy did the trick. How so? Well, it is crucial to note that all politicians have at least two concerns, first, maintaining the political status quo which means continuing in office and maintaining the prevailing political alignments. Second, they are interested in getting some things done, advancing their agendas. Of course, as is only logical, the first is more important than the second. And as a result of Brown's election to the Senate this concern came into play for the Republicans with the result that Brown's election boxed them in with regard to health care reform.

It is important to recall that Brown was not propelled to office by virtue of Republican votes or influence. Rather, it was the votes of those like the Tea Partiers and their influence that led to his election. The Tea Partiers are not Republicans; they are an insurgency and, as such, threaten to upset the status quo, meaning voting even Republicans out of office and undermining the power of the Republican Party elites as those now exist. Hence, the insurgency had to be addressed. How to do that? Well, it required standing absolutely opposed to any health care reform worthy of a name and certainly against any such reform that looked consistent with what Obama and the Democrats wanted. In this way, the Tea Partiers, the insurgents, would be satisfied and, with luck, controlled, while not being ignored.

So, given the forces that elected Scott Brown to the US Senate, the Republicans could not budge on health care, could not compromise, and they became "the party of No," as Obama and Democrats put it. The Republicans became, for all practical purposes, obstructionists and little more. But obstructionism rarely works well in our political order - just ask Dennis Kucinich who tried to be an obstructionist on the Democratic side. Why is this the care? Long story. Made short it has to do with the character of "government," and the inherent notion that governments are suppose to be active.

But, bottom line, Obama perhaps saw this and moved to regain the "high ground" by presenting himself as willing to act, even to act in concert with the Republicans. But the Republicans could not meet him half way without undermining their support among the Tea Party types, i.e., the deeply disaffected from the "conservative" side of the aisle. The Republicans were between a rock and a hard place and, to preserve their power [the status quo within their party] they said "NO!" Because Obama does not have to worry about the Tea Party types - they will never vote for him or most of the Democrats - he does not have to worry about their insurgency and he can motivate his base by pointing out the illogic of the Republicans telling Democrats that if they pass health care reform they will be voted out of office in huge numbers. Why would the Republicans want to warn Democrats of their own impending doom? Doesn't make sense.

So, objectively as it were, after the election of Scott Brown, the political landscape favored Obama and reform. To his credit, Obama or someone with him noticed this and moved "forward," becoming "transparent" because it served their purposes and not because they were embracing "transparency" as a principle. Even Kucinich had to come along. Obama is no genius; he just read the tea leaves and acted accordingly. Good for him - and, I think, good for us.

Still More on Bloom

Entry 5: March 17, 2010
In the Chapter or section on “Relationships”, Bloom says the following about Hobbes and Locke: “Hobbes and Locke supposed that, although the political order would be constituted out of individuals, the subpolitical units would remain largely unaffected. Indeed, they counted on the family, as an intermediate between the individual and the state, partially to replace what was being lost in passionate attachment to the polity. The immediate and reliable love of one’s own property, wife and children can more effectively counterpoise purely individual selfishness than does the distant and abstract love country.” [p. 112]

This is, I believe, just unpersuasive and inaccurate. It is unpersuasive because it is almost inconceivable to me that thoughtful people who were looking to revamp the political order in fundamental and basic ways would think that what Bloom calls “the subpolitical units would remain largely unaffected.” How could this be? How human beings are politically is one crucial determinate of how they are “personally.” We the People are not the same people that we would be if we lived in a confederation rather than in a nation. For example, Robert E. Lee turned down the command of the Union forces because he was, first and foremost, a Virginian. This might seem quaint to us but it did not to Lee. The political arrangement as it existed then affected Lee’s very personality. I remain unconvinced that Hobbes and Locke were so superficial as to think that a fundamental realignment of the political would not affect “the subpolitical.” I mean, even Bloom calls it “the subpolitical.”

It is also inaccurate as one can see from reading Locke on marriage. For Locke, marriage is nothing more and nothing less than a “contract.” It is, for example, no longer viewed as a covenant. Hence, Locke posits that once a married couple has raised their children and liberated them after making them fit for the world, they can go their separate ways! So much for “love and marriage” or for the idea of marriage as a sacrament or covenant. Of course, Locke might have known already that once human beings embrace what we like to call “capitalism” today that marriage as traditionally understood would be an impediment to a full embrace of the “free market.” And if he did, then Locke did not see a contractual view of marriage as something which would undermine a civil society. Unlike present day “conservatives,” Locke did not romanticize the family or “family values.”

A few pages later, Bloom traces the divorce rate to just such changes in these subpolitical units and then adds: “None of this results from the sixties, or from the appeal to masculine vanity begun by advertisers in the fifties, for from any other superficial, pop-culture events. More than two hundred years ago Rousseau saw with alarm the seeds of the breakdown of the family in liberal society, and he dedicated much of his genius to trying to correct it.” [p. 115-16]

This is an enlightening passage for more than one reason. First, it is one of the few times that Bloom admits that the phenomena he is dealing with have roots that go much deeper than such contemporary phenomena as feminism, Marxism, black power, rock n’ roll, or any other such phenomena. Second, insofar as these phenomena are deeply rooted in the past then it is necessary to get beyond the snipping that all too easy when aimed at these more contemporary phenomena. But Bloom looks back to Rousseau which implies that the crucial changes lie in the distant past, e.g., in the thought of Hobbes and Locke and other distant political philosophers. But what if the crucial changes, at least for the United States, are not so distant, not so deeply buried, as it were? What if the crucial changes could be traced, say, to the ratification of the Constitution in 1787-1788? Ah, now there is a thought worth considering, perhaps. What if the Anti-Federalists were correct, that the ratification of the Constitution would undermine the basis of a genuine republicanism here in the United States and, therewith, undermine the moral fiber of the nation? Anyway, it seems worth thinking about, especially these days when there is so much dissatisfaction with our political system, enough that some states are trying to reclaim their sovereignty.