John LeBoutillier on Iraq

Iraq: General John Abizaid recently told a reporter off the record that we can not win in Iraq by militarily defeating the Insurgency; the best we can do is to keep things at a standstill until the Iraqi political situation settles down.

That is not what the General, the head of Centcomm, has told the Congress or the American people. In rosy testimony aimed at keeping up public support for the war, these military leaders follow the Vietnam War model: tell the public all is going well and tell the President what he wants to hear.

This, of course, is a prescription for disaster.

Military leaders who brown-nose the politicians - instead of telling the cold hard truth no matter how unattractive it may be - are a disgrace to their uniform.

The plain facts of the Iraq venture are becoming clearer by the minute: the fundamentalist Muslims, with whom we are at war and have been since November 4, 1979 when they overran our Embassy in Iran and seized the hostages, are taking over the government in Iraq and are under the thumb of Tehran. In fact, the new Iraqi draft Constitution reduces women’s rights and mandates that the Sharia, the Islamic Law, become the law of the land.

So our entire Iraq adventure may end up resulting in the removal of Saddam (a decidedly good thing) and the imposition of a Fundamentalist Islam state in alliance with our arch enemies and charter member of the Axis of Evil, Iran (a very, very bad thing).

Inside the Kirov Ballet

Robert Kaiser has a wonderful article in today's Washington Post , about his return visit to the Vaganova Academy of ballet after 33 years.

ST. PETERSBURG In February 1972, as the Moscow correspondent of this newspaper, I visited the Vaganova Ballet Academy, principal training ground for the renowned Kirov/Maryinski Ballet, in its historic home in Leningrad -- then the name of this exotic city on the Neva River. I was a young reporter trying to solve the mysteries of the U.S.S.R. Unexpectedly, that visit provided something close to revelation.

The Vaganova Academy, where Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov all learned to dance, first taught me how the Soviet Union accomplished its most important objectives. The secret was to limit the number of goals, and then to lavish resources on them. This was how the first Sputnik was launched, and then how the Soviets conducted their side of the nuclear arms race. It was also the method for training Olympic athletes. My visit to the Vaganova Academy was my first direct exposure to this method -- which was the way the school produced world-class ballet dancers. This was an important moment in my Soviet education.

In June, I revisited the academy to see how the passage of 33 years and the collapse of the Soviet Union had changed this famous school. I had no idea what to expect but eagerly anticipated new revelations. In a surprising way, I found them -- more about that in a moment.

My Father, the Spy . . .

I'm not usually a big fan of NPR's Diane Rehm show, but the other day I heard a good interview with John Richardson, author of My Father, The Spy: An Investigative Memoir. Most striking was Richardson's discussion of his father's confrontation over Vietnam with Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge in the 1960s.

Richardson's mention of the Diem assassination made me think. The US makes a mistake when it overthrows friendly governments to find more pliable partners. Diem clearly understood Vietnamese politics and society. But when he clashed with America's "arrogance of power," in the interests of his country, he got killed. He may have been a pain in the neck, but he was on our side. Richardson knew this, and it ruined his career.

Despite numerous American-sponsored elections after that, and a number of different presidents, Vietnam fell to the Communists--something Diem prevented.

As Richardson spoke, I thought about the fate of Cambodia, where the US sponsored the overthrow of Prince Sihanouk and his replacement by General Lon Nol. A basically neutral leader, protecting his country from war, Sihanouk was overthrown by an arrogant and impatient US that wanted more help in Vietnam. The result: Cambodia was destroyed, millions died, and the Khmer Rouge came to power. William Shawcross documented this in his book, Sideshow. Again, destabilizing a regime that was no threat to the US led to a geopolitical as well as moral defeat.

Richardson discussed American involvement in elections in Greece and Italy, defending America's right to support friendly candidates against the Communist menace.

He sounded reasonable. And Richardson's book certainly sounds worth reading, in the context of American foreign policy today...

Yes, The New Yorker

Just read the August 1st issue of The New Yorker, and it has a lot of interesting articles, including John Cassidy's profile of Republican activist Grover Norquist. Since I once rented office space from Grover, I couldn't stop reading the article.

The best reason to read this issue, however, is Philip Gourevitch's story on the Tamil Tiger movement in Sri Lanka--in the news today because of the state of emergency declared after yesterday's assassination of Sri Lanka's foreign minister. Gourevitch predicted a rise in violence, it seems due to fights over control of Tsunami aid money that the West insists go to the Tamils over objections of the Sri Lankan government. Gourevitch is more sympathetic to the Tamil Tigers than most people we met when we were tourists in Sri Lanka (it killed the beach resort and elephant orphanage businesss). He does point out that they used suicide bombers and other techniques now used by Al Qaeda, were trained in Lebanon, and supported by the Indian Government (ironically, Tamil Tigers killed Indira Gandhi). Gourevitch is too soft on the Tamil Tigers and their supporters.

Not gone into at length is the role of big powers in supporting terrorists, in this case. Gourevitch doesn't emphasize the fact that when India dropped support for the Tamil Tiger movement, things began to calm down--until now, as Western Tsunami aid (no doubt some from US taxpayers), funneled to the Tigers in Tiger controlled areas via NGOs, appears to be fueling Tamil Tiger terrorism once more.

IMHO A comprehensive approach to fighting terror may need to include a more effective policy to prevent humanitarian NGOs from supporting terrorists either directly or indirectly.

Russia Profile

Unwrapping the Mystery Wrapped in the Enigma.

Bull Moose Explains the Highway Bill

From Bull Moose:

...Roads rock. Roads are romantic. Simple, yes, but true. The Mooselings love roads. And if the Moosleings are right about this one, so do most Americans. They may not give voice to that love, but deep down, in their daily lives and genetic identity, they are inherently and soulfully connected to our nation's highways and byways. And, mundane as they may seem, those roads are one of the most regular and most tangible links that most people have to some sort of shared national experience -- talk about common ground. Any forward-thinking politician trying to position himself strategically for 2008, would be wise to court the asphalt voter.

For many people, new roads, like sprawl in general, are either good or bad. They ruin our way of life, some say, they are environmentally unsound, and cut away at our community. But, others respond, you can't stop progress, and you should stop hating on America. The Mooslings argue that highways, and the vehicles we love to drive on them, aren't that easy to pigeonhole, they're far more ambiguous, alluring, overwhelming, and complicated.

A long time ago, Robert Penn Warren captured that menacing power in the opening pages of All the King's Men, describing a southern Highway 58, in 'the country where the age of the internal combustion engine has come into its own,' a strange land:

Where the smell of gasoline and burning brake bands and red-eye is sweeter than myrrh. Where the eight-cylinder jobs come roaring around the curves in the red hills and scatter the gravel like spray, and when they ever get down in the flat country, and hit the slab God have mercy on the mariner.

Roger L. Simon Bashes Bush Administration

Roger L. Simon has criticized Bush's pitiful PR operation, saying the best defenses of American foreign policy come from bloggers, not the administration.

He's right, but that might be because Bush administration insiders realize things may be worse than they seem.

Plus, there may be so much money flowing to good ol' boys that there is no incentive to hire any first-rate people who might make the insiders look bad by comparison. One example, the Pentagon's brilliant PR specialist, Tori Clarke (who I once saw speak persuasively at a Washington conference, when she was head of the National Television Cable Association), was replaced by Larry Di Rita, a chief of staff without any media experience. I had a nodding acquaintance with Di Rita when he was at the Heritage Foundation as a budget expert (he once gave me some numbers on public broadcasting). He may be intelligent, but he is not a media guru. Yet, as Rumsfeld's chief of staff, Di Rita has been handling Pentagon PR for years, since Tori Clarke left, seemingly impervious to the dropping ratings for the American war in Iraq.

Good PR people influence policy decisions, because actions speak louder than words. Tori Clarke, for instance, pushed through the project to embed reporters with US troops against the objections of Pentagon brass. However, if the minds at the top are made up, locked tight, and don't want to listen to the public, good public relations become impossible, and good PR people become unavailable...

Maybe Jack Abramoff's indictment will lead to some changes in policies and personnel-- but I wouldn't count on it.

Daniel Pearl Case Not Over

According to this New York Times story, another suspect has been charged in the murder of late Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

Does the Uzbek KGB Run the Country?

Lyndon Allin sent us this item from his blog, Scraps of Moscow: Novaya Gazeta on where the power lies in Uzbekistan. Since Uzbekistan was already a police state under the Soviets, before 9/11, before Andijan, and before the expulsion of the US base from Karshi-Khanabad, it wouldn't surprise me if the security services still play a major role in running the country. However, when I lived there it seemed there were always Byzantine power struggles going on (impossible for an outsider to understand) between different regional clans, ministries, and personalities. So I would doubt any one agency could control everything entirely, even the Uzbek KGB...

Where are the War Heroes?

Lawrence Suid sent the following Op-Ed, originally written for the New York Times, which declined to publish it:
Where Are the War Heroes?
by Lawrence Suid

In trying to answer his question: Where Are the War Heroes?, Damien Cave may have gone to the wrong people. Instead of talking with journalists, military historians, and a former general, he probably should have talked with the entertainment media.. To be sure, George C. Scott’s Patton did acknowledge, “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.” This certainly explains why few heroes emerged from the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Nevertheless, Hollywood has regularly produced heroes on the screen even while fighting these unpopular wars. Richard Nixon watched Patton twice before ordering the invasion of Cambodia. While some Americans saw Scott’s warrior Patton as the cause of the Vietnam War, others wondered where was the general when the nation needed him.

In fact, many people observed that people like Patton and Robert Duvall’s Marine flier in The Great Santini should be locked up between wars. In any event, if unpopular wars fail to produce heros of the ilk of Sergeant York and Audie Murphy, filmmakers have always managed to provide Americans with visual images of men and women who went beyond the call of duty while carrying out their government’s orders whatever the popularity of the war.

William Holden’s Navy flier in Bridges at Toko Ri objects strenuously to having been recalled to active duty, yet he dies heroically, albeit in a muddy ditch. Gregory Peck’s Army officer takes Porkchop Hill in the movie of the same name even though he and his men know they will have to give it up when the Korean War cease fire goes into effect. Even Michael J. Fox’s character in Casualties of War acts heroically by reporting that his comrades had raped and murdered a Vietnamese girl even though the guilty soldiers might try to kill him.

This portrayal remained the exception in movies set in Vietnam in the 1970s and 1980s. Ironically, at the same time, Hollywood began the process of rehabilitating the image of the American fighting man. Of course, filmmakers had to return to World War II or to the peacetime military for their heroes. Midway, in 1976, portrayed many heroes in the battle that changed the course of World War II, not the least of whom was Charlton Heston who led an attack against the Japanese fleet before crashing spectacularly onto his carrier, albeit a crash that used a Korean War jet for the explosion.

A Bridge Too Far, the next year, portrayed several real American heroes particularly General James Gavin and Major Julian Cook whom Robert Redford played crossing the Rhine in a canvas boat in the face of whithering German fire. Ultimately, Top Gun, with Tom Cruise playing the ultimate peacetime Navy fighter pilot hero, completed the rehabilitation of the military’s image which Vietnam had so badly savaged.

With the American people once again believing its armed services could succeed in any combat situation, President Bush I easily mustered the nation’s support for the first Gulf War and the military quickly drove the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait. However, the war lasted too short a time to produce actual heros, leaving it to Hollywood to create, in Courage Under Fire, the first female recipient of the Medal of Honor.

Although Steven Bochco is offering up his own heroes in the FX series Over There the current Iraq war presents problems not only to the producer but to the military whatever its interest is in providing the American people with heros. Real heroes, such as Sergeant York and Audie Murphy, and cinematic ones emerge as a result of their fighting against overwhelmlng odds. In the current war, despite the devastation the insurgents are inflicting on American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, the United States military holds a numerical and quality of firepower over the enemy. Consequently, only occasionally do Americans find themselves performing beyond the call of duty. And, as the war becomes more and more unpopular because of the growing loses and the reality that no Weapons of Mass Destruction existed, Americans will have less and less reason to praise those heroes that may be offered up.

With that said, to make his point, Mr. Cave ignored that CBS Evening News has every night presented a “Fallen Hero” to the American people. Whether the nation will respond to other heroes, real and imagined, may be seen starting this Friday when The Great Raid opens nation-wide, telling the true story of how a small force of U.S. Rangers rescued more than 500 American POWs from a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines despite facing a vastly superior number of enemy soldiers. Will people want to sit through images of Japanese atrocities may well depend on whether military heroes still have appeal to Americans, especially during an unpopular war.

Uzbek Opposition Leader Threatens Terror Wave

It looks like the Uzbek government may have been right when it called Kabul Parpiyev a terrorist, and blamed him for inciting riots in Andijan. According to Igor Rotar, certainly no friend of Karimov (he was recently arrested at the Tashkent airport), Parpiev has threatened to unleash a wave of terror and armed conflict in Uzbekistan unless there is international intervention. Rotar concedes that Parpiev's group of Islamists, known as Akramiya, are not the innocent victims portrayed in the Western media:

Regardless of whether Akramiya was a terrorist organization in the past, Parpiyev's statements indicates that the organization is ready to become one today. The Andijan events demonstrated that this organization already has sufficient forces to organize armed resistance to the authorities.

This type of dangerous talk, after 9/11 and 7/7, presents a serious problem for US diplomacy, which has aided the resettlement of Parpiev's followers following the failure of their attempted takeover of the Andijan government, and promoted Parpiev's views on Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe. If Parpiev is openly inciting terrorism after Andijan, then the US is supporting terrorism and terrorists. Frankly, this call to arms makes Parpiev's claims that he was not a terrorist look laughable, and those who believed him appear as fools. Now that his followers are safely relocated--his terrorist followers, it appears--Parpiev pulls off the mask of moderation...

My two cents: This should not come as a surprise or a shock, given the record of Islamist groups around the world for inciting violence, and the record of the American media and international NGOs in regard to terrorists. Since Radio Free Europe apparently knows where Parpiev is, or knows who knows, the US government might turn over Parpiev to the Uzbek authorities once they sign an agreement not to torture him.

As Tony Blair has finally realized in Great Britain, after the July 7th bombings, for the Global War on Terror to succeed, there can be no quarter given to terrorists or those who incite terrorism. This may be the view of the Russians, as expressed by Arseny Oganesyan in this RIA Novosti commentary, but that doesn't make it wrong. He points out:

There are three major players: China, Russia, and the United States. Each has its own interests, and all three want this poor region to be calm and prosperous. But this will not happen unless radical Islam is fully eradicated, a formidable task that can only be accomplished by a concerted effort. Understanding this truth gives Washington, Moscow and Beijing the opportunity to reach a compromise that they all need.

IMHO Tolerating or supporting any terrorists or calls for terrorism is a recipe for American defeat, geopolitically and morally.

The Invisible Adjunct

Since I'm an adjunct professor myself, when I came across this blog in a google search, I was immediately interested in what it had to say. So here's a link to the Invisible Adjunct: 20, 000 Leagues Under...

Russians Learning to Love Modern Art

According to Bloomberg.com, modern art is the latest fashion to sweep Russia.

A New Cold War?

That's what it says on A Step At A Time. . .

Clark (without Lewis)

Every time we go to Antigua, I learn something new about its history. This time, it was about William Clark, better known as partner of explorer Meriwether Lewis on Thomas Jefferson's 1803 mission into the newly-purchased Louisiana Territory. This same William Clark travelled to Antigua, and in 1823 published Ten Views of the Island of Antigua, in which are represented the process of sugar making and the employment of the negroes in the field, boiling house, and distillery. According to this history website, the illlustrations can be seen as part of an abolitionist campaign to document the horrors of slavery in order to end the practice. Due to such efforts, Great Britain emancipated the slaves of the West Indies on August 1, 1834. You can see all of Clark's illustrations here. And a picture of Wetherell's Estate here.

It's About Time...

The BBC experimented with free podcasting of Beethoven Symphonies, which might boost podcasting for classical music lovers. Although their Beethoven website says the experiment is now completed, perhaps it will lead to something permanent at the BBC. Meanwhile, they provide a link to other classical music downloading sites, for example, AMClassical.com. (Hat tip to artsjournal.com)

What Is To Be Done (About Uzbekistan)?

The neocons pondered the question just two days before the Uzbeks publicly kicked American troops out of the Karshi-Khanabad (K2) airbase. Here's a summary of the presentations on the AEI website--note that none of the assembled pundits predicted the dramatic rejection of America's leadership in the Global War on Terror (Uzbekistan controls access to northern Afghanistan) that actually took place. The Karshi-Khanabad air base dispute is not even mentioned in the official AEI summary, a significant omission.

That said, the AEI webcast showcases a fascinating, passionate debate between William Kristol and Fred Starr, an interesting presentation by Chris Seiple that quotes E.H. Carr, and Martha Brill Olcott's attempt to find a middle way--as well as a lively question-and-answer session.

Leon Aron should be congratulated for bringing this panel together.

Russia's Future Prosperity Demands a Latin Alphabet

Sam Vaknin used to contribute interesting articles about politics and economics to my web publication, The Idler. Now he makes the case for Russia switching to a Latin alphabet, from Cyrillic, in order to fully enter the computer age--and he makes a good case, citing Ataturk's precedent in Turkey...

To the Moon, Alice...

Ralph Kramden had a cheaper alternative in mind, but the Russians will fly you to the moon for $100 million--without a space shuttle!

JamesBowman on Islamism

At JamesBowman.net.