By H. N. Burdett
Since leaving the United States Supreme Court four years ago, Sandra Day O'Connor has been the honorary chairman of a movement in Nevada urging that judges in that state be appointed rather than elected. The cause O'Connor passionately advocates recalls a fierce debate over that very issue at the 1967 Maryland Constitutional Convention and an appearance by former state governor Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin before the committee responsible for writing the executive branch section of the draft document.
A member of the panel, Judge Philip Dorsey, an avowed opponent of appointing judges, tried to nail down McKeldin on the question. "Now, Governor, wouldn't you say that the election of judges has worked quite well here in Maryland over many, many years?" Dorsey asked.
"Well, Judge Dorsey," McKeldin responded, "on that matter my answer will be the same as what the Irish cop told the drunk he found leaning against a lamp post, 'Paddy, if you're going to stand here, you're going to have to move on.' "
As the color rose in Judge Dorsey's craggy countenance over the unexpected response, McKeldin elaborated, "There's but one way I can think of to select judges to ensure that they will be of the highest quality." Committee members who had long wrestled for a solution to the judge selection quandary leaned forward in their seats to hear the former governor intone, "Immaculate conception!"
_______________________
National Public Radio is understandably and perpetually concerned about the flow of taxpayer dollars that keep its programming on the air. There are those in the Congressional paranoia caucus who are convinced that NPR is a thinly disguised tub-thumper for the so-called socialist state and would excise its funding quicker than one can shout 'red channels.' Some would eagerly substitute reliably conservative Fox News for NPR and be done with the matter.
The constant fear of having the plug pulled on the most informative, educational and politically unbiased organ within the entire American media spectrum is clearly behind the misguided firing of news commentator Juan Williams.
Sure, Williams's comment about his nervousness when people wearing "Muslim garb" board an airplane was excessive, unfortunate and deserving of a reprimand. But it was hardly in a class with the detestable venom spouted by unmitigated hatemongers who foul the airwaves of one of the few nations where free speech is a constitutional right. I don't know Williams personally, but I know and trust people who do and who tell me he does not have a prejudiced bone in his body.
Over the years, I've admired Williams as a reporter and can recall nothing to suggest that he is biased. Though I'm less familiar with his television news commentary, it is difficult to imagine Williams as a latter day Archie Bunker. As conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer pointed out on the television program Washington Week, Williams is not a reporter, he's an analyst and as such is expected to voice his opinions rather than demonstrate objectivity and restraint.
I can probably count on one hand with fingers to spare the number of times I can recall agreeing with the fiesty Krauthammer, who could probably put a neoconservative spin on the recitation of a weather report. But his defense of Williams was honorable and laudable.
The most that Juan Williams deserved from the suits in the NPR boardroom was a slap on the wrists. Williams regretted his remark and said as much over the air soon after it left his lips; to view his momentary indiscretion as a firing offense is over the top and smacks of bending over backwards to demonstrate NPR's impartiality.
There are vultures perched on Capitol Hill who would like nothing better than to swoop down on a moderate news analyst, of all people, as an example of what they perceive to be NPR's bias. The lack of courage on the part of NPR management to defy the forces that would use any excuse to remove this valuable media entity from the airwaves is far more troubling than Williams's political incorrectness. One can imagine Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, those icons of electronic media integrity, pinwheeling in their graves over Williams's treatment.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
TOWARDS MILITARY POLICY SANITY
By H. N. Burdett
Andrew Bacevich, the West Point graduate, former career military officer and Pentagon intellectual who believes the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was a grievous error, has taken up his pen once again to offer yet another healthy dose of rationality.
In his previous books and articles, Bacevich, who heads the international relations department at Boston University, makes the case that war is armed hostilities between nations and as such cannot be declared and waged against "isms," including terrorism. Therefore, as he sees it, interventions into Iraq and Afghanistan under the pretext of a war against terrorism is a colossal blunder if not a deliberate hoax and the right thing to do is to get the hell out of there.
It would be wrong to label Bacevich a radical pacifist. In the wake of 9/11, he feels the objective should have been a laser focus on capturing Osama Bin Laden and holding him and al-Qaeda accountable for their butchery.
Had the hunt for Bin Laden been formulated as an international police action, with the cooperation of the so-called coalition of the willing, rather than a full-scale military operation, Bacevich would have been supportive.
Moreover, had the obscene amounts of money the U.S. has poured into fighting two countries under the ludicrous rationale that they were threats to United States security because one of them had weapons of mass destruction that apparently never existed been spent on a coordinated international police action, Bin Laden and al-Qaeda might by this time have been relegated to history.
The route of perpetual war chosen by the Bush administration appears to have been calculated to ensure long-term Republican domination of the White House and Congress under the hypothesis that horses are not changed in midstream, nor presidents in mid-war. This together with U.S. reliance on oil providing the necessary national security and national interest elements converged to form the perfect storm that swept George W. Bush into the White House for an unlikely second term.
In his latest book, Washington Rules, Bacevich goes beyond the West Asian adventure, courtesy of the United States, to suggest a far different approach to U.S. military policy.
Over the past 60 years, he contends, U.S. military policy and practice have demonstrated troubling "elements of continuity." He has found what he calls "the sacred trinity" -- a policy reflecting "an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism."
Bacevich traces this thinking to the "American credo," expounded before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. declaration of war on Japan, Germany and Italy, in early 1941 by the influential publisher, Henry Luce. Writing in his Life magazine, Luce exhorted Americans to "accept wholeheartedly our duty to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit."
Luce's manifesto is one that any dictator might pronounce most reasonable, but any leader dedicated to the principles and ideals inscribed in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution might rightfully repudiate. Considering what was happening in Europe at the time, with Hitler's war machine toppling country after country, Luce's ringing rhetoric seemed more of a call to arms against an advancing tyrant than standard dictatorial rant.
To ensure that the United States avoids in the future repetitions of lunacies like waging preemptive war against two countries that had nothing to do with the 9/11 World Trade Center and Pentagon atrocities, while Bin Laden remains at bay, Bacevich calls for "a new trinity."
"The proper aim of American statecraft is. . .not to redeem humankind or to prescribe some specific world order, nor to police the planet by force of arms," he writes. "Its purpose is to permit Americans to avail themselves of the right of self-determination as they seek to create at home a 'more perfect union.' Any policy impeding that enterprise -- as open-ended war surely does -- is misguided and pernicious."
Recalling another early American tradition, the anti-imperial origins of the United States under the banner, "Don't Tread on Me," Bacevich proffers a new military policy based on the principle that this country "does not seek trouble but insists that others will accord the United States respect." Consistent with this tradition, he outlines a contemporary version as a substitute for the current "sacred trinity":
* First, the purpose of the U.S. military is not to combat evil or to remake the world, but to defend the United States and its most vital interests.
* Second, the primary duty station of the American soldier is America.
* Third, the United States should employ force only as a last resourt and only in self-defense.
"The Bush doctrine of preventive war -- the United States bestowing on itself the exclusive prerogative of employing force against potential threats even before they materialize -- is a moral abomination," Bacevich says, "the very inverse of prudent and enlightened statecraft."
He adds: "Never again should the United States undertake 'a war of choice' informed by fantasies that violence provides a shortcut to resolving history's complexities."
Bacevich suggests that the alternative triad would result in dramatic changes in our national security posture: "Military spending would decrease appreciably. The Pentagon's global footprint would shrink. Weapons manufacturers would see their profits plummet. Beltway bandits would close up shop. The ranks of defense-oriented think tanks would thin. These changes, in turn, would narrow the range of options available for employing force, obliging policymakers to exhibit greater restraint in intervening abroad. With resources currently devoted to rehabilitating Baghdad or Kabul freed up, the cause of rehabilitating Cleveland and Detroit might finally attract a following."
Not only should Bacevich's book be placed on Barack Obama's bedside table, it should be mandatory reading for anyone even thinking of seeking the presidency in 2012 and within the foreseeable future.
Andrew Bacevich, the West Point graduate, former career military officer and Pentagon intellectual who believes the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was a grievous error, has taken up his pen once again to offer yet another healthy dose of rationality.
In his previous books and articles, Bacevich, who heads the international relations department at Boston University, makes the case that war is armed hostilities between nations and as such cannot be declared and waged against "isms," including terrorism. Therefore, as he sees it, interventions into Iraq and Afghanistan under the pretext of a war against terrorism is a colossal blunder if not a deliberate hoax and the right thing to do is to get the hell out of there.
It would be wrong to label Bacevich a radical pacifist. In the wake of 9/11, he feels the objective should have been a laser focus on capturing Osama Bin Laden and holding him and al-Qaeda accountable for their butchery.
Had the hunt for Bin Laden been formulated as an international police action, with the cooperation of the so-called coalition of the willing, rather than a full-scale military operation, Bacevich would have been supportive.
Moreover, had the obscene amounts of money the U.S. has poured into fighting two countries under the ludicrous rationale that they were threats to United States security because one of them had weapons of mass destruction that apparently never existed been spent on a coordinated international police action, Bin Laden and al-Qaeda might by this time have been relegated to history.
The route of perpetual war chosen by the Bush administration appears to have been calculated to ensure long-term Republican domination of the White House and Congress under the hypothesis that horses are not changed in midstream, nor presidents in mid-war. This together with U.S. reliance on oil providing the necessary national security and national interest elements converged to form the perfect storm that swept George W. Bush into the White House for an unlikely second term.
In his latest book, Washington Rules, Bacevich goes beyond the West Asian adventure, courtesy of the United States, to suggest a far different approach to U.S. military policy.
Over the past 60 years, he contends, U.S. military policy and practice have demonstrated troubling "elements of continuity." He has found what he calls "the sacred trinity" -- a policy reflecting "an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism."
Bacevich traces this thinking to the "American credo," expounded before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. declaration of war on Japan, Germany and Italy, in early 1941 by the influential publisher, Henry Luce. Writing in his Life magazine, Luce exhorted Americans to "accept wholeheartedly our duty to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit."
Luce's manifesto is one that any dictator might pronounce most reasonable, but any leader dedicated to the principles and ideals inscribed in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution might rightfully repudiate. Considering what was happening in Europe at the time, with Hitler's war machine toppling country after country, Luce's ringing rhetoric seemed more of a call to arms against an advancing tyrant than standard dictatorial rant.
To ensure that the United States avoids in the future repetitions of lunacies like waging preemptive war against two countries that had nothing to do with the 9/11 World Trade Center and Pentagon atrocities, while Bin Laden remains at bay, Bacevich calls for "a new trinity."
"The proper aim of American statecraft is. . .not to redeem humankind or to prescribe some specific world order, nor to police the planet by force of arms," he writes. "Its purpose is to permit Americans to avail themselves of the right of self-determination as they seek to create at home a 'more perfect union.' Any policy impeding that enterprise -- as open-ended war surely does -- is misguided and pernicious."
Recalling another early American tradition, the anti-imperial origins of the United States under the banner, "Don't Tread on Me," Bacevich proffers a new military policy based on the principle that this country "does not seek trouble but insists that others will accord the United States respect." Consistent with this tradition, he outlines a contemporary version as a substitute for the current "sacred trinity":
* First, the purpose of the U.S. military is not to combat evil or to remake the world, but to defend the United States and its most vital interests.
* Second, the primary duty station of the American soldier is America.
* Third, the United States should employ force only as a last resourt and only in self-defense.
"The Bush doctrine of preventive war -- the United States bestowing on itself the exclusive prerogative of employing force against potential threats even before they materialize -- is a moral abomination," Bacevich says, "the very inverse of prudent and enlightened statecraft."
He adds: "Never again should the United States undertake 'a war of choice' informed by fantasies that violence provides a shortcut to resolving history's complexities."
Bacevich suggests that the alternative triad would result in dramatic changes in our national security posture: "Military spending would decrease appreciably. The Pentagon's global footprint would shrink. Weapons manufacturers would see their profits plummet. Beltway bandits would close up shop. The ranks of defense-oriented think tanks would thin. These changes, in turn, would narrow the range of options available for employing force, obliging policymakers to exhibit greater restraint in intervening abroad. With resources currently devoted to rehabilitating Baghdad or Kabul freed up, the cause of rehabilitating Cleveland and Detroit might finally attract a following."
Not only should Bacevich's book be placed on Barack Obama's bedside table, it should be mandatory reading for anyone even thinking of seeking the presidency in 2012 and within the foreseeable future.
Monday, October 4, 2010
THERE WERE JUST NO GOOD CHOICES
By H. N. BURDETT
Recently I came across a newspaper column written more than 20 years ago and I lost it a little. I've never counted myself among the hardboiled school that professes to be totally devoid of sentimentality, but neither can I recall the last time a newspaper column has nearly brought me to tears. I now pass it on because if the topic has no special interest or meaning for you, it damn well should. Unless you already know - and I suspect more than a few of you might - I challenge each of you to identify the author, which I'll divulge via mass e-mail after I've felt enough time has passed so that anyone wanting to read it will have that opportunity. HNB
THE VIETNAM MEMORIAL
She had known, ever since she first read about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, that she would go there someday. Sometime she would be in Washington and would go and see his name and leave again.
So silly, all that fuss about the memorial. Whatever else Vietnam was, it was not the kind of war that calls for some "Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima" kind of statue. She was not prepared, though, for the impact of the memorial. To walk down into it in the pale winter sunshine was like the war itself, like going into a dark valley and damned if there was ever any light at the end of the tunnel. Just death. When you get closer to the two walls, the number of names starts to stun you. It is terrible, there in the peace and the pale sunshine.
The names are listed by date of death. There has never been a time, day or night, drunk or sober, for 13 years she could not have told you the date. He was killed on Aug. 13, 1969. It is near the middle of the left wall. She went toward it as though she had known beforehand where it would be. His name is near the bottom. She had to kneel to find it. Stupid cliches. His name leapt out at her. It was like being hit.
She stared at it and then reached out and gently ran her fingers over the letters in the cold black marble. The memory of him came back so strong, almost as if he were there on the other side of the stone, she could see his hand reaching out to touch her fingers. It had not hurt for years and suddenly, just for a moment, it hurt again so horribly that it twisted her face. Then it stopped hurting but she could not stop the tears. Could not stop them running and running down her face.
There had been a time, although she had been an otherwise sensible woman, when she had believed she would never recover from the pain. She did, of course. But she was still determined never to sentimentalize him. He would have hated that. She had thought it was like an amputation, the severing of his life from hers, that you could live on afterward but it would be like having only one leg and one arm. but it was only a wound. It healed. If there is a scar it is only faintly visible now at odd intervals.
He was a biologist at the university getting his Ph.D. They lived together for two years. He left the university to finish his thesis and before he could line up a public school job - teachers were safe in those years - the draft board got him. They had friends who had left the country, they had friends who had gone to prison, they had friends who had gone to Nam. There were no good choices in those years. She thinks now he unconsciously wanted to go even though he said in one of his last letters, that it was a stupid fuckin' war. He felt some form of guilt about a friend of theirs who was killed during the Tet offensive. Hubert Humphrey called Tet a great victory. His compromise was to refuse officer's training school and go as an enlisted man. She had thought then it was a dumb gesture and they had a half-hearted quarrel about it.
He had been in Nam less than two months when he was killed without heroics, during a firefight at night by a single bullet in the brain. No one saw it happen. There are some amazing statistics about money and tonnage from the war. Did you know there were more tons of bombs dropped on Hanoi during the Christmas bombing of 1971 than in all of World War II? Did you know that the war in Vietnam cost the United States $123.3 billion? She has always wanted to know how much that one bullet cost -Sixty-three cents? $1.20? Someone must know.
The other bad part was the brain. Even at this late date, it seemed to her that was a quite remarkable mind. Long before she read C. P. Snow, the ferociously honest young man who wanted to be a great biologist taught her a great deal about the way scientists think and the way humanists think. Only once has she been glad he was not with her. It was at one of those bizarre hearings about teaching "creation science." He would have gotten furious and been horribly rude. He had no patience with people who did not understand and respect the process of science.
She used to attribute his fierce honesty to the fact that he was a Yankee. She is still prone to tell "white" lies to make people feel better, to smooth things over, to prevent hard feelings. Surely there have been dumber things for lovers to quarrel over than social utility of hypocrisy. But not many.
She stood up again, still staring at his name, stood for a long time. She said, "There it is," and turned to go. A man to her left was staring at her. She glared at him resentfully. The man had done nothing but make the mistake of seeing her weeping. She said, as though daring him to disagree, "It was a stupid fuckin' war," and stalked past him.
She turned again at the top of the steps to make sure where his name is, so whenever she sees a picture of the memorial she can put her finger where his name is. He never said goodbye, literally. Whenever he left he would say, "Take care, love." He could say it many different ways. He said it when he left for Vietnam. She stood at the top of the slope and found her hand half raised in some silly gesture of farewell. She brought it down again. She considered saying to him, "Hey, take care, love," but it seemed remarkably inappropriate. She walked away and was quite entertaining for the rest of the day, because it was expected of her.
She thinks he would have liked the memorial O.K. He would have hated the editorials. He did not sacrifice his life for his country or for a just and noble cause. There just were no good choices in those years and he got killed.
Recently I came across a newspaper column written more than 20 years ago and I lost it a little. I've never counted myself among the hardboiled school that professes to be totally devoid of sentimentality, but neither can I recall the last time a newspaper column has nearly brought me to tears. I now pass it on because if the topic has no special interest or meaning for you, it damn well should. Unless you already know - and I suspect more than a few of you might - I challenge each of you to identify the author, which I'll divulge via mass e-mail after I've felt enough time has passed so that anyone wanting to read it will have that opportunity. HNB
THE VIETNAM MEMORIAL
She had known, ever since she first read about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, that she would go there someday. Sometime she would be in Washington and would go and see his name and leave again.
So silly, all that fuss about the memorial. Whatever else Vietnam was, it was not the kind of war that calls for some "Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima" kind of statue. She was not prepared, though, for the impact of the memorial. To walk down into it in the pale winter sunshine was like the war itself, like going into a dark valley and damned if there was ever any light at the end of the tunnel. Just death. When you get closer to the two walls, the number of names starts to stun you. It is terrible, there in the peace and the pale sunshine.
The names are listed by date of death. There has never been a time, day or night, drunk or sober, for 13 years she could not have told you the date. He was killed on Aug. 13, 1969. It is near the middle of the left wall. She went toward it as though she had known beforehand where it would be. His name is near the bottom. She had to kneel to find it. Stupid cliches. His name leapt out at her. It was like being hit.
She stared at it and then reached out and gently ran her fingers over the letters in the cold black marble. The memory of him came back so strong, almost as if he were there on the other side of the stone, she could see his hand reaching out to touch her fingers. It had not hurt for years and suddenly, just for a moment, it hurt again so horribly that it twisted her face. Then it stopped hurting but she could not stop the tears. Could not stop them running and running down her face.
There had been a time, although she had been an otherwise sensible woman, when she had believed she would never recover from the pain. She did, of course. But she was still determined never to sentimentalize him. He would have hated that. She had thought it was like an amputation, the severing of his life from hers, that you could live on afterward but it would be like having only one leg and one arm. but it was only a wound. It healed. If there is a scar it is only faintly visible now at odd intervals.
He was a biologist at the university getting his Ph.D. They lived together for two years. He left the university to finish his thesis and before he could line up a public school job - teachers were safe in those years - the draft board got him. They had friends who had left the country, they had friends who had gone to prison, they had friends who had gone to Nam. There were no good choices in those years. She thinks now he unconsciously wanted to go even though he said in one of his last letters, that it was a stupid fuckin' war. He felt some form of guilt about a friend of theirs who was killed during the Tet offensive. Hubert Humphrey called Tet a great victory. His compromise was to refuse officer's training school and go as an enlisted man. She had thought then it was a dumb gesture and they had a half-hearted quarrel about it.
He had been in Nam less than two months when he was killed without heroics, during a firefight at night by a single bullet in the brain. No one saw it happen. There are some amazing statistics about money and tonnage from the war. Did you know there were more tons of bombs dropped on Hanoi during the Christmas bombing of 1971 than in all of World War II? Did you know that the war in Vietnam cost the United States $123.3 billion? She has always wanted to know how much that one bullet cost -Sixty-three cents? $1.20? Someone must know.
The other bad part was the brain. Even at this late date, it seemed to her that was a quite remarkable mind. Long before she read C. P. Snow, the ferociously honest young man who wanted to be a great biologist taught her a great deal about the way scientists think and the way humanists think. Only once has she been glad he was not with her. It was at one of those bizarre hearings about teaching "creation science." He would have gotten furious and been horribly rude. He had no patience with people who did not understand and respect the process of science.
She used to attribute his fierce honesty to the fact that he was a Yankee. She is still prone to tell "white" lies to make people feel better, to smooth things over, to prevent hard feelings. Surely there have been dumber things for lovers to quarrel over than social utility of hypocrisy. But not many.
She stood up again, still staring at his name, stood for a long time. She said, "There it is," and turned to go. A man to her left was staring at her. She glared at him resentfully. The man had done nothing but make the mistake of seeing her weeping. She said, as though daring him to disagree, "It was a stupid fuckin' war," and stalked past him.
She turned again at the top of the steps to make sure where his name is, so whenever she sees a picture of the memorial she can put her finger where his name is. He never said goodbye, literally. Whenever he left he would say, "Take care, love." He could say it many different ways. He said it when he left for Vietnam. She stood at the top of the slope and found her hand half raised in some silly gesture of farewell. She brought it down again. She considered saying to him, "Hey, take care, love," but it seemed remarkably inappropriate. She walked away and was quite entertaining for the rest of the day, because it was expected of her.
She thinks he would have liked the memorial O.K. He would have hated the editorials. He did not sacrifice his life for his country or for a just and noble cause. There just were no good choices in those years and he got killed.
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