Archive for May, 2009
Why “the War on …” Always Fails
The War on Drugs
The War on Illiteracy
The War on Teen Pregnancy
We Americans sure love our wars, don’t we? Why do we always gravitate toward this metaphor to solve our problems? Why haven’t we figured out that it never works?
War is a strategically planned series of violent encounters between one aggrieved party and another. While one could posit that war is never productive (“War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing”), at least traditional war involves two parties in opposition and a conclusion where one party is victorious over another. That is why true wars are finite. Nation X declares war on Nation Y and the war continues until one is the victor or both sides agree to stop fighting.
However, when we declare “war” on an ideology or a concept, we’re in for an endless struggle with no satisfactory conclusion. War on a concept is an infinite war. The latest case in point is our “war on terror”. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday while discussing the war on terror, Newt Gingrich stated that “war is over when the terrorists disappear”. Well, just how ridiculous a statement is that? Terrorists have always existed and will always exist. So long as there are aggrieved parties who, for whatever reason, find it impossible to express their frustration through legal means, there will be terror. Are we really to believe that our military should be in an endless fight against this “enemy”.
When Tim McVeigh bombed the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, did we send the military after him and his co-conspirators? No, we treated him like a criminal. Al Quada and the Taliban are not national entities against whom we can declare war. They are criminal organizations. Every terror network is a criminal organization. The fact that they may be politically motivated (so was McVeigh) is irrelevant. The way to pursue criminals is with law enforcement officials, not the military.
In a prior post, I defended the part of the Bush Doctrine that stated that countries who knowingly harbor terrorists are our enemies. We should take diplomatic steps with these countries to get their cooperation. We should use sanctions if necessary. We certainly can’t declare war on them when they have not formally attacked us.
While we pursue terrorism as a criminal matter, we should also take steps to reduce the incentives for terrorists. The incidence of homegrown terrorism in the United States, Canada and other wealthy western countries is low for a reason. The level of desperation in these countries is lower than in others. We must use our influence to help countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to improve the standard of life for their citizens. International efforts to stamp out poverty and increase education are the way to go. (By the way, these are the very same efforts that would help in our struggle against drug dependency and teen pregnancy, i.e. a concerted effort to reduce poverty and increase education.)
Folks, we need to stop declaring war on everything we don’t like. Concepts and ideologies don’t die because you try to kill everyone holding the particular concept. Concepts change when you make an effort to change hearts and minds. Communism in Russia did not die because of military action. It died because the people realized it no longer served their purposes.
When it comes to ideology, war is good for absolutely nothing.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
What I Remember on Memorial Day
Usually this time of the week I post President Obama’s video address but since one was not produced this holiday weekend, I’ve come up with an alternative.
One of my commenters criticized me for not writing a blog entry about Memorial Day. It fit into his whole “Rutherford is an enemy sympathizer” theory. The following morning I heard an old song on the radio from the 1970′s which I thought quite appropriate for Memorial Day. You can find the lyrics on several places on the net but I pulled it appropriately enough from a site called “Scout Songs”.
One Tin Soldier
by Lambert-Potter, sung by Coven
Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago,
‘Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley-folk below.
On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath the stone,
And the valley-people swore
They’d have it for their very own.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they’d kill.
Came an answer from the kingdom,
“With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there.”
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
Now the valley cried with anger,
“Mount your horses! Draw your sword!”
And they killed the mountain-people,
So they won their just reward.
Now they stood beside the treasure,
On the mountain, dark and red.
Turned the stone and looked beneath it…
“Peace on Earth” was all it said.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
Clearly it is important to remember the bravery of countless men and women sent to fight wars fought with varying degrees of righteousness. However, I think it equally important that Memorial Day not be used to glorify war. It’s a good day to remember how truly fruitless most wars are. It’s a good day to renew our commitment to peaceful solutions to our differences.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
The American Jihad
The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife. Thanks to Gentlemen’s Quarterly (GQ), of all things, we are learning that our progress reports on our battle against Islamic extremists were peppered with our own brand of “let’s go on a crusade” rhetoric.
The reports prepared for Donald Rumsfeld, then Defense Secretary, to share with the President included a cover page with an inspirational war-time picture and an accompanying biblical quote. Ah, but not just any biblical quote. Here are a few samples:
“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” — Ephesians 6:13
“Commit to the LORD whatever you do and your plans will succeed” — Proverbs 16:3
“It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.” 1 Peter 2:15 (this one appeared above a photo of Saddam Hussein)
And perhaps the most egregious, this one accompanied by a photo of a US tank rolling into Iraq:
“Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, The nation that keeps faith” — Isaiah 26:2
If “God” and the “lord” were replaced in the above quotes by “Allah” you could not tell the difference between us and our enemy. One aspect of liberal spin on this is that Rumsfeld or his minions were trying to manipulate Bush’s attitude toward the war by playing on his piousness. Even though I do feel that Bush was not up to the job and was mislead by bad counsel repeatedly during his administration I don’t buy this “Manchurian Candidate” (“Why don’t you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?”) theory of religious messages playing some subliminal role to keep the President in a war he would otherwise have abandoned. Too far fetched for me.
I don’t really care why the messages appeared on the security briefings. It’s just really scary that they were there. You would think that an administration that needed to distance itself from the appearance of fighting a religious war would keep all defense documents concerning Iraq completely void of any religious implications. Instead, these documents make it look like we were sending our Christian soldiers to conquer the Muslims. One commentator said today that this is worse then the Abu Ghraib photos and I tend to agree. These memos betrayed one of our most enduring traditions, a strict separation between church and state. They make us look like supreme hypocrites.
Every time I think we can’t hear anything more bizarre from the Bush years, something new arises. With the debate over torture and now these new revelations, every day we look more and more like the enemy we were fighting.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Karzai and Zardari: Two Reasons to be Very Afraid
Every Sunday I take in my weekly dose of political talk shows. This past Sunday was no exception and “Meet the Press” really got my blood boiling. David Gregory interviewed the President of Pakistan, Asif Zardari and then followed that up with an interview of Afghanistan President, Hamid Karzai.
Let’s start with Zardari:
In answer to Osama Bin Laden’s whereabouts, the smug, arrogant Pakistani President replies, “You lost him, I didn’t”. What? Listen, I’ve been as critical of the Bush administration as anyone in the blogosphere and I’ve readily admitted that our problems with Al Quada pre-date Bush. I draw the line at this man who cannot govern his own country pulling up history and throwing it in our faces to obscure the fact that he is unable to stem the tide of dangerous terrorist advances within Pakistan. I understand his grief at the loss of his wife Benazir Bhutto but this does not give him license to play sophomoric games with us about who did what when. This is why the man can’t make peace with India. These countries are so buried in stupid petty historical events that no progress can be made.
Just as I’m about to simmer down, Gregory brings on Karzai:
We need a higher moral ground? Excuse me? This is a man in charge of a country that is wrestling with a law that allows men to rape their wives. When Gregory confronted Karzai with this, he hemmed and hawed and claimed the law would be repealed. In what kind of savage country is this law on the books in the first place? This man has the gall to lecture us about morality? As for civilian casualties, Karzai wouldn’t be dealing with civilian casualties if he had control of his country and put a stop to the terrorists.
Sarah Palin’s joke of an interview with Charlie Gibson last year pointed out that the Bush Doctrine had a couple of different interpretations (none of which Sarah could recite). The part of the Bush Doctrine that I sign up for whole-heartedly is that any country that knowingly harbors terrorists, i.e. gives them a safe haven, is subject to military action by our country. If these terrorists were not a threat to our country, I’d advocate pulling all our men and women out of Afghanistan and let the harboring country rot. The fact is we are in Afghanistan because Karzai is incapable of policing his own country. We’re scared as hell of Pakistan for the same reason.
When Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah building in Oklahoma City, we didn’t need the British or anyone else to come here and take care of things. McVeigh fried and his co-conspirator went to prison. Was there a rash of terrorism afterwards? No. We took care of it. Case closed. The reason we are so at risk right now is that these incompetent leaders cannot clean up their own mess.
What is scarier, is in their arrogance and denial and twisted moral sense, I’m not sure these “allies” of ours even want to.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Da Roof, Da Roof, Da Roof is on Fiyah!
I am usually on the side of affirmative action but a case that is going to be heard by the Supreme Court raises all sorts of thorny questions. The case involves a group of New Haven, CT firemen who took an exam (part written, part oral) to qualify for a promotion. When none of the black applicants and only one Hispanic passed the exam, the exam was summarily thrown out and no one received promotions, neither white nor black.
Many fire departments in this country are notorious for their “family business” orientation. Many firemen come from long lines of firemen before them. In some cities, this involves a predominantly Irish and in particular white fire fighting population in which blacks have traditionally found it difficult to rise to leadership positions. The administration of a fair exam to even the playing field is exactly the right way to go. The sticky situation arises when the exam is tossed because of the demographic outcome of the scores. I’d have a less queasy feeling in my stomach if some objective party had looked at the exam and pointed out questions that were somehow biased, independent of how the applicants actually performed. The problem here is that it appears that the exam was deemed unfair ipso facto because blacks did not pass it. The cause effect connection here is not entirely compelling. Making things all the more murky is that the exam has been sealed by the court so the public can’t get a look at the offending questions.
To make matters worse, it was suggested on MSNBC’s “Hardball” tonight by a black advocate of the decision to toss the exam that it was the multiple choice part of the exam that appeared biased. Now I could understand if the oral interviews were being called into question. There we have the subjective assessment of what I assume are white interviewers questioning black applicants. While not conclusive, there is room there to charge bias. But on a multiple choice exam? This one escapes me. What magic questions could be so Caucasian-oriented that blacks just could not answer them? What’s more, these are not questions about haute cuisine or polo matches or Elizabethan poetry, all subjects that might put the average black fireman at a disadvantage (LOL and the average white one for that matter). These I assume are questions about firefighting. Questions that measure preparedness and leadership. What possible advantage could a qualified white fireman have at answering these questions that a qualified black fireman would not?
This case is such ripe fodder for anti-affirmative-action activists. The argument goes that affirmative action is an insult to the black man. A supreme condescension of a guilty liberal society toward fully capable blacks who are being treated like ne’er do wells who need a special dispensation. I am NOT ready to throw affirmative action out with the bathwater. As long as racism exists in this country, there must be methods used to combat it, to even the playing field. But when those methods involve looking at the result of a seemingly objective process and then based on that result alone declaring the process racially biased, then I have cause for concern. The cold hard fact is that it is just as likely that the black applicants in this case may simply have not taken the exam as seriously as their counterparts. It is very possible that they simply did not study for it to the degree of their white counterparts. It is a much more troubling conclusion that there was something inherent in their blackness that prevented their success at this exam. That is indeed an insult to the black applicants.
What is perhaps most interesting about this case is that a black man did not get chosen over a white man based solely on race. On the contrary, for the sake of political correctness and racial equality, all the applicants got screwed over and no one got their promotion. This was a lose-lose decision.
This is an opportunity for the Supreme Court to make an important differentiation about affirmative action. Every effort should be made to give an equal playing field to qualified blacks. Being qualified means passing the exam. When you flunk, you flunk. Case closed.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Obama Video Address: May 23 and May 30, 2009
First an apology to my readers. When I looked for President Obama’s video address last weekend, I could not find it. Sometime between then and now, it was issued so I provide it to you a week late along with his most current message.
Obama Video Address: May 23, 2009
In this week’s address, President Obama reminds us of the sacrifice made by countless men and women throughout our history who defended our freedom with their lives. Like him or dislike him, you cannot deny that he takes the job of our military very seriously and is committed to their welfare both in battle and as veterans.
Here was his address from last week:
Obama Video Address: May 30, 2009
In this week’s address, President Obama discusses the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy that will be left by Justice David Souter. To my delight, the President hits head on the foolish opposition that has already occurred from political extremists taking her comments out of context. The bottom line is President Obama has performed another master stroke here by in one fell swoop finding someone who can add diversity to the high court while at the same time being supremely qualified. In fact, Judge Sotomayor, if confirmed, will come to the bench with more judicial experience than any other Supreme Court judge of the last 100 years.
As far right Republicans decry her nomination, we can only sit back and smile at a party once again in self destruct mode. As their protests cross the line into blatant bigotry and misogyny, they further alienate the very voters that could put them back into power in 2010 and 2012.
Message to conservatives: this is not your granddaddy’s President and it’s not your granddaddy’s Supreme Court. Get used to it.
And now the President of the United States of America:
Respectfully,
Rutherford
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May 31, 2009 at 12:33 am Rutherford 83 comments