The Siena College Research Institute (SRI) Survey of U.S. Presidents has completed their fifth presidential rankings since 1982. They survey 238 presidential scholars, historians and political scientists , asking them to rank from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) each President on some twenty attributes, abilities and accomplishments. The top five are Franklin Roosevelt, who has won each of the five surveys,Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. In the previous four surveys, number 6 had been Woodrow Wilson but this year it's James Madison.
President Obama enters into the survey at 15th, scoring high on imagination, communications and intelligence. He is ranked in the top ten in all three of these categories.
The bottom five are Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, Franklin Pierce and of course George W. Bush. George W. entered the survey during his first term in office at 23rd but one year after leaving is ranked 39th with the possibility of dropping even further. He rated especially low in handling the economy, communication, ability to compromise, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence.
In the last two surveys Andrew Johnson edged out James Buchanan as the worst in terms of abilities and accomplishments. Warren Harding has led the pack for the first three surveys as the all-time worst and still edges everyone out in terms of worst in personal attributes, even Richard Nixon in matters of integrity. Tom Kelly, Professor of History and American Studies at Siena claims that with regards to Harding "No one appreciates corruption and ineptitude as an excuse." Warren Harding also had the distinction of weeping in front of random visitors about how overwhelming the job was.
But there are dissenters. My grandmother McColm loved Warren Harding. She was a friend of his mistress who was "a lovely woman" and Warren was so dapper. "He dressed so well and was alot of fun."
George W. Bush ranks next to last in intelligence, foreign policy accomplishments,ability to compromise, the ability to communicate, and the handling of the economy. The last on the economy was Herbert Hoover, who also rated the last in terms of luck and next to last in willing to take risks. And the last in foreign policy was LBJ.
But there is some room for movement for George W. I think he excels Franklin Pierce in awfulness. Franklin Pierce at least had the distinction of having a campaign biography written for him by his best friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. He was just a great mediocrity. And W might take down Buchanan, who always was ranked the worst of all time because he did nothing to prevent the civil war. But as our political debate worsens and some people think the civil war was a good thing, we may forgive James Buchanan, especially given the rise in gay history, where he may earn some distinction as the first gay president. The same applies to Andrew Johnson, who clearly was awful but his impeachment was simply the result of raw politics. So George may be trolling soon with Warren, bobbing along the bottom of all time.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Greater Fools
James Surowiecki writing in the July 5th New Yorker presents us with the startling news that if we were more financially literate as a nation we might have avoided some of the problems of the past two years. George W. Bush called on the country to "build an ownership society". He encouraged and trumpeted the news of the soaring rate of homeownership in the U.S. and extolled the virtues of giving individuals more control over their own financial lives. But we discovered there was a bleak reality--the subprime loans, the mountains of credit-card debt and shrinking pensions. The fact of the matter is that Americans don't have a clue.
James Surowiekci writes that our financial ignorance is startling. Annamaria Lusardi, a Dartmouth economist and the head of the Financial Literary Center, has conducted studies about what Americans understand about finance. About half couldn't answer two questions about inflation and interest rates correctly and slightly more sophisticated topics baffled the majority. Most people don''t know the terms of their mortgage or the interest rate they're paying. At a time when Americans have borrowed more than ever, Americans can't explain what compound interest rate is.
These issues become very serious when individuals are being asked to take more responsibility for their own financial decisions. Pensions have been replaced with 401 (K)s and more people have to pay for their own health insurance. Because the marketplace is so varied and the options are so diverse, economic decisions have become more numerous and complex than ever. And this makes people ripe for exploitation and fraud.
A study by economists at the Atlanta Fed found that 32% of people in the lowest quarter of financial literacy thought they had a fixed mortgage when it was really an adjustable rate . A study of subprime borrowers in the Northeast found that people in the bottom fourth of calculating skills 20% had been foreclosed upon, compared with just five percent in the top quarter.
One of the possible solutions to this is contained in the Wall Street reform bill--the creation of a consumer financial portection agency. But what Surowiecki urges is the need for proper financial education. A program like drivers' ed for financial literacy. In the few states where financial education is mandated in school, there has been a surprisingly large impact on the savings rate.The Center for American Progress found that education and counselling by non-profit organizations have helped low-income families buy and hold onto homes even during the housing bubble.
The Consumer Agency and financial education are controversial because economists call our illiteracy "rational ignorance"--inattention that is justified because of the costs of paying attention outweigh the benefits. As Surowiecki notes, few decisions affect us more directly than the ones we make (or make by default) about our money.
One anecdote is revealing. In a German study, 80% of those surveyed described themselves as confident in the answers on a questionaire, even though only 42% got even half the answers right. This apparently is known as the Dunning-Krueger effect: people who don't know much tend not to recognize their ignorance, and so fail to seek better information. The least knowledgeable people ,according to the Atlanta Fed, were also the least likely to do research before getting a mortgage. But more well-informed people are more likely to ask others for help.
I like the whole concept of the Dunning-Krueger effect. I think we can apply it to American politics in general
James Surowiekci writes that our financial ignorance is startling. Annamaria Lusardi, a Dartmouth economist and the head of the Financial Literary Center, has conducted studies about what Americans understand about finance. About half couldn't answer two questions about inflation and interest rates correctly and slightly more sophisticated topics baffled the majority. Most people don''t know the terms of their mortgage or the interest rate they're paying. At a time when Americans have borrowed more than ever, Americans can't explain what compound interest rate is.
These issues become very serious when individuals are being asked to take more responsibility for their own financial decisions. Pensions have been replaced with 401 (K)s and more people have to pay for their own health insurance. Because the marketplace is so varied and the options are so diverse, economic decisions have become more numerous and complex than ever. And this makes people ripe for exploitation and fraud.
A study by economists at the Atlanta Fed found that 32% of people in the lowest quarter of financial literacy thought they had a fixed mortgage when it was really an adjustable rate . A study of subprime borrowers in the Northeast found that people in the bottom fourth of calculating skills 20% had been foreclosed upon, compared with just five percent in the top quarter.
One of the possible solutions to this is contained in the Wall Street reform bill--the creation of a consumer financial portection agency. But what Surowiecki urges is the need for proper financial education. A program like drivers' ed for financial literacy. In the few states where financial education is mandated in school, there has been a surprisingly large impact on the savings rate.The Center for American Progress found that education and counselling by non-profit organizations have helped low-income families buy and hold onto homes even during the housing bubble.
The Consumer Agency and financial education are controversial because economists call our illiteracy "rational ignorance"--inattention that is justified because of the costs of paying attention outweigh the benefits. As Surowiecki notes, few decisions affect us more directly than the ones we make (or make by default) about our money.
One anecdote is revealing. In a German study, 80% of those surveyed described themselves as confident in the answers on a questionaire, even though only 42% got even half the answers right. This apparently is known as the Dunning-Krueger effect: people who don't know much tend not to recognize their ignorance, and so fail to seek better information. The least knowledgeable people ,according to the Atlanta Fed, were also the least likely to do research before getting a mortgage. But more well-informed people are more likely to ask others for help.
I like the whole concept of the Dunning-Krueger effect. I think we can apply it to American politics in general
Public Policy Polling Reveals GOP Nuts
While the RS2000 flaps continues, with cease and desist orders going out to Markos Malitos and Nate Silver at www.fivethirtyeight.com over their claims about fraud in the polling organization, we should not take this to imply their Rs2000 poll of Republicans was also an anomaly.
Yesterday Public Policy Polling reiterates their findings about Republicans. In September PPP found only 37% of Republicans believed Barack Obama was born in the United States whle 42% think he was not and 22% were unsure.
In November PPP found that 52% of Republicans though ACORN stole the 2008 Presidential election while 27% thought he legitimately won it and 21% were unsure. These figures were actually higher than the RS2000 findings.
In December PPP found 35% of Republicans thought Barack Obama should be impeached while 48% thought he should not be and 17% were unsure
Now John Avalon's book Wingnuts inspired a Harris poll to measure some of the extremes in our political landscape.
Here's a short list of the findings:
67% of Republicans believe Obama is a socialist
57% of Republicans believe Obama is a Muslim
45% of Republicans believe Obama was not born in the United States and is not eligible to be President
38% of Republicans say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"
24% of Republicans (14% of all Americans) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist"
For the historical record, the antichrist was Nero, whose name using the ancient practice of gematria adds up to 666. There are the other signs of the antichrist that are linked to Nero, who committed suicide in 68AD and was thought to be resurrected and coming back with an army from Persia. It's actually an interesting story.
Yesterday Public Policy Polling reiterates their findings about Republicans. In September PPP found only 37% of Republicans believed Barack Obama was born in the United States whle 42% think he was not and 22% were unsure.
In November PPP found that 52% of Republicans though ACORN stole the 2008 Presidential election while 27% thought he legitimately won it and 21% were unsure. These figures were actually higher than the RS2000 findings.
In December PPP found 35% of Republicans thought Barack Obama should be impeached while 48% thought he should not be and 17% were unsure
Now John Avalon's book Wingnuts inspired a Harris poll to measure some of the extremes in our political landscape.
Here's a short list of the findings:
67% of Republicans believe Obama is a socialist
57% of Republicans believe Obama is a Muslim
45% of Republicans believe Obama was not born in the United States and is not eligible to be President
38% of Republicans say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"
24% of Republicans (14% of all Americans) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist"
For the historical record, the antichrist was Nero, whose name using the ancient practice of gematria adds up to 666. There are the other signs of the antichrist that are linked to Nero, who committed suicide in 68AD and was thought to be resurrected and coming back with an army from Persia. It's actually an interesting story.
Cry Havoc
Sometimes I take a break to see whether we have reached a plateau with insanity in our politics. It's clear we have ramped it up even higher.
The Montana Republican Party wants to outlaw "homosexual acts" in the state. What precisely are sexual acts committed by gays that are not committed by straights? Even teabagging.
The Idaho Republican Party has come out for the repeal of the 17th Amendment. Is this a cost-cutting measure to save on the expense of elections for Senators?
13 states are introducing anti-immgration bills modeled after Arizona.
The President's Financial Reform package got side-swiped by the death of Senator Byrd. This almost happened last year with Healthcare Reform, when Republicans insisted he had to be wheeled in at midnight to vote. The Secretary of State in West Virginia claims the Governor will nominate a successor and an election would be held in 2012. The Governor promises not to name himself but will have someone in place for the energy bill debate.
Joe Biden told Democratic party activists at a fund-raiser that at least seven Republican Senators were threatened that they would lose their committee assignments if they did not support the filibusters.
The conference had to recovene on the Wall Street reform bill because Republicans, some of whom are vital to its passage, were opposed to any fees being placed in the banks. Instead, they wanted the government to pick up the cost of the reform. This seems to be an on-going theme--the government should pay for the damage of the Gulf disaster and not the corporation that caused it.
The Tan Man John Boehner made news with his interview with the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow captured some of his madness. But they missed the really salient parts of his remarks. While it is true he wants to raise the age of retirement to 70, more importantly was the fact that he wants to cut social security benefits now and revamp entitlement programs to pay for the wars. It was clear from his whole interview he really doesn't have much of an understanding of any of the issues facing the country. Today in Racine, Wisconsin President Obama ridiculed Boehner's statement that the economic crisis in the country was like "an ant". Boehner also said that Obama was killing the America he grew up in. Perhaps he was referring to the fact that the Cincinnati Reds are no longer the powerhouse team of the late 1950s and early 1960s. And this man wants to be Speaker of the House.
Conservative Utah Senator Bob Bennett, who lost his party's nomination to a teabaggers, spoke to the Ripon Society and blasted the GOP as a party of slogans, not ideas. He actually said Republicans would win back the House and that would be a bad idea since they wouldn't know what to do with it.
Nate the Great Silver at www.fivethirtyeight.com updated his Senate predictions, saying that Democrats gained slightly after the primaries. He's still at about a 55-45 Senate. He does write off Arkansas and North Dakota as 100% lost for the Democrats.
On the Kagan confirmation, all you have to understand is that only one Republican on the Judicial Commitee has to vote for her to have the nomination move to the whole Senate floor.
So enjoy the hearings for the amazing insight they provide us of the inner mind of today's Republican Party. The first day was spent lamenting school integration and the civil rights period--of course in code. But Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions spent his time attacking Thurgood Marshall and his activism. He was in fact referring to Marshall's days as a civil rights lawyer. In one moment, Sessions slipped by saving the Citizens United was today's Brown versus School Board. I guess the last people to be freed in the United States are corporations--or maybe he was referring to foreign corporations. Sessions was also concerned that Elena Kagan thought of the military as second-class ctitizens. When Mr. Sessions was the Alabama attorney-general, he refused to investigate the series of black churches burning down. Maybe a Justice Kagan wouldn't mind army military barracks burning down.
Tom Coburn, who never ceases to amaze me,wanted to know her views of mixed marriages. He went on to say that his state opposed mixed marriages. He really meant same sex marriages. But with the thrust of the Republican comments the first two days, you would think they really do want to repeal civil rights. One of the most repulsive scene was Senator Kyl, slamming Thurgood Marshall as "out of the mainstream".
The best stuff is really from the Christian Right community and their allies. 800 Orthodox Rabbis signed a letter condemning Elena Kagan, which was circulated by the Christian groups. The rabbis said that her confirmation would trigger a wave of "anti-semiticism" in the United States , which would "threaten the existence of the state of Israel". Tim LaHaye, Mr. Left Behind and an officer in the John Birch Society, sent out another apocalyptic warning about Kagan saying she is for "global law" and threatens traditional values. Focus on Your Family and other Christian Rght groups in the Beltway said that Kagan would promote the homosexual agenda and naturally trigger the end of Western civilization as we know it. One of the groups sent around an assertion that Kagan believed that Blue Cross-Blue Shield should cover sex change operations. And of course with her support of Sharia law,this would be bad news.
Kagan got the best line off in the last three days when Lindsey Graham asked her where was she when the Christmas gonad bomber was caught. "On Christmas, like most Jewish people I was at a Chinese restaurant." Ah, New Yorkers.
I know the South Carolina GOP likes to inject anti-semiticism into their campaigns but I disagree with the progressives that this was what Graham was trying to do. By all accounts, he's going to vote for her and the tenure of his remarks that day was to support her against accusations she was anti-military.
Republican candidates this year are being told not to give interviews to the lamestream press because this year's crop of candidates are nuttier than fruitcakes. But we got a big break from Sharon Angle, the teabagger from Nevada, who granted an interview with the Las Vegas press. She is against extending unemployment benefits because people earn more from unemployment than the lesser paying jobs they could have. She is for the government subdizes small businesses. And she is absolutely against abortion under any circumstances even incest and rape because God has a plan. However, she backed away from her previous suggestions that voters might have to kill Harry Reid. She;'s become a nicer, gentler fruitcake.
The Montana Republican Party wants to outlaw "homosexual acts" in the state. What precisely are sexual acts committed by gays that are not committed by straights? Even teabagging.
The Idaho Republican Party has come out for the repeal of the 17th Amendment. Is this a cost-cutting measure to save on the expense of elections for Senators?
13 states are introducing anti-immgration bills modeled after Arizona.
The President's Financial Reform package got side-swiped by the death of Senator Byrd. This almost happened last year with Healthcare Reform, when Republicans insisted he had to be wheeled in at midnight to vote. The Secretary of State in West Virginia claims the Governor will nominate a successor and an election would be held in 2012. The Governor promises not to name himself but will have someone in place for the energy bill debate.
Joe Biden told Democratic party activists at a fund-raiser that at least seven Republican Senators were threatened that they would lose their committee assignments if they did not support the filibusters.
The conference had to recovene on the Wall Street reform bill because Republicans, some of whom are vital to its passage, were opposed to any fees being placed in the banks. Instead, they wanted the government to pick up the cost of the reform. This seems to be an on-going theme--the government should pay for the damage of the Gulf disaster and not the corporation that caused it.
The Tan Man John Boehner made news with his interview with the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow captured some of his madness. But they missed the really salient parts of his remarks. While it is true he wants to raise the age of retirement to 70, more importantly was the fact that he wants to cut social security benefits now and revamp entitlement programs to pay for the wars. It was clear from his whole interview he really doesn't have much of an understanding of any of the issues facing the country. Today in Racine, Wisconsin President Obama ridiculed Boehner's statement that the economic crisis in the country was like "an ant". Boehner also said that Obama was killing the America he grew up in. Perhaps he was referring to the fact that the Cincinnati Reds are no longer the powerhouse team of the late 1950s and early 1960s. And this man wants to be Speaker of the House.
Conservative Utah Senator Bob Bennett, who lost his party's nomination to a teabaggers, spoke to the Ripon Society and blasted the GOP as a party of slogans, not ideas. He actually said Republicans would win back the House and that would be a bad idea since they wouldn't know what to do with it.
Nate the Great Silver at www.fivethirtyeight.com updated his Senate predictions, saying that Democrats gained slightly after the primaries. He's still at about a 55-45 Senate. He does write off Arkansas and North Dakota as 100% lost for the Democrats.
On the Kagan confirmation, all you have to understand is that only one Republican on the Judicial Commitee has to vote for her to have the nomination move to the whole Senate floor.
So enjoy the hearings for the amazing insight they provide us of the inner mind of today's Republican Party. The first day was spent lamenting school integration and the civil rights period--of course in code. But Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions spent his time attacking Thurgood Marshall and his activism. He was in fact referring to Marshall's days as a civil rights lawyer. In one moment, Sessions slipped by saving the Citizens United was today's Brown versus School Board. I guess the last people to be freed in the United States are corporations--or maybe he was referring to foreign corporations. Sessions was also concerned that Elena Kagan thought of the military as second-class ctitizens. When Mr. Sessions was the Alabama attorney-general, he refused to investigate the series of black churches burning down. Maybe a Justice Kagan wouldn't mind army military barracks burning down.
Tom Coburn, who never ceases to amaze me,wanted to know her views of mixed marriages. He went on to say that his state opposed mixed marriages. He really meant same sex marriages. But with the thrust of the Republican comments the first two days, you would think they really do want to repeal civil rights. One of the most repulsive scene was Senator Kyl, slamming Thurgood Marshall as "out of the mainstream".
The best stuff is really from the Christian Right community and their allies. 800 Orthodox Rabbis signed a letter condemning Elena Kagan, which was circulated by the Christian groups. The rabbis said that her confirmation would trigger a wave of "anti-semiticism" in the United States , which would "threaten the existence of the state of Israel". Tim LaHaye, Mr. Left Behind and an officer in the John Birch Society, sent out another apocalyptic warning about Kagan saying she is for "global law" and threatens traditional values. Focus on Your Family and other Christian Rght groups in the Beltway said that Kagan would promote the homosexual agenda and naturally trigger the end of Western civilization as we know it. One of the groups sent around an assertion that Kagan believed that Blue Cross-Blue Shield should cover sex change operations. And of course with her support of Sharia law,this would be bad news.
Kagan got the best line off in the last three days when Lindsey Graham asked her where was she when the Christmas gonad bomber was caught. "On Christmas, like most Jewish people I was at a Chinese restaurant." Ah, New Yorkers.
I know the South Carolina GOP likes to inject anti-semiticism into their campaigns but I disagree with the progressives that this was what Graham was trying to do. By all accounts, he's going to vote for her and the tenure of his remarks that day was to support her against accusations she was anti-military.
Republican candidates this year are being told not to give interviews to the lamestream press because this year's crop of candidates are nuttier than fruitcakes. But we got a big break from Sharon Angle, the teabagger from Nevada, who granted an interview with the Las Vegas press. She is against extending unemployment benefits because people earn more from unemployment than the lesser paying jobs they could have. She is for the government subdizes small businesses. And she is absolutely against abortion under any circumstances even incest and rape because God has a plan. However, she backed away from her previous suggestions that voters might have to kill Harry Reid. She;'s become a nicer, gentler fruitcake.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Endless War--Andrew Bacevich
West Point graduate, a real Vietnam veteran and professor of international affairs at Boston University, Andrew Bacevich has been warning about America's foreign over-reach for nearly a decade. In August, his book "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War" will be published and no doubt it will reinforce his strong belief that long wars are antithetical to democracy and ruinous to the military.
Today, he wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post "Endless War, a Recipe for Four-Star Arrogance", which lays out the deeper issues behind the whole Rolling Stone McChrystal flap. Earlier in the week Frank Schaeffer, a father of a Marine and co-founder of the Religious Right, published a warning on Huffngton Post both to the progressive community and to Americans at large that our all-volunteer military has become a separate culture than our own and is susceptible to the noxious calls from our radical right. He also criticised Democrats and progressives for not taking seriously the separate concerns and responsibilities of our fighting men and women. And then Pepe Escobar weighed in with a humorous piece "Mr. McChrystal. He Dead", which portrayed the sacked general as the Kurtz figure in Apocalypse Now played by Marlon Brando.
A few weeks ago, Barney Frank hosted a panel at the House comprised of Democrats and conservatives on how to cut the military budget over time by about $1 trillion. What I found most interesting were the comments by Lawrence Korb, who was involved in creating the all-volunteer army. He recalled the situation of the Vietnam War and the decision to create an all-volunteer army was for the expressed purpose of not repeating a prolonged conflict. The all-volunteer army was not created to wage war ceaselessly and wherever whim decided.
The idea of the all-volunteer army was to create the best fighting force in the world--which it is. But the dangers of that appear everyday. This week the California National Guard held a conference in San Francisco on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for the purpose of educating the public of its pandemic occurence within the community of returning veterans. An important side issue was to encourage lobbying for the National Guard to receive mental health benefits, which they currently lack. On the topside, the Washington Post published an article today raising concerns about the rapid turnover in generals throughout the Iraq and Afghanistan wars claiming their preparation is inadequate for fighting such prolonged conflicts.
Earlier this week I ranted about COIN, the counter-insurgency doctrine which is based on past failures and requires substantial civilian in-put, which is not available either in terms of capable talent or the financial resources. Supporters point to the success of the Surge in Iraq, which enabled us to create the conditions for our withdrawal but not on its failure to generate any genuine political reconciliation among the Iraqis. One of the key components for the Surge, as candidate Barack Obama pointed out, was the Sunni Awakening, which rejected the insurgents. As we have given over military control to the Iraqis, almost all the Sunni leaders of this group have been assassinated by the government. Today, the Iraqi government still has not resolved the issue of forming the next government after elections months ago.
General McChrystal in his Rolling Stone debut criticized Vice President Biden's proposal for fighting on the border of Afghanistan and the nearby Northern Frontier of Pakistan with the aim of eradicating Al Qaeda there. McChrystal called it a recipe for "Chaosistan". But today's admission by CIA director Leon Panetta that there only exists 50-100 Al Qaeda militants in Afghanistan today raises again the issue whether Biden was right. The escalation of the war in Afghanistan has triggered for the first time the Taliban becoming directly involved in training terrorist wannabes against the United States as witnessed the recently convicted Times Square bomber. Are we not creating the situation for permanent blowback from this war?
Back to Andrew Bacevich. he writes that prolonged conflict introduces toxins that inexorably corrode the values of popular government. "Not the least among these values is a code of military conduct that honors the principle of civilian control while keeping the officer corps free from the taint of politics." Over the past two weeks, there have been several articles, most notably in the Los Angeles Times, concerning the peer pressure in the military academies on cadets to become Republicans. Bacevich claims that the whole McChrystal incident should set off alarms--that the military professional ethic is eroding , evident in the disrespect for senior civilians.
Bacevich quotes General George C. Marshall that "A democracy cannot fight a Seven Years War." That was supposedly the genius of creating an all-volunteer force--a standing army, one that is only tenuously linked to American society. Once the Cold War ended, both Republicans and Democrats expressed a greater willingness to intervene abroad. From the Persian Gulf to the Balkans, from the Caribbean to the Horn of Africa, there was little to complain about. The costs appeared negligible--the miniscule casualties in the first Gulf War attest to this. So the role for everyone was simply to cheer and say "We respect your service."
So, with the abandonment of the Doctrine of Deterence for one of pre-emptive war, we entered what Don Rumseld called the "Long War", which is supposed to last 40 years. Remember when the reporter asked Dick Cheney about the polls showing dissastisfaction with the Iraq War. He said,"So what?" The Long War is exclusively the property of the "troops" and not the American people. As Bacevich writes," To be an American soldier today is to serve a people who find nothing amiss in the prospect of armed confict without end." As George W. Bush told the Amercan people after 9/11 "Go shopping". The war doesn't involve you.
The problem with this is that soldiers and their familes are left holding the bag. To have the National Guard on perpetual rotation to foreign war zones is obscene. At the same time, the current use of regular service men and women violates everything we know about the appropriate combat periods needed to forestall combat fatigue and more dramatic mental illnesses. In the Vietnam conflict, the British studied American troop deployment and found that our soldiers spent three times the amount in combat recommended by specialists. I can only imagined what it is today.
Bacevich warns that the circumstances of today's military in the United States breeds praetorianism, "warriors becoming enamored with their moral superiority and impatient with the failings of those they are charged to defend.' "Team America" as these officers called themselves, believe they are holding out against " a sea of stupidity and corruption". There is a pandemic "culture of contempt" for those not in uniform. The problem, according to Bacevich,isn't any threat to the constitutional order but the creation of generation after generation of officers like this.
What Bacevich sees as the real danger is, like in Vietnam, the military cracked from the bottom up. The damage took decades to repair and with a military that has demonstrated remarkable durability for the past decade shows signs of coming undone at the top. "The officer corps is losing its bearings."
Bacevich calls on the American people to reclaim ownership of the military. He believes the soldiers need a respite and citizens should insist Washington abandon its de facto policy of perpetual war. Or the country should actually become a country "at war" with all that implies for civic obligation, fiscal policies and domestic priorities.
But to quote from other writings of Bacevich, only the officers at colonel level or equivalent can sound the alarms up the ladder. It seems to me the contempt by McChrystal was not in his remarks about Obama, Biden and McCain but rather in his original plan for Afghanistan which required 150,000 additional troops and some $1 trillion more in spending. Only someone truly removed from political reality and the situation of the American society today could have had the hubris to propose such a plan.
The other issue has to do with the development of the endless lists of strategic threats to the United States. We've gone from WMDs, terrorism, narco-terrorism,cyber terrorism, global warming and now, according to Admiral Mullen, the national debt. At the same time, our total national security expenditure is twice the amount of what we paid at the height of the Cold War and equivalent to all the national security expenditure of the entire earth combined. So how much will real security cost? Are we to respond to every imaginable threat national security types can conjure up? Isn't the social and economic well-being of the American people a consideration of national security and stability? And if we face a real threat, will our armed forces be too hollowed out to respond?
I will return to this issue in another post. Parallel to Bacevich's concerns are those raised by former foreign service officers about the need to integrate economics, diplomacy and development into our considerations of national security. While the military carries the burden, our diplomatic service has been eviscerated in recent years through deliberate neglect, which triggered a wave of retirements, and the atrophy of our other tools to deal with these conflicts.
Today, he wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post "Endless War, a Recipe for Four-Star Arrogance", which lays out the deeper issues behind the whole Rolling Stone McChrystal flap. Earlier in the week Frank Schaeffer, a father of a Marine and co-founder of the Religious Right, published a warning on Huffngton Post both to the progressive community and to Americans at large that our all-volunteer military has become a separate culture than our own and is susceptible to the noxious calls from our radical right. He also criticised Democrats and progressives for not taking seriously the separate concerns and responsibilities of our fighting men and women. And then Pepe Escobar weighed in with a humorous piece "Mr. McChrystal. He Dead", which portrayed the sacked general as the Kurtz figure in Apocalypse Now played by Marlon Brando.
A few weeks ago, Barney Frank hosted a panel at the House comprised of Democrats and conservatives on how to cut the military budget over time by about $1 trillion. What I found most interesting were the comments by Lawrence Korb, who was involved in creating the all-volunteer army. He recalled the situation of the Vietnam War and the decision to create an all-volunteer army was for the expressed purpose of not repeating a prolonged conflict. The all-volunteer army was not created to wage war ceaselessly and wherever whim decided.
The idea of the all-volunteer army was to create the best fighting force in the world--which it is. But the dangers of that appear everyday. This week the California National Guard held a conference in San Francisco on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for the purpose of educating the public of its pandemic occurence within the community of returning veterans. An important side issue was to encourage lobbying for the National Guard to receive mental health benefits, which they currently lack. On the topside, the Washington Post published an article today raising concerns about the rapid turnover in generals throughout the Iraq and Afghanistan wars claiming their preparation is inadequate for fighting such prolonged conflicts.
Earlier this week I ranted about COIN, the counter-insurgency doctrine which is based on past failures and requires substantial civilian in-put, which is not available either in terms of capable talent or the financial resources. Supporters point to the success of the Surge in Iraq, which enabled us to create the conditions for our withdrawal but not on its failure to generate any genuine political reconciliation among the Iraqis. One of the key components for the Surge, as candidate Barack Obama pointed out, was the Sunni Awakening, which rejected the insurgents. As we have given over military control to the Iraqis, almost all the Sunni leaders of this group have been assassinated by the government. Today, the Iraqi government still has not resolved the issue of forming the next government after elections months ago.
General McChrystal in his Rolling Stone debut criticized Vice President Biden's proposal for fighting on the border of Afghanistan and the nearby Northern Frontier of Pakistan with the aim of eradicating Al Qaeda there. McChrystal called it a recipe for "Chaosistan". But today's admission by CIA director Leon Panetta that there only exists 50-100 Al Qaeda militants in Afghanistan today raises again the issue whether Biden was right. The escalation of the war in Afghanistan has triggered for the first time the Taliban becoming directly involved in training terrorist wannabes against the United States as witnessed the recently convicted Times Square bomber. Are we not creating the situation for permanent blowback from this war?
Back to Andrew Bacevich. he writes that prolonged conflict introduces toxins that inexorably corrode the values of popular government. "Not the least among these values is a code of military conduct that honors the principle of civilian control while keeping the officer corps free from the taint of politics." Over the past two weeks, there have been several articles, most notably in the Los Angeles Times, concerning the peer pressure in the military academies on cadets to become Republicans. Bacevich claims that the whole McChrystal incident should set off alarms--that the military professional ethic is eroding , evident in the disrespect for senior civilians.
Bacevich quotes General George C. Marshall that "A democracy cannot fight a Seven Years War." That was supposedly the genius of creating an all-volunteer force--a standing army, one that is only tenuously linked to American society. Once the Cold War ended, both Republicans and Democrats expressed a greater willingness to intervene abroad. From the Persian Gulf to the Balkans, from the Caribbean to the Horn of Africa, there was little to complain about. The costs appeared negligible--the miniscule casualties in the first Gulf War attest to this. So the role for everyone was simply to cheer and say "We respect your service."
So, with the abandonment of the Doctrine of Deterence for one of pre-emptive war, we entered what Don Rumseld called the "Long War", which is supposed to last 40 years. Remember when the reporter asked Dick Cheney about the polls showing dissastisfaction with the Iraq War. He said,"So what?" The Long War is exclusively the property of the "troops" and not the American people. As Bacevich writes," To be an American soldier today is to serve a people who find nothing amiss in the prospect of armed confict without end." As George W. Bush told the Amercan people after 9/11 "Go shopping". The war doesn't involve you.
The problem with this is that soldiers and their familes are left holding the bag. To have the National Guard on perpetual rotation to foreign war zones is obscene. At the same time, the current use of regular service men and women violates everything we know about the appropriate combat periods needed to forestall combat fatigue and more dramatic mental illnesses. In the Vietnam conflict, the British studied American troop deployment and found that our soldiers spent three times the amount in combat recommended by specialists. I can only imagined what it is today.
Bacevich warns that the circumstances of today's military in the United States breeds praetorianism, "warriors becoming enamored with their moral superiority and impatient with the failings of those they are charged to defend.' "Team America" as these officers called themselves, believe they are holding out against " a sea of stupidity and corruption". There is a pandemic "culture of contempt" for those not in uniform. The problem, according to Bacevich,isn't any threat to the constitutional order but the creation of generation after generation of officers like this.
What Bacevich sees as the real danger is, like in Vietnam, the military cracked from the bottom up. The damage took decades to repair and with a military that has demonstrated remarkable durability for the past decade shows signs of coming undone at the top. "The officer corps is losing its bearings."
Bacevich calls on the American people to reclaim ownership of the military. He believes the soldiers need a respite and citizens should insist Washington abandon its de facto policy of perpetual war. Or the country should actually become a country "at war" with all that implies for civic obligation, fiscal policies and domestic priorities.
But to quote from other writings of Bacevich, only the officers at colonel level or equivalent can sound the alarms up the ladder. It seems to me the contempt by McChrystal was not in his remarks about Obama, Biden and McCain but rather in his original plan for Afghanistan which required 150,000 additional troops and some $1 trillion more in spending. Only someone truly removed from political reality and the situation of the American society today could have had the hubris to propose such a plan.
The other issue has to do with the development of the endless lists of strategic threats to the United States. We've gone from WMDs, terrorism, narco-terrorism,cyber terrorism, global warming and now, according to Admiral Mullen, the national debt. At the same time, our total national security expenditure is twice the amount of what we paid at the height of the Cold War and equivalent to all the national security expenditure of the entire earth combined. So how much will real security cost? Are we to respond to every imaginable threat national security types can conjure up? Isn't the social and economic well-being of the American people a consideration of national security and stability? And if we face a real threat, will our armed forces be too hollowed out to respond?
I will return to this issue in another post. Parallel to Bacevich's concerns are those raised by former foreign service officers about the need to integrate economics, diplomacy and development into our considerations of national security. While the military carries the burden, our diplomatic service has been eviscerated in recent years through deliberate neglect, which triggered a wave of retirements, and the atrophy of our other tools to deal with these conflicts.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Let Obama Take Us To The Break--But When?
There is usually one segment on every Rachel Maddow Show which contributes to the public discourse. Last night after interviewing Barney Frank, (who looked like he had just gone 15 rounds in the ring,) about the Wall Street Reform Bill, she spoke about President Obama's achievements to date. It was more than useful;it was a valuable reminder how much the man has accomplished against staggering odds.
In recent weeks, we have been treated to the Darkness at Noonan view he is a snake-bitten president. Or the mainstream Democratic view, he was the Black man hired to clean up the white frat boy's messes and worthy of enormous sympathy and even pity. And, of course, there is the flood of vile hate I receive via e-mails and messages from the Right.
Dr. Maddow quoted Teagan Goddard at "CQ Politics", "Not since FDR has a president done so much to transform this country." In a year and a half, the Great Reformer's achievements have been staggering but lost in the Beltway noise chamber, which manufactures imaginary issues, clashes and even events.
It's worth repeating some of Dr. Maddow's observations. Like the geek she is, she mentioned what I think is one of Obama's great contributions to date--the unprecedented commitment of billions to research in science and research and even more billions to alternative energy sources. I still believe Obama's speech at MIT is one of the most important references to his vision of the future. The $100 billion in the stimulus package to our nation's crumbling infrastructure was the biggest investment since Ike and the first such action in over twenty years. The health care reform finished the job set out over 60 years ago to make health care a right in this country. A job that thwarted several Presidents. Wall Street Reform will be the most important regulatory piece of legislation since the Great Depression. And we don't know yet the fate of the Energy Bill.
He concluded a nuclear arms reduction deal with the Soviet Union and launched a new global proliferation initiative to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorist--a perennial nightmare for strategic thinkers for the last 20 years.
He signed Hate Crime Laws that has languished for years in Congress and expanded the Civil Rights act through the Lily Ledbetter Law to award women equal pay for equal work. I would also give him some credit for pushing the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
He created a bipartisan Deficit Commission despite the opposition of the Republicans, who now proclaim themselves deficit hawks. He also passed Pay-Go requirements for government funding again without a single Republican vote.
All these accomplishments were enacted without any support from the opposition party. The opposition party now will not even extend unemployment benefits to 1.2 million Americans whose benefits have run out and not extend the necessary financing to keep states solvent so as to allow the continued employment of teachers, firemen and police.
So as we look toward the mid-terms, I think it's important that we get another Obama "Vision" speech where he synthesizes the meaning of all these achievements for the future direction of the country. There are shards here and there of how they fit together but so far we have not had the comprehensive view in one set speech. It's time for what Hillary Clinton called his "Whoop-De-Do" speech. The reason it's needed is because even Democrats are losing their focus in message control, allowing Republicans to creep back from the brink. And they need to start getting a laser vision for this November. The stakes are that high.
President Obama needs this speech as well to maintain and harness his political capital, which gets weakened by unexpected crises like the BP disaster. He lucked out with the appalling response by the Republicans and their full body embrace of the oil companies. But he can not bet on their continued ineptitude.
There is another fundamental reason it's time for Obama to present his vision for the future. The American people are battered physically, emotionally and financially after the last several years. All his significant reforms have not been translated at the grass-roots level into support for his vision.
Many of these changes affect small things in one's everyday life but the President doesn't get credit for them. A key example of this is his reform of student college loans and streamlining the process. As a personal example, this means $10,000 I would not have had access to in the past for my son's education. I am sure this is happening to millions across the country but since they do not watch the minutia of Beltway politics they do not connect the change with the President.
But President Obama needs to get the American people to buy into his vision of the future. He needs to translate the science and research components of his program away from the "green language" into a more futuristic language that taps into the American sense of progress and great accomplishments. He has to de-wonk how he talks about these issues to convey how visionary they are. At the same time he needs to spell out in understandable terms how the foundation for a new economy is being laid and why we can not sustain and should not want to continue the present.
And to some of us, he has to spell out the basic components he wants to come from the deficit Commission since some of its members have alarmed a number of observers. He must emphasize that Social Security will be strengthened and its life extended under any deficit reduction proposals. And he may have to touch the real Third Rail in politics future cuts to the military/ terrorist complex. Also his explanation of deficit reduction should be aimed at defanging the austerity hawks, which are beginning to dominate the public discussion and giving Republicans a talking point, when they themselves racked up $11 trillion of the deficit under their watch. A fact he might want to explain.
This speech should be timed to have maximum effect prior to the mid-term elections but not be seen overtly as an election year speech. The venue needs to be selected so that there can not be a Republican rebuttal. It is too late to hold it for the State of the Union Address where a heckler will win the media coverage anyway. It should be an address aimed at the general public and not simply the Democratic Party.
When? I would like to see it as soon as possible but Americans tend to go to sleep in August. Either it should be sometime in July or immediately around Labor Day. There should be a concerted effort to maximize media coverage and to win over key journalists to write seriously about it.
It's time President Obama use his natural eloquence for himself. We'll even allow him to use a teleprompter. And, let's thank Rachel Maddow for reminding us of all that has been accomplished in this short presidency.
ARE YOU FIRED UP! READY TO GO! Let the Great Reformer takes us to the break.
In recent weeks, we have been treated to the Darkness at Noonan view he is a snake-bitten president. Or the mainstream Democratic view, he was the Black man hired to clean up the white frat boy's messes and worthy of enormous sympathy and even pity. And, of course, there is the flood of vile hate I receive via e-mails and messages from the Right.
Dr. Maddow quoted Teagan Goddard at "CQ Politics", "Not since FDR has a president done so much to transform this country." In a year and a half, the Great Reformer's achievements have been staggering but lost in the Beltway noise chamber, which manufactures imaginary issues, clashes and even events.
It's worth repeating some of Dr. Maddow's observations. Like the geek she is, she mentioned what I think is one of Obama's great contributions to date--the unprecedented commitment of billions to research in science and research and even more billions to alternative energy sources. I still believe Obama's speech at MIT is one of the most important references to his vision of the future. The $100 billion in the stimulus package to our nation's crumbling infrastructure was the biggest investment since Ike and the first such action in over twenty years. The health care reform finished the job set out over 60 years ago to make health care a right in this country. A job that thwarted several Presidents. Wall Street Reform will be the most important regulatory piece of legislation since the Great Depression. And we don't know yet the fate of the Energy Bill.
He concluded a nuclear arms reduction deal with the Soviet Union and launched a new global proliferation initiative to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorist--a perennial nightmare for strategic thinkers for the last 20 years.
He signed Hate Crime Laws that has languished for years in Congress and expanded the Civil Rights act through the Lily Ledbetter Law to award women equal pay for equal work. I would also give him some credit for pushing the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
He created a bipartisan Deficit Commission despite the opposition of the Republicans, who now proclaim themselves deficit hawks. He also passed Pay-Go requirements for government funding again without a single Republican vote.
All these accomplishments were enacted without any support from the opposition party. The opposition party now will not even extend unemployment benefits to 1.2 million Americans whose benefits have run out and not extend the necessary financing to keep states solvent so as to allow the continued employment of teachers, firemen and police.
So as we look toward the mid-terms, I think it's important that we get another Obama "Vision" speech where he synthesizes the meaning of all these achievements for the future direction of the country. There are shards here and there of how they fit together but so far we have not had the comprehensive view in one set speech. It's time for what Hillary Clinton called his "Whoop-De-Do" speech. The reason it's needed is because even Democrats are losing their focus in message control, allowing Republicans to creep back from the brink. And they need to start getting a laser vision for this November. The stakes are that high.
President Obama needs this speech as well to maintain and harness his political capital, which gets weakened by unexpected crises like the BP disaster. He lucked out with the appalling response by the Republicans and their full body embrace of the oil companies. But he can not bet on their continued ineptitude.
There is another fundamental reason it's time for Obama to present his vision for the future. The American people are battered physically, emotionally and financially after the last several years. All his significant reforms have not been translated at the grass-roots level into support for his vision.
Many of these changes affect small things in one's everyday life but the President doesn't get credit for them. A key example of this is his reform of student college loans and streamlining the process. As a personal example, this means $10,000 I would not have had access to in the past for my son's education. I am sure this is happening to millions across the country but since they do not watch the minutia of Beltway politics they do not connect the change with the President.
But President Obama needs to get the American people to buy into his vision of the future. He needs to translate the science and research components of his program away from the "green language" into a more futuristic language that taps into the American sense of progress and great accomplishments. He has to de-wonk how he talks about these issues to convey how visionary they are. At the same time he needs to spell out in understandable terms how the foundation for a new economy is being laid and why we can not sustain and should not want to continue the present.
And to some of us, he has to spell out the basic components he wants to come from the deficit Commission since some of its members have alarmed a number of observers. He must emphasize that Social Security will be strengthened and its life extended under any deficit reduction proposals. And he may have to touch the real Third Rail in politics future cuts to the military/ terrorist complex. Also his explanation of deficit reduction should be aimed at defanging the austerity hawks, which are beginning to dominate the public discussion and giving Republicans a talking point, when they themselves racked up $11 trillion of the deficit under their watch. A fact he might want to explain.
This speech should be timed to have maximum effect prior to the mid-term elections but not be seen overtly as an election year speech. The venue needs to be selected so that there can not be a Republican rebuttal. It is too late to hold it for the State of the Union Address where a heckler will win the media coverage anyway. It should be an address aimed at the general public and not simply the Democratic Party.
When? I would like to see it as soon as possible but Americans tend to go to sleep in August. Either it should be sometime in July or immediately around Labor Day. There should be a concerted effort to maximize media coverage and to win over key journalists to write seriously about it.
It's time President Obama use his natural eloquence for himself. We'll even allow him to use a teleprompter. And, let's thank Rachel Maddow for reminding us of all that has been accomplished in this short presidency.
ARE YOU FIRED UP! READY TO GO! Let the Great Reformer takes us to the break.
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