Morning Fog

Running Scared

Political columnist Dana Milbank reports that a Heritage Foundation discussion panel on the Benghazi "issue" rapidly descended into a very weird congeries of all the most reactionary, ridiculous, and irrational conspiracy theories harbored by the extreme right, not to mention the verbal mob stoning of a Muslim student who suggested that possibly not all followers of Islam are evil killers.

The main point I take away from this report is how far the Heritage Foundation has wandered from its purported character as a non-partisan think tank.  Sure, they've always had conservative leanings, but any organization that can't bring together a better group of discussants than this definitely forfeits its right to be taken seriously.  (Could the histrionic quality of the discussion possibly stem from the fact that there's no real "issue" here?)

A secondary point worth noting is, of course, the degree to which conservatives seek to focus on the Benghazi non-issue in their patently political quest to discredit Hillary Clinton.

On the same page of today's paper we have another report:  The conservative Washington Free Beacon now seeks to dredge up a case that Hillary the lawyer handled in 1975, when she evidently committed the unspeakable outrage of giving an accused rapist a vigorous - and apparently successful - defense.  Apparently the idea is to discredit Mrs. Clinton with women for failing to support the rape victim (though that was not her job at the time).

The GOP is scared to death of Hillary, even though she hasn't yet committed herself to running.

And well they might be, considering the disarray within the party (well-analyzed today by Michael Gerson, incidentally, who points out that all the fervently fought issues that are dividing the part today are totally unrelated to the real issues they face in winning the next Presidential election). 

Cantor Can't

This past Tuesday, as I quietly beavered away as a volunteer election official in the Virginia primary election in my own District 8, unbeknownst to me history was being made elsewhere in the state.

I refer of course to the upset victory of the upstart David Brat over the well-known House majority leader and Speaker-presumptive, Eric Cantor, in the 7th District, to my south.  This outcome triggered an absolute flood of pundit chatter, chin-wagging, blog posts, and newsprint stories (the Washington Post had 11, covering most of 10 pages of the A section). 

Surprise? Yes, especially to Cantor, it seems, though as the stories come out, it looks as if he and the media ignored some warning signs.

Cantor's defeat fits right in with my working theory that Republican voters are working hard to shoot themselves in the foot.  Cantor's (now Brat's) district is a conglomeration of mainly rural, God-fearing counties, centered on the city of Richmond, which is still fighting the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression, as many of them call it down there).  So we might expect certain things from the voters -- conservatism, anti-immigration, and perhaps a certain preference for white Christian candidates.  So, Cantor already doesn't fit the picture - he's Jewish.

Yet wouldn't a rational electorate be thinking of the future Cantor had -- most likely the next Speaker of the House, the most influential Congressman of all -- right up there representing their interests?  Evidently not.  BLAM!  There goes their left foot.

There are many interesting aspects to this little election.  As one fellow-blogger has pointed out, it does at least suggest that a huge fundraising advantage does not necessarily win elections.

Also, to look ahead a bit, many analysts' immediate prediction was that Cantor's political demise would put paid to hopes of passing any immigration reform this year or next.   I don't think that's necessarily true.  Brat's victory, in isolation, doesn't tell us much about the political balance that will result after November.    

Iraq - For The U.S., The Wages Of SIN

Among this week's apparently unexpected events around the globe is the "overnight" military gains of a fundamentalist group we're calling "ISIS," and the collapse of U.S.-trained and -equipped Iraqi security forces before them.

"Apparently" unexpected because, first, we ignored the signs (not that we could have done much to change things), and second, because this general type of outcome could have been predicted ten years ago.  Iraq was a war of choice that we got into on a trumped-up pretext (where are those weapons of mass destruction anyway, now that we need them?) for no better reason than that George Dumbya Bush wanted to get even with Saddam Hussein because he (Saddam) had made a fool of his (W's) daddy.  

I hate to say I told you so, (I did, really, but strangely, no one was listening!) - but it was, in 2003, and still is today, so clearly Vietnam all over again.  Rather than learn the lessons of that war, we repeated them.  One might suppose that G.W. Bush, of all people (given his extensive wartime service in the National Guard) would have taken those lessons to heart. 

Oh well - the wages of SIN (self-important, incompetent nincompoops) still haunt our global intervention strategy.  Foreign nations are not "ours" to be lost or won, and it's ridiculous to suppose we can construct democratic forms and institutions from outside on a foundation of tribal and religious quicksand.  When we do, we destabilize, and Iraq and Afghanistan are not the only countries today who suffer from our efforts.

Does it help that KIAs in Iraq and Afghanistan combined equal only about one-tenth of the casualties from Vietnam?  Apparently not, because we have the inevitable bleatings of veterans (not to mention Congresspersons who never served) like Mr. John Nagl, who writes that "this is not what [his] friends fought and died for."  Obviously Mr. Nagl deserves an answer.

Which should be:  "Stuff it!  Enough of your whining!"  Today's soldier is a pro, he's paid to kill for his country, so let's keep a sense of proportion here.  We all face disappointments in our professional lives.  Whether it's me laboring long hours over some foreign policy initiative that never saw the light of day, or maybe the manager of a branch store of a huge retail chain who invests a lot of time in remodeling only to have the corporate owners close down his store and put him out of a job a few months later; the farmer whose crop fails, or ...

Or you, Mr. Nagl.  You may be correct, it's unjust, it's tough, it dashes your idealism.  Join the club.  But it's particularly offensive for you to draw the wrong conclusion, and suggest that the answer is for us to keep a large force indefinitely in Afghanistan.  No, sorry.  Our initial lightning war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, after 9/11, was politically necessary; Bush called that one right.  But the decision to stay after that few months, and build democracy there, was foolish -- the SINs were at work again.  Actually, that sign on that aircraft carrier "Mission Accomplished," - so much criticized at the time - was prescient.  That's when we ought to have stopped.

  

How Low Can You Go?

In the competition for the Mississippi Republican nomination for Senate, incumbent Thad Cochran may be about to be edged out by a tea-party challenger, Chris McDaniel.  This isn't the first case, of course, where this sort of thing has come to pass. 

Yet what occurred to me, reading between the lines of the accounts of this race, was that the strength of the tea party sentiment in the  Deep South reflects a brooding sentimentality about refighting the Civil War, albeit it (possibly) without blood and violence.  Tea party believers appear to harbor a feeling that racism, ruralism, and regressivism can revitalize the south, will allow it to overcome its sense of inferiority, and put it (the South) in the driver's seat.

That's not likely.  Mississippi's inferiority is real - on nearly every state-by-state survey examining fundamental measures of quality of life, from literacy to health or income, it comes out at or very near the bottom.   That's true even though, as one writer points out, the state has benefitted immensely from federal spending, much of it brought by Sen. Cochran, aimed at ameliorating conditions there.  The tea-party anti-government stance would seem to promise the people of the state even less prosperity.   But even beyond that, it would promise more political, economic, and cultural isolation for years after McDaniel (if he wins) fades away.

It all seems so self-destructive to the region's future interests.   

A Sad Memorial Day Present

It happened that I heard the news of Bowe Bergdahl's release from television, bit by bit as they like to release news on those shows. 

"What's that? A captive soldier released?  Oh, that sounds like a good thing, I wonder how he got away," I mused. 

But then came the bad news ... he didn't escape, he was rescued, at rather major risk and cost ... hmm.  Well, we've rescued other captives in fancy, designed-for-the-movies operations, so why not ...

Oops!  Well, not so much rescued, really, as traded him for five captive terrorists?  Wait, what about that thing we always say, no dealing with terrorists..?

Wait, more news .. this is the guy who "wandered away from his post?"  So being a captive in the first place was his own damn fault?  What could possibly justify going out of our way to rescue this guy?

Wow.  Well, at this point I guess it need not be said that from my perspective as an army brat and a veteran, I'm one of those who is outraged at this whole operation. It appears to break every rule in the book. 

Funny, the Obama administration's excuse that "we never leave Americans behind" rings hollow to me.  In part because we left a lot of Americans behind in Vietnam, as Memorial Day and Rolling Thunder recently reminded us.  And in part because this is a principle we seldom or never heard until we turned our military services from a conscript force into an "all-volunteer" "professional" force.  

Bergdahl's case reminds us what we have lost by doing that.  We might forgive a draftee for walking away from his duty, but we should not forgive a professional for doing so, any more than we should excuse a lawyer who colludes in miscarriage of justice, or a physician who purposely kills her patient.   Nowadays, we call our servicemembers warriors (a term we did not use in the conscript army) but Bergdahl's action gives them a bad rap by suggesting they (or he, at least) have more in common with retail clerks. 

So, OK, we don't know the full story of Bergdahl.  Let's find out.  The only justifiable reason for the risks and costs of bringing him home is to investigate and court martial him, which will help us to uncover the truth.  I expect to hear a DoD announcement on that very, very soon.