Blog category: Military

Jackson, McNamara, Deficit, Scuderi, The Heather Graham – Mike Tyson – Pat Stack Connection | July 7th, 2009

My iPod started acting ill today, and now I’m in the middle of restoring the factory settings. Since I have to completely re-upload all of my music, photo and backed-up files, I got some time to write. First, the news:

• At first today, it really annoyed me that the entire media-swilling world spent the day rending its garments and pulling out its hair over Michael Jackson. (It’s 10 p.m. here, and the funeral is still the top story on CNN.com.) But then I thought, “Parts of the U.S. have been doing this for more than 30 years for Elvis, so this is really nothing new,” and I felt better about our modern era — or worse about past eras, I can’t decide.

• I’ve been asking people for a percentage: how many people watching Michael Jackson’s funeral know who Robert McNamara is, and they have to understand that he was far more historically important than MJ. The common response is less than 1 percent, but I would think it’s actually up around 4 percent. Call me an optimist.

In fairness to that other 96 percent, I did call him “George McNamara” at lunch today. But to burnish my own history-nerd credentials with an even bigger bit of nerdness, I was also thinking of McGeorge Bundy at the time.

• Key line from this good budget deficit rundown:

If policy now tilts too far toward deficit cutting, some argue, that would treat job creation as an option the nation somehow cannot afford, in contrast to “must haves” like tax cuts for wealthy Americans and unpopular foreign military entanglements.

True, but you also can’t ignore the fact that those tax cuts and unpopular entanglements were put in place, and now they are indeed making the job creation that much more financially difficult. I fall reluctantly in line with the spending advocates — I don’t think now is the time to pay down the deficit, because government spending at the moment really is a big portion of the money flowing into the economy. But if things do turn around, raise my taxes. It sucks, but it’s better than betting our economic livelihood on the whim of the Chinese government.

And on to frivolous stuff:

• I’m sorry to see the Penguins lose Rob Scuderi to the L.A. Kings, but they were right not to pay what the Kings paid. The dude is good, but not $13.6 million good.

• I got a Lollapalooza ticket for Sunday, August 9, hombres. Jane’s Addiction original lineup? I am hella there.

• This past Friday I went to see The Hangover. Verdict: four phats. Definitely some gross humor; definitely a weird Zach Galifinakis; and most likely worth seeing. (Though don’t take your parents.)

Even stranger, the movie featured both Heather Graham and Mike Tyson in prominent roles. Why is this strange? Those two were both guests at a 2004 arts-benefit party at the Guggenheim in NYC attended by yours truly, who by all rights should not have been there in the first place. (I’m pretty sure this Heather Graham photo is from that very night.) Mike Tyson is somehow even scarier when he wears fur, and I even made eye contact with Ms. Graham — or as I have no right to call her, Heather — for a full second.

The moral here? I really should have been offered at least a cameo appearance as the third part of that party trifecta, Hollywood.

Obama’s Biggest Trip Gain: Quality Stock Footage for Fall | July 23rd, 2008

“Does this make me look West Wing?”

The hot-spot, Central Command phase of Barack Obama’s foreign-policy tour is winding down, and so far he seems to have hit all the right political notes. Hooping it up was a particularly swift move, but even more fortunate was the fact that Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki came right out and supported a timetable for withdrawal nearly in line with Obama’s 16-month plan. There’s plenty to the argument against a timetable and the realpolitik strategic importance of Iraq over Afghanistan, particularly the fact that the Iraqi Sunnis don’t support a timetable, but from a political point-scoring perspective that’s a little irrelevant. Arguments from McCain or Bush against an American-favored Iraqi leader’s statements about what’s best for his own country are now going to face criticisms of tone-deafness and arrogance.

I don’t envy anyone making the Israel / Palestinian political trip, but I think the best Obama can hope for is to play perhaps the only role that America can play towards Israel to improve the situation: that of the friend who takes the keys when someone’s too wasted to realize he’s going to mess himself up if he keeps going.

But to bring things back to the title: it’s still summertime, the public and the media have long since put the blinders on for Iraq and Afghanistan, and most voters are on a break until the real campaign starts with the fall. Obama managed to score himself plenty of presidential-looking video filler for newscasts about his foreign-policy experience this fall, and that likely counts for more with the TV-influenced voting public than anything else on this trip.

What About Burma? | May 13th, 2008

With the immense humanitarian disaster occurring in Burma / Myanmar right now, there’s been a great deal of frustrated commentary from people appalled by the situation and desperate to come up with feasible ways to help. Watching the Burmese junta keep ample international stocks of food from its own people only to incompetently protect itself is sickening, and with the government’s past history from last September’s protests and the disregarding of the 1990 election, an honest person naturally wonders what can be done to overcome such a horrific government.

The all-important concept in such a situation is the idea of Responsibility to Protect, first proposed by the Canadian government. This doctrine states that national sovereignty takes a backseat when a government is committing massive abuse of its population, and that foreign governments have the right to intervene on behalf of that nation’s people’s well-being. Following the letter of this theory, other governments could ignore borders and sovereignty when the population is under grave threat and the subject nation’s government refuses to help or actively contributes to the problem.

Despite the poisoning association of this concept with the Iraq war — one where idealism trumped realistic potential — Responsibility to Protect does not have to mean the complete military overthrow of a government. While in a utopian martial world we could go real-life Rambo IV, the idea is both out of the question for the overstretched U.S. military and frought with internal problems similar to Iraq. (Even though Aung San Suu Kyi represents an established, popular democratic leader to take charge of a new government, the inevitable guerrilla war against the junta dead-enders — the bad guys like them are familiar with the only way to fight more powerful armies — and the management of pre-existing ethnic conflicts within Burma make for a potentially ugly situation for any foreign power.)

That said, to me it seems that the only workable option involves a series of military and humanitarian steps around air delivery of supplies:

1. The UN Security Council or another large, international group — a reunion of SEATO? — should publicly declare its intention to enter Burmese airspace to deliver aid to the Burmese people, even over the objections of the Burmese government. This isn’t something that could possibly be done unilaterally; it needs to come from many governments. It’s a lot easier to demonize one or two countries than 20.
2. The member states should announce all-out flyovers and supply drops to the region. Fighter or gunship escorts would be a must, because even though the intentions would be publicly announced as peaceful, it would be ridiculous to rely on a hostile government’s goodwill.
3. Air deliveries avoid the pratfalls of a ground occupation, but still provide a sizable lifeline of aid. Militarily, the Burmese army and air force could do very little against a multinational air force — their only hope would be a guerrilla ground campaign, one that’s not an option here.
4. Aid can be delivered by air on a large-enough scale to, at the very least, force the Burmese government to acknowledge the necessity of outside help and open up its borders to more effective land- and sea-based assistance.

All of this needs to happen quickly, before things hit the post-disaster diseases and get exponentially worse. This is also just the immediate aid: the fact that one of the world’s famous rice-producing regions is now under saltwater is another huge, complicating factor that will only add to the food problems hitting Burma and the world. There are no easy choices, but flyovers, to me, seem like the best option in a worsening crisis. In the meantime, there’s always Catholic Relief Services, Oxfam, Unicef and Doctors Without Borders.

Great Afghanistan Piece | March 19th, 2008

I think this has floated around the web a bit, but if you haven’t read it, check out this NY Times magazine piece:

Battle Company Is Out There

It’s very heavy, but gripping. I’ve read a few people complaining that it’s biased or gives an incomplete picture of the war, but that’s not what it’s about; it’s a piece about one particular piece of the Army in one particular part of Afghanistan, and does a great job of painting that with a sympathetic eye toward the soldiers. Endorsed by my friend Jeff, recently of the Army himself.