They're there at every level. We live in an enormously litigious society and the Congress contributes to that. As a result, there's practically no step that's made by anyone in the Pentagon and in the Department of Defense where they do not take into account the legal implications and consult lawyers about it....
There's a pattern in the department, at the top level, the chairman and the chief and the Joint Chiefs will recommend some rules of engagement for a certain circumstance. It will then be sent down the chain of command and it will get to the next command level, maybe the Combatant Commander, and the Combatant Commander will look at it, and then he will not want to violate it. So he might take a little tuck in it. And then it goes down to the next level. And it's got now it's in a country commander. And he looks at it and he doesn't want to break the rule so he takes a little tuck in it. You end up with four or five layers down there taking tucks and you end up with some rules of engagement that don't look like what the chairman of the Joint Chiefs or the Joint Chiefs of Staff or even the Combatant Commander intended. Now why is that? Well, it's fear. It's because of our litigious society. It's because of Congress overseeing things and having hearings.
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
"When I arrived back in 2001 I found 10,000 lawyers in the Department of Defense."
Says Donald Rumsfeld:
"Chinese Pianist Plays Propaganda Tune at White House: US humiliated in eyes of Chinese by song used to inspire anti-Americanism."
Memeorandum points us to this article in the Epoch Times:
Chairman Hu Jintao recognized it as soon as he heard it. Patriotic Chinese Internet users were delighted as soon as they saw the videos online. Early morning TV viewers in China knew it would be played an hour or two beforehand. At the White House State dinner on Jan. 19, about six minutes into his set, Lang Lang began tapping out a famous anti-American propaganda melody from the Korean War: the theme song to the movie “Battle on Shangganling Mountain."...IN THE COMMENTS: Irene says:
The movie and the tune are widely known among Chinese, and the song has been a leading piece of anti-American propaganda by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for decades....
The song Lang Lang played describes how beautiful China is and then near the end has this verse, “When friends are here, there is fine wine /But if the jackal comes /What greets it is the hunting rifle.” The “jackal” in the song is the United States....
“In the eyes of all Chinese, this will not be seen as anything other than a big insult to the U.S.,” says Yang Jingduan, a Chinese psychiatrist now living in Philadelphia who had in China been a doctor in the Chinese military. “It’s like insulting you in your face and you don’t know it, it’s humiliating...
[One] Chinese commenting on a forum responded to the Lang Lang performance by writing, “Defeat America, defeat Obama” (writing Obama’s name with the wrong first character, one meaning “sunken” or “dented.”)
The media in general will make less of this than they did of Michaele and Tareq Salahi.William says:
This is "fuck you, ignorant barbarians" crashing.
Didn't the Red Chinese lose tens of thousands of men in the Korean War in order to insure the prolonged rule of one of the most fucked up regimes in that region's long history of fucked up regimes? I would think that playing that tune is more likely to remind the world of the stupidity of Communist rulers than humiliate the United States. I think Obama should get Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen to write a commemorative song about Carter's failed rescue mission to Iran. He should play that song at all state functions. Same deal as this.
What is New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (he's still the governor?!) doing these days?
1. He went to North Korea!
While Mr. Richardson’s trip was approved by the State Department, he was not traveling as an official envoy. Television footage showed him arriving at the Sunan airport outside Pyongyang on Thursday. Mr. Richardson, a former ambassador to the United Nations, was greeted on the tarmac by a North Korean official who said, in English, “So nice to see you.”....2. Apparently trying to one-up Charlie Crist, who recently pardoned Jim Morrison (for something that happened in 1969), Richardson is considering pardoning Billy the Kid, "reputed to have killed 21 men during the 19th century."
The latest inter-Korean crisis erupted three weeks ago with an artillery barrage from the North that targeted Yeonpyeong and killed four South Koreans.
“The puppet warmongers are contemplating staging madcap naval firing exercises,” said the news agency, K.C.N.A., which also called the new South Korean defense minister “a war maniac keen to ignite a war” and “a puppy knowing no fear of a tiger..
[The] pardon petition [is] based on the widespread belief that New Mexico Territorial Governor Lew Wallace had promised the famous gunman a pardon in exchange for his testimony in a murder trial but reneged on the deal....
"Religion doesn't do policy. All my decisions were based on policy and so they should be..."
"... and you may disagree with those decisions but they were made because I genuinely believed them to be right."
Said Tony Blair, as if a religious person can think about what what he believes is right without religion being part of the idea of what is right. That Blair blur happened in a debate with Christopher Hitchens, who asked:
(Via Crack Emcee — "Kick Ass: You Believers Are Little Kim Jong-Ils.")
Said Tony Blair, as if a religious person can think about what what he believes is right without religion being part of the idea of what is right. That Blair blur happened in a debate with Christopher Hitchens, who asked:
"Is it good for the world to worship a deity that takes sides in wars and human affairs, to appeal to our fear and to our guilt — is it good for the world?...In the end, the audience got to vote on who won the debate, and Hitchens got 68% — 68% of those who would go to a debate — in Toronto — about whether or not religion is a force for the good.
"To terrify children with the image of hell ... to consider women an inferior creation. Is that good for the world?...
(Via Crack Emcee — "Kick Ass: You Believers Are Little Kim Jong-Ils.")
What are we to make of the new Wikileaks documents?
Read here, including the additional links across the top. There are the details of the hellishness of war, but, beyond that, what are we seeing?
"I can see why we should promote women's rights as a covert national security concept."
"But if 'they' know we're doing that, it will undercut the cause of women's rights."
A comment by me, on jac's "Why are young men often passionate about religion and war? Can women put an end to war?"
A comment by me, on jac's "Why are young men often passionate about religion and war? Can women put an end to war?"
The war monument.
This is the "War" side of the State Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Indianapolis. This closeup shows one soldier using a dead soldier to place to perch his gun...
... and pigeons, in turn, using that gun.
"During the ceremony, Hiroshima’s mayor welcomed the ambassador, John Roos, and praised President Obama..."
"... as one of the world leaders who 'wielded their powerful influence' to rid the world of nuclear weapons."
This is the first time a U.S. ambassador has attended the ceremony. The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima 65 years ago.
This is the first time a U.S. ambassador has attended the ceremony. The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima 65 years ago.
The White House and War Department announced today that an atomic bomb, possessing more power than 20,000 tons of TNT, a destructive force equal to the load of 2,000 B-29's and more than 2,000 times the blast power of what previously was the world's most devastating bomb, had been dropped on Japan.
The announcement, first given to the world in utmost solemnity by President Truman, made it plain that one of the scientific landmarks of the century had been passed, and that the "age of atomic energy," which can be a tremendous force for the advancement of civilization as well as for destruction, was at hand....
What happened at Hiroshima is not yet known. The War Department said it "as yet was unable to make an accurate report" because "an impenetrable cloud of dust and smoke" masked the target area from reconnaissance planes. The Secretary of War will release the story "as soon as accurate details of the results of the bombing become available."...
Not the slightest spirit of braggadocio is discernible either in the wording of the official announcements or in the mien of the officials who gave out the news. There was an element of elation in the realization that we had perfected this devastating weapon for employment against an enemy who started the war and has told us she would rather be destroyed than surrender, but it was grim elation. There was sobering awareness of the tremendous responsibility involved....
"Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand..."
"... even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports made public Sunday."
The WikiLeaks document dump. Let's try to understand.
The WikiLeaks document dump. Let's try to understand.
"If you are trapped under wreckage..."
"... tap on something hard to attract attention."
Just an image I ran across Googling "Conelrad." Who among you remembers Conelrad? I only got to thinking about it because "Talkin' World War III Blues" attracted my attention:
Well, I remember seein’ some adWhy did Bob Dylan's record player work when the radio didn't? You'd be more likely to have a battery-operated radio than a battery-operated record player. But you probably don't even have a record player anymore, do you? And I don't think your radio has the Conelrad symbol on it. Do you even remember what the symbol looks like? I don't. Some triangle? That's what I wanted to see when I got distracted by that poor trapped woman, who was not so unfortunate that she didn't have a stiletto shoe to use to tap out her distress.
So I turned on my Conelrad
But I didn’t pay my Con Ed bill
So the radio didn’t work so well
Turned on my record player—
It was Rock-a-day Johnny singin’, “Tell Your Ma, Tell Your Pa
Our Love’s A-gonna Grow Ooh-wah, Ooh-wah”
What took me back to the old Dylan song? I wasn't worrying about World War III. (I have a book in the house — it was given to me — called "World War IV" and one of my sons, puzzled, said "When did we have World War III?") I wasn't worrying about that, I was selecting the ideal pronunciation of the word "paw" (or "pa") to explain how to pronounce the name "Pawlenty" so it didn't confuse me by sounding like "polenta." Now, Tim Pawlenty, like Bob Dylan, is a Minnesotan. We were talking about him, because he's in a bit of a dispute with Mitch Daniels — who, unlike Bob Dylan, is a Hoosier (like my interlocutor in this conversation I'm alluding too). I need to do a separate post on the Pawlenty/Daniels dust-up, though, because in this post, I'm trapped under wreckage.
Madison street theater: The Madtown Liberty Players depict the history of war in Afghanistan.
In less than 4 and a half minutes:
Today on the Capitol Square in Madison, Wisconsin.
Today on the Capitol Square in Madison, Wisconsin.
Christopher Hitchens admits that he's one of "those men who were never really in battle and wished they had been."
His wife said that, back in 2006, adding: "There's a whole tough-guy, 'I am violent, I will use violence, I will take some of these people out before I die' talk, which is key to his psychology – I don't care what he says. I think it is partly to do with his upbringing."
He now says it's true: "Yeah. Yes. One of the things I've realised, writing the book, is that it has to be true."
What did he feel on September 11, 2001?
His mother thought there was "one unforgivable sin." It was "to be boring." And, according to the author of the linked article, there's a connection between the avoidance of boredom and the indulgence in alcohol:
He now says it's true: "Yeah. Yes. One of the things I've realised, writing the book, is that it has to be true."
What did he feel on September 11, 2001?
"[E]xhilaration. Because I thought, now we have a very clearly drawn confrontation between everything I hate and everything I love. There is something exhilarating about that. Because, OK, now I know what I'm doing."...And he still believes believes he was right about the war in Iraq: "Yes, absolutely. I was right and they were wrong, that's pretty much it in a nutshell."
"Do I ask myself... do I think our civilisation is superior to theirs? Yes, I do. Do I think it's worth fighting for? Most certainly."...
"Guantánamo slightly threatened at one point to change my attitude towards capital punishment. I thought it would have been good if some of those people could have been taken out and shot. Yeah, put up against a wall. Lincoln would have done it. Of course, I would have been against it if they had. But that's how I felt."
His mother thought there was "one unforgivable sin." It was "to be boring." And, according to the author of the linked article, there's a connection between the avoidance of boredom and the indulgence in alcohol:
He can't really manage eye contact. Once noon arrives, though, he brightens up, proposing the first scotch of the day with one of those bluff jokes about rules for drinking so dear to saloon bar bores the world over....Now, doesn't that make you want to read his memoir? It's "Hitch 22."
It seems to me so evidently the case that Hitchens is an alcoholic that to say much more feels unnecessary. But for the record, he trots out all the usual self-serving, defensive evasions: "For me, an alcoholic is someone who can't hold his drink" or, "I'm not dependent, but I'd prefer not to be without it." The longest he has ever been was a dry weekend "in fucking Libya", and he claims he drinks only to make other people less boring. So, presumably, he doesn't drink when he's with Amis? "Er, yuh, I do."
I wouldn't say he's exactly boring himself when dry, but drink certainly makes him livelier company than the 10am sober version, and we pass a highly enjoyable few hours in a pub garden, during which he tries out successive renditions of a Shakespearean sonnet, Being Your Slave, What Should I Do But Tend, on the photographer [a beautiful woman, who, earlier, had expressed disbelief in the effectiveness of seducing women with poetry].
If you're going to criticize the new social studies curriculum adopted by the Texas Board of Education, you'd better quote it.
Or at least link to the text. And if you choose to paraphrase and not even link, and I have to look up the text myself, and your paraphrase is not accurate, it is my job to embarrass you by pointing that out.
Let me embarrass the Washington Post. Below, the material from the WaPo article, written by Michael Birnbaum, is indented. After the indented part, I've located the relevant quote from the Board of Education text, found here. (I'm searching 3 PDF documents: Economics with Emphasis on the Free Enterprise System and Its Benefits Subchapter A. High School; Social Studies Subchapter B. Middle School; Social Studies Subchapter C. High School.)
The Washington Post writes:
Virtually everything cited in the article to make the curriculum seem controversial is misstated! Appalling!
ADDED: Birnbaum had an article in the previous day's Washington Post that does contain quotes, and these have to do with changes that went through on Thursday (and which do not — but should! — appear in the documents that are available at the Board of Education website):
I have not been defending the Texas standards, only attacking the quality of the journalism that fails to quote or link to a text that is referred to. Birnbaum's Friday article contains some useful quotes (though still not a link to the whole text). The Saturday article was unanchored to text and forced me to look for what I could find on line. I'm also criticizing inaccurate paraphrasing, like the use of the words "vindicating" and "equivalency." Birnbaum's take on the standards might be true, but in an article that refers to a text, I do need to see the text. Paraphrasing, without the text, raises suspicions, and I don't apologize for having those suspicions.
ALSO: I'm critical of the Board of Education for not posting all the relevant text on its website. And — as should be obvious — I'm not endorsing the standards themselves. The complexity and detail alone tends to show that the Board did not have the best interests of children at the center of their project. And it didn't seem to care much about the capacity of teachers. The material on law, for example, would be difficult for a law professor to teach to law students.
Let me embarrass the Washington Post. Below, the material from the WaPo article, written by Michael Birnbaum, is indented. After the indented part, I've located the relevant quote from the Board of Education text, found here. (I'm searching 3 PDF documents: Economics with Emphasis on the Free Enterprise System and Its Benefits Subchapter A. High School; Social Studies Subchapter B. Middle School; Social Studies Subchapter C. High School.)
The Washington Post writes:
The Texas state school board gave final approval Friday to controversial social studies standards....The students are required to "describe how McCarthyism, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), the arms race, and the space race increased Cold War tensions and how the later release of the Venona Papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government..." The word "vindicated" is inflammatory and unfair. What is the Washington Post saying historians deny? One can be informed of the reality of what the Venona Papers revealed about communist infiltration into the U.S. government and still understand and deplore the excesses of "McCarthyism."
The new standards say that the McCarthyism of the 1950s was later vindicated -- something most historians deny --...
...draw an equivalency between Jefferson Davis's and Abraham Lincoln's inaugural addresses...Students are required to "analyze the ideas contained in Jefferson Davis' inaugural address and Abraham Lincoln's ideas about liberty, equality, union, and government as contained in his first and second inaugural addresses and the Gettysburg Address." The word "equivalency" is uncalled for. The requirement is to analyze, not to be indoctrinated that the ideas are the same.
... say that international institutions such as the United Nations imperil American sovereignty...What I'm seeing is "explain the significance of the League of Nations and the United Nations" and "analyze the human and physical factors that influence the power to control territory, create conflict/war, and impact international political relations such as the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), or the control of resources." Where is the language that can be paraphrased "imperil American sovereignty"?
.... and include a long list of Confederate officials about whom students must learn.Students are required to "explain the roles played by significant individuals and heroes during the Civil War, including Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln, and congressional Medal of Honor recipients William Carney and Philip Bazaar." Only Davis and Lee were Confederate officials! There is also this: "describe the role of individuals such as governors George Wallace, Orval Faubus, and Lester Maddox and groups, including the Congressional bloc of southern Democrats, that sought to maintain the status quo [in the Civil Rights Era]." That's obviously not from the Civil War, but I can see why it's annoying to Democrats.
They also removed references to capitalism and replaced them with the term "free-enterprise system."The document on economics does use the term "free enterprise system" throughout, but students are required to "understand that the terms free enterprise, free market, and capitalism are synonymous terms to describe the U.S. economic system," so what is the problem?
Virtually everything cited in the article to make the curriculum seem controversial is misstated! Appalling!
ADDED: Birnbaum had an article in the previous day's Washington Post that does contain quotes, and these have to do with changes that went through on Thursday (and which do not — but should! — appear in the documents that are available at the Board of Education website):
Students will now study "efforts by global organizations to undermine U.S. sovereignty," an addition late Thursday evening encouraged by board member Don McLeroy (R), who has put forward many of the most contentious changes....This provides support for Birnbaum's statement that the standards "include a long list of Confederate officials about whom students must learn." And it answers my question "Where is the language that can be paraphrased 'imperil American sovereignty'?" My criticisms about "vindicating" McCarthyism, "the equivalency between Jefferson Davis's and Abraham Lincoln's inaugural addresses," and the term "free-enterprise system" remain.
Another one of the seven conservative board members, David Bradley (R), added a list of Confederate generals and officials to the list of topics that students must study. ...
I have not been defending the Texas standards, only attacking the quality of the journalism that fails to quote or link to a text that is referred to. Birnbaum's Friday article contains some useful quotes (though still not a link to the whole text). The Saturday article was unanchored to text and forced me to look for what I could find on line. I'm also criticizing inaccurate paraphrasing, like the use of the words "vindicating" and "equivalency." Birnbaum's take on the standards might be true, but in an article that refers to a text, I do need to see the text. Paraphrasing, without the text, raises suspicions, and I don't apologize for having those suspicions.
ALSO: I'm critical of the Board of Education for not posting all the relevant text on its website. And — as should be obvious — I'm not endorsing the standards themselves. The complexity and detail alone tends to show that the Board did not have the best interests of children at the center of their project. And it didn't seem to care much about the capacity of teachers. The material on law, for example, would be difficult for a law professor to teach to law students.
A teach-in. Are you going to this 60s flashback?
Here in Madison.
I went to a big teach-in at the University of Michigan circa 1969. What I remember most vividly is one speaker lobbing the vivid insight that it wouldn't be so bad if North Vietnam won the war. The crowd cheered. I can't picture a present-day crowd of students cheering at the idea of the Taliban winning in Afghanistan. I can't even picture much of a crowd attending a teach-in on Afghanistan. Especially, now that Obama is President.
I went to a big teach-in at the University of Michigan circa 1969. What I remember most vividly is one speaker lobbing the vivid insight that it wouldn't be so bad if North Vietnam won the war. The crowd cheered. I can't picture a present-day crowd of students cheering at the idea of the Taliban winning in Afghanistan. I can't even picture much of a crowd attending a teach-in on Afghanistan. Especially, now that Obama is President.
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