The Left, of course, and the usual fickle conservatives with more ink to expend than practical experience or judgment, have taken the McChrystal affaire and the difficult Afghanistan situation as a new opportunity to exhibit their emphasis on bloviation and lack of spine under difficult challenges regardless of impact on real persons’ lives.

What is notable, however, is that during the discussions of the relief from command of General Stanley McChrystal, most conservatives and professional military leaders came down – even with much misgivings – in favor. Military decorum and civilian control are primary, they affirmed.

Still, while not challenging civilian control of the military, what is missed is that our military’s current rulers have a long record of disrespect for the military and open antagonism to the missions to which we have sent them to struggle, all paying extraordinary sacrifices while politicians and most of the homefront focus on feathering nests.

Such as Andrew Bacevich, not missing yet another opportunity for another way to express his repeated defeatism and antagonism to firm foreign policy, laments instead:

Long wars are antithetical to democracy. Protracted conflict introduces toxins that inexorably corrode the values of popular government. Not least among those 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….But indications that the military's professional ethic is eroding, evident in the disrespect for senior civilians expressed by McChrystal and his inner circle, should set off alarms.

Usually sensible Eliot Cohen puts the issue in a broader light:

Today, in the midst of the conflict, we cannot achieve the detachment that military historians writing 50 years from now will have. But we can at least cling to some basic principles in explaining our wars to ourselves.

The first of these is that the civilian leadership is always -- always -- the responsible party. It is responsible for choosing the war, responsible for the strategy, responsible for the military leaders it hires or fires, responsible for ultimate success or failure. It should never be off the hook. The second is the recognition that military institutions and their leaders are radically imperfect. The leaders vary in quality; few have all the attributes required to win, particularly in an era made more complicated by continuous news cycles.

Jules Crittenden, who has actually been to combat and deeply studied war, gets to the point, reminding generalizers of nonsense:

Given the governing party’s preference for strategizing by poll, and the president’s own ambivalence toward winning, there is little reason to be encouraged that he will hang tough in Afghanistan, see to U.S. national security interests there, and give democracy, women’s rights, civilization, that kind of thing a chance, plus render American sacrifices meaningful. Except for one key factor, vanity, which may be a reason for hope in this situation, the one thing that might compel the president to persevere on a foreign field of battle, especially now that the unassailable Gen. David Petraeus has his back.

President Obama, his civilian yes-men from the Left, and politically-chosen military advisors may have triumphed  - even rightfully - over the disrespect, deserved, openly expressed by General McChrystal and his staff. But, their record of disrespect for the military, its professionalism, and its life-and-death existence does not earn them any pass on their continued muddled confusion or purposefully dangerous weakness.

In WWII the US fielded a mostly draft military. In Korea and Vietnam, draftees filled the ranks. Today, we field a superbly professional voluntary military. The Obamaites, and the fickle conservative pundits, should feel lucky they have a professional military that restrains itself. Draftees and their families would never tolerate their heartless, gutless toying with their lives. That would be a real popular and military uprising.

Ezra Klein’s juicebox-level of Leftist propaganda-feed group-think journalism and the defenders of General McChrystal’s crew of wisecrackers as being abused by the Rolling Stone’s reporter have something in common: Neither are willing to stand in public behind the truth that anything that passes from one’s lips is public property.

Yes, if one explicitly says to another “Private” or “Secret” or “Do not quote”, that might be respected. And, it might not. If you don't have discretion or maturity, why expect that of others who also may not or have interests other than covering up for your lackings?

And, if one says to oneself that anything I say should be properly stated and reflect my views, and I will either stand behind it or explain why and how I was wrong or off-mark, then one is acting with integrity to oneself and others.

To feel otherwise is immature and irresponsible. It is an abuse of one's public position to not be forthcoming and transparent.

This is particularly so when entrusted with the ears of millions of Americans on important public issues, or the fate of millions of Americans and allies’ lives.

In my garage, I have boxes full of literally thousands of published pieces I’ve written during and since college. That’s 46-years of comment and analyses. Many, most?, are easily available on the web. I'm also surprised at how many correspondents have archived my emails, when I haven't. If any want to publish them, have at it.

I said it. I stand behind it, or will answer for it.

But, I will not hide behind some notion that I can be allowed to deceive or excuse or cry when someone quotes me.

But, then, I am not a careerist feathering my nest by expecting tolerance for having a lack of respect for myself, for others or for my responsibilities and ethics, and thinking I have some sort of right to be deceptive or a manipulator.

Be an adult, be a professional, or get the hell off the stage, or be exposed for a child playing with other people’s lives and too self-concerned to admit it.

We need more public and private integrity, straight-talk and standing behind it, openly, not less or any more excuses for being immature kindergartners playing with other people's trust or lives.

P.S.: An earlier version had "kindergarden" and "kindergardners." Now corrected for proper, Germanic-root spelling. - Thanks Glenn.

At the doctor’s office this morning I picked up a magazine, Biblical Archaeology Review, of course dated November/December 2009.

An article caught my eye, How Did Israel Become A People?, by Abraham Faust, based on his book (hold on for a doozy of a title) Israel’s Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance (2007) which won the Biblical Archaeology Society Award for Best Scholarly Book on Archaeology.

Briefly:

The “Israel” that is mentioned in the Merneptah Stele [13^th Century B.C.E.] is indeed the “Israel” of the Iron Age. And it can be identified archaeologically. The rich archaeological database, and its analysis with appropriate tools, allows us to trace the Israelites and to decipher many of the internal and external processes that characterized the group from the beginning of the Iron Age onward.

So much for arguments about Jews being a recently externally imposed colony on historically Arab land. The peoples in Israel at the time of the 13^th Century B.C.E. were Israelites, Canaanites, long gone, and then Philistines, from elsewhere in the Mediterranean, with some Egyptian invaders for a time in between.

Faust promises another article about the development of Israel’s Jewish religion.

I’m going to be returning to the website of Biblical Archaeology Review,  as there appear to be many interesting, scholarly articles and book reviews from various religious and academic viewpoints.

COIN, the abbreviation for counterinsurgency operations, is hotly debated as applied in Afghanistan.

Those most blindly in favor on the Left think it a way to be nice and avoid many of the harshnesses of war. Others think it’s a way to make foes like us and avoid creating more foes.

Those most angrily critical are either conservatives, experienced in war, or those whose lives are actually at risk on the front lines.

They are all partly correct, that far. Where many go off the rails is in not understanding what COIN actually is, or in taking it to absurd or counter-productive excess, and in not confronting the quagmire of Obama and his chosen meddlers.

Let’s re-visit the US entry in large numbers into Vietnam.

The Insurance Research Council (IRC), of Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, analyzed in Hospital Cost Shifting and Auto Injury Insurance Claims hospitals’ cost shifting from government medical programs onto auto insurance companies.

Based on over 42,000 closed claims from 22 insurers representing 58% of the private passenger auto insurance market in the US, in the 38 states analyzed over $1.2 billion of costs were shifted in 2007 due to low reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid.

That only covers part of the shifting in other states and from other medical coverages.

Add on top of that the severe restrictions on medical care provider charges that are to be imposed by ObamaCare. "It will take months, if not years, to understand the full impact of the reforms on hospital cost shifting and the auto insurance system," said Elizabeth Sprinkel of the IRC.

Pretty soon you’ll see the results in your auto insurance premiums, as ObamaCare drives us off the cliff.