Maggie's Farm

Ron Radosh, as well as other knowledgeable or honest critics, recognize the “travesty” of “Oliver Stone’s new documentary,  South of the Border, his ode to Hugo Chavez and South and Latin America’s new quasi-Marxist and not so quasi dictators.”

For some background into useful idiot Oliver Stone’s “standard far-left narrative that is part of a long line of propaganda films, a modern American version of the old agitprop”:

From the BBC report and from Robert Service’s bio of Trotsky, will the real Chavez and Trotsky please stand up or be excused by ignorant fantasist rationalizers of tyranny?

This morning I saw my son off to sleepaway camp. The mother of my son’s seatmate on the bus and I met and spoke briefly. It turned out we have family (all Jewish) and other friends in common back East.

She was in law school with Obama at Harvard.

She says that Obama was not particularly “political” at that time. [My thought: probably unnecessary as most there likely agreed on most things.]

She says that Obama is not an anti-Semite. [My thought: So what if he hires “court Jews”, hangs out with real anti-Semites, and even for – in his opinion – the best of reasons weakens Israel.]

She says that Obama is a good listener. [My thought: So what, if he only listens to those who agree with him.]

She is an Obama-loyalist, only offering the criticism that he is “indecisive.” [My thought: Only indecisive while trying to figure out how to get away with weakening allies or national security, or propel the US into further debts, enlarge government intrusion into and control over our lives, and undermine free enterprise.]

Yesterday, Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds linked to my serious post, and today to Bird Dog's recipe for a cocktail.

The traffic coming from Instapundit is far higher for Bird Dog's post. We also get much traffic from our more salacious posts.

Now, if we can combine the serious with the lighter fun of life we'd all learn more:

 I'll drink to that.

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.