Posse Incitatus

Time to change the channel

What an education Obama's supporters have had in the last two months.

A man who once seemed to stand as a colossus on the American political scene is now consumed with scandal and doubt.

His signature issue - gun control - collapsed due to an intraparty rebellion.  The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Lightbringer allowed a Republican arch-Libertarian to outflank him on civil rights and the morality of drone strikes.

And now we learn that the Internal Revenue Service was playing Nixonian games with tax exemptions, using its investigative power to target the president's political opposition.  It's enough to shake one's faith in the Party.

One of the evergreen questions posed by conservatives is when liberals and their media allies will have "enough"  and turn on their leader.  Each time a scandal emerges, someone can be counted on to say "This is when they turn, this is when they remember their principles."

Except they never do.

Partisan politics are best understood as a tribal exercise.  The actual political positions - gun control, abortion, scope of government - are best understood as identifiers rather than actual beliefs.

This is how an anti-war movement can support a man who has ramped up combat operations in Afghanistan and how Constitutional scholars who called the Iraq campaign illegal can rally behind the Libyan adventure.

It's a tribal thing.

But even tribal loyalty has its limits.  There comes a point when self-respect demands some sort of reaction.  One can only eat so  much excrement before questioning the Party line that it tastes delicious.

For the anti-war street theater people, the point has been reached.  They are stirring from their long hibernation and demanding action.

Not from the president of course.  No, they are taking their show to National Guard bases to protest the use of drones.  The fact that the National Guard does not set the policy regarding them is irrelevant.  The fact that they should be lying down in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue rather than the front gate at Syracuse is lost on them.  They may reach that point, but not just yet.

For now they know only that something is wrong and something must be done.  For now, they remain loyal.

The Benghazi affair has also strained that loyalty and the IRS revelations will add further burdens.

I do not believe the tribe will turn on him - the Great Defection that some conservatives hope for will certainly not come.  But what will happen is that the tame media will lose interest.  Just as the anti-war movement has turned to protesting obscure bases, the media guardians will look elsewhere.   It's always easier to change the subject than face unpleasant facts.

The end result will not be wall-to-wall scandal coverage, but rather a cessation of presidential coverage altogether.  Washington will recede into the distance.  The fawning profiles, the magazine features, the tongue-bath interviews - all of this will cease.  The fawning adulation will be replaced with embarrassed silence.

And maybe it's better that way.  The President-as-celebrity has not worked out well.  We could use a break. 

How crazy is North Korea?

Like most observers, I assumed the latest round of belligerence from North Korea was part of their usual routine of threatening to throw a tantrum until they get additional foreign aid.

 

However, I am no longer sure.  For one thing, there is no deal on the table – Kim Jong Un doesn’t appear to be asking for anything.

 

Usually there is a request for food aid, or something similar.  Not now.  Just threats of war.

The study of international relations is dominated by the “realist” school which maintains (among other things) that states are unitary actors (that is they speak with one voice - that of the regime) and that they are primarily rational.  Note that this does not mean their choices are always the best, but that they have a certain logic to them.

 

What if neither of these conditions apply?

 

It is possible that North Korea is on the verge of dissolution as competing elements vie for control.  The current occupant may be only a figurehead – or an ruler with limited control.  Because of its almost hermitic isolation, we just don’t know.

 

Adding to the difficulty is the likelihood that the barely-30-something ruler is not necessarily rational.  Little is known about him.  Even his age is vague.  We know he went to school in Switzerland, but that was years ago. Given how rapidly modern celebrities go from hungry artists waiting tables to ego-inflated idiots who consider themselves to be experts on everything, it would not be surprising if the quiet student classmates knew in Bern is now a raving psychotic with delusions of godhood.

 

I am also interested by the administration's response, which (as is customary these days) seeks to downplay the situation entirely, just as a parent might try to ignore a misbehaving child trying to get attention.

 

The problem with this approach is that the child often escalates to the point where attention must be paid – either through direct violence or breaking something else. The Obama administration has made it clear that pushing gun control is a higher priority than deterring North Korea, which is why the otherwise alarming rhetoric coming out of Pyongyang is being discussed by cabinet officers rather than the president. The US is moving forces to the area, but doing so without much fanfare, perhaps hoping not to escalate the situation.

 

Maybe there are no good answers. Maybe Kim Junior wants war. If nothing else, it is a reminder that whether we like it or not, the world around us is still turning. Even if we persuade ourselves that our enemies are reasonable and passive unless we provoke them, the opposite may be true – they're crazy and itching for a fight.

 

Kerry is the perfect Secretary of State

While there is the usual grumbling about John Kerry being made Secretary of State, I think it is a splendid position for him.  Who better to stand cooling his heels in the anterooms of defiant tin-pot despots?  Who better to feel first-hand the immediate effects of waning American influence?

By now it should be very clear that this administration views foreign policy as a distraction from their business of reshaping the republic.  It is simply not a priority.

That is why Hillary! was chosen to lead the State Department - it placated her base and kept her out of the way.  In this respect the Obama administration is similar to the "spendid isolationism" of Great Britain when the Foreign Office was more of an exile than a prestigious appointment.

Kerry will reliably follow Obama and his nomination will sail through the Senate.  Partisan Republicans like getting him out of the upper chamber and are relishing the thought of an open seat they can pick up via a Scott Brown comeback.

None of this has anything to do with Kerry's actual qualifications, but like Hillary!s, these are irrelevant.  Otto von Bismarck would be unable to salvage the US strategic position under this White House.  What is coming will come.

The White House knows the press will do its part to cover things up.  Any bad news abroad can be buried on page A24 or given a 30-second cursory tidbit on the nightly news - assuming it gets mentioned at all.

As we saw in the 1990s, bombing barracks, embassies and warships are insufficient to generate much public interest if the press covers them up.

At the risk of sounding like a Leninist, the storm is coming, and Kerry is the perfect person to be associated with it.

When precedent fails

There are periods in history when the old order had reached the point of no return but the actors of the period are unaware of it.  I believe we are at such a time.

Looking back over the years, it seems clear that the old conventions no longer apply.  The rules of society I grew up with are simply inoperable.

I'm not the first one to notice this of course, but today's screaming Drudge Report headline about the president imposing some sort of gun control by executive order got me thinking.

My first thought was:  "Ah, so they forgot to give the veep his meds again."  After all, Biden is the source and if there was ever someone who could be counted on to create a crisis simply by shooting his mouth off, the veep is our guy.

But upon reflect, I wondered:  why not?

The goal of this administration was to somehow gain the second term.  They promised everything and anything to get there, and now the goal is achieved.  What's the point in hiding any more?

Even with media support, gun control is a losing political issue.  One would think that the authors of Fast and Furious would be particularly reluctant to get into federal laws when so many have already been violated - but as I said, the old rules don't apply any more.

I don't believe that a Constitutional crisis is imminent or that our liberties are about to be abolished or severely curtailed.  I am an optimist in that respect.

But I am convinced that we are at a point where the people who are in charge are out of their depth in predicting the results of their actions. 

The classic cause of conflict is a miscalculation in the face of crisis and I see plenty of opportunity for that happening.  Heated rhetoric is nothing new, but we are reaching the end of the financial tether.  One need not be a doom-sayer to wonder why, after years of pumping new money into the economy, nothing is happening. 

Right now much of our debt is being financed by a perpetual motion machine:  The Treasury sells bonds to the Federal Reserve Bank, which in turn counts them as collateral against money it then lends out.

Most people don't know this, but I find it deeply disturbing.  We are effectively debasing the currency and that never ends well - from the Crisis of the Third Century in ancient Rome to the revolutions of more modern times.

In all cases, the elites figured things were going just fine - until they weren't.

To be clear:  I don't think the president or his advisors are purposely destroying the economy.  All of them are very wealthy (don't let the rhetoric fool you) - and they all very much value the money they have earned.

They are certainly not going through the trouble of piling up all cash they have accumulated simply to watch it become worthless.

That's part of the problem: they really have no idea what they are doing.  By now the economy should have recovered.  By all precedent we should be in the third year of solid growth.  And none of our leaders know why that hasn't happened.  So they demogogue and have the Fed print more money.

And I think that is what frightens me the most - the awareness that the ship of state is totally out of control.

To put it another way:  No one wanted the disaster in Benghazi to happen and no one could stop it once it started.  Rather than address it, they are trying to hide it because they have no idea what to do if it should happen again.

I've remarked on the Abyss before and my fear that we may enter it.

What if we're already there and just don't know it yet?

Veterans Day 2012

It is my usual practice to keep Veterans Day posts limited to a simple "thank you" for our service members and their families.

But this is an usual time.

The looming fiscal cliff will bring with it deep cuts in our defense spending.  These will render our military less mission-capable and leave American vulnerable to attack. 

Many people looked at Mitt Romney as the last chance to stop this.  I don't know if he could:  Weakening our defenses on the eve of war is an American tradition that goes back to 1789.  It's not going to stop now.

As I mentioned in my previous post, people don't change.  Not really, not in the aggregate.  Show me the most intelligent, urbane, tolerant, sophisticated collegiate professional and in a few minutes of questioning I will reveal the savage tribesman within.  Our taboos change, the tribal descriptions shift, but all the old hatred and emotions are still there.

I make no claim to be immune to this, by the way.  The difference between me and a refined liberal is that I know who I am - I do not deceive myself into thinking that I am somehow a better person than a Roman or a Viking.

Indeed, conservatives have - for the most part - embraced this part of them.  That is why so many enjoy sports, particularly those with a martial component.  We don't lie to ourselves:  we know exactly who we are.

The point is that as sure as the sun rises and sets, American will agree to massive defense cuts while expecting nothing bad to happen.  Given the choice of guns or butter, we will choose butter every time.  It is only when we are backed into the corner with no where else to go that we will (grudgingly) agree to spend money on armaments.

Some will point out to the growing distance between the military caste and the civilian world.  Yet this is nothing new.  A hundred years ago the Army was a tiny clique and the Navy was its own sea-based culture.  The deep thinkers of the time figured that city life and the development of railroads, steam engines and now the automobile had made people too weak and flabby to make good soldiers.

Some things never change.

The difference between then and now is that within the defense community there are thinkers that know what is going on.  Our planners know that we will be weak, that we will be caught off-guard and that we will have to improvise.  They know that we will be surprised and in so knowing, they ensure that the effect of that surprise will be minimal.  They know that the most important trait is flexibility.

Today I ask folks to keep in mind not only the veterans of today and yesterday, but the veterans of tomorrow.  I fear we will be calling on them all too soon.

 

Romney in control

A rare weekend double-post allows me to update my August prediction.

While I was wrong regarding the negative bounce (which was basically because of Bill Clinton), the underlying dynamic remains the same.

With two weeks remaining, this is Romney's election to lose.  I have said this many times privately but it bears repeating here:  Romney will carry Michigan.

The polls show a narrow race and statewide polls are notoriously inaccurate.  Michigan pollsters tend to be worse than most, consistently underestimating GOP support.  Both of Granholm's victories were far closer than the polling indicated and Jim Blanchard's narrow loss to John Engler in 1990 was surprising in part because he had a lead in statewide polling.

Polling is an increasingly imperfect and unreliable tool to gain information.  In many ways, polling outfits are like intelligence officers trying to gain an accurate picture of the battlefield.  At this point, polling is as reliable as aerial photography - it provides some insights, but it easily defeated.

Not that people have the same interest as military officers in deception, but they are interested in preserving their own privacy and opinions.  It is simply harder to pin them down.

Thus in addition to polling, one must draw upon other evidence - numbers of volunteers, yard signs, general enthusiasm and so forth.  Living as I do in a predominantly Democrat area, I am surprised at the lack of Obama signs and the relative proliferation of Romney ones.  I have even seen Romney seens in the "student ghetto".  Either the area is suddenly trending conservative, or people are tired of four years of failure.

At this point, the Obama campaign has nothing left to offer.  Their latest lines of attack - binders and "Romnesia" are nothing more than playground taunts.  The debates have shown Mitt Romney to be a serious man with serious plans.  He has been dignified and sincere - not at all like the caricature people have been shown.

Despite all the noise about "ladyparts" and attempts to turn the campaign into a referendum on abortion, Romney has made it clear that these issues don't interest him - his focus is the economy.  In this, he is on the same page with voters.  Social issues can wait until we have some money in our pockets again.

Against this background, the Libya debacle only makes Obama look even  more feeble.  The death of an amabassador is not a "bump in the road" or a "not optimal" development.  The sabre-rattling and transparent "wag the dog" scenario that only heightens the sense of weakness and unseriousness. 

Next week, Romney can rightly ask:  Why did you lie to the American public for so long?  Why can't your administration figure this out?  You've been president for four years - how long does it take you to organize things?

I also hope that Romney reminds the public that the entire situation in North Africa belongs to Obama.  It was he who decided to attack Libya without Congressional authorization and created a swathe of instability that has led to anarchy in Benghazi and revolution in Mali.  This needs to be brought up - Obama's unconstitutional Libya intervention was a disaster.  It was a "war of choice" just as much as Iraq but with a far worse outcome.

The Black Flag returns

Long-time readers of this blog know that I predicted the 9/11 attacks long before they happened.  I saw the growth of radical Islam and how the U.S. government simply ignored the repeated provocations.  Retaliation was “beneath us,” or so the refrain went.  We could afford to shrug off embassy bombings in Africa and attacks on our warships.

So the attacks escalated until we could not ignore them any more.

For a few months, it looked like things had changed – and I believed our nation had awoken to the existential threat posed by radical Islam – an ideology of conquest rather than a faith.

Today we have the definitive proof that I was wrong.

Today our embassy in Egypt was attacked, the American flag torn down and the Black Flag waved over its compound.

The Black Flag has a lot of history.  It was raised more than a century ago in the Sudan during the Mahdist rebellion.  Winston Churchill’s excellent account of the campaign is still available and an invaluable source of information on the roots of the modern jihadi.

This history is well known to the local inhabitants:  How in 1884 an obscure preacher incited the people of the Sudan to holy war against the British-backed Egyptian garrison.  Let by the Mahdi, the hordes of fanatics swept across the country, capturing everything south of roughly the modern frontier save for the capital, Khartoum.  It was here that the legendary General Charles “Chinese” Gordon held out for over a year against impossible odds, waiting in vain for relief.  The city fell and Gordon was beheaded two days before the relief force arrived.  It then withdrew back to Egypt.

Nearly a decade later, the British resolved to restore their honor – and forestall possible French influence along the Nile - by launching a massive punitive expedition under General Sir Herbert Kitchener (he of the “I Want You” poster fame) that culminated in the archetypal clash of civilizations:  The Battle of Omdurman.

It was here in 1898 that the “whirling dervishes” of the Mahdist army, swords flashing and banners streaming, were cut down in droves by modern artillery and machineguns. 

What a difference a century makes.  Then, the Black Flag was cut down by Maxim guns and quick-firing 6-pounders.  Now, we bow to it.

Think I exaggerate?  Here is the official U.S. response to the violation of American sovereign territory:

 The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others

Yeah!  Take that!

Oh wait, another apology.

I was born for a different age - an age when honor meant something, and when America stood for something other than buying off victims.

The proper response to this infringement of sovreign territory is to recall the ambassador and establish a blockade.  If the insults persist, naval and aerial bombardment of key facilities until the host nation apologizes to us.

This is the way things used to be.  It will be interesting to see if Romney can show more backbone.  Not that it should be difficult...

BONUS QUESTION:  Does this mean the administration will start censoring Catholic critics, or do we have to kill some people first to get their attention?

 

Memorial Day 2012

My obsession this spring has been the spacious grounds of the recently upgraded ranch.  Weeding, mowing, pest eradication and minor landscaping have dominated my thoughts and intruded into my dreams.  Between that and a hectic work schedule, the onset of Memorial Day came almost as a surprise.  Tempus fugit and all that.

Taking a quiet moment to contemplate Memorial Day this year, I cannot help but feel a sense of loss and bitterness.  Long-time readers know that we have taken it as our honored duty to keep the memory alive of one of our friends - Capt. Sean Grimes - who fell in Iraq seven years ago this spring.

Looking at the disorderly way in which our forces were withdrawn - and the similar sense of urgency in leaving Afghanistan to its fate - it is hard not be bitter about what our military has sacrificed and what our leaders have thrown away.

War is an extension of policy by other means, as Clausewitz pointed out almost 200 years ago, and a rational person can admit that there are times when there is no other recourse than to its dreadful call.

But what if that policy is hopelessly muddled, willfully blind, or cynically driven?

Afghanistan and Iraq were both wars of necessity.  Afghanistan had sheltered our enemies and on Sept. 11, 2001, we saw just how deadly they could be.  Iraq was an ongoing strategic threat, tying down our forces and constantly attacking our aircraft (though without much effect).  Both required a military solution.

Both went well at first, but then bogged down into a foggy counterinsurgency.  We gained the upper hand and did so for comparatively little loss of life - far less than Korea, or Vietnam.  But then a new administration came in, one devoid of strategic vision and looking only to the next opinion poll.  And so we are in retreat.

What did the sacrifice of Sean and his comrades achieve?  What is his legacy?  They gave up all the tomorrows - for what?

A free Iraq?  A modern Afghanistan?

Both teeter on the brink.  And then there is Libya, which has spawned at least one civil war (in Mali) and may itself break up.

At this point, we cannot know.  I believe that Sean died in the opening round - the overture, if you will - of the clash of civilizations between the West and radical Islam.  His actions as a healer proved to those who would listen that there is a better way than one of Islamofascist hate - a path of forgiveness and compassion, of hope and eventual prosperity.

In a larger sense, his sacrifice transcends the political.  Like all of our fallen warriors, he was called to serve, and died for his nation.  It is the ultimate expression of selflessness.  Whatever happens in Iraq, he did not die in vain so long as we honor him, and uphold Freedom.

The recovery that wasn't

The stock market is up, Europe seems to have stabilized and unemployment is falling.  Obama's campaign staff is feelin' good and the recovery is underway.

Or is it?

One thing I learned from my college economics classes is that you can twist just about any number to get a positive score from it.  Unemployment is easily  manipulated and if one delves into the internals of the latest "good news," one finds that the truth is far less encouraging:  In absolute terms, less people are working than in the month previous.

That's right, there are less jobs than there were a month ago, and the number has been steadily falling, despite the seeming improvement in the unemployment rate.

How can this be?  Simple:  The feds are shrinking the labor force.

Unemployment is a measure of the people willing and able to work who can't find jobs.  What the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been doing for the past few months is simply shrinking this pool, declaring that people who have been out of work long enough aren't looking any more.

This turns the whole measurement on its head and renders it worthless.  As the deeply pessimistic but insightful Zero Hedge has pointed out, if BLS decides enough unemployed have left the work force, we could be at zero unemployment in no time.

The truth is that the economy is not really improving.  The housing market has yet to hit bottom and the full crushing weight of Obamacare has yet to be felt in all its job-killing glory.

When the Greek default hits Europe full force, the drop in trade may well cause another full-scale recession - except that we've now added three trillion more dollars to our national debt and have already cut interest rates to zero.

This is the nightmare of many economists.  The Fed and the Obama administration are staring at empty ammunition boxes - they have nothing else to try.  Pumping vast amounts of money did not restart the engine and flooding the market with dollars hasn't done anything except build the beginnings of a tidal wave of inflation.  Food, utilities, gas - all are up sharply.

Here again, though, the federal government can goose the numbers to argue that "core inflation" is nonexistent. 

The reality is otherwise, and this is where the administration's spin fails.  People know that their groceries cost more and that gas is more expensive.  They look around them and they don't see their friends and family finding work.

There is an irony to all this cheerleading optimism, and I well remember how George W. Bush was hammered for his "jobless recovery" in 2004.  Now we actually have a "recovery" with less jobs than when it started - millions less.

Veterans Day 2011

As always, the Posse offers deep thanks to our military veterans for their service.  Perhaps I was just inattentive, but it seems to me that more businesses are offering discounts and promotions for veterans than ever before.  This is a good thing.

Our nation is not only divided between the producers and consumers (or "makers" and "takers" but also between those who serve and those who do not - and will not.

I never liked all the flowery rhetoric about the World War II generation being the "Greatest Generation."  First off, every generation faces is challenges.  To say that this one or that one had more strikes me as the height of arrogant self-importance. That this label came from the Baby Boomer made it even more obnoxious.

When I think about important generations, I think about the parents of the "Greatest," the people born between 1890 and 1910.  They weathered slumps, two wars and ignited the greatest period of technological advancement in human history.  The leaps forward in medicine, communication, transportation - and even warfare - far exeeded anything before or since.

When war came, they went.  When the economy collapsed, they muddled through.  The World War II generation provided the footsoldiers for victory, but the architects came from this age group.

As everyone should know, today marks the anniversary of the culiminating moment of that earlier generation - the end of the World War I.  Back then they called it the Great War, the World War, the War to End All Wars.  It gets little attention here in the United States, but it lies like a chasm across human history, a break with what went before every bit as significant as the fall of the Roman Empire or the Norman Conquest of England.

That calamity saw the collapse of the old ways - religion, tradition, family - and the rise of new beliefs, like Communism, National Socialism, moral relativism.  We are now, almost a century later, still trying to pick up the pieces of that conflict.  The constant crisis in the Middle East, the uncertain rise of China, Russia's turmoil, Africa's uneasy borders and the strife in the Balkans are all the legacy of that perfect storm and imperfect peace.

Where do veterans come into this?

In 1917, for the first time since the Civil War, the United States implemented conscription.  The fear was that were would be draft riots, as their had been in 1863.  It did not happen.  Instead, millions of young men registered and, when called, reported for duty.  Almost from scratch this country went from a miniscule peacetime army to millions of Doughboys ready to go "Over There" and fight in France.

It took time to call up, train, equip and ship them there.  More than a year after the declaration of war, the US Army was still pulling itself together.  In the meantime, the desperate Germans launched the Kaiserschlacht - one last desperate gamble to win the war before our troops arrived in force.  It failed,

The Allied counterstroke was terrible, and starting in July 1918, it proceeded without stop.  Unlike previous offensives, this was no localized affair, but a series of hammer-blows all across the Western Front.  There was no pause, not respite, and as American divisions became ready they were marched to the front and hurled into the inferno.

The American portion of the offensive has gone down in history as the Meuse-Argonne campaign.

To call it a bloodbath is to cheapen the term.  In the space of six weeks, roughly 120,000 American troops were hit with 25,000 of them killed.  In six weeks.

The American commander, "Black Jack" Pershing, used tactics as subtle as a tire iron to the head, but it worked. By early November, the German army was reeling. The Armistice took effect 93 years ago today, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

Since then, World War I has faded from memory.  Its veterans are all dead, and those who remember them are mostly gone.  Yellowed pictures, dusty uniforms, spiked helmets - these are all we recall.  Even the Red Baron has been distorted and commercialized.

The point here is that a generation was called and went.  In 1941, 1950 they also went.  Some disagreed in the 1960s, but enough went to give us a victory - that we pissed away.  After that, it fell to the volunteers, and they have performed admirably.  The prestige of American arms has never been greater -and the reputation of American politicians has never been lower.

Looking at the "Occupy" protesters, one cannot help but contrast their self-indulgent tantrums with the quiet sacrifices of the veterans.  Let there be no mistake, military people are no saints (f they were, the JAGs would be unemployed).  They expect to be paid and complain about everything (a time-honored tradition).

But they do their duty.  They join to be part of something bigger than themselves and they yearn for the opportunity to prove that they are just as tough as those who went before.

The Occupiers want none of that.  They want free wi-fi, guaranteed income and a life of unearned leisure.  A half-hour of PT would leave them begging for death.

This Veterans Day, think about that contrast and what it says about those who choose to serve despite every reason not to.  MSU's basketball game today on the USS Carl Vinson is a great example.  I admire coach Tom Izzo, but his remarks about how sports pale in comparison to the military life are heartful and utterly appropriate.

Enjoy the game, and thank a veteran.