Cheerleading for America

I accept responsibility for this! My post was misunderstood, and that is my failure to communicate. This was compounded by the fact that as it was reposted the links were lost, and therefore my citations with them. Let me clarify what I mean.

I do not mean to criticize higher education, or film, or the media (OK, maybe a little, but not in the way that it is getting rebroadcast). My complaint is not that everyone is not %100 behind the war. We live in a free country, and everyone is free to believe what they want about the war in general, and that means you will never agree with everyone all of the time.

My complaint is that people who are Americans don't publish how great America is! They aren't always negative, although I did reference some negative examples, if the link is preserved. When people watch American movies or go to American colleges they should come away with the idea "Dang what a great country. I want to be like that!" Maybe not everything or all the time of course, I don't want to dilute cultural differences. Nevertheless, they should at least be able to see our virtues. That is all that I am asking.

Like I said, I have no problem fighting when it comes to a fight. All I want is some better movies and a little more supportive academia. Is that too much to ask?

Finally, my real goal of writing here is to improving my writing. All comments are welcome, but especially if you have a comment on writing, such as unsupported statements, non sequiturs, even spelling etc. please comment here, meaning this page. I really will appreciate it.

By the way, I do not think that we are in Iraq because of Sept. 11th. We might not be in Iraq without Sept. 11th, but as near as I can determine, Saddam Hussein had no more to do with Sept. 11th than a Cheesehead does with Brett Favre; he just cheered. And effite is spelled effete, and I am not.

Discourse and Dialogue

I have been thrilled to receive numerous comments from my latest commentary. I am replying to them and publishing them as quickly as possible. I especially appreciate the people who have written with their support of the soldiers (after all it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside). But I very much appreciate those who dissent from my opinions, and want to encourage you to continuel.

I try to not be derisive, or insulting in my commentaries. I think that discourse and dialogue are very important. Not only that, I want to be able to reach as large an audience as possible. I suspect that we, as Americans, often believe the same things, but are approaching it from two different directions. Discourse is the way to discover where we diverge, and work to find either solutions to problems or compromises with which we can live. Otherwise, we end up with perceived (falsely) colossal differences which demagogues tend to exploit.

I will publish any comment that is not vulgar or deliberately insulting. The primary reason I moderate comments is because of bots, and people who try to "spam" Weblog's, so write away, and feel free to link to this Blog. Send me your blog, and as soon as I can figure it out, I will return the favor. Please don't be insulted if it takes me a while to respond or publish you comment, there is a war on.

Thanks for writing, and keep it up. The only way we get better is by challenging each other.

Soldiers Cannot Fight Against Backstabbing from Home

As soldiers, we have two enemies that should our allies in the war on terror. I am not referring to the negative nature of journalism, or the sedition of those who release classified information. Although those do complicate our lives, they are to be expected. After all treason was old when Alcibiades defected, and even the best battles in war are going to look bad in full color, live. Instead, there are two former allies that have defected: higher education, and mass media (specifically film).

Let us treat these one at a time. Higher education is at its pinnacle in the United States. Not only do places like Yale and Harvard still hold tremendous power in our collective consciousness, but also pretty much every town in the US, of any size, has a college of some sort. As much as CNN would try and spin it negatively, even the Chinese Communist People's Daily admits that the United States is still a place many serious foreign students come to learn, especially for advanced degrees, with more that half a million foreign students studying here every year. If those students were fed a serious education that included the value of American society, and an honest look at our virtues that would be roughly 120,000 non-Americans that would have a pro-American, and presumably anti-terrorist outlook on the world. Instead, they are fed Anti-American and ant-Western vitriol such that on American Campuses they welcome and defend former members of the Taliban while ejecting American military recruiters. Who do they want to win anyway?

The second should-be, once-was ally is American film. While there are many Arab films, they do not achieve the notoriety in their own country that American films do. American films, and to a lesser extent television, are pervasive throughout the Middle East. How do I know that? Because Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al Zarqawi keep complaining about it, and even referring to them! And why not? American movies are generally more numerous, and often better produced than films in the Middle East and elsewhere (although we are starting to see more, and better films from all over the world). This should be a huge advantage to us, since it could portray the Americans positively, an American perspective if you will. Instead, what do they get? Terrorists as the real victims, even heroes! Americans as the enemy of Democracy! Americans are racist! American’s hate gays! Americans hate Muslims (admittedly this one is a stretch, but it is not lost on the locals)! Americans want to impose a Christian Theocracy on Britain (also only by implication)!

I realize that educators and filmmakers fear that they could be perceived as propagandists of America. But right now they are viewed in America as propagandists for Islamofascism, and is that any better? (Have some values!)

This would not be hard to do either. There are lots of things that are really good about America. After all American film and higher education did spring up there, and they seem to have a pretty high opinion of themselves. Look at all the great things that have happened here, and the great things that we have done. If you have a hard time thinking of them then perhaps your education is lacking.

I am not saying to overlook the bad things either, but the real story there is that bad people ultimately lose in America. Afterall we started out with slavery, patronage, and property requirements for voting, and those are all gone. And we are still a work in progress, but we have made more progress in American society in 200 years of history, than much of the world has in 2000. You could even still tip a hat to all those wing bat causes (and be a little forward thinking in you preemption of problems) by making a movie about Chavez’s hero, Simon Bolivar, and how he idolized George Washington so much he wore a medal of his image whenever he made a public appearance. How great would that be!

All I am saying is this: we are in a fight to the death with Osama and his ilk, and actually most people seem to realize that. This is a fight that the army cannot win alone. I am a soldier, and frankly I do not want amateurs and draftees fighting with me. We do just fine on the battlefield as professionals. But is it too much to ask that these industries contribute what they are good at to the war effort. If the media and academia are so worried about losing the freedoms that America provides for them, is it too much to ask that they do their part to defend them, by telling the world how great those freedoms are, and what they need to do to get them? I can fight terrorists ‘til the cows come home, but I have no idea how to fight hatred of America, especially when it comes from Americans.

Hatred

There is something that I have been mulling in my mind, and this is no doubt something that will either be controversial or popular depending on who reads it. I think, that there is something different between killing someone, and killing them in wrath. Throughout the world, people die every day, and for the most part we accept it. Occasionally, people kill other people, and we sometimes accept that, depending on what the intent of the killer was. Even in the vicious times of Babylon, and Mosaic Israel there was a distinction made between murder and killing accidentally or in defense.

In war, killing necessarily comes up all the time. It is a fundamental function of a soldier that from time to time, you take a life. I think that even in that aspect, killing in wrath is bad. Of course, you kill for many reasons, to stay alive, to accomplish the mission, to save lives, and in the military we accept those. I think, however, that we also need to make the distinction that as professionals, killing out of anger is not acceptable. Not because there is a change in the death, or the outcome, but because of the negative effect that it has on us.

The Louder they talk ...

Three major things happened in the last few days. I want to comment on each of them directly and all together as well. First the President of Iran claims that what Iran has done, cannot be undone, but he forgets, to paraphrase, "The atom giveth and the Atom taketh away." Second, Osama Bin Laden has issued another tape, somehow relating the genocide between Muslims as an attempt of the west to impose western values on Sudan, and calling for support in that cause. Maybe this well help some to see that he is just a fascist in a dishdasha and no holy man after all.

Finally, on the good side, Iraq finally has a new prime Minister. But during the debates I noticed that the people who represented the smallest parties were the ones who shouted the most. In contrast Jaafari, Talabani, and now al Maliki were almost never seen or heard from. Then I remembered the counsel of a wise politician who once told me this. "Those who have power simply do what they intend. Press conferences are a tool for the weak." It seems that especially in the Middle East, the more they talk the weaker they are.

What is 'initiative' and 'tactical'

Since Condoleeza Rice “admitted” that “tactical errors” occurred in Iraq there has been much confusion in the MSM and the blogosphere about this. Part of this comes because when Condoleeza Rice uses the words “tactical error” she means them in the sense that they have passed into the civilian lexicon: basically a miscalculation. However, in the military, tactical is the lowest level of operations below operational and strategic, and saying tactical errors implies that decision makers on the ground have made errors.

Then in the article, “The junior officers debate Rummy” on “News Blog” (also referencing “Young Officers Join the Debate Over Rumsfeld”) seems to muddy the waters even more by introducing a flawed definition of initiative. It implies that simply because you are attacked you have lost the initiative.

Just because you can shoot your way out of a mess does not make it a victory. In some messes, the enemy had the initiative.

I have no knowledge of any time since the invasion where we have lost the initiative. We did give it up in the First Battle of Falluja, and there have been times where, for whatever reason, we have stopped our advance, but we have never been stopped. Merely being attacked does not cause you to loose initiative.

We have free movement throughout the country. People would have you believe that because there are IED’s; that is not true. An IED is an obstacle. Obstacles are not permanent impediments, but only slow you down. We ship tremendous quantities of materiél and manpower throughout the country. There are huge bases built in some cases from scratch, and our operations may not always catch the people that they are after, but it is only because they leave.

We drive the enemy before us everyday. They cannot fight us, and do not try. The only reason it may not seem like it, and the major problem with local based insurgency, is that they have nowhere else to go. Therefore, since surrender is not an option, they will fight on. This gives finality minded people in America conniptions, because they want closure. But you do not get it. However, that does not mean we do not have initiative. We set the tempo, and we dictate the battle. The only reason that we cannot determine the terrain is because they have already gone to ground, in the last places that they can hide.

I am trying to crack the "trackback" nut. If this link works, yea, if not, and you know how to do this please leave a comment.