I Fought in Iraq and All I got Was This (Bloody) T-Shirt?

On December 12 President Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the end of the war in Iraq.  Those eight years of war came at a stiff price.  Approximately 4500 American troops were killed, and some 33,000 received significant wounds; how many thousands will suffer psychological problems in the future can only be guessed at.  The war cost taxpayers a trillion dollars, and the expenses continue despite the departure of our military.  The war quickly eliminated the world-wide support for America in the wake of 9/11, fomented more anti-American feelings in the Muslim world and distracted the US from operations against al-Qaeda.

The bill for Iraq is far greater.  Saddam is dead, but so are more than 100,000 (perhaps many more) Iraqis, and 1.6 million are still refugees abroad.  Over one million internal refugees were also created.  What little functioning infrastructure the country possessed before the invasion has been mostly destroyed, and 23% of Iraqis live in utter poverty, earning $2 or less a day.

And what do we all get in return for this massive expenditure by the American and Iraqi people?

It is clear now, as it was to many then, that Saddam was absolutely no threat to anyone except his own people, and rather than “protecting” America the conflict has only exacerbated the terrorist problem and immensely strengthened the position of Iran, beckoning the US into another armed conflict.  That the new democratic Iraq would be a beacon of freedom and hope in the region has not played out, and the present toppling of authoritarian governments in the Arab world owes absolutely nothing to American efforts.

Whether or not Iraq now has a functioning democracy remains to be seen, and in any case the current government is unable to provide even basic services for its people, who are still being blown up on a regular basis.  Unfortunately for the US, Iraq has also failed to become a compliant “ally” and serve American interests in the region.  Quite understandably, the Iraqis refused to continue granting the American forces immunity from Iraqi law and prosecution, which with the war officially ended would go a long way to marking the American military as an occupying force.  Predictably, Obama took credit for removing our troops, though he actually had no say in the matter, and the Republicans, seemingly unaware of the meaning of “national sovereignty,” complained that we were leaving without having finished the job.

It is not even clear if Iraq can succeed as a country, whatever the nature of its government.  The Kurdish north is already on the brink of becoming a separate state and is increasingly under the influence of Turkey.  Iraqi Sunnis are somewhat less than enthusiastic about the Shiite dominated government and its ties to Iran, and Sunni insurgent activity threatens to turn into an outright civil war, especially if the government proves unable to alleviate the miserable conditions in which most Iraqis live.  Being a province carved by the Ottomans out of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious area is hardly a strong foundation for a nation state.

And for all our blood and treasure and newly enhanced imperial reputation?  Iraq, once a bulwark against Iran (remember Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam?) is already falling rapidly under Iranian influence.  Only two states in the region have refused to go along with the Arab League and condemn the bloody Syrian government: Iran and Iraq.  Under the guise of a program of reconciliation Baghdad is even releasing prisoners accused or convicted of murdering Americans, and as the economic frosting on this ineptly baked cake, it is primarily non-American companies that are signing up to exploit Iraqi resources, should that ever be possible.  Few outside Washington would consider this a successful foreign policy outcome.

Meanwhile, American diplomatic personnel will be hiding out in the biggest and most heavily fortified embassy on the planet, a target so protected that even American journalists are not allowed to see it.  Bereft of troops, we will be hiring 5000 mercenaries to protect these people, further enhancing our wonderful image in the region.  We get to look like an imperial power without enjoying any of the benefits associated with such a status.

On the other hand, this ill-advised and ineptly conducted war of aggression appears almost sensible compared to our current hemorrhaging of lives and money for an unbelievably corrupt and ineffective government of an area that is even less of a country than the one time Turkish province: Afghanistan.

Hegemonic Folly: Defense Spending

With the predictable failure of the of the budget super-committee comes the blunt ax of sequestration, which is likely the only time the military budget will ever be threatened with cuts.  Such will never happen, of course, but the cries of putting our national security at risk are already flying, mostly from Republicans, but also from Democrats, since no politician wants to be accused of being soft on defense.  The military has naturally also chimed in, and who is a more impartial judge of the nation’s security needs?

Some figures on just how big our military is.  In 2010 we spent $687 to $698 billion (an exact total is not available to mere mortals) on the military, which is more than the next 17 nations combined and about 43% of the total world expenditure.  The next largest budget, that of China, is 7.3% of the world total.  Our expenditure was in 2009 4.7% of GNP; only five countries – Saudi Arabia, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Eretria – exceed that and for obvious reasons.  Only the UAE, with a population of only 8 million, exceeds us in per capita spending; in 2009 our military cost every man, woman and child in America $2141.  One specific and particularly relevant example: though our battle fleet has indeed shrunk in the last 20 years, it is still larger than the next 13 navies combined – and 11 of those are our allies.

The stated justification for this mammoth spending on arms are all the threats to our national security, but apart from sundry individuals, who are hardly any threat to the nation (see the article The Terrorist Nuisance), exactly who poses a serious threat to our motherland?  Only an advanced nuclear power could possible threaten our shores, and there are only two who are not our allies, Russia and China, and neither is likely to attack the US in the face of total devastation.  The truly dangerous nuclear states, North Korea, Pakistan, Israel and perhaps Iran, may threaten their neighbors, but for the foreseeable future they simply cannot deliver warheads to North America.

Of course a regional power could threaten to disrupt our supply of resources, but there is really only one that is absolutely vital to our welfare, oil, and it is hard to image that even Iran, unless pushed to the brink, could possibly be stupid enough to launch a war in the Gulf.  Rolling in money, the Gulf   states are already armed to the teeth with modern weaponry, and given the rapidly declining need of large ground forces to repel an invasion, how many carrier groups would it take to smash Iran?  A nuclear equipped Iran is a different story, but the real powers in that country, the Supreme Council and the Revolutionary Guard, have, unlike Ahmadinejad, not demonstrated the complete irrationality necessary to contemplate an action that would bring absolutely no benefit to Iran and lead to massive retaliation from virtually all the developed nations dependent on Gulf oil.

We want to protect our friends, but how many of them need protecting?
Europe? Japan? Canada? Australia? Mexico?  The Philippines do not want us there any more and are making their own arrangements with the other offshore Asian powers. Taiwan and China are forging more and more economic ties, and China’s economic relationship with the US makes it increasingly unlikely she will do anything that would seriously offend her most important market. China is seeking to increase her influence in Southeast Asia, but the only thing that threatens is American influence in the area.  Possessing nuclear weapons and the most powerful military (after Turkey?) in the region, Israel hardly needs American help, and given her behavior, one wonders how much of a friend she would be were it not for her seeming stranglehold on American politicians.  The one serious friend who is actually threatened is South Korea, and while an invasion from the north would result in immediate and extensive casualties, North Korea could be rapidly and utterly defeated by the South Koreans and minimal US forces.  And if the military is the real power in Pyongyang, would they sacrifice themselves for nothing?  Further, China, which ultimately controls the food and energy supply of her socialist ally, has absolutely no desire to see even temporary chaos in the Korean peninsula. They also can hardly be enthusiastic about the emergence of a seriously nuclear North Korea, since that could bring on the nightmare of a nuclear South Korea and Japan.

Not many military leaders, especially those who are quasi-political, have ever supported cutting their budget and reducing their forces, the major reason why threat assessments emanating from the Pentagon must be consumed with a boulder of salt.  For American politicians, who are achieving unheard of levels of self-serving behavior, reducing the military is virtually unthinkable, since they would suffer the wrath of sundry powerful lobbies and blocs of ignorant voters whipped up by their opponents.  After 60 years of having the most powerful military in the world and 20 years of virtual hegemony around the planet many Americans see any cut back in “defense” as a sign of surrender and decline.

We are no longer in the nineteenth or early twentieth century, and not only territorial but also military-based hegemonic empires are obsolete.  Gunboat diplomacy only works when the threat of military intervention is real, and although world opinion and international law did not stop the US in places like Grenada, Panama and Iraq, it is clear that military operations of any scale are incredibly expensive and self-defeating in the long run.  And against the backdrop of American arrogance, disregard for international law, increasing violation of other nations’ sovereignty and traditional inclination towards violence rather than diplomacy, our 13 carrier groups certainly appear to be the twenty-first century equivalent of gunboats.

Finally, not only is large-scale warfare rapidly becoming prohibitively expensive but with the emergence of a globalized economy it has also become counterproductive for the developed nations. Whatever their rhetoric or ideologies, they are all now inextricably bound together in a world capitalist web in which the economic misfortunes of one will inevitably affect the others.  At least in the industrialized world less and less does national security depend on huge military establishments and more and more on sound economies, which are ill-served by wasting treasure on weapons systems with no opponents and wars resulting in nothing but dead human beings.  Large scale violence must only be contemplated when there truly is no alternative, and given the increasing interconnectedness of the planet, there will almost always be an better alternative.

Then again, it is cool to be the baddest dude on the earth,  even though that might be at the expense of everything else.  Ask the Spartans how that worked out.

Ironies from Israel #2: die Fahne hoch!

On June 6, 1982, responding to the assassination of their ambassador, 60,000 Israeli troops poured into Lebanon in an effort to end Palestinian raids into northern Israel. Israel had invaded before in 1978, driving up to the Litani River with the help of its client army, the Christian South Lebanon Army, but on this occasion the IDF marched all the way to Beirut, precipitating a general conflict between Christian and Muslim forces inLebanon.  Their major ally in this incursion was the Phalange, a virulently anti-communist and anti-Palestinian Maronite Christian militia that had played a major role in the country since the days of the French mandate.  Under pressure from Israel Bashir Jumayyil, son of the founder of the Phalange, was elected president of Lebanon, and after his assassination Israeli support went to his brother Amin, who replaced him.  During the IDF occupation of Beirut the Phalange, with the complicity of Israeli forces, massacred hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.

Israel’s best friend in Lebanon, the Phalange was organized in 1936 by Pierre Jumayyil, who modeled it after another paramilitary organization that had seriously impressed him: the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA or Brownshirts).

Condensed Republican Policy Guide

Economy

1. A graduated income tax is socialism.

2. Any government mandated distribution of wealth is socialism.

3. Specifically taxing the wealthy is class warfare.

4. Any wealthy person, even a market speculator, is a “job creator.”

5. Poverty is always the result of individual character failure.

6. The free market always works in our best interests.

Government 

1. Any government regulation is inherently bad, unless it is aimed at labor unions, recreational drugs or reproduction.

2. Any government plan to supply medical care is socialism, unless the care is for veterans.

3. The only valid function of government is to support a strong military and security apparatus.

4. Our constitutional rights are given to us by God.

National Security

 1. The most important element of national security is the military.

2. The defense of freedom requires giving up some freedoms.

3. Leaking any classified information, no matter how important it is for the people to know and no matter how old it is, is treason.

4. The military knows best what resources it should have.

5. The free press is inherently a threat to national security.

6. Islam is inherently a threat to national security.

7. Allowing any authority besides the military and intelligence agencies to deal with foreign and domestic enemies is inherently a  threat to national security.

Foreign Policy

 1. America is qualitatively different from and consequently better than other industrial democracies.

2. America has the right to violate the sovereignty of any other country if it feels threatened.

3. Other countries have no right to violate the sovereignty of America for any reason.

4. America has absolutely no obligation to observe international law or conventions.

5. Our only important and faithful ally isIsrael.

6. American foreign policy in the Middle East is what Israel says it is.

7. Canada is a part of the United States filled with foreigners.

Energy and Environment

 1. America’s best energy plan is to produce more oil and coal.

2. Renewable energy is inherently a threat to national security and probably socialist.

3. The natural environment is to be mastered for the benefit of the economy.

4. Hunting is the natural relationship between humans and animals.

5. God gave Christians the world to use.

6. Global warming, if it even exists, is a natural cyclical phenomenon.

Society

 1. Medical care need not be available to the average citizen to be considered “excellent.”

2. Failure is always the result of individual character defects.

3. Citizens should be permitted to practice any non-Christian false religion they wish to.

4. Catholicism may not be a Christian religion.

5. Mormonism is not a Christian religion.

6. The only valid purpose of science is to provide new technology.

7. Evolution is only a theory, unlike Genesis.

8. Sex education is inherently a threat to national security.

9. Fertilized eggs and corporations are “persons.”

Patriotism

1. A patriot may be identified by his flag lapel pin.

2. Criticizing any military action is unpatriotic and dishonors the military personnel involved.

3. A veteran, no matter how decorated, dishonors himself and his country if he criticizes the war in which he fought.

4. Criticizing the government during wartime, that is, whenever we are being threatened, is unpatriotic and inherently a threat to national security.

5. Any protestor is a “hippie,” unless it is a conservative cause.

6. Believing “My country right or wrong” is unpatriotic since our country is never wrong.

7. Democrats are unpatriotic and inherently a threat to national security.

Ironies from Israel #1: Archaeological Hypocrisy

Israel
is about to erect a building on the site of the historically renowned Mamilla
Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem.  84 leading archeologists, including Raphael
Greenberg of Tel Aviv
University, have protested this
plan, citing international rules as well as Israeli laws that were violated
during initial excavations.  They
maintain that the Simon Wiesenthal
Center knew the site was full of
thousands of human remains and consequently hurried the excavations and that
the Israeli Antiquities Authority knowingly misrepresented the extent of the
remains.  The Wiesenthal
Center meanwhile demands that
Jewish cemeteries around the world be respected.  As yet there has been no response from the
Israeli authorities.

The building to be erected on the
site: the Museum of Tolerance.

Stuff From Way Back # 6: Jesus And the Gods

The Judaic roots
of Christianity are universally recognized: the idea of the one personal
creator god who is the embodiment of the Good.
But there is the other important facet of Christianity, the concept of
the dying and resurrected god, and that ironically comes straight out of Greek
polytheism.

The inherited religion of the Greek
Archaic Age (c.750-479 BC) was that embodied in the works of Homer and Hesiod,
the world of the Olympic gods.  These
deities were perfectly anthropomorphic, differing from their mortal worshippers
in only two respects: they did not die and they wielded immense power.  Otherwise, they were perfectly human,
manifesting all the flaws and foibles of humanity and thus singularly
ill-equipped to serve as ethical role models for Greek society.  As a result, the Greeks possessed a religion
that allowed them the leeway to discover rationalism and humanism and thus
ultimately marginalize their belief system, at least for some.

The seventh and sixth
centuries were tough times for the average Greek, and men who find no justice
on earth inevitably look to heaven. But the inherited Olympic faith, primarily
a communal or civic religion, was devoid of any real inspirational quality, any
serious spiritual element that allowed the troubled suppliant to find emotional
solace. Zeus was essentially not concerned with the equitable dispensation of
justice, and as an evolving society attempted unconsciously to moralize the
Olympians, grim times only produced a grim vision of a supernatural world filled
with threats.  But men require some hope,
and as the years rolled by, these same needs and desires stirred the
development of an alternative religious form, the mystery cult.

Elements of these cults
appear to go back to prehistory, but it was the pressures of the Archaic Age
and the discovery of the individual that fostered their growth.  The cults varied in their content, but they
shared certain characteristics and all of them provided the worshipper an
intense and personal emotional experience generally missing from the civic
religion.  They focused on a single or
small group of gods, offering a more intimate involvement, and the participant
would undergo some sort of initiation (telein or myein, hence
“mystery”), which would ultimately lead him to the central mysteries of the
cult, in theory unknown to outsiders.  As
the continued popularity of fraternal organizations and secret societies
demonstrates, initiation and secrecy, which create special bonds and a sense of
elevated status for the group, are always a good draw.

The cults also revolved
around sex and most importantly the issue of death, the fear of which the cult
hoped to dispel with its rites.  The cult
of Dionysus (or Bacchus) offered temporary release from pain and suffering
through ecstatic possession, but the other important Greek mysteries, the
Eleusinian, Orphic and the later Hellenistic cult of Isis and Serapis,
possessed as central figures gods who died and were resurrected, either
literally or metaphorically, thus confronting the initiate with the terror of
death and the hope of rebirth.  It
appears that at first the cults thought in terms of a rebirth in this world,
that is, entering into a better life, but there is evidence that by the end of
the fifth century reward in the next life was expected.  Some sort of judgment based on the
individual’s behavior was involved, an element generally missing from the
everyone-goes-there underworlds of the Olympic and pre-classical religions.

In the constantly changing
and anxiety-filled world of post-Alexander Greece
the mystery cults grew in popularity, partly because of their salvationist
inclinations and partly because the old civic religion was so closely tied to
the declining polis (“city-state”) society.  In the new Greek-dominated eastern Mediterranean,
the cosmopolis (“world polis”), Hellenic culture, including its
religious forms, rubbed shoulders with non-Greek ideas, including the ancient
religious practices of the Hebrews.  This
sometimes led to friction and violence, such as the Maccabbean revolt, but in
the end produced a sort of hybrid religion, Christianity.  The idea of the dying and resurrected god, so
critical to Christianity, had played no important role in the Near Eastern
religious traditions, and while the new faith may have developed a fresh
understanding of death and rebirth, one linked to the rigorous moral code of
Judaism, the notion of the suffering god appears nevertheless to come straight
out of the Greek experience.

Hypocritically We Stand: UNESCO, Palestine and America

Once again Israel’s
iron grip on American foreign policy in the Middle East
has been vividly demonstrated, and once again the United
States has humiliated itself in the eyes of
the world.

On October 31 UNESCO, the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, voted overwhelmingly
to grant Palestine full membership
in the organization.  Of the 173 nations
voting 107 voted in favor, 14 voted against and 52 abstained.  Among those voting against the resolution
were the United States,
Canada, Germany
and Holland, while Italy
and Britain
abstained.  David Killion the US
ambassador to UNESCO, called the initiative “counterproductive” and
certain to “harm negotiations,” though he did not explain how.  The apparently aptly named Israeli ambassador,
Nimrod Barkan, called the vote a tragedy, also neglecting to explain why that
is so.

Israel’s
loudest voice in the US Congress, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, demanded
immediately that the government honor two petty and now obsolete laws passed in
the nineties and cut off the US
contribution to UNESCO.  As a result
UNESCO has now lost 22% of its $653 million budget.  Ros-Lehtinen, incidentally, has over her
career received $203,240 from pro-Israeli PACS.
It is apparently not just Wall Street that has been buying American
politicians.

While there are many legitimate
reasons to criticize the UN, since the major reforms of UNESCO in the last
decade the agency has received only praise for its work around the world.  Even former Rep. Tom Lantos, another staunch defender
of Israel and a
Holocaust survivor, spoke highly of the organization.  The recent reforms seem to have eliminated
the waste and corruption and transformed the agency from a sometime anti-American
platform to an arm of the UN that is actually focused on its mandated duties.  These include decades of cooperation with the
Palestinians building the cultural and educational infrastructure in the Occupied
Territories and attempting to
protect historically and culturally important sites around the planet.  Ironically, UNESCO has been working with the US
in developing Afghanistan,
particularly in the area of education.

In 1984 President Reagan took the US
out of UNESCO because of concerns that the organization was a mouthpiece for
the communists, but President Bush rejoined it in 2003, a demonstration of the
impact of the reforms.  Israel, on the
other hand, was booted out of the agency in 1974 for the damage being done in
its excavations on the
Temple Mount, but was reinstated in 1977 when the US threatened to withhold $40
billion in contributions.  In 2010 UNESCO
complaints about the Israeli destruction of Palestinian historical sites caused
Israel to
suspend cooperation with the organization, the Israeli foreign minister suggesting that the complaints were
part of a Palestinian scheme to discredit Israel.

Solely because of domestic political
concerns – criticize Israel
and you do not get reelected – the US
relationship with Israel
has become the “passionate attachment” that George Washington warned
against in his Farewell Address.  Continuing
and unqualified support for the Jewish state despite their increasingly
outrageous behavior and the violation of every international covenant we have signed
has seriously tarnished America’s image not just in the Arab world but around
the globe and marked us as the hypocrites that we have become.  As an example, we maintain that for some
unexplained reasons Palestine being a member of UNESCO would hinder the peace negotiations
(that have achieved nothing in the last twenty years), yet we say little and do
absolutely nothing about Israel’s continued construction of settlements in conquered
territory, a clear violation of international law and a recognized and real hindrance
to negotiations.  Even Germany,
whose relations with Israel
are for obvious reasons very delicate, is considering holding up the sale of
submarines to Israel
because of their plan to build more settlements in Arab Jerusalem.

Ironically, our credibility has
suffered even more under President Obama, whose election brought the
expectation of an at least somewhat more balanced policy in the region.  He is probably sympathetic to the plight of
the Palestinians and certainly despises Prime Minister Netanyahu, but he of
course desires to be reelected and for all his beautiful speeches he has done absolutely
nothing and has silently suffered constant insults from our “ally.”  Well, in this instance he can claim his hands
were tied by laws passed by the Congress, but not too loudly.

I am mightily ashamed of my country,
as are many caring Israelis about theirs.

Pssst! Wanna Know a Secret?

Secrecy has been a facet of
government and international affairs since government and international affairs
were invented.  Sumerian diplomats were
already negotiating secret treaties in the early third millennium B.C., hard on
the heels of the birth of civilization itself.
The classical Greeks sent coded messages, and the Roman Senate
occasionally met in closed session to keep sensitive information from the
public.  None of this is surprising.  Any state, from ancient Ur to modern America, can be expected to seize whatever advantage it
believes inherent in keeping secret from other states certain military and
diplomatic information.  In war and peace
the side that knows more, particularly more about the other guy, has a distinct
advantage.

And so it remained for almost five thousand years –
secrecy as a basic military and diplomatic weapon – and the uses and extent of
government secrecy at the end of the nineteenth century had not changed
appreciably since the days of the pharaohs.
The twentieth century, however, witnessed an emergence from this
stagnation, and the uses of secrecy – or classification, as it is now called –
have multiplied dramatically.  Not only
have the old hallowed grounds of classification been expanded, but upon the
traditional foundation of national security entire new edifices of secrecy have
been erected.  And in the vanguard of
these developments is the United States, ironically a country known for its freedom of
expression.

The age-old goal of keeping  military
codes,  operational plans  and
force  dispositions secret is  still
important,  though altered somewhat
by technological developments.   Codes
and plans can  be secured,  if a careful eye is kept out for  clever
teen-agers  with  personal
computers,  but the  advent  of
satellite reconnaissance
allows  a  state
to keep  the  location
of  its military  forces secret only from its own
citizens.  As a kind of compensation for
this loss,  though, the requirements of
military secrecy  have  expanded to cover the technology  and
even the basic research  behind
the tools of the military.  Business,
already concerned about keeping its own proprietary information secret, has
responded enthusiastically, and increasingly contracts with the government contain
“commercial-in-confidence” clauses, rendering the entire transaction
opaque to the public.  This preserves the
technological secrets from competitors and enemies, but of course it also
allows industry and government to hide any malfeasance or incompetence.  And such secrecy is hardly good for overall
progress, since the scientific community depends upon the free flow of information
to function properly.  One ironic result
of this passion for technological secrecy is the occasional reluctance to actually
use advanced weaponry out of fear of revealing secrets.  America, for example, refused to use its cruise missiles
against a Libyan chemical plant in 1986, fearing that one might fall unexploded
into enemy hands.  One is reminded of
British and German reluctance in WW I to send out their incredibly expensive
fleets because they might lose ships.

But all these developments are a logical extension of the
ancient desire to keep certain information out of foreign hands.  It is in the relatively modern arena of
keeping information out of the hands of ones own citizens that the United States in particular has demonstrated considerable
innovation.  What might be called
“political” secrecy is as old as kingship, but its use by the
American government and military has made it as much a part of the political
system as patronage and reelection.  To
elected officials and the bureaucracy classification is a sort of Holy Grail,
absolving all who use it of the political sin of responsibility.  Who can discover your mistakes and
malfeasance when what you do is classified secret?  Who can impugn your motives when your refusal
to discuss certain affairs is based on the pure patriotic grounds of national
security?  In 1983 12 year old Todd
Patterson discovered he was being watched by the FBI for writing to foreign
missions; learning that the activity was innocent, the agency agreed to close
the file.  They did not, and in 1987
Patterson finally obtained  a copy  of
his  FBI file, only to discover it
was censored to the point of illegibility.
The explanation given with a straight face by the FBI: national
security.

In the last several decades classification, which had
formerly been an essentially passive device, covering incompetence and outright
criminality (still a vital function in the defense industry), has evolved into
a generally accepted active political weapon.
National security based secrecy can now be used to further private
political agendas; not even the Congress knew the content of most of the National
Security Directives emanating from the Reagan White House.  Or consider a twist by the Bush
administration: reluctant to reveal the identities of the business leaders he
was making deals with, VP Cheney refused to release the visitors logs, claiming
that that these alleged advisors could not “speak freely” unless
anonymous, an argument commonly used to close meetings to the public.  Further, a careful program of classifying and
leaking can also be used to attack other branches of government and the media and
as a bonus, justify further secrecy.  These
tactics were clearly in play when the Bush White House outed CIA agent Valerie
Plame in order to embarrass her and her husband.  And remember back to Oliver North, who showed
us all how secrecy can be used to protect you even after you have been caught
blatantly violating the law. 

Those in power may well have the interests of the
American people at least partially in view, however.  At least I can see no purpose other than
public entertainment in the relatively recent emergence of what might be
labeled “comic” secrecy.  An
early example of this was evident in the Iran-Contra hearings, when the
participants insisted on referring to the states involved as Countries A, B, C,
etc., despite the fact that every human being watching knew their true
identities.  Or an early shuttle launch,
the utterly secret payload of which was being described in detail on television
before it was even in orbit.  And of
course there is the first Stealth aircraft, an especially good instance of
“comic” secrecy; while the government and  military were denying the very existence of
the plane, kids were building fairly accurate models of it.  The cost of the Stealth program was classified,  probably because if the Soviets knew how  much each plane cost, they would have realized
they had nothing to fear.  Even now the
military is withholding information on events and projects, some of them a half
century old, that are already known to the public and/or involve now obsolete
technology.  It’s like a sickness.

WikiLeaks has certainly underscored just how seriously
those in authority take their secrecy.  No
vital information was revealed, no lives were lost and America’s interests were not materially harmed, but Julian Assange
is viewed as the greatest threat to our security since the Japanese.  Actually, what was harmed was our diplomatic
face, when all the nasty and petty things said in private were revealed,
embarrassing important people everywhere, even though every diplomat knows such
remarks are constantly being made.  And
big business, ever an enthusiastic partner in creating greater opaqueness, is
doing its part, as Amazon, Bank of America, PayPal and others severed all ties
with WikiLeaks.

Well, we in Americahave certainly come a long way since the days of the Founding
Fathers, when almost all government business was rather foolishly conducted in
full public view, thus endangering our national security.  Would we have had to fight all  those invading British troops if the
Declaration of Independence had been properly classified?  Would Nathan Hale have had to regret that he
had only one life to give to his country if his country had provided him with plausible
deniability?  Could we have been spared two
hundred years of social turmoil and the weakening of our security if the Bill
of Rights had been available only on a “need to know” basis?

America has made great strides in the past decades, but the
road to national security is a long one.
If this great nation is to remain strong and free, we must be ever
vigilant, for inAmerica the price of freedom is secret.

 

 

 

 

Outburst #1: Abuse of English

Occasionally
I must scream.

 

Those of us who treasure our
language have become accustomed to its abuse – mismatched pronouns, nouns used
as verbs, confusion of adverbs and adjectives, etc. – increasingly even by
“educated” people.  But the two
following examples are driving me up the wall.
Otherwise articulate people in the media and semi-articulate people in
politics are using these mis-definitions seemingly because they heard someone
else do it.

 

“existential”  This word does NOT mean “relating to
existing,” as in “an existential threat to Israel.”  It is a philosophical term dealing with human
existence, logic and such concerns. “An existential threat to Israel”
does not mean a threat to Israel’s
existence but rather something about the meaning of Israel’s
being.

 

“begs
the question”  This does NOT
mean something suggests another question to be considered, but rather it means
the statement is a logical fallacy in which a premise or assumption is employed
to demonstrate its own truth, a type of petitio principii.

 

OK, enough of this.  Please proceed to the next post about Hannibal’s
last years.

 

 

Stuff from Way Back #5: Hannibal: The Sunset Years

"Die, Roman scum!"

Most everyone has heard of Hannibal Barca and his
exploits against the Romans during the Second Punic War (218-201 BC).  Undefeated in Italy, he fought his last engagement in 202 at Zama in
North Africa, where P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus gained the distinction
of being the only man to defeat him in battle.
Not quite.  There was also Eudamus
the Rhodian.

By the terms of the peace treaty that was signed in 201 Carthage was stripped of her possessions and reduced to being a
Roman client, her independence and political importance at an end.  Her commercial activities certainly did not
cease and she was able to pay her annual war
indemnity to Rome, but a corrupt and oppressive oligarchic government
began to exploit the people, who at last turned to Hannibal.  In 196 he was
chosen suffete, one of the two annually elected chief magistrates of the
Carthaginian republic.  Under his
leadership the popular assembly broke the back of oligarchic power, and Hannibal attended to the finances of the state, so improving matters
that in 191 Carthage offered to pay off the remaining forty years of
reparation payments in one lump sum.

Loved by the people, Hannibal nevertheless had in the dispossessed oligarchs a block
of powerful enemies, who in turn had influential friends in Rome.  Prominent among
these friends was M. Porcius Cato, a rival of Scipio and a man soon to be consumed
with an almost hysterical fear and loathing of Carthage.  Acting on
behalf of the anti-Barcid oligarchs, Cato claimed that Hannibal was conspiring with the Seleucid king Antiochus  III, with whom Rome was gradually sliding towards war.  In 195 a commission was sent to Carthage to complain, and Hannibal, suspecting what the outcome would be, fled east to Tyre, the mother city of Carthage.  He then moved on
to Antioch, the Seleucid capital, and thence to Ephesus, where he found the king.  A frightened Carthaginian government
meanwhile formally exiled him.

The arrival of Rome’s worst nightmare at the Seleucid court only worsened
the deteriorating situation in the east, and in 192 the Aetolians captured the
key port of Demetrias and convinced Antiochus to strike now by sending an
army to the Balkan peninsula.  Hannibal is said to have urged the king to give him ten thousand
infantry and one thousand cavalry, with which he would stir up Carthage and then invade Italy.  But it is difficult
to believe that Hannibal could possibly imagine assaulting Italy with such a meager force, and more likely he suggested
simply that an attempt be made to arouse Carthage, a plan that would fit better with Antiochus’ apparent more
limited goal of asserting his equality as a Mediterranean power by rebuffing Rome in the Balkans.
These limited war aims, potential jealousy and discontent among the his
generals and the reluctance of Greek troops to serve under a “barbarian”
probably explain why Antiochus made such little use of the great captain.  In fact, Hannibal’s sole command in the war was a naval squadron.

When Antiochus was booted out of Greece in 191, the naval war heated up, and later in the year
the king sent Hannibal to Phoenicia to collect reinforcements for the main Seleucid fleet
at Ephesus.  It is hard to
avoid the impression that Hannibal
was sent simply to give him something to do, and the king probably did not
expect that Hannibal would actually be fighting a naval engagement on his
own.  But in the summer of the following
year as he was bringing his ships north, he ran into a Rhodian squadron sent to
block him off Side on the Anatolian shore.
Hannibal formed a line perpendicular to the shore and awaited the
Rhodian attack.

The Rhodian force was inferior in numbers, but the skill
of Rhodian sailors was legendary, while the Phoenician crews were unused to the
heavier warships Antiochus had ordered built after his taste of Roman boarding
tactics the previous year.  Actually, as
the battle opened, the Rhodian admiral, Eudamus, hardly displayed great
skill.   Because of a poor deployment and resulting
confusion, he found  himself engaging the
enemy left, commanded by Hannibal,
with only five ships.  But the Rhodians
quickly sorted themselves out, and superior seamanship began to tell as Rhodian
ramming tactics punched hole after hole in the Seleucid line.  Hannibal’s right and center were soon in serious trouble, and
ships from the victorious Rhodian left were able to speed to the rescue of
Eudamus.  With the battle now clearly
lost, Hannibal began to retire and was followed by the rest of his
fleet, more than half his ships having
been disabled.

Hannibal had been defeated in a serious engagement for only the
second time in his life. The battle of Side was a relatively small-scale affair,
but it did prevent the linkup of the two Seleucid fleets, and control of the
sea was decisively lost a month later at the battle of Myonnesus.  The war ended in early 189 with
Antiochus’  defeat at Magnesia in Asia Minor, at which battle Hannibal
does not seem to have been present, probably for the reasons mentioned earlier
and perhaps because Antiochus was overconfident.  The peace settlement included a demand for
the surrender of the Carthaginian, but the Romans, probably influenced by
Scipio Africanus, who was with the Roman delegation, took no real action.  Hannibal escaped first to Gortyn on Crete
and then on to King Artaxias I of Armenia.

The last stage of Hannibal’s military career took place under King Prusias I of Bithynia on the Black
Sea coast.  Sometime around 186 Prusias began a war with
his major Anatolian rival and loyal client of Rome, Eumenes II of Pergamum, but all that survives of this war is a naval
anecdote.  Pressed by a numerically
superior Pergamene fleet, Hannibal
defeated them by hurling aboard the enemy ships pots filled with poisonous
snakes, causing panic among the crews. The war became a stalemate, and both
kings appealed to Rome, which in 183 sent T. Quinctius Flamininus to settle
the war.

Whether on instructions from the Senate or his own
initiative, Flamininus demanded from Prusias the surrender of Hannibal.  Seeking to
avoid violating at least the letter of the law of hospitality, Prusias left it
to the Romans to capture the Carthaginian themselves, and they surrounded his
house with troops.  Discovering that
every exit was guarded, Hannibal
committed suicide by taking poison.  At
the end, according to Livy and Plutarch, he proclaimed “Let us relieve the
Roman people of their long anxiety, since they find it tedious to wait for the
death of an old man.”

One of the greatest captains in history was dead,
needlessly, at the age of sixty-three. Ironically, his old rival Scipio
Africanus died in the same year, himself an exile from his mother city.  And thirty-seven years later Carthage would follow its most famous son into extinction, also
at the hands of Rome.