Beware The Rubicon

Caption: U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, left, talks with a Czech soldier, right, during his visit to Forward Operating Base Shank, Afghanistan, Aug. 21, 2009. McChrystal is the commander of International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces Afghanistan. (DoD photo by Spc. Matthew Thompson, U.S. Army/Released)

Image credit: Spc. Matthew Thompson, U.S. Army

It's well past quitting time in Washington, DC, and it appears that General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. Army commander in Afghanistan, still has his job. This cannot be a good thing, even for Stanley McChrystal.

For those who aren't up on this story, Rolling Stone magazine published an article on McChrystal that included a number of quotes from McChrystal and anonymous aides, that in one way or another disparage President Obama's handling of the war in Afghanistan. In his response to the article, Gen. McChrystal did not indicate that he had been misquoted.

Reportedly, Gen. McChrystal has offered to resign, and President Obama is considering whether to accept.

This is a serious thing. It is what President Harry Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur as commander of U.N. forces in Korea during the Korean War. Publicly criticizing one's commander is insubordination, which is a court martial offense in the military. As former Army Colonel Patrick Lang explained today:

Our tradition is designed to prevent the emergence of "Caesarism" as a method of picking leaders or determining basic national policy. To maintain that principle Macarthur was fired on the advice of George Marshall. What McChrystal has done is to challenge President Obama. Everyone in the armed forces knows that. The notion has emerged in the COIN community that Obama is weak and can be bullied into removing the time restriction that he has placed on the Afghanistan COIN campaign plan that he adopted at their urging last year. Macarthur implicitly threatened both Roosevelt and Truman with the possibility that he would mobilize Republican politicos against them. The COIN crowd think that the same method can be used against this president. They have been willing to bet that he is no Truman and that Gates and Clinton do not have Marshall's strength. The effrontery of the deed in feeding this reporter all this material without placing it off the record is clearly a challenge to civilian control of policy.

See the McChrystal post on 30 May, 2010

I added that link on "Ceasarism", since it's possible that not everyone understands the implication of that term. "COIN", incidentally, is a shortening of "counterinsurgency", the sort of military campaign we're waging in Afghanistan. McChrystal is supposed to be an expert at it. The article that post's title refers to provides an example of McChrystal attempting to influence policy through the press, a dubious practice, also. Iraq War veteran and Vote Vets blogger Jon Soltz wrote:

The open disdain and personal ridicule of the President and his advisors by General Stanley McChrystal and his subordinates in the new issue of Rolling Stone leaves only two acceptable options: Either General McChrystal resigns or is fired.

If he has any honor, he'll step down.

I know something about this. In 2006, I worked with two Generals, appearing in national television ads critical of President Bush and his strategy in Iraq. Or, should I say, retired Generals. Major Generals Paul D. Eaton and John Batiste each made the painful decision to leave the military they loved, so they could speak out. To that point, they had held their tongues.

Why?

Because the order and efficacy of our Armed Forces falls apart without respect for the chain of command. Whether it's a grunt respecting his company commander, or a General respecting the Commander in Chief, every single thing is predicated on the integrity of the chain of command. As soon as someone - especially someone as high up as General McChrystal - violates that respect, every single person under him begins to not only question the orders they've been given from above, but is given the signal that it's OK to openly disagree or mock his or her superior.

McChrystal Must Resign - or Be Fired

Being part of the United States military means that certain freedoms that most of us have, like speaking out or quitting when our bosses do something unethical or just plain stupid, is not always an option. There are acceptable ways of disagreeing with a decision, and it's usually OK for generals to resign if they're not in the middle of a battle or some other emergency. What is not OK is loudly and repeatedly criticizing one's commander in public.

I think it's unlikely you'll find many former U.S. military officers who agree with letting McChrystal stay on.

This could also be a problem for Gen. McChrystal, should he be kept on. He will not have the trust of his bosses, and has openly disparaged some of them. Will the President and his advisers trust McChrystal's advice or warnings in the future? That is something you don't need to be in the military to see how it could work out. That McChrystal is in the military, it seems to me, just makes the working relationship that much harder to maintain.

If President Obama lets this stand, which it appears to me he will, he will have set yet another dreadful precedent for official lawlessness. In addition, his position with the military will be weakened - they will be less likely to respect him than they do now. That cannot be a good thing. And Lang's warning about Ceasarism was not an idle one - what keeps the military under civilian authority is tradition and respect for the chain of command. If Obama ignores that, there is a real danger that this will be the first of many insubordinate acts by general officers. As Ceasar and many later generals since have demonstrated, that cannot be a good thing.

(h/t Taylor Marsh for a couple of those links.)

Afterword: Due to my past employment in the defense industry, I'm often reluctant to discuss issues related to the military. This is one of those times. There is a real danger here, though, both to the military and our form of government.

I have never met Gen. McChrystal, nor do I recall any discussions about him with former colleagues, so I have only the public record of his actions as a guide.

I should probably also explicitly point out that I've never been in the military, so I cannot be considered an expert on things like military law or discipline. That's one of the reasons I looked for those quotes. Thanks to my background, I just know what to look for.

Sunday Photo(s)

It's been a typical Northwest spring, which means you never know when you're going to see the sun. Just because it's May doesn't mean you can't go sailing on Lake Washington, as this guy was doing off Waverly Park:
Image credit: Cujo359

That was in mid-May, and the temperatures were in the seventies. I was sorry I hadn't brought my swimming trunks.

On the other hand, in mid-June it can still look like this, as it did at the Burien Strawberry Festival yesterday:

Image credit: Cujo359

This is two days before summer, and it's as chilly as it looks. I don't think we got above 60 degrees.

Krugman On Austerity

I have to admire Paul Krugman's tenacity. Once again, he tries to school the insane, who in this case would be Alan Greenspan and others who lament that there's been no inflation yet despite all that money we're supposedly spending in stimulus:

You know, some people might take the fact that what’s actually happening is exactly what people like me were saying would happen — namely, that deficits in the face of a liquidity trap don’t drive up interest rates and don’t cause inflation — lends credence to the Keynesian view. But no: Greenspan KNOWS that deficits do these terrible things, and finds it “regrettable” that they aren’t actually happening.

Of course, as I've pointed out Krugman could look a lot closer to home and find an economist who won't change his beliefs when confronted with contrary facts. I sometimes wonder if there is an economist anywhere who has changed any of his fundamental assumptions about the subject since he received his PhD.

Still, suggesting that somehow the bad results he expected to see not being there is a bad thing demonstrates how tenuous Greenspan's grasp of how our economy works really is, and how unlikely he, or his successor, is to learn anything.

Krugman also offered an explanation of why the idea that economies can grow despite austerity programs is mistaken. The short version - none of the examples offered up actually are like our situation. In fact, most are nothing like it, save that a national economy was in a recession. It's worth a read, I think.

Just Be Glad You Didn't Pay To Read ...

I'm so glad I didn't buy The Economist today to read this cover story:

Mr Obama deserves to be pegged back. This newspaper supported him in 2008 and backed his disappointing-but-necessary health-care plan. But he has done little to fix the deficit, shown a zeal for big government and all too often given the impression that capitalism is something unpleasant he found on the sole of his sneaker. America desperately needs a strong opposition. So it is sad to report that the American right is in a mess: fratricidal, increasingly extreme on many issues and woefully short of ideas, let alone solutions.

This matters far beyond America’s shores. For most of the past half-century, conservative America has been a wellspring of new ideas—especially about slimming government. At a time when redesigning the state is a priority around the world, the right’s dysfunctionality is especially unfortunate.

The Republicans: What's wrong with America's right

It just gets more insane from there. The article goes on to accuse President Obama of being a "statist", whatever that means in their context, which seems to have nothing to do with what I interpret the word to mean. The one thing that Obama has proved over and over is that he doesn't want to get the government involved in anything except gross overreaches for executive power - like suspending habeas corpus for both foreigners and Americans, and killing Americans overseas for being supportive of terrorists.

The article does manage to make a cogent point here and there, but to read it you'd think the main problem was the Republicans just can't get along.

The reason Republicans are in trouble is that they keep saying insane things like this, not because they can't pick a leader or choose an agenda. Doing those things requires at least a modicum of clear thinking, which is something that few Republicans in Congress have shown any talent for.

There were quite a few comments on this article that made more sense than the article itself, including a few that were clearly written by conservatives. Why should I pay to read something that foolish? In the future, I hope that The Economist learns to not make foolishness like this the week's feature.

I'm also glad I don't have to pay to read Talking Points Memo. Josh Marshall seemed positively convinced that we just had to read this mindless screed by some Obama supporter:

In this case, it is simple. If liberals do not support Obama and the Democrats for the next two election cycles, a rabid Right will be back in control, and America will devolve further into ineffective gridlock and rising inequality. Even the gains that have been made so far, a pretty good health reform, student loan reforms, improved financial regulations, and so forth, will quickly be weakened and reversed if the Republicans regain Congress and the presidency. Liberals right now should not be joining in Obama bashing on the oil spill. They should be focused on Republican blame and hypocrisy -- and should pressure the Senate to vote for good energy legislation.

Liberals and Obama on the Oil Spill -- continued

I don't even know where to begin. Anyone who thinks that's a "pretty good health reform" needs to have her head examined. Let's just start there. Then there's the increasing obviousness of the conclusion that there is precious little difference between this Administration and the last one, and that the Democrats in Congress have not done one of the things they should have done on the economy, the wars we're still involved in, or anything else of any real consequence. They're talking about gutting Social Security and Medicare for crying out loud.

That the Republicans might do worse than this doesn't seem humanly possible. Even if it is, they're the opposition. I can take having the opposition trying to screw us. What I can't take is having no party that won't, and that's where we are.

As for not criticizing Obama about his response to the oil spill, he failed to do the most basic first step of problem solving, which is to define the problem. It took a month for him to have an independent assessment of the oil spill's magnitude done. He left BP, a company with a miserable record of safety and environmental failures, in charge of the cleanup effort long after it was clear that they were screwing it up, if not phoning it in. He has not changed his mind about continuing deepwater drilling, and has not proposed any serious means of regulating it. If Obama had done everything I could have possibly wanted in all other areas of government, I'd still have to criticize his work here. His handling of this disaster has been profoundly flawed. Not only did Obama ignore common sense in this disaster, he ignored the progressive principles many of his supporters thought they were sending him to the White House to uphold. He should be criticized, and if we refuse to do that because he might not do something else for us, we're as dishonest as the most mendacious conservative in Congress.

One of the most basic progressive principles, in my opinion, is that with power comes responsibility. When people in power screw up, it matters. That's why I criticize Democrats more than Republicans these days - because their screwups are the ones that matter. If Republicans are in power, then their screwups will matter.

Anyone who thinks otherwise isn't much of a thinker, in my opinion.

In all likelihood, the only thing these two people have in common is that they are gibbering idiots. Why does anyone take them seriously? When did up become down, and black white? Solve those riddles, and I think we'll be on the way to curing what ails us.

Meanwhile, I'm just glad I can read what they write for free.

Quote Of The Day

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism wrote this one yesterday:

In the wake of the Great Depression, it took more than a decade of experimentation to construct a new architecture. Among its tenets was the recognition that successful markets depended on tough policing, and the importance of the prosperity of the middle class, which in turn meant workers should reap their fair share of productivity gains. But the amorphous and often contradictory “free markets” ideology has conditioned policymakers and the public to view unregulated commerce as virtuous, when unconstrained markets are, in fact, a brawl. In the Anglo-Saxon world where this model has been taken the furthest, we’ve seen shallow expansions, stagnant average worker wages and rising income disparity, with very big gains at the very top. That’s a particularly difficult model to dislodge. As former International Monetary Fund chief economist Simon Johnson has pointed out, reform programmes usually fail unless some members of the oligarchy break ranks. Unfortunately, it may take an unmanageable crisis to convince them.

Death Of An Economic Paradigm

It's from an op-ed Yves wrote yesterday in Mint, which Yves describes as India's second largest business paper. Mint appears to be associated with The Wall Street Journal somehow.

As with so much that Yves has written these days, this strikes me as both true and sad. The truly sad part about this is that at least part of the oligarchy, that part that makes its money in manufacturing or other industries, should welcome better regulation of the financial industries. Yet, it appears that they either don't, or that even their interest is not enough.

The Unnatural Disaster That Is Our Federal Government

Is there anyone in Congress who doesn't have his head up his ass? Talking Points Memo provides the full text of a statement by House Minority Leader John Boehner (OH-08), Minority Whip Eric Cantor (VA-07), and Rep. Mike Pence (IN-06) on the apology that fellow Republican Joe Barton (TX-06) made, then unmade yesterday:

The oil spill in the Gulf is this nation's largest natural disaster and stopping the leak and cleaning up the region is our top priority. Congressman Barton's statements this morning were wrong. BP itself has acknowledged that responsibility for the economic damages lies with them and has offered an initial pledge of $20 billion dollars for that purpose.

The families and businesspeople in the Gulf region want leadership, accountability and action from BP and the Administration. It is unacceptable that, 59 days after this crisis began, no solution is forthcoming. Simply put, the American people want all of our resources, time and focus to be directed toward stopping the spill and cleaning up the mess.

House GOP Leadership: Barton Was 'Wrong' On BP Apology -- And Spill Is A 'Natural Disaster'

The largest natural disaster? This oil spill is many things. It's a mess. It's just one more thing that's depressing the economy. It's an effective way to destroy the fishing in the region. It is a disaster. It is not, however, a natural disaster.

Hurricanes and tornados are natural disasters. Volcanoes and earthquakes are, too. That's because they weren't caused by people. This disaster was due to the failure of a man-made device, an oil well. It was caused by the stupidity of a great many people, including our governments at both the federal and state level, and, not incidentally, BP. An oil well failing is the fault of the people who designed or built it. The failure to have in place the equipment and people to contain the oil is a failure of the management of BP and its subcontractors.

I've been rough on the Democrats recently, because the stupid things they're doing right now actually matter. That's what it means to be in power. There's a reason they're in power, though, which I explained not all that long ago. It's because next to the Republicans, they look good.

Of course, that's the only circumstance where they look good these days. When these are our choices for governance, I fear for the future of my species.

At Least He Wasn't Stroking A Cat

I think Barack Obama lost a fanboy yesterday:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
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Jon Stewart was one of the smart ones. Yet it took a year and a half, with many people out here in the "crazysphere" warning that this was happening, before he caught on. For quite some time, as Glenn Greenwald noted, the fanboys were accusing us of being in too much of a hurry to see all those progressive goodies under the tree. In reality, we just wanted Obama to accomplish less harm than good. Even on that very modest basis, his Administration has so far been a dismal failure.

I wonder how long it will be before some of the other fanboys come around.

What's with the title? Watch the video and it will become clear.

The Choice

Every presidential election, the Public Broadcasting System's Frontline program does a dual profile of the major party's candidates called "The Choice". Let's do a short version of that show for the Senate elections coming up, shall we? At least, let's look at our choice of parties who might control the Senate. Here is the Republican spokesperson, Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharon Angle, as described by Talking Points Memo:

Then there is Angle (R-NV), who campaigned on wanting to "phase Medicare and Social Security out," far from a mainstream Republican message.

GOP Shields Angle And Paul To Avoid Making Them Face Of '10

The Republicans have been backing away from this position, which is strange to me, because it wasn't all that long ago that a Republican President was saying that they should do exactly that, and getting royally slapped down for it. Here's a Senate GOP spokesperson explaining their position:

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) told Politico that Angle's Social Security privatization push is not going to be part of the GOP's platform. "I'm not sure how she's going to develop her policy positions with regard to entitlement programs at this point," he said. "She's going to have to come out and define what it is she's for, what she's against - including probably some of her statements that she's made in the past and ... how she's them applying in the current economy."

GOP Shields Angle And Paul To Avoid Making Them Face Of '10

So, the GOP seems to want to avoid talking about this issue. One might think that was a good strategy on their part.

What do the Democrats have to say? You'd think that they would be against any cuts in Social Security, wouldn't you think? Think again:

[Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-IL)] also admonished “bleeding heart liberals” to be open to program reductions to restore fiscal balance. An hour after the commission’s meeting, however, several liberal activists held a conference call with reporters to press for additional spending to create jobs, lower military spending, higher taxes for the wealthy and no cuts in Medicare or Social Security.

Obama Tells Debt Commission ‘Everything Has to Be on the Table’

Durbin's the Senate Majority Leader, which makes him the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate. The title of that New York Times article is also instructive - the President is on board with cutting Social Security or privatizing it. He's said so on multiple occasions, both during the election and afterwards.

What's that you say? Later, once he was the nominee, he pledged to protect Social Security? Yes, but he also promised not to create another Social Security Commission:

OBAMA: We’re going to have to capture some revenue in order to stabilize the Social Security system. You can’t get something for nothing. And if we care about Social Security, which I do, and if we are firm in our commitment to make sure that it’s going to be there for the next generation, and not just for our generation, then we have an obligation to figure out how to stabilize the system. I think we should be honest in presenting our ideas in terms of how we’re going to do that and not just say that we’re going to form a commission and try to solve the problem some other way.

Barack Obama on Social Security

How did that work out?

President Obama has packed the Debt Commission (also known as the cat food commission) with members who have an overwhelming history of support for both benefit cuts and privatization of Social Security.

The “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform” is operating in secret over the objections of both parties. John Boehner and John Conyers have both raised concerns that the commission will make recommendations in December that could be passed by a lame duck Congress that doesn’t have to worry about being reelected. They requested that the commission report its findings prior to the election so that the public can have a chance to factor in the recommendations into their voting decisions in the election. The commission denied the request.

Obama Packs Debt Commission With Social Security Privatization & Benefit Cut Supporters

[links from original]

William Greider adds:

In setting up his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Barack Obama is again playing coy in public, but his intentions are widely understood among Washington insiders. The president intends to offer Social Security as a sacrificial lamb to entice conservative deficit hawks into a grand bipartisan compromise in which Democrats agree to cut Social Security benefits for future retirees while Republicans accede to significant tax increases to reduce government red ink.

Whacking The Old Folks

It looks to me like cutting Social Security and Medicare is something that both parties want to do, or at least some members of each party. The difference right now seems to be that on the Democratic side, it's the leaders who are saying that's what needs to be done, with a few lesser Senators objecting. On the Republican side it's the outsiders who say such things, and the leaders are trying to keep them quiet.

I don't see any other difference here. Yet, according to that TPM article, the Democrats seem to think that they can make this into a campaign issue that works for them. In America, where the average voter seems to have no idea who or what he's voting for, that might just be possible.

It's not working for me.

UPDATE: I struck the "or privatizing it" above, because I can't find a reference to Obama actually stating he supported the idea. He has, however, said "everything should be on the table", and then denied that privatization would be on the table. Apparently, in the Obama universe of that moment, privatization wasn't part of "everything". You figure it out:

Obama's "everything on the table" remark occurred in the course of an unintentionally amusing exchange with George Stephanopoulos:

Stephanopolous: You've also said that with Social Security everything should be on the table.

Obama: Yes.

Stephanopolous: Raising the retirement age?

Obama: Yes.

Stephanopolous: Raising payroll taxes?

Obama: Everything should be on the table.

Stephanopolous: Partial privatization?

Obama: Privatization is not something I would consider.

There are basically three choices with respect to Social Security, as the nation heads into the boomer retirement years with huge financial liabilities to future generations: (1) reduce benefits, (2) raise taxes, or (3) reform the system (aka partial privatization).

Clinton, Obama and the Social Security Table

This guy lies so well and so often, it's sometimes hard to tell what he's said. I'm still not sure I'm right or wrong. As the author said, privatization is one of very few possible solutions. It's hard to think that it wouldn't be part of "everything". Yet, to the Obama of that time, it seemingly wasn't.

Climate Change Update

Looks like global warming isn't happening this week:
Image credit: Screenshot of U.S. Weather Service forecast page by Cujo359

[Click to enlarge.]

I have a friend who moved here recently. The last couple of late Junes have been unusually dry and warm. I've had to explain that this sort of weather is more normal.

So, clearly climate change isn't happening this month.

Yes, this bad joke will continue until our nation's pundits get a clue about what "climate" means. What's hard to imagine is that in the nation's capital, where presumably people would be somewhat more attuned to what's going on in the rest of the country than normal, people actually seem to be just as provincial in their outlook as the most isolated villages in Appalachia.

Take A Low Ride With Me Girl

Image credit: Wikipedia/Fantailfan

As a friend and I were travelling home from vacation yesterday, I played Dire Straits' Making Movies. I hadn't heard it in a few years. At least, I don't remember having heard it, which probably means I just wasn't paying attention the last few times it played. It's always been a favorite of mine, perhaps Dire Straits' best. The album is mostly about loves won and lost, where those loves are both people and passions.

The first song on the album is "Tunnel Of Love", a song about a gambler who loses the love of his life to his addiction. The chorus puts the protagonist's situation in perspective:

Oh girl it looks so pretty to me,
just like it always did
Like the spanish city to me
when we were kids.

The next verse goes on:

She took off a silver locket.
She said remember me by this.
She put her hand in my pocket.
I got a keepsake and a kiss,
and in the roar of the dust and diesel
I stood and watched her walk away.
I could have caught up with her easy enough,
but something must have made me stay.

The obvious subtext is that the woman in his life just got tired of his habit. The bracelet works as a symbol of his materialism winning out over his need for her.

Some readers may remember that I'm something of a Bruce Springsteen fan, and this song has always reminded me of him. Songwriter Mark Knopfler's protagonist is much like Springsteen's in "Meeting Across The River" - someone who feels trapped into making a difficult decision, which he will probably regret forever.



There's no deep meaning here, besides the obvious observation that who we are and what we value is really shown by our actions, and the choices we make. Just as obviously, caring about someone or something almost inevitably leads to some regret.

I suppose the trick in life is to know what you really care about.