Military-Civilian Disconnect

The New York Times has an excellent blog on Unexamined Civil-Military Relations by a serving Army captain. The blog is definitely worth reading. My comment is posted below. One of the first comments was by somebody apparently from an Ivy League school, who wrote about how few veterans there were, but interestingly he said there were several veterans of the Israeli military, perhaps more than from the American military. There's something wrong with that, although we have the example in the White House of Rahm Emanuel, who served in the Israeli military rather than the American military. My comment:

I’m afraid that there is an increasing disconnect between the military and civil society. All this talk of “Support our troops,” means support them so that I don’t have to go. The disconnect means there will be less support for the troops when they come home, whether it’s military medical care (Walter Reed), the VA’s huge backlog, or just Americans not saying thanks by not giving vets jobs. It’s partly fallout from the Vietnam War (spoken as a Vietnam veteran), because so few of the social elites served despite the existence of the draft. Having avoided military service themselves, they can’t now say it’s a good thing. The latest travesty is the Congressional hold put on the nomination of the Secretary of the Army by the senators from Kansas, Roberts and Brownback. They are forcing the Army to fight two wars without its own political leadership. When the people of Kansas turn against the military, you know it’s in trouble

No Compassion in America?

Everybody from Obama on down has criticized Scotland for releasing the man convicted of bringing down the Pan Am plane in Lockerbie, Scotland. I don’t get it. We, the US, are supposed to be the Christians, following a gospel of love and forgiveness, while the Europeans are supposed to be godless secular humanists. They are releasing this man because of their compassion, and the Americans are screaming to keep him in prison because they are so filled with hatred. I don’t get it. One explanation might be that American Christians embrace the Old Testament, but reject the New Testament, which actually would make them Jews, rather than Christians. How can you accept Jesus and reject the Sermon on the Mount?

Too Bad Obama Dumped Howard Dean

Obama needs Howard Dean's help on health care. Dean understands the issue; he is a doctor, was governor of Vermont, the best Democratic candidate for President in 2004, and former head of the DNC. This NYT article on Rahm Emanuel talks about how Sidney Blumenthal lost a job at State because he got crossed up with Emanuel, but a more serious rift is between Emanuel and Dean. Dean and Emanuel had very different visions for the Democratic Party's strategy in 2008. While Emanuel gets the credit for the sweeping Democratic victory in the House, Dean played an important role that may have surpassed Emanuel's by making the Democratic Party competitive everywhere, not just in strongly "blue" states. But because Emanuel and Dean fought during the 2008 election, Dean is persona non-grata in the While House.

Dean would probably have been a better choice for HHS Secretary than Tom Daschle, Obama's original choice. Daschle is just an old pol; he can slap backs and cajole, but he doesn't have the vision that Dean does, something that everybody says is badly lacking in the While House at the moment. Obama has just thrown his very fuzzy vision of health care into the lions' den of Congress. As a result, Obama may get something, but it may not be worth very much. Dean would have had a much more focused plan, and as former DNC chairman, would at least have had a shot at getting it approved. Emanuel has a lot of clout in the House, where many members may feel they owe him their jobs, but he doesn't have as much in the Senate, where the real problems lie at the moment.

It may be impossible for Obama to get Emanuel and Dean to work together. It's unfortunate for the country that he can't.

Fareed Zakaria Was Top Sunday News Show Again

The good and bad news from Fareed's interview with Israeli Amb. Michael Oren was that the Ambassador defended Israel's positions about as well as they can be defended.

On Iran, Fareed pressed Oren hard on the issue of whether Iran was not allowed to have a peaceful nuclear power capacity by the Non-Proliferation Treaty. They are. Oren's reply was that a normal state would be allowed to have nuclear power, but Iran's leaders have misbehaved so badly that they have forfeited their right to do so. The question is whether other countries, particularly Russia and China, would agree with Israel. Probably not, but it's a good argument. That brings up the mirror question of whether Israel should bring its nuclear program under the international monitoring of the NPT. On that issue or a related on about whether Israel has nuclear weapons, as I recall Oren begged off and did not really answer. He has some finely worded statement about Israel not being the first to introduce nuclear weapons, more or less a "no first use" statement, although I think he refused to characterize it as such.

Fareed also had a segment on the real meat of Hilary Clinton's trip to Africa, rather than just the 10 second sound-bite about not channeling Bill, or about the 2000 Florida presidential election mess. It just showed how poorly everyone else covered her trip. Poor Hilary gets no points for trying to help Africa. The news anchors could care less about people dying in Africa.

Anyway, kudos to Fareed.