"Caught up in the mechanism" -- quicksand or exit?

"May God protect us from
the Tribes which guide us:"
On the eve of Obama's expanded Afghan
battle plans here is the "bottom line:"

******
"One can be at the mercy of
the snares one lays for oneself.
Sinking deeper in the quicksand
And every escape route becomes a trap.
But sometimes there is an exit
if one builds up the strength to take it.
Take it."

******
Will Obama be forced to learn
from Clint Eastwood

Scarlet Tide

Well I recall his parting words
Must I accept his fate
Or take myself far from this place
I thought I heard a black bell toll
A little bird did sing
Man has no choice
When he wants every thing

We'll rise above the scarlet tide
That trickles down through the mountain
And separates the widow from the bride

Man goes beyond his own decision
Gets caught up in the mechanism
Of swindlers who act like kings

And brokers who break everything
The dark of night was swiftly fading
Close to the dawn of day
Why would I want him just to lose him again

We'll rise above the scarlet tide
That trickles down through the mountain
And separates the widow from the bride




"When the Crater Meets Afghanistan"
Obama's War: to Lift the Fog or Tap the Passions
The way Ahead: Does Obama Need a Bit of Clint Eastwood

We Are All Soldiers: Honoring the Miracle of Survival
Obama's Sophie's Choice: a Blind Media
"Tipping Point:" guns or doctors? China watches
What Will We See When the "Fog of War" Clears?
Obama's New Policy: Play Agressively With a Weak Hand
Obama's Great Grim Gamble: He Holds a Weak Hand
A Digital View of Afghanistan: Obama and a Hybrid Strategy
Rudyard Kipling Warns President Obama
Will Obama Follow Lord Roberts Advice: Get in Fast, Withdraw
Pick off an Occupying Army: Updating an Old Story
Following Alexander the Great to Afghanistan
Should Prez Obama Take Advice From a Russian
Left, Right, Join In: Ring the Bell on "Obama's War"
US in Afghanistan: Bearing Gifts to Other Nations
America and China: Circling the Afghan Carcass with a Bamboo Curtain Dead
"The Kiterunner" as a Guide to Afghanistan

******

"Obama's war:" to lift the fog - or tap the passions?

I've looked at life from both sides now,
From win and lose, and still somehow
It's life's illusions i recall.
I really don't know life at all.

******

"Both Sides Now."

Yes, 1970, oh were there clouds back then...

Does anyone remember Vietnam? How deep a shadow it cast over our world.

Today a similar but far less painful kind of cloud, a "fog of war," hangs over the entire country.

President Obama has chosen to increase U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan. To finish out this war.

Will that help lift the fog?

Or simply blanket Aghanistan in a new generation of rhetoric?

Will the President's cool and distant style help mobilize Americans for more war, more sacrifice of lives and money?

Or will he revert to his charismatic oratory to build popular support for a widely unpopular war?

What kind of rhetoric will he summon up?

What combination of "high minded internationalism" and basic "take down our enemies" nationalism?

Will he need to tap America's more fundamentalist, vengeful streak in order to gather widespread popular support?

Will he need to learn a bit from from the fundamentalist, tough justice, apocalyptic strains of Clint Eastwood?

If he does not, will Americans still support him?

There still is deep uncertainty over America's two wars.

******

Each generation must face the reality of war's "fog."

To move forward into the shadows of the entrappment in war's Crater -- or to skirt the edges, to climb free and upward into the light.

We may be reaching a "tipping point" where overextended military occupations drain the country's resources and diminish the nation's power, safety, and standard of living.

With true love there must be no illusions...

Now the President has made his Sophie's Choice:

The hard decisions on Afghanistan which will shape who lives, who dies....

Time to pay the price.

Time to lift the "fog of war."
And rewrite the lyrics:

******

"I've looked at life from both sides now,
From win and lose, and still somehow
It's life's illusions I have lost
I know there is a price to pay"

******

Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere, i've looked at clouds that way.
But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone.
So many things i would have done but clouds got in my way...

I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions i recall.
I really don't know clouds at all...

Moons and junes and ferris wheels, the dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real; i've looked at love that way.
But now it's just another show. you leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know, don't give yourself away...

I've looked at life from both sides now,
From win and lose, and still somehow
It's life's illusions i recall.
I really don't know life at all.

******

******

The way ahead: does Obama need a bit of Clint?

"The Outlaw Josey Wales:"
Revenge and Judgement Day

*****
Strange bedfellows: feminist fundamentalism
pushes forward one of America's first
great human rights campaigns

*****

"The Preacher...
and Hell followed with him"

******

As we move forward into a new stage of Afghanistan, we can see that Obama seeks to tone down the Clint Eastwood rhetoric, so famously used by President George Bush.

Still the Eastwood strain is an important part of mobilizing for war when lots of blood and treasure is at stake.

It is difficult to mobilize for sacrifice without demonizing your enemy.

This may be a challenge for the cool, cerebral Obama -- if substantial casualties continue.

******

So when making war, it's nice to have a bit of Christian fundamentalism on one's side.

Tired of those Islamic folks having a monopoly on apocalyptic visions, symbolism and zealous religious calls to arms?

Let's see what WE have.




The strict moral codes of the Old Testament combined with the apocalyptic visions of persecution, prophecy, judgement, death and resurrection.

All found in symbolic form within the New Testament Book of Revelations.

Click here for the Chapter Six account of the Lamb opening the first six of the Seven Seals.

******

A book trickling down to the American frontier, the Indian fighter, the Bible toting preacher.

Trickling up to America's concept of itself as bearer of the sword of justice -- liberating, enforcing upon the world God's work.

Turn of the century

Listen to the tune and read the lyrics of Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

That glorious heroine of American military theological nationalism.

From this feminist New England Unitarian, a biographer of Margaret Fuller, came the Bible rich verses justifying blood on the battlefield.

The use of military power to free the slaves, as abolitionists steeped in fundamentalism pushed forward one of the first American "human rights campaigns."

Designed to mobilize and encourage Union soldiers in their righteous combat against a slaveholding Confederacy. To do "God's work" on the battlefield.

A world of spiritual and military warfare where good and evil reign supreme.

That's where Clint - with his terrible swift sword of avenging justice - comes in.

Julia and Clint -- strange bedfellows, but bedfellows just the same.

Yesterday's feminist becomes today's fundamentalist.

Circa 1861

******

When dealing with scenes of the Christian Apocalypse, it is always nice to have Wikipedia to fall back upon.

And a bit of Clint Eastwood, the master himself.

Some of you may enjoy this ecclesiastical portrayal below of the End Times.

Careful, you may have to shoot a pale horse.

When you see that pale horse coming,

that's death itself: open fire with
.45 cal. cap and ball horse killers!
But wait, what if it's a white horse?
That could be evil, the anti-Christ --
or it could be Christ himself.
Careful you don't shoot
the wrong horse.

******
Check your Wikipedia to see just
how hard it is to tell.



"The Outlaw Josey Wales:"
a time for righteous revenge

******

Behold, below, a pale horse of death bears a rider, "the stranger," seeking revenge in "High Plains Drifter:"

Always one more thing to do on life's battlefield...

General Hal Moore's Philosopy
of Life and Leadership

******
A General's Spiritual Journey


******
From: We Are All Soldiers:
Honor the Miracle of Survival

The wisdom of General Hal Moore, commander of the 1st Batallion, Seventh Cavalry
at the battle of the Ia Drang Valley,Vietnam, November 1965.

******
"Trust your instincts...if your gut tells you one thing
and your heart another, go with your gut"

Ia Drang Valley: Prologue and Aftermath

From "Freedom Fries" to statesmanlike skepticism

Meet Congressman Walter B. Jones

*******

East Carolina's conservative representative who has migrated from pushing "victory fries" for America's campaign in Iraq to skepticism on any stepped up American military force in Afghanistan.

A Republican (check his official website), he currently represents North Carolina's 3rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives.

The district encompasses the Outer Banks and areas near the Pamlico Sound.

The political voyage of this conservative Republican tells something about the nuances of war and peace politics in this conservative pro military region home to the Marines' Camp Lejeune.

Indeed the Congressman's concerns dovetail with those of a number of veterans: that one great danger is that the American military will again be put in an impossible position: unreachable goals with limited resources.

As one veteran puts it, "to be set up agains for defeat as we were in Vietnam because no sitting President wants to be seen as losing."

*******

*******

With memories of Vietnam: Hal Moore
who commanded at Ia Drang

*******

Here is how a Wikipedia entry describes the Congressman:

"Jones was initially a strong supporter of the conflict in Iraq, but then became one of the leading Republicans opposed to continued involvement in Iraq...

"Jones became well-known for leading the effort, along with GOP Rep. Bob Ney, to have french fries renamed "Freedom Fries" in House cafeteria menus as a protest against French opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq...

"He said of his previous position on the fries, 'I wish it had never happened...'

"In July 2006, the names were quietly changed back...

"He contends that the United States went to war 'with no justification...'

"On the subject, he said, 'I just feel that the reason of going in for weapons of mass destruction, the ability of the Iraqis to make a nuclear weapon, that's all been proven that it was never there.'

"He added that his change of opinion came about from attending the funeral of a sergeant killed in Iraq, when his last letter to his family was being read out...

"In an annual survey by Washingtonian magazine, Congressional staffers voted Jones the 'kindest member' of the House."

*******

Dear Rep. Jones,

I think your position is eminently relevant and wise. It provides a strategic pivot around which people of diverse viewpoints can rally.

Bravo,
Fred Moritz

*******

On Nov 18, 2009, at 5:43 PM, Congressman Walter B. Jones wrote:

Dear Mr. Moritz:

Thank you for contacting me to express your thoughts regarding sending additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

I appreciate you taking the time to share your views with me on this matter, and I am happy to respond.

As you may know, General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the North American Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan, submitted a request to President Obama in August for 40,000 more U.S. troops to be committed to the region.

General McChrystal is a seasoned commander for whom I have great respect, and our troops serving in Afghanistan are doing so with honor and courage.

Obviously there is great debate the future of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. Some, like Admiral Mike Mullen, want our troops to now combat Afghanistan's "culture of poverty".

Others, like conservative columnist George Will, believe "America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters".

What is undeniable is that the United States is running trillion dollar budget deficits as far as the eye can see, adding to what is already a record $12 trillion in U.S. federal public debt.

The money being spent "fighting the culture of poverty in Afghanistan'" (and therefore not being spent of roads, and schools, and jobs here in America) is being borrowed from our international competitors like communist China.

Our forces in Afghanistan are not being directed to eradicate the poppy crop in that country, which would help deal with the problem of drugs on American streets.

Rather, the money we are borrowing from China is being spent to stabilize the government of President Hamid Karzai whose Vice Presidential running mate in the recent disputed election was an ex-warlord who is widely accused of giving cover to Afghan criminal gangs and drug traffickers.

In fact, the Karzai government has been described by Economist magazine as so "inept, corrupt and predatory" that people sometimes yearn for restoration of the warlords, "who were less venal and less brutal than Mr. Karzai's lot."

What started out as U.S. involvement in one type of mission has clearly become U.S. involvement in another type of mission altogether.

After spending eight years of blood and treasure, our national policy in Afghanistan has drifted into an ill-defined strategy of 'doubling down' to protect the status quo, with no end in sight.

The war in Afghanistan has now gone on longer than U.S. involvement in World War I and World War II combined.

Supporters of the status quo would have us borrow yet more money from communist China to send additional troops to reinforce an overall policy that President Obama has yet to articulate, much less gain support for.

I do not believe we are faced with the false choice between "doubling down" in Afghanistan or pulling out completely and creating a vacuum which might ultimately be filled by America's enemies.

Military experts have testified to Congress that there are a range of policy options between those two extremes that can protect America's interests in that part of the world, minimize American casualties, and which would do far less to hasten the bankruptcy of the U.S. Federal Treasury.

I voted to authorize the use of U.S. forces in Afghanistan in order to rid that nation of Al-Qaeda training camps, and to remove from power those elements that gave shelter to those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001.

However, I cannot support requests for additional troops until President Obama can first lay out a coherent comprehensively revised policy that rationalizes our continued involvement in Afghanistan, makes plans for a clearly defined end-point to that involvement, and gains the support of a majority of the American people.

Thank you again for contacting me. If I can be of further assistance in the future, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,
Walter B. Jones

Member of Congress

*******

Obama's Sophie's Choice -- when media cannot see

"Ample Make this Bed," by Emily Dickinson,
from the 1982 movie, "Sophie's Choice," --
Where no choice is clean -- though one must be made

********
"Ample make this bed.
Make this bed with awe;
In it wait till judgment break
Excellent and fair.

"Be its mattress straight,
Be its pillow round;
Let no sunrise' yellow noise
Interrupt this ground."

********


"Obama's Choice:" Play Agressively

With a Weak Hand

After two months of researching and writing about President Obama's Afghan policy choices, I am convinced I have witnessed a "mass media" disaster.

A globally important issue has been dominated by polemicists, ideologues, and party campaigners who spin, proclaim, and argue, who scream the loudest -- with very little emphasis on illuminating the challenges of choice.

It is fair to conclude that the more one has followed the national "debate" in mass media, the less one understands.

We have witnessed a form of national media pollution.

In a strategic and political and moral trap where there may be no good or easy choices.

Indeed Afghan policy may be a kind of "Sophie's Choice."

Whomever President Obama seeks to save, many others will die.

********

Very rarely have there been mass media explorations of the nuances of choice as they would be dealt with in political and military planning.

Very rarely does the mass media provide historical or cultural context -- beyond slogans and reported polemic.

Such issues are reasonably obvious to anyone who seriously researches these subjects -- but systematically obscured by mass media.

There have been exceptions in the pages of serious newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Wall Street Journal.

PBS and National Public Radio have often tried to get below the surface -- although each is limited by the nature of its news judgement.

Sometimes this involves political slant.

Even in these relatively sophisticated outlets there has rarely been concrete indepth examination of the President's options.

American media tend not to be interested in the nuances, the dilemmas of choice.

The focus is on conflict, polemic, who are the "good guys," who are the "bad guys."

The worse offenders have been talk shows and cable news, especially FOX, MSNBC, and CNN.

Where commentators and "political strategists" repeat liberal and conservative "talking points."

Where the emphasis is on argument, on debate.

One redeeming feature in this dismal media scene is the rich variety of source material available on the internet.

True, the internet is chock full of the same opinion, hyperbole as other forms of mass media. But it also contains rich background and primary sources of the kind which are screened out of the mass media.

********

As of this writing, a "hybrid policy" seems to be emerging.

U.S. troops will be increased, but a wholesale national counter-insurgency policy will be avoided. Certain key population centers will be held with mobile strikes elsewhere.

A key aim will be to avoid over-extension of limited forces -- the kind of over-extension which made American forces so vulnerable to being overrun at Wanat.

The Battle for Wanat: Has it helped shape

Obama's Decision?

The New York Times reported the basic emerging Obama strategy on October 27.

One great danger is that the American military will be put in an impossible position: unreachable goals with limited resources.

As one veteran puts it, "to be set up again for defeat as we were in Vietnam because no sitting President wants to be seen as losing."

********

Time now to drop back -- and let the issues unfold not through the "pens" of journalists -- but through actions and events in the real world.

"Time and Tides" march to their own drummers...but it can be interesting to watch.

Here is a listing of this writer's Afghanistan blogs:

********

"Tipping Point:" guns or doctors? China watches

What Will We See When the "Fog of War" Clears?

For Afghanistan, What Lessons from "The Crater?"

Obama's New Policy: Play Agressively
With a Weak Hand

Obama's Great Grim Gamble: He Holds a Weak Hand

A Digital View of Afghanistan: Obama Looks to a Hybrid Strategy

Rudyard Kipling Warns President Obama

Will Obama Follow Lord Roberts Advice: Get in Fast, Withdraw,
Rule Indirectly, with Limited Occupation?

Pick off an Occupying Army: Updating an Old Story

Following Alexander the Great to Afghanistan

Should Prez Obama Take Advice From a Russian

Left, Right, Join In: Ring the Bell on "Obama's War"

US in Afghanistan: Bearing Gifts to Other Nations

America and China: Circling the Afghan Carcass with a Bamboo Curtain Dead

"The Kiterunner" as a Guide to Afghanistan

True Love - fundamentalism's enemy - crosses lines

Just like the land that bear the name Africa,
Love is on my mind.
It's for everyone no matter where you're from,
Love, it cross all lines.
Like the feeling of all the seasons changing,
Love is a memory
And in these last days, when iniquity blazing,
Truth Love Speaks.

******
What is love really if it only affects,
one aspect of life?
That’s like a musician who only accepts,
his own musical type.
That’s like a preacher who only respects
Sunday morning,
and not Saturday night
That’s how a soldier can come to reflect,
that Love is
more than a man and a wife.

******

Regardless of one's moral sentiments, this is an astoundingly beautiful song.

Nothing else this group has done quite rivals it.

As to a loving globalism of the heart, a precedent is perhaps the breaking down of barriers, which technology helps do.

Still the globalism of terror stimulates nationalism and hatred.

Reprisal and counter reprisal both of weapons and of the mind.


So we live in a paradox.

The growth of globalism goes hand in hand with terror, military operations and brutal war.....

Leaders make decisions...but they are also children of their times...jockeying for position, pushing their agendas.

On balance I think we see an enormous growth in global consciousness which also stimulates a fundamentalist backlash -- whether it be of the Islamic or Christian variety.

Nationalistic fundamentalism is alive and well on virtually all continents.

We can only hope it does not become as strong in China as it now is in the Islamic world and in the United States.

At present China's official, sometimes repressive media policies discourage ultra nationalism.

Let us hope that does not change.

In America ultra nationalism, sustained by religious fervor, is still a powerful force -- nourished by politicians, religious leaders, talk shows, and cable TV.

Obama seeks to restrain it.

******

The evolving Chinese American relationship is a miracle of our time -- despite the dark patches.

We can see from President Obama's visit that China "pushes back," is feeling its leverage as a rising power, senses the American weakness amidst economic woes, growing debt, and overextension in overseas wars.

Likewise Obama appeared to go out of his way to avoid treading on Chinese political sensitivities. He abstained from meeting with political liberals and opponents of Chinese restrictive practices.

China appears to have a leverage it earlier lacked.

It is a joy that I have lived to see the emergence of this miracle -- where these two powers have reached the freedom to show respect toward one another.

For it was my subliminal but clear aim from the beginning of my journalism career to work toward seeing this happen.

China uses hi tech to seek "harmony" with YOU

China's CCTV-9 (China Central TV) has a sophisticated web broadcasting facility which transmits all kinds of programming attuned to the most modern of internet technologies.

This video is based on a Beijing University 2009 Beijing Forum on the theme translated as "diversity" but built on the Chinese concept of "harmony" between nations and regions around the world.

"The harmony of civilizations for all, looking beyond the current crisis toward the harmonious future for all."


Attracting some "300 academics and scholars from some 40 nations and regions."

Including noted scholars from both the United States and the Islamic world.

The format and substance is designed to create an interaction between Chinese and other viewpoints.

To bridge conflict areas toward what are presented as common ends.

An interesting discussion useful in its own right -- and of course organized and structured to be "in harmony" with official Chinese goals.



The above video image, from the program "Dialogue," is not an "embedded video."

But if you click on it, the full video will come up on a separate page.

The CCTV website contains sophisticated utilities allowing for DIRECT export of links onto "blogger" formats.

I have placed the link exported to my blog within the above image of the video -- an image I have separately downloaded from the CCTV website.

The CCTV purpose is to encourage persons such as myself to "re-broadcast" the programming in a different format to a different audience.

That would be YOU.

*****

What will we see when he fog of war clears?

Black Powder Smoke Over
Battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862

"Fog of war" is a term used to describe the level of ambiguity in situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations.

The term is ascribed to the Prussian military analyst Carl von Clausewitz, who wrote:

"The great uncertainty of all data in war is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not infrequently -- like the effect of a fog or moonshine -- gives to things exaggerated dimensions and unnatural appearance."

*******

The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding one's own capability, adversary capability and adversary intent during an engagement, operation or campaign.

With imperfect information, decisions must sometimes be made in ignorance or on hunch or speculation.

Deadlines and the press of events make it impossible to wait for certainty.

*******

Seeking guidance from von Clausewitz

Journalists. as well as soldiers, must perennially struggle with the fog.

They must report under deadline with limited information from incomplete sources -- with the full knowledge that their reports may well be at least partly wrong when the fog clears.

For almost everyone the fog of war makes decisions even more of a gamble.

*******

An entire nation can be in a fog when at war...

...if there is confusion over objectives, the intentions of the enemy, the strategy to adopt in relation to the enemy, how many resources to commit -- indeed over who is the enemy.

Such is America today -- full of debate, full of uncertainty, awaiting a President's decision, a President's evaluation of the terrain, the enemy, the strategy.

A nation full of rhetoric, a nation debating the intentions of Islam, the nature of terror...

A nation of politicians and broadcasters grandstanding to steal votes and ratings, power and profits.

The louder the language, the denser the fog.

Now we have a nation buffeted by fear, by uncertainty, by hope, and paranoia.

Yet among many people an indescribable calm.

Vast parts of the country untouched by war -- with military age "children" who never pick up a gun.

*******

The fog of war can cloud a President or a general's view.

Or the view of any American.

It can obscure hidden opportunities or hidden perils.

Looking out over the battlefield of America's overseas military campaigns, it is tempting to see what one wishes to see or what one fears to be the case.

To justify one's view of the battlefield, one's view of the world...with imagined shadows on the wall.

*******

It can be argued President Obama is wise to take his time, to assess and plan systematically, to try to penetrate the fog.

To decide the nature of the enemy, how many troops to move and to where.

A question: how much time does he have -- or must he and his staff, like General Joseph Johnston below, make key decisions in sharply limited span?

Paradoxically one result of delay may be a more anxious nation as a air of uncertainty grows.

What will we see when the fog of war finally clears?

From "Fog of War," the Life
of Robert S. McNamara

McNamara's eleven lessons of war

1. Empathize with your enemy
2. Rationality will not save us
3. There's something beyond one's self
4. Maximize efficiency
5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war
6. Get the data
7. Belief and seeing are often both wrong
8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning
9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil
10. Never say never
11. You can't change human nature

*******

Let's go back to the last
Confederate attack on the Union:

Bentonville, NC, March 19-22, 1865;
A Confederate commander struggles with
the "fog of war"




*******

That day -- as four Rebel commands gathered in North Carolina -- General Joseph Johnston traveled to Smithfield to form the hodgepodge Army of the South.

After evacuating Wilmington in February and resisting Schofield at Kinston on March 8-10, Gen. Braxton Bragg finally had arrived at Smithfield with Maj. Gen. Robert Hoke's Division (Army of Northern Virginia)...

Hampton's cavalry was split to monitor both wings of Sherman's army. The proud remnants of the Army of Tennessee were slowly trickling into Smithfield from the west, having departed Tupelo, Mississippi, by rail in mid-January...

Others were still on the way.

As his motley units converged, Johnston waited anxiously for news.

Was the enemy moving on Raleigh or Goldsboro?

From his position at Smithfield, Johnston could swing west or southeast to block the way to either destination.

Lacking sufficient numbers for a decisive engagement, however, Johnston needed favorable ground from which to tackle one wing of the Union army while the other was beyond supporting distance. The clock was ticking...

Desperate for news, Johnston fired off inquiries to his subordinates:

"Something must be done tomorrow morning," he pushed Hardee on March 17, "and yet I have no satisfactory information."

He then queried Hampton for specifics on the enemy's position, strength, and relative distance. "[G]ive me your opinion," urged Johnston, "whether it is practicable to reach them from Smithfield on the south side of the [Neuse] river before they reach Goldsborough."

--Mark A. Moore

General Joseph E. Johnston

*******

When the fog from the guns clears, what is the view?
Results of Artillery at Bentonville

We are all soldiers - honor the miracle of survival

The Battle Begins: Prologue and Aftermath

Behind the Scenes of Movie Making

When I saw snippets of this movie, "We Were Soldiers," on TV, I was intuitively struck.

Was this hyperbole? Is this the way it really was?

I had a nagging fear that this time Hollywood had "got it right."

So I called a friend, "Dave," who fought in Special Forces on the Laotian Vietnamese border in 1969.

"Are there any movies which catch your experience in combat?" I asked.

We talked for an hour.

"We were Soldiers" was his answer. The 2002 movie starring Mel Gibson.

So I rented and viewed the entire film.

The movie is based on the book "We Were Soldiers Once....and Young: Ia Drang -- The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam," by Harold G. Moore and Joseph Galloway.

Hal Moore, the commander of American forces during the Ia Drang battle, has called the movie seventy five percent accurate and twenty five percent "Hollywood."

He was a consultant in the making of the film.

Joseph Galloway was a United Press International correspondent who covered the battle.

Moore and Galloway wrote a second book, "Soldiers Still: a Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam."

A tale of reconciliation, chronicling meetings with the officers and men fought nearly thirty years before.

See Brad Knickerbocker's review of this book, including an audio clip of an interview with both Moore and Galloway, in The Christian Science Monitor, April 26, 2008.

The interview probes the attitudes of both men toward war in general and America's current wars.

A third book, "A General's Spiritual Journey," is a memoir by Moore's "driver."

General Moore's Definition of "Humility"

General Moore's Philosophy
of Life and Leadership

Combat Today in Afghanistan

I would compare this astonishing book to a collective memoir of the atom bombing of Hiroshima.

Or to a journalistic account of the Trojan war by Greeks who fought there.

It was the first major battle of the war between the American army and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA).

###############

On Nov. 14, 1965, the 1st Battalion of the 7th Cavalry, commanded by Lt. Col. Moore and accompanied by UPI reporter Galloway, helicoptered into Vietnam's remote Ia Drang Valley, the so-called "Valley of Death."

To thwart an North Vietnamese Army (NVA) plan to attack eastward, the American force made their assault directly into the enemy assembly area.

The Americans found themselves surrounded by a massively superior number of NVA regulars.

The Vietnamese were familiar with the terrain and highly skilled from bloody encounters with the French army, also in the Central Highlands, eleven years earlier.

The Vietminh take on the French: 1954

For a more detailed description of the significance of this battle, see U.S. Military History Companion.

The Americans were forced to withdraw after inflicting casualties on the Vietnamese up to four times what they suffered themselves.

Massive air and artillery fire, including strikes by B‐52 bombers, helped push the NVA back into their Cambodian sanctuaries.

Most significantly the NVA used the battle to learn how to counter American hi-tech weaponry. See original video footage, detailed daily battle accounts, and maps.

This story is a tribute to 234 young Americans who died during four days in Landing Zone X-Ray and Landing Zone Albany in the Valley of Death, 1965.

###############

If you see this movie, you will truly wonder how veterans survive.

Mel Gibson Sends his Troops to War

Forty Four Years Later Marines Depart

Camp Lejeune for Afghanistan

Ia Drang Valley Combat Footage

###############

No written review can possibly portray what you will see in this film.

Nor what my friend shared with me.

It is important to see a movie such as this -- to understand why so many veterans were angry either at their government or at the civilians and anti- war activists who later treated them with contempt -- or at both.

It is important to know how much pain and fear so many experienced -- then came on home to try to live normal lives.

It is important to understand why they so often cannot accept that their suffering, and the loss of comrades, might have been in vain.

Why they may lash out when politics is discussed.

So very many of us were spared this.

We owe it to those who return to show the kind of compassion which they too rarely experienced on the battlefield.

This is an old story, in this case a true story.

We better get used to it. It is not going away.

Let us "honor survival."

It is a miracle for all seasons.

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General Moore's Personal Account of Ia Drang



The Battle's Aftermath

For the battle is everywhere -- with Vietnamese soldiers popping up in bushes 25 yards away.

Napalm delivered close in right on the edge of American lines.

Close on combat, people dropping on every side.

Four hundred and fifty Americans trapped by superior Vietnamese forces.

Continual eruptions of violence for hours, for days.

Can that ever be forgotten?

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It is no wonder my friend, when stressed, sleeps with a revolver under his pillow.

He will never sit in a restaurant with his back to the door.

Vigilance is the name of the game.

His nightmares have receded. He comes across as gentle, kind.

Still he worries if he can keep it together should he lose his wife.

He seems a caring man who treasures his son and daughter, both officers in the military.

That is what he loves, their following in his footsteps in the profession to which he almost gave his life.

But he will not take a job as a server of injunctions, lest his violent side come out.

"When he got close, I hit him with my gun barrel, then shot him with my rifle," recalled my friend.

I did not press him for his total "body count."

"We often could hear them creeping up on us at night."

While out on a reconnaisance patrol, one half of my friend's 12 man squad was burned to death by misdirected American napalm.

"I picked up a .45 pistol from one charred body --- and cleaned off the burned flesh so I could use the thing."

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From Chapter 2, "We Were Soldiers Once.....and Young:"

"One month of maneuver, attack, retreat, bait, trap, ambush, and bloody butchery in the Ia Drang Valley in the fall of 1965 was the Vietnam War's true dawn -- a time when two opposing armies took the measure of each other.

"The North Vietnamese wanted their foot soldiers to taste the sting of those (new American) weapons and find ways to neutralize them.

"Their orders were to draw the newly arrived Americans into battle and search for flaws in their thinking that would allow a Third World army of peasant soldiers who traveled by foot and fought at the distant end of a two-month-long supply line of porters not only to survive and persevere, but ultimately to prevail in the war -- which was, for them, entering a new phase."

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In this movie you see Vietnamese generals planning flanking actions from their tunnels, little space between the combatants.

Few bayonets, just close in rifle shots.

Helmeted Vietnamese popping up in the bushes, unpredictable, unrelenting.

A strange kind of balance in this movie...for all are caught up in a world that banishes every nuance of civilized life.

"Tipping point:" guns or doctors? China watches

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No, folks, it's hardly rocket science.

True, it is not yet "closing time."

But the "tipping point" may be near.

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China, like the rest of us, must ask if the American superpower has approached, is approaching, or will approach what the Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz called the "tipping point."

When a nation on the military offense reaches the point in its agressive operations where it is ever more costly to defend its acquisitions.

Where garrisoning troops, supplying them, defending them drains a nation's power and eventually requires retreat.

As did Napoleon after he sent his forces in to occupy Russia in 1812.

As did Hitler after he attempted to do the same thing in 1941.

As the U.S. did after it attempted to occupy and and shape Vietnam.

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Now is a magical moment.....

Let's put together President Obama, Carl von Clausewitz, Afghanistan, Iraq, the American Medical Association, healthcare reform...

Let's add to that shrinking credit cards, shrinking credit, unending exploding deficits -- and the prospect of spending one million a year for every additional American soldier sent to Afghanistan.

Remember "Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

A slogan by Americans who resisted the Vietnam war....

Back when President Lyndon Baines Johnson thought he could have "both guns and butter."

The choice is different today.

"Can we have both guns and doctors?"

As Obama has ramped up his decision on more troops to Afghanistan, scarcely anyone has asked the question:

"What can the United States afford?"

It has been an easy assumption that anything is possible.

That "no bridge is too far."

But Obama is clearly asking the question -- and so are China's leaders.

The New York Times reported November 15 that the Obama Adminstration is costing out its Afghanistan choices.

That it is increasingly sensitive to the prospect that going whole hog for an extended occupation of Afghanistan may clash with the enormous long term fiscal liabilities of health care reform.

On the eve of Obama's visit to China The New York Times also reports that Beijing is concerned that the American budget deficits escalated by health care reform may make America a poor investment.

China wants assurances the U.S. will remain solvent, that it can pay back its debts to the "Middle Kingdom."

It is no one's "dirty little secret" that it is China that will indirectly finance both Afghanistan and health care reform.

If America's piggy bank breaks, China's path forward will be hampered.

So President Obama is expected to downplay any lecturing of China over how to handle human rights.

It is not wise to hector the bank that feeds you.

Instead he must do some reassuring that he heads a country that is not a foolish spendthrift.

Now it is America that appears to be the Prodigal Son.

Can this all be reversed? Or is my analysis on target -- more than the musing of a grimly seasoned man?

Maybe yes, maybe no....

The United States is fortunate to have as President one who understands the challenge.

But to reverse all this requires more than one man.

******

True Love trumps politics: let that be the lead..

As I recovered from a mild senior citizen bout of George Orwell 1984 pig flu, I could not help but sip the healing wines of Celtic music -- from YouTube.

A fresh new prayer of my own came to mind:

"God protect us from the Tribes which guide us."

Cara Dillon

Streets of Derry

After the morning there comes an evening
And after the evening another day
And after a false love there comes a true love
I'd have you listen now to what I say

I swear my love is the finest young man
As fair as any the sun shines on
But how to save him, I do not know it
For he has got a sentence to be hung

As he was marching the streets of Derry
I own he marched up right manfully
Being much more like a commanding officer
Than a man to die upon the gallows tree

"What keeps my love so long in coming
Oh what detains her so long from me
Or does she think it a shame or scandal
To see me die upon the gallows tree"

He looked around and he saw her coming
And she was dressed all in woollen fine
The weary steed that my love was riding
It flew more swiftly than the wind

Come down, come down from that cruel gallows
I've got your pardon from the king
And I'll let them see that they dare not hang you
And I'll crown my love with a bunch of green

*****

A Gallows Tree

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When Tribes Do Prevail

"There Were Roses"

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Now it's time to dance

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Kris Kristofferson: let him speak for himself...

"Sadness Has Nothing To Do With Sanity"
"There's humans entrusted with guarding our gold and
humans in charge of saving our souls."

From "Sister Sinead"

Listen to his latest "Closer to the Bone"

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"God bless Obama. God bless the United States of America; And God bless the others outside of our borders." - Kris Kristofferson

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"To Pass It On"

Obama's "new policy:" play agressively a weak hand

Rolling the dice again

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President Obama will lean forward to play hard with a very weak hand.

Obama will escalate US intervention in the area, in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

While the nominal sovereignty of each nation would be maintained, we will see renewed U.S. efforts to turn them in one degree or another into "client states."

That is the conclusion to be drawn from an October 26 speech before Council of Foreign Relations by John Kerry, D Mass., Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

While Sen. Kerry does not officially speak for President Obama, he is intimately involved with the evolution of Afghanistan policy.

Below, from his speech, is the bottom line:

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The U.S. will push to shake up the central Afghan government, push to change some top officials, attempt to diffuse power more to the local level -- where American advisors both military and civilian will play a growing part.

There will be a hybrid policy of clear and hold in some areas -- but a looser presence of military strikes elsewhere.

The goal of clearing and holding all of Afghanistan is rejected.

The Administration will trim down the call of General Stanley McChrystal for up to 40,000 additional troops for Afghanistan.

For Administration plans to focus on limited parts of the country, see The New York Times, October 27:

"At the moment, the administration is looking at protecting Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Herat, Jalalabad and a few other village clusters, officials said. The first of any new troops sent to Afghanistan would be assigned to Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual capital, seen as a center of gravity in pushing back insurgent advances.

"But military planners are also pressing for enough troops to safeguard major agricultural areas, like the hotly contested Helmand River valley, as well as regional highways essential to the economy — tasks that would require significantly more reinforcements beyond the 21,000 deployed by Mr. Obama this year...

"Military officers said that they would maintain pressure on insurgents in remote regions by using surveillance drones and reports from people in the field to find pockets of Taliban fighters and to guide attacks, in particular by Special Operations forces."

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Major pressure on Afghan government will combine with continuing full court press on Pakistan to step up its offensive against Taliban in Waziristan.

Although Washington denies it, American aid to Pakistan will be directly or indirectly conditioned on its willingness to co-operate with the U.S. -- and break with fundamentalists in its social programs.

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In short the move is for more aggressive involvement in the affairs of both countries. The aim is to stabilize both around a pro American orientation -- and squeeze the Taliban by military pressure from both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It is clear there is already a growing anti-American backlash in both Afghanistan and Pakistan -- where the appearance of being American puppets is hardly desired.

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See this writer's analysis of the range of options open to Obama -- and the pitfalls of all of them.

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"I just Got Punked in Afghanistan"