Banner day
Gerry in a comment made to my post on the President's drop in to Bagdad on Thanksgiving, anted to know what I thought of Bush's earlier PR sortie to the Aircraft Carrier in May. I thought it ridiculous. My first thought was: why has he got all that gear on? He flew out there on a COD, the mail plane! I know this wasn't lost on anyone on the ship. His arrival was changed from a helicopter flight out to up the testosterone factor as it would technically be a 'trap' (a tailhook landing). As for the banner, my guess is that the President's advance people got out there, sized up a handful of people who stuck them as being useful. They went to ship's Execuctive Officer and said "Just give us petty officers Abel, Baker, and Charlie, and Lt. Denmark, and we'll take care of this". The XO and his staff were probably relieved to not have to worry about it. To the crew in general it was just something come down from on high, a gesture, like a broom tied to a submarine's mast.
The Navy is a feudal society. There are peasantry: the enlisted ranks, ordinary seamen and petty officers (noncom's). And there is the nobility: the Officer corps. Who are from the outset generally a full step on a political log curve more conservative than the enlisted people. The Military is also a socializing mechanism that leads individuals to become more conservative the longer they remain within. When I was in, the lower enlisted ranks were profoundly cynical, and entirely powerless within the institution. Various anti service epitaths and the ubiquitous Dusty ses: peace, pot, and microdot! could be found on every flat surface across the military demi-monde. My impression is that this has changed.
If you look at some of the things the military writes among themselves you will see that they note and are concerned that from Vietnam on military causalities are becoming something that largely only happens to enlisted people. A rich mans war, but the poor mans fight is the saying. With the exception of Secretary Rumsfeld who was a Navy pilot and Secretary Powell, none of the civilian leadership for this war has any direct experience of military service. Before the war started I asked my brother-in-law Al what the prevailing view on Capital Hill was. He said these people (All the AEI neocons in the executive branch) were generally regarded as clueless academics and ideologues and it was predicted that this was going to end in disaster and cost a fortune (a point it has not really hit yet, and may not). But they let them do it anyway. That's failure of leadership.
The problem isn't solely with the National Security strategy document which for all its 'I've got a chip on my shoulder bravado' acknowledges multiple sources of instability. The problem is the particular plan of action that has been extruded from it. One might ask instead of Cheney and Wolfowitz: where is your doctrine of pre-emption for famine, and the AIDs epidemic, for climate change and potable water shortage? What do we do when even the Cryps and Bloods have Nuc's?
._._. pb _._
note: I had other comments (Woo hoo)from my posts over the week end. I tried to reply to these in line in the comments thread. If that doesn't seem effective I will problably reply to people with new posts.
9:28:39 AM  ;;
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