What Winning Looks Like

Today's New York Times published two war articles , neither among the day's news offerings, but taken together, offering a look at the broad impact the war has.

In one, a Special Forces major articulates his opinion about the possibility [and nature] of winning the war. In the other, we get a look at the effects, on family members, of caring for damaged returning war veterans. Thinking about our involvement in foreign wars requires that attention be paid to multiple aspects, and that evaluations based on single sources, even if compelling, be rejected.

One would expect an active duty officer, upon return from a productive year of deployment, and still subscribing to the mission, to be dismissive of those who see our involvement as a losing proposition. In this we are not disappointed, as he disparages the "...wonks, politicos and academics..." offerring their grim sound bites "While sipping their Starbucks." But after relating anecdotal accounts of progress on the ground in the area of his deployment, he concludes that the success or failure of the war can only be determined by what happens after we leave. I am left wondering exactly what his dispute is with those who have been saying all along that we can't win the war.

For a wife whose horizon has narrowed to the task of caring for for a returning veteran with a traumatic brain injury and PTSD, the war is only beginning. The several families profiled in this article offer a sobering look at the sacrifices we exact from our volunteer armed forces. One can't help wondering what life will be like for them, and the thousands of other severely injured war veterans and their families in twenty or thirty years. It is something to consider when budget cuts are debated - that no price was too high to pay for our security on 9/12/01 - that our obligation to those who went over there for us [whether or not we supported the invasions].

History is short on international disputes being successfully resolved by armed conflict, but nations seem unable to resist resorting to warfare. Military intervention can possibly be prevented only by vigilant attention being paid to all of the costs. The Defense Department's charge is logistical and political, and they can't be expected think in preventive terms. Moral and human direction must come from us. If we cede analysis to "the experts," we risk paying a high cost for not too much benefit.

January 20, 2009

We walked the four miles from the bus parking area at RFK Stadium to the Washington Monument in frigid temperatures, detoured around security "frozen" zones and fenced areas, at one point going through fences and climbing down embankments to cross a closed highway - thousands of us - our goal: to witness the inauguration of Barrack Obama as President.

Our vantage point, so far away that individuals on the scaffolding in front of the Capitol were indistinguishable, was augmented by large video screens showing the proceeding, although no audio reached where we stood. My wife and I shared the earbuds of a tiny radio, which played the oath of office, and Mr. Obama's speech.

Our frigid trek back to RFK Stadium was eased by the positive mood of the crowd, and I told a reporter interviewing riders on our bus that this was my first bus trip, among many to D.C. going back to the '60s, that was not for a protest.

The good feeling did not last long. We were hardly back home in NJ before the assertion that, since Chief Justice John Roberts has fumbled part of the oath of office, Mr. Obama's Presidency lacked legitimacy, began its rounds of conservative talk radio and websites. This first challenge was followed by similar attacks on the basis of anything and everything connected with him or his family, and distracted his supporters from their intended political goals. Mr. Obama's attempts to deal with irrational people on a rational basis were interpreted as weakness, both by his base, and by his opponents.

It is illuminating to compare challenges made to President Obama under freedom of speech in the media, to those made to former President George W. Bush in court on a matter of law.

George W. Bush's 2000 campaign victory resulted from a voting dispute in Florida, which was brought quickly to the Supreme Court, and that ended decisively [by 5-4 margin] in his favor. All further challenges were mocked as whining and grumbling, and never completely aired.

The whispering campaign about Mr. Obama's citizenship, although never brought before any official for scrutiny, has reverberated around the media, waxing and waning for nearly three years, not completely ended, even by President Obama's release of his birth certificate.

Blaming the media for the polarized gridlock that prevents any solution to our economic woes from gaining a hearing in DC, ignores the people consuming that media - us. We want a simple solution to a complex problem, and any proposals must fit the ideological template through which all political dialog is extruded. In our desperate quest to avoid facing unpleasant realities, we endorse one short-term deferral after another, while savaging our perceived opponents at every opportunity, even if it entails passing on a solution that otherwise would benefit us.

The inability [or unwillingness] of people to process issues may be partly due to a lag in adapting to the communication revolution that has accelerated dramatically in recent years [since its first effects were felt in the 1960 election of JFK]. So much information moves so quickly that staying on top of all of it is impossible. Your average American, allocating his or her time among the competing demands of career, family, community and grocery shopping is unable to keep up, and is desperate for an end to the barrage.

Packaging it in digestible pieces has fallen to highly specialized analysts and psychologists, operating largely behind the scenes, and distributed by recognizable media outlets, to a public grateful to be relieved of the burden of so much input.

Individuals are free, of course, to venture out and sample raw information, but the cost can be steep, both in time and in the security of one's worldview. If you notice the man behind the screen, it is hard to restore faith in the big talking head.

How Not To Save Social Security

Amid the swirling "debate" underway on the distant planet Beltway [located just a kick away from Uranus] on the topics of debt and deficits, Social Security drifts like a rudderless ship in hostile seas.

An easy target for talking point fabricators and creative statisticians, it sustains attacks at every level, from its very conception to its current benefit structure. It is portrayed as the elephant in the room, or perhaps the sacred cow, or maybe a giant leach. So many economic problems would go away if only we could solve Social Security - or is it that we can avoid addressing so many economic problems since we have this behemoth sucking up all our problem-solving resources?

Suggestions for reform, if you concede the need for reform, range from privatization to full funding, with a panoply of tweaks, means-tests and various actuarial adjustments in between. Of course every proposal from any source immediately becomes a catalyst for severe exothermic reaction in the oxygen depleted Beltway atmosphere. I think I just felt a little kick down there.

One element of last year's Bush-era-tax-cut-extension compromise was lowering payroll taxes on employees by two percent, for one year. I think this was conceived as a trade-off for extending Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. What seems merely a typically asymmetric exchange of benefit across the range of incomes, its connection to the Social Security problem is not readily apparent.

Payroll taxes are collected in a kind of smoke-and-mirrors way, supposedly splitting the contribution between employer and employee, but the destination for all of the funds is Social Security. By lowering the withholding by two percent, we get a larger paycheck, but the money comes at the expense of Social Security, which is already projected to run short of its benefit obligations, somewhere between three weeks and forty-two years into the future, depending on who's making the speech.

I didn't hear any discussion of this during last Fall's tax bill negotiations, but I expect we will; if its effect on Social Security's fiscal health becomes apparent. Conservatives will use it as further proof of Social Security's unsustainability, while liberals will wonder how this all came to be. Especially if, as has been proposed, the payroll tax "holiday" is renewed every year, and possibly even extended to the "employer's share." This last would yet more quickly deplete Social Security, but without even the modest boost in our paychecks.

That's not my idea of a stimulus - it seems more like "starving the beast."

Bill Keller's Unfinished 9/11 Business [and ours]

The tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks brought more than enough opportunities to revisit that day of shock and awe. Almost everyone felt the need to get his or her long view out there, and conventional wisdom got another coat of pitch to protect it from the elements.

I refrained from contributing, and after overindulging at the media buffet in the week leading up to the actual anniversary, from consuming as well.

Former NYTimes executive editor Bill Keller relieved his pent up reflections [while executive editor, he was not allowed to express his own mind] in the magazine section of the Times on Sunday 9/11. I get that on Saturday, and Mr. Keller's piece might just have been the dish that caused me to put down my fork.

Mr. Keller accepts responsibility for his lapses of attention during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, although he wraps his actions in the insulating company of many other smart people who also should have known better. He does not excuse himself or his paper for abdicating journalistic standards, but also does not fully acknowledge the terrible collateral damage that negligence facilitated.

Mr. Keller's most insightful passage describes the blowback affecting the newspaper's reputation among liberals: "For years, our early stories hyping Iraq's menace (and to a lesser extent what people like me wrote on the opinion pages) fed a suspicion, especially on the left, that we were not to be trusted". He seems regretful for having helped readers realize that they shouldn't depend on what they read in the paper, which I find ironic.

Not everyone who beat the drums of war in 2002 is afforded such a space for their confession, and I hope Mr. Keller finds forgiveness on those pages. We should each look back and examine our own actions and rationales during those days, and try to understand our own lapses.

Much business from 9/11 remains unfinished, and more yet from the subsequent ten years - actions and inactions in response to the 9/11 attacks that have harmed innocent people around the world, and diminished our freedom and integrity here at home. We can't square those accounts with drone attacks. Admitting mistakes and making amends shows strength in greater measure than loud proclamations of love for the homeland.

Could It Be One Too Many?

After trying several kitschy names for my first very own blog, all of which were taken long ago, and all of which point to blogs that have been long neglected, I tried this phrase; which my brother [and business partner] frequently say to each other, as an antidote to whining about one frustrating aspect or another currently facing us. Not surprisingly, it was available.

I have contributed on blogs in the past, but never wanted to be solely responsible for keeping one aloft. Those earlier efforts were abandoned or closed anyway, so why not have a go at my own? I'm sure the many reasons why not will reveal themselves in good time, and if the returns do not outweigh the investments, this too will join the heap.

Too many what? Too many blogs out there? Too many words in this post? Too many subjects for the writing? The only way to find out is to start writing, and see.

Thanks for reading!