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“Where is the Leadership?”
Petty Officer First Class Charles Keating IV
We learned last week of Charles Keating IV, 31, a Navy SEAL who was killed in action in Iraq. From the Wall Street Journal:
Petty Officer First Class Charles Keating IV was killed Tuesday during a firefight with Islamic State in Iraq, the third American service member to die in combat since the Obama administration began fighting Islamic State there in 2014. Petty Officer Keating was part of a quick reaction force deployed to rescue another group of American service members who were meeting with local forces in the area. His death outside the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul has raised questions about the role of American service members in Iraq and the nature of the U.S. mission.
Keating, a high school track star in his native Arizona, went on to compete at Indiana University before joining the Navy. He was married in a private ceremony before deployment; he and his wife had planned a more public celebration this November, when he was scheduled to return.
I don’t know why, but this news makes me really angry. President Obama crowed about “ending” the war in Iraq, withdrawing all forces over the objections of top brass. Then — when military action was, nonetheless, required — he insisted it would not involve “boots on the ground.” Then, he insisted the troops he sent would be advisors, not to be involved in combat. Anyone paying attention knew these assertions could not be true. Did the president delude himself, or lie to us?
And as Obama sends the best of our young warriors — in the prime of their lives — to fight, there is no apparent strategy for victory, other than waiting for the arc of history to bend the way he wants it to. What, exactly, is the point of their mission? It’s as if President Obama is replicating the same desultory half measures that characterized our initial involvement in Vietnam, only this time, he’s had thirteen years in which to study.
So, to again quote our Secretary of State: How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?
Published in General
Nixon won the Vietnam war. It ended, on terms favorable to the US, on Jan 27, 1973. A little over 4 weeks following the conclusion of Operation Linebacker II.
While I accept your characterization of LBJ and his administration Nixon was actually in it to win it.
Mitt Romney followed your advice in 2012 and it probably cost him the election.
As you alluded to in another comment, many around FDR should have been hanged for treason or the like.
I dislike intensely your saying that. There is no courage nor no wisdom in conservatives telling each other bitter things that they already believe. Nobody has to learn from Ball to hate the president or hold him in unconquerable contempt. This is not a place where love letters to the president or his party are ever penned. This is a place where people are routinely accused of getting in bed with the enemy by omission or commission, by deed, speech, or in the secret councils of the heart, will they or nil they. Are you for Trump? You’re a secret liberal! Are you against him? Ditto! We do not need more of the bitter partisanship, but less.
An electoral campaign is a different matter–the man who wants the job has to persuade people to vote for him–but mostly people who do not share his opinions or way of life.
Each party can rely on far more millions of votes than each party’s candidate needs to add to win.
Such is the practical situation that presidential candidates cannot spend much time talking to people whose votes they take for granted, for better & worse. How a man goes about getting those votes is a very different thing than how conservatives talk to each other.
It’s as if he can’t see actual people — American, Syrian, or otherwise — as anything more than pawns on his losing chessboard. He’s supplanted reality with his abstract theories, and if others are sacrificed to the cause — that’s unfortunate but not a tragedy.
Yeah. But it did not happen. Not even America can afford that much justice. I am not sure why. I suppose the only thing we can do now is learn about it & try to figure out what that means about politics.
For my part, I am sure that there is no political arrangement or political program or revolutionary action that is going to turn your country into the perfect city, with such justice that everyone who deserves the worst gets it but good–& no one who doesn’t.
It seems to me, no one would care about politics if people did not first care about justice–& no one would care about justice without first feeling the anger of righteous indignation. We start out by asking for too much justice. That origin is never exhausted, it seems to me. But something has to temper that or the partisanship of anger & the bitterness & contempt make any community impossible.
Look around: On Ricochet, people telling each other they’re the reason why things are going wrong with your country all the livelong day. They’re not really people–they’re just part of a problem. Conversation turns into punishment: You’ve got to teach them a lesson. Only public humiliation will suffice!
Some even defend this theoretically as preparation for the great war. Never mind that they have neither army nor allies-
I do not care what you like. I care about the truth and what’s good for my country. I take your choice of “dislike” vs. “disagree” as confirming my accuracy.
You are missing the point while exemplifying the point. Many people voted for the America-hating racist scoundrel because it made them feel good about themselves to do so. It did Mitt no good to deny Obama’s nature and say that Obama was a decent guy who was just in over his head. That gave people license to continue to feel good about themselves by giving Obama another chance…
CTLAW:
Another impertinent guy who talks like shamelessness is his calling card is not going to impress me. I’m not sure if you’re impressing anyone–but they can speak for themselves. Maybe they’ll vote you hero for your shamelessness. All you can do is make more people angry–but only people who are already pretty angry. As I said, this is bragging about doing things that requires neither courage nor wisdom while not even requiring a little discomfort. If you wanted easier virtue than this, I would neither be surprised nor have any idea where you could find it.
As for how Mr. Romney could have won in 2012, I’m not sure. I tend to think he should have attacked Mr. Obama more seriously, but I’m sure that if he had said what you say, he would have lost even more decisively.
You do not seem to realize that you may be condemning yourself out of your own mouth while you try to parse my words. Here’s a suggestion: Treating people like you’re the prosecution adds nothing to your intelligence–it only makes you incapable of understanding how polite people talk, write, & think.
You think loads of people voted for Mr. Obama to ease their conscience or flatter themselves? How many more then had the GOP guy called him a racist or socialist or what have you!
I think we need to back up a bit here in regard to “patriotism” and “partisanship.” Democrats and liberals may be naive about the effects of their feel-good do-gooderism with respect to perpetually giving more and more power to the federal government. That doesn’t make them unpatriotic.
However, leftists, by definition, are anti-American and are pretty open about it, unless they need to get elected.
So, the question to ask about Obama is, is he a leftist? I’d say with near total confidence — he is. He’s the most left-wing president ever elected. He made it clear he thinks the America he sought to lead needed “fundamental transformation.” You don’t say that about a country you think is pretty spiffy and just needs a little adjustment here and there.
It’s been a perfect storm for the Left. They’ve won. Everything we do from here out is rear-guard action. Sort of like the position Petty Officer First Class Charles Keating IV was put in when he was killed.
Well said.
WC, I think you’re starting from a very important, now neglected distinction between lefty & liberal. I’d agree that the big reason it’s neglected is, liberals have bent over for the New Left since the late ’60s…
I also agree that there is something in leftism that must ultimately be anti-American. I speak now as a foreigner. I have been told I have unusual insight because I am a foreigner; also, that it’s none of my business or that I can’t even get what’s what, being a foreigner. I’m sensible what I will say is risky, therefore.
You underestimate how American Americans are.
I am constantly impressed by that fact. I knew it when I was a kid, from watching stuff; the first time I encountered something dramatically American was when I read Whitaker Chambers’ book. I think that should show the power of American habits of mind over people very strange by nature.
Of course, patriotism doesn’t always triumph & there are always people in America who are not that American. But I think it’s mostly morality & principle that gets conservatives so angry about lefties–they underestimate the power of American habits of mind over ideas.
I think people need to think about this before they take strong stands about people’s patriotism. Practically, it’s what you folks have in common. I will not get to the theoretical stuff…
Now, about Mr. Obama’s claims & ambitions. He is nowhere near Wilson or FDR when it comes to the desire to transform America. (Let me add, before my welcome is completely revoked, that Reagan ratified lots of FDR’s un-Constitutional work, as had Ike before him.) He has not even done as much as JFK & LBJ have done together. But he is uniquely blamed.
America today is not in as bad a situation as it was in 1980. But he is blamed even worse than Mr. Carter. People talk about him as though he were the worst president since Buchanan–except for people like the neo-Confederates, who might heap praise on that wretch & heap the blame on the great Lincoln instead.
I’m aware my liberals friends think this is because conservatives are racist.
I think they think that way because my liberal friends, like my conservative friends, have been infested by theory–though very different theories. I think the Obama-hatred is a product of the age of theorizing. The speeches & the theoretical implications I will grant you–Mr. Obama really does speak as an alien: All progressives do, in their progressive mood. But a lot of the bad in him is really American. After all, progressivism is a peculiarly American bad idea! That’s not enough to make a patriot of him in our eyes, but I think it should be enough that he be thought of as no worse than Wilson, FDR, JFK, & LBJ.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, actually, and here’s my argument for why Obama is in fact worse than those acronymic Presidents: he wants America to be part of a global debating society, rather than the leader of the free world.
FDR’s great insight (and one than conservatives at the time largely opposed) was that America had to step up and save the world from totalitarianism: he (at least in part) engineered our entry into WWII. JFK’s and FDR’s credentials in this project are unquestioned (despite their liberal domestic policy preferences, they were clearly anti-Communist).
Carter was the first real post-WWII break from this: he championed detente with the Soviets and a general reduction in our great-power status. Reagan turned that around and more, of course, and from there until Bush 43 the U.S. became the world’s sole hyperpower.
But Obama wants this to change. I think this is clear. He’s not comfortable with our status as sole hyperpower. This is why he accommodates old enemies and cold-shoulders old friends. He’d like the world to operate kind of like the U.S. Senate, where everyone gets together and just talks it out as equals. So he’s trying to make us the equal of all the rest.
And actually, that sounds kind of nice. Unfortunately it’s horrendously unrealistic.
I think there’s something to what you say, but your historical picture misses two kinds of really important facts.
Perhaps it is because Obama comes at a time when there is the impression that American global influence and vitality is on the wane, the west’s cultural confidence seems ostensibly moribund [particularly to pessimists ;)] and progressivism seems ascendant and rampant. Time will tell whether or not it is true of course. I think that’s why he is uniquely blamed.
I think a lot of people who are pro-Trump or Cruz feel like the time for action, any action, is imminently necessary; again, for the above impressions.
I was reading & nodding along–damn skippy!
I wanted to get at this, but went with a related matter. I think the cause of this collapse of confidence is an infestation of theory. You can also see what it does to the imagination: The more people think about what the future will be, the uglier the results…
Yeah, but in this the populism rules, as with the Progressives, in the guise of wisdom. ‘Nothing can be worse than inaction’ is the modern philistine’s line of argument.. Populists used to want things-
I’m kind of making this up, or perhaps projecting, but this is what I think Obama might say…
That America is unique and important not because we are powerful but because we have a particular vision and way of doing things that other countries can and should emulate…
Which includes freedom and whatnot (!) but also our ability to include people, to make Americans out of “others” and incorporate other cultures into American culture. America is not a racial entity but rather a country and a people formed around an ideal.
Our power is and always has been a means to an end—the end that other countries become more like us.
To the extent that other countries become more like America— freedom and whatnot (!) but also incorporating “others,” (that is, immigrants) and no longer defining themselves by racial characteristics —e.g. blond, blue-eyed Danes— America can stand down.
In other words, America doesn’t have to do superpower stuff if the world is more (and more, and more) American.
This isn’t crazy. Indeed, it’s ultimately the argument made for reconstructing Western Europe and Japan in our image after WW2 and for Operation Iraqi Freedom. (It wasn’t “Operation Kill All The Rag-Heads” or even “Operation Iraqi-Less-Obnoxious-and-Sanguinary” after all).
The problem is that Obama thought we were closer to this happy state of affairs than we actually are (Arab Spring!) and, frankly, so did Bush. Remember Rumsfeld’s “Freedom is messy?”
Regardless of what he should have done, or would have done if he’d seen the situation as y’all do, there was a very big obstacle in the way of Obama’s increasing, or even maintaining, boots on the ground in Iraq (or anyplace else); Americans weren’t interested. The conceit that the rest of the world, or at least large chunks of it, are moving in the right direction without our (expensive, blood-and-treasure) help is convenient. It might even be true, in the (very) long run.
I’m with you, ma’am. Mr. W. Bush’s Second Inaugural Address reads straight out of Wilson’s War Message to Congress. We don’t treat him like he’s the worst. That’s the guy who wanted elections in the Palestine! He thought democracy was just waiting for him to give the signal, it seems! This other Wilsonian assumption we see with his successor–well, he catches hell. But it’s not really all his fault: Who made the world with the UN, WTO, & prepared NATO & all that? Who really is the teacher of all American ambition in foreign affairs–including this ambition for peace & diplomacy? Was it really different when Messers. Clinton & W. Bush negotiated their way to paying for the Norks’ nukes? They don’t catch hell with us like he does.
Blame neither should start nor end with him.
But I have one big reservation: America does have a treason-in-war party. Those people who believed ardently in sacrificing South Vietnam. The people who turned on the C-in-c near the beginning of the Iraq War. Sickening stuff. & this president is the first who cannot claim innocence in this matter. He preemptively destroyed his war powers inasmuch as they depend on popular approval!
Fabius might have been proven correct but he had a plan. It is not at all clear that those arguing patience and grand strategy today have any plans to win other than betting on their enemy’s sheer incompetence. Some are even saying it’s not that bad.
Given the speed and alacrity that the progressive left has shown in demolishing cultural norms and institutions (which is in fact their central goal), I don’t think anyone can really say they’re incompetent nor being exhausted.
The progressives have been stymied in the culture somewhat of late but it’s mostly the result of the fed up people pushing back and pushing back hard. If the opponent isn’t being enervated from your skirmish victories at some point you have to sally forth through the gates or lose.
Some people feel like that time is now and I don’t really blame them.
The Lightbringer is a collectivist. Individual human beings, with their individual thoughts are a messy business. When you think of humans as a group then you make decisions based upon the common good. Collateral damage becomes acceptable in furthering the common good. The problem is if it’s a common good then it must be good for all human beings. It’s a self-contradictory statement and when used to govern human beings or to promote a system of government, or economic system it is a false premise.
I think you couldn’t be more wrong. Take your cues a bit differently: You really think all the kids who were so enthusiastic about him were for collectivism? Or the people now burning for Sanders? Or do you think they don’t really get it…
They get it. There is a new marriage of libertarian & liberal coming. It is a new kind of individualism, with massive state powers. There will be no teaching or propaganda or faith for the national or international community. Marxism is dead. It will be a capitalist-powered classless society as Marx wanted it & we to a very large extent enjoy it. It’s liberalism revivified.
I’ll try to clarify my the point I was trying to make. At a certain point when you see people as objects, as socialists do eventually you have to categorize people as either enemies of the state or supporters of the state. Kulaks were eliminated because they interfered with bringing the socialist workers paradise to fruition. Approximately 25 million Ukrainians were starved to death because of their resistance to collectivizing farms. You have to label people to dull the sense of conscience. Economic wreckers comes to mind when talking about Stalinism.
In the US the 1% are demonized so those feeling the Bern can be mobilized and income redistribution, which is a euphemism for looting becomes acceptable.
Since January 1, 2015 there have been 4,164 shootings in Chicago. The narrative on college campuses, and from the Department of Justice is about white privilege. Focusing on Chicago disturbs the narrative, especially when the DOJ is trying to release thousands upon thousands of felons, most of whom will move back into the same neighborhoods they came from, like Chicago. The same neighborhoods that they destroyed before they went to prison. It doesn’t matter that they were convicted in a court of law, or that they had appeals.
Oh there is weeping and demands to end the carnage, but the narrative of unjust punishment based upon skin color is more important than the collateral damage of living out the lie of the common good.
This is not about socialism. & your numbers on the hunger murders in the Ukraine are way off.
I agree that there is a lot that’s wrong about the liberal analysis of & practical dealing with the gun problems–I’m not sure if class or race or city are best for describing the problem, but whichever way–liberalism has failed miserably after long policy success.
But your attempt to connect theory & practice is mistaken utterly. A man could say to you: How about all those white Americans in the time of segregation: Weren’t they sold on a shameless narrative that ignored terrible injustice & suffering!
But it does not make them Stalinists or socialists or anything like that!
I’m sympathetic to Americans making the ‘object’ argument. Lincoln said, people who want to buy & sell negroes must think they are no different than hogs. If that’s so, they’re right about property. But if instead they’re human beings, then that’s not so. There is no property right. I recommend you to abandon this talk of socialism, which is not a practical concern for Americans, & return to the arguments about human dignity in each person that are fit for Christians who are free men & have the recommendation of your great presidents.
Demonizing the 1% is no way the cause of students going for Sen. Sanders. They just get that a libertarian-liberal future is what he’s peddling in his ineffectual way. (Ineffectual is their proof of morality.)
I don’t understand your first point at all. Are you talking about their membership in the U.N. Security Council? Russia and China had them as co-victors of WWII. Are you talking about their possession of nuclear arms? They developed them independently and via spying on us. Are you blaming these things on pre-Obama administrations? How?
As to your second point, I have a simple answer: When Obama leads the U.S. Army against a worldwide power, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt as well.
About my second point, you’re dead wrong. Eisenhower, not any Harvard brat, should have known that it is all of insanity to threaten to destroy the British & French economies, whatever he thought about Israel. He betrayed the men with whom he fought. Are you kidding me?
If you want to say, he gets a pass, because he helped save civilization, yeah, sure, that’s all true. But he’s guilty precisely because he knew what he was doing & to whom. What do you know about Egypt & Nasser? Look it up–he was not your friend…
About my first point, I mean FDR created the world system. He gave China & Russia UN seats. He wanted a world where America couldn’t act without the USSR but we’re blaming his faithful successors? FDR also gets a pass, because he saved civilization. But let’s not blame the people who follow in his footsteps so much-
The number is actually 10 million, to include Ukrainians that were shipped off to Siberia and died of starvation there, as well as those that were shot by the NKVD. I stand corrected.
As the saying attributed to Stalin goes; One man’s death is a tragedy, millions of deaths is a statistic.
Nothing wrong with getting the numbers wrong–I didn’t mean to suggest that you meant anything untoward by getting the numbers wrong. I happen to know because Soviet Communism hit pretty close to home…
I think my point stands essentially unchallenged. When Obama saves civilization, I’ll be happy to weigh that in the balance along with the rest of his actions.
I don’t say the man has great deserts. Only that he has inherited the faults of his predecessors. He has his blame in this, commensurate with his ambition. But he is still a president & the country is still there, doing better than in 1980, I’d say. It’s not some remarkable catastrophe we’re living…
It is very clear that Obama does not think America is deserving of a leadership position among nations. He clearly thinks American prosperity is due to profiteering by whites who hated, killed, enslaved and abused people of color, and that this history should disqualify America from any global leadership. He has worked diligently to diminish our standing militarily and politically. He thought that if he led an American retreat, he would be loved by all the world and universal egalité and fraternité would blossom. He thought that if he led the criticism of America that he could lead reconciliations. He underestimated the power of his own grievance-mongering fellow travelers to forestall reconciliations in order to focus on the recriminations on which they feed.
He sees America as one among equals among the long list of nations, and as less worthy than most of them. He is no patriot.
I do think Bill Clinton loves America and wants America to lead the west. I am sure that Jimmy Carter was a patriot. I think both of them were quite wrong about their view of the world. Carter did want to concede American power, believing in the false Leftist idea that, if we were more friendly and less threatening, and gave more aid, that tensions could be reduced with the non-western world. But I do not think he ever intended a full retreat that would take America from the top to the lower ranks, as President Obama clearly wishes.
Just because the Progressives were wrong is no reason to doubt their patriotism. Obama gives us new and more dangerous anti-American Leftism to deal with. He is much worse than his predecessors. They all had their flaws, as did our centrist presidents. (It has been a very long time since we had a genuine conservative in the White House.)
For a Progressive president to think America could take advantage of a “peace dividend” to reduce defense spending in ways that did not retreat from global leadership is much different than Obama’s full retreat.