Best description yet of the TV military analysts not smart enough to know what they don't know.
+++++++
The three-star general (Air Force Lt. Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley) said he found it "humorous" that some former military officers and pundits have criticized a war plan "that they have never seen."
"I grew up in Texas, and I'm amused by the way that they critique it. But in the end it's a whole lot like listening to a cow pee on a flat rock — it just doesn't matter," Gen. Moseley said.
April 6, 2003
Required Reading from Donald Kagan - Yale
Donald Kagan's lecture at Yale in November 2001 should be required reading for all educators, particularly those relatavists and revisionist who would divide us in this hour of need for national unity. We have a generation of educators who do not understand the honest search for truth and the simultaneous need for students to understand the necessity in our democracy of a unifying culture. This must change. In fact, we may need a litmus test for K-12 educators to protect our culture and our democracy.
Perhaps we should call it patriotism.
Perhaps we should call it patriotism.
Bill Bennet Excerpt
This from Why We Fight Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism. If we don't believe this asa core principle of out American culture, then we don't understand our history. Misunderstanding our history leaves us open to the ravages of all sorts of cultural theories and mis-directed ideologies.
+++++++++++++++
By studying our history, by learning about its heroes, by examining and understanding its failures as well as its incomparable achievements, we grasp the value of our political tradition and what distinguishes it from others.
Our country is something to be proud of, something to celebrate. Why should we shrink from saying so? A sober, a sophisticated, study of our history demonstrates beyond cavil that we have provided more freedom to more people than any nation in the history of mankind; that we have provided a greater degree of equality to more people than any nation in the history of mankind; that we have created more prosperity, and spread it more widely, than any nation in the history of mankind; that we have brought more justice to more people than any nation in the history of mankind; that our open, tolerant, prosperous, peaceable society is the marvel and envy of the ages. (p. 162-163)
+++++++++++++++
By studying our history, by learning about its heroes, by examining and understanding its failures as well as its incomparable achievements, we grasp the value of our political tradition and what distinguishes it from others.
Our country is something to be proud of, something to celebrate. Why should we shrink from saying so? A sober, a sophisticated, study of our history demonstrates beyond cavil that we have provided more freedom to more people than any nation in the history of mankind; that we have provided a greater degree of equality to more people than any nation in the history of mankind; that we have created more prosperity, and spread it more widely, than any nation in the history of mankind; that we have brought more justice to more people than any nation in the history of mankind; that our open, tolerant, prosperous, peaceable society is the marvel and envy of the ages. (p. 162-163)
April 5, 2003
Professors are Out of Touch
(The whole article is reprinted here because the New York Times is severing links to its articles after 30 days or so)
This article, (Thank's Kate for writing it with balance and fairness), suggest's what's wrong with our education system. Anti-war, perhaps even anti-American intellectuals, the same crowd that pushed Political Correctness, has seen better days. Young people understand the threat to America demonstrated by 9/11. Many of their professors have analyzed the event incorrectly and I'm pleased to see students challenging their teachers' views and motivations.
If we probed deeper, I believe we'd see the same beliefs held by teachers in our high schools and in the elementary grades. Balance is needed, not brainwashing.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Professors Protest as Students Debate
April 5, 2003
By KATE ZERNIKE
AMHERST, Mass., April 4 - It is not easy being an old lefty
on campus in this war.
At the University of Wisconsin at Madison, awash in antiwar
protests in the Vietnam era, a columnist for a student
newspaper took a professor to task for canceling classes to
protest the war in Iraq, saying the university should
reprimand her and refund tuition for the missed periods.
Irvine Valley College in Southern California sent faculty
members a memo that warned them not to discuss the war
unless it was specifically related to the course material.
When professors cried censorship, the administration
explained that the request had come from students.
Here at Amherst College, many students were vocally annoyed
this semester when 40 professors paraded into the dining
hall with antiwar signs. One student confronted a
protesting professor and shoved him.
Some students here accuse professors of behaving
inappropriately, of not knowing their place.
"It seems the professors are more vehement than the
students," Jack Morgan, a sophomore, said. "There comes a
point when you wonder are you fostering a discussion or are
you promoting an opinion you want students to embrace or
even parrot?"
Across the country, the war is disclosing role reversals,
between professors shaped by Vietnam protests and a more
conservative student body traumatized by the attacks of
Sept. 11, 2001. Prowar groups have sprung up at Brandeis
and Yale and on other campuses. One group at Columbia,
where last week an antiwar professor rhetorically called
for "a million Mogadishus," is campaigning for the return
of R.O.T.C. to Morningside Heights.
Even in antiwar bastions like Cambridge, Berkeley and
Madison, the protests have been more town than gown. At
Berkeley, where Vietnam protesters shouted, "Shut it down!"
under clouds of tear gas, Sproul Plaza these days features
mostly solo operators who hand out black armbands. The
shutdown was in San Francisco, and the crowd was grayer.
All this dismays many professors.
"We used to like to
offend people," Martha Saxton, a professor of women's
studies at Amherst, said as she discussed the faculty
protest with students this week. "We loved being bad, in
the sense that we were making a statement. Why is there no
joy now?"
Certainly not all students are pro-war or all faculty anti.
But "there's a much higher percentage of liberal professors
than there are liberal students," said Ben Falby, the
student who organized the protest at Amherst only to find
that it had more professors than students.
On campuses like Yale and Berkeley, professors say their
colleagues are overwhelmingly against the war. By contrast,
students polled by The Yale Daily News are 50-50.
Interviews elsewhere find students' attitudes equally
fractured. Some are solidly for the war. Some are against
it, but not to the point of protest.
"Protesting is a niche activity," said Prof. Michael Kazin,
co-author of "America Divided: The Civil War of the
1960's." "There are some people who do drama, some people
who do protest, other people who drink too much."
At Georgetown, where Professor Kazin teaches history, a
handful of antiwar students had a sleep-in last weekend on
Red Square, named for the color of the bricks, not the
political sentiment of those who gather there. Other
students expressed disgust, so much that Professor Kazin
said to his students that they seemed more upset about the
encampment than the war.
He hears similar accounts in academic e-mail chains across
the country. One example was a campus protest that drew 40
students, maybe 60.
Amherst's history should make it predictably antiwar. The
Vietnam protests were so spirited that in 1972 they swept
up the college president, John William Ward, who was
arrested in a sit-in at nearby Westover Air Force Base. The
protest included 1,000 students, 20 faculty members and the
president's wife.
Now, the departing president, Tom Gerety, is firmly
antiwar, as are most professors. The students, however,
have yet to be swept up. Last month, the Progressive
Students Association asked the student government to ask
the faculty to take 15 minutes in class to discuss the war.
The government refused. Some professors chose to take the
time anyway, but many did not, having seen the reaction to
the dining hall protest.
"There was a sense this is a different world," said Austin
Sarat, a professor of political science who was active in
antiwar protests in 1970 as a graduate student in Madison,
Wis.
Students opposed to the war say they appreciate the
professors' sentiments.
"It's a lonely place to be an antiwar protester on the
Amherst campus," said Beatriz Wallace, a junior. In the
dining hall, students have set out baskets of ribbons, some
yellow, some red, white and blue.
Prowar students say they feel just as alienated. "The
faculty, and events, has a chilling effect on discussions
for the prowar side," said David Chen, a sophomore.
In a discussion, Professor Sarat began with the proposition
that if you love the United States, you must, as an act of
patriotism, oppose the war. Students took exception.
"President Bush has taken an imperial position," Professor
Sarat insisted.
Michael Valentine, a sophomore, replied: "I don't think
it's the dominance of the United States. It's the security
of the United States that's at issue. They're saying the
only way we can ensure the security of our citizens is to
go in there."
"And to make the Middle East safe for democracy," Professor
Sarat interjected.
"Professor, that's only because a regime poses a security
risk," Mr. Valentine said.
Professor Sarat said the change in tone reflected a larger
shift.
"The notion that campuses are awash in political
correctness," he said, "is given the lie every day in my
classroom."
Still, he and others expressed wistfulness for days gone
by.
"In Madison, teach-ins were as common as bratwurst," he
said. "There was a certain nobility in being gassed. Now
you don't get gassed. You walk into a dining hall and hand
out an informational pamphlet."
The students' attitudes have many possible explanations.
There is no draft this time. Students on small liberal arts
campuses like this one are more diverse than those of the
60's and 70's. More receive financial aid, and many are
more concerned about their careers than about protesting.
But the students have also been pulled toward a more
conservative mainstream than their parents.
"The most left president they know is Bill Clinton, running
on, `I'm tough on crime,' " Professor Sarat said. "The
Great Society is to them what the New Deal was to me."
John Lewis Gaddis, a professor of history at Yale, agreed,
saying: "These are the kids of Reagan. When I lecture on
Reagan, the kids love him. Their parents are horrified and
appalled."
This generation is also shaped by Sept. 11. When Gary J.
Bass, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton,
asked his class on "Causes of War" how many students were
in R.O.T.C., two raised their hands. The rest applauded.
"I had asked the question before Sept. 11 and not gotten
that response," Professor Bass said. "I definitely hadn't
expected it."
A nationwide survey of freshmen by the University of
California at Los Angeles over the last 37 years reflected
other shifts from Sept. 11. This year, more students called
themselves conservative than in other recent surveys, and
45 percent supported an increase in military spending, more
than double the percentage in 1993.
At a teach-in at Yale, the president, Richard C. Levin,
announced that although he was against the war, the
speakers were chosen to represent a range of opinions.
At Amherst, Prof. Barry O'Connell, too, tries hard. As he
sits in a discussion group with students, he patiently
listens to those who argue in favor of the war, even though
he remains adamantly against it. Across the hall, a mug
shot of Henry A. Kissinger is posted outside his office
with the heading "Wanted for Crimes Against Humanity."
"My job is not to get my students to agree with me,"
Professor O'Connell insisted.
Still, he conceded, `There is a second when I hear them,
and my heart just falls."
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
]
This article, (Thank's Kate for writing it with balance and fairness), suggest's what's wrong with our education system. Anti-war, perhaps even anti-American intellectuals, the same crowd that pushed Political Correctness, has seen better days. Young people understand the threat to America demonstrated by 9/11. Many of their professors have analyzed the event incorrectly and I'm pleased to see students challenging their teachers' views and motivations.
If we probed deeper, I believe we'd see the same beliefs held by teachers in our high schools and in the elementary grades. Balance is needed, not brainwashing.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Professors Protest as Students Debate
April 5, 2003
By KATE ZERNIKE
AMHERST, Mass., April 4 - It is not easy being an old lefty
on campus in this war.
At the University of Wisconsin at Madison, awash in antiwar
protests in the Vietnam era, a columnist for a student
newspaper took a professor to task for canceling classes to
protest the war in Iraq, saying the university should
reprimand her and refund tuition for the missed periods.
Irvine Valley College in Southern California sent faculty
members a memo that warned them not to discuss the war
unless it was specifically related to the course material.
When professors cried censorship, the administration
explained that the request had come from students.
Here at Amherst College, many students were vocally annoyed
this semester when 40 professors paraded into the dining
hall with antiwar signs. One student confronted a
protesting professor and shoved him.
Some students here accuse professors of behaving
inappropriately, of not knowing their place.
"It seems the professors are more vehement than the
students," Jack Morgan, a sophomore, said. "There comes a
point when you wonder are you fostering a discussion or are
you promoting an opinion you want students to embrace or
even parrot?"
Across the country, the war is disclosing role reversals,
between professors shaped by Vietnam protests and a more
conservative student body traumatized by the attacks of
Sept. 11, 2001. Prowar groups have sprung up at Brandeis
and Yale and on other campuses. One group at Columbia,
where last week an antiwar professor rhetorically called
for "a million Mogadishus," is campaigning for the return
of R.O.T.C. to Morningside Heights.
Even in antiwar bastions like Cambridge, Berkeley and
Madison, the protests have been more town than gown. At
Berkeley, where Vietnam protesters shouted, "Shut it down!"
under clouds of tear gas, Sproul Plaza these days features
mostly solo operators who hand out black armbands. The
shutdown was in San Francisco, and the crowd was grayer.
All this dismays many professors.
"We used to like to
offend people," Martha Saxton, a professor of women's
studies at Amherst, said as she discussed the faculty
protest with students this week. "We loved being bad, in
the sense that we were making a statement. Why is there no
joy now?"
Certainly not all students are pro-war or all faculty anti.
But "there's a much higher percentage of liberal professors
than there are liberal students," said Ben Falby, the
student who organized the protest at Amherst only to find
that it had more professors than students.
On campuses like Yale and Berkeley, professors say their
colleagues are overwhelmingly against the war. By contrast,
students polled by The Yale Daily News are 50-50.
Interviews elsewhere find students' attitudes equally
fractured. Some are solidly for the war. Some are against
it, but not to the point of protest.
"Protesting is a niche activity," said Prof. Michael Kazin,
co-author of "America Divided: The Civil War of the
1960's." "There are some people who do drama, some people
who do protest, other people who drink too much."
At Georgetown, where Professor Kazin teaches history, a
handful of antiwar students had a sleep-in last weekend on
Red Square, named for the color of the bricks, not the
political sentiment of those who gather there. Other
students expressed disgust, so much that Professor Kazin
said to his students that they seemed more upset about the
encampment than the war.
He hears similar accounts in academic e-mail chains across
the country. One example was a campus protest that drew 40
students, maybe 60.
Amherst's history should make it predictably antiwar. The
Vietnam protests were so spirited that in 1972 they swept
up the college president, John William Ward, who was
arrested in a sit-in at nearby Westover Air Force Base. The
protest included 1,000 students, 20 faculty members and the
president's wife.
Now, the departing president, Tom Gerety, is firmly
antiwar, as are most professors. The students, however,
have yet to be swept up. Last month, the Progressive
Students Association asked the student government to ask
the faculty to take 15 minutes in class to discuss the war.
The government refused. Some professors chose to take the
time anyway, but many did not, having seen the reaction to
the dining hall protest.
"There was a sense this is a different world," said Austin
Sarat, a professor of political science who was active in
antiwar protests in 1970 as a graduate student in Madison,
Wis.
Students opposed to the war say they appreciate the
professors' sentiments.
"It's a lonely place to be an antiwar protester on the
Amherst campus," said Beatriz Wallace, a junior. In the
dining hall, students have set out baskets of ribbons, some
yellow, some red, white and blue.
Prowar students say they feel just as alienated. "The
faculty, and events, has a chilling effect on discussions
for the prowar side," said David Chen, a sophomore.
In a discussion, Professor Sarat began with the proposition
that if you love the United States, you must, as an act of
patriotism, oppose the war. Students took exception.
"President Bush has taken an imperial position," Professor
Sarat insisted.
Michael Valentine, a sophomore, replied: "I don't think
it's the dominance of the United States. It's the security
of the United States that's at issue. They're saying the
only way we can ensure the security of our citizens is to
go in there."
"And to make the Middle East safe for democracy," Professor
Sarat interjected.
"Professor, that's only because a regime poses a security
risk," Mr. Valentine said.
Professor Sarat said the change in tone reflected a larger
shift.
"The notion that campuses are awash in political
correctness," he said, "is given the lie every day in my
classroom."
Still, he and others expressed wistfulness for days gone
by.
"In Madison, teach-ins were as common as bratwurst," he
said. "There was a certain nobility in being gassed. Now
you don't get gassed. You walk into a dining hall and hand
out an informational pamphlet."
The students' attitudes have many possible explanations.
There is no draft this time. Students on small liberal arts
campuses like this one are more diverse than those of the
60's and 70's. More receive financial aid, and many are
more concerned about their careers than about protesting.
But the students have also been pulled toward a more
conservative mainstream than their parents.
"The most left president they know is Bill Clinton, running
on, `I'm tough on crime,' " Professor Sarat said. "The
Great Society is to them what the New Deal was to me."
John Lewis Gaddis, a professor of history at Yale, agreed,
saying: "These are the kids of Reagan. When I lecture on
Reagan, the kids love him. Their parents are horrified and
appalled."
This generation is also shaped by Sept. 11. When Gary J.
Bass, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton,
asked his class on "Causes of War" how many students were
in R.O.T.C., two raised their hands. The rest applauded.
"I had asked the question before Sept. 11 and not gotten
that response," Professor Bass said. "I definitely hadn't
expected it."
A nationwide survey of freshmen by the University of
California at Los Angeles over the last 37 years reflected
other shifts from Sept. 11. This year, more students called
themselves conservative than in other recent surveys, and
45 percent supported an increase in military spending, more
than double the percentage in 1993.
At a teach-in at Yale, the president, Richard C. Levin,
announced that although he was against the war, the
speakers were chosen to represent a range of opinions.
At Amherst, Prof. Barry O'Connell, too, tries hard. As he
sits in a discussion group with students, he patiently
listens to those who argue in favor of the war, even though
he remains adamantly against it. Across the hall, a mug
shot of Henry A. Kissinger is posted outside his office
with the heading "Wanted for Crimes Against Humanity."
"My job is not to get my students to agree with me,"
Professor O'Connell insisted.
Still, he conceded, `There is a second when I hear them,
and my heart just falls."
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
]
April 4, 2003
Thanks, Mohammed!
A brave man instigates the daring rescue of Jessica Lynch.
Inside the room with her was an imposing Iraqi man, clad all in black. Mohammed watched as the man slapped the American woman with his open palm, then again with the back of his hand. In that instant, Mohammed recalled today, he resolved to do something. The next day, when the man in black was not around, Mohammed sneaked in to see the young woman.
"Don't worry, don't worry," he told her. He was going to help.
As he recounted the events today, that decision set in motion one of the most dramatic moments in the first two weeks of the war in Iraq. Five days after Mohammed located U.S. Marines and told them what he knew, Black Hawk helicopters swooped in under cover of darkness, touching down next to the six-story hospital, and a team of heavily-armed commandos stormed the building. With hand-scrawled maps from Mohammed and his wife, the commandos quickly found the injured Pfc. Jessica Lynch and spirited her away to safety.
Inside the room with her was an imposing Iraqi man, clad all in black. Mohammed watched as the man slapped the American woman with his open palm, then again with the back of his hand. In that instant, Mohammed recalled today, he resolved to do something. The next day, when the man in black was not around, Mohammed sneaked in to see the young woman.
"Don't worry, don't worry," he told her. He was going to help.
As he recounted the events today, that decision set in motion one of the most dramatic moments in the first two weeks of the war in Iraq. Five days after Mohammed located U.S. Marines and told them what he knew, Black Hawk helicopters swooped in under cover of darkness, touching down next to the six-story hospital, and a team of heavily-armed commandos stormed the building. With hand-scrawled maps from Mohammed and his wife, the commandos quickly found the injured Pfc. Jessica Lynch and spirited her away to safety.
April 3, 2003
Finally! A Concise Military Status Assessment
This author provides a 4/2/03 crisp analysis of the status of the siege of Baghdad. A significant improvement over the barrage of information from the TV news channels.
April 2, 2003
O'Sullivan's Reasonable Hypothesis
John O'Sullivan opines that Saddam's Baath loyalist thugs will dissipate when the regime cracks and the fear of retribution shared by ordinary Iraqis is gone. Simultaneously, the power of the ruling Baath party will evaporate. This may be so, but threats of suicide bombings by the radical Islamists may be a painful harrassment. Certainly, more 'civilians' will be killed.
March 30, 2003
Vermont's Act 60 Dilemma
As Vermont struggles with how to fund its K-12 education system, proposals to use the sales and use tax and/or the income tax to supplement or replace the property tax have generated considerable interest. I favor continuing primary reliance on the property tax because it is relatively stable, albeit with some dificulties in fair administration and statewide property value appraisal.
Heavy reliance on the income tax, already too high, will drive mobile Vermonters away. Sales and use taxes hold some attraction, but they can vary substantially with the economic cycles.
The legislature must think long and hard about proposing radical changes, particularly without any coherent overall tax strategy for the state.
As important as the revenue source is cost control. We cannot afford a continuation of the 40% increase in education spending, whatever the drivers, that we experienced between 1997 and 2002. These increases are not sustainable. Left unchecked, they, along with escalating costs of health care, will create an unsustainable demand for revenue and surely dampen economic development and job growth.
Heavy reliance on the income tax, already too high, will drive mobile Vermonters away. Sales and use taxes hold some attraction, but they can vary substantially with the economic cycles.
The legislature must think long and hard about proposing radical changes, particularly without any coherent overall tax strategy for the state.
As important as the revenue source is cost control. We cannot afford a continuation of the 40% increase in education spending, whatever the drivers, that we experienced between 1997 and 2002. These increases are not sustainable. Left unchecked, they, along with escalating costs of health care, will create an unsustainable demand for revenue and surely dampen economic development and job growth.
March 29, 2003
James Webb's Somber Appraisal of the War to Date
Mr. Webb has a background in Vietnam that qualifies him to make this assessment, particularly in light of the suicide taxi bombing today that killed four soldiers. If the Iraqis fight to defend their homeland or if the irregulars and Fedayeen Saddam are able to threaten and intimidate the populace to prevent an uprising of the Shiia, then this will be a tough go. Nevertheless, if there are WMD, then we must do it. If WMDs are not found, this will be a tragic mistake.
March 28, 2003
War is Not Pretty or Surgical
CWO Pat Woellhof is expressing the truth. Mr. Kristof may not like the stark reality of war, but here it is. Saddam uses these tactics. His people bear the pain. America takes the bad rap. Where is the logic here? Should the Marines not shoot to kill? Use rubber bullets? Walk away? What, Mr .Kristoff?
From NY Times' self-proclaimed dove, Nicholas Kristof :
"My intrepid Times colleagues Dexter Filkins and Michael Wilson are with U.S. marines who were in a firefight in which Iraqi fighters hid among women and children. After 10 Americans had been killed, the marines became less meticulous about avoiding civilian casualties."
"It's not pretty; it's not surgical," Chief Warrant Officer Pat Woellhof told them. "You try to limit collateral damage, but they want to fight. Now it's just smash-mouth football."
From NY Times' self-proclaimed dove, Nicholas Kristof :
"My intrepid Times colleagues Dexter Filkins and Michael Wilson are with U.S. marines who were in a firefight in which Iraqi fighters hid among women and children. After 10 Americans had been killed, the marines became less meticulous about avoiding civilian casualties."
"It's not pretty; it's not surgical," Chief Warrant Officer Pat Woellhof told them. "You try to limit collateral damage, but they want to fight. Now it's just smash-mouth football."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)