The Error of "War" on Terror

Much has been made about the infelicity of making war on something as vague as "terror". There are probably several reasons why this nomenclature stuck. First and foremost, metaphorical phrases like that, combining a word like "war" or "struggle" or "battle" or "fight" and a broad, vague term like "tyranny", "oppression", "Communism", or "fascism" to characterize actual military actions, have been seen for a long time. It shouldn't seem too odd, and it doesn't, for a people who grew up "fighting Communism" to embrace a "war on terror". Second, just as when in the Cold War we were "fighting Communism" rather than (explicitly) the Soviet Union and Red China, and except for a few relatively brief spans of time, Cuba, North Korea, North Vietnam, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, and so on, we are engaged in a "war on terror" instead of a war with al-Qaeda, a war with the Taleban, a war with Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Tamil Tigers, the Aryan Brotherhood, and so on. It is easy to forget the Cold War rhetoric of "fighting Communism", but in fact, although the Cold War was declared "over", Communism is still alive and ticking in many places around the world, from a left-wing faction in most western European nations to actual governments and officials in eastern Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. The third reason, and the one that I think has doomed the War on Terror to the same ultimate oblivion suffered by Johnson's War on Poverty, is that it militarized our response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Once again, there has been considerable debate about whether what we are doing in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantánamo is really a "war". In both Afghanistan and Iraq, there was a fairly brief and fairly conventional invasion of a nation by another nation which cast out the former government and installed its own. What this resembles the most--strictly at the level of what happened rather than of motivations--is the classical invasion such as that of Germany of Poland and France, and that of Germany by the Allies. That is, we went in, blasted the hell out of the place, kicked out the government, and took over. But that phase was very short, and its connection to our motivations and goals was never very clear.

When Hitler invaded Poland, his motivation was lebensraum, space for Germans to spread out in the manner to which they wanted to become accustomed. When the Allies invaded Germany, the goal was to "make the world safe for Democracy", a goal that shares a surface similarity with our goals in invading Afghanistan and Iraq. But after VE day, the Allies had expended the resources necessary to own Germany. There was an immense military presence there, one that had cost mind-boggling amounts of money and lives. Very few people objected to this because of the horrendous events of the past ten or so years. In the beginning, the Allies hand-picked people to run the German government, and no trace of Naziism was tolerated there during the occupation. By sweetening the deal by providing heavy-handed security, economic prosperity, and hope for the future, even the conquered Germans were on board (and those who weren't were thrown in jail). The extent of the Allied control of Germany is perhaps best seen in the fact that the Soviet Union kept it up in East Germany and East Berlin for fifty years(!) until the end of the Cold War and reunification. That is what a military occupation looks like. And make no mistake, immediately after the war, the Americans occupied their portions of Germany just as thoroughly as the Russians did theirs; we simply differed in our goals, motivations, and interests, and acted accordingly.

Our goal in invading Afghanistant and Iraq was to kill or capture the band of murderers who attacked us, and/or to prevent subsequent attacks on us using weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, that goal is an ambiguous one, and one that has received some, but not much, public debate. Killing or capturing murderers is, after all, something that our police do every day. And preventing attacks from other nations is something that a strong defense coupled with competent diplomacy has succeeded in more often than not. But we made the decision to militarize our response rather than use conventional civilian and diplomatic methods.

However, compared to the war with Hitler, this was never anything more than a half-hearted militarization, even though the Bush administration managed to scare--or freak out--a lot of people. Osama, Omar, and Saddam were no Hitler and the American people, or many of them, understood that from the outset. For one thing, Germany had an immensely powerful military machine that had already invaded and gobbled up most of Europe. The people who attacked us were outsiders, losers, thugs, who basically took advantage of a window of inattention on the part of the still-fairly-new Bush administration. In other words, they blind-sided us with a one-time lucky shot. Their goal was never conquest, it was simply to attract attention, even very negative attention, to their movement and its aims. Once the attack took place, their goal had already been achieved.

Obviously we can't allow people to kill thousands of people on our soil with impunity, and this takes us back to the main point. The Bush administration and Republicans in general had been floundering since the end of the Cold War's "fighting Communism" meme. Perhaps they assumed that they could replace it with the "war on terror" concept, thereby uniting the nation largely behind them. In any case, they rejected the specific pursuit of al Qaeda in favor of military adventures against Afghanistan, where they were located, and against Iraq, which had been a thorn in George Bush's side for more than a decade.

However, their error was in grossly overestimating the nation's interest in a new war. In fact, there never was any desire for war. We wanted more than anything to understand what happened on September 11, and we wanted the perpetrators brought to justice. In the early phases of each war, I think we were expecting those things to happen, and at many of us were willing to accept the Bush administration's assertion that we could achieve those goals through military action. However, the whole wartime sociology, such as what the world has experienced in all previous sustained engagements, never came about. In effect, the government was attempting to blend the "life goes on" aspect of the Cold War with the "any means to the end" aspect of World War II, and it simply could not be sustained over the years. Furthermore, the nation's real interests--security and justice--were not met. In order to support the pretense of a war footing, the government has had to resort to the creation of an environment of fear. Most Americans feel much, much less safe than they did on September 10, 2001, and not much safer than they did on September 12, 2001. As for justice: instead of bringing the perpetuators to justice, we have largely imprisoned a group of assorted bearded coreligionists of the perpetuators in an initiative characterized more by gross injustice than by anything recognizable as justice.

I believe that the fundamental error in all this was to militarize our response to the September 11 attacks. Our military works best when is is used as an adjunct of diplomacy, and the best way to bring criminals to justice is through competent and vigorous law enforcement. Although it is painful to remember now, virtually the entire world was behind us after September 2001. If we had marshalled a diplomatic effort coupled with a very strong police investigation of the facts in order to make a case that would have succeeded even under the strictest Sharia law, we might have taken out al Qaeda without firing a shot. And even if we had needed to go into Afghanstan or Pakistan to get them, we could have done that with immense international support and without starting a war. A non-military response would have achieved our goals (which have not yet been achieved!), would have bolstered our position as a world leader, and would have supported world peace rather than the use of military force. An opportunity that lamentably has now been lost. Perhaps the lesson will be remembered, though.

Greg Shenaut

Re-reading

All my life, I've been a heavy pleasure reader. At times, it has seemed like an addiction, and there is little question that it has affected the course of my life in negative ways. However, that's not what this post is about. I want to talk about one of the greatest pleasures available to the lifelong reader: the rediscovery of books read and enjoyed long ago.

What prompted this post was my recent reading of the Glencannon stories, written from around 1925 to around 1950 by Guy Gilpatric. I have come into contact with Colin Glencannon, Chief Engineer of the SS Inchcliffe Castle, during three periods of my life.

When I was a child, my parents had a fairly small collection of books in the house. Several volumns of Reader's Digest Condensed Books, the Encyclopedia Americana, other miscellania, and Mr. Glencannon Ignores the War. I would say that by the time I was out of elementary school, I had read all of their books several times over, and Glencannon many times. 

I should add that my father was a Marine who had fought in the South Pacific in World War II, and that the book was given to him by my mother, probably because the story was placed there. The Glencannon book, along with other fare such as Robert Sherrod's "Tawara: the Story of a Battle", along with war souvenirs like a Japanese sword & flag, gave me a glimpse into the world as it was for my parents during the War (I was born a bit more than two years after VJ day).

Perhaps it is a tribute to my shallowness, but I related to the fictional universe created by Gilpatric much more than the real one written about by Sherrod, and while I remember almost nothing about Tawara, Glencannon and the other characters in Mr. Glencannon Ignores the War have stayed with me all my life.

When I was in college, my father died. I don't think it's an accident that some time after that, I thought of that Glencannon book, and decided to see whether the university library had a copy. I was extremely pleased that not only did it have a copy of Mr. Glencannon Ignores the War, but there were copies of a Glencannon Omnibus and a "Best of" Glencannon collection. I devoured all of those with great pleasure.

Last spring, my mother died. I have no idea if there is a connection, but I recently began to have the desire to re-read some Glencannon. I am associated with a different university now, and I was able this time around to get my hands on all three of the Glencannon Omnibus volumes. I just finished them, and it was a wonderful experience. For one thing, the effect was much greater to be able to read all the stories, but without question, the peak was in ending right where I started more than 50 years ago, with Mr. Glencannon Ignores the War.

There is no question that this is a great story and a great series. I would have enjoyed them even had I not been exposed to them as a child. But because of the linkage with my earlier life, I feel flooded with nameless emotions and memories. I suppose that this may be similar to other kinds of nostalgia -- going back to old places, smelling old smells, and so on, but I can't help but think that there is a kind of synergy from the experience of reading the story, already a kind of escape from the here and now, with the re-reading of such a familiar story from my childhood, and one that had such strong personal associations for me.

If you are a lifelong reader, I encourage you to go back over some of these old tales. If you aren't, then it's not too late to get started now, so hop to it.

Greg Shenaut

P.S. For a taste of Colin Glencannon, there are etext versions of three stories here.

Toward a more rational public education system

I have been a student far more than most people: it took me 29 years to get through school from first grade to the PhD (with various twists, turns, and interruptions along the way). I also spent ten years teaching music privately, and later, several years homeschooling my two daughters. I often have randomly philosophized on the question of education, and over the years have developed a few ideas and opinions on the subject.

The first main difference between my ideas and the conventional view is over who controls the pace of learning. In the conventional approach, the teacher and school district/department/college control the pace, and the student must keep up, along with all of the other students in his class. Those who work more slowly are lost, and those who work more quickly are bored. I think that a critically important component of a rational educational system is that the student work at his own pace through a structured curriculum.

The second big difference between my approach and the conventional one has to do with what it means to "pass" a course or a grade. The conventional approach is to set a certain average level of performance--generally what is called a "C" grade--and to pass those with C or better averages and fail those with less than C averages. Note that a C average can be attained either with Cs in all subtopics, or with an A in half and an F in the other half of the subtopics. That is, a C average means that there are certain subtopics that have not been mastered; yet, the student must advance to the next level and do work that presupposes this mastery. As one moves through 12 grades, there is an accumulation of nonmastery such that students who graduate highschool with an overall C average will have mastered, on average, only half of the subtopics in the courses that they passed. I think that a second critically important component of a rational educational system is that students must master each and every subtopic that they study, in a structured curriculum. By "master", I mean that there should be no misunderstanding, basically performance at the "A" or "A+" level.

Finally, a third significant difference between my ideas and conventional education is that all students must end up at the same point. That is, there is something called a highschool diploma, or a bachelor's degree, that all students must achieve within a certain period of time. Those who don't, fail; those who do, pass. My idea is that, given a properly structured curriculum through which students pass at their own pace, but in which each and every subtopic must be mastered before advancing, the proper outcome measure is not a single diploma/no diploma, but rather, an index that represents just how far they have progressed--with complete mastery, remember--through the structured curriculum, at any given point in time.

The structure of the curriculum is extremely important, however, there is already wide general agreement, at least for the core subject areas, as to this structure. There is no reason why extra, less-structured, non-core subjects can't be incorporated into the core curriculum as such, as long as the well-structured core is available. For example, if performance ability on the violin is not part of the core (and why should it be?), there is still no reason why a student should not add a violin performance component to his individual curriculum.

So there should be a national core curriculum broken down into a network of interrelated subtopics such that the dependencies are encoded into the curriculum in the form of prerequisites. When a student has mastered all prerequisites, then he advances to the next set of obligatory and optional subtopics, in an ongoing process.

This means that students will work much more independently than in a conventional classroom. There are two relevant precedents for this. The first is so-called "open education" which was popular in the 1970s (and in which my elder daughter participated for two years). The second is the style of "unschooling" used in many homeschooling families. In both cases, chaos can result in the absence of knowledgable, well-trained teachers or parents, and the training must include how to let students work as independently as possible, as well as how to convey the information in the curriculum. The approach is also found in Montessori schools, whose emphasis on properly prepared manipulables and other structured materials is an excellent example of how to carry out this approach.

It is true that under a fully-implemented version of this approach, some students would make their way very quickly through most of the curriculum, "graduating" while still elementary school age, while others, even after 12 years, will still not be at what is currently known as the "high school level". Is this a bad thing? I would argue that it is much bettern to master each aspect of basic skills than never to do so, but by occupying a seat, to receive credit for "passing" more advanced ones.

The largest problems in using this approach are (1) to create the curriculum along with all supporting materials, and (2) to train (or de-train) teachers and parents in the method so that they strike the right balance of support for the students.

Greg Shenaut

Term Limits and Lame Ducks

The spector of the lame duck president, or of a lame duck congress, is a familiar one on the American political landscape. For many years there has been a tension between those who want professional, experienced government leaders versus those who would use term limits to allow new blood to enliven government. However, the emphasis by all parties has been on elections and on the beginnings of terms of office; relatively little attention has been paid to the problems of the lame duck.

It seems to me that the problem of the lame duck is at least as serious for the country as the problem of entrenched incumbency. It is well known that the effectiveness of government is greatly diminished during the last year of a president's second term (or the first term if the incombent does not seek re-election), and also of a congress that has seen a shift in the majority in the elections but must still finish out the current term. Officials either don't do much at all, or they do things that are contrary to the current mood of the nation.

An equally serious end-of-term problem is that of re-election. All too often a great deal of an office-holder's energy during the latter portion of a term is focused on things like fundraising, speechmaking, and pandering, all focused on getting re-elected to office.

I think that both incumbency and end-of-term problems can be addressed by making a few simple changes in the structure of our government, including but not limited to extreme term limits. (This is another in the series of random philosophizations regarding the need to replace our existing constitution through a full-bore constitutional convention.)

Well, for one thing, all elected offices should be limited to a single term, and the lengths of those terms should be increased somewhat. For example, four years for representatives, six years for presidents, and 10 years for senators. Federal elections would be held every two years. Note that during each election, 1/2 of all representatives and 1/5 of all senators would be up for elections, and the presidential election would be held every third cycle. To my way of thinking, this scheme would provide much more stability in government, since at least half of each body would remain in office (1/2 for the house, 4/5 for the senate) each cycle. (Note that the terms are all prime numbers multiplied by 2.)

The second change would be to limit the term of each office to one term. That is, to four years maximum for representatives, six years for presidents, and 10 years for senators. The concept of re-election to an office would become obsolete. Every election cycle would bring in new blood: 1/2 of the House, 1/5 of the Senate, and 100% of the presidency. Note that the increases in the lengths of the terms proposed above is a counterbalance for the rather extreme single-term limit. There would never be a complete shake-up in Congress. There could still be a system of seniority, but only to the extent that in the House, the representatives in the second half of their term would be senior, and the ones just coming in would be junior; the same situation would obtain in the Senate, but there would be five levels of seniority instead of two.

Furthermore, this term limitation would not be only on re-election to the same office currently held, but would also apply to any elective office. That is, someone who is currently serving in a federal office would not be eligible for any elective office for the term immediately following the current term. This would reduce the problems we have seen with fundraising and electioneering during the latter portion of most elected officials' terms.

However, there is no reason why someone who has been out of government entirely for at least one government election cycle could not run for election to another office. That is, one could see a four year term in the House, two years out of office, and then a ten year term in the Senate, or perhaps a six year term in the White House. However, no matter how long out of office, once an individual has served in the House, they would no longer be eligible to run for a seat in the House. This should even apply to those appointed to fill vacancies: once the term to which they were appointed is up, they would become ineligible in the same way as if they had served a full term. The reason for this is to simplify the seniority system and to prevent end-of-term pandering.

Problems: one problem with this scheme is that the terms of House members no longer divides into the ten-year census cycle. However, there is always a delay in implementing new apportionment after a census; under the proposed system, there would simply be a more gradual application of changes due to each successive census. I have written elsewhere in the blog about my concerns regarding how we have implemented our House of Representatives and Electoral College; for example, an universal at-large election of representatives whose votes in the House are weighted either by the number of constituents they represent or by the actual number of votes they received in the general election would make the census question less problematic. However, the fact remains that because of the way that representatives overlap one another in this scheme, there would never be a clean break between one system of apportionment and the next, however, given that re-apportionments that change the numbers of representatives would only occur at the time of an election, there is a fairly simple set of procedures to deal with this fairly.

When a re-apportionment occurs, there are three possibilities. First, the number of representatives could remain the same for a given state. In this case, the boundaries could be redrawn and the new districts assigned to continuing representatives as well as to those up for re-election. Second, the number of representatives would be reduced. In this case, the reduction would occur only when representatives' terms end; at that point, the number of candidates would be reduced. In the interim, any extra continuing representatives would be considered to be "at large" representatives, that is, representing the state as a while rather than their old (non-existent) districts. Third, the number of representatives would be increased for a given state. In this case, continuing representatives' districts would be redrawn and re-assigned as needed, and for the election, there would be more open seats. Since no representative would be running for re-election, this modified system for implementing reapportionment should cause minimal disruption.

A second class of problems has to do with incumbents who campaign for their "favorite" replacement. This system does nothing to help with that, nor should it. Politicians would still be politicians. However, when we observe campaign activities under the current system, we notice two things: (1) people campaign much harder for themselves than they do for others, and (2) we cut people much more breaks in terms of missing votes, being out of Washington, and so on, when they are campaigning for themselves than for when the are campaigning for someone else. Therefore, while this activity will still go on, it will be reduced, and it will no longer really be an end-of-term phenomenon (because people will also campaign for members of their party when their term is not ending).

A third class of problems has to do with incentives. Maybe the above changes would simply make all of our elected officials lame ducks. Without any incentive to get re-elected, this line of argumentation goes, what would force our elected officials to do their jobs honestly and sincerely? Well, there are several responses to this. First, I simply happen to believe that the problems surrounding the ends of terms are much greater when the official can be re-elected and is working for that. If all officials were, in effect, lame ducks, the entire dynamic would be changed. People would enter office knowing full well that their time in Washington is limited. Yes, some might treat their elected position as a sinecure: ethics enforcement would be at least as important under this scheme as it is under our current one. However, it would also become much easier for our officials to follow their conscience. Even in the last session of a term, every official would be fully aware that they could not run for elective office for at least two years, which is more than ample time for the fallout from an unpopular vote to dissipate. But this is definitely a balance that deserves full public discussion.

A fourth class of problems is related to the previous class: accountability. Currently, the system is supposed to eliminate an official who doesn't follow the desires of constituents, by electing someone else. As a result, relatively small groups of people in congressional districts often can have a disproportionate effect on national policy and laws, and members of congress abuse such institutions as the legislative earmark. This proposal will, in effect, change the balance, especially in the House, between small groups of constituents and larger national issues. However, it will also make the House somewhat less responsive to the people. Once again, this is a balance that would need to be discussed in detail.

All of the above should be discussed in a nationwide constitutional convention, in my opinion. There is no chance that our current Congress would ever pass such a sweeping change.

Why George Romney's Defeat is Good for Atheism

• No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States —Article VI, US Constitution

As an atheist, I have long been aware that the American political structure discriminates against atheists. For example, there have been many polls in which a majority of participants say that they would never, or would be unlikely to, vote for an atheist for high office. The way I've always encoded this bigotry is that only monotheists are allowed to pass the constitutionally nonexistant religious test required to qualify for high office. Romney himself as governor of Massachusetts, along with various senators and representatives who are also Mormons, supported that view, as did the recent election of a Black Muslim into the House of Representatives. I always figured that the divide was between atheists and polytheists on one side, and monotheists on the other.

However, George Romney was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential candidacy because he is a Mormon. This really isn't very ambiguous: the Republican base is packed with religious conservatives who are basically on record that they will never vote for a Mormon, and in state after state, it was shown that this was no empty threat, especially since the religious conservatives could support the nonviable Mike Huckabee with their votes instead. The difference between the presidential campaign and other, lower campaigns, is simply that: the president is the truest test of American prejudices. Various individuals who are not members of mainstream-to-conservative Christian denominations can be elected to lower offices, basically as exceptions or due to the nature of the local consistency or simply as a fluke, but the likelihood of that diminishes to near zero for the office of President of the United States.

Therefore, it appears that the split is not between monotheists and everyone else after all. So what is the nature of the religious test for office and public trust in the Land of the Free?

I think that the test is actually based on fear of being attacked, as are several other important aspects of the US political landscape (the "War on Terror", the Border Fence, the fear of socialism). In this case, religious individuals view atheists and Mormons as a threat because they understand that their ranks are filled with former main-stream Christians who either have become atheists, agnostics, or non-participants in religion, as well as Mormons (and to a much lesser extent, Muslims). That is, the exclusion of certain religious categories is very similar to the kind of discrimination formerly seen among GM workers against Fords and vice versa, or among American autoworkers and foreign cars, or among supporters of various athletic teams. In short, it is a "branding" phenomenon, a defense against competing brands. And why not? At times it appears that our entire culture is based on advertising and marketing. Entire segments of our economy are "ad-based", that is, they make their living by enticing consumers to view or listen to advertising. It should come as no surprise that religions in America have adopted the same kind of advertising/marketing mindset, and that they demand brand loyalty from their adherents. (One might even speculate about the historical connection between religious brand warfare and consumer brand competition: which came first?)

As a practical matter, atheists, Mormons, and Muslims, along with Hindus and most other non mainstream-to-conservative Christians, still fail and will continue to fail the nonexistant religious test for high office in our land. But it is actually comforting to see that the test is not actually based on religious grounds at all, but on brand loyalty. Who know, maybe this insight could show a way to move beyond our current religious divisiveness and pettiness. For example, is there a secular brand (American?) that could actually transcend traditional religious and ethnic branding?