Political Willpower

In an email Fred McColly, who has a blog of his own, fears that Obama won’t have the political willpower to avoid escalating the war in Afghanistan. He wrote: “Why is it that some jabbering neo-con freaks on the crypto-fascist Fox network can overcome the collective memory of what it is like to fight a determined guerilla force? Vietnam analogies were all wrong for Iraq...but they fit Afghanistan...do you think Barack will have the balls to pull the plug on this before it rewinds the whole nightmare? Maybe someone will realize the country's bankrupt (financially and ethically) before we get in any deeper. It's been more than thirty years since the last real quagmire. My gut feeling is that the powers that be have forgotten long ago.

Nicole Anslover asked me to critique her proposal for a Summer Faculty Fellowship. She basically wants to revise her PhD dissertation, entitled An Executive Echo Chamber. In summarizing the first chapter on Harry Truman’s foreign policy she wrote: “I argue that although his diplomacy evolved out of necessity, his actions led directly to the Vietnam War. However, by the time Eisenhower took office, the world situation had changed and continuity was not necessary. I told her the proposal was fantastic and that she should be a shoo-in for a Fellowship. I added this paragraph: “One thing you might think about: you have Truman making police in Asia “out of necessity” while I’d argue that converting a policy intended for Europe into a worldwide policy was foolhardy (this was George Kennan’s view) and that we should have looked to normalize relations with “Red China.” If containment was “out of necessity,” the reason was political (McCarthyism), not geopolitical.” Nicole replied: “Thanks! All your suggestions are very helpful. I completely agree with Truman's policy being foolhardy -- I make the argument that the "necessity" was his own personal feeling, due to his inexperience, limited world view, and having no idea what steps FDR would have taken. I'm looking to develop that idea completely in the revisions.”

Speaking about change and continuity, President Obama was very critical of Bush’s foreign policy but is close to upping the ante in Afghanistan with possibly disastrous consequences. Fighting the Taliban is one thing, but we are dangerously close to getting tied too closely with the regime in power and engaging in nation-building.

I’m sending copies of the Retirement Journal to friends whose emails I used, including grad school buddy Ray Smock and high school friends Phil Arnold, Gaard Murphy Logan, Wendy Henry Wellin, Mary Delp Harwood, and Terry Jenkins. Hopefully I don’t write anything that they will find embarrassing. I describe Gaard as someone who “lived a semi=hippie life in San Francisco for years.” We spent a day with Gaard and husband Chuck while in Washington with Beth, Alissa, and Miranda and I wrote that for several years they “went to Mexico for long periods in a VW van and lived for two dollars a day in a trailer park. Gaard put her first husband through NYU law school. After the dean got all the wives together and told them to expect their spouses to be married to school and career, she fled and started a new life more open to adventure.”

Took volume 40 and copies of “The Signal” retrieved from IU Northwest Bookstore to Henry Farag’s office at the Star Plaza while picking up tickets for the Steely Dan concert on November 7. Henry graciously offered me four free tickets to his “Ultimate Doo Wop Show” on November 21 and expressed interest in doing more writing for Steel Shavings. He is upset at the power of big moneyed interests to thwart meaningful change in health care and other areas. Both he and Fred McColly kept journals in the Spring of 2003 that I used in my “Ides of March” issue (volume 36). They were opposed to Bush’s war against Saddam Hussein’s regime and appalled at how docile the press was at the time. Fred titled his journal “Orwellian Times” and started with the George Orwell quote: “The illiteracy of Politicians is a special feature of our age.” Henry wrote: “The terrorist attack of September 11 is the catalyst. Everything is now security or safety or the illusion of it. A truly unprecedented tragedy has turned into a right cross on our body politic. Bush gave Congress a budget request for the war of $74.7 billion, and that was described as a down payment. Forty-eight million people don’t have health insurance, millions are out of work, and hundreds of federal programs have been cut. The Feds are operating on a $500 billion deficit, and over 30 states are in debt, but somehow we can come up with $75 billion (which translates in government arithmetic to $200 billion or more) in a flash.”