When people get especially critical of America, its politics or policies, its history or culture, I like to remind them . . . there’s a reason:
If “(i)n America, it is traditional to destroy the black body – it is heritage”(Ta-Nehisi Coates), why do millions of black Africans begin a perilous journey across the Atlantic to Central or South America, then walk thousands of miles just to get to the US border? Did they fail to get the word?
When “bigotry against Hispanics has been an American constant since the Founding Fathers”(Marie Arana in the Washington Post), why do millions of Hispanic people of every nation and religion abandon home and hearth–and sometimes carrying their children on their backs–jump on moving trains just to get there? Like Rick in Casablanca, were they “misinformed?”
“Waters? What waters, we’re in the desert.” “I was misinformed.”
If America is a xenophobic land of increasing anti-Asian hate crimes, why do wealthy Chinese families insist on sending their prized only-child or grandchild to expensive American universities?
When America is the home of fervent anti-Islamic religious bigotry, why did Afghan Muslims risk certain death to cling to the wheels of American transport planes as they evacuated Kabul?
If Canada is all that America claims to be in terms of kindness, opportunity, and freedom, and there are nine Americans (roughly) for every Canadian, why did more Canadians move to America than vice versa in ninety-nine of the last one hundred years?
One can find ethnic expat enclaves in many countries, but why is America the only place you can find so many different, thriving ones? London may have several representing the ties of empire and Commonwealth, but there’s a little Mogadishu in Minneapolis and Koreatown in Los Angeles. Burmese Christians created Chindianapolis in Indiana, and there’s a little Albania in the Bronx and Little Ethiopia in DC. San Jose has a Vietnamese community, Edison (New Jersey) has an Indian one, and Miami has Haitians, among a Cuban diaspora. Ethnic immigrants binding together is a common international phenomenon, but in America it becomes a point of pride and celebration.
It is easy to find videos from Europe featuring “man-in-the-street” interviews where locals decry the cultural crassness, the violence, the bigotry, the political divisiveness of America. They sit perched on a park bench, perusing their iPhone, eating McDonald’s, wearing jeans and a English language print t-shirt, with their ethnically homogeneous friends. Actions speak louder than words, non?
America has so many faults. We pretend inequality is only because of effort. We lionize superficiality and physical attractiveness over performance and moral courage. We idolize the individual, but deep down inside, we know none of us deserve deity status. Our schools are a mess, our infrastructure is crumbling, we spend far more than we have. Our leadership on all sides is more interested in scoring political points than getting anything done.
And yet they keep coming. Why?
Because America is about an idea. It’s about a possibility. It’s about an opportunity. Even when it falls short–and it sometimes does–the promise of a better life in a better place remains. And it does get better: sometimes intentionally, sometimes by accident, often slowly. That possibility is something worth trying for, even worth dying for. And so they come.
Some Americans forget just what a special privilege it is to be born American. They see all those faults I listed (and many others) and they think “burn it all down” or “start over” or “replace it with . . . ?” They have the luxury of outrage. Don’t listen to them. They are people who are so myopic they can’t see the truth staring them in the face.
Yes, America is flawed. Always has been. But its promise has always been so much greater than its flaws, even when it was a land of slavery and rich, white, male suffrage. And throughout a checkered history, it has consistently acted on that promise: changing laws, changing customs, fighting wars (even a civil one), and providing a chance, an opportunity, to live a better life. Whoever you are. From wherever you come.
Bet you didn’t expect that!
That’s something to celebrate. Happy Fourth of July!
Since the first days of the investigation into former President Trump’s handling of classified materials, I have cautioned my friends to be careful about making up their minds before all the facts are in. Why? First off, it’s easy with Trump, as most people made up their minds long ago. Those with MAGA hats believe whatever he says; Trump-haters think that the end of getting him justifies the means. Both sides make the same mistake: thinking everything revolves around Trump. There have always been larger issues at stake.
Now we have the actual indictment brought forward and released by Special Counsel Jack Smith. I read it so you don’t have to. It is important to reiterate what Mr. Smith himself said about the presumption of innocence, as well as the point that an indictment lays out the basics of the prosecution case, but of course the defense will also have its say. Here’s what you need to know (pun intended):
The indictment lists numerous highly-classified documents with descriptions suggesting they contain some of the most sensitive classified information. One initial concern about this case was that there are millions of classified documents, and all are not created equal. It is clear from the indictment Trump had very important documents, highly-sought after by enemies of the United States, and limited in access to very small numbers of authorized officials. This was not a case of small potatoes.
Trump directed the handling of the documents at the White House, at Mar-a-lago, and several other times during his post-presidency period. The defense that he did not know about the documents, that perhaps a staffer mistakenly transferred them, is not viable. This was the defense Vice President Pence probably used (successfully) and it may well be what President Biden uses when his case comes to a conclusion.
There is no suggestion that any of the material was compromised (seen or acquired by foreign governments). The random methods used to transport and store the material ironically practically ensured no one knew exactly what was there, or where it was. Any talking heads suggesting “damage to national security” are blowing smoke based on what the indictment holds, although there will be more investigation of this point.
Trump openly admitted he knew the documents he was handling were “secret” (sic), “still classified,” and that he could no longer declassify them. This destroys his public defense that he automatically declassified them by thinking it was so while he was still President. He also showed classified materials on two occasions to people unauthorized to see them, although the indictment seems to indicate Trump was holding the document and waving it in front of the unauthorized persons, probably minimizing compromise.
Trump publicly stated he was in compliance with the Presidential Records Act, which may or may not be true, but is irrelevant, since he was indicted under the Espionage Act and for conspiracy to obstruct justice, lying, and withholding. The Espionage Act does not require anyone to actually be a spy for another country; its provisions also extend to the mishandling or criminal neglect of classified information. Lying, withholding, and conspiracy are separate statutes.
Trump just made the claim that only the President may determine which government records are “his,” and having done so, the records in question are governed solely by the Presidential Records Act. However, the classified documents in question are all products of various Executive branch agencies, and even if then-President Trump wrote notes on them, they do not become his personal records. That, and some are classified by law (the Atomic Energy Act, which even the President may not declassify) and marked “Restricted Data.” His claims here amount to telling the policeman who pulled you over for speeding on the interstate that you’re sober, you have a license, your car is properly registered, and you drive the speed limit on your home street. “what’s the problem, officer?”
The obstruction and related charges are by far the most significant, as they have no technical defense a la the Presidential Record Act or the President’s authority over declassification. If Trump was charged under either of those cases, the indictment would be weak. As it is, the indictment is strong. Trump can’t claim the records were his or not classified; that doesn’t matter if he lied about having them, hid them, and induced others to join him in doing so.
The conspiracy et al charges are also the potentially weakest ones in the indictment. Why? Because they rest on two pillars: the efforts by Trump’s assistant, Waltine Nauta, to access/move/hide the records at Trump’s direction, and the communications the government seized between Trump and his first lawyer. Mr Nauta has a close personal relationship with Trump, and while he could avoid penalty by turning the prosecution’s witness, this is unlikely. The Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer went to federal prison recently rather than turn on Mr. Trump, and I would expect no less from Mr. Nauta. The fact that the government has highly-damaging communications between Trump and his initial lawyer rests on an earlier court ruling that suspends the attorney-client privilege in cases where the relationship was used in furtherance of a crime. This ruling will come up again in this trial, and if the evidence is thrown out, the conspiracy charges are greatly weakened.
If the conspiracy et al charges hold, Mr. Trump will have a hard time avoiding prison. Lying and covering things up were what brought Nixon down, and only a pardon spared him incarceration. If those charges fail, the most likely outcome is a fine or some other form of non-prison punishment. The notion that the United States would put a former President in prison for mishandling classified information is simply too great a reach. While some partisans would cheer for it, it would be a terrible precedent for the sitting President, too. I could foresee a plea deal, or even a pardon, if that is all that is left of the charges.
Finally, what about the comparisons to the handling of classified information by then-Senator/Vice President Biden, and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? We simply don’t know enough about the Biden case to comment on it yet. Somebody moved the documents and left them where they were unsecured, but we don’t know who or under whose guidance. We also don’t know whether the documents were highly classified. We do know they were unsecured for years, and thus somebody was responsible for gross negligence.
The comparison to the Clinton case is what should be most galling to Trump’s supporters. Secretary Clinton willfully circumvented the rules, did so over an extended period of time, and the FBI found most likely some of the classified information was compromised. But she left no literal or figurative fingerprints on her actions. So Trump will find himself in federal court because he was too stupid, talked too much, and left a trail of classified bread crumbs leading directly back to himself. And with no one to blame but himself.
Today’s Progressives seem to have all the good intentions of their earlier believers, but they seem to have learned little from their history. What makes the outcome ugly is their stubborn insistence that ‘this time it will be different’ married to the quasi-fervor that their ends justifies the means.
Today’s progressives remain true believers in science, but that “faith” has edged over into scientism, the belief that science can settle all questions, and can in fact itself be “settled.” Science can’t unlock the secret of love nor can it explain the evil mind. Science is settled only until it’s not, and if the recent pandemic taught the average person anything, it was to be very careful about expert opinion. Science is great at explaining how (and sometimes why) things work. It’s not so good at determining policies affecting people’s lives.
Another place where Progressivism today is worse than its predecessor is in its adoption of another -ism: presentism. Presentism is the belief that people today are superior (morally, ethically, intellectually) to those who came before, and we should judge the past by our superior standards. While today’s technology is undeniably better, I see no data which suggest people today are superior. Where’s today’s Jefferson, Michelangelo, da Vinci? Ranchers one-hundred years ago knew ecology better than most ecologists today. Farmers two centuries past produced surplus crops without modern irrigation or drones. Common people during the Middle Ages spoke a vernacular language as well as Latin, and they mastered trade skills as a way of life. Humanity today has better tools, but human nature remains unchanged. Societies can be more or less humane, but progress there is not certain.
As an example of presentism, I often mention that family structures in the US were more stable in the 1950s. I barely can finish posting that on social media when Progressives will retort that I “long for the patriarchy” or “forgot Jim Crow” or want to send people “back into the closet.” That’s presentism rearing its ugly head. Yes, all those things happened in the 1950s, including stable family structures. Now there is no evidence to suggest that limiting anyone’s freedom contributed to more stable families. I would argue stable families happened despite those challenges. Especially for black families, who faced so much oppression, yet were remarkably stable. Not any more. What happened? If you’re a progressive today, the notion there was anything good in the past has to be rejected, as only today, and the better future, matter.
You can hear presentism whenever a Progressive talks about being on “the right side of history.” Christians believe history has a direction, which is what led the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to famously say “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But that’s a religious proposition, not a progressive one. Ultimate belief in one’s righteousness about ‘the side of history’ has been at the core of many of the worst examples of inhumanity in the past century.
Finally, Progressives also retain their fondness for change. As they have seen their ideas rejected by the courts and the voters, they now opt to argue for changing the system in toto. Progressives are proposing eliminating the Senate (because it equalizes all States and thus currently favors Republicans), enlarging the House of Representatives (because, yes, everybody agrees we need MORE politicians in Washington), term-limiting the Supreme Court (not mentioned when the octogenarian RBG wore the robes) or simply ignoring its rulings when they are not consistent with Progressive values (did they not learn about the South’s Massive Resistance in the 1960s?).
“We’d all love to change your head”
Rather than learning humility from their failed history, today’s progressives double-down on their beliefs. I still don’t question their motives. The original progressives were just as self-righteous, but they had an excuse in that history had not yet shown them their follies. Perhaps Progressivism will learn, change itself, and survive as a movement. But there’s a difference between being blind, and refusing to see. That’s from a really old book, but most progressives wouldn’t want to read it.
If you thought my last post was my attempt to come-out as a Progressive, never fear, you’ll feel differently after this one. Or maybe the next.
My review of Progressive theory’s positives centered on its good intentions, its openness, and its vitality. To which I would now note:
the path to hell is paved with the first
no tent is ever big enough, and
action in the wrong direction is not progress.
Why all the negativity? Well, as I alluded to in my first post, today’s Progressives act like they have never heard of their movement’s past. America tried Progressivism once before, and to paraphrase Dr. Malcolm, Progressives “had their shot, and nature chose them for extinction.”
He got all the best lines!
American Progressivism developed in the period 1890-1920. It grew rapidly, and by the time of the 1912 Presidential election, all three major party candidates (Democratic, Republican, and Progressive) identified as some form of Progressive. This was a period of profound social and technological change, which was fertile soil for Progressive beliefs. A person born in 1860 went from a society on horseback to railroads, automobiles, and even planes by the age of sixty. Communications went from letter and post to telegraph, telephone, radio, and silent movies. Medicine identified disease theory and greatly reduced infant mortality. And society went from farms and small shops to factories and mass production.
It’s easy to see why Progressivism would be attractive under such conditions. Technology seemed to be promising unending improvements. New groups of people were disadvantaged by all the changes: factory workers, miners, immigrants. The system (whether it was society, religion, or the government) appeared to be unequal to the task of adapting. Progressives held some form of power in Washington from 1901 (when Teddy Roosevelt replaced the assassinated McKinley) through the Republican Taft administration until 1920 (the end of Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s second term). At that point, a massive voter rejection of Progressive policies ended the movement’s influence for a century.
Progressivism scored some major victories: Woman’s suffrage, laws against forced labor and poor working conditions, and others for unionization and protecting the environment (including the National Park system). But it also led to over-reach, as in the case of Prohibition.
What happened to Progressivism? Many of those positive qualities I mentioned in the previous post had a negative side, too. For example, the belief that technology (especially science and medicine) always make things better proved to be disastrously false in the Great War. Mass production brought mass warfare. Flight brought aerial bombardment of cities. Chemistry brought gas warfare. TriNitroToulene (TNT) made better explosives. Even electricity and mass production led to child labor at sweatshops.
The drive to improve mankind also had consequences. Some doctors wrongly applied evolutionary concepts to biology and society, developing bogus concepts like eugenics and championing discredited phrenology. They furthered efforts to limit the growth of “unwanted populations” or uncivilized ethnic groups. Contraception led to mass sterilization, care for the mentally-ill led to mass involuntary hospitalization, and the apparent “superiority” of European cultures promoted paternalism at home and colonialism abroad.
Politically, Progressive’s Big Tent failed to screen out elements with whom they should not have allied. Communism seemed to be like-minded, even as it quickly showed its de-humanizing techniques. Racists and Nazis championed Progressive ideas, taking them to their logical extremes. International bodies like the League of Nations treated all countries equally, a recipe for inaction, while idealists put forward treaties outlawing “war” as if that had any significance.
This history, long established and not controversial, always made me wonder why certain liberals chose to brand themselves “Progressives” in the early 2000s. It would be like some new German party saying they were for National Socialism, not realizing the words had history with another meaning. Of course, Republicans spent decades besmirching “liberalism” which was the very essence of republican (note the small ‘r”) values, so perhaps self-proclaimed liberals had to come up with a better name. They didn’t.
Progressivism not only failed to deliver on its promise, it played a major role in setting the stage for some of the horrors of the 20th century, from the Holocaust to medical experimentation to racism to global war. By the early 1920s, Americans were already tired of it, yet they would suffer its consequences for almost thirty more years. And then it became a dirty word, buried in history for another fifty years.
When, like a political zombie, it came back. Next, part three, the Ugly.
I have friends of every political, religious, and ethnic stripe. I like to think it reflects kindly on my inclusivity, although I admit it reflects poorly on my friends’ judgment of character. Be that as it may, I often irritate my Progressive friends with my persistent questioning of their beliefs. I make an observation about some trend or incident in the public space, they respond with a mixture of shock and disgust that anyone they know could think the way I do. Rinse-n-repeat.
Today I want to try a different tack. Part of the problem is we all assume that others must see the world as we do, which leads us to jump to conclusions when we see an opposing opinion. People think, “you must see the world as I do (since I’m objectively correct), so if you disagree with me you must be ________ (stupid, evil, etc).” To help break through this cycle, this post will cover what I believe are the positive aspects of Progressivism in its American form. The next post will be on its negative components. I’ll leave it to your imagination where the third post will go. Let’s get started!
Progressivism grew out of the Enlightenment. Its basic belief set is that mankind can do better: through technology, through good government, through better education, through being more inclusive. Thus Progressives are the most optimistic pessimists on the planet. They look at what is today, or what was yesterday, and think “how can anyone have let this happen? We must do better.” And they imagine a future–never that far off–when best will arrive. So the first point for Progressives is their passion. They really want to make things better, and they won’t rest until things are.
The second point for Progressives is their compassion. Since they are always looking to improve things, they focus on the least fortunate among us: the poor, the sick, the mentally-ill, prisoners, women, children, immigrants, anyone marginalized by the system. It bears repeating that everyone should be focused on these groups and what places them at a disadvantage. It is undeniably good to be a voice for the oppressed, the misused, the abused.
The third positive aspect of Progressivism is its willingness to change. If you believe things can be better, you must be willing to suffer change. Question things. Don’t accept “that’s how we always did it” or “That’s just the way it is.”
The Progressive Anthem?
Progressives will never be satisfied with the status quo, nor are they afraid of change. Their constant challenges bring vitality to any political environment.
Finally, the Progressive movement is inclusive and bipartisan. My Republican friends may be scoffing at this, but hear me out. Progressives are happy to have any group join in their quest for improvement, and they are willing to extend their ‘big tent’ to newly-identified groups who are marginalized by society or government. And while Progressives almost exclusively occupy the left-wing of the Democratic Party in America today, they originally grew out of a different wing of the Republican Party in the early twentieth/late nineteenth century. I’ll talk more about this in my next post, but Progressivism flourishes when there is broad social/technological change.
In summary, I truly believe Progressivist theory has society’s best interests at heart, that it wants to improve things, that it is open to new ideas and concepts, that it will work tirelessly to achieve a better world. Why am I not then a Progressive? Part Two!
Sorry, but I had to wait for this one, as nothing was real or final until the indictment was unsealed. Did you watch the non-stop coverage? Pretty riveting. If you liked that, you’ll probably like televised Quidditch.
Let’s get one thing clear upfront: if you want to convict former President Donald Trump–in the court of public opinion–of being a lousy human being, you have my full support. I even know some MAGA-hat wearing people who admit as much. Bu that’s not a crime in the borough of Manhattan, so on to the charges and more importantly, the consequences.
Let’s start with what Manhattan District Attorney (DA) Alvin Bragg charged Trump: thirty-four felony counts. Ignore the number of counts, as they represent simply thirty-four iterations of the same crime: falsifying business records in 2017. Which is a misdemeanor under New York State Law, with a five year statute of limitations. Two problems here: Trump is charged with a felony, but the crime is a misdemeanor, and it is well past the expiration date. But wait, there’s an explanation: under New York law, this crime can be raised to a felony if the fraudulent action was accomplished to hide another crime. And, New York allows the statutory clock to be suspended when a defendant is out of the state (like, in the White House), so we’re on steady ground. Sort of.
But what’s the other crime Trump was hiding, you ask? Well, the indictment doesn’t say, but eventually DA Bragg will have to explain it in court. In a press conference, Bragg referred to both federal and state election laws, and state tax law. The problem with the first is there is legal uncertainty about a state prosecutor alleging a federal crime that no one has been accused of (although Trump was investigated by both the Federal Election Commission and the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and neither brought charges). There is precedent for crimes which were charged or tried, but none for allegations. Just as an example, imagine the DA tying the hush money to a UN law on corruption for which the DA had no jurisdiction, with which no one was charged, nor tried, nor found guilty. No one is yet clear how Trump may have violated New York state election law as part of a federal election, as federal law supersedes state law in federal election cases. That leaves state tax laws, which may be the strongest link Bragg has. If you have heard talking heads saying that the indictment rests on an untested legal theory, this is the part to which they are referring. It’s just not clear, and certainly not cut-and-dried.
Back to the title, what actually happened? Regarding an alleged affair, Trump used his attorney and fixer, Micheal Cohen, to funnel hush money to Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election. Trump fraudulently listed payments to Cohen as legal expenses, the heart of the charges.
Trump did exactly what the charges say he did. Cohen made the payments (before the election), Trump reimbursed him (after the election), and the paperwork showed a fraud. So why did the former Manhattan DA pause the investigation, and why did the Federal Election Commission and the US District Attorney not bring charges? The argument to charge this rests on the assumption Trump did what he did to win the election. This makes the payments into campaign contributions, which were not reported properly. Which raises the counterargument: did Trump do this to win the election, or to avoid embarrassing his family? After all, this was a man who said “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” This was also a man who gave the infamous Access Hollywood interview with Billy Bush, wherein he was heard bragging he could “grab ’em (women) by the _______” and get away with it. He showed utter disdain for proper candidate conduct, and while he is beyond suffering embarrassment, he is very protective of his family. As always, motive is a difficult thing to prove.
The strongest parts of DA Bragg’s case are in the Statement of Facts. Here the DA relates the prior cases of Trump making hush money payments to Karen McDougal (a playboy bunny with whom he allegedly had an affair) and to the doorman of a Trump building (who thought Trump had an illegitimate child, but was incorrect). These actions, not part of the indictment, establish a pattern of behavior. Also, Bragg reportedly (no evidence has been released) has e-mails indicating Trump wanted to delay the payments to Daniels until after the election, and indicated he might not pay it then. This suggests the payments were about the election, not the family’s embarrassment. Both Cohen and David Pecker (CEO of a media conglomerate who owns the National Enquirer) were involved with and can testify to the payments and the overall scheme.
Beyond the novel legal theory, the weakest parts of DA Bragg’s case are first that Trump made the payments in 2017, after the election, regardless of what he may have said in an e-mail. So he still acted on the possible scandal when it could no longer affect the election, but could have embarrassed his family. Second, Cohen and Daniels are both poor quality witnesses: Cohen pleaded guilty to lying under oath (to Congress), while Daniels had to pay Trump’s legal fees after he won a civil decision against her.
Some are crowing “No one is above the law” and that is true. However, the law has always treated American Presidents differently. The Constitution specifies that Impeachment by the House of Representatives and trial by the Senate is the way to bring charges against a sitting President. Thus the Department of Justice (under both Republican and Democratic administrations) still holds that a sitting President can not be indicted under federal law; but the Constitution and the courts have never ruled whether this prohibition applies to state courts. Trump is a former President, not a sitting one, so this case is different, but the concept was the same: in America, we treat Presidents differently under the law.
Even history is illustrative here. Richard Nixon committed several felonies within the Watergate affair. After he was forced to resign pending a successful impeachment, newly-installed President Ford gave Nixon a blanket pardon for all crimes related to Watergate, ending the possibility of years of trials and appeals. Note that although Nixon was certainly guilty, and the pardon only applied to federal crimes, no state or local prosecutor sought to bring charges. While most people were outraged by Nixon’s amorality, this case exemplifies how America used to handle such things.
Some claim this is all political: a vendetta by a Democratic partisan against a Republican former President. It is true that Bragg campaigned on bringing charges against Trump, and while that may have been wise as a campaign tactic (he won, after all), it was foolish in practice. Bragg claims he has new evidence, suggesting he has more or better grounds for the indictment; we shall see. I don’t see this trial as political. Bragg is not indicting Trump because he’s a Republican, or a candidate for President. Truth be told, most Democrats relish another Trump candidacy since they feel he will not only lose, he will drag down the GOP with him (probably true). So this is not political, it is personal. Which is a whole ‘nother problem.
In addition to the claim “no one is above the law,” another putative principle of American jurisprudence is “justice is blind,” meaning the law treats all individuals the same: rich and poor, powerful and weak. The personal nature of this prosecution makes it unwise. Tell me honestly, if the defendant in this case was John Smith, that the Manhattan DA would be tying up the resources, stretching the statutes, and breaking the precedents. You can’t.
To further the point, note the glee with which the indictment has been received. The left in general hoped for a perp walk, a mug shot, maybe handcuffs. Notice how few mention that as a non-violent first-time offender, the most likely sentence even if he is found guilty is no jail time. This is about how Trump ‘needed to be got, and was got’ as one New York Times journalist said. Pamela Paul’s article revels in the karmic justice of the indictment, echoing morning talk shows and late-night comedians.
What are the likely outcomes? If you forced me to list them in order of probability, most likely is the judge will dismiss the charges for insufficiency, perhaps telling the DA to refile as misdemeanors and seek a settlement. Next likely is a trial resulting in a guilty verdict overturned on appeal. Least likely is trial and upheld conviction. But in any case, the damage will have been done. What we are talking about now is not a slippery slope; it is precedent.
We now know the answer to a famous trivia question: who was the first former US President indicted for a criminal act? Donald J. Trump. But we also know the answer to another trivia question? Who was the second such President? Joseph R. Biden, Jr. The third? His successor, regardless of party. The family Biden (Joe & Hunter & James) better get real good lawyers, and many, as there are vast swaths of Red America ready to play this game.
Ford did the the right thing; in our system, it is better to put even something as serious as Watergate behind us. It cost him re-election, but it was still correct. We have lost that lesson. Now it is all about blood lust. Perhaps New York Governor Kathy Hochul could end all this tomorrow by issuing a state pardon. Silly me, that would take thinking what’s best for the country. Something about Trump forces otherwise reasonable people ON BOTH SIDES to act crazy or against their interests. Think I’m wrong? Look at the Capitol on January 6th, or Manhattan, April 4th.
No doubt my well-informed friends have kept up with the news of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine. The major media sources have done a fair-to-good job of reporting on this conflict, which has involved more public information than any previous conflict to date. I’ve refrained from blogging about it (except in passing), but perhaps it’s time to visit it with an eye to what’s really going on on the ground, and what it all means.
I must admit to some professional regret about this war, or as Putin calls it, his “special military operation.” I began my short military career facing off along the Iron Curtain in (then-West) Germany, and specialized in analyzing first the Red Army and second Soviet military doctrine. So I spent undue hours reading what the Soviets wrote, watching their military exercises, and preparing how to defeat them. Alas, I was blessed to not have to use my skills and expertise in actual war, the Soviet Union climbed aboard the dust-heap of history, and I moved on to other things.
What I learned about the Soviet Army remains true about today’s Russian Army. First, they are excellent theorists. In the 1960s, when computers weren’t really a thing yet, Russian military thinkers devised a concept called the reconnaissance-strike complex: an integrated set of command, sensors, and weapons which would enable immediate, accurate fire on any target. They were spot on, but never had the technology or leadership to attempt it. They were planning to employ the concept against Ukraine.
Second, when the Russians had tried to emulate the concept by discarding their mostly conscript force, they did it on the cheap, and kept the brutal discipline, lack of initiative, and willingness to suffer casualties which were their hallmark. There were signs that nothing had changed (Chechnya, for example), but there were successful campaigns, too, like those in Syria and later in Crimea. In the end, you can’t just add some technology to a rotten force and expect miracles.
The real wild card in the war was (and remains) the Ukrainian military. Now it evolved from the same Soviet sources, with similar equipment and doctrine. But in the most recent years, it had been acquiring western military equipment and training. How much had changed? How willing would they be to die (everybody is willing to fight; what matters is who is willing to die)? Most observers (myself included) didn’t give them much of a chance. All I can say is “Slava Ukraini!“
The result? Russia sought a coup de main (in current US military parlance, a “thunder run“): a bold, lightning-fast strike at Kyiv, which would paralyze the Ukrainian forces, decapitate the government, and result in the enemy’s collapse. It sounds great, if it works. Instead, the Ukrainians fought, the Russians diddled, and it resulted in a slug-fest continuing still a year on.
The facts? Russia controls most of the Ukrainian territory where people consider themselves ethnically Russian or speak primarily Russian. This includes most of the Black Sea coast and a land corridor to Crimea (which Russia previously annexed: more on that later). The Ukrainians not only defeated the initial strike on Kyiv, they pushed several of the routes of advance back to the Russian border, but progress in the main battle area near the Don river is measured in meters, not miles. Both sides have settled into a grinding war of attrition using artillery and small infantry tactics. Which is to Russia’s advantage in the long run.
And this war will be a long run. In fact, I would argue it’s wrong to call it a war. It’s really a long, single campaign in what I would call Putin’s Infinity War. Putin began this war twenty years ago after speaking and writing about NATO’s betrayal of Russia. He was fundamentally wrong: NATO owed Russia nothing, and nothing NATO ever did threatened post cold-war Russia. But Putin could not stand the loss of Russian prestige which resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union (he called it the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century”), and he seized upon that to seek multiple opportunities to re-assert Russia’s prerogatives. Putin violently put down separatist movements and threatened neighboring Georgia. He sent military forces to prop up client states in Central Asia and Syria, support an ethnic Russian nationalist uprising in the Donbas (a region in Ukraine), and occupy the Crimea. The West never noticed, or when it did, it responded with desultory political moves. Putin told the Russian people that NATO was waging war against Russia, and now he has used NATO support for Ukraine as proof for his lie.
It is a lie, but it is a useful one. Putin acted the bully and when the West refused to respond to his provocations, they became worse (shades of Hitler, 1938). Putin sensed weakness in Western leaders: Germany’s Angela Merkel sought Russia’s gas via the Nordstream pipeline. France’s Macron wanted to negotiate Ukraine’s future. Joe Biden was Vice President to President Obama when Putin occupied Crimea and nothing happened. Putin misjudged Western resolve: Biden has done very well pulling NATO together, the Germans have done a verbal about-face (although they have yet to begin rearming), and even the French are staying in line.
Does the US have a vital national interest in a free-and-independent Ukraine? Yes. There is nothing wrong with questioning “why?”, “for how long?”, or even “with what?” about our support, but the answers are still convincing. America built an international system with a series of rules that served to keep the world largely free of interstate conflict during the very tense Cold War. This worked to our national advantage: fewer deaths, more development, better quality of life. Putin has directly challenged that system, and if his challenge stands, we return to a world where China thinks it can invade Taiwan, North Korea thinks it can invade the South, Iran thinks it can attack Israel. All of which would cost American blood and treasure. It’s our system, and we must be the leader in defending it.
I was very critical of President Biden’s initial policy regarding the invasion, as I saw it as too timid, and I believed it would only grow more lukewarm over time. During a long Washington career, Biden had the unique standing of having been wrong time-and-again on foreign policy: he was against the raid that killed Bin Laden (“better to wait”), he was against the first Gulf War (“What vital interests of the United States justify sending Americans to their deaths in the sands of Saudi Arabia?”), and he was for the second (“taking this son of a bitch down was the only way.”). I had ample evidence, but I was wrong. He has consistently responded with appropriate, increasing support, while deftly handling the NATO accession of Finland and Sweden, and not providing Putin the provocation he desires.
As to the sanctions, they are responsible, targeted, and meaningful . . . but not decisive. The shock which destabilized the Ruble has subsided. While the vast majority of UN member states vote with the US and against Russia on this issue, most of the world does not abide by the sanctions. China ignores them, as does India, North Korea, Iran, much of Africa and South America, even Mexico. They will hurt Russia, but in the end neither the Russian Army nor the Putin regime will fail because of sanctions.
Putin has been fighting us for twenty years; only last year did we realize it. Putin’s entire reputation as a strong leader is based on his continuing to enlarge the Russian sphere of influence, not whether he keeps McDonald’s in Moscow or even minimizes casualty lists. He has no fall-back plan: it is victory or death (for him literally, for Russia figuratively). He can pause, negotiate, even reduce his immediate goals, but only for a short time. The challenge is that NATO will never enter the conflict formally, so the actual battle for Ukraine is between Moscow and Kyiv. Ukraine will run out of ammunition, soldiers, and money before Russia does, even when including all the support the West has given Ukraine. That would not be the case if all current trends continue. But at some point, the costs (real and imagined) will begin to outweigh the benefits. If you doubt this, remember that the US withdrew from Afghanistan after twenty years, knowing what would inevitably happen (although we were surprised at how fast), and all because of military casualty totals which were less than the number of servicemen and women we lose annually to training accidents. National will is a fickle thing.
Where does that leave us? Russia’s current human-wave assault on Bakhmut has stalled, and now we await Ukraine’s promised counterattack. Whether they have the equipment, training, and manpower for a major attack is simply beyond telling right now. They proved resourceful by surprising the Russians last year, and they’ll need to do it again. They have fewer options now: the front line has settled along the Russian-Ukrainian border in some places, and do the Ukrainians dare attack across it? Elsewhere, the Russians have learned one lesson from last year and prepared defensive lines and belts behind their forward troops, to assist in repelling any Ukrainian incursions. Attacks are generally more costly for the attackers, and exploiting initial success requires even more forces. I would expect some tactical victories, but no major operational ones for Ukraine this year.
My prognosis? Remember, this war started years ago, and it will continue for years to come. Ukraine is not strong enough to end it, and Putin can’t and won’t. Putin still believes he has time on his side: Moscow is calm, the economy still functions, and there is no shortage of draftees, contrary to some reports. He was certainly surprised by the strength and resolve of NATO, but he still believes it will wane. Putin only needs a decline in NATO support, not a collapse. Ukraine requires complete commitment. Will Ukraine end up being like South Korea, where America (and the UN) still stay the course seventy-three years later? Or Afghanistan, where a mere twenty years was sufficient to cause a loss of affection (despite the certainty of the evil which would and did prevail)? I don’t know, but Putin certainly is not mad to believe it is the latter case.
Finally, what to make of Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling? Much of this is for show, intended to scare the Western public (and thereby freeze NATO) more than anything else. But as I noted earlier, Putin’s Infinity War is an existential one for him. If the Russian army were to collapse, I would not put it past Putin to use some tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. If his government looked set to fall, I would not rule out his lobbing a nuclear armed missile or two at the West (Berlin and New York, for the record). In his eyes, smoldering rubble would salvage a draw in the contest between East and West.
Twenty years back, I was involved in the Washington, DC, policy process. This was in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the ongoing sanctions aimed at containing Saddam Hussein, and the controversy over Iraq’s (imagined) weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Yesterday the New York Times published a series of retrospective articles, including one entitled “20 Years On, a Question Lingers About Iraq: Why Did the U.S. Invade?” It is not bad as far as it goes, but fails to review where-we-were-when the decisions were made, so it repeats certain myths. For example:
Certain GOP neoconservatives saw the US as the sole remaining superpower, free to remake the world as it willed
Others imagined a nefarious link between Saddam and al Qaeda
President Bush knew there were no WMD, but insisted there were as an excuse to invade Iraq (hence the progressive pop chant “Bush lied, people died!”)
Sanctions successfully contained Saddam, so there was no need for an invasion
American leaders expected the Iraqis to welcome the US military as liberators and were surprised by Iraqi antagonism
and most ridiculously, the US invaded to control Iraq’s oil. I won’t dignify this charge with any further comment. There never was any evidence to this theory.
Like all good myths, there is an element of truth to the rest of these. But they miss the point when asked to explain “why we invaded?” and they hide other far more important points.
Let’s set the way-back machine to early September 2001, years before the invasion but just days after the terror attacks. No one, not even the most neo-conservative conservative, saw the US as so powerful it could do as it pleased. Perhaps on September 10th they did, but America was a wounded animal on the 12th, angry and suspicious and hurt.
Some (including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld) immediately suspected that Iraq was behind 9/11 somehow, as it was widely believed no ragtag group of terrorists could have mounted such coordinated attacks. But al Qaeda did, and while some policy-types continued to suggest Iraq was involved, they never succeeded in convincing any of the senior policy-makers. What they did succeed in doing was raising suspicions: even if Iraq was not involved, would Saddam be willing to share his WMD with al Qaeda now that they were a proven threat to the West? People forget how justifiably paranoid America was after 9/11, and it was no stretch to assume Saddam might do something as dangerous as pass along WMD. After all, he has used chemical weapons against both Iranian troops during the Iran-Iraq war, and against Kurdish civilians during a revolt! In retrospect, this all seems outlandish, because we know now that Saddam had no WMD. But we didn’t know that then: not the United Nations, not the Five Eyes Intelligence Services, and not President Bush.
Bush ’43 was an avid consumer of intelligence analysis and reporting, and he had a great deal of trust in the US intelligence community. He inherited that relationship from his father, Bush ’41, who had led the CIA and was perhaps the most knowledgeable intelligence consumer ever to sit behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. For the variety of reasons well-studied and explained in the Select Committee Report On Iraqi WMD, everyone (and I mean everyone) assumed Saddam had WMD when in fact he did not. It’s easy to forget that now, and to reason as if everyone should have known he did not have WMD.
Which is not to say the imaginary WMD did not play an important role. Because everyone thought he had them, and yet Saddam refused to admit to it, WMD became the best argument for removing him from power. And Bush ’43 didn’t need much of an excuse. He had explicitly campaigned on a promise to remove Saddam. Why? Because Saddam’s continued rule had frozen US Middle East policy in an untenable position. We had stationed protective US military forces in Saudi Arabia–the Muslim holy land. Radical clerics like Osama bin Laden had always pointed out the hypocrisy and corruption of the House of Saud, but now they had direct evidence of apostasy: inviting the hated crusaders into the land of Mecca and Medina. What once seemed like a lunatic raving from a cave now seemed more like a prophet to thousands of Saudi believers, especially nineteen who agreed to do something about it on September 11th, 2001.
The problem of US troops on the Saudi peninsula was well understood in policy circles. We did everything we could (build bases, preposition equipment, give the Saudis advanced weapons and training) to prepare if the US needed to fight a war there, but we always avoided sending troops, because all the experts agreed it would be a casus belli for jihad. Bush ’41 finally sent troops to evict Saddam from Kuwait, but he thought the Kurds and Shi’ites would revolt and overthrow Saddam after the First Gulf War back in 1991. It didn’t happen. Saddam’s longevity despite revolts and sanctions left the US with a decades-long troop presence in the one place they couldn’t be: Saudi Arabia.
The other forgotten element is that sanctions were not working, they were dying. The French had publicly called to end them in 1999. The Russians were circumventing them. The Oil-for-Food program undercut the other sanctions. Finally, well-meaning humanitarian organizations around the world cited bogus statistics provided by Saddam about the effects of sanctions on the poor people of Iraq. It was only after the war ended and Saddam was gone that authoritative studies showed that Saddam had simply made up the claim that half a million Iraqi babies died due to sanctions. So sanctions were in the process of ending, not succeeding.
Did the US expect to be welcomed with open arms? While they did not expect the degree of hostility which resulted, few thought the US troops would be universally welcomed. For starters, there were thousands of committed Ba’athists (Saddam’s party) who had everything to lose. Iran was glad to see Saddam neutralized, and welcomed the chance to incite Iraqi Shi’ites (coreligionists) to rise up and kill Americans. Average Iraqis had a wait-and-see attitude which quickly soured on the American occupation. Only the Kurds really wanted us there, even though we had left them to their fate once before, and would do so again.
Did the occupation have to go as poorly as it did? No. The factors I just listed could have been neutralized if the US (1) did a proper job of de-Ba’athification, (2) and deployed sufficient forces for occupation duty. The American government had great examples of how to run the occupation, rebuilding, and construction of an enemy territory. We literally wrote volumes of books on it based on Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Both were far more destroyed and far more hostile to the American occupation than Iraq ever could be, and yet modern Germany and Japan stand as grand testimony to doing things right.
What our experience told us was we needed to distinguish between those Ba’athists who were truly evil people and the larger majority who simply went-along-to-get-along (the same problem we faced with the Germans and the Nazi Party). It also told us we needed a sufficiently large occupation force to ensure people felt under the control of the occupying power: a visible presence in the streets, re-assuring the populace that they were safe while intimidating anyone thinking of rising up against it.
We ignored our own experience. Partly this was based on the notion we had to get US troops out of the area quickly (a real issue, but after twenty years, one that should have been more carefully considered.) Unfortunately, some senior Defense Department officials had bought into the US Air Force’s notion of a “Shock & Awe” campaign. This theory, which had been put forward in different terms by air-power enthusiasts since the dawn of human flight, suggested that Iraq could be conquered by a short, unrelenting and precise campaign of aerial bombardment that would kill Saddam and his sons, paralyze their military and lead the Iraqis to quit resisting. Air power had never accomplished this before (not in World War II, nor in Korea, nor Vietnam), but it had come close in the First Gulf War, and all it needed was another chance with the proper emphasis and the improved technology the US now had. Not only that, but a Shock and Awe campaign solved the occupation problem: no need for massive amounts of troops. The US could raid Iraq like a store-front smash-n-grab: smash the army, kill Hussein, and be off in an instant, with no lingering troop commitment. Voices like Secretary of State Colin Powell, a distinguished Army General who said “you break it (Iraq), you fix it” were ignored.
So the US government went in with a light military ground force, capable of defeating and ousting Saddam but not occupying Iraq. They accomplished the military mission quickly and efficiently, but chaos soon reigned as all the forces I mentioned earlier came out to play. Meanwhile, the political officials sent over to stabilize the situation issued a blanket de-Bat’athification order, making anyone associated with the movement ineligible for further government service and eliminating the Iraqi army, removing any reason for them to cooperate, and overnight turning them into the biggest insurgent force in the country. Finally, back in Washington, policy officials who were still angry about the many countries (including US allies) who refused to support the invasion made the intemperate decision to restrict Iraqi rebuilding (and its profits) to those nations who participated in the invasion. There was a moment there when Russia, China, France and many other countries could have been enticed to participate in the occupation, if given the chance to benefit from the reconstruction. Instead, we shut them out, guaranteeing it was all on us, just as Secretary Powell had warned.
So, why did the US invade Iraq? Because “containing” Saddam required US military forces in Saudi Arabia, which had brought about a worse situation in the form of a popular Islamic Jihad we still face today, twenty years later. Sanctions had restrained him, but international will to continue those sanctions was greatly weakening. Saddam’s WMD proved a useful excuse to the world, but in the end, was the ultimate MacGuffin. Was the US involvement destined to fail? It succeeded in the near term and accomplished its military objectives. The US ignored its own successful experiences in favor of an unproven theory, then compounded the error with bad political decisions regarding both the Iraqis and reconstruction. Even with all that, American casualties had stabilized at a low level by 2008.
Red: invasion and occupation Orange: Troop Surge Blue: Post-surge
We’ll never know the counterfactual case if Saddam had not been hanged, had outlasted sanctions and rebuilt his WMD (he absolutely admitted his intent to do so). Certainly we would still have tens of thousands more US troops in Saudi Arabia, and the threat of what Saddam might do next. To my mind, it was the right policy decision, poorly executed, rather than a lie, a hoax, or a colossal failure.
Mary Eberstadt is the senior research fellow at the Faith & Reason Institute and an insightful conservative observer of all things Americana. Her numerous books have outlined the increasingly evident (in hard data, not to mention public anecdote) paradox between the freedom Americans crave and the unhappiness which results when they get it. Her 2012 book Adam and Eve after the Pill rested squarely on broad sociological data that the economic freedom women gained with reliable cheap birth control (i.e., the Pill) had come with concomitant costs in terms of relationships and happiness. Her latest work reviews the continuing data supporting her hypothesis (more on that) and extends her analysis to the implications for the family, the nation, and the Church.
Eberstadt is no throw-back conservative polemicist pining for the golden age of the 1950s. She simply accepts that the Pill was perhaps the greatest change-agent in recent human history, then goes on to show “to what effect?” While some feminists reject anything other than worshipful consideration of birth control, Eberstadt puts forward the data and the stories (or narratives if you prefer the modern term), which are damning.
The Pill made the world safe for casual sex. Without the consequence of pregnancy, both premarital sex and marital infidelity rates rose. Accelerating infidelity undermined existing marriages, sparking a wave of divorces and ushering in “no fault” laws to streamline the process. Men were relieved of the quaint (but historical) need to take responsibility for their actions, since it was “her body, her choice.” Likewise, there had to be a fall-back in case contraception failed, which necessitated legalized abortion; after all, an unwanted child was the worst possible outcome for all concerned. All of these trends and repercussions undermined traditional family formation (i.e., a married husband and wife raising their biological children). Men questioned the need to get married in the first place, reminding all of the eternal joke about “free milk and a cow.”
Eventually, divorce rates decreased, but only because marriage rates collapsed first. Alternative family structures developed (so-called “chosen families”) to replace the traditional model. Most of the advantages accrued by traditional families (e.g., more resources, less poverty, better educational attainment, less truancy, less drug use, less unintended pregnancies, less self-harm, less suicide, etc.) were greatly reduced in the “chosen” models, regardless of composition. Women seeking motherhood increasingly did so in the absence of a stable male relationship, so much so that this is as common a parenting situation today as not.
Now all the chickens have come home to roost, with men reporting an unwillingness to have relationships other than for casual sex, and unhappy even then. They also complain about a lack of purpose, or of being unclear when their masculinity becomes “toxic.” Women report a lack of acceptable male life-partners and more fear of violence in their personal relationships. People in general are more unhappy and having sex less often, with the latest battlefield being the notion of “sexual consent.”
Eberstadt connects the dots from the Pill to the collapse of the family, the ongoing war between the sexes, and the decline of organized religion in the United States. Her style is witty if at times biting. The footnotes and links are all there if you want to dig deeper into the data. She rarely pronounces judgments since the data is convincing on its own. The exception is perhaps her section of the fate of “Christianity Lite”, the American Protestant sects which chose to jettison Biblical, historical, and moral opposition to contraception in favor of siding with the Spirit of the Times. Eberstadt cautions Catholic proponents of a similar rapprochement that all of these sects are on a steep and accelerating decline which means there won’t be any Episcopalians, Methodists, or Presbyterians around in America in five decades or so. The Spirit of the Times is a harsh god, indeed.
Regardless of how you view contraception (or religion), Eberstadt’s work demands your attention. So many of my friends and acquaintances look at the world around us and think “how did we get here?” Since time immemorial, successful society has linked sex with marriage and monogamy; those that didn’t perished. One fine day in the 1960s, science made it possible to change all that. It seems cognitively dissonant to suggest that this change didn’t play a major role in “how we got here.” It’s worth it to consider the possibility.
It’s rare that a so-called national security event provides so much grist for humor. From beginning to end, the Chinese Spy Balloon Saga has been on a steady trajectory from the sublime to the ridiculous, with politicians and news media playing a leading role. I can’t wait to see what Dave Barry does with it next January!
This crisis, if one wants to call it that, launched with bureaucratic stupidity. It climbed with partisan hype and bald-faced diplomatic lies. It escalated further with the media seeking headlines but failing to ascertain facts. It reached a crescendo with a military over-reaction of stunning proportions. It finally came crashing down with a series of inane government comments and a Presidential non-address. During all of this, I experienced some grins, a few chortles, a belly-laugh or two, and of course near-continuous ROTFLMAO.
Let me share!
So What did Just Happen? The Chinese launched a balloon from Hainan island, from where they previously launched balloons to float over the Pacific to places like Guam and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where the US Navy likes to port. Except this balloon caught some waves from a Polar Vortex (hey, wait, can we blame climate change for bringing us to the edge of World War III?) and swept north to the Aleutians, then down across Canada, Montana, Kansas, and eventually North Carolina. Where the US military shot it down. Oh, and it was a spy balloon.
Blinding Flash of the Obvious (BFO #1): China spies on the United States, every day, every way it can. As we do against China. There are very few exceptions to who-spies-on-whom rule, but suffice it to say China in the skies with balloons is not one of them. China has satellites over the US continuously. They mine things like TikTok for data. They task Chinese students and academics to find specific information. They ask Chinese visitors to gather information. They establish Chinese “police” stations in the US (and other countries) which keep track of Chinese expats and no doubt facilitate intelligence collection. Heck, they even stole the entire human resources holdings of the US Office or Personnel Management a few years back (Note to China: update your records, I’m in Mexico now!).
This balloon does not represent a significant escalation in spying, or any kind of breakthrough. You don’t send a new or novel collection platform gently floating, attached to a giant balloon, over your opponent. What it does represent is Chinese bureaucratic incompetence. They have sent these balloons before. They know Chinese-American relations are tense these days. Yet some fool in charge of the balloon program launched one a week or so before the US Secretary of State was due to visit and patch things up. Nobody in his chain-of-command thought to say “wait.” Nobody in the balloon operations team asked, “Hey, where’s the jet-stream taking our balloons now?” That’s some prime bureaucratic incompetence there. I wonder if the guy in charge is making iPhones in Xinjiang now. And we’re off!
How many days til Christmas?
So the balloon drifts off course, and what? It’s too high to affect commercial air traffic. Who cares? Nobody. We’re tracking it, but only because it’s huge. BFO#2, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD, a joint US- Canadian military structure) constantly watches the skies for large, fast-moving objects like missiles (which are bad) and planes (which might be bad). They are most famous for their annual tracking of Santa Claus, who apparently is large and fast-moving enough for them to identify. They generally don’t look for small or slow things, of which there are many. How many? Nobody knows, since nobody cares. One estimate is almost a thousand on any given day. They can be weather balloons (the National Weather Service launches 180 high altitude balloons every day!), model rockets, high school science projects, or a guy in a lawn chair. But in this case, the balloon is so large it gets spotted from the ground by regular people. Well, not really regular people, because who sits around all day staring at the sky? And even if you did, who makes a big deal if they see a balloon? But somebody did, and away we go!
Now it’s a public issue, so the Chinese Foreign Ministry bureaucrat opened the file labelled “what to say in case our spy balloon is noticed over the US.” and read it out, including the part that says “start lying here” and “stop lying here.” Of course it’s a weather balloon, he reassures us. Which only confirms the fact that (1) it is not a weather balloon, (2) the Chinese are lying, and (3) somebody in the US must take the political blame. Some Conservatives and Progressives in the US are outraged, OUTRAGED, about Chinese spying (see BFO #1), and why are we permitting it to continue?
Which leads to the utterly ridiculous government response that we can’t shoot it down over Montana because it might fall and hit someone. Now space junk (man-made and natural) falls to earth every day, and when some piece becomes famous because it is large–or radioactive–the government reassures us that the chance of it hitting anyone are infinitesimally low. Nothing to worry about. The government can’t even tell what hemisphere is going to be hit until the day before it enters the atmosphere. But a big balloon with a multi bus-sized object attached, which we can exactly determine its location, can’t be shot down because it represents a threat? Pull-eaze. My guess is we waited for the ocean because the balloon payload would better withstand crashing in water than the ground. As it stands, that explanation was nonsense.
But it gets better. We send an F22 Raptor up and shoot the balloon down with a Sidewinder air-to-air missile. That’s about $400,000 of hardware we spent. Why didn’t the F22 just use its gun, which would ably destroy a balloon? The Sidewinder explodes near the target, shredding it with shrapnel. I hope they didn’t destroy the parts we intended to salvage and exploit. Please someone tell me the Air Force had a good reason for using a missile rather than a few cheap bullets.
And thus Our Democracy was saved. Except now partisans were asking why the President let the Chinese fly their balloon over our sensitive sites and collect against them. The balloon mostly uses the wind patterns to navigate, although it appeared to have some type of motor and a rudder to make small path adjustments. Here’s a map of sensitive US intelligence sites, from the Washington Post circa 2002:
BFO #3, there’s a lot of them, everywhere. That map doesn’t include some military facilities and critical national infrastructure. I think a great new virtual reality game would involve flying a spy balloon over the United States and NOT flying over sensitive sites! Probably can’t be done.
Faced by the inquisitive press, a public demanding answers, and partisans complaining, the government issued a strong statement defusing the burgeoning crisis. Of course they didn’t; instead they clammed up. Meanwhile, NORAD “opened the aperture on their radars” to catch slow and small things, quickly demonstrating why this was a bad idea. The Air Force began a live-fire game of Space Invaders. Over the course of a few days, NORAD sighted new “objects” over Alaska, the Yukon, and Michigan. Off went the jets, away went the missiles, and down went the objects.
Wait, wasn’t it dangerous shooting things down over. . . . nevermind. The Air Force managed to use up more expensive missiles, and an Air National Guard pilot even managed to miss a balloon with a missile. We all felt better immediately, until White House Spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre helpfully explained that (1) we don’t know what the objects were, but (2) they pose no threat, and (3) they certainly weren’t from outer space. There used to be a simple rule for government officials appearing before the public: under no circumstances are you to refer to extra-terrestrials, space aliens, or UFOs, because (BFO#4) every time the government mentions them, more people believe in them. I don’t know what was more terrifying: the fact no one in the White House noticed that statements (1), (2), and (3) are logically inconsistent, or the fact the US government was announcing it was shooting off missiles at anything moving in the sky, for no apparent reason.
“Wait!” you say, “aren’t balloons a threat to civil aviation?” Well, they’re more of a risk than a threat. Over the decades since thousands of weather balloons and aircraft have taken flight, there does not exist a single documented case of one hitting the other. There are some, rare plane-strikes of other balloons, which result in a destroyed balloon and a pilot making a routine report upon landing. See, civil aviation is a little more resilient than it appears. That extra large Chinese Spy Balloon actually could have damaged a plane, but, you know, we can’t shoot things down over land, until we can.
Suddenly, somebody in the US National Security leadership sobered up. NORAD must have re-tuned their radars, since they stopped reporting on every piece of floating mylar, the Air Force put away its missiles, and calm returned. The President went before the Press to say, “Get a Grip, man” which may have been his best moment at the podium, ever. He said all the right things about China, danced around the unidentified aerial object phenomenon, and walked off when the press went ballistic.
Hardly a “day which will live in infamy” Presidential moment. What might a competent response looked like? For starters, China needs to get its act together, since it all began with them, accidentally or not. First Covid, now balloons; what next? Next, the American government had a choice. Option one was to ignore the balloon, as it had in the past. When it became public knowledge, they could have asked China for an explanation, and when China provided the lame weather balloon excuse, the White House could have publicly offered President Xi an account with the National Weather Service and a streaming subscription to the Weather Channel. Privately, they should have called the Chinese explanation BS and told them to knock it off. I would call this the “Mature Superpower Response Option.” Now if the partisan political heat got too much for the White House, they could have chosen option two: publicly denounce the balloon as an unacceptable breech of sovereignty unfit for a nation which constantly harps on it. Shoot it down immediately, then offer to return it after processing for the illegal importation of items into the United States. Take the damn thing apart down to the last nut and bolt, exploit it, then send the box of trash to the Chinese embassy in DC, along with two more things: a bill for the cost of importing and analyzing the illegal product, and a live carrier pigeon in a box with a note saying (in Mandarin) “try this next time, pendejos.” That’s the “Welcome to the big leagues” approach. The Biden administration seemed confused or frozen, depending on the moment.
What did we learn? Well, if you were unaware of BFOs 1-4, maybe that was educational. Otherwise, not much. I do think that someday the balloon (eventually) shot down over Lake Huron will wash ashore. It will be an exceedingly large piece of brightly colored mylar still bearing traces of helium. And on its side will be the words “Welcome to Chuck E. Cheese’s, Kalamazoo!”
