Harvey Havel's Blog, 2005: 2010: A Collection of Essays on Politics, Literature, War, and Sex

By Harvey Havel

Harvey Havel's Blog, 2005 - 2010: A Collection of Essays on Politics, Literature, War, and Sex

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harvey Havel
• Release date: Jul 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463309018

Harvey Havel

HARVEY HAVELAuthorHarvey Havel is a short-story writer and novelist. His first novel, Noble McCloud, A Novel, was published in November of 1999. His second novel, The Imam, A Novel, was published in 2000.Over the years of being a professional writer, Havel has published his third novel, Freedom of Association. He worked on several other books and published his eighth novel, Charlie Zero's Last-Ditch Attempt, and his ninth, The Orphan of Mecca, Book One, which was released last year. His new novel, Mr. Big, is his latest work about a Black-American football player who deals with injury and institutionalized racism. It’s his fifteenth book He has just released his sixteenth book, a novel titled The Wild Gypsy of Arbor Hill, and his seventeenth will be a non-fiction political essay about America’s current political crisis, written in 2019.Havel is formerly a writing instructor at Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey. He also taught writing and literature at the College of St. Rose in Albany as well as SUNY Albany.Copies of his books and short stories, both new and used, may be purchased at all online retailers and by special order at other fine bookstores.

Book preview

Books by Harvey Havel:

Noble McCloud (1999)

The Imam (2000)

Freedom of Association (2006)

From Poets to Protagonists (2009)

Harvey Havel’s Blog, Essays (2011)

Stories from the Fall of the Empire (2011)

Two Tickets to Memphis (2012)

Mother, A Memoir (2013)

Charlie Zero’s Last-Ditch Attempt (2014)

The Orphan of Mecca, Book One (2016)

The Orphan of Mecca, Book Two (2016)

The Orphan of Mecca, Book Three (2016)

The Thruway Killers (2017)

Mister Big (2018)

The Wild Gypsy of Arbor Hill (2019)

A Rumination on the Role of Love during A Condition of Extreme Conservatism and Extreme Liberalism (2019)

Harvey Havel’s Blog

2005-2010

A Collection of Essays on

Politics, Literature, War,

and Sex

by

Harvey Havel

Copyright 2019 Harvey Havel

Published by Harvey Havel at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Food for Thought 

War, Politics, and The Economy

Literature and Film

Notes on the Writing Life 

Sex, Gender, & Race

About the Author

January 2, 2010

Food for Thought….

The Intelligent Design vs. Evolution Debate

If you are saying that I am really a monkey, then I would have to say that I am here, because I was sent by God. If, however, you’re saying that I am a superior being, then evolution must be responsible.

May 23, 2009

Food for Thought….

Liberals vs. Conservatives

Liberals show you Heaven on Earth. Conservatives show you the difference.

War, Politics,

& The Economy

May 26, 2010

What is an American Peace?

(N.B.  As of the writing of this article, a Global Peace Index has already been established at www.visionofhumanity.org)

The founding fathers of this country must have understood the difference between the pursuit of happiness, as set forth in the Constitution, and the pursuit of peace, which comes to mean something different conceptually as time moves forward with each new generation of citizenry that evolves here.  While the two concepts, happiness and peace, are related in many ways, both are actually different states of being.

For a long time, America has always moved between its need to wage war and its need to establish peace, as peace is established mostly through encouraging diplomacy, normalized trade, and appeasement in certain areas that, if war were waged instead, would avoid the sacrifice of too many lives and the depletion of too many resources.  The United States also encourages peace by allowing for greater negotiation, both unilaterally and multilaterally, among the international community of nations, perhaps even allowing it for those few rogue nations that fall outside of America’s favor.  But if we were to talk about peace as a worthy goal for America to pursue, we would really have to come to know what a peace in America looks like, or at least be able gauge when peace, more so than war, becomes an actual trend or condition that can be differentiated from conditions of instability and turmoil.  In other words, we need first to know when an American peace is actually present by recording the characteristics that define a stable peace in America.  Also, we must come to define this seemingly nebulous term called peace before we can declare it exists, because more often than not, peace is a different state of being to many different people.

For instance, if we were to say that ‘a peace has been achieved,’ we also have to ask from whose point of view has such a peace been achieved. The poor man may not concur that peace has been achieved when he still fights for his daily bread and his wealthy landlord lives comfortably with ample stores of food.  So even in peacetime, there can be conditions of war stemming from conditions of inequality.  Also, peace is not simply the absence of war.  Rather within this concept called peace, we have a set of conditions beneath it that point to more specific criteria that are operating in the country.  The hope is that we may one day be able to point to these criteria that determine the existence true peace in operation rather than observe that we are witnessing the mere absence of overseas war.  For instance, it could be that America has suddenly decided to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, but this does not mean that there is peace in America at all.  It could mean that the murder rate in Detroit has reached its peak, and yet at the same time we have agreed to withdraw from our desert battlegrounds to solve more truculent issues at home.

So there has to be some sort of measurement we can use to gauge whether or not America is actually at peace, and this measurement has to take into account certain economic and political criteria that are present when we take such a survey.  In other words, the Defense Department has the DEFCON system to gauge whether or not we are at a condition of war.  Similarly, there can be similar, parallel system that gauges peace - and it’s important to note that such a measurement need not correlate at all with the DEFCON system necessarily.  Rather, a measurement for peace has to take into account the many forces that are operating in society at the same time, such as health, welfare, and poverty levels, and not just the opposite of what the Defense Department considers war.  DEFCON 5, in other words, does not mean that our new Peace Index is at 0.  Once again, we can see here that the absence of war does not necessarily mean the presence of peace in the country.  Peace, in fact, is a broader concept than what the Defense Department’s considers to be a state of war.

But what complicates matters further is that the definition of what peace actually is almost always confused by the uniquely American concept known as happiness.  For instance, some may argue that peace is a more heightened psycho-spiritual state of consciousness within a collective group or amongst different collective groups, or even within the lone individual who can no longer tell the difference between his or her own corporal self and the other selves that are present within a certain space.  Peace suddenly becomes a psycho-spiritual state of mind that is actively engaged in the union and equality of souls within a certain space that may have one time been in physical conflict.  Peace, then, is not necessarily happiness but instead a state of parity or equality with others on a spiritual level and not a material one.  So if we are asking ourselves what an American peace is, we have to ask whether or not happiness is the more important or more worthy endeavor, given that this one particular definition of peace as we have just described it is no way congruent with the economic, social, and political criteria that will determine a more practical and material peace at work.

We can even go so far as to say that happiness is the more intrinsic pursuit, while peace is more of an acquired taste that plays a lesser role.  Given this, we can further make the disconcerting argument that it is, in fact, the material peace that matters more to Americans today than the spiritual peace that many wise people have argued is at the heart of what peace truly is.  In other words, income equality is more important to our peace index than the union and equality of souls when we finally come to measure peace, and if this is the case, then the pursuit of happiness through wealth and other materially relevant factors, rather than the pursuit of what peace actually is, is what guides America, thereby making an American peace forever subservient to the more material goal of American happiness.

You are certainly not alone if all of this sounds confusing, because it really is confusing.  America has yet to establish what peace is, and what’s more, we may be unable to want peace due to our inescapable need for our own well-being and happiness.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that peace and happiness are two concepts that are at odds with each other, but it does mean that we are often left to choose between whether or not we want to be a nation at peace or whether or not we want to be a nation that is happy.  The pursuit of happiness, then, is not necessarily the pursuit of peace.  In order to judge for ourselves what an American peace truly is, we will always have to detect it by determining how happy we are, which is more in line with what the founding fathers imagined for our more perfect union - to be a collection of individuals having the right to pursue happiness without state interference and not necessarily a peaceful nation that requires our constant vigilance.  America, then, has a long way to go before it finds peace within herself if we always need our own happiness as a prerequisite for the possibility of enduring peace.  The two needs have to be reconciled in order to move forward.

April 23, 2010

A Theory of Political Party Repositioning

Overview

To say that the country was better off when the news media treated all news stories with scholarly objectivity instead of the opinionated punditry that we’ve now been handed is a moot point for now, simply because what the supporters of objectivity didn’t imagine is that every news item that we see on television or in print has been hijacked by the need for corporate conglomerates (and the citizenry at large) to profit from what at one time was an important public service that charged media organizations to report on all sides of the issue instead of reportage that supported a particular ideology. Ever since the rise of the 24-hour news cycle, we have seen a tremendous split in how the public is receiving its information. We now have the liberal news channels, such as CNN, and MSNBC (as MSNBC swings with the tide of whoever is in office), versus that of conservative news channels and print media, such as Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the Wall Street Journal. So, it is a moot point now that the media should remain objective. Objectivity seems to be in the past, as fair and balanced news reporting is really an artifact of the past in favor of better ratings or the schism in the news industry. Instead what we have are major communication outlets that are espousing two dominant points of view while delivering the news: one conservative and the other liberal. Media that espouse objectivity in reporting may be engaged in the commendable act of balancing both viewpoints.

This has posed a problem for the nation, as the way the public news has been delivered has essentially led to the polarization of the public body, such that conservatives will always stick to watching or reading conservative media, while liberals will stick to news outlets that propagate its own philosophies. The tradition of the two-step process of communication, where the party in power gets control of the news issues that the media has to report on, is also an artifact of the past. Because we have juggernauts such as Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, there’s no longer a need for a news organization to acquiesce to whatever the President wants to hand them, for instance. So, if we took an issue such as Wall Street reform, we’ll have one major news outlet that is generally supportive of President Obama, while another news organization may report negatively in order to prevent such reform. It’s no longer the case that all news organizations will report on the same issues and report their findings objectively. Many news organizations have abandoned objectivity and have instead clung to bias.

The problem with this new paradigm in how the public receives its information is that there are three distinct divisions that are now evolving in the public, and these divisions amongst the public at large and its government have become more rigid than ever - and shall we say, more radicalized. Many can argue that these divisions have always been present, but one can’t argue that these divisions somehow work together to find common solutions. At present, never have these distinct groups remained so autonomous. So, most conservatives will watch Fox News. Most liberals will watch CNN, and most undecideds will watch MSNBC - an organization that swings with whatever the prevailing tide is in terms of whoever is in office. Perhaps these ideological divisions were always present in the public, but as a result of the never-ending stream of separate and distinct ideologies that each news organization propagates, these divisions in the character and the philosophies of the general public have made the country’s body even more polarized along these lines. What we now have are three types of people in the electorate: the Fox News conservative, the CNN Democrat, and the MSNBC Objectivist that goes with the dominant trend.

For the individual in our society, the difference between all three groups is apparent, and for the past several years, I’ve been staunchly advocating the rise of a third, independent party that splits the middle between conservatives and liberals and moves between these two poles with whatever solutions to pressing problems make sense, as this was seen as the ideal - to have a centrist independent party that could take from left and right depending on the events and issues that arise. Joe Lieberman is a good example of this. He represents the ideal of the independent candidate, as he can go back and forth at any time. He is self-contained and no longer needs a party’s support to vote the way he does, even though he is still tied to the alliances and loyalties he has made as an independent during the Bush Administration. As an independent, he neither chained nor shackled to these loyalties.

But having a centrist independent party that can guide us through the middle is a circumstance that may never occur, given the harsh competitiveness and the near duopoly of the two strongest parties: the Republicans and the Democrats. To say that there should be an independent party that tows a more centrist line may be merely a utopian wish that does have a shot at some point in the future, but for right now it seems that there’s just no way a third, centrist party can survive, given the current climate. Similarly, the goal of harmony or consensus within the public may also be something of the past. This new theory that I will discuss here assumes that there will be no way to form a consensus, given the way news is now reported to the people. Similarly, this article assumes that having a centrist, independent party to split the middle is also something that is not possible at this time, mainly due to the competitiveness of each larger party and its status as too big to fail.

Power Sharing vs. Balance of Power

There are two ways that we can look at these divisions amongst the personalities of the electorate, or, in other words, there are two possible strategies that can be used to make sure that these divergent personalities can operate within the same country and still keep the country whole and intact. (I should mention here that keeping the country and its territories unified and intact is a necessary and achievable goal, and that any type of civil disturbance as a result of these divisions is a threat that this country can do without).

The first strategy has always been the idea of having a balance of power among the three distinct personality types. This means that there is a fair balance of power between the Democrats and the Republicans, because each party can been seen as using a type of covert warfare against each other in order to maintain its equality or dominance. A balance of power, in other words, is not achieved through invention or through apathy or complacency. Each party will compete and fight to maintain its own power, and if it can, each party will try to gain power and influence over the other in order to control it, sway public opinion, and amass whatever resources there are to maintain its power. The only way a country can stay unified and whole is by having this balance of power. Each side is too powerful to be moved by the other. And even though the country remains balanced, there still exists a great deal of antagonism. The two parties operate like mobsters in exploiting and capturing those who are apolitical and those who are generally undecided between the two poles.

The problem with having a balance of power is that there are the undecideds who must move back and forth between both parties in order to maintain their own peace and security, and this lack of peace and security leads to the formation of a third party that must defend itself from the other two. Since we have already determined that a third party is not very likely, given the strength of the duopoly that now exists, we can say that more independents are forced to change direction instead. Therefore, they give power up to whichever party holds office. So, while a balance of power may keep the duopoly thriving and the country together, what we have is this constant shifting or movement from those who claim neutral or apolitical status, and we still have the same antagonism and covert warfare between the two major parties. Such a change in political disposition may, in fact, lead to the demise of those wishing to change from one party to the other, as there are loyalties that are developed that actually tie an undecided voter to a certain party. To switch party loyalties due to the change in power structure is certainly necessary and wise among undecideds, but in no way is there safety and security in it. Similarly, when both stronger parties pursue an endgame in this manner, almost like a game of chicken played with two cars, the entire country is at risk for disruption. So, while a balance of power is necessary, the methods that we employ to arrive at this balance are too risky. In other words, fighting for power may not be as beneficial to the country as sharing power. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that Republicans have to abandon their beliefs in order to suit a new Democratic administration. It doesn’t mean that Democrats have to change their own philosophies to suit a Republican administration either. Both major parties can maintain their differences and still work together - not by ripping the country apart, but by sharing power within the zero-sum game that our democracy and all of its elections require.

The Division of Responsibilities between the two Parties

We’ll notice how when an administration changes, one party becomes the party in power, while the other becomes the opposition. If we take the two news channels - Fox News and CNN - we’ll notice how there are always the same sets of issues that have the two sparing and clashing with each other. If President Obama pursues health care reform, for example, then the Republican side will always offer the opposite opinion on the same exact issue. Similarly, if the Republicans want tax reform or a flat-tax, it is likely that the Democrats will argue against it on CNN. This antagonism and opposition cause the public to join one side or the other, and may ultimately lead to the never-ending lack of consensus - a circumstance that can easily spark the disunification of the country, if left unchecked. What a power-sharing model has in mind is to have each party tackle different issues that result in maintaining power over different areas of government when the public elects a new administration. I will explain this here.

Over the years we can safely say that the War in Iraq, and in the Middle East in general, has commanded our focus. Predictably, each party has a different approach to the war in the Middle East. The Democrats favor a more diplomatic approach, while Republicans prefer to use military strength to make such a conflict a decisive one in America’s favor. What if we listed several issues that the nation has had over the last several years and assign each issue with the appropriate party that has the most control over it? For instance,

The Bush Administration

1) The War in the Middle East - Republican controlled.

2) Tax Policy - Republican controlled.

3) Trade with China - Republican controlled.

4) Social Security - Democrat controlled.

5) Immigration - Democrat controlled.

6) Public Education - Democrat controlled.

When the administration changes hands, it’s not the case that Bill O’Reilly on Fox News has to surrender his core values as a conservative to the more liberal administration that has just taken office. Conservatives, in other words, don’t have to change their views and positions just to suit the incoming Obama administration, and what’s most important, conservatives need not be so oppositional and antagonistic to the new administration on the same sets of issues. Rather, the Democrats and the Republicans maintain their core beliefs. The only thing that changes is the set of policies that each party now controls. So our list would now look like this:

The Obama Administration

1) War in the Middle East - Democrat controlled.

2) Tax Policy - Democrat controlled.

3) Trade with China - Democrat controlled.

4) Social Security - Republican controlled.

5) Immigration - Republican controlled.

6) Public Education - Republican controlled.

Notice that Democrats and Republicans need not spar over the same issues, which is a condition that pushes the entire country down the wrong path of disunity. Rather, each party, as a result of the change of administration and the change in power, simply concentrates on what the other party had once concentrated on. Instead of fighting over every issue, each party takes over the issues that the other party once had. In this way, power is shared and balanced at the same time, just so long as there is an agreement between the two parties that the responsibilities of the nation have been reassigned to what the other party had once controlled. For instance, the radio station Democracy Now reports a lot on the abuses that big developers impose on native villagers in Latin America. This is an issue that can be considered to be controlled by liberals mostly. Because of the change in administration, Democracy Now can now report on trade with China, while Fox News channel reports on the alleged abuse towards villagers in Chile. Each party brings a different method of solving problems to the issues that their opposite predecessors had. So, in this scenario, Democrats wouldn’t have to change their ideology to suit Republican tastes. Neither would Republicans have to change. There is simply reassignment, and each party can use their own methods to solve a different set of problems - problems over which the opposite party once had control. So, Republicans would now favor development in Latin America, and Bill O’Reilly from Fox News channel would provide his blistering commentary on that. Democrats would turn their sites on China and would favor labor unions, better working conditions, and stronger consumer protections in dealing with China - all of this made by tacit agreement between the two parties.

Partial Control of every issue, and not Total Control of every issue.

What we have today is each party flagrantly trying to control the entire gambit of policies and issues, and as a result each party fights or has a conflict with every single issue that the entire nation has, thereby pulling the public apart, and for independents: forcing a traumatic shift in support from one party to the other. By a simple repositioning of each party’s control over the issues they once had control over, and assuming that the two dominant parties are actually cooperative enough to make such a tacit agreement, we can avoid the never-ending bi-polar system that has resulted from the change in the way the public’s information is delivered. Furthermore, every citizen doesn’t have to abandon his or her core beliefs to suit the change in administration. They just concentrate on the different areas the other party just had - the same areas once occupied by the people who will never agree with them.

December 24, 2009

Finally, someone is listening at the New York Times It is this scenario that I fear the most about our American political climate, and finally the Times has reported on it. It is crucial that the American political system find some sort of balance among ideological divides and extremes, or else this country is going under in a big way. Please read this article and think about it. I, for one, am sick and tired of America’s Cold War with itself, but we have yet to find solutions to this. Any suggestions?

December 24, 2009

NEWS ANALYSIS

In Senate Health Care Vote, New Partisan Vitriol

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON — The vote on Monday, in the dead of night, was 60 to 40. The vote on Tuesday, just after daybreak, was 60 to 39. And the vote on Wednesday afternoon, at a civil hour but after less-than-civil debate, was 60 to 39 again — an immutable tally that showed Democrats unwavering in the march to adopt a far-reaching overhaul of the health care system over united Republican opposition.

The votes also marked something else: the culmination of more than a generation of partisan polarization of the American political system, and a precipitous decline in collegiality and collaboration in governing that seemed to move in inverse proportion to a rising influence of lobbying, money, the 24-hour news cycle and hostilities on talk shows and in the blogosphere.

The health care legislation was approved Thursday morning, with the Senate divided on party lines — something that has not happened in modern times on so important a shift in domestic policy, or on major legislation of any kind, lawmakers and Congressional historians said.

The Democrats flaunted their unity on Wednesday at a news conference with nearly their entire caucus in attendance.

Many senators said the current vitriol, which continued on the floor on Wednesday with a fight over when to cast the final health care vote, was unlike anything they had seen. It has gotten so much more partisan, said Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia. This was so wicked. This was so venal.

Even in a bitter fight over President Bill Clinton’s budget in 1993, decided 51 to 50 with a rare tie-breaker vote by Vice President Al Gore, the partisanship was not as stark as it is today. Although no Republicans voted for Mr. Clinton’s budget, six Democrats joined them in what amounted to bipartisan opposition.

Mr. Rockefeller said the health bill had created an almost perfect storm of political and policy disagreements, so that some of the bitterness reflected basic philosophical disputes crystallized by President Obama’s agenda. If there was ever a time for that kind of partisanship to come out, this was the bill to do it, he said.

Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University and an expert on the history of the Senate, said that in earlier eras, senators would routinely cross party lines to vote in favor of major legislation on issues like civil rights and social welfare policy.

In 1965, the Senate created the Medicare program by a vote of 68 to 21, with 13 Republicans joining 55 Democrats in favor, and 7 Democrats joining 14 Republicans in opposition. In 2003, some Democrats in both the House and the Senate voted with most Republicans to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.

It certainly is a culmination of a long period of intensifying political polarization, Mr. Baker said of this year’s showdown over health care. It has gotten so bad now that Republicans don’t want to be seen publicly in the presence of Democrats or have a Democrat profess friendship for them or vice versa.

With Democrats nominally controlling 60 seats, the precise number needed to overcome Republican filibusters, there is no room for wavering Democrats to break ranks. If they held one less seat, there would be no choice but to win over a Republican; one or two more, and one or two senators with apprehensions could be released to vote no.

Some lawmakers predicted that the Senate would eventually rediscover its genteel equilibrium.

There’s a tolerance level here for what we have just been through, and I think we have hit the tipping point, said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut. It got rougher than it should. We are getting precariously close to fracturing an institution where no one wins, so I think we are going to be back on track.

But some experts said that the divide in the Senate reflected a broader political shift that lawmakers cannot easily reverse. In the 1970s, for instance, there was a much wider political spectrum in both parties, said Donald A. Ritchie, the Senate historian. You had conservative and liberal wings in both parties.

Mr. Ritchie and many senators said they had witnessed the change in the last 30 years.

You have got this divide, this polarization in America, said Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, the only Republican in recent weeks to seriously consider supporting the health bill. People become risk-averse, politically risk-averse. There is no incentive to reach across the divide and appeal to a broader inclination. It looks like pragmatism is a political cop-out; compromise is certainly viewed that way.

But even as senators complained about the rancor and expressed nostalgia for a kinder era, they conceded that the hyper-partisanship was likely to continue, potentially coloring coming debates on other major issues including financial regulation, climate change and, perhaps, immigration.

Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, and chairman of the Finance Committee, said the political — and often personal — divisions that now characterize the Senate were epitomized by the empty tables in the senators’ private dining room, a place where members of both parties used to break bread.

Nobody goes there anymore, Mr. Baucus said. When I was here 10, 15, 30 years ago, that was the place you would go to talk to senators, let your hair down, just kind of compare notes, no spouses allowed, no staff, nobody. It is now empty.

For more than 30 years, the major parties — Democrats and Republicans — worked every angle to transform politics into a zero-sum numbers game. State legislatures redrew Congressional districts to take advantage of party affiliation in the local population. The two-year campaign cycle became a never-ending one.

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, who worked on many bipartisan health care bills over the years, often with a close friend, the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said that the both parties were to blame but that external factors including ethics rules also discouraged senators from fraternizing.

Both parties have become very polarized, Mr. Hatch said. A lot of that is because of the stupid ethics rules. We can’t get together at various events. A lot of people complain about taking foreign trips, which are really critical for us to understand foreign policy. The Internet is constantly badgering everybody. In the process, it’s gotten pretty doggone partisan, both ways. It’s bad.

Mr. Hatch and Republican leaders said the lack of any support on their side showed that the health bill was mortally flawed.

The majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, at a news conference on Wednesday with most of his caucus standing behind him, offered a different take.

I don’t see this as 60 Democrats versus 40 Republicans, he said. I see it as 60 leaders who stood up to insurance companies and stood up for working families all across America.

October 9, 2009

The Question of Afghanistan: A Multiple Personality Decision-Making Dilemma

The question of whether or not to send additional troops and raise additional resources for counter insurgency measures against Al-Queda in Afghanistan is probably one of the most difficult decisions that President Obama will have to make during his presidency. The decision is, in fact, an excruciating one if one views it through the lens of three distinct personality types that may be operating within any number of public officials who must offer advice and leadership on the delicate matter on sending even more troops and resources there. The following is what might be called ‘delineations’ or personality sketches that characterize the decision-making process within a single decision-maker over this crucial question. These three personalities are most likely operating within the mind of a single person poised to make a decision, and these delineations don’t necessarily have to represent the mindset of public officials alone. Many private citizens may be thinking along these same lines as well, as many individuals not in elected positions of authority are certainly mulling over this very complicated question. The assumption here is that there are three main personality types operating within the single individual. Needless to say, there may be many more personality types that may be at work here, but the following may be considered to be the three major ones. So, let’s begin.

Personality #1 - The Skilled Politician

From a purely political standpoint, the president will decide to send additional troops and additional resources to Afghanistan. The question is to what extent does he continue our efforts there. The president knows that at this time the country’s two dominant political parties are polarized, and this represents a considerable risk in terms of the country’s political stability. The importance of gaining important bi-partisan support after sixteen years of both liberal and conservative extremism (Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, respectively), and the importance of gaining much-needed harmony and balance at the top layers of government after years of polarization has largely gone unheeded by both the conservative Republican base on one end and the liberal left-wing base on the other. The most recent example of this is the Obama administration’s push for health care reform and the caustic partisan battles that resulted. Way too much friction was generated in the debate, such that political action committees hardly hesitated in sending waves of protesters to simple town hall meetings and organizing a well-attended march on Washington in a vitriolic mock-Tea Party that decried any change in health care as a movement towards a radical neo-socialism. Similar counter-protests by those favoring change in our health care system were also generated, but protests from the right were what mainly captured the headlines. The health care debate, then, is an example of how polarized and divided the country is, and this provides a context for increased domestic instability. The Obama administration knows that the decision to commit more troops to Afghanistan would satisfy the hawkish tendencies of the right wing at a time when there is the perception that his administration is taking the country in the opposite direction. A heightened level of commitment in Afghanistan would also keep the more Republican-oriented industries - namely the defense contracting industries and the energy companies - functioning parts of the nation’s new economy instead of putting them on the chopping block for extinction, as Bill Clinton’s presidency might have done. This renewed sense of military involvement would at least align Midwest and Southern Spartans a bit more closely with the more dovish and diplomatically-driven Athenians, so to speak. The Obama administration may see Afghanistan as a means of pacifying the right, thereby ushering in more harmony and more centrality to the nation’s politics and its discourse. And by satisfying the right wing by keeping the war machine on a slow simmer, this would then pave the way for more left-leaning domestic policies that would benefit his liberal base after the right-wing and its accompanying industries have been fed in such a manner. So, Afghanistan becomes a good decision in terms of domestic stability, but whether or not we meet our objectives overseas in the international arena is quite another matter. The key is not to let the simmering pot in Afghanistan come to a full boil, especially leading up to the 2012 elections when it’s certainly possible that a more cemented and more radicalized left wing may reclaim Obama from the more centrist role he’s established.

Personality #2 - John Q. Public

From the collective public’s standpoint, most people are weary of war. It has been eight rough years following the September 11th attacks, and war and the support of our troops have been emblazoned in the consciousness of the American public. Many in the public have given their support for the war in Iraq, but their roles as armchair warriors and avid cheerleaders is probably too exhaustive a position to propel many Americans to support a surge in Afghanistan in much the same way. This will best be characterized by the public lending a more begrudging support for the effort. The main focus, on the other hand, is the domestic agenda and not the international one. Most Americans are consumed with the shortcomings in the domestic economy, job losses, and the slow repositioning and reinvention of themselves in troubled times. So, while the public will support the president if he decides that a heightened role needs to be pursued in Afghanistan, their support will be tepid at best. War will no longer command their focus, and if there is an attempt by the media to shift their focus towards that end, the result will be expressions of weariness and fatigue with America’s continuing intervention in international affairs. Much of the public senses that Afghanistan is important to domestic security, but they’d rather trade some of that security in for the rosier economic benefits that come from reducing our efforts internationally. The public will wearily support guns, but will be much more willing to support butter instead. The American public will quietly accept the conflict in Afghanistan, but they will get tired of it easily.

Personality #3 - The individual citizen

The individual citizen is most likely eschewing the more socially responsible and nationally-aware stances that the skilled politician and John Q. Public are taking. The individual citizen is thinking more in terms of his or her quality of life rather than what is happening overseas. And due to the continuation of the fighting overseas, there is a keen awareness that America is certainly becoming a vast, infernal machine where his or her civil liberties are rapidly diminishing as a result of the continuation of overseas conflict. He or she sees the perpetuation of the war machine as something deeply hazardous to the American soul, because there is still that one neuron of a thought that questions this war’s atrocities in terms of the countless Afghani women and children who will undoubtedly suffer and die as a result of our increased efforts. Civilian casualties in Iraq have been largely overlooked and downplayed, but this sense of moral failure will haunt the individual citizen when we move to Afghanistan. America, in a sense, is slowly losing its soul and its vitality. Civil liberties are vanishing, and America is slowly becoming a mechanical contraption that is slowly robbing the citizen of the essential ‘humanness’ that once made his or her quality of life much better and his existence in this country much more enjoyable. The Orwellian nightmare, in other words, has already been realized, and personal security enforced by the increased domestic presence of law enforcement and the focus on Afghanistan through every conceivable American media outlet will undoubtedly send the private citizen to question whether or not it is worth it at all to send additional troops to Afghanistan. In fact, the individual citizen will find strong moral reasons to bring the troops home and is personally against any initiative by the Armed Forces to dominate the American landscape as it has done effectively for the last nine years. The individual citizen is against this war.

April 12, 2009

The Loss of Opportunity in Crisis: The U.S. Navy’s Negotiating Tactics with the Somali Pirates

There is little question that the Navy should be commended for rescuing Captain Richard Phillips from his Somali captors, as seeing to it that the Captain made it out alive of the