Splendid commentary.

Actually, what Woodward and co. are doing is making social commentary and journalism NOT HISTORY.

You wrote “But when you write history, and especially history of a contentious nature about Iraq, in which so much is at stake, it is incumbent to identify primary sources.”

You are correct, of course, true history has solid evidence based on documented sources. Ocassionally one make reference to oral history or popular traditions to add color but they must be documented as such.

The historian is responsible for facts so the reader has to know where those facts came from. One must always be able to consider the source.

It is in the interest of all Americans to increase their knowledge of the war in Iraq and the so-called War on Terror. Knowledge is always better than ignorance.

It is a vice of historians to overvalue government archives over personal interviews and oral traditions. The victor writes the final history and every historian must consider, especially today, how photographs and documents can be destroy or forged. So delving into other sources is interesting but their veracity cannot be weighed if we do not know its origin. So perhaps there is some good to be mined from these books though I would not buy them and I only know them from book reviews.

I remember things that happened -or probably happened -100 years ago in Scotland and at 2nd Ypres and I have not doubt that there is a measure of truth to these memories because I or my father knew the parties involved.

But one documents and identifies one’s sources nonetheless. Bernal Diaz’ History of the Conquest of Mexico was written many years after Cortes’ Commentaries but somehow it seems more truthful. One wonders if Diaz based his history on any notebooks or letters he had at the time or only his memory.

If Historians use make-a-believe facts, that is imaginary facts then the author is writing propaganda and political commentary NOT HISTORY.

Of course, imaginary facts DO exercise a real power over the thoughts of people. The aim of using imaginary facts, of course, is to assert the authority of one political party or faction over another.

Many ficticious events have established themselves as unquestioned belief. A historian has to deal with this.

A reasonable person will seek out truth and accept the fact that some of the facts that support opinions may be less sturdy than others.

But nonetheless an impartial history does full justice to friend and foe. Thus the reader can form his own independent opinion.

I try to remain open-minded about the Iraq War and yes I am willing to concede that it may have been premature to go into Iraq before we finished the job in Afghanistan. But then does anyone every finish with Afghanistan? The Greeks did not. The British did not. The Russians did not. Nonetheless, I still remained convinced that going on the offensive in the heartland of the enemy enables us to contain terrorism. And of course by having a presence in Iraq we can protect scarce resources of pro-Western Arabic speakers who are in relative abundance there be they secularists or Christian. The Iraqi Christians I know are very pro-Western. Divide et impera.
My personal opinion is that we must PRAISE THE LORD and PASS THE AMMUNITION. AL qaida delenda est. Withdrawal from Iraq in defeat will not make us safer but will just prove what Bin laden has said that we are “paper tigers.” How I would like him to be proved wrong. How I would like to hear news of his death or capture!

We cannot forsee the stages of the war in which the West is engaged. I do sense this however, that this is a war for enslavement of the mind of man (humanity) or enlightenment and freedom. I strongely feel the way to win this war is to pull the economic plug on the Jihadists. If we can move to the post petroleum age then they will be emasculated and return to the sands from whence they came. Israel and the West must surivive this time this trying Age of Petroleum. If I have one severe criticism of Mr. Bush is that we have not gone all out to reduce our dependence of foreign oil. We have the technology and resources to shift to ethanol (like Brazil) or liquifaciton of coal (like South Africa). To me the sure way of weakening the enemy is to deny him money and next cut off his food and supplies. And kill the bad guys.

Splendid commentary again, as usual.

As a teacher I cannot help to make some commentary on the Congressional Pederasty.

I think it clear that Foley was an aging self-indulgent Catamite without any sense of decorum besides being a total hypocrite. If Foley were a teacher or school principal he would be fired. I am glad he resigned. By pushing for his resignation the Republican leadership did the right thing. Can you imagine the press if they had forced him to resign years ago becaus of the open secret of his homosexuality. I am sure he made a lot a people uneasy but as long as he bahaved himself within reason they welcomed the ‘diversity’ he provided. The truth is if he were a Democrat he probably would still be in office. Look at Mr. Franks for example.

But then again, here we have a double standard. MALE perpetrators seem to be more likely to be prosecuted than FEMALE perpetrators. But life isn’t fair. We still assume that if the male is the initiator he must be the aggressor and if the female is the initiator there must be mutual consent though of course, legally there cannot be consent in such matters under the age of 18 unless joined in marriage with the previous consent of parents or legal guardians.

In sexual life there are all sorts of perversions and aberrations.

Foley’s crime was that he was doing harm to youth and minors.

As a teacher I feel it is my solemn oath TO DO NO HARM to my charges and set a good example. If a teacher really loves and respects his students he or she would only want what is GOOD FOR THEM in the long run. A teacher must maintain a profound respect for the worth and dignity of others.

I myself have never understood the desire of men to want to have sexual relations with other men or little boys.

Donjuanism I can understand because I understand the physical attraction of a man for a woman of a certain age. Sexual satisfaction seems to be a basic human need though some are more easily satisfied than others. The closest I come to understanding homosexuality or pederasty is that it must be a form of masturbation.
But most normal men I know are aroused sexually only by the thoughts of naked young women of a certain age, usually between 15 and 50. I am only speaking for myself but to me women 20-40 have the greatest power to interest me, such as it is but since I am a married man I do not act on every twinge and stimulous. Neither to I urinate on the floor in front of people because I have a sudden urge to go. It is called good taste and self-discipline. If one exercises good taste, self-control and discipline one feels better afterwards. One of Eisenhower’s favorite quotes from the Bible was “He who rules his spirit has won a greater victory than the taking of the city.”. Of course, Ike took cities but all of his life he tried to show retraint. He knew that the building of character was by seeking virtue and courage. Only by being virtous and only by being courageous could he inspire courage.

Of course, most heterosexual sex today has degenerated, in my opinion,to high class masturbation since we live, increasingly in a ‘dud in the mud’ society. Sex has become divorced from marriage a procreation.

It is no wonder, therefore, if sex is merely for personal pleasure, that people will seek relief in an endless variety of ways.

I can even understand how a man could be attracted to a minor girl 15-17 years of age because physically many girls are women by that age. It is possible I suppose for a man a la “The Crying Game” to fall in love with an attractive young boy who was extremely feminine but I can’t imagine it. Butch dumpy women do not interest me so why would a silly little boy or a dog or sheep interst me? But then I am a reasonably happily married man.
As the Bard of Ayr said “Go seek your pleasures where you will but here I have never missed them yet.”

During youth we are all tempted to commit acts or acquire habits which are bad for us or simply foolish.

One of the purposes of group discipline IS TO HELP PEOPLE PASS THROUGH the eary days of youth without TOO MUCH CRAZINESS. College have given up on this notion almost entirely and high schools are heading towards that path too.

I feel we have entered an age of “heaven knows, anything goes.”
The result of this moral chaos is self-evident in this Post Clintonian world.

There are straight men who have salacious chats and try to groom “barely legal teens” and they are called cherrypickers. Gay men who do so are going after the “chickens.”

The age of consent in DC (and most states) is 16. You get your driver’s license, you get your license to love. These two things seem to go together rather appropriately. I am surprised how Victorian the D’s are being… denying the budding sexuality of teenagers. What next, draping the pianos to conceal the ankles?

Where are the gay advocates speaking up for these young men’s rights to explore their homosexual side? Reading the IM’s…these young men participated and reciprocated.

* and I am waiting for a full accounting of the details of what kind of chats happened when, with whom, at what age, and if they were even still a page. The most salacious IMs were with a *former* page who was 18 years old.

Your interesting deconstruction of the semantic roots of pedophile and pederast cuts right to the Foley chase in a way that most of the media either can’t or won’t but should. This gratifies by, in effect, highlighting a point of current gringo post on why the Republicans are caving
here. Now, Doctor, are we in danger of being labeled ‘homophobes’? Well, not you, maybe, with your far more learned approach and academic restraint. But what about a blog post with the title: Homo-Foley Washington”? Something there for both parties— to run from?

I know this sounds presumptious, but when you write:

It would be as if I wrote a history of the Peloponnesian War and, to support my most controversial points, added footnotes that stated “A manuscript in the Vatican,” or “Private letter to author from anonymous Greek shepherd attesting a stone altar in his field”

Isn’t that to some degree what you are doing in your own scholarly work? After all Thucydides often seems to work this way himself. Yes you cite him as a source, or any other classical historian, but how are they better than Woodward? Who if our own age was not so well documented might in some future be regarded as the principal source. (God Forbid!)

Right after I read it this morning I happened to read this one:

Outsourcing Combat Reporting to the Enemy
by James Dunnigan
October 5, 2006
http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/200610502635.asp

The two fit perfectly

Well Done!
-Scott Malensek
Akron, Ohio

On the subject of the “not enough troops” argument. I have asked people making that argument which units they would have deployed in addition to the ones that were. They seem to always respond by comparing the number of people in the entire U.S. military vs the number deployed. That doesn’t work because it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference if a carrier battle group was deployed since Iraq is not an ocean. Nor would it have made sense to deploy another Air Wing. Where was it to fly from? The question is, which Army or Marine ground units should have been deployed and which units kept in reserve to relieve them and fulfill the rest of our worldwide obligations? Things always seem to degenerate into name calling at that point.

The other thing that everybody seems to miss is logistical problem. During the 1991 Gulf War we had ports in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States available for use. In Iraq we were supplying an elephant through the keyhole of the Kuwaiti ports.

This is also an unstated factor in Afghanistan. Last time I checked, Afghanistan was still a landlocked country. This means that supplies must be airlifted or trucked overland from ports in other countries. The U.S Military is a high maintenance outfit and deploying additional troops without the means to supply them could lead to problems. I’m not clear exactly what our supply chain looks like in Afghanistan but it is always a huge factor.

However, I think you are very wrong about the military’s ability to give: “a successful fait accompli to their civilian overseers”.

Perhaps this was Rummy’s intent with Gen. Gardner, to pull a McNamara, er, McCarthur and write up an Iraq Constitution and start getting local Iraqis elected. But with Bremer, instead, the idea was to have the Iraqis do it themselves.
Not sure about that choice, the alternatives certainly were not discussed intelligently by any Dem opposition wanting to win. (Nor by you, I think).

Today there is no military goal available to achieve for American forces.

The key today: Only Iraqis can win in Iraq, US forces can only support.

mdub is right, the “war” has been won, what we need now is winning the nation-building peace.

The Vietnam problem is one of time. Had we merely stayed in Vietnam for 17 more years after 1972, or 25 after ‘64 Tonkin, or 33 after ‘56 non-election of Ho Chi Minh, had we merely stayed until the Berlin Wall came down, we would have won the peace. The slow, nation-building peace. And S. Vietnam would be more like Taiwan or S. Korea (though it appears that Vietnam itself is now trying to follow the Chinese/ Singapore econ models).

Perhaps the Reps who are running will remind folks that we lost Vietnam in the 1974 election where lots of Dems were elected, who cut funding in ‘75 to our corrupt, incompetent, and cowardly S. Viet allies.

I actually think our corrupt but brave and fairly competent Iraqi allies are 2/3s better. Too bad no PorkBusters database was used on reconstruction contracts for Iraq — it’s really too bad that there was so much “aid” instead of locally controlled municipal bonds (which would be repaid).

History will show that Aid Teaches Corruption — but that’s another long post.

(Please accept my “Victor” with respect as well as familiarity; your writing remains great.)