Iraq: Its Demography and Geography as Impediments to Peace and Stability

In this article we see the constant struggle for territory driven by overpopulation and avarice, and distorted by unconscious cultural assumptions. We also see the irrational human mind at work, wherein no side in the conflict takes a thought for useful productive goals, being merely adaptive opportunists, set in a paradigm they cannot see, and will not change.

Rauf Naqishbendi (July 8, 2007). Iraq: Its Demography and Geography as Impediments to Peace and Stability, American Chronicle. Retrieved July 9, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=31624

War Against Iran Makes no Sense; I Wish that Meant it Won’t Happen

War may happen of course. But it is useful, at least for me, to remember that humans are homicidal and not suicidal as a general rule. That being the case I wouldn’t expect a war to start unless one of the major actors thinks that they have something to gain. The Iranian government is well served by our hostility. They are really better described as gangsters than clerics, they are hated by their people, but they can resist reform and count on nationalist feeling as long as we are bellicose. I see the Iranian leadership as being quite realistic in understanding what war would mean for them, I discount their President’s rhetoric because he is an outsider with little actual power. Now our President is another matter as is our government. Many of us Americans have a strange, Manichean, comic book hero view of the world. Unfortunately that would describe the current Bush administration. It is possible that our great leaders ‘gut’ will lead us into to tragedy. And there is no telling really, what they are capable of rationalizing. We should have a sense of national shame in that we are led by people who are such an ignorant, cowardly, and inept crew. It even makes me desire a constitutional change of our whole system. We need a new governing system, based upon our actual experience 200 years in duration. The Founding Fathers did an extraordinary job; now we must carry on with the accumulated wisdom and knowledge that we have gained.

We need a new government.

Geographic Ignorance has a High Price

The Mideast, or southwest Asia as we say now, has been problematic through recorded history. Our position of ‘stabilizing’ the Mideast has no exemplars of success to rely upon, and a trail of unambiguous failures, yet it is steady as she goes on the ship of state. Working backwards, I saw Iraq in 2003 not only as presenting no threat of any kind, but thought it so weak that it was only the implicit threat of U.S. action, and a lack of trust for one another that kept Iraq’s neighbors from dismembering it. I didn’t care that undemocratic Iraq annexed undemocratic Kuwait back in 1990. But I suggested it would occur in 1988 when the Iran-Iraq war came to a fruitless end. Then Saddam had a large veteran military, debts he couldn’t pay to Kuwait and elsewhere, a loss of face needing redress, and the Kuwaitis were slant drilling into Iraq and defenseless: why wouldn’t a dictator in that position invade little Kuwait.
I would never have sent Americans into Lebanon in 1982. I would have accepted the Iranian revolution, in that it over threw a truly horrible regime. I would have refused asylum to Pahlavi. And so forth back to WW1. Either leave Arabia to the Turks or let the Arabs hash out what they want for themselves. The Persians too, the Shah’s Dad was simply a military leader who threw out the old Safawid dynasty. The Pahlavi’s had no historical claim to anything; in fact the dynasty’s founder spoke Farsi with a Russian accent they say. Regardless because they have only oil to sell, it puts the purchasing countries in the driver’s seat. If we and our NATO allies plus our Pacific allies embargoed Arab/Persian oil, we all would suffer. But they would suffer more. We would be inconvenienced, they would be hungry. I’d put some Naval/Marine forces in Qatar and Oman and call it sufficient for our interests. Even a united greater Arab state poses no threat to us, because it has no homegrown industry or technology. It doesn’t matter how many arms they buy from Russia, if they can’t replace materiel losses they lose, and we can interdict supply lines of major goods from Russia or elsewhere. In fact a larger Arab state would be to Israel’s advantage, it is likely a larger Arab state covering say Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, plus parts of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, would have the land, the resources, and the political ability to resettle displaced Arabs and sign a peace deal.
In any case the Arabs and Muslims are not the problem; the feeble efforts directed against us could be eliminated by noninterference in their affairs. We have big problems that we are not addressing, Chinese economic and space competition, and the still overvalued the dollar.

We need some Geographers in the new government we need.

The Role of the U.S. in Global Military and Political Affairs

This paper will argue for the appropriate role of the U.S. in global military and political affairs as one of leading importance but not hegemonic power or its opposite: isolation. The paper will argue though America has an exceptionally fortunate geography and is the world’s single most powerful country with global interests, our ability to positively execute our will is severely limited. The paper will argue against the ludicrous phantom of stability, and its concommited crises, interventions, failures, and fear. We cannot police the world: and waste considerable resources and good will in that vain attempt. The collapse of the USSR made the world more chaotic, and diminished our power which now has to be measured by absolute success against an ideal instead of relative success against an opponent. It will argue for our national interests narrowly, and Western Democratic interests broadly in a world that will always be dynamic. It is of paramount importance to see the world as it really is, and let go of false paradigms. The paper will finally argue against the superstitious and Manichean notion of good versus evil, and adopt a skeptical, open, transparent and self interested view of the humanscape and our global way.

Many Americans have a strange, Manichean, comic book hero view of the world, in which we are “good” no matter what and others are measured by the quality and quantity of their philo-Americaness. This national Aspergers Syndrome, this obtuseness, leads to a general inability to appreciate the perception and consequence of our actions globally. We should renounce the right to impose our culture and any form of government on other nations, and accept as legitimate, any government that is constituted in any given country by people of that country regardless of form. It is not possible to achieve global stability: the track record of our efforts is abysmal and disastrous; we have been choice blind. The idea that the world could be worse off for lack of our interventions is highly improbable. Much of the perceived difficulty we have globally now is simply blowback from form earlier counterproductive efforts (Johnson). Our stubborn bloody-mindedness in pursuit of policies that don’t work; that are against our own interests speaks to a warped morality and worldview. And in light of the obvious counterproductive outcome of our policies making a change is critically important for our self respect and self interest. America’s manifest destiny mindset and the idea that we can do no true wrong hamstrings us from intelligent reflection on our outcomes and goals.

One can wonder if that is a failing of the human mind when presented with overwhelming wealth and power. Britain, France, Germany, Spain and other Western nations went through a period of exceptional success only to be brought low in the end. Their pride and hubris somehow did not allow for the rational and calculating decisions to be made concerning the possibility of overreach and blowback. “The United States today is discovering what other great powers have found before it: military victories can have results opposite to those intended. The world has not been made more pliant and respectful by a demonstration of American might, but is, on the contrary, more recalcitrant, sulky, and difficult than it was before the Iraq war.” (Woolacott)

We can transport soldiers globally rapidly, but once there, they move at the pace of humanity has moved through the ages (Army War College). We must remember that the combat soldier and the police officer have almost nothing in common in their duties. Between these two lies the constabulary or paramilitary police, necessary to maintain order in conquered lands. Closer to police than military, they eschew most heavy weapons of the military, though they have a military style hierarchy. The way that they are more police like is their respect for property, and their engagement with the people and community. The order needed in conquered lands is disturbed by the mayhem of military tactics. One may note that America doesn’t actually have a constabulary type force, and conclude our troubles in Iraq and Somalia may have been due in part to this. In the aftermath of WW2 we had a de facto constabulary. The military was tasked with administering conquered lands, but created a separate command for that purpose, in Germany for example the 15th Army. The 15th never fought a battle and its staffing was heavily tilted towards persons with civil skills. Our combat armies in Europe were not designed to foster order and development, they were designed to break and defeat the enemy.

The obvious failure of peace keeping to resolve any conflict argues rationally against its use (Johnson). The very presence of peacekeeping forces inhibits the traditional remedy of endangered civilians, which is to escape from the danger. Deluded into thinking that they will be protected, civilians in danger remain too long in place; and then flight is not an option. The practical consequence of peace keeping is a prolonged infliction of the agonies and indignities of conflict on defenseless people and argues against its morality. The great powers impose cease fires for reasons that are as deluded as they are frivolous. “… with combat suspended momentarily but a state of hostility prolonged indefinitely. Since no side is threatened by defeat and loss, none has a sufficient incentive to negotiate a lasting settlement; because no path to peace is even visible, the dominant priority is to prepare for future war rather than to reconstruct devastated economies and ravaged societies. Uninterrupted war would certainly have caused further suffering and led to an unjust outcome from one perspective or another, but it would also have led to a more stable situation that would have let the postwar era truly begin. Peace takes hold only when war is truly over” (Lustick). We should allow, or even on occasion help the stronger to defeat the weaker faster and more decisively; this would actually enhance the peacemaking potential of war. The final result of interventions and peacekeeping is to prevent the emergence of a coherent outcome, because it requires an imbalance of strength sufficient to end the fighting.

The degradation of the combat effectiveness of highly trained soldier ill used as a super police force is a phenomenon that is documented (Army War College). Multinational commands are worse still, and typically find it difficult to control the quality and conduct of member states’ troops, leading to a reduction of the quality and performance of all forces involved, to the lowest common denominator. Allied military forces suffer this to a somewhat lesser degree, but not by enough to overlook. Any time troops are used for interventions they should only being engaged in one of two type activities, either helping to bring an end to the war by helping the most powerful side, or facilitating the evacuation of population which we resettle in our homeland.
But by far the most disastrous of all interventions in war, and the most destructive, are humanitarian relief activities. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was established immediately after the 1948/9 Arab–Israeli war to feed, shelter, educate, and provide health services for Arab refugees who had fled Israeli zones in the former territory of Palestine. But UNRWA camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip provided on the whole a higher standard of living than most Arab villagers had previously enjoyed, with a more varied diet, organized schooling, superior medical care, and no backbreaking labor in stony fields. They had therefore the unintended consequence becoming desirable homes rather than eagerly abandoned transit camps. With the encouragement of several Arab countries, the UNRWA turned escaping civilians into lifelong refugees who gave birth to refugee children, who have in turn had refugee children of their own. During its half–century of operation, the UNRWA has thus perpetuated a Palestinian refugee nation, preserving its resentments in as fresh a condition as they were in 1948 and keeping the revanchist emotion intact. “By its very existence, the UNRWA dissuades integration into local society and inhibits emigration. The concentration of Palestinians in the camps, moreover, has facilitated the voluntary or forced enlistment of refugee youths by armed organizations that fight both Israel and each other. The UNRWA has contributed to a half–century of Arab–Israeli violence and still retards the advent of peace” (Lustick).
The only successful model of refugee resettlement model is the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA), which operated displaced–persons’ camps in Europe immediately after World War II. By virtue of keeping refugees alive in spartan conditions that encouraged their rapid emigration or local resettlement, the UNRRA’s camps in Europe had assuaged postwar resentments and helped disperse revanchist concentrations of national groups. These camps sabotage of peace is completely avoidable. Instead of creating Refugee Nations and prolonging the warfare whose consequences they ostensibly seek to mitigate, we should help with permanent resettlement.
Terrorists exist, and have since at the mid 19th century, yet they constitute a minuscule physical threat, but one that has seized our fear and imagination (Sherry). In fact we lose much more when we restrict our own liberties than harm they can ever inflict upon us materially. “The suicidal assassins of September 11, 2001, did not attack America, as our political leaders and the news media like to maintain; they attacked American foreign policy” (Johnson). Essentially terrorist tactics are used by the powerless to fight for control of land and to undermine imposed power. Were they more powerful they would be partisans and guerillas. “While terrorism poses some level of risk to the population, the risk is wildly exaggerated; ironically, this magnification of their power is a central goal of terrorists. Our nation has a history of inventing or magnifying political threats: nuclear attacks during the Cold War, McCarthyism and the Red Menace during the fifties, and most recently WMD in Iraq. Public policy should focus on reducing collective fears and overreactions to terrorism, not on fueling them” (Taleb).

We cannot police Global climate issues; any attempt to do so is doomed for two reasons. First we have no track record of bending others to our will and doing so cost effectively, and this doesn’t include times when our will makes no sense. Second the global climate is far too complex and poorly understood for us to make sweeping and costly changes to our way of life; we don’t even fully understand geological and solar processes. That does not excuse us from best practices and good stewardship. Pollution is wasteful; it causes economic damage when in fact those are resources that should be harvested. We should use wisely our resources, reduce waste, and conserve. We should develop a more integrated economy reducing waste and boosting our economy.
We suffer from our own rhetorical flourishes, words have meaning and consequence even if one lies when one uses them (Loehr). Our politicians speak as though we respect sovereignty, but in practice we don’t, unless the country is powerful or irrelevant. There is a certain weakness inherent in the use of organized violence to maintain authority (Gonsalves). A resort to violence even when victorious contains an implication of power that is lesser than one would desire. In other words, he who fights against the weak and loses, loses. He who fights against the weak and wins also loses. “To kill an opponent who is much weaker than yourself is unnecessary and therefore cruel; to let that opponent kill you is unnecessary and therefore foolish” (Harvey). I will conclude that America is once again powerful when a presidential phone call or face to face meeting between our plenipotentiary and a foreign leader is enough to get our way.
We are led by people who are an ignorant, cowardly, corrupt, and inept crew, neither they nor even the loyal opposition have any geographical sense. The stench of the current administrations’ failure can almost make one forget that our foreign policy has been weirdly counterproductive for some time, and with some exceptions, back to the Spanish-American war. It even makes me desire a constitutional change to our whole system. We lack organizational continuity, doctrinal cohesion, popular memory, and any evident connection to the past, and insanely we continue repeating the behavior of preceding generations expecting different outcomes. We need a new governing system, based upon our actual experience 200+ years in duration. The Founding Fathers did an extraordinary job; now we must carry on with the accumulated wisdom and knowledge that we have gained, and the changed circumstances that pertain.
The age of empire is over. An especially striking fact is that the most modern empires have a far shorter life span than their ancient and early modern predecessors. Though we have great power it is the power to destroy, so called hard power: brittle, we use it in fear and avarice. What we need is soft power, the power to influence without conflict and the confidence and resilience that comes with an accurate reading of the world and our place in it.
Toward a solution we can conceptualize the globe into discrete geographical compartments to resolve an intellectual dichotomy: that is the rapidity of movement available to an individual and idea through the threads of electronic media that meanwhile belie the awesome effort still required to force project around the globe. We can further define core and peripheral regions. In reference to Map A, the territories marked in green are core, all others are peripheral.
The core territories can be broadly defined as the extended North Atlantic which includes the Gulf of Mexico, the western Mediterranean, Baltic, Caribbean, Norwegian, and Barents Seas, and bordering Arctic sea zones. The great Pacific arc as far as Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan back to the western coasts of the Americas, and south to encompass Antarctica. These core territories as broadly defined constitute all the wealthy and powerful Western Democratic nations, plus Western nations aspiring to the same, with a few outliers. It is only in these territories that we should constitute treaty alliances. We should conceive the whole as an integrated one, were we have broad commitments to our allies, and they in turn have more regional commitments, except for a handful of countries besides us that would belong to both the Atlantic and the Pacific treaty organizations. The core nation’s alliances will likely intervene in conflicts that erupt on the side of the most powerful belligerent to achieve a victory and conclusion and prevent ongoing strife. The cost structure of the American military is wildly inflated and distorted; far too much money is spent in total, and of that much is misdirected. Peripheral belligerence against any core nation will result war with one or both alliances.
We need to look at our economy and energy needs strategically and therefore all vital resources and manufactures must come from the core, with at least half coming from the Americas. The looming shortfalls of fossil fuels and Uranium necessitate broad remedies that can exist within the core. We can have free trade with our first world core neighbors. The developing nations in the core would get trade privileges similar to those used by South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan to facilitate their own growth: those countries are primarily in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the North African littoral; in addition passport holders from all core countries may come to America with automatic visa rights. A new currency regime should be promulgated wherein between first world core nations the currency values are either fixed, or the same currency is used whether de facto or de jure. Developing nations of the core within limits could adjust their own currencies relation the new Western currency with an eye toward steady growth in those developing countries. International standards, laws, and codes should be refined and agreed upon by a supranational body made up of core nations. Trade will not be embargoed between core nations; agreements with peripheral nations are always subordinate to the core, and subject to review and veto.
The war on drugs at home and abroad has been a catastrophe. We continue to suffer from drug use unabated, we have lost civil liberties to an alphabet soup of police agencies, and we have brought ruination on the economies of the supplying countries. Drugs are a medical and economic problem not resolvable by force, and we should cease wasting time and money in a vain and futile struggle against human nature. We should substitute other behaviors, offer medical treatment, and regulate the process to keep prices low, and use away from public spaces.
There is no nation anywhere that constitutes a threat to America at this time. Americans seem to suffer from the concept of Zero-risk bias. This leads to erroneous and costly attempts to reduce our security risk to an improbable zero, when the critical idea should be roughly that which is economically efficient, and more relevant, and that is not bringing risk from .1% to 0%, but from 30% to 5% for example. There are extraordinary and unpredictable events in human history, but one cannot reasonably make plans based upon a statistical improbability. Nassim Taleb calls the impact of the highly improbable events Black Swans. “Just imagine how little your understanding of the world on the eve of the events of 1914 would have helped you guess what was to happen next” (Taleb).

Globally China is the lone foreseeable competitor, but that can be dealt with by first examining their sense of their history, second examining realistic not worst case scenarios, binding our core together, and pursuing and possibly excluding China from space exploration: the new high ground. China could be hemmed in to less than its approximate ancestral limits.

India has provided the world with the sole workable example of how a nation should deal with a hostile neighbor by initiating use of force to achieve an enduring solution. In 1971 India invaded East Pakistan, now known as Bangladesh, to rid itself of a pesky security problem. In a good example of economy of force India used what was necessary to win quickly. Essential to their plan was to introduce native rule. Though Pakistan became free of Great Britain, East Pakistan remained subordinate, riled by outsiders, largely West Pakistani’s Punjabi’s. India invaded and defeated the Pakistani army, recognized a native opposition group as the provisional government, and began preparations to withdraw very quickly. The Indian forces were cheered, as they left. Those borders are peaceful to this day. We should work with India as a partner in the Indian Ocean regions, as described in red on Map A. We could consider joint action with India, and encourage that great nation to use its considerable pool of talent to the benefit of themselves and the peoples of the Indian Ocean region.

Russia is a great country though, or perhaps because it has known great vicissitudes of fortune and travail. We should acknowledge their cultural sphere, and the geography of their interests. The area in blue on Map A shows the area encompassed by their interests, and ability to exercise their power, in areas peripheral to ours. Russia has shown their grit and determination in bearing the lion’s share of the war against Hitler and Nazism. They have shown their wisdom in selling us Alaska, and allowing the Soviet Empire to dissolve peacefully. Unlike their Western European neighbors, they have not recklessly started global conflicts. (Czar Nicholas II is somewhat of an exception). We can work with Russia, show them the respect they have earned, and work jointly should they desire it in the blue regions. They would be given to understand Central Europe and Scandinavia defined by the green area on Map A are off limits. Russians are essentially realistic and tend to keep their international deals.

Brazil is the leading state of the purple zone as defined on Map A. Brazil’s subtle racism has a large element of class to it, but it poses less of an obstacle than the racism found in elsewhere in America, Europe, or Asia in African development. Also the distance between Brazil and South Atlantic Ocean Africa spatially and culturally is smaller than between America and Africa. And both have experienced the destructive economic model wherein the extraction of mineral or agricultural resources is their primary economic function. In Africa either borders must change or people must move. White Western interests have done considerable damage to the people and land of Africa. The best thing we can do for Africans now is to let them keep their resources and forbid cash trade outside of the south Atlantic. We can barter capital improvements, expertise, and education for what we think we need and to recompense them for past mistreatment. We should share military expertise with Brazil upon their recognition of their sphere of influence.

We have tried to be the globes policeman since the end of WW2. It has resulted in considerable carnage and ultimately failure, as we are worse off now in Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Guatemala, Vietnam, and Nicaragua and so on for our efforts. Doing nothing would have had a better outcome. The endless wars and refugee streams cry out for a new course of action. We can’t make the entire world better, and we certainly can’t make Americans out of foreign peoples. We can protect ourselves, our friends, and within narrow limits intervene in core critical nations alone, and in peripheral nations with the cooperating power to help the stronger side win. We should be strong and resilient, instead of belligerent and arrogant. We must educate all our youth in Geography so that some day we will have leaders whose decisions will be informed by knowledge and understanding instead of ignorance and fear. It is not our job to rule the world’s outcomes, but more importantly it is impossible, and that couldn’t be any plainer.

Scott Ritter on Iraq in 2002

http://www.cspan.org/iraq/ritter.asp

and later…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1340562,00.html

Reagan and the Cold War

Reagan did not win the Cold War. It was over by 1965. We put a wall around Cuba, they put a wall around Berlin, and both sides removed the leadership that almost started a war in the early 60’s, and a de facto borders became de jure borders. Then we began mucking about on the margins, Africa, SE Asia, and Central Asia.

I would say that the post 1965 Soviet government was all about the corrupt enjoyment of power. We each made the other the bogeyman for our own domestic political reasons. When the USSR collapsed there was a scramble for a new bogeyman. China wasn’t credible, Iraq and Iran weren’t credible, but the illusive “terrorist” was: reminds me of an H.G. Wells story
Reagan was a pussycat militarily. He took no significant action and was obviously unnerved by causalities. Witness his lame pull out from Lebanon, and his inability to free American hostages. And his comic invasion of Lilliput aka Grenada. But, Reagan did one good thing, because he believed in redemption, because his foreign policy abhorred aggression, he put the USSR on the spot. Though we still acted like nuclear war could come at any time, the Russians realized, the game was long past over, they wearied of their imperial burden, and knew that the US would not attack them while they reorganized. A ridiculous claim by Reagan hagiographers notwithstanding, it was Reagan’s humanity not foolish defense expenditures that allowed for the USSR’s collapse. Senator Webb was right. Reagan’s defense policy was pusillanimous. But that was the best thing Reagan did for national security: he gave Gorbachev reason to believe the U.S. & NATO would remain passive and peaceful should the USSR reduce its military commitments and reform. Reagan also raised taxes more than any previous president and let foreigners loot our domestic markets and industries. But we loved him, because he made us feel good.

Yes we miss the USSR, our old bogeyman. The U.S. conquered Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. We beat the USSR in the contest of political supremacy; they relied on armed force, a security apparatus, and will. And yet we have now adopted those methods. Still we have inchoate, irresolvable fears of a never ending struggle with and irrational fear of ‘terror, climate change, and eternal damnation.’ To butcher Shakespeare: “The fault, dear reader, is not in our enemies, But in ourselves, that we lack virtue.” Hmmm. Still, it is kind of interesting that it was Carter and not Reagan who began our overt intervention in the Middle East.

Barbarism and Civilization

There is a constant struggle between barbarism and civilization. The question is can one use barbarous methods to maintain, preserve, or extend civilization? Or, are we simply barbarous when we use barbarous methods. We westerners have been interfering in the Mideast since WW1. Not with honest conquest, but with subversion. Are we better off for it? Our methods undermined democracy at each turn, so it is no surprise that religious zealots are the only people with cojones to fight, when it seems hopeless. The longer this fight goes on, the stronger will be the Islamic Religious Right. Prosperity on the other hand would be a stake through the heart of extremism. Apocalyptic alarmist is the order of the day for both the Right and the Left. It would be amusing, if I didn’t have to live thru ignorant nonsense too.

Since, for example, Hamas and Hezbollah came into existence as response to Israeli military policies in Lebanon & the Occupied Territories, why would it be reasonable to conclude that continuation and extension of the same military policies will defeat them?

The Free State of Jones

The Free State of Jones is a story about nonconformity and pugnacious individuality. It is a story of a minority of Southern Whites, who during the Civil War, were either pro-union, anti-slavery or at least, anti-Confederate. It may possibly be summed up by quoting the text of a headstone that now marks the formerly unmarked graves of three Knight Company members; it says, they were “summarily executed by the Confederate cavalry during the War between the States because of their honest convictions.” It is a story of the cost of war, and the things people do during war generally and what these people and others like them did specifically during the Civil War.
The book is called, The Free State of Jones, by Victoria E. Bynum, The University of North Carolina Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8078-5467-0. The author begins by telling us a story of race set in 1948. The issue was a legal definition of whiteness, an issue full of contradiction and ambiguity. The person in question was determined to be white, though his mixed ancestry was known. He was part of a community known as White Negroes. Dr. Bynum has done an impressive job of research that goes a long way toward explaining how race, class, and gender affected, and were affected by, the development of social customs in the South.
Jones County residents’ connection with the Carolinas, and to a lesser degree, Georgia is discussed in Chapter One. All the families that came to play a role in the Free State of Jones found their American origins in South Carolina. Theirs is a rich heritage of obstinate dissent. These families had been involved in the regulator movement: a movement of have-nots against the powerful haves. This thread of anti-authoritarianism runs true for these families throughout the civil war.
By the time of the civil war, race and class had clear distinctions, and honor was always at stake. These particular families of Jones County kept to an older view of interracial activities and associations, that was slightly more open and elsewhere in the South. Their view was an older view, from an era two generations past. Racial mixing still occurred but it was more clandestine and subversive at the time of the civil war.
The constant pressure for land, for a growing population, pushed settlers ever westward. Free men could rise by their own efforts and keep the fruit of their labor, due to obstinate independence. A dichotomy emerged between the ideal of free men as Yeoman Farmer and the practice of some men as wealthy planters. The desire to rise in status, class and wealth, resulted in a need for servile labor by Planters, and this put economic pressure on Yeoman Farmers. “There was a desire by many for primitive simplicity over corrupt wealth” (30). The families that resisted Confederate military service in Jones County, and elsewhere, tended to come from the free labor class. The families that demanded Confederate military service from the Yeoman Farmer was the Planter Elite.
Religion evolved with settlement. The Great Awakening caused a huge increase in new churches and a move away from the established churches. Westward settlement played havoc with coordination and organization, but finally denominations such as Methodists and Baptists had an organization and creed, though not without a lot of gnashing of teeth. Finally these churches established a definition of equality that allowed for great disparities of wealth and freedom. This became another consideration that separated the Free Staters from the Planter Elite.
The core membership of the Knight Company was seven families of the Yeoman class. These colonists were part of the Regulator movement that resisted the concentration of power into the hands of a few wealthy landowners. The Planter Elite supported the Confederacy almost unanimously. Some families split, as did the Knights. The two factions of the family continued their argument well into the twentieth century. Interestingly, Newton Knight went against class interest. His Grandfather Jackie was a slave owner, though a staunch Unionist, as was Ben Sumrall, who condemned secession publicly.
Originally the Piney Woods area of Mississippi that later became Jones county was settled by prospective ranchers, who turned to farming, as time went on. The Piney Woods are much more extensive than Jones County, running east and west of Jones County. In fact the Piney Woods run all the way into East Texas, where there are some similar stories, of pro-Union minorities, anti-authoritarians, and curmudgeons of all kinds. Slavery was less prevalent here in the Piney Woods than in other areas of the Deep South. The author provides an excellent local history of Southwest Mississippi from the early 1800s to the dawn of the Civil Rights movement. The author begins with the immigrants to Mississippi territory, mainly from the Carolinas. Excellent maps of migration routes and the early counties in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi are included.
This westward mobility was not unusual, of course, but Bynum shows that the types of land that people moved onto can serve as a clear indicator of their later political views. Families who settled on rich river bottoms tended to become wealthy slave-owners, while families and parts of families who stayed, by choice, in the less fertile hills, tended not to own slaves, though some did garner considerable wealth. The plantation owners in any extended family were the strongest supporters of the Confederacy, while the backwoods subsistence farmers were more skeptical of any authority.
Some of the Knight Company joined the Confederacy with gusto and enthusiasm Newt among them at first. For those that enlisted but later deserted, the cause seems often to be a growing hatred of the Confederate government and its ruinous and corrupt practices. The Twenty Negro Law is often cited for favoring the Planter Elite. Also, Confederate impressments of men and confiscation of material, sweeping in scope, created animosity.
Late in the war, desertion of Confederate troops became such a large problem that active measures were taken. Confederate cavalry swept up deserters, many were hanged. For some Southerners this was a fearsome reign of terror. The Knight Company formed a protection service for men who wanted to survive the war and who had lost sympathy for the cause of the Planter Elite; there is no proof that they ever desired to fight for the Union, or actually seceded.
The uprising of the people of Jones County seems more a measure of defiance and self-preservation. The county residents opposed secession all along; they sent a delegate to make the case though he soon enough voted for secession against the wishes of his constituents. Then as the catastrophe of war engulfed one and all these people at least tried to do something to survive and be recognized. The Confederate cavalry commander who was tasked with gaining control of Jones County; a man who hanged many of the people of his own state for desertion, later became governor. Later, as the Redeemers came to power the heroism of people who stood up for beliefs not in accord with Redemption were brought low by conformism and political cynicism.
The organization of the book was neither chronological nor categorical; I found this difficult reading for that reason.
Her own family history is also at stake, which makes her impartiality more noteworthy. Bynum told a story of her people, but she didn’t argue a conclusion. That may be a good thing however, because this allows readers to more readily consider their preconceived views about the Civil War without requiring them to admit error.

National Policy

I’d suggest that the idea that we can change another country is not proven. In the examples of Japan, and Germany we destroyed those states, in wars they started; they wisely selected to change the way they operated, and of course their previous mode was completely discredited. One reason we failed in Iraq is that we were not at war with Iraq, just Saddam. Though we defeated Saddam’s forces brilliantly, we did it with the connivance of the Iraqi people who did little to help Saddam. Therefore we did not earn the right of a conqueror. In fact, we could have seen flowers thrown at our troops on their way out, if only we had left right after overthrowing Saddam, which is what we had led people to expect. We have the power to overthrow most governments, and almost no power to compel the people of those places to emulate us. But I do agree with the author’s discrediting of our ad hoc approach. Perhaps we can usefully help western/democratic style governments from external aggression. And we should decide whether we acknowledge other state’s sovereignty or not as a blanket rule.
It is basically double talk and equivocation that has gotten us into trouble. A coherent national policy would be nice!

Federal Outsourcing

Federal agency’s are under the gun to reduce expenses and improve services, in an environment impatient of complexities and uninterested in the larger picture.

Pros
• Outsourcing IT (or any) function can be sold to the public as a cost savings measure. This is not easily gainsaid because of opaque and varying accounting methods.
• The agency can obtain IT services more quickly, and more right sized thru outsourcing.
• Availability of proven widely used programs and processes.
• Favorable budget weighting
• In the absence of Federal standards and production of original IT, it is all outsourced inherently.
• Cumbersome labor regulations won’t apply.
• The enhanced possibility of income thru kickbacks.

Cons
• Contracting companies may not follow thru due to marketplace disruptions.
• Contracting companies may not achieve the expected outcome related to the absence of in-house coordination, and the unstated understanding that comes from being “in” the agency.
• Contracts are bi-directional, and if severable and not unitary may leave the agency on the hook though no useful product gained.
• Oversight and accountability is less stringent or even absent. Interagency contracts more so. The worst of government and business together.
• Cost savings difficult to prove.
• Ultimately the agency is still on the hook for the cost of failure, and will gain no revenue from success.

Why we should care
• Corporations are undemocratic and will always put investor return ahead of notions of public service. Consider what that means. (Origin of Corporations as instruments of government.
• How do we as citizens get resolution of problems when the buck never actually stops anywhere? Litigation?
• The feedback loop is likely to be even faultier.
• Outsourcing adds no value and rewards political connections over popular demands, how do you feel about corruption?

H. Res. 766

This bill H. Res. 766 passed with 100% Republican support and 100% Democratic opposition (at the time). The bill allows the House of Representatives to go forward with a vote on H. Con. Res. 376, without amendment, the resolution funding the House of Representative for the following year, and setting target for the years 2008-2011.

This type of bill is known as a House Simple Resolution. A proposal of this kind needs neither the Senate nor the President to concur, because it deals only with internal rules of the House. “Simple resolutions are considered in, adopted in, and effective only in the chamber in which they were proposed, and are not sent to the President for approval or signature”.

The reason for the straight party line vote is the routine, or housekeeping, nature of the resolution. It was not amended or debated. The Bill was introduced and reported on in one day and passed without exception, the next. This resolution set the stage for introduction of the funding resolution itself. The House GOP leadership wished to control the process and keep opposition speechmaking to a minimum.

This ensures continuing majority party perks. Because the Bill funds those perks it is easier to keep party discipline, the incentives line up along party lines. There are no policy decisions contained therein and no likelihood that a given Representative will have to explain the Bill to a constituent, as they would with other Bills of interest.

The seeming is that the rare occasions when we find straight party line votes has more to do with perks than ideas.

The Canadian Conservative Party

The current Conservative Party of Canada is a relatively recent creation: an amalgamation of the majority of the Progressive Conservative Party, and the Conservative Alliance. Conservative oriented parties in Canada have a history of fracture amongst the Anglophone community and generally have trouble penetrating Francophone Quebec. The parties have often further fractured along provincial lines too.

The Progressive Conservative Party’s was founded in 1867, contemporary with Dominion status, and was in existence continuously until 2003, when it merged with the Canadian Alliance Party. The Party had changed its name several times over the course of its existence and settled on Progressive Conservative in 1942. At various times Provincial parties would break away from or return to the national party. The Progressive Conservative Party often, was referred to in the news as the Tories.

Brian Mulroney became PCP leader in 1984, he was fluently bilingual and from French speaking Quebec province. He led the party to a huge victory in 1984. The victory of 1984 returned 211 PC Members of Parliament, in the 1988 general election their majority was reduced to 169, and in 1993 under new leader Kim Campbell the party disintegrated in the general elections and returned only two members of Parliament: from the Maritime Provinces. Nearly extinct, the PCP could not even serve as the loyal opposition, a place taken by the Bloc Quebec, a regional separatist party, which was not organizationally or philosophically prepared to run the loyal opposition. The PCP had 12 MP’s when amalgamated into the new Conservative Party.

Though Campbell was party leader during the election, and made her share of mistakes, the destruction of the party was more due to the failed policies of the Mulroney government, which were soundly rejected by the voters. Mulroney resigned 6 months prior to the election in a vain hope that his departure would allow a new leader to rejuvenate the party. Mulroney’s progress form sky high popularity to abject odium was due largely to his two major attempts to solve the Anglophone/Francophone issue through Constitutional change. His proposals were rejected by all parties. Both sides saw his proposals as significantly inadequate and developed a deep distrust and loathing for him and his policies.

The Reform Party of Canada was formed in 1987; in part this was an Anglophone rejection of Mulroney’s policies. The party was supposed to be both conservative and populist, yet one may say it seemed simply another regional party supported in the western provinces by English speakers. There is a long history of protest parties in the western provinces and the Reform party seemed to be yet another. However with the disintegration of the PCP in 1993, Reform began its rise. In 1997 the Reform party won 60 seats and became the official opposition, no doubt to the relief of Bloc Quebec.

In 2000, the party became part of a movement to “Unite the Right” and with some other fringe elements formed the Canadian Alliance. The Conservative Alliance was itself the amalgamation of the conservative Reform Party with smaller conservative parties. They had at first renamed the party the Canadian Conservative Reform; people mentally added the word party, though that wasn’t official. The Canadian Conservative Reform Party became the name the public knew, but the party leadership was soon dismayed and chagrined at the humorous take on the resulting party acronym CCRP. The name Conservative Alliance was quickly substituted. And in 2003 the Canadian Alliance united with the PCP, and excepting some PCP splitters who were mainly Senators with lifetime tenure.

The Canadian House of Commons has 301 members, elected by districts, called Ridings, and currently has members elected from five parties. The Liberal Party forms the loyal opposition, having lost the national election; led by an arrogant, highly unpleasant fellow named Paul Martin. His tenure contrasts unfavorably with the previous Liberal leader Jean Chrétien who thoroughly trounced all opposition in 1993 and 1997.

Stephen Harper would seem to be less traditionally Canadian in his ideology of conservatism: the low tax mantra has hit Canada, despite its failure to deliver as advertised in the U.S.. Harper was a staffer for a PCP MP in the 1980’s and elected to Parliament as a Reform MP in the 1990’s. One can wonder whether this newly elected conservative government and Conservative Party led by Harper can escape the legacy of conservative parties overreach, in-fighting and self destruction.