10 March 2014 –

Who’s in charge around here, anyway? 

“Sovereignty: supreme and independent power or authority in government as possessed or claimed by a state or community. “  -- Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.

The current crisis in the Ukraine highlights Russia’s efforts to dominate Eastern Europe.  Russia is exploiting our administration’s fundamental neglect of its primary duty to safeguard the U.S.’s interests in the world.  Our administration has no viable strategy to use its instruments of national power—economic, military, and diplomatic—to maintain the U.S.’s sovereignty and our influence and security in the world.  Power abhors such a vacuum of intent and action, and the lesser power mongers of the world are exhibiting their plans to exploit that space.

Deploying troops to the Crimea is Russia’s latest step in taking advantage of local instability in order to dominate the vassal states of the former Soviet Union.  Since the early 1990s, Russia has supported separatist movements in surrounding countries in an attempt to place subservient governments in power to be dominated in the future.  In 2008, Russian troops entered rebellious regions in Georgia to fight alongside separatists against government troops.  The Bush administration did little to help Georgia or to dissuade Russia’s aggression.  Russia paid no penalty for its expansion of regional dominance, and Georgia’s aspirations to enter NATO died.  My military and diplomatic contacts from the region expressed dismay, but then pragmatically accepted that Georgia would remain beyond the U.S.’s attainable interests in Europe.  Our influence withered on the outer edges of Europe, and Russia’s dominance grew.  Our sovereignty weakened.

President Obama then announced in 2009 the scrapping of a proposed Bush-era antiballistic missile shield system in Poland and the Czech Republic.  My Eastern European contacts were unanimous in their assessments:  the U.S. gave Russia carte blanche to again dominate Eastern Europe economically, militarily, and diplomatically.  My friends were specifically concerned that the expansion of NATO deep into Eastern Europe, while welcome, would not have the deterrent power it had during the Cold War because the U.S. did not show sufficient military commitment.  One officer had hoped that the ethnic Poles and Czechs in President Obama’s home city, Chicago, would have protested more loudly against his abandonment of their relatives.  My friend had hoped that the U.S. would be exceptional in the world.  Alas, he said, our President is ordinary. 

Our unilateral dismantlement of military and diplomatic power has made it harder to wield U. S. influence, particularly in Eastern Europe.  The edge of our sovereignty has withered even further west, snubbing many of our allies and friends. 

So, Russia has reentered the power vacuum.  Russia assessed it was worth the risk to militarily occupy what international treaty had declared to be Ukrainian territory.  The Crimea, with its Russian naval and air bases, is critical to Russia’s dominance of the Black Sea and to Russia’s influence on Turkey for naval access to the Mediterranean.  Russia will soon control the peninsula under a Russian flag.  Russia’s sovereignty, concentrated in strongman Vladimir Putin, is ascending.  The U.S.’s sovereignty, weakly expressed by the executive and legislative branches of government, is descending.

What instruments of national power can we bolster to stop this strategically erosive trend?  

First, we should expand domestic energy production, particularly natural gas.  We can soon become a legitimate competitor with Russia in the European market, increasing our influence and decreasing Russia’s.  To do this, President Obama must lift his moratorium on exercising drilling leases on federal lands.   He should approve the Keystone pipeline immediately.  The subsequent, strategic shift in the energy market would benefit the U.S. more than any other country.  Our bolstered economic instrument of national power would greatly strengthen U.S. sovereignty at home and U.S. influence abroad.

We also should invigorate our military ties with our allies and increase our military capability in the regions surrounding Russia.  Our existing treaty mechanisms are rusty, but they’re not corroded beyond repair.  We should give Eastern Europeans a reason to contribute to and feel protected by NATO.  We should give countries a reason to aspire to join with the U.S. and her allies in the common defense of borders and economies.  With a dwindling military, we can’t do this. 

A strong economy and effective military best protect our vital interests in the world when they operate under a clear and grand strategy to maintain US. sovereignty.  We can then wield our diplomatic instrument of national power with strength.  Our diplomats can then be polite and soft-spoken because our opponents will hear a clear message:  we have set the edges of our interests and we will protect them well.  Until then, it’s President Putin’s game, and he will continue to play it well.     

26 February 2014 - 

An Every-Day Morning in Houston

This morning, my wife suggested gently that spending some time out of the house would blunt my desire to write a political screed and would put me in a better mood. 

OK.  So, I donned my best Hawaiian shirt, tucked it into a clean pair of cargo pants, and chose good black socks to go with my fifteen-dollar tennis shoes; just right for a couple of hours at WalMart. Friends often meet for conversation at the McDonald’s there, and I looked forward to their enlightening me about the issues of the day. And, I would pick up some things for the house.   My wife gave me a short list of groceries, kissed me quickly, and I was out the door.

The late winter drizzle and fog clouded the windshield, but not enough to keep the wipers on all the time.   What's more, everybody was driving too fast.  There ought to be a law.  It reminded me of summers in Belgium; low clouds and fog and mist and little direct sun. No wonder the bars there open at nine in the morning. 

The eight miles passed without incident, and I pulled into the WalMart parking lot.

None of my friends were sitting in McDonalds.  I thanked the greeter for the proffered shopping cart, pulled out my grocery list, and started on my chore.   I needed milk, cereal, and romaine lettuce.  That was the easy part.  With plenty of time left, I also figured that a couple bars of deluxe chocolate would probably improve my standing at home. After discussing the merits of various chocolates with two WalMart associates, I threw a dark chocolate bar and a black currant chocolate bar into the shopping cart and left the aisle. My wife would be impressed with the classier-than-milk dark chocolate.

In the cracker and cookie aisle, I passed another old guy in a Hawaiian shirt and tennis shoes. His shirttail was out, and he was wearing white socks. No class at all.  There ought to be a law.  I chose some cookies my wife likes—double stuffed Oreos—and some Ritz crackers for me.  Cookies are always a good bet,and adding a fourth or fifth box of my favorite crackers is a prudent thing to do in case of an emergency.

As I cruised the remaining food aisles, I realized that I was just about at the median age for shoppers early on a Monday morning. There also were a number of young mothers, each pushing a cart with one small child.  One of the little girls even smiled and reached out to me.  We talked and laughed for a minute.   There also were two women and a man in motorized carts navigating the aisles. Everything seemed normal in grocery-town U.S.A.

There was much more to see.  But, by then, the women’s clothing section was between me and the rest of the store; so, I decided to forego further shopping.  On the way to the check-out counter, I grabbed two bottles of cranberry juice and a 42oz. bag of M & Ms. They used to sell 56oz. bags for about the same price. Now, we get 30% less. Outrageous!  There ought to be a law.

Walking past McDonalds as I left, I saw that my friends’ and my table had been taken over by three mothers, with their babies in huge baby strollers.  They all seemed to be speaking at once.  I’ve seen this phenomenon many times: an estrogen mist descends on the table and excludes everything male.   My old-guy friends will understand when I tell them.   Then, we will pull out pictures of our grandkids and admire them. 

It cost $36.83 for the milk, cereal, and romaine lettuce.  And the cookies and crackers.  And the juice.  And the chocolate.  On the drive home, I realized that I’d bought enough stuff to pay a lot of money, but not enough stuff to eliminate the need to make another trip to the grocery store this week. Oops!

At home, the chocolate and cookies were well received. The fact that I was gone only two hours was, well… less well received.  I figured I could salvage the day by spending the afternoon upstairs: writing, reading, and looking for a legitimate day job.

Maybe this is the way politicians get started: spending the morning talking with and judging people, trying to make up for their ineptitude with largesse, and spending a lot of money in the process.

19 February 2014 – 

What You Do, What You Are  

There are two kinds of people in the world:  those who break rules, feel remorse, and vow not to break them again; and, those who break rules, figure out how to break them again, and feel remorse  only when they get caught.  A corollary truth:  most people are good, but not very.

 

An orderly society requires good leaders chosen from the first group.  

       

I learned this as an Air Force officer.  Now, as then, ordinary people are required to become extraordinary Airmen, working in a rigid bureaucracy where individual efforts are subordinate to the success of the organization.   They need commanders and senior non-commissioned officers who uphold the rules of the organization, and who champion the guiding principles upon which the rules rest.  Airmen become extraordinary when they follow leaders who enforce the rules and sacrifice their personal desires to the needs of the Air Force. 

    

When a squadron commander breaks the rules, or puts his own success before that of his organization and of those he commands, good order and discipline soon collapse.  Airmen quickly see that their commander is nothing more than ordinary, and many revert to breaking rules and being ordinary themselves.  The organization then soon becomes a government-funded collection of self-serving individuals and groups.  Money and effort are wasted in an ineptly-run organization.    Only a new commander can rejuvenate such a squadron, and only through reestablishing adherence to the rules and to the organization.  

There are strong parallels between a bad Air Force squadron commander and today’s federal government leaders.  We elected members of Congress and the President.  For the nation to thrive, these leaders must follow the rules.  They must demonstrate primary allegiance to the nation’s fundamental laws embodied in the Constitution.  They must also be prepared to sacrifice personal or political goals for the greater good of the people and the nation. 

Our leaders’ allegiances appear to be far from where they should be.  These leaders reek of the ordinary. 

For five years the President and members of the Senate have refused to submit, pass, and sign a Constitutionally-mandated budget.  Last month’s huge spending bill was only a stopgap, passed in order to postpone the next budget fight until after the November elections.  Our extraordinary Founders knew that there is no accountability where there is no budget.  Our leaders are putting party and personal desires ahead of Constitutional mandates.  Meanwhile, they suffer none of the consequences of their actions.  Are the leaders who control the White House and the Senate so ordinary that not one of them will speak out for obeying the rules?  

Congress legislates; the President implements.   Extraordinary leaders accept that.  Ordinary politicians ignore it. 

The President’s legacy legislation, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), was passed through both houses of Congress without a single Republican vote.  So be it; legislators followed the rules.  But, the ACA also is the most poorly-designed and poorly-implemented piece of major legislation in our lifetime.  Even Democrat Congressmen and Senators are now speaking out against the circus that is Obamacare.  Their actions may be the understandable moves of ordinary politicians whose districts are full of increasingly upset constituents.  Or maybe they’re demonstrating the beginnings of pragmatic leadership over partisanship.  We can only hope.

The President, however, consistently actually breaks the rules of the Constitution -- which he claims to understand -- by unilaterally delaying implementation of critical parts of the ACA.  And he shows no signs of stopping.   

Finally, myriad federal agencies are charting their own paths under current national leadership. These agencies don’t need guidance to be self-serving.  If left untended, bureaucracies naturally expand, conceal their corruption, and resist threats to their accrued power.  Bureaucracies breed natural enemies to the Constitution and to the liberties of a sovereign country.   IRS scandals, the State Department’s action and inaction surrounding Benghazi, the Department of Justice’s aggressive opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision that parts of the 1965 Civil Rights Voting Act no longer apply today.  These are the acts of ordinary partisan agency and department heads who, with no extraordinary and honorable examples to follow, have been left to their own devices. 

The rise of the bureaucratic state should demand that leaders in Congress clearly define agencies’ missions and fund them carefully.  Even more, this rise must demand that the President show more allegiance to the Constitution than to his pen and telephone.   

Anything short of that type of leadership does not befit a squadron commander and certainly does not befit those who should be running this country. 

6 February 2014 – 

Are You Sure That’s What You Want to Say?

Thirty-five years ago, the Air Force told me I was going to be an intelligence officer.  I filled out a mountain of paperwork in order to get a top secret, special compartmented intelligence clearance upon entering active duty.  Not being in control of my life’s story started that day. 

I was required to list every place I had lived, what I did when I was there, and provide the names of people who knew me at the time.  A special investigator asked me about my lifestyle, if I had a criminal record, used drugs, or associated with subversive groups. He also delved into my spending habits.  My answers were simple.  Boring lifestyle, no criminal record, nothing more subversive than the Eagles Lodge in my hometown, and I think I had smelled marijuana once.  Nothing to hide.  I flippantly added that I was a married student with two children; I had no money to spend. 

The investigator glared at me. Everybody has something to hide, he said.  It would be best to tell him all my secrets because if he were to find something later that I had failed to disclose, I might not receive a clearance and might not even be commissioned.  Trust had to be established at the beginning or it never would be established, he warned.  I told him I would remember his advice, but that I simply had nothing else to tell him.  

I’ve never forgotten that interview.

Every five years for the next thirty years of my Air Force career I had to update my security clearance and answer the same questions.  My life’s story, the narrative of who I am and what I do, has long been captured and held by somebody else.  The Air Force regularly verified every aspect of my life before it, as an organization, continued to trust me with classified information and with the authority to act in its name.  As long as I stayed honest and accurate with my narrative, I remained the Air Force’s trusted agent.  Looking back, I am as proud of maintaining the Air Force’s trust as I am of any impressive or exciting thing I may have done in uniform. 

Establishing and maintaining trust with those whom we serve should be the dominant standard for all who want to be elected to political office as well.  Our narrative should be precise and truthful; it’s the only sure way to be believed.  That doesn’t mean a politician’s life won’t include difficult moments or occasions of less-than-stellar decision-making.  Nobody’s perfect.  But when the truth is obscured, reworked, or sidestepped, somebody’s going to pay.

Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, a gubernatorial hopeful, learned this painful lesson when she stre-e-etched her personal narrative.  She was indeed a young, divorced mother who persevered and succeeded in school and politics.  It’s a compelling story.  But, she stretched the dates of her early years of marriage and divorce in order to gain emotional support from her constituents.  And, she got caught.  Accurate marriage and divorce dates, combined with an explanation of who paid for her elite schooling and when he paid for it, now present the narrative of an apparent self-serving gold digger who would do pretty much anything and abandon even her children to get what she wanted.  Somehow, Ms. Davis missed the important advice that false narratives are fodder for political opponents who revel in exposing them.  These opponents knew, as Wendy Davis apparently did not, that if you do not tell the truth about your own life, somebody else will.

A particularly sobering warning in the Information Age is that now, more than ever, embellishments and lies will be discovered and displayed.  All e-mails, tweets, phone calls, and written communications eventually find themselves in some data base somewhere.  The opposition party will lead the effort to find these damaging secrets; that is what opposition parties do.  Then, when the moment is most advantageous, the opposition will make the lies public and try to destroy the liar.  Even war is more polite than politics.

Here’s the question:  should voters trust anything a politician says or does in political life if he has already shown he lied about his life’s narrative?  I suggest that we trust him at our peril.   A career in the business of political/military secrets has convinced me that trustworthiness is the greatest virtue one needs to rise from politician to statesman.  Heaven knows we need such statesmen as leaders right now. 

31 January 2014 –    

Still looking for George Washington

After a 30-year career in the Air Force, I found myself in 2009 working for the State Department in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  I monitored U.S.-funded military training contracts in one of the most dysfunctional countries on earth.  My fellow contractors and I tried to teach Congolese soldiers to stop being thugs, rapists, and murderers and to become professional soldiers.  Our ambitious goal was to build a foundation upon which the Congolese people could build a cohesive nation. 

Most of the soldiers were unpaid, former rebels more loyal to their tribes than to the government in the faraway capital of Kinshasa.  They had guns and would routinely take food from stores without paying.  They also stopped cars on the road to shake down the drivers for money.  We were stopped this way many times.  The officers were barely literate and stole their soldiers’ pay.  They also compelled their soldiers to force Congolese villagers to dig for gold and diamonds.  Because everybody in the DR Congo is hungry, we could get soldiers to show up for training by feeding them lunch.  Pretty basic stuff. 

We contractors couldn’t solve the fundamental social and political problems that resulted in the deaths of more than five million people in the Congo between 1998 and 2005.  Nor could we stop the disease and violence, which still prevails.  But the training contracts continued because U.S. strategy was to keep a light presence in the Congo and to stay involved until such time as the situation may allow decisive U.S. action. It was a pragmatic and sensible strategy that cost little money, no lives, and produced little adverse publicity.  I agreed wholeheartedly with it. 

In late 2011, I developed and taught a course to help professionalize senior Congolese officers.  Until then, our courses had focused on lower ranks.  In this fifty-hour course, I showed senior Congolese officers how to lead military forces in such a way that Congolese people could rally around them for support and protection.  This would help change the military from being part of the problem to becoming part of the solution in a country full of insurgents. 

It became apparent to me that even a simple strategy such as ours in the DR Congo succeeds only when those on the ground—soldiers, contractors, or foreign service officers—approach their tactical mission with professionalism.  The best we as tactical applicators of the State Department’s overall strategy could realistically hope for was to influence one Congolese soldier at a time.  On the strategic level, we succeeded just by being there.  On the tactical level, we nonetheless did a professional job because we couldn’t do anything less.  My course attempted to achieve something grand, even when the strategy didn’t demand something so ambitious.      

One of the basic tenets of the course that the tradition set over two hundred years ago by military leaders such as George Washington is a good model for how professional, apolitical foundations for a new nation are built.  I told the corrupt colonels and generals that I was looking for a Congolese George Washington who would rise above regional disputes and violent reprisals and be a man around whom a cohesive Congo could grow.  I indeed searched for a Congolese George Washington, knowing how unlikely it was to find one.  I still hope that one of these military students will remember his mission and one day will have the courage to stand up when the moment is right.     

Our nation’s leaders must understand the basic lessons of the DR Congo.  When our leaders craft strategies on the international scene, using the instruments of national power to accomplish them, they must exhibit the same courage, commitment, and willingness to sacrifice that their soldiers, foreign service officers, and contractors show when they implement the strategies.  The President and in his associates have exhibited few of these virtues.  They seem to float from one international calamity to another, resolve nothing, and leave messes for others to clean up.  Despite their abuse of the process, our so-called leaders continue to have – without deserving it -- the loyalty of virtuous Americans who bravely execute their shallow plans.  In reality, these leaders are no more worthy to be called George Washington’s successors than are the corrupt officers in the pest holes of the world.     

No one will think of them when they are gone.

24 January 2014 –

Death by VA Hospital       

Congress has finally passed a spending bill for the rest of 2014.  It approaches what Congress should have been doing for the last five years.  Sadly, our lawmakers’ spending cuts on veterans’ benefits show their ignorance -- or cowardice -- to prioritize spending based on fundamental governmental obligations.  A true story illustrates what I mean: 

My father spent the last years of his life in and out of the Veteran’s Administration hospital at Fort Harrison, Montana.  Drafted into the Army in 1940, he was wounded in the battles for the Aleutian Islands.  Until his death in 1963 at age 40, his body hurt and his mind suffered the effects of the war on top of the normal pressures of life.  The government responded by putting him into a VA hospital.   

I was too young to visit my father on the hospital ward.  When Mom went out to “The Fort,” we kids often went along and stayed in the car.  I remember my father waving to us from his third floor window around back of the hospital.   One time, in late 1962, I was allowed to go inside and sit in the ward’s day room.  The day room was full of young men in their twenties, thirties, and forties, and I shall never forget them, their faces and bodies. They were missing arms, legs, hands, and parts of their faces.  Canes, crutches, and wheel chairs were everywhere.  These men watched television, talked among themselves, played cards, and paid little attention to a small boy in their midst. One man in a thin, light-blue robe and slippers sat looking out the window, living somewhere else than in that day room.  He did not move a muscle the entire time I was there.  The experience was overwhelming.  I looked to a passing orderly for some insight.  He surprised me by saying bluntly that these men were WWII and Korean War veterans waiting to die.

I have never forgotten that moment.  Because of it, and later, after being forced through illness to stay in that same place, I vowed I would never die in a VA hospital.   

Who had the responsibility to ensure that these soldiers were taken care of and rehabilitated?  Like all military members, these men signed an “unlimited liability” contract with the government.  They agreed to risk life, limb, and heart acting as the human part of the nation’s military instrument of national power.  In exchange, the government contracted to pay them while on duty, give them pensions when they qualified, and, most important, take care of their medical needs when they returned less than intact from the battlefield.  This agreement is the most important and sacred contract the US government can make with any of its citizens.  Its fulfillment must take precedence over any entitlement and any benefits to anybody else at any time, in any place. 

This governmental obligation is just as important today as it was in 1962.  The three longest wars the US has ever fought have been prosecuted since then:  Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  The last two were fought with far smaller total forces than any competent planner would recommend.  The length of the wars and the size of the forces available for any theater of war demanded that the finest-trained warriors in the history of the world serve three, four, five, even six combat tours.  Patriots that they are, my fellow soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors have answered the call.      

Few can endure this type of abuse without significant damage to body and soul.  Our political leaders of the last two decades poorly structured and then poorly used our nation’s military instrument of national power.  In so doing, they ground real men and women into the dirt.  Now, these same political leaders are showing signs that they may renege on their fundamental obligation—their promise—to adequately pay and rehabilitate these patriots.  History may indeed show that the greatest waste of our last wars will not be the billions of dollars of equipment left on the battlefield or the failure to effect lasting change on the world scene. It will be the thousands of disabled and struggling warriors who seem to have been forgotten, and whose care and well-being have been ill-funded by a self-serving government.   

Senators, Congressmen, Mr. President: Is that the legacy you want to leave?  You are putting today’s generation of soldier in front of the window in the day room on the third floor of the VA hospital. 

Now, take care of him.  

31 December 2013 –

New Year’s Resolutions 2014

A recent study concluded that when we write down our goals, we are fifty per cent more likely to achieve them.  The same study suggested that if we emulate successful people, the chances for our personal success also will increase greatly.  So, I pondered a bit, and decided I would use the government model as my model for personal success and share my New Year’s resolutions with you.    

I resolve that in this next year, I shall abandon our family budget and spend at least thirty per cent more money than what I earn.  The obligation will accrue as unsecured credit card debt, mounting each month because I’ll show no intent to pay off the principal.  To maintain a decent credit rating, I’ll pay only the minimum amount required on the monthly statement.  When I’ve reached my credit limit, I’ll use another credit card, and then another.  When I reach my debt limits, I’ll ask the credit card companies to raise them, promising that I shall be fiscally restrained from that moment on. 

This fiscal philosophy may allow me to continue deficit spending in the following years as well.  Now I can start to buy what I’m entitled to have, and experience what I’m entitled to experience.  The American dream will be mine.  I’ll finally be freed from the constraints of thrift, personal accountability, and sacrifice for tomorrow’s security.  I can’t wait to get started. 

I’ve also decided that since I’m the head of our family at least through January 2017, I’ll continue relaxing those cumbersome ideas of proper public conduct.  Why shouldn’t I appear youthful and cool during my daily routine of family governance?  I’m sure boring family funerals will pass more quickly if I take more selfies instead of sitting respectfully.

BTW, I like wearing shorts instead of slacks when I play on private golf courses.  The stodgy upper crust should lighten up.  So what if I’m seen in public with my hands in my pockets (“Air Force gloves”, to my old Army compatriots) or chewing gum at official events?  I’m head of the family until I am replaced.  Get over it.

Finally, I learned from the administration’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act how to respond to similar, potential problems on the local level.  For example, how difficult is the following story to believe? 

I resolve that throughout 2014, I won’t stop at the three-way stop light in the center of our subdivision.  The president of the town council pushed the council to approve the installation of stop lights at a wide-open intersection where most homeowners felt they were not needed and where no accidents had occurred.   But, the president contended that stop lights there would enable a minority of home owners in one corner of the subdivision to more easily join the larger community in enjoying the entitlements of society.   

The project has been a disaster.  To start, the president convinced the county tax assessor to enforce the law by levying tax fines on those who run the lights or who insist on using other roads in and out of the subdivision.  Fortunately, enforcement has become a moot point until more pressing problems are solved. 

A delay in design and installation caused contractor costs to double.  City tax increases will certainly follow.  What’s more, the new system will require some drivers to wait long periods, based on “anticipated usage from targeted directions.”  But, the home owners that the stop lights were supposed to benefit rarely use that intersection anyway.  They continue to use another, more convenient route in and out of the subdivision.  When these last two facts became known, the ill-prepared president arbitrarily exempted other home owners in the subdivision from having to use the intersection until the entire system was “working more smoothly.”  The president’s entire plan is falling apart from its own weight and may never be fixed.  In the meantime, I shall ignore it all, stop when I want to stop, and do what benefits me the most.       

So, why did I pick these three resolutions for 2014?  Because my government and its leaders show me that these propositions will require the least amount of personal effort for the most short-term gain.  They will delay payment and equity for instant rewards. 

My goodness, if I achieve my 2014 resolutions, I could use this same message to get elected to public office in 2016.   Another of my great ideas!