I'm Hacked!

As the most terrifying combat yet in Iraq rages on, I looked in on a Web site operated by a real hero in Vietnam: Colonel David H. Hackworth, USA (retired). Hackworth calls a spade a spade and a war criminal a war criminal. See "Blackhawk Down" for Ridley Scott's portrayal of urban warfare against insurgents in Mogadishu for an idea of what is happening in Fallujah as I create this post to the blog. We are like the Bourbons of France, we forget nothing and we learn nothing. Let the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth stand up to Hackworth! Those clowns would think that they were in Fallujah! Rudy Giuliani better hope that he never meets Hackworth in a dark alley. If this is a (fair & balanced) premonition, so be it.

[x Military.com]
Nailing the Guilty
By David H. Hackworth

Now that the election’s over, President Bush needs to deep-six his candidate hat and get serious as commander-in-chief. His first priority should be to hold accountable those defense and intelligence chiefs and their high-level underlings responsible for the many grievous, even criminal, mistakes that have occurred in Iraq on their watch.

Without a constructive critique of what’s gone down in that beleaguered country – a no-holds-barred appraisal that actually changes America’s ill-conceived counterinsurgency direction – we'll be stuck in a protracted struggle that will only get uglier as the terrible weeks, months and years bleed by.

Meanwhile, give or take a few captains and colonels, not one senior-level perp’s been sacked. And we’re talking about the brass responsible for gravely consequential life-and-death screw-ups such as: insufficient troop allocation for the occupation phase; premature disbandment of the Iraqi army, police and other security forces; unrealistic initial planning and amateur execution during Round One of rebuilding a new Iraqi army; top leadership dereliction of duty that allowed the prison abuses; and the shocking inability to understand the very nature of the war in which our fine soldiers are engaged.

I constantly hear the chant that we must support our troops. But what I see is more superficial lip service than serious consideration for our warriors’ welfare. If our top generals truly supported the troops, for example, they would have acknowledged that we were about to become engaged in a long-term insurgency campaign – and planned appropriately – long before the first tank shocked-and-awed its way into Iraq.

Any good infantry stud who’s studied insurgency warfare – especially Israel’s campaigns in Lebanon and Palestine, and ours in Vietnam and the Soviets in Afghanistan, where about 30 percent of all U.S. and Soviet casualties were the result of mines and booby traps – would have surmised from the get-go that our Iraqi insurgent opponent’s weapon of choice would be hit-and-run ambushes augmented by explosive devices. So it’s not a stretch to think it should have been obvious to our brass hats that Iraqi resisters would look at explosive devices as a cheap, easy method of inflicting casualties and disrupting operations, and use the same historically proven tactics that drove the Turks out of Iraq (then Mesopotamia), the USA out of Vietnam, the Soviets out of Afghanistan and the Israelis out of Lebanon.

To date in Iraq, thousands of our troops have been killed or wounded by these nasty zappers, presently called improvised explosive devices (IEDs). But whatever the fancy name, IEDs are still the meanest, most feared insurgent weapon because of the savage mental and physical damage they lay on the troops. Not a day passes without the horrible sound of an IED exploding, killing and maiming soldiers and civilians.

Yet thousands of Iraqi ammo depots filled with the hundreds of thousands of tons of ammo presently being used by the insurgents to produce IEDs went unsecured for months. And when our senior commanders didn’t bother to assign the highest priority to their security or destruction, the ammo dumps became handy-dandy drive-in Wal-Marts for the insurgents’ lethal weapon of choice.

The most common IEDs used in Iraq are artillery rounds packed with explosives, reinforced with shrapnel or nails and connected by wire to a blasting cap. These mean suckers can be detonated manually or by a standoff firing device, or they can be used in kamikaze vehicles for an all-too-common, even bigger bang.

During the final days of the presidential campaign, one of the thousands of neglected ammo dumps became an election flash point. In an attempt to take the heat off Bush, Rudy Giuliani actually went so far as to state that the heisted ammo was “the troops’ fault” and not the responsibility of the commander-in-chief.

But while Bush shouldn’t be held responsible for tactical snafus, his generals sure should – starting with Tommy Franks. It’s time that the C-in-C showed his support for the troops by nailing the culpable parties for all of the major military screw-ups in his pre-emptive war.

And an ambitious former mayor who dodged the Vietnam draft should be rapped on the head with the butt of an M-16 rifle for putting the politically expedient bad mouth on our brave soldiers.

--Eilhys England contributed to this column.

Military Awards

ENTITLEMENTS OF COL. DAVID H. HACKWORTH
(U.S. ARMY, RETIRED)

AWARDS & DECORATIONS
COLONEL DAVID H. HACKWORTH
(U.S. ARMY, RETIRED)

Individual Decorations & Service Medals:
Distinguished Service Cross (with one Oak Leaf Cluster)
Silver Star (with nine Oak Leaf Clusters)
Legion of Merit (with three Oak Leaf Clusters)
Distinguished Flying Cross
Bronze Star Medal (with "V" Device & seven Oak Leaf Clusters)(Seven of the awards for heroism)
Purple Heart (with seven Oak Leaf Clusters)
Air Medal (with "V" Device & Numeral 34)(One for heroism and 33 for aerial achievement)
Army Commendation Medal (w/ "V" Device & 3 Oak Leaf Clusters)
Good Conduct Medal
World War II Victory Medal
Army of Occupation Medal (with Germany and Japan Clasps)
National Defense Service Medal (with one Bronze Service Star)
Korean Service Medal (with Service Stars for eight campaigns)
Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
Vietnam Service Medal (2 Silver Service Stars = 10 campaigns)
Armed Forces Reserve Medal

Unit Awards:
Presidential Unit Citation
Valorous Unit Award (with one Oak Leaf Cluster)
Meritorious Unit Commendation

Badges & Tabs:
Combat Infantryman Badge (w/ one Star; representing 2 awards)
Master Parachutist Badge
Army General Staff Identification Badge

Foreign Awards:
United Nations Service Medal (Korea)
Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal with Device (1960)
Vietnam Cross of Gallantry (with two Gold Stars)
Vietnam Cross of Gallantry (with two Silver Stars)
Vietnam Armed Forces Honor Medal (1st Class)
Vietnam Staff Service Medal (1st Class)
Vietnam Army Distinguished Service Order, 2d Class
Vietnam Parachutist Badge (Master Level)
Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation
Republic of Vietnam Presidential Unit Citation
Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation (with three Palm oak leaf clusters)
Republic of Vietnam Civil Actions Honor Medal, First Class Unit Citation (with one Palm oak leaf cluster)

World War II Merchant Marine Awards:
Pacific War Zone Bar
Victory Medal

© 2004 David H. Hackworth. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.

The Apocalyse Is Upon Us!

I wrote the following letter this day to Dr. Joe Bernal of San Antonio. Dr. Bernal holds a Ph.D. in bilingual education from the University of Texas at Austin. A WWII veteran, Bernal served in both the Texas House of Representatives and the Texas Senate representing districts in San Antonio. Bernal is one of the few Democrats currently serving on the State Board of Education; the subject of my letter—Mrs. Terri Leo of Spring, TX—is a Republican ideologue and a spear-carrier for the Religious Right.

Dr. Bernal, I respect your service to our State. I was distressed to read in the Austin daily that Mrs. Terri Leo single-handedly was demanding changes in the health textbooks. What on earth is going on? Ben Sargent’s cartoon in the Austin daily today was devastating. What good does it do for the University of Texas at Austin to embark on an excellence campaign if the students it receives are exposed to the anti-intellectual pursuits of Mrs. Leo? What can I do as a citizen of Texas for the past 37 years? Both of my children were educated in the Amarillo ISD; my son will earn a Ph.D. in economics at Vanderbilt University and my daughter graduated magna cum laude from the Washington College of Law at American University. I have two grandsons living in Silver Spring, MD. Right now, I would not want either of them to attend a Texas public school. I write this in discomfort bordering on pain.

Sincerely

Neil Sapper, Ph.D. (U.S. history)

Retired after 32 years at Amarillo College

If this is (fair & balanced) fear and loathing, so be it.

Priceless: Ben Sargent, November 8, 2004 [Click on image to enlarge.]
Copyright © 2004 Austin American-Statesman 

[x Wikipedia]
Anti-intellectualism

Anti-intellectualism is a term that in one sense describes a hostility towards, or mistrust of, intellectuals and intellectual pursuits. This may be expressed in various ways, such as an attack on the merits of science, education, or literature.

In a broader sense, the term "anti-intellectualism" simply reflects an attitude that takes "intellectualism" with a grain of salt. Inasmuch as intellectuals may be vain or narcissistic in their self-image, so too may they be understood by "common people" as simply another fallible human archetype.

Anti-intellectualism is also a term used to criticize an educational system's placing little emphasis on academic and intellectual accomplishment or a government's tendency to formulate policies without consultation with authoritative scholarly study on the issues in question. In both cases it would be said that more intellectual inquiry is necessary to achieve good results.

Anti-intellectualism in America
Anti-intellectualism is found in every nation on earth. Americans, among others, have been accused quite vocally of suffering from it, particularly by the liberal literati both in the USA and in Europe. Such accusations are particularly fueled by existence of the political schism between the Republican and Democratic parties which prompt the less scrupulous contenders on both sides use it as a term of abuse for their opponents. By comparison societies in Europe and Asia are much more politically homogenous.

Historically, anti-intellectualism did play a prominent role in American culture. Some of it originated from the commonly held view among conservative Christians of old that education subverts morality and religious belief. The validity of this view, in fact, was well substantiated by the spread of atheism and Deism among the educated during the Enlightenment. Hence, for instance, the New England Puritan writer John Cotton wrote in 1642 that "The more learned and witty you bee, the more fit to act for Satan will you bee."

A much more important historical source of anti-intellectualism has been the 19th century popular culture. At the time when the vast majority of the population was involved in manual labor, bookish education, which at the time focused on classics, was seen to have little value. It should be noted that Americans of the era were generally very literate and, in fact, read Shakespeare much more than their present day counterparts. However, the ideal at the time was an individual skilled and successful in his trade and a productive member of society; studies of classics and Latin in colleges were generally derided in popular culture. Anti-intellectual folklore values the self-reliant and "self-made man," schooled by society and by experience, over the intellectual whose learning was acquired through books and formal study. A character of O'Henry has noted that once a graduate of an East Coast college gets over being vain, he makes just as good a cowboy as any other young man.

Today, Christian thinkers, who have less influence in society, no longer consider education in general evil, although they may object to some of its specific un-Christian aspects, e.g. alleged anti-religious or pro-abortion propaganda in schools and colleges. The once-plentiful industrial jobs have disappeared and have been replaced with low-wage service and specialty ones, which at most require a high school diploma. Statistics indicate that in the United States half the population has at least some college experience, however only one-third of the population graduates from college.

Perceived lack of "real life" usefulness, as well as, allegedly, academic rigor in humanities studies in the universities have contributed to much disdain for such studies, particularly among those who study, or have studied, technical subjects. This may be considered anti-intellectualism, or perhaps a "rival-intellectualism" inasmuch as people, who may think that intellectual pursuit of study of English literature is useless, may think that studying mechanical engineering, which is an intellectual activity of great complexity, is useful and good. A characteristic criticism, not necessarily valid by any means, of the study of humanities is that teaching students literature prepares them to become future professors of literature, and not much else.

The American educational system also serves as a significant wellspring of anti-intellectualism in its reputed failure to impart the necessary knowledge and skills to make informed decisions about the world to its students.

Abuse of the term for political reasons
In the English speaking countries accusation of anti-intellectualism are often made in discourse between political opponents. For example, in the USA the liberals may claim that conservative beliefs about foreign affairs or economics stem from "ignorance," poor education, and "lack of awareness" of the substantive issues involved, and as such are anti-intellectual. A quintessential example of this is the title of a book by Michael Moore, a famous American liberal filmmaker: Stupid White Men (the book criticizes American corporate and government leaders). The conservatives generally counter by claiming exactly the same thing about the liberals. For example, in an argument about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict one may imagine the pro-Palestinian side accuses the opponent of ignorance of the great suffering of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Meanwhile, the pro-Israeli side would probably respond by calling the other ignorant of the long history of Palestinian terrorism constituting an existential threat to Israel which the Israelis may need to counteract by military means. It should be appreciated, however, that political doctrines and policies, whether liberal or conservatives, are developed by highly educated individuals well-versed in their fields of inquiry. The divergent views usually come either from different interpretations of the same facts where there is no clear objective way to ascertain validity of a belief, e.g. will lower taxes help the economy, or from a politically-motivated lack of desire to try to find out the truth about the situation, e.g. are teaching methods in school optimal. Calling political opponents fools is generally frowned upon, but is nonetheless practiced widely.

Anti-intellectualism in the former Soviet Union
In the Soviet Union within the first decade after the Revolution of 1917 the Bolsheviks generally scorned and suspected the educated as potential traitors to the cause of the proletariat. Whereas the core of Communist Party was well-educated, the people who became local activists and officials in government and industry often lacked education and disdained those who had it. Lenin once called the intelligentsia, perhaps particularly those who opposed him, "rotten" and "shit". The boast, roughly translated as "we ain’t completed no academies" ("my akademiev ne konchali") became a byword for the new ruling elite.

Later on, the Soviet government realized the importance of education and dedicated great resources to higher and professional education. However, as a matter of a social policy, the government sought to maintain a spirit of anti-intellectualism and of disdain for the educated among the working class, who were generally considered to be more loyal to the regime. The most direct way of achieving this goal was the general state policy of paying the workers, especially the skilled machinists and professionals, salaries that were much greater than those paid to the college trained professionals, e.g. teachers, doctors, and engineers. Moreover, workers were covertly inculcated with the notion that only the manual labor creates real value in the economy, whereas the educated people just sit around writing papers. The policy succeeded, to a large extent, in creating a class of educated intellectuals who were very happy and proud to be educated, and a class of less educated workers who were happy that way and generally disdainful of the intellectuals. Nevertheless, many people from the working class did aspire to get a college education, and were often hindered in their college-preparatory studies in school by the anti-intellectual peer pressure from their classmates.

Anti-intellectualism in Maoist China and Cambodia
In Maoist China during the Cultural Revolution intellectuals were generally denounced as traitors to the cause of the proletariat and the Revolution. Many white collar employees were deported to the countryside to become better acquainted with the manual labor and revolutionary spirit of the peasants. State-sponsored political activism on college campuses effectively shut instruction. Eventually, the offending students were also often deported, as a means of reestablishing order after the end of the Cultural Revolution. After the death of Mao in 1976 such tendencies ended completely, as the new leaders of the Chinese Communist Party realized the importance of the educated professionals for the country's development.

In Cambodia the Khmer Rouge regime 1975-1979 declared all intellectuals (often just people wearing eye-glasses) traitors, and generally massacred them as part of their larger program for social transformation. The regime's leaders, notably, developed their extremist version of Marxism during their studies in the University of Paris. See Democratic Kampuchea for a well-written history of this period.

Anti-intellectualism in other countries
There are, no doubt, many instances of anti-intellectualism and anti-intellectual subcultures in many other countries. People knowledgeable about these may want to add them to this article.

Causes
Anti-intellectual beliefs can come from a variety of factors. These include:

Religion
Although most religions have rich intellectual traditions, many often rely on arguments from authority and reject secular critical traditions. Evangelical or fundamentalist forms of religion are a frequent source of anti-intellectual statements. Syncretistic or mystical varieties of religion may also struggle with the definitions and distinctions of theology. Some religions have doctrines that affirm statements about natural or human history, the provenance of sacred texts, and other matters that may be investigated by outside scholarship; this can give rise to conflict. In a different cultural field, when bohemianism and romanticism become major factors in the arts, religious believers may believe these trends to be subversive of morality and call for censorship.

Corporate culture
Corporate culture, which sometimes calls itself "pragmatism," is an occasional source of hostility to learning. The idea here is that education is a costly and useless distraction from the more important business of making money. Reading is a sort of solitary vice, according to this viewpoint; it does little to make a person more affable or conventional, and does not foster an aptitude for marketing. It is feared that intellectuals may acquire ethical and political ideas that may impede business or make its practices distasteful. Scientific and technological learning may be given a grudging respect; but the arts, literature, philosophy, and similar cultural pursuits are all wastes of time. Those who pursue them are supposed to inhabit an "ivory tower" of academia, full of grand plans whose practice is seen as impossibly flawed by practical people who know better.

According to this view, education should be a sort of apprenticeship, rather than being done on the model of classical education based on Greek and Latin grammar and literature. The educational philosophy of John Dewey, founded on these assumptions, has largely replaced classical education in the USA.

Educational system
The educational system may serve as a powerful tool for forming the culture of a nation. In the English speaking world, particularly in the USA and England, the schools and universities have often been criticized for being overtaken by overtly anti-intellectual trends and hence not preparing the youth properly to be members of society who would be cultured, prepared for challenging jobs, and capable of independent thought.

In schools
In schools these may include lack of emphasis on effective teaching of mathematics and the sciences, which is by now somewhat proverbial, and the rewriting history curricula to de-emphasize facts in favor of political agendas of the editors, which may include political correctness, "minority narratives", or various types of liberal or Marxist thought. Such critics would say, for example, that not teaching kids multiplication tables in primary school and not making sure that they learn algebra by graduation is a blatant example of anti-intellectualism and malfeasance on the part of many schools. They would similarly criticize allowing students to graduate without learning the key facts about American national history, or without having read lots of Shakespeare.

In colleges
In the realm of higher education concerns are generally twofold.

One type of criticism of colleges being anti-intellectual has to do with political biases within many branches of humanities in university departments. It is a widely-accepted fact that the majority of humanities professors in American colleges are politically liberal. Conservative critics say that the research and teaching done by many liberal professors lacks academic rigor and may amount to indoctrination of students with the professor's political views to the exclusion of careful inquiry. The fields that are criticized most often on these accounts are Women's Studies, ethnic studies, and history. However, there is no serious national debate about intellectualism of these fields of inquiry in American colleges because the educational establishment generally ignores such claims, sometimes calling the critics anti-intellectuals.

The other major concern deals with the perceived lack of general education in college curricula. The critics would say, for example, that college students ought to take more humanities classes, such as history or literature, along with the requirements of their major. Notably, the humanities requirements in American colleges are actually much greater than in many other countries, such as Russia or India where college instruction is focused almost entirely on professional, often technical, preparation. It may be argued that in these countries it is generally believed that high school education has given a student sufficient exposure to general education topics. No such confidence is usually shown by observers of the American school system.

The demands of youth culture
A major preserve of real, militant anti-intellectualism in today's America (as perhaps in many other countries) is a youth subculture often associated with those students who are more interested in social life and athletics than in their studies. Such subculture exists among students of all groups, although among Asian Americans it is reputedly much less pronounced. On the other hand, there exists much anecdotal evidence of anti-intellectualism among African American youth who may consider focusing on school studies a "white" thing. Needless to say, there are plenty of loafers and anti-intellectuals among white students also.

Commercial youth culture also generates a dizzying variety of fads. Keeping up with the trends is difficult, and their content is frequently criticised by cultural critics of many different persuasions for being simple-minded and pandering to unsophisticated appetites. Playing the game of popularity has been likened by blog writer Paul Graham to a full time job that leaves little time for intellectual interests.

Populism
Populism is another major strain of anti-intellectualism. Intellectuals are presented as elitists and tricksters whose knowledge and rhetorical skills are feared, not because they are useless, but because they may be used to hoodwink the ordinary people, who are conceived of as the "salt of the earth" and the source of virtue. In a similar vein, the curiosity and objectivity of intellectuals about foreign countries and beliefs is portrayed by populists as a lack of patriotism or moral clarity, and intellectuals are often held to be suspect of holding dangerously foreign, possibly subversive, opinions. This kind of anti-intellectualism is associated in the history of the United States with Joseph McCarthy, the anti-Communist senator from Wisconsin. William F. Buckley, Jr. once remarked that he'd rather be governed by the first hundred names in the phone book than by the faculty of Harvard University since he believed, not without reason, that there were many Communists in the educational establishment. (Buckley went to Yale.)

A loaded term?
Not surprisingly, intellectuals commonly use allegations of anti-intellectualism as a charge against their critics. Critics of certain intellectuals in turn argue that "anti-intellectualism" is itself a loaded term. The term "intellectual" implies knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence, and thus to be called "anti-intellectual" can often be perceived as meaning that one favours ignorance or stupidity.

Sometimes criticism of intellectuals can take the form of a specific critique of an intellectual's specific field of study or theory. Not all "intellectual" theories are correct, and thus an intellectual's beliefs can be disputed without necessarily being against the larger concept of intellectual study.

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