Letter 146: last on President Trump; let the facts lead us where they will lead us

“Emigrants (sic) will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.” –Thomas Jefferson, 1782 (source: Notes of the State of Virginia).

“What I said was that anyone who felt that firing James Comey was going to shut down the Russian investigation was mistaken, that [while] the president fired the director of the FBI, he did not fire the whole FBI. And indeed, I have talked to FBI officials. And we've heard testimony from the acting director assuring us that the investigation is continuing as it should.” –Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), 2017 (source: NPR, “Morning Edition”, May 17th).

Update; 5th August 2017: the appointment of a special counsel has essentially leap-frogged the argued necessity of a special bi-partisan commission. The arguments laid out below apply equally to the Special (prosecutorial) Counsel, Director Mueller. The Trump Administration's insinuations that Robert Mueller and his team are somehow biassed and dedicated to bringing down the President and that the current Attorney General ought to be switched out in favor of one open to dismissing Director Mueller are as specious as they are repugnant to me and many fellow conservatives (e.g., Senators Graham, R-SC, and Tillis, R-NC). Three cheers for A.G. Sessions  for maintaining his independence from President Trump and Deputy A.G. Rod Rosenstein for his integrity. Two key developments have occurred since the last update relevant to this essay.

First, the implausibility of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign -- a central assumption animating the view below -- has been diminished, if not altogether undermined, by the revelation of a meeting with a surrogate (as informal emissary) of the Putin régime and Messrs Kushner, Trump, Jr and Manafort in June 2016.

This meeting displays intent by senior Trump campaign people to collude, whether such collusion actually took place. Naïveté is no excuse here since Mr Manafort clearly had the experience to understand the implications of taking such a meeting and doubtlessly informed the newbies before the encounter. In fact, Senator Blumenthal (D-CT) established that fact in the same hearing.

Second, Attorney General Sessions has announced an increased scrutiny and possible crack-down on leakers. This announcement is good or bad news depending on how the A.G. pursues this policy. Leaking unclassified information or classified information that ought properly not be classified to expose wrong-doing should lie beyond the scope of the policy. Leaking information truly damaging to national security should be the scope. Hopefully, the mere announcement of the policy will deter the dangerous practice of leaking information aimed at removing President Trump.

Essentially, the three developments above have undermined the conclusion of avoiding a rush to judgement, as argued below. The burden of judgement has shifted to the President and does not include an automatic right of the presumption of innocence under due-process in criminal law to his worthiness for the office; that is, the door to a vote of no-confidence (on articles of impeachment submitted to the Senate) is now open. 

Update; 22nd May 2017: a question latent in the initial writing of this essay and now emergent is a growing concern over the frequency and nature of the leaks threatening to bring down this President. The use of malicious leaks to remove an elected official, no matter how welcome that expulsion will be, is far more harmful to the Republic in the long run than actual wrongdoing by that hated official himself.

With the appointment of Director Mueller as a Special Counsel, hopefully his team will also investigate these leaks as wrongdoing arising "directly" from the investigation of Russian interference. These leaks are calculated to accelerate, if not determine the outcome of, that enquiry. Otherwise, the country has empowered a shadowy layer of government, free to leak classified information at will with neither transparency nor its attendant accountability.
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BLUF (bottom-line, up-front). We live in interesting times, or so says that allegedly Chinese curse. President Jefferson’s thought of a tendency to go from one extreme to the other is timely. Fears over the soundness of our institutions recede daily as a new anxiety supersedes them: that of a group psychology assuming the worst about an unpopular public figure. The latter could be more damaging in the longer run.

Introduction. The chorus for an independent commission to act as grand jury investigators – perhaps as the grand jury itself – will rise to a collective voice of inevitability in the coming days as increasing numbers of Republicans buy into the concept of deeper investigations. While somewhat like the unsound proposal I laid out in my previous letter, this deeper investigative commission will most likely not grind governance to a halt.

To paraphrase another widely detested President, ‘let me make one thing personally clear’: I am and remain no fan of Donald Trump. His candidacy and nomination damaged my Party; his election has likely hurt my country. President Trump’s personal insecurities make him at least as vulnerable as President Nixon to fear, paranoia and authoritarianism. 

Yet being crude, rude and socially unacceptable is not an impeachable offense. The several investigations already started or the one soon to start must remain deliberative by focusing on a man’s deeds and not only his temperament. 

If President Trump truly is unfit for office, the Twenty-fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America will still be in force. That said, if Vice President Pence were to pardon a resigning President Trump pre-emptively for the latter to escape full accountability in the eyes of the citizenry, he might well become accountable for obstructing justice.

Why an independent commission. With unseemly behaviors hitting the airwaves and cyberspace every week, an independent commission remains the appropriate course to take. Beyond its own work as a preliminary review of possible evidence, this commission could integrate the findings of three intelligence investigations already taking place that are looking onto "all things Russian" about the 2016 election.

Those three investigations include one in each House of Congress, specifically their Select Committees on Intelligence, and one by the FBI. With the evidence and / or hearsay mounting, my previous idea of three-person panel would be inadequate to the task of reviewing a far more complicated situation and would add little value to, perhaps detract from, the rule-of-law.

An independent commission assures Republicans that it will not be a fishing expedition to justify many people’s hatred of this President and to satisfy their desire to remove him. With its limited scope, an independent commission should be timely enough not to bog the whole government down. Congressional G.O.P. leadership is likely preparing for the worst-case scenario in order to be prepared to keep the government functioning.

Consequently, a potential crisis of governance ought not be a deterrent to impanelling an independent commission. The government continued working just fine in 1973 and 1974; things did not go so well for President Nixon. Hopefully, the American people – at least a majority – will remain open to the possibility that this man has done nothing that rises to the level of impeachment and removal from Office. 

The President’s fitness for office is a separate issue, though being cleared from possible impeachment would go a long way toward muting that question since so many of the problems before us reflect the man’s temperament. A conspiratorial invocation of XXV Amendment, however, to remove President Trump without proper accountability of President Trump's actions would arguably also rise to the level of obstructing justice by Cabinet members and V.P. Pence.

Checking out the current scuttle-butt. There is a gathering consensus for a commission – or scheiße-storm (depending upon one’s feelings toward the President) – to “get to the bottom” of all that has hit the news media in recent weeks. In this closing section, I will play the Devil’s Advocate (more to caution me than you) against jumping to conclusions of treason or criminal intent.

Asking Director Comey to “Shut Down” the Flynn lnvestigation and Demanding a Loyalty Oath. Many people argue that President Trump committed an impeachable offense in asking Director Comey to “let go” of the investigation of General Flynn and to make a loyalty pledge to him, reminiscent of that made by the SS to Adolf Hitler, and superseding that to the Constitution. 

While I dislike General Flynn almost instinctively and shudder at placing personalities ahead of principles, it is far from clear, at least to me, that the President's apparent requests rise to an impeachable level. As we do with so many other contestable and contemptible actions of President Trump, we simply lack context. It is possible that the following occurred: 

President Trump: “Am I under investigation?”

Director Comey: “Mr President, while I am unable to disclose the contents of ongoing activities of the Bureau—“

President Trump: “Of course you can’t say. My apologies…”

Director Comey: “No problem, Mr President. I can say that you are not the subject of an investigation at this time…”

President Trump: “And my friend, Mike Flynn. Look, he’s a good man – you know: served his country in war -- and made some mistakes. Can’t you just let that one go? He's already disgraced and all that...”

Director Comey: “Mr President, you may not understand that you are asking me to do is to obstruct justice and, just by asking me, you are obstructing justice…”

President Trump: “My God! That’s the last thing I want to do! I was just – eh, Mike is a friend and I want to be loyal but...Got it…All these rules – I never imagined…”

Director Comey: “Understood, Mr President. Having been with a hedge fund, I know that Washington and Manhattan are two different games with two different rule-books. It all takes some getting used to….”

President Trump: “Just one other thing…”

Director Comey: “Mr President?”

President Trump: “Things are harder than I ever imagined in this job, you know. Can I count on you to be in my corner?”

Director Comey: “On everyday administrative matters, of course. Mr President, I must say that on serious matters involving possible wrongdoing, I have to remain loyal to my oath to the Constitution at all times…”

President Trump: “Of course you do. I didn’t mean anything wrong but things like, you know, publicly criticizing me.”

Director Comey: “On political matters, I really try to avoid saying anything. On the more serious questions, if I am going to issue a public statement that will be critical of you or your team, I will forewarn you that a criticism is coming so you are not caught by surprise in a Press Conference or something.”

President Trump: “Thank you.”

Director Comey: “But, Mr President, the only assurance that I can really make to you categorically is that I will be honest. I will go ahead and make that statement if I deem it necessary…”

President Trump: “No President could ask for more. Thank you….”

Many people bristle at the thought that President Trump would never act in so even-handed a manner. It certainly defies his public persona. Yet, many people walked away from one-on-one meetings in New York City with the then President-elect – including Senator Corker and Governor Romney – who found President Trump to be engaging, open-minded, even humble. 

So how do we know President Trump did not act this way with Director Comey?

Tipping the Russians with 'Insider Information'. President Trump unwisely excluded the American Press from the Oval Office meeting, permitting an openly biassed Russian reporter to sit in. The photos of international leaders as frat-brats soon careened across the inter-net. 

Now a leak is out alleging that President Trump disclosed classified information, even compromising an intelligence asset or source. Again we have no idea what was said, except that it was related to an impending I.S.I.S. attack. So, the incident may have occurred this way.

President Trump: “Sergei, we’ve got a problem…”

Foreign Minister Lavrov: “Oh, Mr President, we have a lot of problems…”

Both laughing as President Trump says: “I said call me Donald, Sergei. In any case, not the standard stuff this time but solid Intel from a reliable source that I.S.I.S. has something big planned for Saint Petersburg – could be really deadly…”

Minister Lavrov, turning serious: “Donald, did you get that from the Fredonians?” President Trump tightens up slightly, but perceptibly as Minister Lavrov continues, patting President Trump on the shoulder and smiling: “I thought so. Frottage [the Fredonian Intelligence Agency] has been communicating that same intelligence to us through their counterparts in our F.S.B. Thank you, all the same….”

Again there is no way to refute this version of the story any more than to assume that President Trump committed treason. Like the discussion with Director Comey, we will have to wait and see what the independent commission and three other investigations bring to light and what people say under oath. One thing for sure: I suspect the American Press will be allowed into future meetings!

Conclusion. There are many other objectionable actions of President Trump. Good and charitable people believe they indicate impeachable actions or mis-steps indicative of the President’s unfitness for office. The two big questions addressed above could support plausible, if unlikely, scenarios that indicate nothing more than an awkward newbie ascending a learning curve. 

So, we should resist a rush to judgement. There is no need to address other questions with alternative scenarios since, betting my bottom ruble, one could devise such innocent outcomes easily. The key point remains: let the investigations proceed as rapidly as safely possible and avoid a rush-to-judgement. Lastly, ongoing skepticism by the Press, whether welcome or not, is the life-blood of accountability for our Republic.

Letter 145: A Yellow Light on Investigating Trump

BLUF (bottom-line, up-front). The process of investigating President Trump is moving ahead too quickly. An independent or special prosecutor is premature since the dismissal spelled out the cause for termination clearly. An informal ‘grand jury’ to determine if such a criminal investigation is appropriate, however, would be opportune. We do know that the firing of Director Comey did not lead to the immediate destruction of evidence.

The case against an Independent Prosecutor. Though the appearances look very bad for President Trump, an independent prosecutor is pre-mature for these reasons.

1. Publicly available evidence thus far seems to indicate that the President did not collude with the Russians, though conflicts of interest remain a disturbing question.
2. It is not yet clear, at least to me, whether or not the President knew of alleged ties between top officials of his campaign since these officials resigned shortly after their ties went public.
3. We should wait until those Republicans coming forward, albeit tentatively, to join the chorus of muscular accountability. 
4. The President is allowed to dismiss the Director of the FBI.
5. Independent prosecutors take a lot of time, leaving the country largely ungoverned now and through, at least, the 2018 mid-term elections.
6. lf such an Independent Prosecutor (which implies probable cause from day-1) is launched now with a taint of partisanship, the country may well end up ungovernable with a loss of faith in the institutions of the Republic.

What to do now. The case above does not argue for never appointing an independent prosecutor but doing so with deliberation. The thesis here is that we need to see some ‘sparks’ in addition the admittedly cough-prone amount of smoke. That means, before an Independent Prosecutor is appointed, probable cause of wrong-doing should be established.

Often, for the allegations of the most egregious crimes, Grand Juries convene and pass a preliminary judgement on the likelihood of culpability. If that probable cause is established, the District Attorney then takes the case forward. Grand Juries would not work here. Impartial jurors would be difficult to find. Additionally, their lives would face disruptions, perhaps threats to their physical or economic security.

The concept of the Grand Jury can be applied to this situation, though I am not sure what it would take to put the (informal) function into place. The President is not above the law, nor should he be denied the presumption of innocence. The proxy Grand Jury I would propose would be a panel composed of the Inspectors General of the Departments of Justice, State and Commerce.

Per a Congressional mandate of a limited scope of time and a focus on specific allegations, these three Inspectors General would conduct a far more limited investigation over the next few months, not to exhaust the review of evidence, but to establish a probable cause for specific charges. That preliminary spade-work would yield one of three outcomes:

• insufficient evidence to establish probable cause by at least two of three of three Inspectors General;
• establishment of probable cause by at least two of three Inspectors General; and,
• an impasse, in which neither of the previous two alternatives gain two votes.

Next Steps of the Inspectors’ General conclusions. The next steps would be dictated by the particular of the three outcomes actually determined.

1. Insufficient evidence would lead to continued delay in, or preclusion of, appointing an Independent Counsel or Prosecutor, though Congressional committees would still enjoy the prerogative to continue their investigations.
2. Establishment of probable cause would lead to immediate establishment of an Independent Prosecutor. 
3. A stand-off would lead to the appointment of an Independent Investigative Counsel to continue investigating without powers of prosecution, should the Congress so mandate.

Should the Department of Justice yield to pressures from the President and refuse to appoint either an Independent Prosecutor or Investigative Counsel, then Congress would establish a joint House-Senate special committee, as called for elsewhere, to investigate the allegations. The results of these ongoing efforts would be public and referred to the House Judiciary Committee for possible articles of impeachment.

Closing thoughts. The purpose of this idea, if it is even possible to do, is to clarify whether or not there should be an intrusive investigation of an unpopular President. The three Inspectors General will be able to come to a (non-)conclusion rapidly. If the President is merely inept and neither dishonest nor traitorous, he deserves to proceed with his agenda. On the other hand, if there are those proverbial sparks to provoke a deep-dive investigation, the appointment of an Independent Prosecutor or Investigative Counsel will be delayed by a month or two. 

Until there is a sense of comfort that President Trump is not as corrupt as an increasing number of people think he is, his agenda will become increasingly mired in debate that appears to be a partisan maneuver to undercut the President. That latter consequence would be damaging to the Republic and her institutions, no matter what the short-term benefits realized by Democrats and Republicans.. 

Finally, as these activities proceed, Congressional leaders need to “make one thing publicly clear”: that Congress reserves the right to deem as a possible “high crime and misdemeanor” (i.e., cause for impeachment proceedings to ensue) any pardon of President Trump by Vice President Pence, viewed as pre-emptive, should the President leave office following removal by the Senate or resignation. 

The reason why this last condition of extraordinary accountability did not apply to President Ford in 1974 was that President Nixon was clearly guilty and disgraced. Additionally, President Nixon never came close to treason and ultimately submitted to the rule of law by not destroying the very evidence that ultimately incriminated him. 

President Ford healed the country in a profile of courage, even recognized by Caroline Kennedy. A pre-emptive pardon by a President Pence would injure our faith in our institutions, possible sounding the death-knell of our belovèd Republic. 

Letter 144: 25 APRIL; Australia's Decoration day; remembrance of dinghies past

There is nothing quite so perfect as a memory that really never was.

The mention of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea (8 May 1942, A.M.D.G.) by Australian Prime Minister, Malcom Turnbull, conjures up pleasant memories of the twenty-fifth anniversary of that first allied victory in the Pacific that stemmed the Japanese blood-flow toward my favourite country on Earth. Peter Jones, my next door neighbour, and I 'pinched' his father's dinghy and rowed all the way across Sydney Harbour to Woolloomooloo to greet two of the three U.S. Navy ships in from Viêt Nam (or so I assumed): the carrier, U.S.S. Bennington, and the destroyer, the U.S.S. Emerson. 

The Yanks were friendly. I tried a head-fake on Peter to illustrate the metaphysical oddity of the International Date Line, when I asked a sailor aboard the Bennington what day it was. Expecting him to answer Saturday, as per the U.S., he said, in effect, "Sunday, of course." Rats. It was the trip back that was interesting, though we had seemingly and narrowly avoided getting rammed by a gigantic liner, 'The Empress of Australia' (supposedly a car-ferry) on the way over; I am sure that we were nowhere near the mighty vessel but the waves she left in her wake made me glad I had skipped breakfast for this episode of “Mission lmplausible”. 

Anyways, we were already past the Admiralty House, almost home when we rowed in front of this very large supply-ship, the U.S.S. Sacramento, said to be 75,000 tonnes. The junior officer on the bow was not impressed with my greetings, as I informed him I was from the great metropolis of Pittsburgh. He rather directly told Peter and me to get the Hell out of there, using words I would not utter for another two or three years. The Sacramento was pulling in, perpendicular, to some wharves to tie up and had to go into reverse to turn the vessel before she went aground and ended a Captain’s career.

Apparently doing so when the two wayward lads were in front of her, would have sucked us right under. Of course, as ten year olds, Peter and I had no idea of the hazards of life on the high seas. We should have noticed that the Harbour Police's P.T.-size boat was keeping its distance. Peter and I were dead, beat; we each took an oar and heaved ourselves away and then spelled each other rapidly, once away from the Sacramento. Getting bawled out had been unpleasant. Only later did my dad inform me of the danger faced sublimely; ignorance may or may not be bliss but it is less prone to panic.

For the twenty-seven years until his early demise, Dad loved to tell that story every once in a while. Apparently, the Sacramento was blowing her fog-horn or something. In telling the story, which accumulated interesting (if apocryphal) details as the years went by, Dad would add the flourish of the pulling-down gesture of a skipper honking loud and wide. That cloudy Sunday May morning in the Autumn of 1967, my father observed to my mother (who would be 87 years young today, as Bob Prince would say) that two kids were stuck in front of the big ship.  Then Dad realized who those two benighted souls were. 

My parents now got very worried; Mom exclaiming her concern and Dad, ever the engineer, focussed on what to do. Immediately, he notified Ray Jones, Peter's father. Well, obviously, Peter and I extricated ourselves from our unknown (if ever really extant) peril. Once ashore, Ray Jones subpoenaed Peter to return home immediately. Once in our flat, my mother kissed me, inexplicably, and my father really let me have it, equally inexplicably. Hey, I was just being patriotic, man! It made no sense, at first, except for the razzing received from my angelically diabolical little sister, Claire​. That was her standard operating seizure. How could God pair such a rancid tongue with so innocent a visage?

Letter 143: The Water of Time

"A-L-C-I-B-I-A-D-E-S!"  --Ben Sylvester, 9th grade History  teacher, September 1972
"No, Mister McDonnell, a newspaper would not have said 411 B.C. back then."
"Sir, I was joking..."
Chuckling now, "You like to make history fun, don't you? --conversation with Ben Sylvester, October 1972
"Some look at the glass as half empty; others as half-full. Moi? I just drink it." --Yours truly, who knows when or who (is the original source); Harrison disclaimer hereby invoked

"Raymond Spruance, the quiet warrior, will go on to win many victories in command of ever vaster forces. Yet, in history, like Nelson of Trafalgar, he will remain Spruance of Midway." --Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance, 1978 (novel) and 1988 (mini-series)

Always disposed toward learning more about the great battle of Midway Atoll exactly two years before D-Day, I heard about this John Ford documentary and decided to give it a go. The thing about an old propaganda film is to watch it the right way. This was a trick I learned at Choate one late Saturday night when Mr Yankus wasn't around and we had invaded his apartment to watch Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon flics, I can not remember which after four decades.

While the films seemed laughable in their dated silliness, I decided to try something for one film. Pretend, really put my mind to it, that I was my dad as a kid watching the flic -- to be my father back in the 1930s and what such a film must have been like for him to watch. It worked. I really enjoyed the film. With many years of brain barnacles accumulated, it is not so easy for me to do that these days.

The applicable parent for this Midway news-reel would have been my mother; Dad was likely already in the Navy by then. Mom was twelve in 1942; she lived in Squirrel Hill in the part on Bartlett Street where many Jews lived and so the ghastliness of Germany was already pretty well known.

My grandfather, a proud Swiss German American, hung his head in sadness and shame; many of his business partners in real estate were Jewish Ashkenazi turned Americans over the preceding couple of centuries and all knew something terrible was happening in their Germany.

So I imagine Frank, my grandfather, coming home one evening calling his four girls -- my grandmother and the three daughters -- to go see a documentary in from the Pacific War: John Ford's eighteen minute newsreel on the great battle of Midway.

Challenging as it is, I try very hard to imagine what my mother's childhood home might have looked like -- the art deco feel of lighting, perhaps some deco decor interspersed with older furniture. Then, I imagine the roar of a big car coming up outside in front of the tudor plaster home with its one hundred foot lawn in the middle of a city.

The great thing about Pittsburgh was that this was a life attainable by hard-working middle class people; it was an American dream that really existed once. Grand-pa is jumping out and beckoning his harem to get in the car to shuttle over the two year old Squirrel Hill theater, a mile away on Forward Avenue.

There is a brief argument as Grand-ma is concerned about blowing through too many ration points for petrol; that gas might be crucial for getting to church the following Sunday. I can imagine my grandfather saying, "Come on, Mary, God will forgive us...we gotta see this news-reel about that big battle out there in Pacific."

As my mother, I imagine being in the back seat fighting to carve out a bigger space than that to be allotted to her two little sisters, Adelia (nick-named Nancy) and Katie. The fuss continues until mother Mary lowers the boom; equality is restored. The car's shocks are dulled with prolonged use and no replacements anywhere to be found in city or sight; the ride is bumpy while the three girls play 'bumper' in the back seat -- crossing their arms and side-slamming.

Frank pulls the car up in front the sleek and ultra-modern Squirrel Hill theater. Again civil war erupts in the back seat over the scramble to eject from the metal whale. My grand-mother imposes her maternal, more like martial, law. She gets the tickets and Grand-pa parks the car and walks back.

To keep the mission on track, Frank does what he does best -- he dotes on his darling daughters, promising an ice-cream cone, one that looks like a sky-scraper, from Isaly's or perhaps a soda from Rosen's -- after a quick supper. That meant some yummy food at a delicatessen on Murray Hill. The girls had hit it big.

So their attention span is safely locked in for at least the twenty minutes of the news-reel. The Squirrel Hill Theater is smaller than the great big movie houses downtown like the Warner or Fulton but it is as lush in the hipness of art deco drapes trusseling along the side and big curtain in the front, opening to a new world twice every evening -- three times on week-ends.

The theater still smells fresh and clean like an institution to be respected not an inconvenience to be endured for the sake of entertainment. The proprietor comes out the stage. He is from one of the finer Jewish families -- articulate, educated at UPenn and genteel.

I think hard about the world of a twelve year old in 1942; back then, twelve was still a kid's age though little Mary was already five feet, six inches and quite precocious with her voracious appetite for reading. Nevertheless, that twelve year girl likely did not really know what was happening; what she had been hearing over the past weeks and months did not sound good to her at all.

Some of those older, I mean older, brothers of her friends were gone. Most getting ready to sail to Europe, for obvious reasons. But Midway involved the Japanese -- those people who sneak-attacked our country at Pearl Harbour. Frank was the kind of kindly gentleman who likely said that these Japanese were people, too, like you and me but dragged out to fight.

Such humane dissent was quickly dismissed. The Jewish gentleman steps in front of the curtain. He makes brief eye-contact with my grand-father. He smiles and waves quickly to Frank as he does to some other familiar faces -- his special invitees.

He says, "Thank you for coming tonight to the special showing of this documentary about the great victory the United States of America won at Midway. To most of us, a week ago, Midway was that Howard Johnson's...you know...

"...about a hundred miles along the new turnpike to Philadelphia. Now it is something more, much more than even our new toll road. I am delighted to see many friends here tonight. This news-reel is directed by John Ford and led by Henry Fonda..."

A hush quickly descends the audience -- even the three sisters, though they know not why. Who can forget 'The The Grapes of Wrath', in which Ford and Fonda had teamed up and teemed out, just eighteen months before, in a manner the young Mary never forgot.

Now the three girls want candy but Grand-ma flatly states that sweets will ruin their supper, dining later than usual this Friday night; and, if they keep it up, they can kiss the cone good-bye, too. The girls sit still. My mother, a little older is more interested in the topic of the evening. Nancy and Katie take their cue, more from sister Mary than mother Mary.

The theater's owner wraps up his remarks, "I think you will find this film to be sobering, ladies and gentlemen; it has real footage from that titanic clash." He bows slightly; the friendly audience obliges him with a polite applause -- from five hundred almost exclusively white faces.

Pittsburgh's Jewish community is already leading the charge for change on behalf of negroes. Nevertheless, with the rumors coming in with refugees from Poland, these good and decent people who make Squirrel Hill -- no, all of Pittsburgh -- special are pre-occupied. Though it is only 1942, the Forward Theater that night has some black faces in the audience. After all, the negroes are fighting, too.

The theater's proprietor, rather shy and modest, blushes slightly and leaves the stage and the lights go down; the music starts up; and, the great curtain in undrawn slowly, almost deliberatively, so solemn is the short film twelve year old Mary is about to watch, eyes widening and tears welling along the way.

The barnacles are scraped. I am in a simpler time, a more modest time, when sticking out was not part of a core curriculum born of the atomizing forces of technology and social media. I am ready to watch this film and see it not as dated propaganda but as the soul-food for a hungry people, desperate for good news...

A PARTING ASIDE
Bravò, NetFlix! Messrs Diller, Rudin and Spielberg are trying to hearken back to film-makers like John Ford and their untold role in World War II. Out of this effort came some of the great American films of the Twentieth Century: 'Mrs Miniver', 'It's a Wonderful Life', 'The Best Years of Our Lives', 'Battle of San Pietro', et al. Of course, other Producers / Directors made great films, too (e.g., Ernst Lubitsch, Hal Wallis or Frank Lloyd).

But Messrs Stevens, Huston, Capra, Wylie and Ford went into the hornets' nest to bring the war, and its aftermath, home to the rest of us. And, yes, as the mind settles in 1942, one can be an 'us'. And who can forget that consolation prize winner of this genre? Don't all clap at once!

Letter 142: Old man, look at my life. I'm a lot like you were

How do I start improving myself for the future?

QUESTION on QUORA

Am 15. And still in high school. Facing lots of circumstances good and bad. And I have been looking for a way to utterly improve my self in overall aspect but doesn't seem to work. Things gave been going bad for quite some time now and well I don't know how to even start

Ned McDonnell, former Banker and Diplo-temp (1986-2013)

I was all set to give you a flippant answer. Since you are fifteen, I can not do that; how I wish I had had your clarity at fifteen! Honestly, what you are asking is a lifelong challenge, really the very basic question of one’s existence.

BLUF (bottom-line, up-front): Keep asking that same question every day for the rest of your life.

So, my answer will sound trite but will, hopefully, be at least partially true.

• First, you have already started by asking the question. You are aware that you would like to improve. That is the biggest step.
• Second, most people never make that decision explicitly because it is a hard choice in a world where popular platitudes tend to trump genuine enquiry, where appearances substitute for authenticity.
• Third, take a moment to reflect on the possibility that many of the people I know (e.g., me) still share your desire for self-improvement and yet make the same erroneous assumption: that this inward drive reflects a deficit to be addressed or personality breach in need of mending; that simply is not the case.
• Fourth, when, and if, that sinking feeling does arise, try to remember that you are not an incomplete being as much as a pedestal on which you craft your life’s work as a sculpture.
• Fifth, be flexible and follow your heart; listen to that still small voice within so easily drowned out by the cataclysmic chatter filling one’s daily life (q.v., slide #10). That certainly sounds like a hackneyed response; it most likely is. The intuition devises the strategy; the intellect refines the tactics; and, the will powers the activities. Nevertheless, all that is for naught if one lacks a sense of where (s)he wants to end up; that properly belongs to the domain of the heart.

Briefly, what I am about to elaborate on is simply an idea, not advice. It is for you to reject it and understand why you do; that ‘correction’ begins to dig down into your thoughts, feelings, intuitions and experience to clarify what you want in life and to start to determine what makes sense for you.

The idea I leave with you is the military counter-insurgency framework used in Iraq and Afghanistan , recently updated to add a fifth column of ‘transition’ (q.v., pp. 23-28), which I interpret in everyday terms to be conferring the legacy of your life’s achievements and failures onto others; since that, hopefully, is decades away in your case, I will not elaborate on that hypothetical (since, equally honestly, I really am not sure what it means though I have a hunch).

The end-state. What does victory for the ‘improved me’ look like? One must imagine his or her life as happy and complete. Is that person wealthy? Is he writing books? Is she happily married with children? Does she run marathons? Is he meditating in service to a life of contemplation? This part is one I and many others have given short-shrift at fifteen, even fifty. Sooner or later, one must confront that question, if only by trial-and-error. Why? Because one needs to know into what (s)he will invest his or her ‘heart and soul’. Without that passion, one burns out with a barren, hand-me-down life whether extrinsically successful or not.

The strategy. Long-term goals are uncertain and likely require modification over time. Thus there is no singular route; in essence, one has to hazard a best guess. This constrains the decision primarily to intuition born out of your experience strength and hope. In essence: what feels right?

The tactics. In the counter-insurgency (COIN) reading I have encountered, this is the mapping phase. Reasoning the best way from the ‘me’ of today to the ‘improved me’, one envisions him- / herself engaging the intellect to establish the route that negates or avoids constraints as well as exploits tapping unique qualities and attributes. In COIN thinking specific to Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom, this phase breaks this mapping down into the following elements:

1. Shape (identify and mold the context); clear (eliminate the enemy); hold (consolidate the primacy of power); as well as, build (taking the next ‘right’ step forward toward the land of milk-&-honey).
2. This might translate into everyday life by shape (i.e., preparing for the journey forward); clear (overcome debilitating deficits perceived and mitigate other constraints or risks); hold (refresh and consolidate your knowledge and experience into a plausible narrative); as well as, build (integrate the new knowledge, acquired learning and refined attributes to bridge one from here to there).

Activities. Determined by the tactics. In project management, this is called the work-breakdown structure. To take a simple example. One of the tactics (in the hold or build stage) is going from Birmingham, Alabama to Birmingham, Michigan. The tactic is concrete. What are the things one has to do to accomplish that? (S)he must determine what the priority is: economizing money or time.

Let’s assume it is cost minimization. So, in this example that person chooses to secure a car (i.e., prepares an owned car for the 800 mile trip or rents a car); to fill the gas tank; to pack food and coffee; get a good night’s sleep; go to the car in the a.m.; start the car; drive 300 miles for gas; and, so on. Now if the trip is from Birmingham, Alabama to Birmingham, U.K., one has to articulate a completely different array of activities, starting with the constraint that one can not drive across the Atlantic Ocean.

The key here is not identifying the tasks (implied by the tactics) as much as engaging the will. Driving such a distance is a pain in the pizats for most people. It takes commitment and a self-discipline to do it. After all, it is easier to binge watch “The Man in the High Castle” on Amazon Prime rather than sit in a car for a day or two.

CONCLUSION. Now from my thought to share tentative advice for you to use or leave behind. Goals are uncertain and are apt to change. Try not to place so much stock on attaining the end you have tentatively identified that you transgress your personal values to achieve it. Simply said, the end does not justify the means; the means within our hands today sully or ennoble the uncertain ends of the future.

Secondly, you will get a lot of advice. Please remember that, if you choose a course other than the one identified by someone important to you and you deem your course the more appropriate one, try not to be intimidated by the prospect of that stake-holder feeling pissed-off with, or rejected by, your best decision-making. It is your life.

If my usual feint to humor does not de-fuse the incipient contest-of-wills, I have learned to say, “Just because I am not doing what you suggest does not mean that I did not listen and consider very seriously what you advised me to do…” Is my answer that elegant when I give it, even after five decades? Of course not.

Feelings, amplified by the will, run high; the personal stakes inherent in the relationship are also high. So, if you are like me, your statement will be fragmented and quavering at first. Nevertheless, since what you are saying is an intrinsic truth essential to you, the manner of delivery becomes almost dilatory.

The truth as substance truly trumps the delivery as form. Thirdly, relax and enjoy the ride, old-timer - you are already on Route-66! When those gnawing doubts of your value do arise watch something like “It’s a Wonderful Life”, if you are a ‘he’; watch some thing like “My brilliant Career”, if you are a ‘she’; or, read “The Little Prince”, if you are either unsure or indifferent.

SUMMARY. This long-winded missive reflects to things. That I am indeed a ‘Midnight Senator’ as my dad used to tease me when I was little. More importantly, the framework presented above - whether any of it works for you - represents one possible approach to taking on a fearsome question. As the old saying goes, “How does one eat an elephant? By starting with the first bite!”

Letter 141: When enough tears in the heart makes Hell a welcome respite, at last.

“Soldiers may accept the need to be the first to die in a war, but there is often an unseemly scramble to avoid becoming the last.” 

--Max Hastings, 2007

“And so this is Christmas, for weak and for strong; for rich and the poor ones -- the world is so wrong! And so happy Christmas, for black and for white; for yellow and red ones. Let's stop all the fight!” 

--John Lennon & Yoko Ono, 1971

Watching the “Frontline” documentary on Iraq, aired 23rd March 2017, has likely left any old Iraq hand with a sense of disgust and despair. The sectarian situation in Iraq is as bad now as it was back in 2004 and 2005 when I worked with the Ministry of Interior, the national police force, as it became infested with Shi´ite militias, mainly the Badr Brigade. The Badr-fronting Minister of Interior was a smooth-talking, Armani suit wearing gangster who looted the treasury with his brother and let the M.o.I. become, as others later noted, a Ministry of Death. Indeed, if genocide were really in the air, few seemed to care...

Yet most of the American civilians I worked with were more concerned about 'maintaining open channels' than the increasing disregard for the rule-of-law; they basically let it happen. Several very good and very smart people tried to warn me; sadly, I was too insecure -- because I was not in the inner circle -- to act on what they were saying. That vanity almost feels like a crime, looking back after all that has occurred in my belovèd Iraq and the prolonged torment of her lovely people: Sunni and Shi´ite; Kurd and Arab. What a Hell of a way for me to grow up in my late forties (i.e., realizing it is not all about me, whether I am 'in' or 'out', 'smart' or not)!

The invasion of 2003 -- and it is terribly painful for me to admit this for I feel disloyal to a good man, President George W. Bush in aticulating this regret -- looks like it was a mistake in the retrospective view of the ghastly consequences. In that context, by surging troop levels by 30,000 soldiers, I thank God that President Bush faced down the denial spewed by the 'Gang of Four' leading the Texas Cheney Massacre (Texas for Halliburton, not President Bush -- Messrs Cheney, Wolfowitz, Libby and Rumsfeld).

Thank God Himself that General Petraeus forged an alliance with the Sunni tribes. President Bush's courage -- and that of many younger brothers and sisters in uniform out in the field -- prevented a sectarian genocide in 2007. Now the whole thing is right back to the brink of a genocide again, thanks to failed U.S. military and civilian leadership that let a would-be Shi´ite Saddam undermine his lost election of 2010.

There were 50-75,000 troops in Iraq in 2010 and Prime Minister al-Malaki was not ready to complete his power grab; he was still cozying up to us for cover as he consolidated his pedestal for tyranny. Threatening to pull the troops may have empowered (now) Co-Vice President Ayad Allawi, the winner of the election, and others to assume the reins of government. Things might have unfolded differently, though, by 2010, the society may already have been too far gone.

The U.S. military staff officers, too often caught up in their careers and trying to avoid mis-steps, missed the writing on the wall when Prime Minister al-Malaki kept finding reasons not to follow through on his side of the deal to squeeze al-Qaeda: integrating the 'Sons of Iraq' -- young Sunni fighters who took Anbar and Ninawa back for their country -- into the national police and armed forces. And, to put the writing on the wall in bold italics, Prime Minister al-Malaki finessed the British out in 2009. Nevertheless, American military planners still assumed we could dictate the number of troops we would leave behind; targeting a force of 35-50,000.

The unreality was incredible; after raising my concerns in my Prince Charmless manner that led me to dust off my résumé in a hurry, with a 'little nudge', I developed a simple plan to integrate the S.o.I.s into the police that would accommodate Prime Minister al-Malaki's 'concern' that bad-guys amongst the Sunnis (i.e., all of them, per his little green book) should not be armed by the state. Prime Minister al-Malaki bamboozled us easily by noting that many of these same Sunnis had fought against our troops and were likely responsible for some of the American slain. 

My sense is that the British lead officer liked it -- thought it was worth a try -- but the U.S. Army leadership (i.e., many of whom I dub the 'staff infection') killed it. Perhaps the plan was far-fetched and my ego and prickly personality got in the way; would not be the first time. Yet I still suspect the idea could have worked because it placed local Iraqis in charge of who would police them and who would support the fielded policemen. ln any case, it was destined to be a no-go because the presence of a formal plan would force the implicit admission that all was not milk-and-honey in post-surge Iraq.

Almost on schedule, when our military partnership agreement came up for renewal, as a U.K. agreement (I believe) had come up in 2009 for a few hundred military trainers to remain in-country, Prime Minister al-Malaki out-maneuvered us...right out the door. One thing I had learned and come to rely upon was that the British Army and Marines were our conscience in Iraq.

And the rest, lamentably, was history. I have often written that, had Senator McCain (my preference) won in 2008, the no-troops in Iraq end-state would also have occurred. There is, however, one possibility: a President McCain may have raised Hell in 2009 to keep the British in and again in 2010 for the democratic machinery to limp forward. In fairness to the Army, the criticisms I have do not involve the soldiers nor many of the lower-ranking officers in the field.

Please be assured they served us oh-so-nobly; and they won the war in 2008 by any measure, only to see the mediocre U.S. military leadership that followed forfeit that investment. Like old Saint Pete, time to exit silently and weep bitterly. The toxicity of a top-heavy staff command (e.g., the average rank in the Pentagon being a Major, perhaps toward a Lieutenant Colonel) creates an environment of extreme risk-aversion. One mis-step and an officer's twenty year career ascent is toast.

Honestly, I could easily see me drinking the same hemlock shake as these careerists so often do. They are less cowardly than predictable. Few are the men as brave as General Petraeus who have the military acumen (i.e., astute humility) to learn from mistakes and the willingness to take the calculated risks. Such virtues, so often sought and so rarely seen, remain necessary for a victory in such an overwhelmingly uncertain atmosphere as that of stabilization wrapped in a quagmire inside an occupation.

On the civilian side, I can only rue that Ryan Crocker did not stay on as Ambassador through 2011 or that Robert Ford did not succeed him in 2009 in Baghdad. Never mistake the difference just one man or woman can make. One final wrinkle here is the personalities of Presidents Bush and Obama. Again, I have been hesitant to state this idea because I do not want this comment to come across as blaming President Obama as Senators McCain and Graham so often do, wrongly. That would be completely unfair to a good, impeccably decent man.

Additionally, there are so many assumptions on my part about people whom I do not know. So, here is my impression. For President Bush, the invasion of Iraq was a moral decision predicated also on a conviction that every (wo)man is born with liberty in his or her breast. Please note, I favoured President Bush's invasion in 2003 and still believe his notion of the inborn predisposition toward freedom as a part of (J.J. Rousseau's view of) human nature. President Bush was and remains a great man in my book; you criticize his policies, you criticize my political preference -- period.

For President Obama, however, the Iraq occupation was an unnecessary failure to be solved after the positive step forward brought by the surge. Additionally, President Bush had been mentoring Prime Minister al-Malaki and had established a high level of moral suasion. Were Prime Minister al-Malaki's power grab based solely on fear, President Bush as mentor-in-chief might have talked the insecure leader of Iraq into an extended American presence and toward honouring commitments to his Sunni countrymen.

President Obama was more aloof, a trait of a brilliant and contemplative man. He did not enjoy the ready rapport with Prime Minister al-Malaki that a more gregarious President Bush had; nor did he really have time to build one. These are suppositions and likely at least one is incorrect; if all were correct, my aggregation of these intuitions into this sequence might itself be off-the-mark. One can not know; but this speculative scenario accords with my (questionably functional) hunches of Iraq at the time.

For those families who lost loved ones or saw them return maimed into a permanent and living grief as well as to those new 'Greatest Generation' active duty personnel and National Guardsman in the field, their efforts may seem to have been wasted. Well, no, they have not fought for naught; the seeds they planted with their sweat and blood and devotion amply attest to America's exceptional impulse toward liberty.

That sacrifice -- those seeds of forgotten greatness -- will bloom into a safer Iraq of growing tranquillity and glowing prosperity within the next generation or two (i.e., 20-40 years), if Viêt Nam is any guide. Let us hope we find a better way of comparting our exceptionalism to the world. Too many have died and too many still suffer today for the old way (i.e., my stupid way) to continue. Recent history demands that we change; common humanity requires it.