Quite some time back I wrote an article about genetic research which was unpublished due to it's very long length. So, after considerable editing...
I’ve noticed that there’s still a lot of ongoing public comment about genetic and stem cell research currently being conducted in the US and several other countries. And that many people get quite verbal in their opposition to this ongoing research, with arguments ranging from honest concerns to the downright ludicrous. For the most part, the loudest opposition appears to come from the “Right to Life” folks who oppose research utilizing aborted fetal stem cells. I can certainly understand their opposition to abortion, and to the experimental use of aborted cellular tissue, but an aborted fetus is not the only source of stem cells! Over the last couple of years, researchers have discovered numerous alternative sources of stem cells, nowadays they can be acquired from just about any part of the adult body, not just from a fetus. So, with that fact in mind, consider me to be a voice in the wilderness, crying “Yes, we do need that research!” I’m not opposed to genetic research, stem cell research, or even cloning research, if accomplished for ethical purposes. I firmly believe that these investigations have the possibility of being one of the greatest boons to humanity in medical history.
Cloning people is pretty much a waste of time as far as I’m concerned. First of all, don’t we already have more than enough people in this world? And secondly, a clone isn’t, and can’t be, an exact copy of the original. Physically, yes, it may well appear to be a copy, but the physical body isn’t everything. We’re all aware that the person is the sum total of the physical being, and the mental state of that persons upbringing, education, and past experiences. A lifetime of those mental processes can’t be duplicated, and thus a clone can’t be a duplicate of the original. Even if we did manage to clone Albert Einstein, how could we possibly repeat the unique set of circumstances that made him the worlds premier theoretical physicist? Besides, I rather doubt that very many of us would wish our entire past history on our worst enemies, much less on a copy of ourselves! Then to, if human cloning became a common technology, there’s always some idiot that would want to steal the Shroud of Turin, gather some DNA from it, and attempt to clone Jesus of Nazareth. Someone else would want to clone Napoleon, Adolf Hitler, or Attila the Hun, and turn them loose on an unsuspecting world!
Even if such duplication were possible, can you imagine the flurry of clones we’d see of so many super rich personages in Hollywood!? Or do we really want duplicates of our rich politicians telling us that they know “so much better” than anyone else? Really, if there’s something that the world doesn’t need, it’s even more highly placed, power hungry, and unstable egotists running around loose! Then of course we’ve all seen the fictional movie “Jurassic Park”, with an island full of “cloned” dinosaurs. While that’s extremely unlikely to actually happen, does anyone really want a twelve ton carnivorous lizard with a bad attitude running the city streets? I rather doubt the animal control people would be looking forward to that. If, and when, we can clone individual body parts, we’d be looking at an entirely different situation. “What if” we could readily grow a replacement heart, liver, lung or kidney for those who need one? Perhaps this would bring an end to transplant rejection problems? Come to think of it, there are a few people in this world that I’d nominate for a brain transplant as well. An even better option to cloning would be the possibility of repairing physical damages through stem cell technology. I rather doubt that, by themselves, stem cells could defeat old age, but how about non-intrusive repairs for severe accident injuries? Could we perhaps grow a new leg for a soldier maimed in combat? Could we repair a child’s disease ravaged nervous system? Or provide new skin for burn victims? I also understand that there are aspects of stem cell research indicating possible cures for Alzheimer’s, and even cancer. Here I think the possibilities are endless, if we don’t ban all research.
“Non-human” genetic research and engineering raise a number of other possibilities. Improved crop yields, and/or pest resistance would be a boon to people in many third world countries, IF those agricultural products can be proven environmentally safe, and safe for very long term human consumption. How about engineering a microbe that specifically attacks the AIDS virus? Here again we have a long list of possibilities. What I do vehemently oppose is the seriously proposed hybridization of various animal species, and particularly that of human/animal hybrids. The concept of “Humanzees”, genetically engineered, intelligent, human/chimp “servants”, bring forth visions of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory, and smacks of a return to slavery in my mind. Perhaps in our playing God, we actually will have a master race, and our very own home brewed “Untermenschen". It’s not a concept I particularly care for, and fortunately it’s a long way in the future. But what bothers me is that it was a serious proposal, and is being seriously investigated! As I understand the proposal, a “Humanzee” is supposed to be a multi-purpose “aid” for people with severe disabilities, sort of a hi-tech seeing-eye dog. In itself not a bad idea, but not this way! Robotics are a lot further along than genetics, and if we could show the Japanese a viable market for robots, they’d have a “robot personal assistant” for sale, probably by the middle of next week!
We also have the possibility of “designer babies”, another idea with both good and bad points. It’s been pretty well accepted that a tendency toward cancer and heart disease are genetically linked. If science can tinker with the parents genes, it may then be possible to eliminate those tendencies in their children, and in following generations. Once the genetic causes of birth defects are identified, it may well become a regular procedure to repair those defects in utero. The downside is that so many people would decide that they want the “perfect baby” with a physical appearance “just like my favorite rock star”. Prospective stage mothers could get together and compare notes about designing the ideal beauty queen, while football fathers can start seriously thinking about the Super Bowl. Life is going to be rough on those kids.
There seems to be no particular medical reason why the human body can’t repair itself as needed, if we could just find the triggering mechanism, and of course understand why this capability doesn’t naturally work all the time for us. On occasion we see reports of an individual whose body apparently regenerated severely damaged tissue. Might these incidents be cases of latent stem cell regeneration, brought about by… something? Personally I think it’s a phenomena well worth investigation, and only ongoing cellular research will tell the tale.
The technology of bio-engineering will be developed, someplace, by somebody. It might be banned in Boston, or even all across the United States, but a complete ban on such research won’t stop it in the rest of the world. Wouldn’t we be much better off if we accept that fact, and approach this knowledge with a well considered set of moral and ethical guidelines already in place? Perhaps it’s time for the social and religious leaders of the world to quit arguing about their differences, sit down with the leaders of the medical profession, and establish those moral guidelines.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Firefighters
I think most of us remember the horror of 9/11, the TV shots of two jetliners deliberately crashing into New York’s fabled Twin Towers, and shortly thereafter the sight of those great buildings falling to the city streets. In my case I’ll never forget the three hundred and forty three members of the Fire Department of New York who died while taking part in one of the most successful rescue efforts in history. Thousands of people, the total number numbers will never be known, owe their lives to those men. Wearing and carrying nearly a hundred of pounds of equipment each, they ran up smoky stairwells filled with hazardous fumes, looking for victims. They pulled trapped office workers out of the rubble and performed whatever emergency care they could give to the injured. Despite their best efforts, the scope of the disaster was too great. Ordered to evacuate, many remained behind helping even more people to escape. The towers finally collapsed, killing almost 3,000 people. Looking back on it all, nothing seems more heroic than what members of the New York Fire Department did that day. But the fact is that firefighters perform these sorts of heroic deeds every day, in every county and city across the nation, and around the world. Simply put, it's the firefighters job to put out fires, from outside, inside, or any way they can. Firefighters respond to a whole host of other emergencies as well. They are usually the first to arrive at car accidents, gas leaks, the sites of natural disasters, or when someone has taken ill or been injured.
Many years ago, a young Puerto Rican immigrant woman was told a bit about survival in New York City. “If you’re ever in trouble and desperately need help, pull the fire alarm box” she was advised. “If you call the police, they may or may not come. If you call the ambulance, they may or may not come. The firemen, they always come.” False alarms create many problems for firefighters, but I’d think this is a rather left-handed compliment to the greatest bunch of people in the world. Firefighters, volunteers, part timers, and full timers, structural, industrial, and wildland, both men and women, are a very special breed of people who, over time, generally view their occupation as a nearly holy calling rather than just a job, and are completely dedicated to their work. They have to be, since each call brings with it the threat of severe injury or even death. Uncommon valor is a very common trait among firefighters.
People join the department for any number of reasons, but they soon develop the intense trust and faith in their fellows, instincts needed when you deliberately ignore a natural fear of the red devil, to enter a burning building that’s quickly crumpling around you, dragging a fire hose while you search for a missing child. Who else but a firefighter would join his crewmates in closing on a raging forest fire, armed with little more than shovels, trying to save a total strangers property. If you don’t develop that trust, you won’t stay on the department for long.
Besides bravery and physical strength, firefighters need common sense and patience. In emergency situations, people depend on firefighters to stay calm and give clear directions. Firefighters must work quickly, but at the same time, they need to take into account numerous details--the color of smoke, the construction of the building, and the way the fire is burning--when deciding how to go about their jobs. This means that they have to know an enormous amount about how fires behave under different conditions, how the fire is likely to progress, and what techniques and materials they need to use to deal with it.
James Taylor is a former Fire Captain, and author of the 1969 essay “What is Fire Fighter?”, generally considered to be the definitive essay on firefighting. “A Fire Fighter is a lonely man holding a midmorning watch with book in hand and a telephone within a split seconds reach. A darkened apparatus floor, a complicated alarm system, now silent, but perhaps within the next blink of an eye or turn of a page will scream out with the clanging of bells, the turning of gears, and the ticking of tape. What is as Fire Fighter? He is years of constant training that must guide him in every move once that Great Silver Bell again must exact "Awake ye from your beds!" Your heavy resting hearts within the sigh of an awakening must now beat with the strength of an athlete, a fighter, for a fighter you are. A fire fighter is a man responsible for thousands of dollars of equipment, and for the lives of his fellowmen he knows he must protect. He is a man constantly studying for promotions, not content that as a private he already represents leadership in the community. For a young girl or boy there is no doubt who he is. Yes he was the one who found time to smile down at them. From the top of his protective helmet to the bottoms of his steel reinforced boots he appeared to be a giant, "Get back!" he shouted, as he strained to move hundreds of pounds of water-filled hose only to disappear into a hell of smoke and heat. Are you worried about your smoking habits? The fire fighter must now inhale the truly king size of them all, three stories high and filled with foreign and domestic sofas, carpets, paints, and woods. The Tolls are great among these men, greater than almost every other occupation. The rewards; long hours, working weekends and holidays. He gives up time with his own family for the sake and safeguard of those who see only the superficial man and not the superman that perhaps he is. For this he is if only in the heart and mind of a child not blinded by the isms of life, but instead opened by a tear as his floppy-eared puppy responds to the carefully applied artificial respiration given to it by a combination doctor, fire fighter, truck driver and yes, maybe a superman. Perhaps that tear is the fire fighter's reward. Someday he too may shed a tear for a fallen comrade, silently praying that his own last alarm will herald the end to a glorious career through retirement, and not through death or injury. What is a fire fighter? Ask the people that he has helped in times of fire, flood, plane, car and boat disasters, accidents through carelessness or in times of war. When others walk away the fire fighter must now take on the responsibilities of saving lives and property. A giant, a superman, a constant vigil for the prevention of fire. Oh, to have the eyes and faith of a child, If only grown-ups were so blessed, the fire fighter's life would be the richest on earth."
I had not intended to single out the FDNY, but they are the countries largest and busiest fire department. Even so, that same intense sense of duty is demonstrated in even the smallest volunteer department. The next time you see one of your local firefighters, remember to thank him for his unstinting service to your community.
Many years ago, a young Puerto Rican immigrant woman was told a bit about survival in New York City. “If you’re ever in trouble and desperately need help, pull the fire alarm box” she was advised. “If you call the police, they may or may not come. If you call the ambulance, they may or may not come. The firemen, they always come.” False alarms create many problems for firefighters, but I’d think this is a rather left-handed compliment to the greatest bunch of people in the world. Firefighters, volunteers, part timers, and full timers, structural, industrial, and wildland, both men and women, are a very special breed of people who, over time, generally view their occupation as a nearly holy calling rather than just a job, and are completely dedicated to their work. They have to be, since each call brings with it the threat of severe injury or even death. Uncommon valor is a very common trait among firefighters.
People join the department for any number of reasons, but they soon develop the intense trust and faith in their fellows, instincts needed when you deliberately ignore a natural fear of the red devil, to enter a burning building that’s quickly crumpling around you, dragging a fire hose while you search for a missing child. Who else but a firefighter would join his crewmates in closing on a raging forest fire, armed with little more than shovels, trying to save a total strangers property. If you don’t develop that trust, you won’t stay on the department for long.
Besides bravery and physical strength, firefighters need common sense and patience. In emergency situations, people depend on firefighters to stay calm and give clear directions. Firefighters must work quickly, but at the same time, they need to take into account numerous details--the color of smoke, the construction of the building, and the way the fire is burning--when deciding how to go about their jobs. This means that they have to know an enormous amount about how fires behave under different conditions, how the fire is likely to progress, and what techniques and materials they need to use to deal with it.
James Taylor is a former Fire Captain, and author of the 1969 essay “What is Fire Fighter?”, generally considered to be the definitive essay on firefighting. “A Fire Fighter is a lonely man holding a midmorning watch with book in hand and a telephone within a split seconds reach. A darkened apparatus floor, a complicated alarm system, now silent, but perhaps within the next blink of an eye or turn of a page will scream out with the clanging of bells, the turning of gears, and the ticking of tape. What is as Fire Fighter? He is years of constant training that must guide him in every move once that Great Silver Bell again must exact "Awake ye from your beds!" Your heavy resting hearts within the sigh of an awakening must now beat with the strength of an athlete, a fighter, for a fighter you are. A fire fighter is a man responsible for thousands of dollars of equipment, and for the lives of his fellowmen he knows he must protect. He is a man constantly studying for promotions, not content that as a private he already represents leadership in the community. For a young girl or boy there is no doubt who he is. Yes he was the one who found time to smile down at them. From the top of his protective helmet to the bottoms of his steel reinforced boots he appeared to be a giant, "Get back!" he shouted, as he strained to move hundreds of pounds of water-filled hose only to disappear into a hell of smoke and heat. Are you worried about your smoking habits? The fire fighter must now inhale the truly king size of them all, three stories high and filled with foreign and domestic sofas, carpets, paints, and woods. The Tolls are great among these men, greater than almost every other occupation. The rewards; long hours, working weekends and holidays. He gives up time with his own family for the sake and safeguard of those who see only the superficial man and not the superman that perhaps he is. For this he is if only in the heart and mind of a child not blinded by the isms of life, but instead opened by a tear as his floppy-eared puppy responds to the carefully applied artificial respiration given to it by a combination doctor, fire fighter, truck driver and yes, maybe a superman. Perhaps that tear is the fire fighter's reward. Someday he too may shed a tear for a fallen comrade, silently praying that his own last alarm will herald the end to a glorious career through retirement, and not through death or injury. What is a fire fighter? Ask the people that he has helped in times of fire, flood, plane, car and boat disasters, accidents through carelessness or in times of war. When others walk away the fire fighter must now take on the responsibilities of saving lives and property. A giant, a superman, a constant vigil for the prevention of fire. Oh, to have the eyes and faith of a child, If only grown-ups were so blessed, the fire fighter's life would be the richest on earth."
I had not intended to single out the FDNY, but they are the countries largest and busiest fire department. Even so, that same intense sense of duty is demonstrated in even the smallest volunteer department. The next time you see one of your local firefighters, remember to thank him for his unstinting service to your community.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Questions
I recently read an interesting article written by game show host Pat Sajak, in which he asks several excellent questions about global warming and climate change. The subject of man-made global warming is nearly impossible to discuss without getting into screaming, raging, and name-calling between the participants, particularly if there are “hard core” environmentalists in the crowd. I consider myself fairly well-read on the subject matter, and I’m still skeptical because there are so many aspects of the issue that really don’t make a lot of sense.
If we are to launch ourselves onto a lifestyle-altering mission to lower the global temperature, what’s the goal? Do we know that one setting on the global thermostat is better than another? If we do, just what is that preferred temperature, and how do we reach it? Oh yeah, once there, how do we maintain it? Will we have to warm things up again if it drops below that preferential point? After all, juggling with the temperature on a global scale is going to be a whole lot different than adjusting the air conditioner setting at home. And just what is the average temperature of the earth anyway? How did we come up with that magic number? There are temperature extremes all over the planet remember, and have been since time immemorial. How do we come up with an average, and how do those normal temperature variations fit in with our desire to slow global warming? Then we get into asking what factors have led to global warming in the past, and how do we know they aren’t the causes of the current warming trend? There is no argument that warming (or cooling) cycles have been a part of earth’s history. Geological records indicate that our planet has routinely cycled from pretty darn cold to a whole lot hotter than we see today. Are we so sure that this cycle is any different?
Another thing that bothers me is the strong effort to shut off any argument with the “obvious” problem of global warming. Anytime a true believer in anything begins his tirade with “Everybody agrees...” or “Everyone knows...”, all my alarm bells start ringing! As a matter of fact, there is a good deal of dissent in the scientific world about the theories of man-made global warming. A large and rapidly growing segment of the scientists who study climatology are questioning many of the basic premises of the “warming is bad” theory. Why should asking serious questions about such an important subject be wrong? Recently one of the world’s top climatologists made comment that most of the signatories of the intergovernmental study on global warming weren’t climatologists or even meteorologists, in fact most of them weren’t scientists at all, but rather were “a mob” of politicians, environmentalists, and more than a few Hollywood celebrities! The Kyoto agreement threatens to cut the ground out from under the world’s industrial nations, severely limiting their industrial ability, and crippling their economies. That is a pretty big deal and will impoverish most of the western nations while leaving the world’s worst polluter (China) completely untouched! We really should have the best information and opinion from the best minds on the subject, rather than a vague “I think” from people who really don’t know what they’re talking about!
And why are there such dramatically different warnings about the effects of man-made global warming? Predictions of 20 or more foot rises in sea levels have given way to talk of only a few inches over the last year or so, and whatever happened to the global cooling threats of only a couple of decades ago? In many cases, all these sea level predictions are less than the historically recorded rises and falls of the last few hundred years. Whatever the case, why are the global warming advocates trying so hard, and apparently with more than a little success, to scare us? Besides, are there potential benefits to global warming? Would a warmer climate in some areas actually improve living conditions? Would such a possible improvement in health, crop production, overall lifestyle and such counterbalance any negative impact? I do know that our local winters were a lot colder fifty years ago, and personally I have no desire to return to those frigid winters and deep snows!
Should the drastic changes in public policy that are currently being called for be based on a “what if?” proposition, just because Al Gore says so? There are some who claim we can’t afford to wait for further studies, and, even if there’s some doubt, we should move on with altering the way we live. Many of their arguments for changing some of our environmental policies are good ideas, but should they also be based on “what it?” Again I’ll ask, what will be the impact on the people of the world if we change the way we live, based purely on man-made global warming concerns? Much of the third world wouldn’t be affected I’m sure, but things are going to be tough on the worlds industrialized nations, along with the newly emerging nations as well. Consider that there are always unintended consequences to all our actions. I for one wouldn’t want to find myself forced to live in a society stuck at a stone age, or even medieval, sustenance level! There are many other implications as well, some good and some bad. What are they? Shouldn’t we be thinking and talking about them now, instead of just trading carbon credits? How do we determine if our efforts are successful? Is the measure of success going to be based on the Earth’s average temperature, or perhaps the sea level? The number of hurricanes each year, average rainfall, or maybe all of these things? Again, do we have a particular goal in mind? If so, what is it, and what happens when we reach it?
How, and why, has the global warming movement gained such momentum? Humanity has faced environmental issues throughout the history of our species, but I don’t remember hearing of one that has gained such “celebrity status” in such a short time. To my mind there seems to be an almost religious fervor about the subject that makes me wonder. I remember all the rhetoric about eggs being an unhealthy food, and that breakfast cereal was poisoning our kids… both claims were proven to be junk science, but both were widely believed at the time. How about the commotion generated by Rachel Carlson’s 1962 book “Silent Spring”? Essentially she forecast the imminent and total collapse of nature due to the overuse of DDT. Agreed, DDT was being badly overused, but banning it altogether wasn’t such a good idea either, as you’ll well know if you’ve ever suffered from mosquito carried malaria.
A steady reduction in the dire predictions about global warming has not led to a reduction in the doomsday rhetoric. Does this perhaps indicate that the movement has become little more than an activist cause rather than scientific reality?
If we are to launch ourselves onto a lifestyle-altering mission to lower the global temperature, what’s the goal? Do we know that one setting on the global thermostat is better than another? If we do, just what is that preferred temperature, and how do we reach it? Oh yeah, once there, how do we maintain it? Will we have to warm things up again if it drops below that preferential point? After all, juggling with the temperature on a global scale is going to be a whole lot different than adjusting the air conditioner setting at home. And just what is the average temperature of the earth anyway? How did we come up with that magic number? There are temperature extremes all over the planet remember, and have been since time immemorial. How do we come up with an average, and how do those normal temperature variations fit in with our desire to slow global warming? Then we get into asking what factors have led to global warming in the past, and how do we know they aren’t the causes of the current warming trend? There is no argument that warming (or cooling) cycles have been a part of earth’s history. Geological records indicate that our planet has routinely cycled from pretty darn cold to a whole lot hotter than we see today. Are we so sure that this cycle is any different?
Another thing that bothers me is the strong effort to shut off any argument with the “obvious” problem of global warming. Anytime a true believer in anything begins his tirade with “Everybody agrees...” or “Everyone knows...”, all my alarm bells start ringing! As a matter of fact, there is a good deal of dissent in the scientific world about the theories of man-made global warming. A large and rapidly growing segment of the scientists who study climatology are questioning many of the basic premises of the “warming is bad” theory. Why should asking serious questions about such an important subject be wrong? Recently one of the world’s top climatologists made comment that most of the signatories of the intergovernmental study on global warming weren’t climatologists or even meteorologists, in fact most of them weren’t scientists at all, but rather were “a mob” of politicians, environmentalists, and more than a few Hollywood celebrities! The Kyoto agreement threatens to cut the ground out from under the world’s industrial nations, severely limiting their industrial ability, and crippling their economies. That is a pretty big deal and will impoverish most of the western nations while leaving the world’s worst polluter (China) completely untouched! We really should have the best information and opinion from the best minds on the subject, rather than a vague “I think” from people who really don’t know what they’re talking about!
And why are there such dramatically different warnings about the effects of man-made global warming? Predictions of 20 or more foot rises in sea levels have given way to talk of only a few inches over the last year or so, and whatever happened to the global cooling threats of only a couple of decades ago? In many cases, all these sea level predictions are less than the historically recorded rises and falls of the last few hundred years. Whatever the case, why are the global warming advocates trying so hard, and apparently with more than a little success, to scare us? Besides, are there potential benefits to global warming? Would a warmer climate in some areas actually improve living conditions? Would such a possible improvement in health, crop production, overall lifestyle and such counterbalance any negative impact? I do know that our local winters were a lot colder fifty years ago, and personally I have no desire to return to those frigid winters and deep snows!
Should the drastic changes in public policy that are currently being called for be based on a “what if?” proposition, just because Al Gore says so? There are some who claim we can’t afford to wait for further studies, and, even if there’s some doubt, we should move on with altering the way we live. Many of their arguments for changing some of our environmental policies are good ideas, but should they also be based on “what it?” Again I’ll ask, what will be the impact on the people of the world if we change the way we live, based purely on man-made global warming concerns? Much of the third world wouldn’t be affected I’m sure, but things are going to be tough on the worlds industrialized nations, along with the newly emerging nations as well. Consider that there are always unintended consequences to all our actions. I for one wouldn’t want to find myself forced to live in a society stuck at a stone age, or even medieval, sustenance level! There are many other implications as well, some good and some bad. What are they? Shouldn’t we be thinking and talking about them now, instead of just trading carbon credits? How do we determine if our efforts are successful? Is the measure of success going to be based on the Earth’s average temperature, or perhaps the sea level? The number of hurricanes each year, average rainfall, or maybe all of these things? Again, do we have a particular goal in mind? If so, what is it, and what happens when we reach it?
How, and why, has the global warming movement gained such momentum? Humanity has faced environmental issues throughout the history of our species, but I don’t remember hearing of one that has gained such “celebrity status” in such a short time. To my mind there seems to be an almost religious fervor about the subject that makes me wonder. I remember all the rhetoric about eggs being an unhealthy food, and that breakfast cereal was poisoning our kids… both claims were proven to be junk science, but both were widely believed at the time. How about the commotion generated by Rachel Carlson’s 1962 book “Silent Spring”? Essentially she forecast the imminent and total collapse of nature due to the overuse of DDT. Agreed, DDT was being badly overused, but banning it altogether wasn’t such a good idea either, as you’ll well know if you’ve ever suffered from mosquito carried malaria.
A steady reduction in the dire predictions about global warming has not led to a reduction in the doomsday rhetoric. Does this perhaps indicate that the movement has become little more than an activist cause rather than scientific reality?
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Ain't gonna study war
The popularity of President George W. Bush has been up and down like the proverbial yo-yo over the last several years, a fact that the mass media never tires of telling us about. For the most part, and fully understandable, his approval rating has been linked to the war in Iraq, and to a lesser degree the war in Afghanistan. For a long time I couldn’t understand why so many Americans blindly believed everything they read in the newspapers or saw on TV about those wars, even when the conclusions drawn were so blatantly wrong. Then, suddenly, the little light bulb over my head flashed on.
Following two world wars, the postwar obscenity of “Mutually Assured Destruction” added the threat of apocalypse to the public concept of modern warfare. Or as President Kennedy warned, “Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.” Armed conflict had become so destructive in this view, that it no longer had any relation to the battles of the past. It seemed absurd to worry about a new tank or a novel military doctrine when the mere press of a button could unleash a nuclear Armageddon, which would lay waste to any military equipment or planning, along with everything else on the face of the earth. Even more, the nineteen-sixties had brought us a utopian view of a society opposed to any serious consideration of war. Government, the military, business, religion, and family have conspired many believed, to warp the naturally peace-loving members of society. To insist that wars broke out because bad men, in fear or in pride, sought material advantage or status, or because good men had done too little to stop them, was seen as antithetical in an enlightened Age of Aquarius, and our new understanding of human nature. In the words of often-quoted Mahatma Gandhi: “What difference does it make, to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?”
The academic neglect of warfare grew even more acute with the passage of time. Military history as a collegiate discipline faded, with very few professorships, journal articles, or degree programs available. In 2004, Edward Coffman, a retired military history professor, reviewed the faculties of the top 25 history departments, and found that of over 1,000 professors, only 21 identified warfare as a specialty. When war does show up on a universities syllabus, it’s often about the race, class, and gender of combatants and wartime civilians. So a lecture on the Civil War will now focus on the Underground Railroad and Reconstruction, not on Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. One on World War II might emphasize Japanese internment, Rosie the Riveter, and the horror of Hiroshima, not Guadalcanal and Midway. A study of the Vietnam War will devote lots of time to the inequities of the draft, media coverage, and the antiwar movement at home, and mention little about the air war or artillery barrages at Khe Sanh. Those who want to study war in the traditional way face intense academic suspicion, after all, historians of war must derive perverse pleasure, their critics suspect, from reading about carnage and suffering. Why not figure out instead how to outlaw war forever, as if it were not a tragic, nearly inevitable part of human existence?
“If you want peace, prepare for war” counseled Roman general Flavius Vegetius Renatus over 1,600 years ago. Nine centuries before that, Chinese general Sun Tzu offered much the same advice. Yet today’s critics cite this ancient wisdom, and reject it. After serving up a perverse history of the cold war, the key point of which seems to be that the peace movement brought down the Berlin Wall, they will turn Vegetius’s insight upside down: “If you want peace, prepare for peace.” This purports to be wise counsel, a motto for the millennium. In reality, its wishful thinking that doesn’t follow the history of the cold war, or of any war for that matter. The cold war’s real lesson is the same one that Sun Tzu and Vegetius taught: conflicts happen, and power matters. It’s better to be strong than to be weak; you’re safer if others know that you’re ready to give them the fight of their lives, than if you proudly speak of your defenselessness, or your unwillingness to fight, and there’s nothing really mysterious about this truth.
The importance, and the challenge, of the study of war is to raise popular interest into a more serious understanding, one that seeks answers to such questions as: Why do wars break out? How do they end? Why do the winners win and the losers lose? How best to avoid wars or contain their worst effects? By ignoring history, the modern age is free to interpret war as a failure of communication, of diplomacy, of talking—as if aggressors don’t know exactly what they’re doing. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi flew to Syria, hoping to persuade President Assad to stop funding terror in the Middle East. She assumed that Assad’s belligerence resulted from our aloofness and arrogance rather than from his dictatorship’s interest in destroying democracy in Lebanon and Iraq, before such contagious freedom destroyed him. A generation raised on Oprah and Dr. Phil—and not on the letters of William T. Sherman and William Shirer’s Berlin Diary—believes that problems between states, like those in our personal lives, should be discussed by equally civilized and peaceful rivals, and so solved without resorting to violence. This totally ignores the fact that one’s opponent may be a heavily armed barbarian…
It’s hard to find wars that result from miscommunication. Far more often they break out because of malevolent intent and the absence of deterrence. Wars happen because the people who start them think they can win. Hitler did, as did Mussolini and Tojo. Bin Laden didn’t attack us because there was a shortage of American diplomats willing to negotiate with him. Instead, he realized that a series of Islamic terrorist attacks against U.S. interests had met with no real response, and concluded that the decadent infidels would never fight, or that if we did, we would soon withdraw as we had from Mogadishu.
The failures of America's leadership in both Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in government, where, in both conflicts, the people designated to advise policymakers, prepare forces, and conduct operations, failed to perform their function because they, like the majority of Americans, don’t understand the causes, conduct, and the inevitable result, of war. President Bush’s current unpopularity stems from his failure to understand General Patton’s statement; “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.” The American public has turned on the Iraq War not because of Cindy Sheehan or Michael Moore, but because only a few Americans understand warfare. The “uneducated majority” felt that, because the media reported battlefield news was uniformly bad, the war was irreversibly lost, and that the price of Iraqi freedom in American lives and treasure was far too high.
Following two world wars, the postwar obscenity of “Mutually Assured Destruction” added the threat of apocalypse to the public concept of modern warfare. Or as President Kennedy warned, “Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.” Armed conflict had become so destructive in this view, that it no longer had any relation to the battles of the past. It seemed absurd to worry about a new tank or a novel military doctrine when the mere press of a button could unleash a nuclear Armageddon, which would lay waste to any military equipment or planning, along with everything else on the face of the earth. Even more, the nineteen-sixties had brought us a utopian view of a society opposed to any serious consideration of war. Government, the military, business, religion, and family have conspired many believed, to warp the naturally peace-loving members of society. To insist that wars broke out because bad men, in fear or in pride, sought material advantage or status, or because good men had done too little to stop them, was seen as antithetical in an enlightened Age of Aquarius, and our new understanding of human nature. In the words of often-quoted Mahatma Gandhi: “What difference does it make, to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?”
The academic neglect of warfare grew even more acute with the passage of time. Military history as a collegiate discipline faded, with very few professorships, journal articles, or degree programs available. In 2004, Edward Coffman, a retired military history professor, reviewed the faculties of the top 25 history departments, and found that of over 1,000 professors, only 21 identified warfare as a specialty. When war does show up on a universities syllabus, it’s often about the race, class, and gender of combatants and wartime civilians. So a lecture on the Civil War will now focus on the Underground Railroad and Reconstruction, not on Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. One on World War II might emphasize Japanese internment, Rosie the Riveter, and the horror of Hiroshima, not Guadalcanal and Midway. A study of the Vietnam War will devote lots of time to the inequities of the draft, media coverage, and the antiwar movement at home, and mention little about the air war or artillery barrages at Khe Sanh. Those who want to study war in the traditional way face intense academic suspicion, after all, historians of war must derive perverse pleasure, their critics suspect, from reading about carnage and suffering. Why not figure out instead how to outlaw war forever, as if it were not a tragic, nearly inevitable part of human existence?
“If you want peace, prepare for war” counseled Roman general Flavius Vegetius Renatus over 1,600 years ago. Nine centuries before that, Chinese general Sun Tzu offered much the same advice. Yet today’s critics cite this ancient wisdom, and reject it. After serving up a perverse history of the cold war, the key point of which seems to be that the peace movement brought down the Berlin Wall, they will turn Vegetius’s insight upside down: “If you want peace, prepare for peace.” This purports to be wise counsel, a motto for the millennium. In reality, its wishful thinking that doesn’t follow the history of the cold war, or of any war for that matter. The cold war’s real lesson is the same one that Sun Tzu and Vegetius taught: conflicts happen, and power matters. It’s better to be strong than to be weak; you’re safer if others know that you’re ready to give them the fight of their lives, than if you proudly speak of your defenselessness, or your unwillingness to fight, and there’s nothing really mysterious about this truth.
The importance, and the challenge, of the study of war is to raise popular interest into a more serious understanding, one that seeks answers to such questions as: Why do wars break out? How do they end? Why do the winners win and the losers lose? How best to avoid wars or contain their worst effects? By ignoring history, the modern age is free to interpret war as a failure of communication, of diplomacy, of talking—as if aggressors don’t know exactly what they’re doing. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi flew to Syria, hoping to persuade President Assad to stop funding terror in the Middle East. She assumed that Assad’s belligerence resulted from our aloofness and arrogance rather than from his dictatorship’s interest in destroying democracy in Lebanon and Iraq, before such contagious freedom destroyed him. A generation raised on Oprah and Dr. Phil—and not on the letters of William T. Sherman and William Shirer’s Berlin Diary—believes that problems between states, like those in our personal lives, should be discussed by equally civilized and peaceful rivals, and so solved without resorting to violence. This totally ignores the fact that one’s opponent may be a heavily armed barbarian…
It’s hard to find wars that result from miscommunication. Far more often they break out because of malevolent intent and the absence of deterrence. Wars happen because the people who start them think they can win. Hitler did, as did Mussolini and Tojo. Bin Laden didn’t attack us because there was a shortage of American diplomats willing to negotiate with him. Instead, he realized that a series of Islamic terrorist attacks against U.S. interests had met with no real response, and concluded that the decadent infidels would never fight, or that if we did, we would soon withdraw as we had from Mogadishu.
The failures of America's leadership in both Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in government, where, in both conflicts, the people designated to advise policymakers, prepare forces, and conduct operations, failed to perform their function because they, like the majority of Americans, don’t understand the causes, conduct, and the inevitable result, of war. President Bush’s current unpopularity stems from his failure to understand General Patton’s statement; “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.” The American public has turned on the Iraq War not because of Cindy Sheehan or Michael Moore, but because only a few Americans understand warfare. The “uneducated majority” felt that, because the media reported battlefield news was uniformly bad, the war was irreversibly lost, and that the price of Iraqi freedom in American lives and treasure was far too high.
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