Thursday, June 13, 2024
1971 "The New York Times" begins publishing excerpts from the Pentagon Papers
2018 Volkswagen fined €1 billion (£880m) over diesel emissions scandal
In bed near 10, up at 3:05, had my oatmeal and prednisone and let Lilly out at about 5. nodded off between 5:30 and 6:50.
Prednisone, day 32, 20 mg. day 10.
How far we have fallen. While looking at something else, I accidentally saw a follow-up YouTube video of Barack Obama's speech at his last White House Correspondents Dinner in 2016. Funny jokes, superb delivery, articulate, fluent, charming, handsome, and speaking in complete sentences. No mumbled or slurred speech, no mean-spirited insults, no incoherent ramblings.. He was followed by 4 years of Trump and 4 years of Biden and it looks like another 4 years of either Trump or Biden. Indeed, how far we have fallen. Alas.
I'm grateful for summer. There are still many flowers blooming on some trees and bushes and on the ground though the spring flowers have come and gone. It reminds me naturally of Robert Frost's The Oven Bird: The question that he frames in all but words / Is what to make of a diminished thing. Frost was less than 40 years old when he wrote the poem which deals with transience, aging, and diminishment. I wonder if he was in or approaching a mid-life crisis when he wrote this. I have spotted an ovenbird only once when we lived on Newton Avenue. Why have I spotted so many birds while living on Newberry and on Newton that I have yet to see in Saukville or Bayside? Was it that I was younger and more observant or was it the locations, the flyways nearer the Lake Michigan shoreline? When I drove home from Sendik's yesterday, I noticed again how heavily wooded our neighborhood is, for which I am also grateful: maples, oaks, birches, locusts, ashes, crabapples, basswood, ginkgos, various berry-bearing trees, and what else?
Thinking some more about George Packer's Phoenix article, especially his description of the Trump voters, the extreme right-wingers, Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA. How much of right-wing anger and rejectionism is rooted in the many frustrations of modern life? So much of our lives being steered by algorithms, the difficulty of reaching a human being on customer service lines, having to communicate with someone in India about computer problems or with a government bureaucrat about anything, knowing that our politicians are bought and paid for and that the system is indeed rigged by the rich and powerful, persons and corporations, hedge funds and private equity funds, monopolies and conglomerates, public relations firms and marketers, knowing that we are constantly bombarded by hidden and not-so-hidden persuaders intent on influencing our actions, opinions and attitudes, not only by domestic sources but by foreign intelligence sources in Russia and China. Right-wingers and left-wingers agree that there is much to dislike about our society and our culture. They disagree about the particulars and about desired solutions to problems, but they agree that modern America leaves much to be desired. They disagree profoundly on the role of religion, specifically Christianity, in national life. They agree that their opponents constitute a threat to democracy but they disagree about what "democracy" means., who should be trusted with the franchise, and the legitimacy of elections - disagreements that go back to the founding of the nation and fear about 'the tyranny of the majority' and 'mob rule' that gave us the minority-rule government that we now have, unable to address and solve persistent social and economic problems, the urban-rural and Red State-Blue State divides. Our politics has become a politics of anger and resentment, recriminations and 'whataboutisms.' It's 5 a.m. as I write these words and I can see they have, as Norm Crosby would say, "an aura of gibberish" about them, but I think it is probably true that there is much about living in our modern, cyber-dominated, digital world that drives people mad, in both senses of the word. something that conditions many of us to believe in conspiracy theories and to vote for whackos like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, or RFK, Jr. But I can't pull my thoughts together coherently on this and better stop writing.
[From The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 4, Chapter 1, "The Air War in Vietnam, 1965-1968"]
2. The July Escalation Debate
The full U.S. entry into the Vietnam War in the spring of 1965--with the launching of air strikes against NVN, the release of U.S. jet aircraft for close support of ARVN troops in SVN, and the deployment to SVN of major U.S. ground forces for combat--did not bring an immediate turnabout in the security situation in SVN. The VCINV A may have been surprised and stunned at first by the U.S. actions, but by the summer of 1965 they had again seized the initiative they held in late 1964 and early 1965 and were again mounting large-scale attacks, hurting AR VN forces badly. In mid-July Assistant Secretary McNaughton described the situation in ominous terms:
The situation is worse than a year ago (when it was worse than a year before that). . . . A hard VC push is on. . . . The US air strikes against the North and US combat-troop deployments have erased any South Vietnamese fears that the US will forsake them; but the government is able to provide security to fewer and fewer people in less and less territory, fewer roads and railroads are usable, the economy is deteriorating, and the government in Saigon continues to turn over. Pacification even in the Hop Tac area is making no progress. The government-to-VC ratio overall is now only 3-to-l, and in combat battalions only 1-to-l; government desertions are at a high rate, and the Vietnamese force build-up is stalled; the VC reportedly are trying to double their combat strength. There are no signs that the VC have been throttled by US/GVN interdiction efforts; indeed, there is evidence of further PAVN build-up in the I and II Corps areas. The DRV/VC seem to believe that SVN is near collapse and show no signs of being interested in settling for less than a complete take-over.
Faced with this gloomy situation, the leading question on the U.S. agenda for Vietnam was a further major escalation of troop commitments, together with a call-up of reserves, extension of military tours, and a general expansion of the armed forces.
The question of intensifying the air war against the North was a subsidiary issue, but it was related to the troop question in several ways. The military view, as reflected in JCS proposals and proposals from the field, was that the war should be intensified on all fronts, in the North no less than in the South. There was political merit in this view as well, since it was difficult to publicly justify sending in masses of troops to slug it out on the ground without at least trying to see whether stronger pressures against NVN would help: On the other hand, there was continued high-level interest in preventing a crisis atmosphere from developing, and in avoiding any over-reaction by NVN and its allies, so that a simultaneous escalation in both the North and the South needed to be handled with care. The bombing of the North, coupled with the deployment of substantial forces should not look like an effort to soften up NVN for an invasion.
During the last days of June with U.S. air operations against North Vietnam well into their fifth month, with U.S. forces in South Vietnam embarking for the first time upon major ground combat operations, and with the President near a decision that would increase American troop strength in Vietnam from 70,000 to over 200,000, Under Secretary of State George Ball sent to his colleagues among the small group of Vietnam "principals" in Washington a memorandum warning that the United States was poised on the brink of a military and political disaster. Neither through expanded bombing of the North nor through a substantial increase in U.S. forces in the South would the United States be likely to achieve its objectives, Ball argued. Instead of escalation, he urged, "we should undertake either to extricate ourselves or to reduce our defense perimeters in South Viet-Nam to accord with the capabilities of a limited US deployment."
"This is our last clear chance to make this decision," the Under-Secretary asserted. And in a separate memorandum to the President, he explained why:
The decision you face now, therefore, is crucial. Once large numbers of US troops are committed to direct combat they will begin to take heavy casualties in a war they are ill-equipped to fight in a non-cooperative if not downright hostile countryside.
Once we suffer large casualties we will have started a well-nigh irreversible process. Our involvement will be so great that we cannot--without national humiliation--stop short of achieving our complete objectives. Of the two possibilities 1 think humiliation would be more likely than the achievement of our objectives--even after we have paid terrible costs.
"Humiliation" was much on the minds of those involved in the making of American policy for Vietnam during the spring and summer of 1965. The word, or phrases meaning the same thing, appears in countless memoranda. No one put it as starkly as Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton, who in late March assigned relative weights to various American objectives in Vietnam. In McNaughton's view the principal U.S. aim was "to avoid a humiliating US defeat (to our reputation as a guarantor)." To this he assigned the weight of 70%. Second, but far less important at only 20% was "to keep SVN (and then adjacent) territory from Chinese hands." And a minor third, at but 10%, was "to permit the people of SVN to enjoy a better, freer way of life."
Where Ball differed from all the others was in his willingness to incur "humiliation" that was certain--but also limited and short-term--by withdrawing American forces in order to avoid the uncertain but not unlikely prospect of a military defeat at a higher level of involvement. Thus he entitled his memorandum "Cutting Our Losses in South Viet-Nam." In it and in his companion memorandum to the President ("A Compromise Solution for South Viet-Nam") he went on to outline a program, first, of placing a ceiling on U.S. deployments at present authorized levels (72,000 men) and sharply restricting their combat roles, and, second, of beginning negotiations with Hanoi for a cessation of hostilities and the formation in Saigon of a "government of National Union" that would include representatives of the National Liberation Front. Ball's argument was based upon his sense of relative priorities. As he told his colleagues:
The position taken in this memorandum does not suggest that the United States should abdicate leadership in the cold war. But any prudent military commander carefully selects the terrain on which to stand and fight, and no great captain has ever been blamed for a successful tactical withdrawal.
From our point of view, the terrain in South Viet-Nam could not be worse. Jungles and rice paddies are not designed for modern arms and, from a military point of view, this is clearly what General de Gaulle described to me as a "rotten country."
Politically, South Viet-Nam is a lost cause. The country is bled white from twenty years of war and the people are sick of it. The Viet Cong-as is shown by the Rand Corporation Motivation and Morale Study-are deeply committed.
Hanoi has a Government and a purpose and a discipline. The "government" in Saigon is a travesty. In a very real sense, South Viet-Nam is a country with an army and no government.
In my view, a deep commitment of United States forces in a land war in South Viet-Nam would be a catastrophic error. If ever there was an occasion for a tactical withdrawal, this is it.
This was the precise situation in South Vietnam when I was sent there.
It was on June 8, 1965, that LBJ and the Pentagon ordered U.S. forces in RVN to fight offensively, which is to say, not to restrict themselves to defending the big air bases at Danang and elsewhere. That was the second major escalation in the war, the first being the landing of the 3rd Marine Division in March 1965. The third major escalation is what the excerpt from the Pentagon Papers discusses, the July escalation. What is striking to me is that we jarheads 'in country' had the same insight into the inevitable outcome of this war as the big guys in Washinton did, i.e., that it would not end well.
Second is one of the anniversaries of the Volkswagon rigged emission test. As the Pentagon Papers reminded us not to trust the government, Volkswagon reminded us not to trust Big Business, merchants, manufacturers, or corporations with something to gain on their bottom line from lying to us or otherwise deceiving us and their regulators.
Throne room thoughts: I reread Griffey the Cooper in Spoon River Anthology and thought that Edgar Lee Masters and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. were of a single mind.
The cooper should know about tubs. / But I learned about life as well,
And you who loiter around these graves / Think you know life.
You think your eye sweeps about a wide horizon, perhaps, / In truth you are only looking around the interior of your tub.
You cannot lift yourself to its rim / And see the outer world of things,
And at the same time see yourself. / You are submerged in the tub of yourself—
Taboos and rules and appearances, / Are the staves of your tub.
Break them and dispel the witchcraft / Of thinking your tub is life
And that you know life.
Holmes: "We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he will still feel as the famous woman did about ghosts, Je n'y crois pas, mais je les crains,—"I don't believe in them, but I am afraid of them, nevertheless".
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