{"id":3709,"date":"2009-12-04T17:52:19","date_gmt":"2009-12-04T21:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=3709"},"modified":"2009-12-04T18:19:35","modified_gmt":"2009-12-04T22:19:35","slug":"praise-for-surge-and-purge-from-an-unlikely-source","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2009\/12\/04\/praise-for-surge-and-purge-from-an-unlikely-source\/","title":{"rendered":"praise for surge and purge from an unlikely source…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
David Brooks is a conservative New York Times op-ed columnist with a brain. His offering today is thoughtful, and welcomed…<\/div>\n
\n
The Analytic Mode<\/a>
New York Times<\/strong>
By DAVID BROOKS
December 4, 2009 <\/div>\n

Obama … cloaked himself in what you might call Niebuhrian modesty. His decision to expand the war is the most morally consequential one of his presidency so far, yet as the moral stakes rose, Obama’s emotional temperature cooled to just above freezing. He spoke Tuesday night in the manner of an unwilling volunteer, balancing the arguments within his administration by leading the country deeper in while pointing the way out. Despite the ambivalence, he did act. This is not mishmash. With his two surges, Obama will more than double the number of American troops in Afghanistan. As Andrew Ferguson of The Weekly Standard pointed out, he is the first Democratic president in 40 years to deploy a significant number of troops into a war zone.<\/p>\n

Those new troops are not themselves a strategy; they are enablers of an evolving strategy. Over the next year, there will be disasters, errors and surprises — as in all wars. But the generals will have more resources with which to cope and respond. If the generals continue to find that stationing troops in the villages of Helmand Province leads to the revival of Afghan society, they will have the troops to do more of that. If they continue to find that order can be maintained only if social development accompanies military action, they will have more troops for that. We have no way of knowing now how those troops will end up being used. And we have no clue if it will be wise to withdraw them in July 2011.<\/p>\n

The advantage of the Obama governing style is that his argument-based organization is a learning organization. Amid the torrent of memos and evidence and dispute, the Obama administration is able to adjust and respond more quickly than, say, the Bush administration ever did. The disadvantage is the tendency to bureaucratize the war. Armed conflict is about morale, motivation, honor, fear and breaking the enemy’s will. The danger is that Obama’s analytic mode will neglect the intangibles that are the essence of the fight. It will fail to inspire and comfort. Soldiers and Marines don’t have the luxury of adopting President Obama’s calibrated stance since they are being asked to potentially sacrifice everything.<\/font><\/strong> Barring a scientific breakthrough, we can’t merge Obama’s analysis with George Bush’s passion. But we should still be glad that he is governing the way he is. I loved covering the Obama campaign. But amid problems like Afghanistan and health care, it simply wouldn’t do to give gauzy speeches about the meaning of the word hope. It is in Obama’s nature to lead a government by symposium. Embrace the complexity. Learn to live with the dispassion.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
"Embrace the complexity<\/font><\/strong>" is a fine enjoinder, nearly perfect. After eight years of having decisions made by the ADHD "Decider" based on the first thought that came to mind or was presented by his second in command, having thoughtful, groups of people pore over the data and the consequences is beyond refreshing. Brooks is right. Obama’s Afghanistan speech was reluctantly given – but the more I think about it, the better it sounds. David Brooks’ is eloquent in saying:<\/div>\n
\n
Those new troops are not themselves a strategy; they are enablers of an evolving strategy. Over the next year, there will be disasters, errors and surprises — as in all wars. But the generals will have more resources with which to cope and respond. If the generals continue to find that stationing troops in the villages of Helmand Province leads to the revival of Afghan society, they will have the troops to do more of that. If they continue to find that order can be maintained only if social development accompanies military action, they will have more troops for that. We have no way of knowing now how those troops will end up being used. And we have no clue if it will be wise to withdraw them in July 2011.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
You’d almost think it was Brooks’ own strategy he was talking about. There’s another difference in Obama’s way of doing things. He respects the minds of other people. That’s what Brooks is talking about. Give the military the needed tools and ask them to use them wisely. We forget what the Cheney\/Addington way was – the "Unitary Executive" – masterminding, micromanaging everything. During the Bush years, in matters military, we heard what Donald Rumsfeld thought. Donald Rumsfeld was a weekend warrior, not a soldier. These days, we don’t hear about the Secretary of Defense. We hear about the General. Bush didn’t figure that one out until Petreus, way into things.<\/div>\n

It’s a pity the Republican Party isn’t functional these days. Obama really is a moderate, and as bipartisan a Democrat as they will ever see. They’re so dead set on being crazy that they are missing opportunities rarely offered to a minority Party. 2010 will be interesting in that regard. The Republican Party is purging reasonable people and trying to collect even more crazies than they’ve got already. We have no choice but to fight them tooth and toenail. There’s no room right now for anything resembling a true conservative among them. <\/p>\n

Like I said, "What a year." David Brooks supporting an Obama plan. Who’d have thunk it?<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Brooks is a conservative New York Times op-ed columnist with a brain. His offering today is thoughtful, and welcomed… The Analytic Mode New York Times By DAVID BROOKS December 4, 2009 Obama … cloaked himself in what you might call Niebuhrian modesty. His decision to expand the war is the most morally consequential one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}