General Washington's Eyeglasses

The world seems to be more than a little agitated these past days, mostly because of Wikileaks and the ongoing saga of internet disclosures about American diplomacy.

Long from these serious and often disconcerting revelations, there looms also the very real danger of harm coming to individual and military operatives, as well as innocent people who will be caught in the middle of this internet storm.

Today, we have learned that the founder of Wikileaks has made himself available to British police, after Great Britain was served with a Swedish warrant for his arrest on “morals” charges.

Far from these macro-political events, my sister is facing an election battle for the presidency of her retiree community this evening. She has waged an honorable campaign, faced with what could be described as an authoritarian clique that has for many years seized control of the community by ignoring parliamentary rules, including holding elections by show of hand voting.

In the throes of this, last evening on the phone with her, I reminded my sister of General Washington’s remarks to the troops who had served with him during the Revolutionary War, and who, after winning, were threatening revolt unless they were paid all their wages-in-arrears. Many of the soldiers and officers had served without pay for years, and they were in need of money to re-start their civilian lives. Finally, having exhausted all hope of winning their demands through dialogue, some of the officers issued an ultimatum: If they were not paid, they would march on Congress and seize control of the government.

Washington, great man that he was, tried to reason with them. He noted that he, too, had served without pay. He reminded them that if they carried out their threat, they would sully all the glory they had won in their heroic effort to free the American colonies from English rule.

Finally, after failing in informal debate to convince them, Washington then began reading a letter from a congressman. But as he read, he stumbled over the words and finally had to stop. He reached into his pocket and pulled out something his men had never before seen: a pair of spectacles. He begged their indulgence saying, "Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown gray in your service and now find myself going blind."

These words of humility made the soldiers begin to weep. After Washington left, they agreed to give Congress more time. Thomas Jefferson later remarked that "the moderation and virtue of a single [man] probably prevented this Revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish."

In these demanding times, when the roots of democracy are being threatened not only by terrorists and rogue states, but by the venality of some of our elected leaders, it may be wise to reflect on Washington’s words.

No matter what country we live in, no matter in what form our human rights are organized by the government that represents us and does our business as free peoples, somewhere in each national history there has been suffering, sacrifice and hardship endured in order to gain our present state of liberty.  

In every case, there has been a leader whose character, more than all the education and technology available, has marked the path and led the way.  

It was Washington’s character that earned the admiration and trust of his soldiers and officers. His humility, coupled with a reminder of the price he himself had paid for freedom, led his men to reason.

This is a lesson we need to relearn. Now rather than later.  A nation, a world, needs leaders who, by their own example of virtue and character, inspire sacrifice for the common good.

The Reluctant Dragon GOP Wannabes

AP reports that Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, says he’s more inclined than not to run for President in 2012. Newt added that he’s been talking to friends and thinking about running, and he has come to believe that “it’s doable” but he won’t make a decision until February or March.

Gingrich also added in his interview with “Fox News Sunday” that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is probably the frontrunner because of his campaign structure and that former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is the most popular of the would-be GOP presidential candidates. Gingrich says he’s competitive and somewhere in the bunch.

I didn’t make that up, dear readers, it came from Newt’s own mouth.

It reminds me of Mickey Rooney movies with Judy Garland when he’s being urged to run for school president or some such thing and he stammers and digs his shoes into the ground while he says, “Aw, shucks, if you really think I could win....”

Come on, Newt, you can do better than that, and the GOP deserves better. The Party doesn’t need a reluctant dragon. We’ve got enough problems with a divided Congress and a sitting President to beat. It’ll take guts and passion - not an “Aw, Shucks” attitude.

For some figures on where the potential candidates are with their fundraising :

Sarah Palin’s and Gingrich’s PACs both out-raised Mitt Romney in the mid-October to mid-November period. Palin raised $469,000 and Gingrich $314,000. Romney raised $285,000.

But, all these candidates have multiple fund-raising capabilities - Palin has her books and speaking tours, Romney has various state PACs and Gingrich has his American Solutions 527 group. These efforts have raised more than the PACs.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, also a popular potential candidate, has a PAC that raised $108,000.

The Republican Party has a lot of wannabes. Which one will get the nod and the nomination? It’s a sure bet that we won’t know that answer until the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries kick off the sorting process.

It was interesting that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, himself often mentioned as a possible candidate, said this weekend that Sarah Palin has a clear chance of becoming the candidate and has the attributes needed to be a great president. Sounds like he’s looking for the VP slot with Sarah, doesn’t it?

My vote for honesty, though, goes to Haley Barbour, who simply said that he won’t announce yet because he wants to see “if somebody has a better chance of winning than I do.”  It’s not often that a politician, and one as savvy as Barbour, speaks so forthrightly.

That breath of fresh air might just make me an early fan of Barbour, who at least isn’t in the “Aw, Shucks” school.

Wikileaks Comments

A reader from the USA thinks that I may be out of touch with the general feeling of insecurity and perhaps even anxiety in America caused by the classified documents being published by Wikileaks.
My comment was :
I agree with you, but I think that after some time, even classified documents will cease to shock. You might even ask why so many document need to be classified in the first place. Maybe because it's a cushy job for some office of Washington bureaucrats. In any event, the cat's out of the bag, and we're never going to put it back in unless the US government resorts to the Chinese approach of cyber attacks on unfriendly or too-free websites. That smacks of police statism. And it is one of the real dangers vis-à-vis Wikileaks - that these releases will have just the opposite of the intended effect and lead to state policing of all our until-now protected communication. The Federal Communications Commission chairman has just announced that he'll seek new restrictions on internet activities, without, as he promises, curtailing any of our freedoms in using the internet. Watch out below!

Wikileaks Revisited

I just cannot make up my mind where I stand vis-à-vis Wikileaks and its recent efforts to reveal everything we already suspected but couldn't prove about most governments today.
Clearly, there will be substantial outfall for diplomacy. Is that a good or a bad thing? Making diplomats a little more cautious about what they say and how they advise their governments could be a "good." On the other hand, all these revelations might make international cooperation much more difficult because of the fear that every comment will end up on the front page of the New York Times. By and large, on this issue, I don't think Wikileaks makes much difference. Diplomats will do what they have to as their governments make demands on them. Wikileaks' seeming focus on the United States might skew the diplomatic scene for Washington for a time, but not forever. The affairs of state will continue around the world.
The military leaks are of a different nature. And here, I class puportedly diplomatic leaks involving covert operations on the ground in war zones. There will almost certainly be deaths and capture with torture. And, there will be fear. Fear of helping one side or another in the conflict. Fear of being an outcast in one's own country. Fear of death. Fear of being abandoned by the very side one was trying to help. To this, add the idea that such Wikileak revelations could be considered espionage, making their publisher subject to US or other law on the subject. The proof would be rather easy. The real problem would be to get jurisdiction over the person since espionage is not an extraditable offense in many countries, although an unintended consequence of the Wikileaks episode may be that many governments rush to make espionage an extraditable offense. However, for the time being, the "espionage" could continue even after a legal proceeding started. But, here, I am opposed to the publication by Wikileaks, or anyone else.
As for revelations threatened to be coming later, mostly about a major US bank, I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what is revealed and what the reaction is. But it is easy to imagine that Wikileaks will eventually publish embarrassing revelations of a personal nature, thus becoming the latest "L.A. Confidential." We already know how to respond to these leaks. We devour them as the day's candy and then ignore them for the most part.
That brings me to some basic questions: Should an entity like Wikileaks be allowed to exist? Is there any social value in its publication of private or "secret" information?
I will certainly be writing more on these questions as we watch the tale unfold, but here are a few preliminary thoughts.
1. Because of today's technology, shutting down a Wikileaks-like entity permanently will be almost impossible. Governments have already tried to block Wikileaks from internet servers based in their country, and the result has been that Wikileaks jumps to a server in another country. The nature of the internet is that information is free and should be available to everyone. In itself, that is not a bad thing. Information is power, the kind of power people need if they are to be good citizens, alert to the hidden agendas of their governments and ever ready to bend their government back to the purposes it was created to fulfill. That is an eternal and never-ending battle - the freedom and political power of citizens in the face of governments that often lie or badly damage the truth to bend their citizens to the government's will.
2. The social value of information, any kind of information, lies in its ability to improve society, thereby helping ordinary people to live better lives. Technology plays a major role in this. Wikileaks types of entities may be the price we will have to increasingly pay for our freedoms. One day, their "leaks" will be just like the morning news headlines, a "ho-hum" after we have quickly evaluated the quality and real value of the leak.
So, we may be entering a new age of information, but it will undoubtedly not have as dire consequences as we expect from our vantage point today.