Don't let this guy spoil your birthday. Which, let me be the first on the blog to say, have a happy one!

-Enrak

No fear of that. Your gift and card arrived on time, btw, thank you. I'll be opening the gift this evening, at which time I'll probably give you a call.

Not if I beat you to it!

Fellow blogger Protein Wisdom is also celebrating a birthday today. But he's older than you (if you can believe that that is possible), though.

I'm not getting the point about his history, or maybe I'm not getting what 'anti-military' means to you. (I get why the article pissed you off, I'm just talking about his history here.) Greenpeace hasn't got anything to do with the military one way or the other, nor does AntiRacismNet or WomensNet. PeaceNet sounds like an anti-war group, but anti-war isn't necessarily anti-military: I hope everyone's anti-war other than when absolutely necessary, and disagreements are just about when it's absolutely necessary.

That record certainly makes him look like a liberal, but it's not evidence that he's anti-military unless all liberals are anti-military.

Perhaps it's just my own prejudices, but in my experience, people who work for left-wing organizations, by and large, don't have too many military personnel on their Christmas card lists. And I trust Armed Liberal's summation of his past work as anti-military.

Not to mention that, just based on what I've read of his writings over the last two days, it sems pretty clear his views on the military are about as stereotypical as you could hope to expect.

Maybe I'm being annoying here, but can you tell me what you mean by anti-military? I'd always assumed that it was ignorant hostility and alienation from the military: thinking of soldiers as something contemptibly different from oneself. And that doesn't seem likely to apply to a veteran.

I know it's tempting to respond by saying 'Read the article, it's obviously anti-military,' and I can completely see that the article would be irritating. And it's a hard question to answer -- if the answer were obvious, at least to me, I wouldn't need to ask it, so if your answer is 'I know it when I see it', that's all I can expect.

But is it possible for you to sum up what you mean when you say someone is anti-military?

I wonder how the ObWi crowd would react if this post were there. Hugh Hewitt wrote something on Arkin a few years ago when Jerry Boykin was making news. You would think that the WA Post folks would have known about Arkin's extremist past.

Happy birthday!

I think anti-militray is fairly easy to spot. Even the soft version. They generally say or write things like "if they studied hard they could do well, but if they didn’t “you get stuck in Iraq.” Veteran or no.

"What bothers me about Arkin is that the Washington Post, one of the two really big newspapers in this country, think that a guy who considers the military 'mercenaries' is a perfect guy to be their military affairs columnist."

But he isn't. He's neither a columnist, nor does he work for the Washington Post newspaper.

Like a lot of people, you're confused about this. It's somewhat understandable, given unfamiliarity with the facts. The Washington Post newspaper and washingtonpost.com are, in fact, two separate companies. They are related, and they share content, but they nonetheless have separate management and separate content.

For example, you'll recall Ben Dommenech's hyper-brief reign as a blogger for washingtonpost.com. He was a blogger for the website, washingtonpost.com. He was not an employee of the Washington Post newspaper, and neither did his blog appear in the paper. (And, of course, he wasn't a "columnist" for them.)

All of this is true of Arkin. He has no column, and is not an employee of the newspaper, but has a blog for the separate company, washingtonpost.com. (See here.)

The Post's main guy on the military is, of course, Thomas Ricks.

Aside from that, I'd urge you to read some of his posts over the years, rather than rely on attacks on him from the right, and a current contremps, to evaluate him (his history is of decades in national security and military analysis, actually; is everyone who has ever worked for a rightish foundation discredited for excessive wingishness, or does that sort of contamination only occur in one direction?).

"Not to mention that, just based on what I've read of his writings over the last two days, it sems pretty clear his views on the military are about as stereotypical as you could hope to expect."

Andrew, would you want to be judged on two day's worth of your blog alone? (Not to mention that you are reading him through a filter of understandable anger, but also that of unfamiliarity with him; I rather suspect you've now read more wordage of hostile interpretations of some words of him, and characterizations of his history, than his own words and record and history.)

"And I'm sure Arkin thinks he deserves great credit for his magnanimous admission that he shouldn't have used the word 'mercenary,' although he doesn't actually go so far as to apologize for doing so. [Update: My mistake. We're actually worse than mercenaries. Mr. Arkin's disdain for the military truly knows no bounds.]"

I'm rather puzzled by this. "I was dead wrong in using the word mercenary to describe the American soldier today" seems fairly straight-forward to me.

Does this help, though?

Mercenary, of course, is an insult and pejorative, and it does not accurately describe the condition of the American soldier today. I sincerely apologize to anyone in the military who took my words literally.

Happy birthday!

The "anti-military" guy:

William M. Arkin, journalist and author of more than ten books on military affairs, is an NBC-TV News military analyst and a consultant to numerous organizations. He was an Army intelligence analyst in West Berlin during the 1970s, a nuclear weapons expert during the Cold War, and pioneered on-the-ground study of the effects of military operations in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan. Arkin's latest book -- Codenames: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World -- was published in January 2005 by Steerforth Press. His Dot.Mil column, launched in November 1998, appeared every other Monday on washingtonpost.com until January 6, 2003. Arkin also wrote a column for the Los Angeles Times from December 2001 until September 2004 (you can read the archives of columns here). Arkin lives in South Pomfret, Vermont.

(There are links I'm not including; click to find them, as interested.)

I'm still trying to get my mind around the supposed distinction between "anti-war" versus "anti-military". If it's merely a matter of abstract logic, as opposed to cultural experience, perhaps it has meaning. As a practical matter, there probably aren't many entrenched anti-war types who are pro-military ("hey, let's take the local Greenpeace chapter over to Fort Bragg!") I suppose there's little anti-war aversion toward the military if it's not engaged in battle. But at the point of conflict, it's hard to imagine anti-war folks embracing fighters. It's a subjective test, akin to Jeff Foxworthy's "redneck" standard- you know you're anti-war if you see chap in uniform and feel disgust, contempt, anger or fear.

Liz,

I'm curious why you would think a veteran couldn't be anti-military? Beyond the obvious fact that Arkin is a veteran and certainly appears to rank military personnel somewhere between (below?) rapists and murderers, veterans are much like the rest of the population, no two alike. I find it quite unremarkable that Mr. Arkin could have served his four years (particularly during a very ugly time for the Army) and concluded that his fellow soldiers were poor samples of humanity. When we experience something is a big factor in how we think about it, after all. I think that is why John Kerry and Charlie Rangel tend to assume that military personnel are there because they don't have another choice: Kerry and Rangel only served because they had to. Arkin's view of the military is almost certainly tainted by the fact he served when the Army was at its lowest point.

All of which doesn't necessarily answer your question, I suppose. I would define anti-military much as you did, however: people who reflexively think the worst of the military.

To the article in particular, these are two of the egregiously anti-military points I observed: Arkin's argument that all soldiers should be grateful they haven't been tarred with the brush of Abu Ghraib and Haditha and calling us 'mercenaries.' Both of those seemed like little more than attempts to smear all service members, and I consider them decidedly anti-military. I hope that helps.

Charles,

I think I can predict how the ObWi crowd would react.

Hilary,

Thank you.

Gary,

Read the next paragraph after Arkin's 'concession' and it becomes clear that he is retracting 'mercenary' in order to make a more damning claim. As for your placement of anti-military in scare quotes, that is, of course, your privilege, but remember that dismissal of a soldier's perspective the next time you're complaining that the military leans to the right.

And thank you.

ck,

Personally, I'm pretty strongly anti-war. But I know that there are occasions (Iraq not being one of them) when you have to fight, and so I am a believer in a competent military. I think it's quite possible to be anti-war without being anti-military. But it comes down to the difference between people who are thoughtfuly anti-war and those who are reflexively anti-war, like humanity's parasites, the pacfists.

Andrew- I understand your reaction here. I had much the same reaction when I first saw Gov. Owens going after Ward Churchill and treating him as somehow representative of academics as a group. Nor am I likely to forgive either him or David Horowitz anytime soon for their contempt for an institution to which I am dedicated.

I also know that my reactions are not entirely rational, and that I have a laundry list of my own criticisms for the academy. I'd be off-base if I decided that government is anti-education or that Coloradans hated higher education because they elected Owens, though I might be nearer the truth if I said that the average Coloradan pays lip service to the idea of higher education while doing nothing whatsoever to back up that lip service when it comes to any personal sacrifice.

Is this a fair analogy?

I think you are reading too much into your assessment of the media. They aren't anti-military any more than they are anti-education. They are pro-circulation, and indifferent to the institutions we both care about when it serves their advertisers and their bottom line.
I agree with you, however, that Arkin is a tool.

nous,

I don't think the media is anti-military. I do thing that they tend to hit from the left side of the plate, though, and those subsets do overlap (although there's a great deal of dispute regarding the degree of convergence). I do concur that they are definitely pro-circulation and will generally do things to boost that regardless of their politics.

In any case, I don't think that the average reporter hates the military. I suspect that I'd be more likely to find anti-military personnel folk among the media than I would in the general population, though.

But, as I've noted many times when discussing the media, this isn't the kind of thing you can prove to anyone's satisfaction, so there's little point in debating it. The bottom line, for me, is that I would like to see big media like the Post do more to find good military reporters rather than relying on people like Arkin.

I don't know much of anything about Arkin -- the two columns you reference have problems.

But its not much of a foundation from which to then start making pronouncements about liberal media or anti-military media. Reminds me of your recent contention that the last 30 years of history was not enough data from which once could make judgments about the budget proclivities of Republican and Democratic presidents.

The Washington Post (both paper and dotcom versions) have plenty of knee-jerk right wingers. What does it all mean?
______

You make a good point about how plenty of military people are anti-war, and too many people assume the opposite. Some of out most famous quotes about the depravity of war come from our military people. I would posit that a good deal of the difficulty of our current situation derives from too much of the Bush administration being run by non-military types (Cheney, et al.) and not enough Powells.

dmb,

This is a formal warning. I have been very forgiving in ignoring your constant smearing of my words. I am no longer in a forgiving mood. If you misrepresent me one more time, you will be banned. I will not waste further bandwidth on comments that are nothing but lies.

You're correct, Andrew, that the "anti-war" tag, if taken out of its commonly-used political/cultural context, can be applied to nearly all of us; there are very few Pattons out there. But the tag has cultural meaning. Most of us recognize the usual suspects on the anti-war fringe. Redefining the term doesn't add much. In an abortion context, for example, nearly all people are "pro-life" in a generic sense- few endorse wholesale, indiscriminate killing. I suppose pro-choicers (myself included) could try to co-opt the "pro-life" tag as its own, but apart from muddling its commonly used meaning, I'm not sure how this would advance the debate.

I'm totally in agreement, by the way, that war is sometimes (hopefully rarely) a necessary evil.

I should add that your definition of reflexively anti-military" ("people who reflexively think the worst of the military") was exactly what I was trying to convey in my clumsy Jeff Foxworthy metaphor. Thanks for framing it more clearly.

dmbeaster: "I don't know much of anything about Arkin -- the two columns you reference have problems."

They are not "columns." How many times do I need to point this out? (It might be helpful if bloggers would post corrections about this error of fact.)

"Most of us recognize the usual suspects on the anti-war fringe."

That's not particularly clear to me. There are huge distinctions between, say, ANSWER, the Quakers, and the hundreds of millions of Americans with huge doubts about the Iraq war, or the majority of Americans who concluded that the Vietnam War was a tragic mistake. There are, of course, countless people whose views lie somewhere between those first three groupings. But what you consider "the anti-war fringe," I could only guess at. Fringes, like most things, tend to look much larger close up than from a distance.

And I certainly don't see any contradiction between being "pro-military" if that means thinking it's wise and prudent to have a capable and strong military, and not to mention taking an interest in military history and military affairs, and liking soldiers and military folks just fine, and yet thinking that war should be a very last resort, and generally only reluctantly agreeing it's necessary in the most extreme cases, and thus being "anti-war."

I think that describes quite a lot of folks, to one degree or another, myself. It certainly describes me. (And it's not clear to me that dmbeaster was saying anything other than that.)

The funny thing about this Arkin kerfuffle, by the way, is that for the several years I've been reading him, up to now all the complaints I've seen about him have come from leftwing bloggers, denouncing that vile militarist, pro-military, pro-war, right-wing guy Arkin. (A view that I've found to be similarly based on a few out of context sentences and paragraphs, rather than actual familiarity with his views and posts.)

When I say "funny," I don't mean to be making light of your feelings, Andrew, of course, or of anyone else's, or of the fact that Arkin obviously stuck his foot in his mouth, and said some things that, taken in isolation, it's understanable to take offense at and be angry with. Just a bit of further context.

They are not "columns."

Yes, but it's so much fun to see you get worked up about these things, Gary. I know you're familiar with the differences between columns and essay and editorials and opinion pieces, but to the vast majority of us, those phrases are interchangeable. So it's kind of fun to see you get excited about it.

However, because you're a friend, I'll go post a correction.

As for Arkin, I stand by my assessment above. I am firmly of the belief that you get to know someone best when you get them mad. Arkin got mad, and what he said made it pretty clear how he feels about the military.

Gary, here's what I don't understand. We can sit here all day and parse the admittedly clumsy "anti-war" tag. Yet, when someone on the left says "religious right", very few are confused about what this means or to whom it refers. There is rarely cry for definitional fine-tuning and certainty.

I don't think most of most Democrats as "anti-war"- most supported Afghanistan, for example. Your self-description doesn't put you in that category. But can't we agree that there are some leftist fringe groups who are traditionally anti-war, as that term is commonly used?

Sorry- I promise to use 'preview' next time.

Marc Danziger just wrote this, "the problem I have with much of the progressive antiwar left- the soil from which Mr. Arkin sprung- is that the fundamental challenge to them remains maintaining a 'moral challenge' via-a-vis the U.S. and the West. It's liberation theology, writ small."

"Yes, but it's so much fun to see you get worked up about these things, Gary. I know you're familiar with the differences between columns and essay and editorials and opinion pieces, but to the vast majority of us, those phrases are interchangeable."

It's the difference between being published by a huge newspaper, and not being published by a newspaper at all. And the difference between hundreds of thousands of dollars of income per year from your column, such as that which Thomas Friedman or David Broder, or other actual columnists for actual major newspapers make, and also therefore getting regularly invited onto Meet The Press, and the like, and having a blog, Andrew.

But if you say you've haven't noticed any significant differences between the influence, power, and attention, of a blog, and a newspaper column, well, okay.

"Yet, when someone on the left says
'religious right', very few are confused about what this means or to whom it refers. There is rarely cry for definitional fine-tuning and certainty."

In point of fact, I've a number of times asked people what they specifically were referring to with that term, as well. I'm not saying that in either case is it always necessary, or anything close to that. But in neither case are the usages, and sets demarcated, remotely universally agreed upon and shared, so far as I've noticed.

"But can't we agree that there are some leftist fringe groups who are traditionally anti-war, as that term is commonly used?"

Yes. But I don't see how that changes my point that there are substantial differences between ANSWER members and, say, Quakers, and that whether or not someone is referring to a set that includes both isn't always initially clear. Personally, I respect Quakers (while being glad not every American is one), but not ANSWER supporters, so I find this an important distinction, although it's only one among a number.

As a rule, I tend for vote for clarity over blurry confusion. So I tend to, as a rule, disfavor using sweepingly broad terms that make for the latter, rather than the former.

Your last sentence is well-taken, Gary, and gives me pause to examine some of my comfortableness with broad political generalization. (Your position here is similar to Andrew's, who often chastises his readers on this subject). I suppose part of my response is that politics is an imprecise science, lending itself to generalization. So I'm usually untroubled by political and cultural shorthand. Still, I understand your impulse toward clarity.

As for the difference between ANSWER and the Quakers, the former is a leftist anti-war group, the latter is a conservative anti-war group. A huge difference, yet both fall under the "anti-war" umbrella. That being said, I don't think the clarity of the "anti-war" umbrella (as used in Liz's comment above) is confused much by the Quakers, given their nominal size vis-a-vis groups like ANSWER. It seems more like a minor debating point rather than a substantive issue.

But if you say you've haven't noticed any significant differences between the influence, power, and attention, of a blog, and a newspaper column, well, okay.

Yep, this pretty much sums up why you can't be taken seriously, Gary. There's no difference between a blog that I publish on my own and a blog that's posted on one of the two major newspapers in the United States' web site. A blog's a blog. Whatever. I'm not going to waste any more time on dealing with someone who appears interested in nothing more than twisting the facts to support his case. Perhaps you'd do better at DU. I'm sure they'd be open to that kind of 'argument.'

Andrew:

This is a formal warning. I have been very forgiving in ignoring your constant smearing of my words. I am no longer in a forgiving mood. If you misrepresent me one more time, you will be banned.

How did I misrepresent you or smear you? I looked at my post, and only saw this as being prickly toward you: Reminds me of your recent contention that the last 30 years of history was not enough data from which once could make judgments about the budget proclivities of Republican and Democratic presidents.

That was based on this comment by you in your 12/22 post "Why Facts Don't Matter:"

Your analysis seems terribly simplistic. Yes, the figures do show that the deficit goes up more under Republicans than Democrats. Your sample for that is five Republican Presidents and two Democratic Presidents. That's a dismally small sample size.

I had no intention of smearing you and think my statement is an accurate summary of your prior point. And the issue here is the utility of using Arkin articles as a sufficient data set to make general pronouncements about "liberal media."

You never seem to have any intention of smearing me, yet somehow your conclusions always misrepresent what I've said. I don't particularly care if it's a matter of your being remarkably clumsy or intent, I'm not prepared to put up with it on my own site any longer. This isn't a matter for debate, nor am I prepared to clutter up my comments discussing it. Do it again, and you're gone. End of story.

"There's no difference between a blog that I publish on my own and a blog that's posted on one of the two major newspapers in the United States' web site. A blog's a blog."

I didn't say that, because, of course, it isn't true. Yes, there are, of course, significant differences between blogs, and between those that are independent and those that are on a major newspaper site. However, major newspaper sites are now adding blogs by, in some cases, the dozens. I'd question the assumption that any given blog at a major newspaper is better known and more read than, say, an Instapundit, or a Daily Kos.

And I'd directly question any suggested equivalence in readership, prestige, influence, or any other measure, of a blog on a newspaper site, and their columnists. Newspapers, such as the Washington Post and New York Times have between 5-6, or so, regular columns. Period, end of story. They are the most valuable opinion-making positions in the world. As I noted, the handful of people with such columns are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, appear on national television constantly, and are internationally famous and influential. Thus the literal handful of people we both know and can name: Friedman, Krauthammer, Hoagland, Dowd, Broder, and the other fewer than a dozen people at both those newspapers.

In contrast to these world-famous people, you never heard of Bill Arkin before last week, so far as I can tell. And I am willing to bet that you can't possibly name all the bloggers who are currently on either the New York Times.com site or the Washingtonpost.com site. (I certainly couldn't name them all, off the top of my head, given how many have been added of late; maybe I'm wrong, and you can, though.)

The differences between mere bloggers on a major newspaper site, and a major newspaper columnist, are simply gigantic, by just about any measure.

I don't know anything unreasonable about these points, and I regret that whatever I said make you feel that somehow this is unimportant or dismissable.

It's up to you whether you want to "waste time" on me, of course, or conclude that I am "twisting the facts to support his case." Though I did have the impression that that sort of charge was something your posting rules forbid.

Perhaps it's just vigorous argument, though.

Regardless, I'm sorry you feel that way. I'll take your statements as indicating that you would prefer me to stop commenting on your blog, and shall comply, as I did in the past, the last time you gave me that clear impression.

Be well, and take care.

You never seem to have any intention of smearing me, yet somehow your conclusions always misrepresent what I've said.

If you don't want to discuss it here, then send me an email as to how it is that I misrepresented what you have said. I quoted your words to explain it -- how have I gotten it wrong to cause such offense?

Disregard, dmbeaster. I don't think there's much hope of communication here. Our perspectives are simply too disparate to reach each other.

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