"Soft Eyes"

Craig Jerald wonders about the "soft eyes" reference in the title and dialogue of Wire 4.2 -- I don't really get it either. Google does, however, reveal the existence of a book called To Teach With Soft Eyes: Reflections on a Teacher/Leader Formation Experience which is a possible referent.

For all the Wire-blogging you can stomach, check out this site dedicated entirely to the show. On a more substantive note, this here from Sam Harris about how liberals are too soft on terrorism (or something) is totally, utterly, incredibly whack, but MovableType keeps eating by draft posts about exactly how whack it is. Fortunately, Kevin Drum's on the case but as usual he's a bit too nice. Why is Harris perpetrating these smears that he knows perfectly well he has no evidence for? Why is The LA Times publishing them? It's a messed up world.

Comments

I feel kinda silly asking this, but is there an e-mail address that you can be reached at? I can't find one anywhere on your site.
thanks,
andy

Posted by Andy R. | September 18, 2006 1:30 PM

"whack" is something mobsters do to each other. the term you're using is "wack"

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wack

Posted by dave | September 18, 2006 1:53 PM

Matt,

I really couldn’t care les about “The Wire” I have seen a few episodes, not a bad show, but it certainly doesn’t warrant the attention it gets here. I have no political agenda, just a simple soldier who has seen some things in the Balkans, Iraq and Kuwait and have had my thinking shaped by those experiences. Based on that I have to agree with Sam Harris in that liberals have denied the real threat that exists and Kevin Drum falls short in his retort of this assertion.

“It's that broad support that we need to target, and that's why we should focus our efforts on things like public diplomacy, economic engagement, and working seriously with multilateral institutions.”

What I have said all along when I listen to the political banter over the road ahead is, propose a feasible alternate course of action if you do not like how things are going. Kevin has touched several areas to address, how would you approach those areas? Most liberal calls come out as an immediate withdrawal of troops without regard to the consequences or a hard timeline that pays no attention to the situation on the ground. These are absolutely as flawed and undoable as any plan has ever been. The discourse and backlash would be unimaginable not to mention the threat to those of us who would be on the ground executing the withdrawals. So the current course of supporting the Iraqis and drawing down the force in conjunction with them is about the best course out there.

“It's not because liberals don't understand the threat, it's because liberals seem to be the only ones who do understand the threat these days — namely that public opinion in the Muslim world is our biggest problem, and conventional military action only makes this problem worse. Harris has some catching up to do if he wants to join the conversation.”

Again, if liberals see the threat so clearly, why do they not lay it out in a concise manner with a plan of attack that would address it. The liberals need to quit chasing the conservatives around trying to poke holes in their courses of action and sit down to a real threat assessment and course of action development. Encompass all of the facts that they have available and chart a good way ahead, taking into consideration the enemy courses of action as best as they can estimate them do a risk analysis of each course of action. weigh the risk of each course of action against the benefits and choose a preferred course of action. present all courses of action highlighting the preferred course to the American public and be ready to implement and to stand by the decisions they make when things go wrong and assumptions prove inaccurate. Then they become leaders instead of whining denialists.

Posted by Kevin | September 18, 2006 2:34 PM

Kevin, look at the long list of things you are insisting liberals do "in a concise manner". Simply put, your list of demands is long and rambling, and there is no way they can be given a concise answer. Any answers to the questions you ask are tucked away in white papers in think tanks, and probably still aren't detailed enough to satisfy you because, ultimately, you're asking liberals to go to MORE effort to justify changing course than conservatives went to in deciding on the course in the first place. Why should a liberal go to more effort to describe what should be done in a situation that will be totally different by the time he or she takes power than conservatives have to go to implement the policy in the first place?

It is the people who insist that soldiers be put in harms way who should be required to produce evidence that such sacrifice is required or even useful. The course of action you support "supporting the Iraqis and drawing down the force in conjunction with them is about the best course out there" not only has been given far less justification than anything liberals propose, but hasn't even been formally announced as our policy by the President to the people. In other words, the opposition is being vastly more clear about their agenda than the current leadership, and that is exactly the opposite of the way things should be.

We should always insist that incumbent justifies himself, not just demonize the opposition.

Posted by Consumatopia | September 18, 2006 3:20 PM

Consumatopia,
I am not demonizing anybody, The process I outlined is very concise and is used by every Military staff all the way down to the BN level. It is the military decision making process (MDMP) and is very clearly outlined in staff manuals and taught in staff schools. The current courses of action were run through that process of analysis and are revised on a constant basis through the same process. If you want to change directions you have to provide a better course, not just say “This sucks”. If anybody thinks they have better way to move forward they need to step up or shut up. That’s from a guy who has spent a good deal of time executing this action. Believe me, the military is very good to adapting to change, but do it smart, don’t just get emotional and start jumping because this isn’t fun.

Posted by Kevin | September 18, 2006 3:36 PM

Soft eyes: Herc's willingness to not see what his eyes saw in the mayor's office.

Posted by Petey | September 18, 2006 3:42 PM

There was nothing concise about what you're asking for at all. As soon as a liberal tells you what they're going to do and why, you just ask for me details, even though the liberal's vaguest first stab was already far more detailed then the Adminstration's rationale for the curret course of action--(as if they even openly admitted to the American people what the current course of action is). If the military has gone through the evaluation process you describe, they have certainly revealed nothing about it to the public. Given that the evaluation process insists that it be revealed to the public, that suggests that they haven't followed it. There was no serious presentation of risk analysis, there is no serious public admission that their assumptions were totally off-base or acceptance of responsibility for those assumptions, and they certainly did not encompass all facts that were available. In fact, our leaders didn't do anything but get emotional and start jumping because getting emotional and jumping is fun.

There is far more evidence against the current course of action than there is against it.

Morever, the American people should not be asked to evaluate strategies and details, but leaders. We live in indirect rather than direct democracy. The president and Pentagon certainly understand this, which is why they have presented none of the details in support of their strategy that you insist liberals present. The liberals need not declare what exactly they'd do in the current situation, since the situation will be vastly different (at this rate, probably much worse) by the time liberals take charge. All they need to show is that their assumptions are more in tune with reality than those of our current leaders--so that when new situations arise, liberal leaders will be better able to formulate new strategies and tactics against them. And liberals have done a pretty good job of that.

One should always demand more of the powerful than the powerless. Whoever asks for lives to be sacrificed should have to go to the most trouble to justify that loss, but today they give the least.

Posted by Consumatopia | September 18, 2006 4:05 PM

I think Petey's explanation makes the most sense of any I've heard so far...

Posted by flippantangel | September 18, 2006 4:19 PM

Consumatopia,

I am not arguing that the current course is the most effective, but when liberals argue that the current course of action is not effective, they are not giving a serious alternative. Believe me, I do not want the details of a war plan in the public, the press puts too much out there already. But if you want to be taken serious as a leader of military affairs, you need to be able to do the analysis. If you don’t want to “Stay the Course” you had better have an alternate course. You better know the risks associated and be willing to stand up and take responsibility for those risks. If you can’t, then you don’t deserve to lead. I am not saying that a liberal could not lead this nation forward. I am saying they are spending too much time and energy worrying about what went wrong in the past and too little time figuring out a reasonable and responsible way ahead. Don’t tell me what was wrong with the last operation, tell me what you want me to do next. The liberals as a group are far from helpless and they have serious elections very sortly, what direction will they take if they are put in power? If they will simply oppose everything that is being worked now without offering up a better direction - then they will create greater problems and two years from now they will be in a finger pointing battle with the conservatives.
All I am asking for is a better direction if you don't like this one. And unless you think it through they way I lined it out, you won't have a good product. As far as I am concerned I will do my job regardless of which party is in power.

Posted by kevin | September 18, 2006 4:27 PM

Harris is correct to identify the threat posed by religious extremism. He did so with his book and he does so again in this article. The outstanding question is how to address these threats. Racial prejudice may not be perfectly analogous, but I think it offers some insight into the perils of unbridled extremist ideologies on both sides of a conflict. Our own Civil War points out the potential for ideology to lead to violent conflict. How we address religious extremism may well demonstrate what we did or didn’t learn from our own experience.

However, identifying the threat and crafting the solution are two distinct endeavors. Harris clearly identifies the threat but seems more inclined to then pivot and blame liberalism for our inability to confront the issue rather that offer any reasoned solutions. By acknowledging that liberalism is "generally reasonable and tolerant of diversity" and at the same time blaming it for not combating religious literalism is incongruent logic. In reality, liberalism clearly understands the dangers of religious literalism which is exactly why it promotes reasonability and tolerance. Further, that understanding is why liberals believe that the war in Iraq and the war on terror will ultimately require political solutions rather than an ever expanding military strategy.

As world population and a world economy continue to expand, our abilities to prevent the inherent racial, cultural, and religious clashes that come with proximity will become more challenging. Succumbing to the absolutism that accompanies any us/them equation is certain to trigger accelerated conflict. It is essential we refrain from adopting a broad brush strokes mentality. A reactionary strategy is nothing more than the fuel for escalation. In the end, it is individuals who define the differences upon which conflict is predicated…whether they be Islamist, Liberal, or otherwise. It will be the politics of leadership that will eventually bridge the divide.

Read more here:

www.thoughttheater.com

Posted by Daniel DiRito | September 18, 2006 4:44 PM

Daniel DiRito,

Thank you. You have brought out the point I was not making so well. Liberals believe that there needs to be a transition from military solutions to political solutions. OK, we are engaged in a military operation right now, how do we now make that transition without creating a disaster, and how do you approach this political solution in a meaningful way? This is a very dangerous situation and the how, when, where and why of military adjustments have been and will continue to be looked at very closely, from within and from without our nation. If liberals want to take charge they need to have thought through the direction they want to take and be ready to take the lead. If the liberal leaders are up to the task, they are not portraying it in a way that makes me feel safe about executing for them. I will, if that is who the people decide I will be lead by, but I am far more comfortable with the course we are currently pursuing, and I fear that drastic change in leadership will drive the feeling that we need to make sudden, large changes in what we are doing and create a huge mess. More likely in the short term, create an impass where all the political infighting will causse a halt to the progress we are making. Leaving the two sides blaming the other two years from now. The military requires firm leadership from the civil branches, political infighting can get soldiers really dead really fast.

Posted by kevin | September 18, 2006 5:08 PM

If you don't want the war plan made public, than you don't want to follow the instructions that you outlined. For, if the liberal makes his plan public, then wins the election, then haven't you made the nation's post-election war plan public? That's what I never understood about people who insisted Kerry go to more trouble to describe his Iraq plan than Bush in October 2004--surely, at that point, the strategic value of the secrecy of both plans was equal.

Morever, judging what happened in the past--and changing our behavior accordingly--is how we arrive at the best course of action in the present. The administration--and perhaps the military--is operating under flawed assumptions about the utility of armed force. The liberals course of action: change those assumptions. Because flawed assumptions didn't just hurt us in the past--they will continue to hurt us in the future.
The best way to focus on the future is to examine the past.

It's this failure to understand the importance of assumptions that leads so many to mistakes in evaluation candidates. Consider Iran. So many times I hear that liberals need to say exactly what they will do with Iran. Utter madness! Surely whatever course of action we should take in Iran is dependent mostly on the Iranians themselves--will Iran be content to be non-nuclear in exchange for Western carrots, or are they insistent on Armageddon? The answer to that is not yet clear. What I want is not a leader who promises to invade/not-invade Iran, but a leader who will only invade Iran if Iran absolute needs to be invaded. And I have no confidence at all that this describes the current leader.

Posted by Consumatopia | September 18, 2006 5:25 PM

Kevin,

I would like to know why the immediate withdrawl of troops from Iraq is "flawed and undoable," as you claim. What would be the consequences of this action for American soldiers such as yourself? What would be the consequences for America? Please encompass all the relevant facts and give consideration to the enemy's possible courses of action. Back up your rather general assertions that it would be a "huge mess" and a "disaster". For whom? In what way?

What were the consequences to America for withdrawl from Vietnam?

Posted by Just Karl | September 18, 2006 5:38 PM

Most ... Bifurcated ... Blog Post Ever

Posted by Petey | September 18, 2006 5:57 PM

Most ... Bifurcated ... Blog Post Ever

Yup. Petey, would you please join me in keeping the fluffy side of the conversation going?

Posted by flippantangel | September 18, 2006 6:08 PM

His book The End of Faith really sucked. And I'm a staunch atheist. But when he got into either (a) philosophy (despite a supposed undergrad degree in the subject), especially ethics, or (b) terrorism, it was clear that he had no idea what he was talking about. Also, after going on for basically the entire book about how all religion was bad and truth claims should be based on science, he had this weird riff at the end where all of a sudden he's basically like "yeah, but also buddhism is pretty sweet and who knows, maybe there's an afterlife yeah i think there probably is." Basically I don't know why anyone would be interested in his opinion on anything.

Posted by Christopher M | September 18, 2006 8:54 PM

Matt,

Before posting via typepad, select all, copy to notepad and then save a copy there. That way if the server messes up you still have a copy of your draft.

Posted by patience | September 18, 2006 9:20 PM

patience has good advice.

Posted by Consumatopia | September 19, 2006 8:29 AM

That comment about "on a more substantial note", implies that The Wire isn't substantial. I'd thoroughly disagree, as it (and the books that spawned it, particularly The Corner) is about the best treatment of the War on Drugs I've ever seen. It's a hell of a lot better way to spend one's free time than, say, watching the Sunday Morning Atrocities.

And since the memes, tropes, and lines of BS that we see in the War on Terror are pretty much lifted wholesale from the previous "War", it's actually pretty damned relevant.

(I doubt you disagree. It's just that I believe one shouldn't apologize, even obliquely, for something as good as The Wire.)

Posted by Demosthenes | September 19, 2006 11:59 AM

To bring this back to the original topic of the post: Prez has always had a bit of a problem with being hard-eyed, wouldn't you say? (Think of the beginning of S1, and the end of S3...)

Posted by Doctor Memory | September 19, 2006 4:25 PM