An Army of Kagans

While The Weekly Standard has to make do with using Frederick Kagan's wife to write articles proclaiming the Kagan surge plan a success, The Washington Post believes in integrity and trots out brother Robert Kagan to do it instead. Maybe someday we can get Donald Kagan's take on all this. If only the whole world were made up of members of the Kagan family, then maybe George W. Bush would be a really popular president.

At any rate, you're not supposed to mention Robert Kagan in polite professional punditry circles without observing that he's much smarter and a much more honest writer than your average neocon. This pearl of wisdom even has the virtue of being true. Sadly, as Glenn Greenwald exhaustively demonstrates, this really isn't saying very much. For a neocon, he has a great analytic track record on Iraq, which means his track record is horrible rather than, say, horrifyingly horrible. That he gets to slander his employers at the Post in the first graf of his terrible column merely demonstrates how nice it must be to be a conservative . . . well-worked refs are the best refs to have.

Comments

And while we're at it lets not forget that Kagan's book on the Peloponnesian War ain't half as interesting as the one by de Ste. Croix, who's currently being pummeled by Brad Delong -- or is that Eric Hobsbawm?

Posted by Gene O'Grady | March 12, 2007 1:39 AM

Exotically shrill for you, working in Alterman too. Well done.

Posted by Russell L. Carter | March 12, 2007 2:04 AM

Alpha Bravo Nerd

Posted by Trevor | March 12, 2007 3:00 AM

The thing to is how weak the article is. It basically relies on observations by one Iraqi blogger who has, lets say, a bit of a questionable reputation.

Posted by Ben P | March 12, 2007 3:17 AM

Yes, should point out that Omar and Mohammad's
site, Iraq the Model, is widely despised for its
slavish adherence to the Bush admin line, and is
part of the pygama media syndicate.

Posted by tm | March 12, 2007 6:41 AM

We need to hear from Harry A. Kagan, "The Student's Choice."

Posted by Bob M | March 12, 2007 7:56 AM

We need to hear from Harry A. Kagan, "The Student's Choice."

Posted by Bob M | March 12, 2007 7:59 AM

Thanks for mentioning this. I thought the same thing when I saw the paper yesterday. The title should have been: "Bob Kagan defends his brother's surge."

Posted by Castorp | March 12, 2007 8:21 AM

Are we sure all of these Kagans aren't really the same person? I mean, has anyone ever seen all of them together?

Posted by JMo | March 12, 2007 10:21 AM

can't we just conclude, inductively, that everything Yale touches turns to shit?

Posted by Count Cant | March 12, 2007 10:22 AM

Actually Donald Kagan wrote four books on the Peloponnesian War. Fred Kagan might have done well to consult his father's critical take on Nicias, one of the Athenian commanders of the disastrous Sicilian campaign. Nicias wrote to the Athenian assembly requesting an additional levy of troops and ships to be sent to Syracuse in part because he was unwilling to face the facts-- that the Sicilian expedition was a a lost cause. Nicias didn't want to take the blame for the defeat. The Athenians sent the requested surge, only adding to the sum of their losses. From Donald Kagan's Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition (p. 283): "All we know about Nicias leads us to conclude that his true opinion was that Athens should abandon the expedition and withdraw its forces from Sicily. Failing that, he wanted at least to be honorably relieved from the command because of his illness. Had he written a straightforward statement of his belief that the chance of victory in Siciliy was gone, if it had ever existed, and that he saw no alternative to withrawal, the Athenians might have been angry with him, replaced, dishonored, perhaps even punished him."
Incidentally, "Count Cant" (or should it be "Count Cantab"?-- a pseudonym for you, Matthew?) Donald Kagan was a great teacher and brilliant lecturer.

Posted by W. Owens | March 12, 2007 10:59 AM

I know Kagan wrote four (or was it five?) books on the Peloponnesian War, but I was so bored and unimpressed that I gave up after a hundred pages of the first. A decent commentary on Thucydides will tell you more than Kagan and be far more interesting.

However, W. Owens comment on his brilliance as a teacher and lecturer matches what I have heard. Although at least one of my Yale friends has warned me that Kagan was made what he is by his experiences at Cornell in the sixties.

Posted by Gene O'Grady | March 12, 2007 11:08 AM

"That he gets to slander his employers at the Post in the first graf of his terrible column"

Kagan reflects the neocon views of the editorial page.

WP editorial page regularly writes editorials contradicting what is in the news pages of the paper. Recent example; editorials about the Plame case.

Posted by DonB | March 12, 2007 1:36 PM

I would be very surprised if MY ever uses sock-puppets--he seems to be willing to lead with his own chin--but if to my surprise he does use any, I can assure you that I am not one of them.

I like the proposed etymology of my handle, but in fact it's wrong.

As to Kagan's brilliance as a lecturer: it is true that there is a kind of fanatic of one idea who can often wow the undergrads, because (like certain politicians) he combines the rhetoric of authenticity with the sonority of sure conviction. When you are talking to a basically ignorant audience, what persuades is your own certainty, rather than actual evidence or arguments.

These people are usually not very good scholars, and do not even do well teaching advanced classes, when greater subtlety is required.

But I'm glad you liked his intro course.

Posted by Count Cant | March 12, 2007 1:53 PM

I do admire the sonority of your rhetoric, Count Cant: Donald Kagan as that "kind of fanatic of one idea who can often wow the undergrads, because (like certain politicians) he combines the rhetoric of authenticity with the sonority of sure conviction." I mean, WOW-- it's almost like you had been in the classroom yourself! Or maybe had even read one of Kagan's books!

Except that the hypothetical professor of your post doesn't describe Kagan as lecturer or scholar. Indeed, while Kagan regularly wowed ignorant audiences of Yale undergraduates (Is it really NOT you, Matthew-- you Cantab, you?), his critical reading of Thucydides earned him the respect of his peers. A sample review: Thucydides scholar H. D. Westlake writing in Classical Review, on the second book in the series, who reproached Kagan only for his tendency to exaggerate "his indebtedness to other scholars being apparently reluctant to admit the extent of his own originality, which is substantial."

Posted by W. Owens | March 12, 2007 5:58 PM

I recommend you take a good look at the Iraqi bloggers whose opinions Kagan is quoting. When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, these boys preferred to talk about the new Iraqi flag. Now they are touting former CIA asset Iyad Allawi as the next Iraqi leader. They have consistently followed the neocon line since their blog was formed and their blog serves as a Talking Points server for the wingnuts who inhabit the comments.

"Good news from Iraq" stories by these same bloggers - the Fadhil brothers, from the aptly named " " blog - were previously recommended to US reporters by none other than Paul Wolfowitz way back in 2004. In fact, two of the Fadhil brothers even went to the White House to meet with Bush and Wolfowitz in October that year.

The third brother, Ali Fadhil, stayed in Iraq, angrily proclaiming that he and his brothers were being "used" for propaganda purposes. He quit the blog, making accustions against the staff of a US "charity" named Spirit Of America (SoA). He said he and his brothers were offered $300,000 "that we could use to do what we want". When he raised the issue with the CEO of SoA (Jim Hake, who also attended the White House meeting), he was offered "any position I wanted and any salary I would find suitable". All this at a time when Bremer's CPA was "losing" millions of dollars every week.

It seems likely that the SoA charity (now rebranded a "civilian troop-support group") is either a PR front for the neocons or an opportunistic cash-grabbing scam. Supporters include former US Ambassador Mark Palmer, once a speech-writer for Henry Kissinger and now member of the Committee on the Present Danger and Vice Chairman of Freedom House and the Council for a Community of Democracies. Last reports were that Palmer was working with Hake on a new media company, SignalOne, with a focus on Middle East youth.

More here.

Posted by gandhi | March 12, 2007 9:20 PM

I think this misses the point of the Kagan op ed piece - Kagan exists as a denigration attractor. Like a country fair clown sitting over a barrel of water and challenging all comers to pitch the ball and hit the mechanism that will release him into the barrel, Kagan reliably attracts a crowd that flames him in comments. I flame him in comments. I don't even need to read him anymore. I think the real problem is that eventually, unless there is a payoff, people will get tired. The Washington Post surely should offer a hundred bucks to the best Hiatt insulter. Although I have to give him credit for a level of obnoxiousness that, so far, keeps people coming in spite of the lack of payoff. In fact, I'm sorta itching to insult him again, now that I think about it...

Posted by roger | March 13, 2007 12:23 AM

I mean, "to the best Kagan insulter", sorry - I get the neoconfraternity mixed up!

Posted by roger | March 13, 2007 12:25 AM