Blowback: for every action...

     

Blowback (1) – the escape to the rear of a gun of gases formed by the discharge of a projectile (Funk & Wagnalls, 1963). In 1967 I knew a Marine sergeant at the Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia, who had lost his arm in Vietnam when a 105 mm Howitzer “blew back” on him.  

Blowback (2) – the unintended consequences of well-intentioned actions. “Blowback” was coined by the CIA after the end of the Cold War to describe the unforeseen and harmful effects on US national interests of unwise foreign policy actions. In this piece I broaden the term to describe other profoundly negative reactions to government policy, domestic and foreign.    

First, the attacks of September 11, 2001 were blowback from US actions in the Middle East; which included the continuing, unconditional and uncritical American support of Israel, especially in the light of Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians; the US invasion and ultimate slaughter of thousands of Iraqi Arabs (most of whom were Muslims) in the first Iraq war in 1991; the post 1991 stationing of US forces near Islam’s holiest places in Saudi Arabia; and US support for repressive, dictatorial regimes such as Saudi Arabia. As Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul have said, “They came over here because we were over there.”

            Next, other historical examples of blowback abound: Jim Crow laws, lynching, and the widespread mistreatment of black Americans in the South were blowback from Lincoln’s invasion of the South, his war on civilians where Sheridan’s cavalry slashed and burned in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia while Sherman’s troops burned, raped, and killed their way to the sea in Georgia. And as if the war carnage were not enough, the US government then followed with punitive post war Reconstruction, rubbing Southerners’ noses in defeat. Reconstruction’s strongest champions were vindictive Congressional Republicans like Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, who wanted to punish the South for defending themselves against the foreign invader. 

            Still another example of blowback from history: out of Mr. Wilson’s “war to end all wars,” also his war to “make the world safe for democracy,” came Adolph Hitler and World War II in Europe. With Germany’s defeat in World War I, European leaders insisted that excessive reparations be included in the Treaty of Versailles. Humiliating defeat and unpayable reparations created deep resentment among the German people, making them vulnerable to the demagogic appeals of Hitler.           

And incidentally, John Toland’s Infamy, which chronicles US actions in the Far East in the years before 1941, shows that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was blowback for ill advised actions by FDR and his State and War Departments.

At home, the vast expansion of organized crime throughout the nation was blowback from Prohibition, a well intentioned program advocated by early twentieth century feminists who saw families suffer as their working class husbands left their pay in bars on their way home from work. Clever criminals amassed great wealth by providing illegal booze to thirsty citizens.

            Then we have the blowback from forced busing for integration, which led to the destruction urban schools and the hollowing out of urban society. What was the rationale for forced busing? Housing patterns and neighborhood schools notwithstanding, segregation (de facto segregation) was bad; integration good; therefore, black children and white children must be forcibly mixed together in the schools. Predictably (predictors were called racists), forced integration was followed by middle class white flight from urban areas, followed closely by black middle class flight. Forced busing accelerated the creation of the permanent urban underclass, where poor blacks and other minorities now suffer from violent crime (check out the murder rate in President Obama’s Chicago), where seventy percent of children are born out of wedlock, and where single mothers live in poverty.

It is not unreasonable to assert that pre Civil Rights era urban black populations while worse off materially were better off socially and spiritually than they are now. For example, in the Washington, DC, where I was born and in whose suburbs I lived for many years in the 1940’s and 1950’s, there existed a strong and vibrant black professional middle class, successful black owned businesses, elite black schools like Dunbar, and full black churches every Sunday. Of course, the misery and deprivation many black citizens suffered during those years cannot be overstated, but they nonetheless had stable communities with low crime rates and a high number of intact families. The black out of wedlock birth rate in those years paralleled the white rate.

White House occupants of both parties often follow blowback producing US national security and foreign policies, thinking that unlike their predecessors they will achieve great results; they will fix things once and for a all. Domestic social engineers suffer from the same hubris. One can cite historical examples forever; nonetheless, pride filled leaders and their followers always believe, “This time things will be different” because unlike their historical predecessors, they will get it right.

Blowback is activist big government’s greatest scourge.

           

           

Guns Will Not Go Away

The current gun control debate reminds me of the Nicholas Cage film Lord of War, which accurately and effectively demonstrates, even though it’s fiction, that it’s not only America but the whole world that is armed. The difference is that in America citizens have a legal, that is, a constitutional right to be armed. At the beginning of the film, Cage’s character, an international arms dealer, states that there is an AK 47 Kalashnikov for every twelve people in the world. As a weapons dealer his goal is to arm the other eleven.  

            The AK 47, semi automatic knock offs of which are everywhere, was invented by a Russian sergeant (he was later made a general in the Soviet Army) and is one of the most ubiquitous and most reliable weapons of its type in the world. The Chinese company Norenco manufactures versions of the AK as well as other pistols and rifles, which are sold everywhere. The rifle shoots 7.62x39 bullets, which are available worldwide, but probably in short supply here since the Sandy Hook massacre.

            Recent history shows that the election of liberal Democrats, mass shootings, such as the Gabby Gifford incident in Arizona, the Aurora, Colorado theater massacre, or the Sandy Hook shootings, and also inevitable hysterical and uninformed liberal gun control campaigns, are good for gun and ammunition sales. For example, when Bill Clinton became President in 1993, 7.62x39 semi automatic rifles as well as 7.62x39 cartridges sold rapidly because gun owners feared that Democratic gun grabbers would enact confiscatory gun controls. There followed the semi automatic assault rifle law, a failed attempt to limit magazine size (to ten rounds) and assault weapons sales. Chinese gun makers quickly got around that law by merely making a few cosmetic changes to AK-47 style semi automatic rifles; moreover, thousands of large capacity magazines remained available.

            Later on gun and ammunition sales returned to normal and did not change until the election of Barack Obama, another liberal Democrat who gun owners feared would push for new restrictions on gun ownership, hence ammunition and gun sales exploded and the prices of both rose dramatically.

            This history shows that Americans are not fearful of each other but of government restrictions on gun rights. The rush to buy guns and ammunition after Mr. Obama was elected was not a fearful, hysterical exercise, but a rational decision based on the anti self-defense history of liberal members of the President’s Democratic Party.

Boston and the Joy of Running

In 1969 I was an overweight, out-of-shape, two pack a day smoker who could barely put one foot in front of another without getting winded. I was a Navy submarine sailor who did little other than eat, sleep, drink coffee, smoke, read in my bunk, and stand my watches. Worse, food on submarines in those days was plentiful and very good.

            But then I heard William Talman, the actor who played prosecutor Hamilton Burger on the Perry Mason television show, tell the world in an anti smoking television ad that he was dying of lung cancer. He pleaded, “If you don’t smoke, don’t start, and if you do, quit.” This was five years after the Surgeon General’s report on the dangers of smoking. After the report I had tried from time to time to quit but had failed; but when I heard Talman I turned to my wife, also a heavy smoker, and asked, “How many more people have to tell us?” Talman died a few weeks later.

            After hearing Talman I threw away my cigarettes, replacing them in my shirt pocket with chewing gum and a list of people who had died of smoking related disease; prominent on the list were Talman and the great Nat “King” Cole. Every time I reached into my shirt pocket for a smoke I found the list and the gum. I would read the list and then tear off a small bit of gum. After about a year I no longer needed the list or the gum.

            In addition to quitting smoking, I started to run around my neighborhood in the evenings after work, or when I was at sea and visiting another port, around the streets of that port. For the next four years I ran all over the world, from Plymouth, England, to Barcelona, Spain, to the banks of the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. In 1970 I was transferred to the destroyer Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. and was able to run at sea in good weather around the main deck topside. It was a short run but I did many laps. One evening as we  steamed north of the Arctic Circle, the ship’s Executive Officer saw me running in the gray Arctic dusk and after that called me “The Arctic Flash.”

            From 1969 until 2007 when plantar fasciitis put me on an exercise bicycle, I ran continuously. After leaving the Navy in 1973 I ran in many 10K fun runs at various places. The most enjoyable race I ever joined was the annual Charlie’s Surplus ten mile run through the streets of Worcester, Massachusetts. That was a festive occasion, with the race route closed to traffic and the streets lined several feet deep with cheering people. As in other such races, families and loved ones assembled at the finish line to welcome and congratulate finishers.

            All of this came to my mind on Monday, April 15, 2013, after the terror bombing during the Boston Marathon. Probably the most important of all long distance races, the Boston Marathon gathers runners from everywhere. Many recreational runners train for Boston and the fortunate ones who qualify follow the world class runners who usually finish in less than two and a half hours. The rest take from three and a half to four hours.  But it is a high honor and a great feeling to finish Boston. I have never done a Marathon but I know from my Worcester experience what it’s like to run in a festive atmosphere.

            I was and continue to be deeply saddened by the events of April 15, 2013, because some of the nicest people I have ever known I met at fun runs. At one time I belonged to runners’ clubs in one place or another and would often join 10K or longer fun runs on weekends. The camaraderie among runners before and after the races was an experience I will never forget.

            We should pray for those who suffered on April 15 and celebrate long distance runners everywhere.