Tom Sowell's World

I generally enjoy Thomas Sowell, but what I can only suppose was intended to be an ode to D-Day vets is a downright loopy read. In the course of a fairly unhinged rant against the Geneva Convention, the ACLU, and "world opinion" and, I think, in favor of pre-emptive nuclear attack on Iran and North Korea, Sowell declares:

It is impossible to fight a war without heroism. Yet can you name a single American military hero acclaimed by the media for an act of courage in combat? Such courage is systematically ignored by most of the media.

Sowell forgets Sgt. Paul Smith, Medal of Honor recipient. Here's the St. Pete Times' stellar four-part interactive story on Smith's life and death, published several months after he fell and almost a year and a half before he received the nation's highest military honor. Here's USA Today covering Smith's loss, along with that of several other servicemen, five days after he sustained a fatal head wound holding off an Iraqi brigade:

Like any good military man, Paul Smith had a plan: become a professional soldier and have a family.

He completed both missions long before he was killed in action Friday at age 33.

Smith, a 14-year Army veteran and father of two, enlisted shortly after graduating from Tampa Bay Technical High School in 1989. Within a year, he was in the Gulf, serving in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. Later, he went to another of the world's hot spots, Bosnia.

"He had his life mapped out since he was 18," his stepfather, Donald Pvirre, told The Tampa Tribune. "That's what he wanted to do."

He did it well. Pvirre said Smith had "earned medals from all over."

"He did not die in vain, and we know that," Smith's sister, Lisa DeVane, said in a statement released by the family.

He served with pride, honor and integrity, DeVane said. "Paul made it clear that it was his privilege to lead 25 of America's finest soldiers into war and that he was prepared to do whatever it took to ensure their safe return home."

Here's the Tribune following Smith's widow, Brigit, to Washington to receive his medal. Here's the Blogs for Bush take on the event and some video from local TV and The Washington Post story, too. They all covered it.

Here's coverage of Brigit Smith, born in Germany, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance as she along with 300 others at the Tampa Civic Center become U.S. citizens. "It's unbelievable how people come up to me, strangers, they just come up to me and cry," she says.

From just the other day here's the fifth-grade graduation of David Smith, Paul's son, from Sunray Elementary in Holiday, Florida. The Pasco County school district unveiled a plaque that will sit at the base of school's flagpole. It reads: "In Memory of Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, Medal of Honor Recipient, Loving Father of David A. Smith, Sunray Elementary School, Graduate, Class of 2005."

Sorry, Tom. That "systematically ignore" memo must've itself been ignored.

Comments

[Jim Walsh]

Can you name a single American military hero acclaimed by the media for an act of courage in combat?

Pat Tillman...

Jessica Lynch...

And speaking of Ms. Lynch, how about the folks involved in her rescue? I recall seeing Diane Sawyer gushing all over them...

Tom Sowell used to be a great read. Lately, he's turned into jus another mouthpiece for the neocon administration. I'd expect this kind of shit from Ann Coulter, but Sowell? I'm genuinely disappointed; I always thought he was capable of better.

[Vanya]

A lot of genuine combat heroes don't really want the media fawning over them and intruding in their lives. My father-in-law performed genuine heroic deeds at Monte Altuzzo in WWII and I don't think he would have relished having Barbara Walters or someone like that poking a camera in his face.

[Stevo Darkly]

In the course of a fairly unhinged rant against the Geneva Convention, the ACLU, and "world opinion"

Just to make sure we don't foster a false impression, Sowell's reference to the Geneva COnvention was in the context of it "the Geneva Convention [being wrongly] invoked to protect people who are excluded from protection by the Geneva Convention" -- that is, free-lancers who don't follow the laws of war vs. uniformed enemy troops. That part of the essay was no more loopy than, say, ranting about the ADA being misused to keep an employer from firing a surly employee who's rude to customers because the employee has a "personality disorder."

[biologist]

SHHHHHH!

Jeff, you're ruining the narrative about the America-hating liberal media, shut up!

[thoreau]

Stevo, your message is offensive to people with Knee-Jerk Offendedness Disorder. As per the ADA they can sue you and Reason.

🙂

[Rick Barton]

Well, Sowell is always interesting and strong on domestic policy anyway.

[Shem]

That part of the essay was no more loopy than, say, ranting about the ADA being misused to keep an employer from firing a surly employee who's rude to customers because the employee has a "personality disorder."

On it's face, I agree with that statement, but the problem is, the counter-argument in question is generally used to gloss over the fact that often the people we lock up as "terrorists" are either petty criminals or just ordinary citizens who had the wrong name/were in the wrong place/etc.

[Dave]

Jim Walsh in reply to Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch...

Jessica Lynch got captured after the humvee she was riding in crashed. She never even fired a round.

Pat Tillman was killed in a fratricide incident.

No doubt they were both good soldiers but they did not commit serious acts of heroism. They did recieve a ton of media coverage. It took SFC Paul Smith two years to earn the medal of honor. The media doesn't work that slowly...

Anyway here are some stats on why there aren't any real heroes who recieve media coverage these are the military's top two awards:

CMH recipients since Vietnam:
SFC Paul Smith 3rd ID Iraq April 2003 (see link above)
MSG Gordon Detachment Delta Somalia October 1993
SFC Shughart Detachment Delta Somalia October 1993

Distinguished Service Cross/Navy Cross since Vietnam:
USA: One award: MAJ Mark E. Mitchell 5th SF November 2001
http://www.homeofheroes.com/verify/0_DSC/dsc_waronterror.html
USN and USMC: 10 total Navy Crosses for OEF and OIF
USAF: Two Air Force Crosses both for OEF

Alright from slate.com:
Start with the variance among the military branches. The Air Force awarded 2,425 Bronze Stars and 21 Silver Stars from March 2002 to August 2004 for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. As of July 31, 2004, the Army had awarded 17,498 Bronze Stars and 133 Silver Stars in Operation Iraqi Freedom. And the Marine Corps has awarded just 701 Bronze Stars and 12 Silver Stars. (http://slate.msn.com/id/2107438/)

Why aren't there any heroes in the media for OEF and OIF the answer is that most of the people who earn CMH or a Air Force Cross/Navy Cross/Distinguished Service Cross will die while performing the actions that earn the award. While the Marines don't give away the small medals as much they are much more likely to give out the Navy Cross to SEALS and Devil Dogs than the Army is to give the Distinguished Service Cross to its soldiers.

On the other side of the coin the Military is handing out Bronze Stars like candy. From personal experience I can tell you that unless he is a complete fuck-up a Field Grade Officer who deploys to a combat zone in the Army will get a Bronze Star just for showing up.

The Military awards system is fucked up. The nature of warfare has changed in the past fifty year people no longer lead charges head on into machine gun nests and force no longer need to sacrifice hundreds of men to seize one hill. How can the media recogonize heroes in the War on Terror if the military can't do it?

In closing its alright to disagree on Thomas Sowell but WTF the guy always writes well researched and easy to read books that advance free minds and free markets and you have to resort to splitting hairs with him. (Sorry I have a soft spot for him he turned me on to Economics and the common sense that the LP stands for. There is no way in hell Sowell is a "NEOCON", he isn't a politician he is an Economist.)

[Syd]

But the question was:

"It is impossible to fight a war without heroism. Yet can you name a single American military hero acclaimed by the media for an act of courage in combat?"

Tillman and Lynch were both acclaimed by the media when their stories came out, then it turned out that their accomplishments were exaggerated through no fault of their own.

[Dave]

Next time I need to read the article before posting...

Subpar work for Sowell
🙁

[Adam]

Two parts nationalism, one part fearmongering, shake and pour.

Amateur effort from a pro.

[Chairman Moe]

Thomas Sowell's articles are hit and miss. He's written some great books, but sometimes his columns seem kind of like he threw together a half-thought-out rant at the last minute. He is getting kind of old, and he's still writing books ... perhaps he reserves most of his effort and concentration for those. The columns are just a side thing that probably aren't that important to him.
I have a soft-spot for him too, Dave. His best work really does succeed in presenting very clear, very readable, and very persuasive arguments. He's an economist, yes, but reading his articles, I think it's fair to conclude that he pretty much supports the Bush Administration. Whether that makes him a Neocon, I don't know, but I rarely see him writing anything that is particularly critical of the President or the Republicans (And there's plenty they've done that one would expect him to disapprove of). Usually the villians in his pieces are the Democrats and/or the left in general.

[Chap]

I hope you take a deeper look at this--because it might change your initial reaction.

Check out Mudville Gazette (dot com) for a more convincing version of such an argument. The Mudville guys' point is more that heroism used to be prominent in national papers, not as a local interest item only when an event as big as the MOH is awarded. The Florida paper did great work, but acts such at Smith's, or 1LT Brian Chontosh, or the blogger with a Silver Star for Falluja, or any number of gripping, newsworthy acts don't get a tenth the coverage of the woman missing in Aruba.

Given the constant drumbeat of failure messages we see, it's especially frustrating when things that a military member sees as important gets drowned out.

[fyodor]

I'm with Rick, only I'll narrow it further to economics. That's Sowell's field of expertise, after all, so it's small surprise it's what he's best at writing on. Outside that, his partisanship gets the better of him.

[Stevo Darkly]

I generally admire Sowell, actually. I'd say that the people who've had the most impact on the evolution of my political philosophy are (in approximate chronological order of my encounters with their work):

- Jerry Pournelle (as an essayist)
- George Orwell (via 1984 and various wartime essays)
- Thomas Sowell (various books and columns in the 1980s)
- Virginia Postrel (mostly via pieces in REASON)
- David D. Friedman (via The Machinery of Freedom and his Web site)

(It's probably a coincidence that most of their names rhyme.)

A decent, albeit 18 years old, article about Thomas Sowell here. (I can't vouch for the character of the hosting site, vdare.com -- ethnocentrism makes my skin crawl -- but FYI the article originally appeared in Forbes.)

[thoreau]

I'm not familiar with the full scope of Sowell's work, but his syndicated columns of the past few years have struck me as partisan screeds rather than reasoned analysis. He may very well be providing reasoned analysis in other venues, but his columns are mostly about how people to the left of him are always wrong, and the paramount duty of any wise and good person is to oppose them.

Maybe I'll try some of his books and see if he gets better.

[CAT_Violations]

Stevo-

Contrary to the views of some political operatives, the Geneva Convention applies to everyone. "Enemy Combatant" is a manufactured term.

[Chairman Moe]

thoreau,
Yeah, that's about my take on his columns too. He's always been what conventional wisdom would characterize as fairly conservative. But one thing that's good about his best books is the way he generally eschews using terms like "conservative" and "liberal" -- he comes up with his own terms: "The anointed," "deep thinkers," "cosmic justice," etc. This may strike one as kind of pretentious at first, but I think in doing so, he makes his arguments more pallatable to those who might be inclined to disagree with him. The words "liberal" and "conservative" are laden with such ambiguous meanings, especially to people who don't really read and/or think about political issues/ideas too much. I know plenty of people who identify themselves as one or the other, but, if pressed, would be hard-up to clearly define what either one means. By not using them, Sowell is able to take a critical look at a lot of government policy and conventional wisdom without raising anybody's partisan hackles as much as if he wrote "the liberals do this, the left does that, and they suck."
He frames the argument in a much more libertarian fashion (and I don't remember him ever using that particular "l-word"): "Be very skeptical of those who claim that they have the solutions to life's problems and if only we gave them power over us, they would legislate and enforce those solutions. Here's why ..."

I live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I'm a musician. Most people I hang out with would definitely call themselves "liberal." If I wanted to introduce any of them to (what they would consider) a more "conservative" point of view, the two authors I'd recommend would be Thomas Sowell and P.J. O'Rourke. Not necessarily because I think they'd agree with all of their arguments (I don't myself), but because I think those two writers would be much more likely than Republican shills like Limbaugh or Hannity to make them actually seriously take the arguments into consideration. Sowell for the reason I described above and O'Rourke, well, because he can be fucking hilarious. A sense of humor about a lot of the absurdity that goes on in the world is important to us kids these days -- there's a reason The Daily Show is really popular right now.
Has anyone ever heard Sean Hannity trying to be funny? It's excrutiating ...
Anyway, my point, after that long-winded tangent, is that it's disappointing that Sowell's columns nowadays are so partisan and one-sided. He's becoming just another shill.

[js]

"It is impossible to fight a war without heroism. Yet can you name a single American military hero acclaimed by the media for an act of courage in combat? Such courage is systematically ignored by most of the media."

What does he want from the media anyway? More puff pieces on military acts of heroism? Such articles would of course read like pure propaganda, no matter how true they were. And they would read like propaganda because focusing on the glory of individual acts of courage in war is irrevelant. It only distracts from the big picture.

The big picture is, of course, the overall justness or unjustness (not to mention the effectiveness) of a war. I don't doubt there has been some heroism in every war that ever was (and on both sides of every war that ever was) but the point of wars is not heroism. Countries don't declare wars so that people can do heroic things. The point of wars is whether they are accomplishing their goals and if the goals were worth declaring and continue a war for in the first place. To determine this, certain facts on both sides of the issue may be relevant. The heroism of the soldiers however is not.

[Stevo Darkly]

Dr. Thoreau --

I think Sowell's columns have always tended to be more polemical in tone, while his books -- at least the ones I've read -- are more scholarly in tone, without the sarcasm and other rhetoric you'll find in his columns.

The books I remember reading and liking are The Economics and Politics of Race; Preferential Policies; Ethnic America; and A Conflict of Visions. The last was probably the driest but also one of the most insightful, when it came to understanding the political views of people I disagree with. I haven't read his more recent books.

[Stevo Darkly]

Stevo- Contrary to the views of some political operatives, the Geneva Convention applies to everyone. "Enemy Combatant" is a manufactured term.

Realllly? It truly is my impression that the Geneva Conventions only apply to the uniformed soldiers of the nations that are signatories to the conventions -- not "everyone."

FYI, the site http://www.genevaconventions.org/ provides a fairly detailed overview of the Geneva Conventions and it notes the following (emphasis in bold added):

The Geneva Conventions and supplementary protocols make a distinction between combatants and civilians.

The two groups must be treated differently by the warring sides and, therefore, combatants must be clearly distinguishable from civilians.

Although this obligation benefits civilians by making it easier for the warring sides to avoid targeting non-combatants, soldiers also benefit because they become immune from prosecution for acts of war.

For example, a civilian who shoots a sholdier may be liable for murder while a soldier who shoots an enemy soldier and is captured may not be punished.

In order for the distinction between combatants and civilians to be clear, combatants must wear uniforms and carry their weapons openly during military operations and during preparation for them.

The exceptions are medical and religious personnel, who are considered non-combatants even though they may wear uniforms. Medical personnel may also carry small arms to use in self-defense if illegally attacked.

The other exception are mercenaries, who are specifically excluded from protections. Mercenaries are defined as soldiers who are not nationals of any of the parties to the conflict and are paid more than the local soldiers.

Combatants who deliberately violate the rules about maintaining a clear separation between combatant and noncombatant groups -- and thus endanger the civilian population -- are no longer protected by the Geneva Convention.

[Stevo Darkly]

PS: I just looked at some of Sowell's books on amazon.com and it looks like the title Preferential Policies: An International Perspective is out of print, but the current Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study sounds like it's the exact same book.

[Classic Liberal]

If you only read one of Sowell's books, make it Knowledge and Decisions, generally considered to be his magnum opus.

And Stevo, Affirmative Action Around the World is not a rehash of Preferential Policies. They're very different books.

[David Woycechowsky]

I think that the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth forced some interesting issues about what heroism is in the context of a modern large army fighting a small army or insurgents.

The media had coverage of a videotape of a US military person shooting to death an enemy person in a mosque. The enemy person was apparently injured, but potentially could have been armed as a sort of human trap. Does this count as coverage of heroism by the media? Is this what Sowell wants more of?

[SY]

Grab twenty people at random. Ask them who Paul Smith is. I'll bet you that the results will be zero correct. Now ask them who Lyndie England is. You'll probably get ten correct. Hey, I read newspapers and watch the news and I never heard of Smith before (shame on me). I'll let someone else do the exercise of counting relative Google hits between these two people, but I'll bet that it's a 10 to one ratio.

Why do you think that is? Maybe Sowell has a point.

[SFC SKI]

So the St Pete Times, a local paper for all purposes, did a very good amount of coverage on a local Soldier who happens to be the only Medal of Honor awardee in over 10 years, I'd expect nothing less. Out side of USA Today, I don't recall seeing much national coverage, and definitely in smaller anounts than I have seen regarding the war. The generalization that you rarely see press coverage of Soldiers if they are being buried, or on charges of abuse. Coverage of Soldiers' positve acts or heroism does not have to be puff pieces, but the coverage of the war is overwhelmingly negative, and that is not really telling the whole story, is it?

[Mike H.]

No, Ski, it's really not.

[Jeff A. Taylor]

You are being obtuse Ski. Take the localized coverage of Smith and apply it across the nation to other local servicemen and women, correct for MoH status, and there is simply no way positive stories are absent. I've seen a half-dozen variations on the school-supplies for Iraqi kids story alone.

Then there was the two-hours of prime-time ABC gave PFC Lori Piestewa and her story during Extreme Makeover Home Edition. They even tossed in Navaho code-talkers and a VFW post. Duty. Honor. County. For millions of eyeballs.

The bad, bad, media is losing Iraq just does not float.

[Dynamist]

From reading the comments but not the article, it feels like SY is closest to my own experience. Perhaps Sowell exagerrates for rhetorical effect, but I see plenty of news and haven't heard of Smith. The examples cited here of national coverage are trivial compared to the national coverage of abuse and tragedy.

How does it work conversely? Are there local stories about abusive soldiers, or is that angle the province of national outlets? Maybe heroes are local and tragedy national.

From the anti-Sowell tone here, it seems many posters might be missing his point, and jumping on his language to grind their own axes.

js: In 4G Warfare (like terrorism) a significant part of the battle is fought in the minds and spirit of the enemy. How USA and its allies feel about the war and their soldiers is probably the major front on which the small force attacks the larger one. Al-Q can't win in combat, but if they convince us that we're losing an immoral war, they don't have to win in combat. It is genius to turn the democratic impulse of disclosure upon itself. I don't see a "solution". To ignore abuse and publish only patriotic fluff destroys us, too. First, we must be aware of how we are being manipulated from afar with the same diligence we guard against manipulation from within.

[Shem]

SY- pull 20 people off the street, and 15 of them will be able to tell you who Jessica Lynch is. In fact;

Google hits for "Lyndie England"- 9,130
Google hits for "Jessica Lynch"- 195,000

The two faces of the war in Iraq. Not scientific or indicative of terribly much, but it still makes something of a statement when the Pentagon's "hero" gets more than ten times the hits of the villain. If you don't like the coverage that the actual heroes are getting, why didn't you complain when people like Pfc. Patrick Miller (who saved Jessica Lynch's life, for those of you not following along at home) were getting shafted in favor of the pretty, photogenic girl?

[thoreau]

Shem-

FWIW, change the spelling of "Lyndie" to "Lynndie" and the number of hits is 198,000.

Conclude from it what you will, but let's not let a spelling error compromise anybody's conclusions.

[Nathan]

Sowell's articles are kinda weak, but check out his book Basic Economics. Even if you are already a gung-ho free marketeer, his studies of the consequences of price controls will put a fire in your belly.

[SY]

OK, I can't spell. Sorry. Public school system.

[Shem]

thoreau, I stand corrected. But, the point remains the same; how can anyone expect the news media to make "heroes" out of soldiers when the government chooses for propaganda people who haven't done anything to warrant it. I have no idea how widespread the following is, and I wait for someone to criticize me for use of anecdotes, but in talking to people about military coverage, quite a few people I've talked to stopped paying attention to hero stories when the first ones that came through turned out to be little more than propaganda hatchet jobs. Sad for the real heroes, but when the bad stuff comes out, the risk isn't so high that it'll be more or less completely spin.

[Chap]

I must have missed the part of my military training that included the Inappropriate Heroes Picking Department.

Maybe there's another explanation. Ever notice how the news is preloaded with Celebrity Trial or Not-Bad-Looking White Girl In Trouble? Those are narratives used every day in the news extensively.

Now, perhaps it ain't the "government choosing for propaganda". Otherwise it'd be guys like Chontosh.

[Shem]

If the Pentagon didn't choose Lynch, then where exactly did all that misinformation about what happened to her come from?

[CAT_Violations]

Stevo-

I stand corrected. I was relying on analyses I had read elsewhere and had not read the actual text. But upon reading the text (or at least the annotations/index) I am again reminded that it doesn't say "all the fundamental principles of human rights do not apply if they aren't wearing nifty uniforms - torture, intern, degrade, and humiliate away".

[Stevo Darkly]

CAT -- You have a point there. I later tried to look at the text too, and it seems the actual provisions of the conventions are more complicated than the summaries. It seems that people not wearing uniforms are still entitled to certain basic protections, even if not formal "prisoner of war" status. At the very least, there should be hearings or something to see if they are guilty of the actions they've been grabbed for. So I think the U.S.A. is indeed violating the conventions in Guantanomo, anyway.