From: orwell@reg.triumf.ca (BALDEN, RON)
Subject: Re: Memories Longer than Two Weeks
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: TRIUMF: Tri-University Meson Facility
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 09:42:00 GMT


jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
>1. As to how Orwell should be taken, refer to the reviews of 1984
>published at the time, and consider where 1984 was published and
>where it was banned.  Doubtless Orwell did use his BBC experience,
>but the leftist critics took the book as referring to the Stalinist
>Soviet Union and were offended.

If you care to replace "should be" (normative) by "was" (descriptive),
we'll have no quarrel.   Actually I realized, in thinking further,
that Orwell's portrayals in "1984" of history rewritten were probably most
strongly influenced by his personal experiences in the Spanish Civil War
("Homage to Catalonia"), not the BBC during WWII.  Reading accounts
in newspapers of events in the Spanish Civil War of which
he had personal knowledge, Orwell wrote something to the effect
that "of course I already knew that newspaper accounts were often
inaccurate.  But this was the first time where I had read
accounts that did not even bear the relationship to the facts that
is implied in an ordinary lie."

If you actually read Orwell's postwar writing (vol. 4 of CEJL) you'll
find he was none too keen about the rise of the American empire, just
as he had been cleareyed about the hypocrisies of British imperialism. 
Also, there is a direct connection between Orwell's essay/review,
"James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution" (circa 1944, I think)
and the background themes of "1984", of perpetual conflict between
the superpowers.

>The extreme superiority of some of the Western equipment, especially
>tanks, that was demonstrated in the Persian Gulf was a surprise to
>everyone on both sides except for the Israelis ...

It would have been (was) no surprise to Tom Gervasi (see references
to Gervasi's books in previous postings).
Gwynne Dyer, Canadian commentator on military affairs (he wrote,
commentated, and produced the 1983 TV series "War", also a book of the
same name based on the series, 1985) predicted the rapid collapse of
the Iraqi army from the beginning on CBC TV.

> ... It would be interesting to know what Christopher Hitchens and Andrew
> Cockburn were saying about the military situation at the beginning of
> January 1991.  I'd bet they were babbling about the number of body
> bags.  Does anyone remember?  In short, the estimates suit the
> political goals. 

I don't know that Hitchens or Andrew Cockburn wrote about this. 
*Alexander* Cockburn (his brother) speculated in The Nation that Iraqi
troops "battle-hardened" by the long Iran-Iraq war might not be
pushovers. In this he seems to have been taken in by the U.S.
administration propaganda about "*elite* Republican Guard units" and
such, which -- after all -- was designed to portray Saddam Hussein
as a potential new Hitler, capable of conquering the entire Mideast.
Alexander Cockburn and Michael Klare (both regular Nation 
correspondents -- Klare is a specialist on military affairs) have been
conducting an argument in the pages of the Nation about the number of
Iraqi *soldiers* actually killed. 

[Sidebar: But note Alexander Cockburn's column in The Nation August 13/20, 
1988 ("Oh What A Lovely War"), where he protests American support of
Iraq and notes Iraq's abysmal human rights record --
"... Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein, have enjoyed relatively 
genteel treatment from the Western press as being somehow more decent 
than the fundamentalist fanatics.  Given the barbarity exercised by 
both regimes against their people, Iraq is probably the worse, a 
methodically totalitarian society.  Amnesty International's 1987 
report on Iraq talked about the "disappearance" of about 300 Kurdish 
children ... In this moral twilight the American left has let the
largest U.S. military depolyment since Vietnam -- in the Persian
Gulf -- pass without serious challenge."  Compare this with George 
Bush's convenient discovery of Amnesty International's reports
on Iraq.  Too bad Bush can't do the same for El Salvador or a
dozen other places.]

You're seriously confused about this issue, John.  The central
lie here was the U.S. administration one of what a formidable 
military power Iraq was and how it might invade Saudi Arabia, etc..
This was then seized on (not cynically, in most cases, I judge --
they believed the U.S. administration in this) by various people
opposed to American military intervention as a "pragmatic" rationale
-- that it would cost too many American lives.  I personally do not
find this sort of "pragmatic" rationale impressive at all. 


> In any case, I am one of those conservatives who favors a large
> decrease in the military.  ....

Well, good.  But have you given thought about the steps that
must be taken to move away from the massive military keynesianism that
has been the principal means of state intervention in the U.S. economy
since 1950?   IEEE Spectrum magazine (the general interest magazine of
the IEEE) had a special issue (November 1989) devoted to "The Threat of
Peace" (the cover was so titled, and the cover artwork had a dove
getting the advantage over a hawk).  I admit to being mildly shocked
that they would be so honest.  BTW, as a self-described "conservative" I
would very much appreciate a brief description of what this term means
to you.  It's clear that people who use it in self-description *want* to
evoke the image of an old-fashioned, principled conservative, but what
it *actually* means in practice nowadays is almost always a Radical
Statist/Radical Capitalist.  C. Everett Koop, the Surgeon-General, was,
as far as I could tell, the only old-fashioned principled conservative
of the Reagan administration. The rest of them were radical, even
revolutionary. 


>6. Hardly anyone will be impressed, except with your erudition,
>by your reference to what Knightley said about the Korean War,
>since you tell us nothing about what he said.

True.  I was hoping that you might be inspired to read the book.
(Also, I was fatigued at the end of a long posting.  Do you
have any personal experience with handheld OCR devices that
can scan books "as is"?) It's a necessary book.  Americans in
particular need to read about British government propaganda during the
Boer War and French government propaganda during the Algerian War (also
Japanese g.p. about Korea and Manchuria, 'tho that's not in this
book).   Then maybe, just maybe, they can look at their own
government's propaganda with clearer eyes.  

Knightley doesn't provide a detailed history of the Korean War. He
does make it fairly clear that Syngman Rhee's "government" of South
Korea was another murderous quisling regime (a la Ngo Diem in Vietnam)
which had no popular support whatsoever, propped up by U.S. arms.  
Rhee used the cover of the Korean War to smash social activist/labor
organizations. 

Quotes from Knightley (pg. 343 ff. 1976 HBJ Harvest paperback 
edition):

"... But the South Koreans [military forces] had behaved deplorably
[Christmas 1950].  An American colonel had complained, "South Koreans
and North Koreans are identical.  Why then do North Koreans fight like
tigers and South Koreans run like sheep?" [the complaint of American
military men in Vietnam later: why are our allies so unworthy?] ...
Under the government of Syngman Rhee corruption flourished.  The
police, who had been trained by the Japanese army, were heavily 
involved in the black market, in blackmailing citizens with the
threat of denouncing them as Communists, with providing destitute
refugee girls for the brothels, and with protecting the distillers of 
the highly dangerous liquor concocted for the Allied troops.
It was not unknown for South Korean conscripts to die of starvation in 
military camps because corrupt officers had profiteered on food 
supplies.  There had been 14,000 political prisoners in gaol awaiting 
trial at the outbreak of the war.  Executions for political reasons 
began when Seoul was recaptured by the allies, and when the South
became threatened again they increased at an alarming rate.

.. To their credit, a few correspondents reported the treatment of
South Korean political prisoners, and one correspondent took
direct personal action to stop the executions.  He was Alan
Dower, one of the Australian group ....
[followed by story about how Dower prevented a group of women
and children from being murdered by South Korean policeman]""
Quotes from Phillip Knightley, "The First Casualty".

The other points you raised require a separate discussion;
later.

Ron Balden