Some recent legal observations

LSAT Baloney Sliced Thick

I don't pay much attention to Quora, and I don't know why anyone else does either.  A lot of the questions on it are stupid, quite frankly, and the answers can be as well.

In the latter category was a recent question from some poor soul along the lines of whether only studying for a couple of years for the Law School Admissions Test was too little. Some law prof came in and said yes, and not only that, but that you had to have been studying for it basically since grade school.

Bullshit.

I didn't study for it at all and scored high on it.

I'm not the only one.  I heard of one instance in which a fellow took it (and didn't go to law school after being admitted) even though he didn't study and spent the prior night partying rather heavily.

Frankly, the test is supposed to test your ability to think logically.  If you don't have that, maybe you can train your mind to it, but studying for the test probably isn't the best way to do that.

Anyhow, study away.  Probably you should.  Most people seem to.  But you don't need to be doing it during recess at Public School 97.  

Of note, one of the Ivy League schools recently dropped the LSAT as an admissions requirement, and I don't blame them. When a test like this, which tests your mental process, is studied for, people are studying to defeat the test.  And they're probably accomplishing that to a large degree.  Hence, it no longer has any real meaning.

Out of Jurisdiction

I recently tried a case out of state.  I've done that once before, but that was in Federal court, not state court, and it was a trying experience in more ways than one. I've had other out of jurisdiction state court cases, but this is the first one that's gone all the way to trial.

One revelation was that the positions associated with the court are different, which surprises me.  Here, judges used to have a Judicial Law Clerk, who was a recent law school grad who served as a lawyer for the bench, and during trial a representative of the Clerk of the District Court always sits in the trial.  In quite a few courts the Judicial Law Clerk is now the Permanent Law Clerk, i.e. a lawyer for whom that is a career option.  A bailiff sits in the trial as well.

Where I was, however there was a "Clerk" during the trial.  We also had to hire our own court reporter.  There was no bailiff, the clerk sort of acted in that role.  On the last day, a representative of the Clerk of Court's office was there for the verdict.

I was sufficiently confused about it later that I looked the "Clerk" up, and it's clear that the clerk is a Judicial Law Clerk.  I don't know if it's a permanent position in that court or not.

It might be. The reason I note that is that in doing that I was surprised that the young lawyer had moved around in the lawyer's infant career a lot.  That lawyer has only been licensed for about two years (a little less) but had already clerked somewhere else, had been an associate with a large multi state law firm for a  year, and then had moved on to the court. 

That's remarkably different from when I was first a lawyer.  Lawyers who went on to be clerk's did it as a career move knowing that they'd occupy the position for only a year.  It was normally their very first job out of law school.  Very rarely did a practicing lawyer leave practice to become a clerk, although I do know of two who did that to become Federal clerks for a year.  There were no full time career clerks, which now are common.  Federal clerks are pretty much all career clerks, I think.  Those who entered private practice didn't leave it after just one year, and if they did leave their first jobs rapidly, it was because they went to work as public defenders and had planned on other employment to start with.

Differences in views towards employment and employers have been noted by older lawyers for quite a while, but in some ways this is something that's always the case.  When I was young, which seems like just yesterday but which is actually quite a while ago now, it was extremely common for the Baby Boomers to comment on how everyone below them in age had no work ethic and expected to move up the ladder as an entitlement.  I always thought this the height of irony coming form a generation which actually had an enormous sense of entitlement and which was actually given a massive amount of everything by their parents, whom had endured the Great Depression and World War Two and  who accordingly didn't really know, to a significant degree, what real life was actually like.  That generation, which Tom Brokaw mislabeled "the Greatest Generation" in his hagiography devoted to them, knew crisis and suffering and wanted their children to be spared that.  As a result, we got the generation that Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, etc., are in that won't let go of anything.  They actually were allowed to skip entire rungs on the ladder, and then later on kept people from climbing up it, imaging that they'd pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps when, to a significant degree, their doting parents were there tying their shoe laces the entire time.

Clearly, I'm painting with a broad brush, and unfairly, and this doesn't apply to every member of the generation.

Anyhow, when the Millennials and the older Gen Y folks started to enter work, including the legal field, there really was something different about them.  The Gap Generation folks, like me, who fit in between Gen X and the Boomers pretty much felt we had to find a job and plug on.  It was our only option in life, really.  Gen Xers and older Gen Yers, like what is described about the generation that fought World War One (the "Lost Generation"). had much less job loyalty and pretty much took the view that they had to fend for themselves.  Boomers repeatedly accused them of being unrealistic and lazy, but they were neither. They were highly realistic and far from lazy, they just didn't have dog like loyalty to an employer master.  Indeed, they didn't really expect anything, including employment, to last.

Now, however, we're seeing the younger Gen Y and older Gen Z people in the workplace and their views truly are different, at least it seems to me.  Hardly any prior generation would have skipped through that many employers right off the bat, in the example of the Clerk, but I don't think that's uncommon.

I'm not sure what that means, but again, I don't think they're lazy at all.  I think their view towards work is much different, and they don't expect anything to really last, employment wise.  I don't know what their views are, as a whole, on much else.

While I find that rapid employment change a little distressing, as a now older lawyer who hopes that people will stick around, I think I get it a bit, and that their views may be much more realistic than the Boomers really.  Indeed, I think we're seeing a retrograde attachment to work that takes us back to prior generations over a century ago.  If the Gen Xers were like the Lost Generation, the current 20-year-olds in the law and everything else seem more like those workers from the 19th Century, whom you'll often find went through quite a few jobs in a course of a lifetime, or if they were professionals went through quite a few positions.

I hope some other trends reflect that as well. For one thing, I'm sick of the uber bloated massive law firms that have become a feature of American law.  The fact that younger lawyers bolt pretty readily should operate against that, as those firms depend upon a stable supply of sheep to be corralled to mow the grass of the company pasture.  If the sheep are wild, and take off, that sort of corralling can't occur.

Money, Time and Life

Related to this, I've recently had the odd experience of watching a person on the cusp of the Gap Generation, but from a different region of the country, try to reconcile his mental image of work with that of the reality of others views.  Said person isn't really accomplishing it.

This comes up in the context of said person speaking to a younger Gen Xer about that person's work, which is with a legal agency.  The older Xer treated the younger one's work as surely a stepping stone on to other work for "more money".  The younger person didn't see it that way at all.

Indeed, the younger person liked their job, which had relatively low stress, okay wages and really good hours.  He couldn't see whereas he was suffering, as the older one thought other work, in the private sphere, offered a "chance to make more money".

What was clear in the conversation is that  the older of the two viewed making more money as the be all and end all of any job.  That was the whole point, and the only point, of employment. . a chance to make more money. The younger one saw his job as a job and was content with that.

I'm seeing a lot of that with younger workers, particularly the younger Gen Xers and the Gen Yers.  Again, they're like the Lost Generation that way. They want to have a job, have a family of some sort (that hasn't completely returned to the Lost Generation view. . . yet), and to be able to enjoy life, often in a small way.  These younger folks feel that the ability to go fishing after work or watch a ball game is as important as the Dollar.

And they're right.

The March of Technology

I lasted tried a case in February, which was the first post pandemic trial I've done.  In that Wyoming bench trial, neither side used anything high-tech. The case just wasn't that suited for it, sort of, although there were photographic and text exhibits.

In this recent trial, however, all the exhibits were shown to the witnesses electronically and they were all published (shown) to the jury in the same fashion.  A technician attended the entire trial in order that this could be seamlessly accomplished.

The technician was fantastic and did a super job with pointing out the text and going through the electronic exhibits. While I've done a lot of trials, this was the first one I've ever done that was 100% high-tech in this fashion.

I'll admit that I've been skeptical, or perhaps just reluctant, to acknowledge the effectiveness of this, but it's now clearly here and that's the standard.

Like automatic transmissions being in everything, I guess I can accept reality, however, without liking it.  I don't like it.

But that's where we now are.

Going on and on

One thing that I really liked that the other jurisdiction did was to limit opening statements and to constrict voir dire (questioning of the jury).

Various Wyoming courts take different approaches to this.  Most ask the lawyers "how much time do you need for openings?" and then debate how much time will really be given.  I just had a proceeding in which that question was asked, and the plaintiff's lawyer said he needed 1.5 hours.

In the other jurisdiction the court simply informed us that we had 20 minutes.  No debate, you have 20 minutes.  And this was in a highly technical case.

I'm really good at public speaking, and frankly I was relieved.  Anything over 20 minutes is an exercise in hubris and boring the jury.  It might have been in the case at the time of the Gettysburg Address that people were ready for an hour-long speech, but that was in a day in which people had spent half the day getting there, were going back tomorrow, had no phones to check, and weren't getting back to their work right away, and weren't used to 30 minute television shows.  No modern audience is going to listen to an hour-long speech from anyone, let alone a lawyer.  Even if you have super wonderful graphics in which the entire accident is reenacted by Kate Upton and Billie Eilish with background music from Iris Dement are they going to do that.  Just forget it.

None of which keeps lawyers from asking for all kinds of time.  We're stuck in the past that way.

Suiting up

 Extraordinarily well dressed lawyer, W. Morgan Shuster, in New York in 1914. Shuster's impeccable dress is emblematic of the well dressed businessman of this era.  He's wearing a three piece wool suit and carrying a cane he almost certainly doesn't need to use.  And, he's wearing a bowler.

As a Wyoming lawyer, but a lawyer, I've watched the slow decline in clothing standards while participating in it.

At my first day of work in 1990 I reported to work wearing a double-breasted Brooks Brothers suit.  The first partner who came in was wearing wool khaki trousers and a blue blazer, and he was dressed down.  He told me that I didn't have to wear a suit every day.

For years and years, however, I normally wore a tie and clothing appropriate for a tie.  Then COVID 19 hit.

For much of the prior spike of the disease (we're in a spike now, of the unvaccinated, but of course the entire state disregarding that) I kept coming in the office.  I was often the only one there when we were at the point where the staff didn't have to come in.  I pretty much quit dressing in office dress at the time as there wasn't much of a reason to do it.  Nobody was coming in, I was there by myself, what the heck.

I've not made it back to normal, and not everyone else has either.

And of course normal in 2019 was not the same thing it was in 1999, or 2009.  We'd already slid down the dressing scale in the back of the office, where I am.  I never used to wear blue jeans in the office, but by 2019 I already was a fair amount.  Starting with COVID 19, I am all the time.

One of the things about that is that in 2019 I already had a selection of older dress clothes that were wearing out I hadn't replaced.  Probably the inevitability of their demise would have caused me to replace them on in to 2020.  But I didn't have to.  Additionally, the long gap in time meant that I pretty much didn't do anything about the fact I'm down to two suits now.

Two suits isn't much if you are a trial lawyer.

Well, running up to the trial I was going to go down to Denver and get new ones.  But I ran out of time.  I still haven't done it.

I need to.

I'll confess that part of my reluctance to get new suits is that I'm 58 years old.  I don't wear suits daily at work, and I'm not one of those guys who is going to claim "I'm going to work until I'm 80".  Any new suit I get now will still be in fighting shape when I'm 68, and that's reasonably enough, but to my cheap way of thinking, emphasized by the fact that I have two kids in college, its something that is both easy for me to put off, and in the back of my mind I tend to think "maybe I won't really need those if . . . "

Well, I probably better remedy that.

Wednesday September 3, 1941. The first use of Zyklon B.

The Germans first used Zyklon B to murder human beings with the first victims being 600 Soviet POWS and 250 sick Polish POWs held at Auschwitz.

The Soviets began the process of expelling Volga Germans to Siberia.

The espionage trial for the fourteen members of the Duquesne Spy Ring who had not confessed to the crime (nineteen had) commenced on this day in 1941.  The German effort was the largest spy bust in U.S. history, although it was dwarfed by the Soviet efforts that had commenced in the 1920s and which ran through the end of the Cold War.

Most of the spies were predictably German or Austrian immigrants, but there are some surprises.  A few were not of German ancestry.  One who was, was a Jewish German immigrant who served as a honey pot and appears to have suffered from a psychological condition giving rise to her use.  One was a Russian immigrant.  The spy ring had a Japanese liaison, as well as a German one, demonstrating a very early connection between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany.

More on all of this here:

Today in World War II History—September 3, 1941

Operation Gauntlet, an Allied raid on Spitsbergen concluded.  It had met with no German resistance.

German radio station on Spitsbergen being blown down.

The local population was evacuated, German installations destroyed, and mining equipment from the high Arctic mines also destroyed.

Saturday September 4, 1921. Hemingway nuptuals.

 

Leyendecker portrayed an unhappy returning student in his September 3, 1921 illustration for the Saturday Evening Post.

Earnest Hemingway and Elizabeth Hadley Richardson married in Bay Township, Wisconsin.  They'd divorce in 1927 after she learned of Hemingway's affair with Pauline Pfeiffer, who had been a friend of hers.

They had one son, Jack, who in spite of having not grown up in his father's household, after his early years, perhaps somewhat reflects his interest in was famous for his interests in fishing.  A resident of Idaho, he was the father of the acting Hemingway's.

Hemingway would marry Pfeiffer in 1927, and they'd divorce in 1940.  In spite of the affair, Pfeiffer was a devout Catholic.  How they were able to validly marry, in that light, is unknown to me, but Hemingway converted to Catholicism as a result fo the marriage.  Interestingly, Pfeiffer was a supporter of the Nationalist cause in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, due to her views, whereas Hemingway famously supported the Republicans.

Their son Patrick, who is still living, was a wildlife conservationist.

That marriage ended due to an affair as well, after having produced two children.   This time the affair was with Martha Gelhorn, a journalist, with a subsequent marriage lasting from 1940 to 1945.  Gelhorn nonetheless had an affair with Gen. James Gavin while married to Hemingway.  Shortly after that marriage ended, Hemingway married Mary Welsh Hemingway, to whom he remained married until his death in 1961.  Their other son Gregory became a physician, but had a variety of personal problems that troubled him throughout his adult years.

The U.S. Army intervened in the Battle of Blair Mountain with 400 of 4,000 armed miners laying down their arms.  Most of the remainder fled.

Tuesday, September 2, 1941. Finnish victories and Bloody Tragedies

The first meeting of the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board, Washington, D.C., September 2, 1941.

On this day in 1941, Finnish forces completed retaking the Karelia Isthmus, territory that had been lost to it during the Winter War.  You can see this and other items here:

Today in World War II History—September 2, 1941

On this time, while Finland  had thrown its fate in with Nazi Germany, it's hard not to sympathize with their immediate war aims, of which this was one. This territory had been stolen from it by the Soviet Union, and in joining the war, it was taking back what it had only recently lost.  Indeed, it would stop its advance upon doing so.

Showing the true nature of its ally, however, on this day Germans, along with Lithuanians, killed 3,700 Jews from Vilna.

Australians in Lebanon were photographed on this day.

Major General A. S. "Tubby" Allen, commander of the Australian 7th Division, with Lt Colonel Murray Moten, commander of the 2/27th Infantry Battalion and his men.

Friday, September 2, 1921. Famine

Houston Texas, September 2, 1921.

On this day in 1921 food aid from Western countries arrived in Riga, Latvia for transport to the Soviet Union as famine relief.  The US was the largest contributor.

The famine was human induced, caused by the incompetence and stupidity of the communist economic system in multiple ways.

On the same day, Federal troops arrived in West Virginia, but President Harding declared they would not be used to impose martial law as long as civil law continued to function.  The threat, of course, was the private warfare between union coal miners and non-union/company forces.

Japanese dignitaries were photographed in Washington, D.C.

 

Baron Kyuro Shideharu

Belle Case LaFollette, wife of Sen. Robert LaFollette, was photographed walking their dog.

What about Pakistan?

 

As the Biden Administration conceded, whether it needed to or not, defeat in Afghanistan, there's been a lot of talk, here and elsewhere, about could we have won the war.

Hardly any of it has touched on Pakistan.

As pointed out on a list I subscribe to elsewhere, it needs to be considered.  

And the reason is that Pakistan effectively operated as a Taliban ally over the past twenty years, whether we wished to openly acknowledge that or not.

Indeed, Osama bin Laden, is well known, was killed in Pakistan, not Afghanistan, and was living in a compound only two miles from a Pakistani army base.  Maybe the Pakistani government didn't know that.  We won't know for years.  There's some suggestion that the location of Bin Laden's compound may have come from a Pakistani army source.  Indeed, it's not unreasonable to assume that the Pakistani army was actually complicit in arranging for the raid that killed Bin Laden.  Indeed, its not unreasonable to believe that Bin Laden's whereabouts were known and tolerated, and that they tipped the US off as well.

What the heck?

Well, Pakistan is following Pakistan's interests, not the US's. The problem is that its really hard to figure out exactly what those are.  Whatever they are, what is clear is that Pakistan was a safe harbor for the Taliban for the past 20 years, and for Al Queada to some extent as well.  Members of the Taliban, moreover, were educated in Pakistani Islamic schools, not Afghani ones.

And all that does mean that over the past 20 years, while we were fighting the Taliban, Pakistan was at least operating as a safe harbor for them, and even fostering their recruitment by tolerating it.

Looking at the Central Intelligence Agency map from above probably helps explain Pakistan's point of view, and its cynical game, to an extent.  And what it shows is that Pakistan is, essentially, a false country.

Indeed, Afghanistan is as well, and so is nearby neighbor Indian. That is, none of these countries are nation states, but rather assembled nations that were put together by the British.  There really are no "Afghanis" any more than there are Pakistanis.  India is practically the exception to the rule as British colonialism was so successful that the enormous number of tribes in India did in fact come together, form a national identity, and emerge with a functioning democracy.

Even at that, however, its notable that Indian once included Pakistan and Bangladesh.  However, upon independence the Muslim regions of India rebelled and successful separated.  East Pakistan later rebelled against Pakistan, in 1971, and became its own country.  Pakistan is a democratic country with Islam as the state religion, but it's a shaky one with the army always in the background as a potential power broker, or power seizer.

Pakistan has never really accepted the demarcation line that was drawn between it and India, and frankly India hasn't either.  Pakistan's problem, however, is that some of its people have latent loyalties that do cause it concern.

The entire region bordering Afghanistan is one of those areas.  Its really popular to believe that the British "lost" both of their wars with Afghanistan, but the British were really good at constructing defeats to their advantage.  In reality, after the Second Anglo Afghan War, the British incorporated what is really part of Afghanistan into Pakistan, and that makes up about 1/5th of Pakistan today.  The demarcation was geographic, not ethnic, as that suited the British.  Added to that, the Punjab people are ethnically related to the Pashtuns, which doesn't make them the same people, but which does create complications.  Pakistan has never accepted that the Punjab region of Indian shouldn't be in Pakistan, but when making an argument like that, you nearly have to concede that the Pashtun region of Pakistan should be part of Afghanistan.

Now, nobody is arguing the latter, as far as I know, but it does mean that if you are the Pakistani government you really don't want to anger the Pashtuns too much. The majority of the Taliban are Pashtuns, even if most Pashtuns aren't supporters of the Taliban.

And the government is also an Islamic parliamentary democracy.  Indeed, the only reason for Pakistan's existence is Islam, as that's why it and Bangladesh didn't want to be part of India.  So you also don't want to be suppressing Islamic schools, if you are the Pakistani government.

And you don't really want the US in the neighborhood either.

The US generally wants countries to get along.  It wants India to get along with Pakistan, and Pakistan to get along with India, and China to get along with both.  None of those nations is really willing simply to lay down their claims to the territories they view as theirs across each other's borders. The US, from their prospective, is really annoying in this regard.

And indeed, both Pakistan and India, traditionally, regard themselves as the major regional power broker, not the US, and not Russia (or the USSR in former days).  The Indians don't get along with the Chinese either, and the Pakistani's sometimes don't, and sometimes do, depending upon how it suits them.  And their major countries, not third world backwaters, whose opinions really have to be taken into account.  All of them possess nuclear weapons, for that matter.

So, cynically, from Pakistan's point of view, harboring the Taliban made some sense.  It served to push out of the region, ultimately, and they emerge, in some ways, the real victor.  At the same time, however, they can only go so far, as they don't want a Pashtun insurgency either.

So could we have won under these circumstances?

I think so yes, but it's a real difficulty, to say the least, as the examples of this prove.

Indeed, in a way, this is what the Germans faced in 1940 as the US operated as a sort of safe harbor for the British war effort.  The Germans were not really able to do anything about.  This example, of course, isn't really perfect, but as we've been discussing it here, I've noted it.

A better example would be the situation faced by France in the Franco Algerian War.  Algerian insurgents had refuge in recently independent Tunisia.  The French tried to address it by fencing and patrolling the border and conducting air raids near it, that sometimes accidentally crossed over the border, all of which proved completely ineffective.

The United Nations faced this to a degree as well during the Korean War, with China being the safe harbor.  This proved so frustrating to the US that there were repeated suggestions that the US Air Force raid China, something the Chinese apparently feared, but which the Administration, wisely, wouldn't allow.

And for the US, the classic example is the Vietnam War, during which North Vietnam was the safe harbor that expanded that harbor into Laos and Cambodia.  The US conducted covert operations in Laos as a result in and in 1971 it invaded Cambodia to attempt to end it.  The Republic of Vietnam invaded Laos later that same year and again later, all to no avail.

So the examples are not great.

Now, invading Pakistan would be out of the question, so that's off the table.  The US did conduct drone strikes over Pakistan, and the raid on bin Laden.  Much more than that, openly, would have been far to risky.

So what could we have done.

Well, weathering the storm for another 20 years probably would have accomplished things.  At some point really reinforcing the border, with Afghan troops, would have been necessary.

And perhaps leaning more towards India.

Indeed, India, for really the first time in its history, was pretty friendly to the US during the Trump administration as its leader is also a populist.  The US has no real interest in Central Asian border disputes, so leaning towards the country, simply as a country, would have to be in that fashion, but leaning pretty hard would have created a problem for Pakistan.  And as we can see, at the point that something becomes too big of a problem for Pakistan, it tends to act in its own interest.

None of that would have been quick, however.

"America's longest war. . . wasn't"

By now, everyone on the face of the globe has heard that the war in Afghanistan was "America's longest war".

It wasn't.

The long war, regarded as a series of wars, but nonetheless a continual thing involving continual deployment of American troops, ran from 1848 until the tragic end at Wounded Knee in 1890, a total of 42 years.  This doesn't represent the totality of combat against Native Americans, however, as I, and others have pointed out. Consider this recent letter to the Wall Street Journal.

America’s real longest war was the conflict against Native Americans, called the American Indian Wars, which most historians characterize as beginning in 1609 and ending in 1924.

Lt. Gen. Michael M. Dunn, Wall Street Journal letter.

Total involvement in the Vietnam War, FWIW, was shorter only by a period of months. That may seem unfair, but if you consider that involvement in Afghanistan has actually been very minimal for a period of years, I'd argue it is a fair comparison.

The point is this.  We've fought long wars before.  The Indian Wars were epic in length.  The Philippine Insurrection was long, 13 years by some measures.  What's really notable about Afghanistan. . . and Vietnam, is that in the post television era, the country doesn't endure long wars well.  Before we seemingly had them out of sight and mind, most of the time they were being fought.

Oh, and technically the Korean Conflict, which started in 1950, is still on.  No final peace has been reached, and it's in a state of armistice.

Labor Day, September 1, 1941. Marking Targets for Death and Labor Day Addresses.

It was Labor Day in the United States, falling of course on the first Monday in September.

On this Monday, the German government announced that all Jews within the confines of the territory controlled by it, at home or conquered, were required to wear yellow Stars of David.

German poster declaring that "Whoever wears this badge is an enemy of our people."

The barbarity of this action can hardly be imagined today.  It marked the wearer as somebody to be subject to public scorn merely for his religion, or ethnicity, and ultimately it would mark them for death.

The yellow badge seems to date as far back as the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate in the early 8th Century and have been subsequently revived and kept in force for centuries as a means of marking Jews living within the caliphates control.  Both Christians and Jews were subject to repressive religious laws within Muslim territories, and indeed in some Muslim countries today being an open Christian is extremely risky, and conversion from Islam, although widely occurring, illegal.  Clothing requirements were in fact expanded beyond this to include other features.

Having said that, the practice of requiring Jews, and Muslims, to wear distinct clothing also expanded to Christian countries by the 13th Century, although with a different concern in mind.  As has been dealt with here elsewhere, originally marriage did not require a Priest to officiate and could be privately contracted in a fairly informal manner.  There were concerns in the 1200s that Christians and non Christians were falling into sexual relations that gave rise to invalid marriages in a hasty fashion, and therefore clothing requirements were imposed so that couples in the heat of the moment might be aware that they were going where they couldn't legally go and contracting what would have been regarded as invalid marriages.

The Germans, of course, were readopting the practice in order to make the Jews despised "others".  It was resisted in some occupied areas, such as Denmark, where non Jews took up wearing them as well, and in occupied areas of Catholic Czechoslovakia the authorities had to ban hat tipping to those wearing them, where the residents had taken it up as a sign of respect to the victims.

On the same day, Leningrad came within German artillery range.

The Canadians began to accept enlistments for the Canadian Army Women's Corps.  Of note, the day prior the British had deployed women in mixed gender anti-aircraft units in the UK, a rare example of women in a Western Allied military having a combat role in the war.  

The United States assumed responsibility for Atlantic convoys from Newfoundland to Iceland.  This was undoubtedly an example of direct participation in the war, even though the United States had not yet declared war.

The Soviet Union murdered retired Estonian military commander Karl Parts.

Parts had served in the Imperial Russian Army but had gone over to his native Estonia upon its separation from Russia.  He'd served against the German Freikorps and the Reds there, but had retired in 1925 and was a farmer thereafter.  The Soviets took him into custody in 1940 when they invaded the country and then murdered him on this day.  He was 55 years old.

President Roosevelt delivered a Labor Day address in which he stated that American labor bore the responsibility of winning World War Two.

KYW-TV, the first US television station outside of New York City, went on the air in Philadelphia.  It's still on the air there. 

Ted Williams appeared on the cover of Life Magazine.

Cornell, Wisconsin, suffered a serious flood.

Oyster harvesting seasons commenced.

Thursday, September 1, 1921. Launchings

On this day the first "Super dreadnought" USS Washington, a battleship of the Colorado Class, was launched.

Jean Summers, daughter of Senator Summers, who did the honors.

She'd serve only three years and then be sunk as a target, due to the Washington Naval Treaty.

One heck of a waste of money.

The first Washington State Highway Patrol officers were sworn in. Their vehicles were, at first, Indian Motor Cycles.

Scenes of August. Michigan National Guard at Camp Grayling

 

Today In Wyoming's History: Casper College Western History Center: Archival Ne...

Today In Wyoming's History: Casper College Western History Center: Archival Ne...:  Casper College Western History Center:Archival Needs Assessment Report

Defeat In Afghanistan. How It Came About.

Flag of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

The pathetic blame game going on regarding the debacle in Afghanistan has me once again stunned, even though I really ought to know better.

My right wing friends were backing withdrawal from Afghanistan fully when Trump launched the current disgrace.  As soon as Biden started what Trump started, they switched to decrying what occurred.  The mess isn't praiseworthy by any means, but this exercise is really a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black.

Let's look at what really occurred leading up to this embarrassing American defeat.

Indeed, we'll go all the way back.

Afghan ambush during the First Anglo Afghan War.

• 1838. The British invade Afghanistan and install King Shah Shujah. The event is termed the First Anglo Afghan War.
• 1842.  King Shah Shujah assassinated and Afghanis rebel, driving the British from Afghanistan.

Horse artillery in the Second Anglo Afghan War.

• 1878  The Second Anglo Afghan War commences resulting in British control of Afghanistan's foreign affairs.
• 1919  Emire Amanullah Khan declares British protectorite status over.
• 1926 to 1929.  Amanullah attemptes to modernize the country, leading to his being driven from teh country.
• 1933  Zahir Shah becomes King of Afghanistan.
• 1953  Gen. Mohammed Daud becomes Prime Minister, turns the country towars the Soviet Union for economic and military aid, and introduces social reforms.
• 1963  Mohammed Daud forced to step down as Prime Minister
• 1964  The country becomes a constitutional monarchy.
• 1973.  Mohammed Daud seizes power in a coup and deposes the monarchy.
• 1978  Mohammed Daud is overthrown in a pro Soviet coup.
• 1978   An anti Communist insurrection begins.
• 1979.  The Soviet Union interevenes to keep the pro Communist government from falling.
• 1980  Babrak Karmal installed as Soviet backed ruler.
• 1980  Western powers, Pakistan, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia start aid the mujahideen.
• 1985  Half of the Afghani population is in exhile.
• 1989.  Red Army pulls out and communist government collapses, followed by civil war.
• 1996  The Taliban, represeting armed Islamic extremist, seize control of Kabul
• 1997  Pakistan, with strong Islamic leaning, and Saudi Arabia, which is also the domain of extreme Islamic sentiments, recongize the Taliban as the legitimate government.
• 1998. The United States, in retaliation for terrorist acts by Al Queada, hits Al Queda basis in Afghanistan with missile strikes
• 1999  The United Nations impose sanctions on Afghanistan due to its harboring Osama bin Laden.
• 2001  Afghanistan based Al Quaeda stages the Twin Towers attack on the the United States.

• 2001  The United States invades Afghanistan in October following air raids, but with limited forces.  The main US effort rapidly turns towards Iraq, which was not involved in the terrorist strike.
• 2001  In December Hamid Karzai is made president.
• 2002   The invasion becomes more substantial with the arrival of NATO forces.
• 2002  Deposed King Zahir Shah returns, but makes no claim to the throne.
• 2003.  NATO takes control of Kabul.
• 2005.  First Afghan election in 30 years.  Most of the seats in parliament are taken by warlords.
• 2006  NATO takes control of security from the United States for the entire country.
• 2007  Afghanistan threatens to intervene against the Taliban in Pakistan, which is harboring them.
• 2008  US increases troop strength by 4,500 men.
• 2009  US increases troop strength by 17,000 men.
• 2009 US troop strength brought up to 100,000 men for "the surge" but President Obama also declares the UW will withdrawal by 2011.
• 2010  The Netherlands pulls out of Afghanistan.
• 2010  NATO declares it will turn security of the country over to Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
• 2013 Afghan army takes control of security of the country from NATO.
• 2014  The United States and United Kingdom end their combat operations.
• 2015  The United States announces it will delay full withdrawal from the country at the request of the Afghan government.
• 2015.  The Afghan government and the Taliban hold informal peace talks.  The Taliban refuses to lay down its arms.
• 2015.  The Taliban briefly takes Kunduz.
• 2015.  President Obama announces that 9,800 US troops will remain in the country.
• 2015. A Taliban splinter group forms but is crushed by the main Taliban.
• 2015. The Afghan National Army defeats a Taliban effort to take Sangin, backed up by US air support.
• 2016  Pakistan forcibly repatriates Afghanis in Pakistan.
• 2016  US air strikes reverse Islamic State advances in eastern Afghanistan.
• 2016  President Obama indicates 8,400 US troops will remain and that NATO will also remain until 2020.
• 2016  The Taliban makes advances in Helmond province.
• 2016  The Islamic State captures Tora Bora.
• 2017  President Trump, contrary to campaign pledges, indicates US troop strength in Afghanistan will be increased to fight the Taliban.
• 2019.  The United States enters negations with the Taliban
• 2020  The Unites States enters into a peace agreement with the Taliban without hte participation of the Afghan government.
• 2020  President Trump, following his election defeat, indicates that he will withdraw from Afghanistan before the inauguration of President Biden.  It doesn't occur, but the wheels for withdrawal are set in motion.
• 2021.  In July, the United States withdraws from Bagram air base overnight.
• 2021  President Biden commits to withdraw Americans forces from Afghanistan by September 11.
• 2021.  In August the Afghan government collapses and its armed forces do as well, the Taliban take the country.

And so that's where we are now. 

Now, what to make of all of this, that's the question.

Well, to start off with, perhaps we can make some conclusions about Afghanistan itself.

This long history of the country, from an American prospective shows that the country has in fact little evolved from what it was at the time of the First Anglo Afghan War.  The country isn't a country, but a collection of tribes, not all of whom are ethnically related, living within a certain border.  It's more defined, in some ways, by what it isn't, than it is.

The Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group, but there are significant numbers of Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Nuristani, Aimak, Turkmen, and Balochs in the country as well.  Indeed, in the far north of the country the native population has a distinctively Asian appearance.  Genetically, if you will, all of these groups are represented as are the genes of those who came through and with the forces of the Mongols in the Middle Ages.  The only really common thread among all of these people are that they are all Islamic.

Now, people are going to be quick to blame Islam on the plight of the Afghans, but the biggest single thing impacting their situation is their extremely tribal nature, and tribal natures are always local.  In this fashion the Afghans resemble the Russian peasantry of the 1910s and 1920s, which overwhelmingly opposed the Communists, but only when they were in the neighborhood.  With no real national identify, Tajikes, for example, from the country's far north have very little desire to go to war against anyone in the far south of the country, but are perfectly willing to fight if people show up in their own valley.  Just as the Russian peasantry didn't like the Reds, almost all Afghans don't really like the Taliban, they just don't identify with any country and therefore so need to fight hundreds of miles away against somebody else.

And this is why, we'd note, the Afghan parliament was a failure.  It was simply a collection of warlords.

We don't need to go through every year from 1839 to the present date to see that, but we can touch upon the highlights.  Afghans always opposed the British presence in the country in the 19th Century, but they never supported their own governments either.  Those governments managed to persevere mostly because they were so weak.  You don't need to worry about a king in Kabul if he really doesn't impact your actual life in your own valley.  That became really evident, in the 1970s, when there was a real effort to form a real national government, with that government being a Communist one.

It's seemingly forgotten by us now, but Communism was a real force throughout the Middle East and Central Asia in the 1950s through the 1980s not because it was reveolutionary per se, but because it was modern.  It offered educated people something the politics of their own countries completely lacked, modernization.  We may, and should, look at the forced modernization of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s with horror, but to educated people living in Middle Eastern and Central Asian backwaters after World War Two, that looked good in comparison to tribalistic village societies.  And no wonder.  Building a dam, for example, for hydroelectric power and increased irrigation may look good to you if you are an engineer, but to a local poppy farmer who has complete domination over his wife and daughters and enough money from heroin to get by, it doesn't look nearly as appetizing.  

This has, we'd note, been the history of forced civilization throughout history, something we very oddly forget even though its the history of our own cultures.  The Romans didn't spread through Europe as they were handing out kittens and greeting cards.  They fought their way through against tribes that bitterly resented their presence. And those tribes weren't "freedom fighters" like we imagine today.  Boadicea's rebelling wasn't about the vote.  It was about keeping civilization out, tribal society in, and all that meant. And that always meant the same thing.  Tribal rights, which may have been very free at the local level, or may not have been, depending upon the culture, but which were violent and often, well weird.

And this is also why 19th Century Colonia endeavors frankly were much more realistic than modern "nation building" endeavors have been.  European countries, when they went into the distant regions of the globe, flatly accepted that the local cultures had no concept of more civilized values and that they had to be forced upon them. If that sounds brutal and racist, and both may be true, our current view has tended to be that the entire world is populated by Jeffersonian democrats, which is both naive and incredibly stupid.

And indeed, while we hate to admit anything of the sort, for the most part colonization was a success in terms of turning tribal societies into countries.  For the most part, European colonial enterprises didn't invade other countries to force them into empire, they invaded tribal regions to do that.  Even examples in Europe, such as when the Anglo-Normans invaded Ireland, provide that example in context. And that's why it was so late in the day before any country attempted to invade and conquer Ethiopia.  It was already a nation.

The key is, however, that for this sort of thing to really work, a long presence is an absolute given, and that presence will be nearly wholly unwelcome.  Vietnam, perhaps, provides a good example. The Vietnamese never wanted the French in Indochina, but by the early 20th Century it had gone from a collection of local tribes of various types to an area with a real national identify.  When nationalism really broke out as a fighting force in the 1940s, due to World War Two, the Vietnamese of all stripes could see themselves as a nation.  When the French first showed up, well, not so much. The same example, in the case of the French, could be given in regard to Algeria.  By 1945, Algerians could identify an Algeria, and their interest with Algeria.  In earlier eras, they were simply local tribesmen.

Afghanistan has never gotten there.  It's made up of local tribesmen.

Taliban flag.

Well, what about the Taliban. They aren't a tribe, now are they?

No, they aren't, although they incorporate Pashtoon norms, and ironically they represent a more modernizing force than their opposition, even though we dare not admire them or regard them as modern.

The Taliban is a Deobandi Islamist movement which seeks to impose a Sunni Deobandi Islamic rule upon the country governed by their interpretation of Sharai law.  Most of its members are Pashtuns and they were educated as students, which is what Talib means, in Pakistan for the most part.  Their movement incorporates Pashtoon social norms with Sharia law.

We noted them as a more "modernizing" force than simple warlordism, but we do not suggest to mean a fully modernizing one. Their goal is to impose Sharai law, in a harsh form, over the entire country. To the extent it's modernizing, it would be simply because it would be based on a unifying national principal, rather than the current Afghan norm of everything really being local and tribal.

But, that principal, provides its own problems, to say the least.

The Taliban has no desire to actually modernize the country in any form. Rather, what it wishes to do is to impose a strict theocracy on the country.  What it will do in the future can be predicted by the past.  Women stand to not only lose their political rights, for example, but to become completely subservient to men.  In essence, what the Taliban intends to do is to put Sharia law combined with the Pashtunwali, the Pashtun social code, into effect as the law of the law of the country.

Traditionally Afghanistan has not only been tribal, and regional, but not extremely strict in the application of Islam. Islam is the religion of the country, both culturally and legally, but a fairly lax variant of that. The Taliban will end that. And it'll suppress all regionalism.

Now, it's tried that before, which lead to a civil war in various part of the country against it. That will repeat as well.  So what the future holds for the country is a retrograde advancement in regard to individual rights, particularly those for women, and a suppression of regional power, which will lead to civil war. 

So, what conclusions can we draw from all of this:

• The Bush neoconservatives who thought that the United States could make the country into a western democracy overnight were naive in the extreme.
• The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan's fundamental problem was tribalism and regionalism.
• The Islamic Republic, however, was making progress in forming a national army, as long as it was backed up by the United States.
• The Taliban isn't popular in the country as a whole.

In short, what the Bush neo cons failed to appreciate is that it was going to take a very long time to make Afghanistan into a modern country.  A country that has no national identity has to form one.  That would have taken at least an additional two decades from the two that have already passed.

Should we have undertaken to do that?

Well, here's the thing, if we weren't going to, we shouldn't have started trying.  We could have simply engaged in a punitive raid in the country and left it.  That would have left it to the Taliban, to be sure, but that's what we've now done after having had an influence on the country and its people for 20 years.  We've done the worst thing possible, which is to go half the way.

Back in 2001 when this was debated, I took the position we could just do a punitive raid, although I did that elsewhere, as this blog wasn't a thing yet.  I thought we should go in, get Al Queada, and leave.  But we didn't.  We didn't even fight the initial war wisely.  

But fight it we did. And at that point, we had an obligation to stay.  There was no excuse for leaving.

Sunday August 31, 1941. First British Convoy to Archangel arrives

 

The first British convoy to arrive at Archangel did so.  The convoy, which had departed Iceland ten days earlier, consisted of ten merchant ships and nine escorts.

Saturday, August 30, 1941. Far away places.

For various reasons, I missed putting up the Anglo Soviet invasion of Iran when it occurred.  It commenced on August 25, 1941.

Soviet cavalry meeting British tankette.

On this day, it concluded with a ceasefire. The country would be occupied by the British and the Soviets for the remainder of World War Two.

Russian T-26 tank in Iran.

The Iranian military did resist, but ineffectively. The country would be occupied by the British and the Soviets throughout the war, with the British withdrawing on time in March 1946 but the Soviets refusing to do so, citing security concerns.  A complaint to the United Nations from Iran on this became the first such complaint filed with that then newly founded body. The Soviets withdrew in May, 1946.

British troops inspecting a Soviet 26, Soviet soldier on deck of tank.

Ultimately Iran became an Allied power and declared war on Germany.  The US contributed to the forces in Iran during the occupation, which assuaged Iranian fears of being absorbed as a colony by the occupying powers.  The Soviets did sponsor Communist groups that did create problems for the Iranian government, so it cannot be claimed that the occupation was wholly benign.

The Soviets launched a major counterattack near Smolensk which was successful, as to its objectives, but which sustained high casualties. The Germans also sustained high casualties.

The British conducted the first of two small nighttime commando raids on the Pas-de-Calais.

Tuesday August 30, 1921. Private Warfare.

President Harding intervened in the West Virginia Coal Wars and declared that if miners did not disperse near Logan, where they were fighting a much smaller force led by a local sheriff but equipped with machine guns and aircraft, that he would deploy Federal troops to the area.

A battle did ensue that day when 75 miners led by Reverend John Wilburn probed the operators/sheriffs line, resulting in a confused small battle and several deaths.

The entire matter was a dispute between union and non-union miners, and the owners of the mine.  One badly wounded non-union miner was flatly executed by a union miner.

This is interesting in part as people who imagine that the past was better than current times often omit things like this.  It's impossible to imagine private warfare of this type today.

Friday August 29, 1941. Shifting sands

On this day in 1941, Charles Lindbergh at a rally of the American First Committee in Oklahoma City warned the audience that the United Kingdom might turn against the US "as she had turned against France and Finland". 

Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana.

Lindbergh was backed up by Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler who counseled that "If our interventionist want to free a country from the domination of another country, we ought to declare war on Great Britain and free India.  I have never seen such slavery as I saw in India a few years ago".

Wheeler was an outspoken left wing Democrat who had at one time crossed over to the Progressive Party and then back.  He opposed entry to the war right up until December 7, 1941 and was instrumental in the leaking of US plans to aid the British prior to the war, which went to press on December 4, 1941.  His isolationist stances caused him to suffer defeat in the first Montana election in which he was up after December 7, and he never returned to politics. A lawyer by training, he returned to practicing law and defended Max Lowenthal in front of the House Committee On Un American Affairs in the 1950s.  He's an example of how opposition to entry into the war was not, as sometimes imagined, politically uniform.

The rally itself was not well received by the public, and polls started increasingly swinging towards the Administration's interventionist policies.

Speaking of Finland, the Finns retook Viipuri.  Not forever of course, its Vyborg, Russia.

Flag for the city of Vybork, in the Leningrad Oblast.

The city did have a Finnish population at the time, but its entire population was evacuated in 1944 with the collapse of the Eastern Front.  It is, therefore, an example today of the massive population disruption brought on by the Second World War.

Finnish victory parade, August 31, 1941.

In Serbia, the puppet collaborationist Government of National Salvation commenced control of the country.

Vichy authorities arrested American journalist Varian Fry.  Fry was running an underground railroad effort helping Jews escape from France and to the United States, using Spain and Portugal as conduits.  He'd be expelled from the country.

Arthur McFadden became Australian Prime Minister in a coalition government.  He was a member of the minority Country Party.  The National Country Party, the "Nats" is a center right party that's strongest in rural areas and which has a focus on agrarian issues.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: First Baptist Church, Rock River, Wyoming.

Churches of the West: First Baptist Church, Rock River, Wyoming.: 

First Baptist Church, Rock River, Wyoming.

This is the First Baptist Church in Rock River, Wyoming.  The Baptist church in the tiny town was founded in 2010 and obviously used a commercial structure for its basic design.

Best Post of the Week of August 22, 2021

The best posts of the past week.

Really, there weren't any great ones and I'm tempted not to put this up at all, but here goes. . .

German Wehrmacht driving in to surrender near Prague (1945)

Ambition

Thursday,, August 28, 1941. The Office of Price Administration Created, Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic Loses Favor, The Soviet Dunkirk, Slaughter at Kamianets-Podilsky

The Office of Price Administration was crated by the Roosevelt Administration to combat inflationary trends caused by the massive boost in employment caused by World War Two and the countries efforts to get ready for it.

Stalin issued  a Decree of Banishment exiling Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic which had previously been an ethnic German Soviet enclave.  

The VGASSR would be officially disestablished on September 7.  It'd been created in the 1920s when the Soviets still attempted o placate local ethnic groups on the hopes that they'd come to like the Communist regime. 

Volga Oblast in yellow at bottom of map.

The fate of Volga Germans, in the country since the time of Catherine the Great, proved to be grim. The war would permanently impact their position in the country and while conditions improved for them after the death of Stalin, many emigrated to Germany under the German Law of Return, a trend that reached near totality in the 1980s and 1990s.  By that time it had reached a state of pathos and irony in that the remaining Volga Germans retained much of their early rustic nature, while also having lost the ability to speak German to a very large degree.  Their retained cultural attributes tended to shock modern Germans, while their inability to speak the language of their ancestors made it difficult for them to fit seamlessly into modern Germany.

While his action is regarded as one of the great atrocities of the Stalin era, and the Soviets have since apologized for it, at least in this instance Stalin's paranoid brutality was not without some reason to fear that they'd become a fifth column during the war given that anti Communist sentiments were strong in various Soviet ethnic groups.  Having said that, large numbers of Volga Germans volunteered for Soviet service in the Red Army during the war, although their services were not always accepted or wanted.

Emigrating to North America, it should be noted, had been a trend in the region for decades, and was accelerated when the Imperial Russian Government in later years rescinded exemption for the population from conscription.  In an interesting development, resistance to conscription, which in some Anabaptist German communities in Imperial Russia lead to North American emigration, did not tend to repeat itself in North America.

Today in World War II History—August 28, 1941

The Soviet Navy suffered a serious disaster when it lost several ships to mines while evacuating Tallinn, Estonia, in what has been called the "Soviet Dunkirk".   The Germans occupied the city on this day.  Meanwhile, the Germans lost a U boat to capture in Iceland. The boat would be returned to service in the Royal Navy as the HMS Graph.

The Germans also slaughtered 23,600 Jews in Kamianets-Podilsky on this day, as their campaign of slaughter reached new regions in the Soviet Union.

Another reason to admire Bhutan.

It has a Gross National Happiness Commission.

And that's not a joke.  Its actual goal is to promote the happiness of the population, something that's written into the country's constitution.

Boston - Peace of Mind (Audio)

Ambition

Let others work and lose their health
In piling up the sordid wealth,
    But that is not my wish.
Let others burn the midnight oils,
Devising ways of grabbing spoils;
    I’d rather sit and fish.

Let others solve the problems great,
Affecting the affairs of state;
    None of that on my dish.
Let others hew the nation’s path
And bear the thankless public’s wrath,
    I’d rather sit and fish.

Let others lead the strenuous life
That’s full of worry, toil and strife,
    But that’s not my ambish.
Let others wear their lives away
By living five years every day;
    I’d rather sit and fish.

Roy K. Moulton, July 29, 1913

Topeka State Journal.

German Wehrmacht driving in to surrender near Prague (1945)

Really fascinating film clip of German troops surrendering in Prague at the end of the Second World War.

Some observations.

At 1:07, a US soldier can be seen with a C96 "broomhandle" Mauser pistol in a holster.  In a few scenes down the film, the same soldier requires a bunch of German officers to surrender their sidearms.

Overall, these German soldiers are heavily armed with small arms and are still under arms.

At 4:46 an American Lt. Col speaks with a German officer and his driver. The officer, and maybe the driver, have pulled the Nazi cap devices off of their caps.

The German troops are accompanied by a lot of women who are riding out with them.  As they are not in Germany, it'd be interesting to know the circumstances that caused the women to be rather obviously riding with them.