Lawrence and his Message

By Robert L. Bateman

“Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them.”

~ T.E. Lawrence

Of late there are quite a few people who have taken to quoting T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia. The quote presented above is seen almost every day now, on military briefings and in State Department papers, in quotes in news articles and in public statements from people involved in all aspects of our effort. In the eyes of many Lawrence, it seems, holds the answer to our dilemmas both in our efforts to suppress an insurgency and helping develop a democracy.

Unfortunately, as seems to happen too often, almost everyone who uses this particular quote does so without understanding the context in which it was written. Many people, for example, assume that it comes from his 1922 classic, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Unfortunately, not so many of those who use the quote have actually read The Seven Pillars of Wisdom in all of its sometimes mind-numbing “Oh aren’t these rocks and the shadows of the desert beautiful” glory. Even fewer realize that the quote is actually from a collection tidbits of advice Lawrence penned during the war in a British publication known as The Arab Bulletin. This particular quote was number fifteen (of twenty-seven) pieces of wisdom published under his byline on 20 August 1917. The salient points regarding the relevance of the citations are actually twofold. This is an issue is because, especially when quoting Lawrence, the context is important...

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An editor somewhere at the New York Times should probably be very worried for his job right about now. Not because he or she missed a comma splice, or permitted a run-on sentence, that is actually the job of people called copy editors. No, that editor should be worried because today, on page A1 and above the fold, he or she failed in their job to present a logical and intellectually coherent article. In short, they let a reporter run wild with an a historical collection of claptrap which displays both a stunning ignorance of the military as well as the even more unforgivable sin of being ignorant of how the Pentagon press corps (to include the Pentagon correspondent for the Times) works.

Here is the short version of the thesis: The political appointees in the Pentagon try to counteract adverse news stories and also try to increase what they believe are positive news stories.

Whoa Nellie! Knocked ya right outta your saddle with that one, didn’t they?

Of course, as with all such situations, there are some nuggets to be found within the body of the story...

Continue reading "All The News That’s…" »

For years I struggled with many of my peers, trying to convince them that journalists are not the enemy. It was an uphill row to hoe, but a worthy one. Over time most seem to have accepted the proposition that journalists and their editors really do take a lot of time and effort to determine if they should run with a story, particularly one which might damage us, so the terrain shifted. More and more I came to find myself engaging with either veterans or “pro military” civilian bloggers. Their positions are more hardened than those of us serving today. Often this appears to be a byproduct of their politics. (One of the political parties has it as a basic contention that “the mainstream media” is fundamentally anti-military.) Over and over again I’ve heard the refrain by people of this inclination, that journalists don’t give a damn about those of us in uniform and would sell us out for a second if it meant a good story...

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A friend whom I consider smarter than your average bear, upon examining my annotated bibliography of combat stress and trauma, posed the question to me, “What happens when the jihadists go home?” This, folks, is the essence of insight.

War, even for us Clausewitzians (well, actually, especially for us Clausewitzians) is a Hegelian dialectic. There is a thesis, an antithesis, and the interaction of the two result in a synthesis. It is so obvious that it should scream out, that post-synthesis, in an unconventional environment, the byproducts will return to their origins, and their experiences will have secondary effects in their countries of origin. War changes all of us. Noted. But my bibliography dealt only with the US, UK, and France, and in each case dealt also with the states which had sent those men to war with the authority of the nation-state.

I like having friends that make me think...

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The history of combat trauma is one which draws fire every time. It is a topic wrapped in politics, both conventional and those internal to both the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and history. I hope this brief annotated bibliography will help some come to understand the foundations, the arguments, and the various issues in play on this topic. This list is rank-ordered in what I believe is their utility to those interested in the study of war, particularly my fellow historians and journalists, but also my peers in the military...

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Originally posted at Committee of Concerned Journalists.

I spend a lot of time trying to convince my colleagues in the Army and the Marines that the media are not the problem. I cite chapter and verse of the history of our relationship -- the dysfunctional periods, propaganda phases, the development of the ethics of good responsible American journalism -- and I’m usually able to demonstrate that while what passed for mid-19th century journalism truly was enough to drive one to distraction, in the 20th and thus far in the 21st, journalists really have been at least as professional as we, and quite often more so.

This self-appointed task, unfortunately, often remains an uphill battle, as many soldiers, Marines and their officers are convinced a media bias exists against the military in general and the ground forces in particular.

I wage my little internal struggle because I think it is right, and that my peers are often blowing small things out of proportion and seeing a bogeyman where there is none. I try to show them how this is part of a narrative that periodically recurs in military circles (the German army after WWI, the American army after Vietnam). I also try to demonstrate to them how they have been conditioned to accept the narrative as true without being critical of the assertions.

In short, I argue for journalists and journalism all of the time, and passionately.

And then the editors of the New York Times dig themselves a nice deep pit, fill it with slime and muck, and dive in headfirst...

Continue reading "More Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics" »

LTC Bob Bateman here again. It has been a busy few days for those who keep track of things like journalism and war, and the intersection thereof. This post first appeared on Media Matters and I thought I's share it with SWJ.

There are three things on the plate: The New Republic, National Review Online, and Bilal Hussein.

I will start with the first, and simplest, observation. Several months ago I wrote about my doubts about the veracity of a young man named Scott Thomas, who was then writing for Franklin Foer's The New Republic. The short version of what I wrote was that his stories seemed really fishy to me, and I cautioned about wholly believing these purportedly true stories, and I left it at that. About a week later it was revealed that his real name was Scott Thomas Beauchamp, and bloggers on the right side of the aisle took off in a howling pack, hunting for more information. They found some. Foer and TNR, meanwhile, went into what can only be described as a journalistic full defensive crouch...

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Sunday matters. Or, more particularly, this coming Sunday matters.

It does not matter to me because of the football games that will be played or the tailgating that will occur. Nor do I care overmuch about the regularly scheduled worship services that some religions will hold on this day. The weather will not affect the importance of this coming Sunday for me. Nor should it for you. What matters is that this coming Sunday is Veterans Day.

It is difficult to make the connection, perhaps, for most people. Almost all of our First World War veterans are gone now, and the news reports tell me that the men who fought World War II are dying at the rate of 1,000 a day. More modern veterans are fading as well, while the current military is made up of less than one half of one percent of the American public. But on this day, perhaps, we might appeal and ask that those who have given the last full measure of their devotion, be faithfully recalled by their nation.

They are honored so elsewhere...

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The Abuse of Military History: An Introduction to the Problems of Victor Davis Hanson

I am a soldier, first and foremost, and this is as it should be. But I am also an academic historian.

As a member of two cultures, I find that they have much in common, at least in theory. Foremost among those is an inclination to distrust the first report, and to privilege the written word. In my historical writing, however, I seek to create a thesis for the reader which accurately represents a synthesis of facts and ideas that come from sometimes quite disparate sources. In developing that thesis, I am bound by the facts. This, also, is as it should be. But there is something else my two professions share. In short, members of both professions hate liars and those who twist the truth around.

My book on the events at No Gun Ri in 1950 devotes fully half of the text to understanding how lies worked their way into the historical record and people's understanding of what took place near that small South Korean village more than 50 years ago. The bottom line is that I have a strong sentiment against people putting falsehoods into the record...

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