January 2005

Response to Readership

Do you still believe there ever really was an actual "Deep throat"?

Hanson: I am afraid I do not any more. Why? After 30 years of scrutiny, some information would have leaked about such a source, but none really has. Second, the more we have come to know about Bob Woodward in subsequent work (cf. especially his characterization of the last words of William Casey), the less we should believe that he is an accurate historian as much as a Thucydidean who puts ‘what should or might have been spoken’ into the mouths of speakers as if they were actually delivered. In addition, in 1974 we all believed those in the mainstream media were courageous crusaders, but after Jayson Blair, Rathergate, the earlier Washington Post fabrications, or the so-called gassing story in Vietnam, I think we are beginning to understand that a Vietnam generation saw journalism not as unbiased news reporting, but as a means to correct the supposed injustices of the corporate or establishment world. “Bias” came to be seen as balance, since society was inherently unfair.

So, no, I do not believe there was “a” deep throat, as much as many sources who wanted to bail or were worried about cutting a deal, so they leaked things to Woodward that were sometimes—and sometimes not—reported accurately. Deep throat was perhaps an amalgam of all this that made good copy. By 2005 we have a much clearer idea than in 1974 how the corrupt world of high politics and DC journalism works and it is not pretty. Moreover, “unnamed sources report” or “a high administration official is saying” are often ways of printing a reporter’s own suppositions without much accountability.

January 26 marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. I have always wondered why the allies did not bomb the railways leading to the concentration camps which would have saved thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people? Of the many suicidal missions our airmen flew bombing Berlin and other industry centers, could not the allies have flown a few sorties that would have been far less risk to our airmen and would have exemplified one of the many reasons we were fighting the war?

Hanson: It is a question that has haunted us for generations and has no satisfactory answer. Let me review some of the apologies: (1) that while we had first-hand reports of the Holocaust, there was no central collection of knowledge that affected military operations—hence the surprise of commanders like Patton and Hodges when they arrived at the camps and were stunned and horrified at the carnage; (2) The Army Air Corps was hell-bent on strategic bombing and from the very beginning was pledged to an ossified idea of the 1920s that air power would win wars outright, hence the silly but deadly idea of daylight unescorted bombing in 1942. And their planners thus resented terribly the diversion of their planes for non-strategic objectives--even tactical bombing in Normandy was controversial and considered a "waste" of B-17 capabilities;  (3) As in the case of Yugoslavia in the 1990s some thought bombing and killing for humanitarian reasons was somehow wrong.

The controversy will continue, although I am not convinced that the reason for such regrettable laxity and stupidity was anti-Semitism. Indifference and ignorance surely played a role, but we had no idea of the German extermination of Russians either, or the full extent of Stalin's rampage that took 30 million. Even now the whole story how Mao killed or starved 50 million is not fully appreciated. Such numbers and horror overwhelm the senses and turn us stone-deaf apparently.

At what point after the fall of the Roman Empire do you think Western civilization came closest to being destroyed forever? What preserved it?

Hanson: That is a multivolume answer! The ‘West’ was in dire shape in the 8^th century especially, since it was not at all clear that Islam, as united as Europe was divided, could not have gone beyond Poitiers. The earlier Roman Empire had grown so large and covered such a vast geographical area that it had to strengthen, not weaken, the idea of Romanity; but by the 5^th century A.D., high taxation, rural depopulation, enormous imbalances in wealth, multiculturalism, the end of civic militarism, and the rocky assimilation of Christianity all wore at the idea of unity. And when there were not “the Good Emperors” around or even a Diocletian or Constantine, the inherent problems with autocracy and authoritarianism—corruption, nepotism, cynicism, cronyism—took their toll. We deplore all this, forgetting that for centuries Roman agrarians from North Africa to Gaul pretty much went on as before, participating in local government, collecting taxes, creating roads and bridges, adjudicating local laws as beneficiaries of a unique system that, despite its decapitation, went on beyond Rome itself.

What saved it? Decentralization and centuries of tradition and custom, as well as the innate desire for freedom in expression and commerce—and of course in a strange way the authority of the Church that had destroyed pagan notions of civic virtues only to repackage many of them for its own purposes that were not always antithetical, from neo-Platonism to civic administration.

I enjoyed your response about the Greeks teaching us the “unchanging nature of man,” and how motives like honor, status and envy propel our actions. Do you have any book recommendations (classic and modern) that address these emotions and how they shape history?

Well, as far as the ancient literature: start with Homer’s Iliad. Then read Sophocles, either Antigone, Ajax, Philoctetes, or Oedipus. The locus classicus is Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War, especially the speeches at Sparta, Melos, and the debate over Sicily, as well as the great ones, such as the Funeral Oration or the debate about Athenian character in book one.

For modern work, Bernard Knox’s work on Sophocles remains unparalleled. Read Bruce Thornton’s Greek Ways or Eros, or his Plagues of the Mind. I co-wrote a book called Who Killed Homer? that discusses some of this. Virgil’s Aeneid, Horace’s Odes, and some stoic writing like the younger Seneca and Marcus Aurelius gives you a good flavor of a practical tragic view of resigned endurance. Good luck!

Hanson on the forthcoming translations of Osama Bin Ladin's writing: Raymond Ibrahim was a former student of mine in Classics and Middle Eastern history, now living and working in Washington. He contacted me for some advice, as his former MA thesis advisor, months ago, saying that as part of his job as an archivist he had accidentally come across texts purportedly written years ago by bin Laden and others that he thought should come to light in scholarly fashion, with a translation, historical commentary, and notes, collating them with others transcripts and writings in the public domain. He believed, and does today, that the more the public learns about bin Laden's way of thinking, the better since the terrorists' own words may well show once more that they hate the West for what we are rather than what we do, and that their venom is not predicated on purported wrongs , but rather is a clear reflection of their own pathologies that have a long paper trail. As a second-generation Egyptian of Coptic faith Mr. Ibrahim knows the risks involved from working on such a text, but is not publishing a rushed or lurid translation, but rather at work providing a scholarly context, both historical and philological, that will shed much of the romanticism that bin Laden enjoys in the Middle East. I think everyone should withhold judgment on the effort, until the work appears-well over a year from now-and we can judge for ourselves the fashion in which it is presented.

I have not seen any of his translations, but on the basis of his conversation, suggested that he contact some editors and literary representatives to see if this was a viable project and especially to ascertain both the legality and ethics about publishing such a text, and whether is was even an authentic document, previously known, or in the public domain. I thought little more about it since it seemed a scholarly project that would take months if not years to complete, and was surprised as any to see the recent media barrage about the announcement from Doubleday. Raymond had no idea that there would be any publicity , which apparently was generated elsewhere--especially ironic since by nature he is dedicated to his new job as an archivist and a shy person. No one is more dedicated to the security of the United States than he nor more devastated by the events of September 11, and those concerns, not publicity, are what originally prompted his interest in this apparently old, but neglected document on the shelves where he worked.

Do you agree that the South may have lost the territory and battles in the Civil War, but won the ideological war as Calhoun's positivism captured their spirit more than Lincoln's natural law.

Hanson: I don’t think so at all. By 1863 Lincoln was trying to reflect a very human and natural assumption that all men are created equal under God and to bring to fruition the promise of the Founding Fathers. If an indirect consequence of that just cause was the rise of a usurping federal government and challenge to local autonomy, then it was and is incumbent on Americans to modify and curtail the government according to the perils of our times. The cause of the Civil War was just, and if there were any baleful legacies of an oppressive federal government then it is nothing that we cannot address in our times. I think it is a grave mistake for paleoconservatives to now turn on Lincoln and Churchill who each in their own way were the two giants of Anglo-American cultures of the last two centuries.

Gregg Easterbrook claims that no military has ever solved the dilemma of occupying a country and putting down an insurgency, without alienating the majority population—is this true?

That sort of thinking ignores 500 years of Roman imperial history and is oblivious to the British experience in the Middle East and Africa, and, in modern times, in Malaysia. The Americans did win in the Philippines. NATO saw success in the Balkans. Nicaragua is free of communist insurgents. The list could go on. The majority in Iraq is not alienated, just unsure how to fight for the infidel who is bringing it democracy. But the war is not lost and there is no need for such implied pessimism that seems to be the new conventional wisdom in almost all political and diplomatic journals. After all, elections will take place in 80% of the country; this is a place that was the world's most barbaric place a mere two years ago. The majority wants to vote, a small minority is desperate to kill those who do. Less than Saddam's 100% fixed vote and more than our own 55% participation of potential voters seem likely.

Is a solution along the lines of Cleisthenes' concept of "trittyes" an option for Iraq’s political organization?

Hanson: That is an interesting notion that each political district would have to have tripartite communities resulting in artificial entities made up in equal number of Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis, the notion being that soon their own local interests would unite them and put them in rivalry with other like districts— tension and rivalry thus being entirely political rather than being regional, tribal, and religious. Perhaps you should explore the comparison at length in an essay.

In the 17^th century, Amsterdam discriminated against Catholics. If the most tolerant, most enlightened city of Europe could discriminate against a faith based on the inherently inimical political and military position of its followers, why shouldn't the US do the same today?

Hanson: Because we are 21^st-century not 17^th-century folk, and without belief in ethical progress, within the confines of proven moral traditions and protocols, as we learn from the past, there is little hope at all for civilization. India and Turkey suggest Islam is not necessarily a block to democracy and modernism, if it is practiced in moderation and without suspicion of modernism.

Do you think there is a parallel between the Christian battle with Rome and the Islamic battle with the West?

Hanson: Hardly. True, both Rome and the modern West, mutatis mutandis, were tolerant cultures. But Christianity did not seek to destroy Rome as much as bring it humility and humanity. The Islamicists (note, not generic Muslims) wish to dismantle the West outright, and seek no symbiosis as occurred between Athens and Jerusalem.

Would you comment on the ancient "barbaric" cultures (i.e. the Celts, Hebrews, and Germans) and their role in the fashioning Western thought, compared with the more widely-discussed Greco-Roman influence.

Hanson: A school exists to credit German tribal “freedom” and privilege its contribution to the West, apparently on the premise that Germany lay outside the Rhine and Danube frontiers, came to the West late, and yet by Medieval Times was starting to pull ahead of the old Mediterranean states, suggesting something innately civilizing in tribal culture. Of course, the nihilists like Nietzsche, Hegel and Spengler felt the Volk had a purer culture untainted by a corrupt civilization that brought not just multiracialism but pacifism, unnatural religion, and corrupting affluence and commerce to Europe. Obviously I am not much of a fan of this line of thinking, and feel that what zest and spirituality brought to the West by the so-called barbarians was far outweighed by the legacy of classical thought and letters.

Your condemnation of postmodern 'soft' virtues and nihilism reminds me of Plutarch's descriptions of Cato the Elder. What are your opinions of Cato and his contributions?

Hanson: I have read carefully his work on farming, De Agri Cultura, and admire his advice about personal regimen and the need for rural values underpinning Roman republicanism. But his was the fate of many noble reactionaries who rail against modernism (in his case Hellenism), and yet seem to welcome the sophistication and affluence that such change brings. My grandfather often reminded me of Cato. Born in 1890 in the house that I now live, he rarely went to town and felt it had a corrupting influence on life. He rose at dawn and slept shortly after dusk. His diet was full of vegetables and fruit—onions, garlic, beans, and rice—without sweets or much meat. He was married for 63 years and mortgaged his farm to send his daughters to Stanford University during the Depression. And he had a studied politeness and manners, but could be ferocious when intruders burst into his private domain on the farm. He watched 86 years of American history from our farm, and seemed to think wars, depressions, and fads come and go, but the the land it always remained. A wonderful man he was; he was a Welshman (Rees Davis) and a natural foil to my Swedish Grandfather, Frank Hanson, who made his living by breaking horses and raising animals and was more a tragic sort, speaking little and judging one by how much he worked (and could hold his liquor.) Both were creatures of the 19^th-century and I doubt we will see their likes again in any age soon—each in their own ways Catos to the core.

What is your assessment of MacArthur's administration of post-war Japan? Are there lessons to be drawn from that occupation and then applied in Iraq?

Hanson: A real success. Yes, there are lessons. He was seen very little. Bremmer, as I wrote, should never have been on television. He made almost immediate land reform and gave the franchise to women—thus making allies of the outcasts, as we are trying to do with the Shiites and Kurds. He wrote beautifully and his flair for the dramatic served him well in such a formalistic society. He saved Japan from communism and we should ignore both his vanity and ego, as well as his lapses in 1941 and again in 1950 and give him credit for his postbellum administration.

Do any of your books on the military deal in any degree of depth with the topic of logistics in the ancient armies. How did Alexander the Great manage to equip and feed all the men on the move?

Hanson: Read Donald Engel’s PhD. dissertation that made a fine UC press book on the logistics of Alexander the Great. It was a small, but landmark study that brought a degree of scientific rationalism to the discussion and thus made sense of Alexander’s amazing progress. The entire campaign was predicated on an amazing degree of logistical planning.

How did the ancient Romans defeat the Greeks in battle?

Hanson: Scholars usually look at two landmark, 2^nd-century-B.C. battles in northern Greece at Cynoscephalae and Pydna for answers, discussed at length in the text of Polybius and to a lesser extent Livy, and the tactical writers as well—the discussions, of course, limited to the Macedonian phalanx that had superseded the old classical phalanx of shorter (one-handed) spears, large shields, and heavy armor. As you might imagine, their explanations center on flexibility in the fullest sense: maniples can attack in echelon and not all at once; the pilum gave the legionary an aerial arm as well; the gladius had the greatest penetrating power of all ancient weapons. So if the legion was led wisely, drew a phalanx onto rough terrain, exposed its flanks, or wore it down through maneuver, the verdict was not in doubt. But any maniple that was caught in a head-on collision was of course doomed, and both battles for a time were close-run things for that very reason. Caracalla, the Roman emperor, toyed with a phalanx of pikemen, in the idea that late Roman ground troops needed some sort of bulwark against Eastern mailed heavy cavalry.

If Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, how long do you think America would have continued to stay out of the WWII? Was isolationist sentiment so strong in America at the time that a direct attack was required, or might another event or development have triggered our declaration of war?

Hanson: A good ‘what if’ question. One would hope that stories that filtered back about the mass murder on the eastern front by December 1941 would have told us a holocaust was on the way and prompted our entry—but then we knew Stalin himself had earlier made a pact with Hitler and killed 30 million of his own. At some point Hitler would have gone after US merchant ships with a vengeance and, like World War I, prompted an American response. So I think we would have probably been in by early 1942, and Japan according to their protocols with Hitler, would have shortly thereafter attacked. Reading accounts of mid-1941 the wonder is not that Japan struck in December, but that it didn’t earlier in 1940. It had been on a warpath since 1933 and its militarists had brought victory and prosperity of sorts to its people.

Why did it take the United States so long to join the fight in Europe during WWII? Has Great Britain not been a much better ally to us in the war on terror than we were to them in the war against Hitler?

Hanson: The Great Depression hit the United States much harder. We were entirely disarmed and knew it. There were still bitter feelings over World War I. Wilsonism had preached that Versailles was too hard on Germany and reflected Anglo-Gallic vengeance contrary to American magnanimity. And with the rise of Hitler—and remember this was before knowledge of the Holocaust or the barbarity in Russia—there was a sense that European Civil War was a normal condition and no business of the United States that had failed to establish a lasting peace in 1919. Remember the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact confirmed our cynicism as fascism and communism ate up Poland at once. Finally, there was deep suspicion of the British Empire. Add isolationism, the Depression, anti-English feeling, and cynicism over Stalin/Hitler and you have the ingredients for our wait and see attitude, which now seems sort of incredible and embarrassing.

Do you think it reasonable to compare Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton with Justinian and Theodora?As for the present, the UK really cannot help us all that much, other than to provide moral support and intellectual exegeses, in the manner of what Tony Blair has done. If Britain is hit by Islamicists, things may change. But for now the degree to which all Europeans have essentially disarmed is often forgotten. Look at the current disaster relief efforts and note how little air and sea transport from Europe is on the scene—they simply do not have it.

Hanson: That comparison is insulting—to Justinian and Theodora. To be fair, Ken Starr told us more even than did Procopius, so we knew details about Bill that most preferred not to know. Still, I am not to this day convinced that the Clintons were all that different from political couples who spend their entire lives in the arena—my god, they had not bought a house or been off the public payroll until recently. The Washington/New York nexus is not rural America, but a deeply amoral place where everything is on the altar of careerist ambition. Like most Americans, I deeply disapproved of Clinton the man, but acknowledged his remarkable political skills. We think Hillary made Bill, but he was far brighter and had a sixth sense of what people want that only with difficulty she learned from him. No wonder she never divorced him—he made her what she is, rather than vice versa. Given his lack of intellectual integrity and basic honesty, Bill Clinton’s political skills were essential for good leadership—and will be remembered as the most remarkable in modern American history.

Why do you think that the tremendous battles of the Eastern Front (except Stalingrad) are not mentioned much in the West in books or documentaries?

Oh, but they are—read Max Hastings’ Armageddon. We should not be misled in the overall assessment of the war by the impressive figure that the Soviets killed 2 of every 3 German soldiers to think theirs was the greatest accomplishment, despite their tragic and historic losses. They did not have strategic bombers, submarines, or much of a merchant marine. They were absent from North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Western Normandy. They did not supply their allies. They did not fight in the Pacific or supply China. In short, the Anglo-American effort was far more multifaceted, by air, land, and sea, and at great distance from home, and thus must remain the more spectacular achievement, despite the horrendous and tragic Soviet losses against the Wehrmacht from 1941-4.

Do you feel as I do that the enormous bloodletting that France underwent from 1914-18 has still scarred the national psyche and that is the main cause of its defeatist and hostile attitude even towards nations such as the United States and Israel, which do not wish her any harm?

Hanson: Yes and no. The French sacrifice was enormous—but it resulted in heroic victory. That demoralization led to the tragedy of WWII, when they were overrun in 6 weeks. It would be as if Vietnam was followed by something worse rather than Gulf War I—but at a magnitude of 10. French postmodernism—facts don’t matter, power alone adjudicates “truth”, and all cultures are essentially the same in moral terms—grew up as a response to the unthinkable reality of defeat and humiliation, exacerbated by Vietnam and Algeria. Today in France the heroism and great monuments all date to 1917-18, there is very little to be happy about from 1940 and after. In the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles the great canvasses seem to stop with WWI; after that there are mere fumes of grandeur.

China's navy is readying deployment of ballistic missile submarines.  Although I do not believe they are out to destroy Western civilization, as are the Islamic fascists, I do expect them to rise and challenge US power, at least in Asia. Our strategy with China has been to pursue trade and business in order to export democracy and hope the population tastes some perestroika and glasnost.  Do you think this is working?  Will it be another twenty years before the hard-line government softens?

Hanson: A billion people with $500 billion in reserves will find military power commensurate with their economic and regional power. You are astute in describing current US policy, that a volatile China will liberalize under the weight of consumerism and economic freedom before turning imperial and using the lucre against its neighbors. The jury is out. What is not out--is the need to reassure Japan that we are behind it no matter what. If Taiwan, Japan and the Koreas go nuclear, then the China Sea will be the most dangerous place in the world. A final note: someone in China isn't very bright; someone allowed on its immediate or nearby borders the following: nuclear India, nuclear Russia, nuclear Pakistan, nuclear American bases, nuclear North Korea, and if it is not careful far more to come. So I don't see the Chinese running rough-shod all over the Pacific, like the old Japanese. But no doubt, in the immediate area and in certain resource rich areas of the globe, the US is going to have to be wary of a new Chinese military presence.

What do you think of prospective Turkish membership to the EU? Will it further Islamicize Europe or help westernize the Islamic world?

Hanson: I wrote about it in a recent column. Well, the US is smiling. The much vaunted, hyperliberal EU is now being told by the Turks to put their money where their liberal mouths are and let in 70 million Muslims with a per capita income lower than Romania, to be granted instant access to travel and property all over Europe. Good luck.

We benefit by seeing a potential Islamicist country (there are scary things going on among some minority radical religious parties now in Turkey) become Westernized at someone else’s expense, which will cost the EU dearly and expose their utopian rhetoric we have all suffered under for years. In the long run, Turkey’s jihadists cannot fight 300 million plus Westerners, and their culture of consumer materialism and pop instant gratification. So in 50 years Turkey will more likely be Westernized than Islamicize an entire continent. In short, if I were in the EU I would vote against it; if I were not in the EU (and I am not), I would be all for it. Moral? Be careful where your smug, self-righteous slogans may eventually lead you. (PS: I love the Greek government’s brilliant triangulation: afraid of Islamicism and with an awful 400 years to remember of Turkish rule, the Greeks are wise enough not to play the fall guy and bad sport in all this. So they hang back and let the French be the roadblock, secure that if Turkey is rejected, it can’t blame its neighbor; and if it is accepted, then as an EU member it won’t very likely bully or attack Greece, and even more EU subsidies will come its direction en route to Ankara. So you see this strange thing: Greeks on the street furious about the peril of Turkey in the EU—but official sanction of the move, and utopianism in the elite magazines and media welcoming the brethren in.)

Of all European countries, Russia seems to be the one that would put up least with Islamic terror attacks. What kind of military response can we expect from the increasingly totalitarian government of Vladimir Putin?

Hanson: Who knows for sure? If more of Chechnya’s terrorists turn up in the Gulf who knows? Russia has plenty of oil to sell, so why would it worry about sending a missile or two into any Arab sheikdom traced to funding child-killers? It is tricky and dangerous, and so far President Bush is very wise in developing a friendship with Putin that allows him to shrug and say “I like you, don’t’ worry, my pain-in-the-neck State Department gives me grief too, so bear with me.”

Does the precarious nature of the Pakistani government concern you? What would you suggest that the US government do if the next attempt at a Musharraf assassination succeeds and the nuclear weapons and missiles therein fall into the hands of the assassins?