Dowd went on to say that

The lean McChrystal, who was dubbed a Jedi warrior by Newsweek, prides himself on his Spartan style. He banned alcohol and Burger King from the Kabul headquarters compound and only eats one meal a day.

But he has met his match in Afghan warriors, who have clobbered every foreign invader since Alexander the Great. The average Afghan fighter lives on grain, a bowl of rice, a bottle of water. How much does it cost by comparison to have a foreign soldier in Afghanistan?

Let's take a look at this particular exercise in feminist spleen by Ms Dowd.

First of all, she singles out the "warrior-god culture" as responsible for General McChrystal's allegedly bad behavior.

And I must say I was surprised by her use of the term "warrior-god," since I wasn't aware that anyone nowadays other than myself uses that term.

So perhaps Ms Dowd has been reading our Man2Man Alliance posts.

Perhaps she even read two of the most recent, The Warrior Altruism of the Warrior God, and Worshipping the Warrior God.

I certainly hope Ms Dowd did read those articles -- and that you did too -- but in case you didn't, this is a visual of the Warrior God in his ancient Greek incarnation, and as I often present him:

And I frequently follow up that image with these words:

So -- I'm certainly glad to see that Ms Dowd at least recognizes the vital role that the Warrior God is playing -- or at least she thinks is playing -- in General McChrystal's life.

As she says:

Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his hard-bitten, smart-aleck aides nuked the president, vice president and other top advisers as wimps, losers and clowns in a Rolling Stone profile meant to polish the general's image.

It was a product of the warrior-god culture, four-star generals with their own public-relations teams, that came from Gen. David Petraeus. And the towel-snapping was intensified by the fact that McChrystal used to be a tough special-ops, under-cover-of-the-night, rules-don't-apply-to-us military guy.

So -- Ms Dowd believes that "warrior-god culture," which we often call Warriordom, led the hapless general to "nuke the president, vice president and other top advisers as wimps, losers and clowns".

Hmmm.

Sounds like she doesn't think the Warrior God is a good influence on his followers.

Since he provokes his Warriors into "nuking" the civilian chain of command.

Of course, that's just a bit of pundit hyperbole on Ms Dowd's part.

In reality, the general did not, I repeat did NOT, unleash part of our nuclear arsenal on the president and his aides.

Nor on the Congress, which many folks, I suspect, think deserves to be nuked.

No, the general actually didn't do -- or advocate or in any other way suggest doing -- anything remotely like that.

All he did, and this is the truth guys, was to be quoted by Rolling Stone as being *mildly* critical of certain aspects of the administration's ideas about and conduct of the war.

It's true that certain members of his staff, anonymous members of his staff, made some comments that were a bit sharper in tone.

But remember, just for starters, that the general and his staff were at war.

A war in which he and his brave soldiers were daily risking their lives.

Risking their lives so that the people of America, including people who write op-eds, can exercise their freedom of speech.

It's a war, the Rolling Stone profile makes clear, which they earnestly want to win.

Want to win with all their hearts and souls.

It's also a war in which they regularly see friends and comrades killed.

Perhaps some of the young Men in the General's retinue said a few things that were a tad sharp.

Is that not understandable -- and could that not be excused and forgiven?

NO!

Ms Dowd will not be appeased, and she relentlessly continues her attack:

And the towel-snapping was intensified by the fact that McChrystal used to be a tough special-ops, under-cover-of-the-night, rules-don't-apply-to-us military guy.

Another Hmmm.

Because General McChrystal was appointed by the president precisely because he's "a tough special-ops, under-cover-of-the-night, rules-don't-apply-to-us military guy" with particular expertise in dealing with insurgencies.

In other words, because he was the right Man for the job.

Ms Dowd doesn't agree.

She points with horror to that echt-warrior-male activity, "towel-snapping," also a product, in her mind apparently, of the Warrior God culture.

And she seems to think that towel-snapping, like nuking, is some sort of brutal and bullying behavior meant to keep wimps in line.

In reality, towel-snapping is a game -- yes, a game -- played by nude males, which strengthens the bonds -- dare I say the Warrior Bonds -- among them:

T o w e l - S n a p p i n g
The New York Times does not approve.

Towel-snapping.

Even that little exercise in male bonding provokes feminist wrath.

But that's commonly the case with The New York Times.

To The Times, and the culture it represents, if it's good for women, it's good.

And if it's good for Men -- it's bad.

Put differently, to The New York Times:

Sisterhood is Powerful.

Brotherhood is Poisonous.

A bunch of nude guys in a communal shower snapping towels at each other?

That must be something aggressive and violent, mean and bullying, the product of an almost infinitely destructive Warrior-God culture.

It's something which, for the good of the human race, must be stamped out.

Now -- are all activities by nude males anathema to the NY Times?

No.

Take, for example, buttfucking.

If one nude male buttfucks another -- that's okay.

More than okay.

It's terrific.

Even if he gives him HIV.

Doesn't matter.

HIV is now a "manageable" disease, and buttfucking is good for males because it destroys their masculinity.

And thus wipes out any latent, Warrior-God type desires they might have for nuking the president or towel-snapping.

Which, you see, are basically the same thing.

In Ms Dowd's bizarre feminist ideology, towel-snapping and special ops and nuclear attacks upon civilians are all blended together in one inextricable whirl.

Because, after all, Warrior-God culture towel-snapping leads to male-bonding which leads to special ops which leads to nuclear war and the destruction of the world.

That's how it happens, and that's why we must all work together to prevent and eliminate this:

It's the same mind-set, guys, which I reported on some time back, which led a female helicopter pilot to complain that some Blackwater guards were sunbathing in the all-together on the roof of their compound in Baghdad.

I mean, really, why should that bother the pilot?

They're just guys, and they're just sunbathing.

But, you know, nudity among guys, and particularly among guys at war, leads to male-bonding, and male-bonding is always suspect.

And more than that.

Because the plain fact is that this sort of male cameraderie and masculine fellowship fills the feminists with dread.

They fear it.

They've worked for years to gain the de facto hegemony of the human race, and now, at least in the West, they have it.

They don't want to lose it, and they'll do anything to keep it.

And that includes, on the part of The New York Times, directing opprobrium at Men and their normal and normative activities which, if directed at the common activities of any other group -- Walloons, Uighurs, Hutus -- would provoke outrage.

But if it's Men -- you can attack ANYTHING they say or do, and it's just hunky-dory with The Times.

Notice I said "Men."

What I really should have said was "straight-identified Men" or "Men assumed by The New York Times to be 100% 'heterosexual'."

Because if the keepers of the XY chromosome involved are thought to be gay-identified males, the rules change.

For example, in a subsequent column about the allegedly errant General McChrystal, Ms Dowd complained that while in Paris to meet with NATO officials,

Preening with Spartan street cred, disdaining anything too "Gucci," like restaurants with candles, McChrystal groused about having to go to some fancy dinner with a French minister -- an occasion profanely mocked as "gay" by one of the aides in his insolent retinue.

"profanely mocked"

What the aide actually said, guys, and remember that this aide had been suddenly transported from the grim war in Afghanistan to a fancy suite in a Paris hotel -- what the aide actually said was that the dinner with the French minister would be "fucking gay."

"fucking gay"

That's a no-no.

"gays" fucking is okay, and more than okay, but "fucking gay" is bad.

To mock as "gay" is to attack males who are busily ridding themselves of their undesirable masculine attributes by being anally penetrated -- by each other.

Once again: attacking gay-identified males is not allowed.

No matter what they do.

Whether it's having fancy dinner parties -- or going out after those fancy dinner parties and getting infected with -- or infecting someone else with -- HIV.

Yet each and every day -- at a minimum and in America alone -- 73 gay-identified males INFECT 73 other gay-identified males -- with HIV -- through buttfucking.

Each and every day.

It's done callously and with reckless and utter disregard for the welfare of the guys infected.

In 2007, 14,561 people died of AIDS in the US.

At least half of whom were gay-identified males, who'd been infected -- by other gay-identified males.

Because that's how gay-identified males get infected.

They aren't infected by some insolent or mocking remark.

They're infected by other gay-identified males -- fucking them up the ass.

Through that act, they get infected with HIV; and then they die of AIDS -- at least some of them.

Which means that AIDS is still a fatal disease.

Which means that infecting someone with HIV -- is murderous.

Much is made of the fact that we've now reached a "milestone" in Afghanistan of 1,000 American soldiers killed.

After nine years of war.

Yet in just one year, not overseas, but right here at home, 7,000 or more gay-identified males die of a wound -- an infected wound -- they receive when they're brutally penetrated by another gay-identified male.

Yet you can't talk about it.

I know, because I've tried to talk about it for the last ten years.

And I've been viciously attacked and censored.

Yet since 2001, at least sixty-three thousand (63,000!) gay-identified American males have died of wounds inflicted by other gay-identified American males.

That's at least sixty-three times the number of Americans -- as have died in Afghanistan.

Yet -- you can't talk about it.

It's like I said: attacking gay-identified males is not allowed.

No matter what they do.

While attacking Men who appear to be "straight" -- is the order of the day.

Also no matter what they do.

I mean -- Ms Dowd says the General had an "insolent retinue."

Does it occur to her that those Men were facing death daily?

And that that might make them, when presented with a fancy dinner party in time of war, a tad "insolent?"

Apparently not.

So -- not content with simply savaging the "Warrior-God culture" aka Warriordom -- both in her follow-up column, and in her previous column, Ms. Dowd accuses the general of having Spartan proclivities.

It's as though she were some Athenian demagogue during the Peloponessian War, eager to use any slur to discredit a political opponent:

The lean McChrystal, who was dubbed a Jedi warrior by Newsweek, prides himself on his Spartan style. He banned alcohol and Burger King from the Kabul headquarters compound and only eats one meal a day.

The general is "lean" -- normally, for the NY Times set, lean is good, obese is bad -- but I think Ms Dowd means for us to make a subliminal connection here between McChrystal and Cassius, one of the conspirators in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, who is said to have "a lean and hungry look" --

and therefore apt to overthrow a government.

Of course, Cassius was on the side of the Republic, Caesar was the dictator, but, Never Mind -- the important thing is to discredit the general in any way you can.

Which leads to his "Spartan style," his banning of alcohol and Burger King.

As is often the case, Ms Dowd, like many others, uses the term "Spartan" without understanding who the Spartans were and how they actually lived.

The Spartans didn't, for example, ban alcohol, but actually encouraged wine consumption, so long as it was in moderation.

And the general's ban was not the expression of some Warrior-God puritanical impulse, but actually an exercise in good leadership.

As the Times of London -- and a tip o' the hat to Warrior NW for turning me on to this article -- explained:

Burgers go way of booze as US general Stanley McChrystal bans junk food

Jerome Starkey, Kabul

First he banned booze in his Kabul headquarters. Now the notoriously austere commander of US and Nato forces has a new target in his war on terror: ice cream and fast food.

General Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of Special Forces in Iraq, who runs eight miles a day, eats one meal and sleeps for only four hours a night, has given orders to close the junk food concessions on Nato bases.

No longer will the fighter pilots at Bagram or Kandahar airfields be able to ring Pizza Hut to deliver. Once General McChrystal has his way, the Whoppers will be off the menu: Burger Kings at both locations are to close. Even the newly opened TGI Friday's on the boardwalk in Kandahar is to close its doors once its contract expires.

"This is a war zone, not an amusement park," wrote Command Sergeant-Major Michael T. Hall in a military blog.

The boardwalk area also has an Oakley sunglasses shop, a Subway sandwich bar and a Delice de France. The Harley-Davidson concession offering tax-free motorbikes delivered to soldiers' homes is also going.

The decision is likely to appal the rear echelon soldiers stationed on bases the size of small cities but it has been welcomed by some of the frontline forces stuck in sparse combat outposts without fresh food or running water.

"From the moment [General] McChrystal and I arrived in Afghanistan last summer, we began looking for ways to do things more efficiently across the battlefield. This effort includes moving and reallocating resources to better accomplish our mission," Sergeant-Major Hall wrote.

"What it comes down to is focus, and to using the resources we have in the most efficient and effective ways possible.

"Supplying non-essential luxuries to big bases like Bagram and Kandahar makes it harder to get essential items to combat outposts and forward operating bases, where troops who are in the fight each day need resupplying with ammunition, food and water."

In September General McChrystal banned alcohol at his headquarters after complaining that too many staff had hangovers. Some troops dubbed it his "war on Stella".

The changes are unlikely to have much effect on British troops. Camp Bastion has a Pizza Hut and a van outside the Naafi offering takeaway vindaloos. Alcohol is already banned.

[emphases mine]

So -- General McChyrstal's actions were "welcomed by some of the frontline forces stuck in sparse combat outposts without fresh food or running water" -- that is, the guys actually doing the fighting and dying --

not only because it made life a little fairer -- but because

Supplying non-essential luxuries to big bases like Bagram and Kandahar makes it harder to get essential items to combat outposts and forward operating bases, where troops who are in the fight each day need resupplying with ammunition, food and water.

In other words, because it helped ensure that frontline troops got the ammunition, food, and water, they need -- to fight.

And the ban on alcohol?

The Brits had already banned it -- which, given that Afghanistan is a Muslim country and the general was charged with winning hearts and minds -- would make sense for us too.

So -- General McChrystal's "Spartan style" was actually simply an exercise of sound leadership principles.

That said, are there Spartan elements and echoes in what this "Jedi Warrior" did?

Yes.

King Agesilaus of Sparta insisted on living like his troops, sleeping on the ground as they did, and eating the same food.

It would have been unthinkable of him to allow the fourth-century BC equivalent of Burger King to be consumed at home or by garrison troops while the troops in the field were eating barley-bread.

Just would NOT have happened.

Because, as we've much discussed, Spartan society was organized around the ideals of austerity and equality.

But then, you know, the Spartans in general had a very different take than do we on many issues, including this question of "insubordination."

And that's because, I think, they were living in a PRE-heterosexualized society.

In our own, VERY heterosexualized society, McChrystal's criticisms of the president and his aides were widely seen as an attack on the president's masculinity.

If the president didn't respond forcefully, that is by firing McChrystal, he'd be seen as a wimp -- as less than a "real man."

Yet King Agesilaus of Sparta, who ruled in the fourth-century BC, was faced with a very similar situation.

But he reacted very differently.

Why?

Well, in my view, because he wasn't living in a heterosexualized society.

To the contrary -- he lived in a culture in which Men were free to be the lovers of other Men -- while being married to Women and having children by them.

As the great classicist KJ Dover says, and as we discussed in Sex Between Men: An Activity, Not a Condition,

Wherever and whenever the emphasis on same-sex love -- that is, Eros -- in the Greek world originated, the simple answer to the question 'Why were the Athenians of Plato's time so fond of male-male relations?' is 'Because their fathers and grandfathers were'.

So: Guys in Plato's time -- and Agesilaus was a contemporary of Plato -- were into male-male because their fathers and grandfathers had been.

And their fathers and grandfathers before them.

It was a culturally-sanctioned behavior.

Cultural.

The culture said -- Do it!

And the guys said -- You bet!

Dover:

[The Greeks] did not consider male-male relations incompatible with concurrent male-female relations or with marriage...

So -- as we saw in Man2Man in the Middle East, a Man like Agesilaus would pursue male-male relationships with, as his friend Xenophon put it, "all the intensity of an ardent nature" -- while being very happily married.

That's the truth.

And when issues of insubordination arose -- Agesilaus, who'd been a soldier all his life -- didn't have to worry about being accused of being a wimp because he was less than 100% harsh with the offender.

He could just do what he thought was right -- without worrying about his decision reflecting in some mysterious way on his Manhood.

And that's what he did.

In one case, which I'm going to discuss at more length in a forthcoming post, Agesilaus forgave the guy even though he was a political enemy; he didn't just talk insubordination, he did it; and his acts embroiled Sparta in a war with Athens.

Didn't matter.

Agesilaus, working through the Spartan courts, let the guy off, saying, according to Plutarch, that "he utterly condemned what the guy had done, but that he considered him a brave man and recognized that Sparta needed soldiers of his type."

So -- I know, I know, we have to have civilian control of the military -- but it's striking nevertheless that Agesilaus, who was openly involved in same-sex love affairs, felt sufficiently at ease to say about the soldier who'd dissed him -- what Obama could not have said about McChrystal:

I condemn what he did, but he's a brave man and America needs soldiers like him.

Which America does.

The reason Obama couldn't say that was, of course and again, the wimp factor --

if he had, he'd be accused of being less than a "real man."

Yet no one said that about Agesilaus.

You see guys, the plain fact of the matter is this:

MEN ARE FREER -- not just sexually but in all ways -- WHEN THEY'RE FREE TO FREELY EXPRESS THEIR MALE-MALE NEEDS AND DESIRES.

Much Freer.

Far more Free.

A r i s t o g e i t o n and H a r m o d i u s
Free Men, Lovers, and Athenian Patriots

C h a i r e d e m o s and L y k e a s
Free Men, Lovers, and Athenian Warriors

In our very heterosexualized society, Obama had to fire McChrystal or stand accused of not being a "real man."

But in Sparta, where Men were FREE to have male-male relationships at the same time that they had male-female relationships, Agesilaus could retain a man who was a political enemy and whose actions had pushed Sparta into a war with Athens, simply by saying -- He's a brave man and a good soldier and we need brave men and good soldiers.

MEN ARE FREER WHEN THEY'RE FREE TO FREELY EXPRESS THEIR MALE-MALE NEEDS AND DESIRES.

Finally, there's this bit from Dowd:

[McChrystal] has met his match in Afghan warriors, who have clobbered every foreign invader since Alexander the Great. The average Afghan fighter lives on grain, a bowl of rice, a bottle of water. How much does it cost by comparison to have a foreign soldier in Afghanistan?

Dowd claims that McChrystal, despite his "Warrior-God culture" and "Spartan style," "has met his match in Afghan warriors, who have clobbered every foreign invader since Alexander the Great."

Is that true?

Are Afghan Warriors supermen who've "clobbered every foreign invader since Alexander the Great"?

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, NO.

First of all, the word "Afghan" was first used in 928 AD -- about 1200 years after Alexander had passed by.

So Alexander couldn't have been conquered by "Afghan warriors."

But, in point of fact, NO ONE living in that area clobbered Alexander.

And, you know, because I've heard this said -- that is, that the "Afghans" had "clobbered Alexander" -- a number of times on the net, and because it's a politically hot topic, I used my handy-dandy hard copy version of the 1992 Encyclopedia Britannica (1:779, 3b), which can't be hacked in to by some ideologically-motivated goon, to see what really went on when Alexander passed through what is now "Afghanistan."

First of all, the Persians themselves had conquered part of the area, and turned it into a province or satrapy, called Bactria.

After Alexander had defeated the reigning Persian emperor Darius III, and that emperor had been killed by his fellow Persian nobles, Bactria was led into revolt by the local Persian governor or satrap, a guy named Bessus, who claimed that he was now the legitimate Persian emperor.

Which really pissed off the other Persian nobles.

Alexander sent his general, his GREEK general, Ptolemy, after Bessus, Bessus was captured, and he was turned over to the Persians, who mutilated and executed him.

Sounds to me like Alexander defeated -- that's D-E-F-E-A-T-E-D -- the proto-afghanis in that particular encounter.

He also founded a number of cities in what is today Afghanistan.

A l e x a n d e r
not clobbered

But wait -- there's more!

Because -- and this is the really interesting bit -- after Alexander died (in 323 BC), one of his successors, the GREEK general Seleucus, claimed Bactria as part of his Greco-Syrian kingdom.

One of the GREEK governors of Bactria then made it into his own, GREEK, kingdom, and he and his successors extended their rule until virtually ALL of present-day Afghanistan was ruled by GREEKS.

That lasted until about 128 AD, when a Persian people seems to have counquered Bactria.

So the FACT is that not only was Alexander NOT "clobbered" by the "proto-afghanis," if we can call them that -- but that GREEKS -- WESTERNERS -- ruled the area for a long period of time after Alexander's death -- at least four hundred years, and maybe more.

It can hardly be said, then, that "Afghan warriors have clobbered every foreign invader since Alexander the Great."

To the contrary, they were first defeated by the Persians, and then by Alexander, and then taken over by people who were culturally Greek and ruled for a number of centuries.

So Ms Dowd is wrong.

Nevertheless, this is what she says:

But [McChrystal] has met his match in Afghan warriors, who have clobbered every foreign invader since Alexander the Great. The average Afghan fighter lives on grain, a bowl of rice, a bottle of water. How much does it cost by comparison to have a foreign soldier in Afghanistan?

Is that true?

We know the part about Alexander isn't true.

But -- is it true that McChrystal has met his match?

Or that he isn't up to the job?

It's certainly true that it's expensive to keep our soldiers in Afghanistan -- although you'll notice that McChrystal tried to cut some of that expense by eliminating Burger King, etc, and Dowd attacked him for that --

But -- even given that it's expensive to keep our soldiers in a foreign land -- to the ultra-poor, which is what the Afghanis are, a bowl of rice and a bottle of water can be expensive too.

So -- is McChrystal the problem?

This is what another (very liberal) New York Times' op-ed columnist, Frank Herbert, had to say:

You don't go to war half-stepping. You go to war to crush the enemy. You do this ferociously and as quickly as possible. If you don't want to do it, if you have qualms about it, or don't know how to do it, don't go to war.

The men who stormed the beaches at Normandy weren't trying to win the hearts and minds of anyone.

In Afghanistan, we are playing a dangerous, half-hearted game in which President Obama tells the America people that this is a war of necessity and that he will do whatever is necessary to succeed. Then, with the very next breath, he soothingly assures us that the withdrawal of U.S. troops will begin on schedule, like a Greyhound leaving the terminal, a year from now.

Both cannot be true.

What is true is that we aren't even fighting as hard as we can right now. The counterinsurgency crowd doesn't want to whack the enemy too hard because of an understandable fear that too many civilian casualties will undermine the "hearts and minds" and nation-building components of the strategy. Among the downsides of this battlefield caution is a disturbing unwillingness to give our own combat troops the supportive airstrikes and artillery cover that they feel is needed.

Herbert's solution is for us to get out of Afghanistan.

That's not mine.

But what he's right about is this --

You don't go to war half-stepping. You go to war to crush the enemy. You do this ferociously and as quickly as possible. If you don't want to do it, if you have qualms about it, or don't know how to do it, don't go to war.

And I agree.

You can't be sort-of, kind-of, in a fight.

You can't be in a fight half-way.

You're either in it or you're not.

Herbert blames General McChrystal for our use of counterinsurgency tactics in Afghanistan.

But those were the tactics he was told to use.

If someone were to give him 500,000 Men and tell him to crush the enemy as ferociously and as quickly as possible -- I suspect he'd be delighted to oblige.

Leaving Afghanistan now would return it to Taliban rule.

It would leave bin Laden with the same safe haven he's had for years.

I have to wonder if Ms Dowd understands how the Women of Afghanistan were treated under the Taliban?

Or how the Women of the world would be treated under bin Laden?

What would happen to Ms Dowd if Osama got hold of her?

Well, most likely, she'd be buried in sand up to her neck, and then stoned to death -- that is, people would throw heavy stones at her head until her skull was shattered and she died.

General McChrystal's version of "Warrior-God culture" may -- or may not -- be imperfect.

But it's what stands between Ms Dowd and that fate.

He was living and fighting in Afghanistan, eating one meal a day, getting four hours sleep per night, not doing the popular thing but the right thing by banning luxuries in a war zone -- in an attempt to keep her and the rest of us -- free.

Free -- to do, and above all, to say -- what we think.

And when he said what he thought -- he was forced to recant, and then canned.

Seems to me -- just lil ole me -- that you could make a case that General McChrystal was the injured party.

That he -- and his Warrior-God culture -- were trying to defend our Republic -- which was what he'd been told to do -- and that he was humiliated and then fired -- for speaking his mind.

Something, once again, which we're ALL supposed to be FREE to do in the US of A.

And which people aren't free to do in such jolly Islamic states as Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The idea that folks should be free to speak their minds -- is an ancient Greek idea.

And that includes Sparta.

The Men who died at Thermopylae -- lean, austere, Spartans -- died to keep that idea alive.

That's the Truth.

Leonidas and his Men died -- so that people -- not only Ms Dowd but also General McChrystal -- could say what they thought.

L E O N I D A S
Spartan Hero

Leonidas of Sparta, ruled 491 - 480:

When the ephors said, "Haven't you decided to take any action beyond blocking the passes against the Persians?", "In theory, no," he said, "but in fact I plan to die for the Greeks."

And if General McChrystal had been killed in battle -- he would have died for approximately the same reason.

So -- if people like Ms Dowd get to say what they think -- shouldn't folks like General McChrystal?

And if they say something out of line -- shouldn't an apology be sufficient?

Fact is, they're aren't many left who are willing to die for freedom of speech and self-critique and separation of religious from political and scientific thought and all those other Western goodies.

Yet General McChrystal and our other brave Men and Women in Afghanistan are.

"He's a brave Man and Sparta needs soldiers like him."

Like I said, I know we need to have civilian control of our military -- I'm not stupid about that.

But -- you can control a Man -- in the chain of command sense -- without beating the shit out of him in the press and then firing him.

Sparta too was a constitutional state.

Sparta too had the rule of law.

"He's a brave Man and Sparta needs soldiers like him."

Maybe America needs to begin thinking along those lines --

Before there are no more brave Men or soldiers -- left.

Frank Herbert:

"You go to war to crush the enemy. You do this ferociously and as quickly as possible."

That's correct.

If Americans no longer have the will to do that -- if Americans believe that their iPhones and iPads and Wiis are more important than crushing an enemy as determined as bin Laden and the Taliban --

then Americans shouldn't ask guys like General McChrystal and all who served under him -- to do it for them.

Because to do so is profoundly wrong.

This is an image of a Woman being prepared for stoning in Iran:

I got it from this site -- you can decide whether it's genuine, but I have no reason to think it isn't.

Disturbing, isn't it?

This is an image of two kids being prepared for hanging in Iran:

They were accused, as I recall, of having sex with either each other and/or another male --

and then they were hung.

That's what the Taliban would do if it re-gained power in Afghanistan.

And that's what's happening in Iran right now.

Now, it's true, we can't control the entire world.

But bin Laden has said that he intends to.

That he intends to impose this sort of "law" upon Europe and upon us.

And he's demonstrated that he and his followers are dead serious.

Dead serious.

By killing many thousands of people and attempting to kill many thousands more.

Ms Dowd belittles the Warrior God "culture."

She belittles Spartan "style."

But it's our Warrior God culture and Spartan -- not style, but both substance and most importantly ideals -- which stand between us and the Talibans and bin Ladens of this world.

The Warrior God -- is not just the Divine Guardian of the Warrior Spirit --

He's also the Guardian of our Freedom.

Plutarch says, in the Life of Agesilaus, that "The Spartan constitution was admirably designed to promote peace and virtue and harmony within the bounds of the state."

It was also designed to guarantee the Freedom of that State.

Through Fighting.

Through making sure that every male Spartan knew how to Fight.

Ferociously.

In the cause of Spartan Freedom.

And, on occasion, in the cause of the Freedom of all Greece.

Fighting and Freedom, as NW says.

It would be nice if we lived in a world in which we didn't have to Fight for our Freedom.

But we don't.

I began this post because I was fascinated by Maureen Dowd's use of the terms "Warrior-God culture" and "Spartan."

But there's no getting around the larger issues.

Many people, including classicist Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Western Way of War, see our current conflict with militant Islam as a continuation of the conflict which began in 490 BC with the first Persian invasion of mainland Greece.

It's a conflict between two very different world-views.

Between this:

And this:

Between this:

And this:

One Woman, covered in a burkha which conceals her body, grimaces as she's prepared for execution.

While another, completely nude, smiles lovingly.

Two boys, lovers, are prepared for hanging.

Two other boys, lovers, display their genitals to each other.

Freedom.

Western culture has celebrated Freedom for thousands of years.

Eastern culture despises it.

Ms Dowd can complain about the Warrior-God culture.

But she's protected by that culture -- in its Western aspect.

She (implicitly) criticizes Sparta.

Does she understand how high the status of Women was at Sparta?

Does she know that Spartan Women and girls were encouraged to wrestle, and throw the javelin, and otherwise exercise, nude?

Does she know that the concept of adultery didn't exist at Sparta?

Does she know that because of the relative sexual freedom enjoyed by Spartan Women, the other Greeks -- particularly the Athenians -- accused them of being sexually loose?

This Woman's "crime" was probably adultery:

In some versions of Greek myth, Aphrodite, a Goddess, was unfaithful to her husband, Hephaistos -- with Ares.

Didn't matter.

She was still a Goddess.

At Sparta, there was a Temple of Aphrodite of Sex; and another Temple -- of Aphrodite of War.

Aphrodite was honored twice.

As a Goddess of Sex; and as a Goddess whose Loving Bonds helped hold Men together -- in war.

I said that in some versions of Greek myth, Aphrodite was an "adulteress" with Ares.

But in others, they were wife and husband.

They were said to have two children: Harmony -- War + Love = Harmony;

and Eros -- the God of Male-Male Love.

Now -- there are many different accounts of the origins of Eros -- some of which you can find in Plato's Symposium.

But it's interesting that the Greeks understood and made explicit the relationship between and among Aphrodite, Ares, and Eros.

This is a charming 19th-century painting of Aphrodite and her son:

Except that Eros is shown in his infantilized, or Roman version, as Cupid.

To the Greeks, Eros was an adolescent:

And the Greeks prayed to him -- the Spartans often prayed to him before battle.

Again, because they understood that Love is what inspires Men to Fight for and beside each other.

A conclusion echoed by -- as we saw in Warrior Tom's The Struggle is Important --a contemporary American author, Sebastian Junger, who, in observing American troops in Afghanistan, has concluded that "Courage is Love."

That it's Love which gives Men the Courage to die for each other.

That too is part of Warrior-God culture.

Including General McChrystal's Warrior-God culture.

According to Rolling Stone,

The general's staff is a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs. There's a former head of British Special Forces, two Navy Seals, an Afghan Special Forces commando, a lawyer, two fighter pilots and at least two dozen combat veterans and counterinsurgency experts. They jokingly refer to themselves as Team America . . .

[And after the General gives a speech in Paris, they go to an Irish-style tourist bar together:]

By midnight at Kitty O'Shea's, much of Team America is completely shitfaced. Two officers do an Irish jig mixed with steps from a traditional Afghan wedding dance, while McChrystal's top advisers lock arms and sing a slurred song of their own invention. "Afghanistan!" they bellow. "Afghanistan!" They call it their Afghanistan song.

McChrystal steps away from the circle, observing his team. "All these men," he tells me. "I'd die for them. And they'd die for me."

As I said, it's Love which gives Men the Courage to die for each other.

And was long before the Spartans and the other Greeks made it explicit.

"The fucking lads love Stan McChrystal," says a British officer who serves in Kabul. "You'd be out in Somewhere, Iraq, and someone would take a knee beside you, and a corporal would be like 'Who the fuck is that?' And it's fucking Stan McChrystal."

Love between Men.

Our culture wants to deny it or hide it.

But it keeps surfacing.

Anyhow, Love between Men at War -- is not something many Americans will ever experience.

They want to be safe from the likes of bin Laden.

But they want someone else to make them safe.

Yet, if one of those who's been charged with making them safe, says or does anything which is even remotely politically incorrect -- he's savaged -- humiliated, and then dismissed.

General McChrystal has actually now left the military.

And isn't that grand?

"He's a brave man and Sparta needs soldiers like him."

In another column, Frank Herbert talked about the American desire to go to war -- without going to war:

The reason it is so easy for the U.S. to declare wars, and to continue fighting year after year after year, is because so few Americans feel the actual pain of those wars. We've been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan longer than we fought in World Wars I and II combined. If voters had to choose right now between instituting a draft or exiting Afghanistan and Iraq, the troops would be out of those two countries in a heartbeat.

I don't think our current way of waging war, which is pretty easy-breezy for most citizens, is what the architects of America had in mind. Here's George Washington's view, for example: "It must be laid down as a primary position and the basis of our system, that every citizen who enjoys the protection of a free government owes not only a proportion of his property, but even his personal service to the defense of it."

What we are doing is indefensible and will ultimately exact a fearful price, and there will be absolutely no way for the U.S. to avoid paying it.

"It must be laid down as a primary position and the basis of our system, that every citizen who enjoys the protection of a free government owes not only a proportion of his property, but even his personal service to the defense of it."

That was the Spartan view.

A Man was a Citizen in so far as he was a Soldier.

A Warrior.

And a Man's rank in the city was determined by his Valour in battle.

Suppose we tried that with Americans.

Wouldn't fly, would it?

Plato: Where money's prized, virtue's despised.

And that's what's happened in America.

Timotheus: Ares is Lord : Greece has no fear of gold.

Ares is NOT Lord in America -- and, Americans live in perpetual fear -- of gold.

Remember Ms Dowd's most recent attack on General McChrystal:

Preening with Spartan street cred, disdaining anything too "Gucci," like restaurants with candles, McChrystal groused about having to go to some fancy dinner with a French minister -- an occasion profanely mocked as "gay" by one of the aides in his insolent retinue.

"Spartan street cred" -- whatever that may be in Ms Dowd's mind, the fact is that the Spartans too despised luxury.

They arranged their society so that luxury would be impossible.

Including, and most especially, at meals.

ALL the Warriors had to take their meals communally.

The food was not rich -- its principal component was barley, which was a staple of the poor.

Yet the Spartans were required to eat it.

To be suspected of eating more expensive fare at home -- was dangerous.

It could get you banished.

And the Spartans were quite consistent in their disdain for luxury, money, and possessions:

• Demaratus, former Spartan king who was an exile in Xerxes' court:

  When one of the Persians by persistent bribery had lured away the person Demaratus was in love with and was saying, "Spartan, I have hunted down your beloved," Demaratus replied, "By the Gods, it's not you, it's the fact that you have bought him."

• Pausanias, regent for Leonidas' son Pleistarchus and commander at Platea:

  When amongst the spoils some people were amazed at the extravagance of the Persian's clothing, he said: "Better for them to be men of great worth rather than to have possessions of great worth."

  After the victory over the Persians at Platea, he gave orders that the Persian dinner which had been prepared beforehand should be served to his staff. Since it was incredibly expensive, he said: "By the Gods, with a spread like this what greedy characters the Persians were to chase after our barley-bread."

• Teleclus, eighth century king

  When someone asked him how much property he owned, he said: "No more than enough."

• Charillus, eighth century king

  He said to the man who asked why they wear their hair long: "This is the natural means of personal adornment, and it costs nothing."

Plutarch, Sayings of the Spartans

XXXXA Spartan Warrior or King
XXXXHe's barefoot and wears a simple red cloak
XXXXhis only article of clothing

General McChrystal, after West Point, we're told, entered Special Forces school "and became a regimental commander of the 3rd Ranger Battalion in 1986."

It was a dangerous position, even in peacetime -- nearly two dozen Rangers were killed in training accidents during the Eighties. It was also an unorthodox career path: Most soldiers who want to climb the ranks to general don't go into the Rangers. Displaying a penchant for transforming systems he considers outdated, McChrystal set out to revolutionize the training regime for the Rangers. He introduced mixed martial arts, required every soldier to qualify with night-vision goggles on the rifle range and forced troops to build up their endurance with weekly marches involving heavy backpacks.

Sounds like my kind of guy.

And the sort of guy the Spartans too would have liked.

"He's a brave Man and Sparta needs soldiers like him."

Truely, guys, I hope you'll read the Rolling Stone profile of General McChrystal.

Because other than participating in the cover-up of how Pat Tillman was killed, there's nothing in his resumé that deserves condemnation.

And as Plutarch -- who authored more than fifty biographies of Men like McChrystal, that is to say, Men of Action who were essentially decent and were very committed to their countries -- says,

It is impossible to represent a man's life as entirely spotless and free from blame. [So] we should use the best chapters in it to build up the most complete picture and regard this as a true likeness. Any errors or crimes, on the other hand, which may tarnish a man's career and may have been committed out of passion or political necessity, we should regard rather as lapses from a particular virtue rather than as the product of some innate vice. . . . We should show indulgence to human nature for its inability to produce a character which is absolutely good and uncompromisingly dedicated to virtue.

~ Plutarch, Life of Cimon

And, in point of fact, there's little I see in General McChrystal's biography which does not bespeak a dedication to virtue.

And isn't it a shame, and more than a shame, that our leaders and opinion-shapers aren't more familiar with the classical canon, with Men like Plutarch, who understood the behavior of Men in republics and democracies, who understood that sometimes those Men do things out of "passion or political necessity" and that we should regard those as "lapses from a particular virtue rather than as the product of some innate vice."

There is NOTHING in that Rolling Stone piece which suggests that General McChrystal is the prisoner of any innate vice.

Rather he is -- or was, before being forced out of our military -- a career solider, brilliant and unorthodox, who was passionately devoted to his work.

Which, as it just so happens, was protecting and defending the Freedom of the United States of America.

And with it, much of the rest of the world.

The idea that we can afford to throw away people like General McChrystal -- is, on this Independence Day, 2010 -- absurd.

And that it was done to "strengthen" a bogus conception of the president's masculinity -- makes it even more absurd.

The Athenian mob, in what passed for democracy at Athens, and during the Peloponessian War, banished and exiled and killed general after general after general.

Ultimately, there were no competent generals left.

Alkibiades, who had been Sokrates' beloved, and an Athenian general until he too was banished, warned his successors, just prior to the last battle of that war, that their position was dangerously exposed.

His advice was ignored, and, fearing that he'd be taken by the Athenians and returned to Athens for execution, he and his retinue rode away from the site of the impending battle.

A few days later the Spartan admiral Lysander took advantage of the Athenians' weakness, destroyed part of their fleet and captured the rest, and thus conquered Athens.

That's what happens when you throw away too many good generals.

And that's what happens when you're unwilling to Fight for your own Freedom.

General Washington:

"It must be laid down as a primary position and the basis of our system, that every citizen who enjoys the protection of a free government owes not only a proportion of his property, but even his personal service to the defense of it."

Frank Herbert:

"What we are doing is indefensible and will ultimately exact a fearful price, and there will be absolutely no way for the U.S. to avoid paying it."

I agree.

General McChrystal was a career solider.

Fighting, and fighting for America, was what he passionately wanted to do.

He made some mildly intemperate remarks to a reporter, and the press decided he had to be destroyed.

But suppose he was right.

Suppose his counter-insurgency theory, or just some piece of it, was correct.

And suppose that without it and him, we leave Afghanistan -- and it reverts to what it was.

Ms Dowd can make snide comments about Warrior-God culture and Spartan street cred -- and by implication all Masculinity, all Manhood.

But her comments don't make us any safer.

General McChrystal wasn't trying to overthrow our government.

He voted, and even voted for our current president.

General McChrystal was trying to make us safer -- and was impatient with those who weren't, in his view, trying hard enough to do the same.

His impatience is, to me, understandable.

But for letting his views be known, he was accused by Ms Dowd, in effect, of being too much of a Man.

And forced out not just of his job, but of the military itself.

That's depressing, and not least because of the message it sends to his fellow Men, his fellow soldiers, his fellows in Warriordom:

Don't be a Man, don't be into MMA, don't Fight too hard, don't look too much like a Spartan.

Because if you do, you'll be derided and mocked and deprived not just of a job --

but of your Manly Life's work.

Bill Weintraub

July 4, 2010

© All material Copyright 2010 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.