SNOW, FOLLOWED BY BOYS ON SLEDSOn presidential delusions, exaggerations, and lies
I’ve written millions of words for newspapers and magazines and eleven books, and I’ve learned to love the simplicity and directness of the written word. I often tell the probably apocryphal anecdote about the young wannabe reporter in the 1920s at one of the many daily newspapers that flourished then in New York City. Most reporters started out in those days as copyboys just out of high school. After a few months on the job, they would beg to be allowed to write for the paper. One editor finally gave in and assigned a very persistent eighteen-year-old to do the short weather summary that was a staple at the top of the front page. He wrote: “Snow, followed by little boys on sleds.” In the telling to me, the teenager went on to become a famed columnist. We’ve had modern presidents who used words to distort the truth about foreign wars: Lyndon Johnson was the master of such lies as he kept on bombing during the Vietnam War; Richard Nixon instead lied about his personal and political corruption until he was forced to resign his office. I wrote last week about President Joe Biden’s tortuous use of words in his March 7 State of the Union address in which he said: “Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond. If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not. . . . But now assistance to Ukraine is being blocked by those who want us to walk away from our leadership in the world.” As the president spoke, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in the fifth month of an intensive air and ground war in Gaza that he initially assured his people would be a quick war to rid Gaza of its Hamas. (One usually well informed Israeli told me then that he believed the main fighting would be over by the end of January.) Biden’s support for the war will damage his prospects for re-election. Gaza is no longer habitable and tens of thousands of dead Gazans and many more wounded, starving, and ridden by illness from lack of housing and sanitary living conditions are seen, fairly or not, as Biden’s victims by many Americans. The leaders of the Democratic Party have been reduced to praying for rain, after initially anticipating the conviction of Donald Trump in one of his many criminal court cases before the election this November. The hope now, especially if Trump is found guilty of state charges in New York, seems to be that the fear of another Trump presidency will yield a robust turnout for an aging and obviously diminished 81-year-old president who is faring poorly in polls. The party leaders might as well be hoping for snow, followed by little boys on sleds. In recent days all of this had me returning to Biden’s State of the Union address and another example of dystopian language unmatched by subsequent actions. The issue was a series of drone and missile attacks beginning in October by Houthis in Yemen on international shipping passing through the Red Sea. The Houthis, who fought a brutal civil war to gain dominance in the south of Yemen, stated that their attacks were in support of Hamas in Gaza and would continue until there was a ceasefire there. In late December, Biden, then on vacation in the Caribbean, ordered an all-out attack on the Houthi missile sites throughout the area. The Eisenhower, an American aircraft carrier, was sent to the region to coordinate a US and UK air-and-sea response that soon proved incapable of finding and destroying the hidden missile sites in Yemen. The continuing attacks—one British container ship has been sunk so far—led most shipping companies to avoid the Red Sea and the Suez Canal and instead reroute their ships to go around the Cape of Good Hope off South Africa. The new route took eight to ten more days, and much more fuel. It has led to a series of hikes in shipping costs that continue today. By March, when Biden delivered his speech, very few cargo ships were choosing to cross the Red Sea. At the time, the president and his aides expressed little interest in urging the Israeli government to seek a ceasefire and prisoner exchanges, despite the growing domestic concern about the state of the hostages and the international rage at the ongoing slaughter in Gaza. There was a concern shared by Biden and Democrats and Republicans in Congress, however, about Iran, known to be an ally of the Houthis and assumed to be a continuing source of missiles and other weapons for the war against Western shipping in the Red Sea. The Eisenhower and its group of support vessels were still stationed in the area. There was no known evidence then or now directly linking the Iranian leadership to the Houthi decision to attack Western shipping in the Red Sea. Nonetheless, in his speech Biden said: “Creating stability in the Middle East also means containing the threat posed by Iran. That’s why I built a coalition of more than a dozen countries to defend international shipping and freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. I’ve ordered strikes to degrade the Houthi capability and defend US Forces in the region. As Commander in Chief, I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and our military personnel.” This month, with no ceasefire in Gaza and most American and other international shipping going the long way to the Far East, the Houthis struck a Greek-owned vessel in the Red Sea. There were no injuries on board, but the vessel was reported to be taking on water and in danger of sinking. I asked James Krane, a fellow on energy studies at Rice University, who has written extensively about the Houthis, why the world does not see the Houthi attacks as a crisis linked in some direct way to Iran as Biden does. Was Biden’s concern really tied to a possible rise in the price of gas this summer due to the inevitable rise in the cost of shipping oil? “I do find it odd that the Houthi attacks aren’t getting all that much attention,” he responded in an email. “But I suppose they are not having that much effect on oil prices and only causing delays in shipping rather than reducing it, and the competing news is probably keeping a lid on it. Biden and company would be much more focused on the Houthis if they saw a threat to summer gasoline prices. And yes, I agree with you that the easiest way out of this crisis is via a ceasefire in Gaza. If the Houthis didn’t stand down immediately they would lose any international sympathy. They’d probably give it a rest.” I asked a knowledgeable American intelligence official the same question and he said the Houthis have upgraded their weapons of choice against cargo ships that pass through the Red Sea. “The Houthis now fire ballistic missiles at those vessels,” he said, instead of the “more vulnerable” rockets and drones that were initially used. To combat that upgrade, the US Navy has begun to rely on AWACS, a far more advanced missile and rocket tracking system, to monitor the air space and provide real-time surveillance of Houthi launch sites. “All in all,” he said of the American Navy’s adroit handling of the Houthi attacks, “nothing special here. Just another day at the office in La La Land.” |