Pope Francis And Opus Dei

As a Catholic covert, my views on Pope Francis are inevitably affected by our parish clergy, who as positive role models tend to disfavor sin and favor the Holy Father. They frequently cite unnoticed but productive remarks by the current pontiff in bulletins and homilies. Thus I'm reluctant to join the usual chorus of "ain't it awful" from other Catholics over this or that policy change, and that includes the most recent apostolic letter Ad Charisma Tuendum issued Friday. As someone with no particular insight into the Vatican political winds, I can't say much about what it means other than to quote the Catholic News Service:

Saying he wanted to highlight the spiritual gifts of Opus Dei and its contributions to the Catholic Church's evangelizing activities, Pope Francis said it will now work with and answer to the Dicastery for Clergy, rather than the Dicastery for Bishops. . . . Francis also said the head of the personal prelature of Opus Dei "will not be made, nor will he be able to be made" a bishop.

Msgr. Fernando Ocáriz, who was elected prelate of Opus Dei and approved by Francis in 2017, said that while the first two prelates of Opus Dei were bishops, "the episcopal ordination of the prelate was not and is not necessary for the guidance of Opus Dei."

Francis said his decision was meant "to strengthen the conviction that, for the protection of the particular gift of the Spirit, a form of government based more on charism than on hierarchical authority is needed."

. . . Francis noted that his new constitution on the Roman Curia gives the Dicastery for Clergy responsibility for relations with personal prelatures, "of which the only one so far erected is that of Opus Dei."

Opus Dei is a highly controversial topic. In my old blog on Anglicanorum coetibus, I had occasion to look into the early career of Cardinal Bernard Law, who during his years as a Harvard undergraduate in the late 1940s was associated with an early Opus Dei group. Although his subsequent rise in the US Church was via the conventional diocesan path, he remained close to his Harvard schoolmate William Stetson, also a member of that group, who became an Opus Dei priest and some type of regional authority in the prelature, although its specific organizational details are at best obscure.

Cardinal Law's earlier career paralleled the rise of Opus Dei, and it's hard to think he didn't have some involvement in its establishment as a personal prelature, especially considering his relationship with Stetson. At the same time Opus Dei became a personal prelature, Law was also working behind the scenes with dissident Episcopalian clergy to establish what he hoped would become another personal prelature, this one for dissident Anglicans/Episcopalians who wished to become Catholic. As I wrote in 2020,

Law, an extremely ambitious man whom I've heard intended to succeed John Paul II as pontiff had it not been that John Paul outlived Law's expectations, was an opportunist and may have hoped that an Anglican personal prelature could in some way leverage his rise in the Church.

As it played out, a special provision for disgruntled Anglicans did finally emerge in the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus of 4 November 2009 under Pope Benedict XVI. However, it was as a personal ordinariate, rather than a personal prelature. According to a Vatican document clarifying the status of the personal ordinariates,

just as the Military Ordinariates are described in the Apostolic Constitution Spirituali militum cura as specific ecclesiastical jurisdictions which are similar to dioceses (Ap. Cons. I § 1), so also the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus describes Personal Ordinariates for the faithful coming from Anglicanism as juridically similar to dioceses (Ap. Cons. I § 3).

. . . . Nor can these Personal Ordinariates been considered as Personal Prelatures since, according to can. 294, Personal Prelatures are composed of secular priests and deacons and, according to can. 296, lay people may simply dedicate themselves to the apostolic works of Personal Prelatures by way of agreements. Members of Institutes of Consecrated Life or of Societies of Apostolic Life are not even mentioned in the canons concerning Personal Prelatures.

The Ordinariates for the faithful coming from Anglicanism are therefore personal structures in as much as the jurisdiction of the Ordinary, and consequently also of parish priests, is not geographically defined within the territory of an Episcopal Conference like a particular territorial Church, but is exercised “over all who belong to the Ordinariate” (Ap. Cons. V).

As I said above, Opus Dei is highly controversial. Visitors to my former blog sometimes urged that I take on Opus Dei as well as the Anglican ordinariates, but, other than being briefly acquainted with the late Msgr Stetson in connection with Anglicanorum coetibus, I never had direct experience with Opus Dei. In addition, Los Angeles Abp José Gómez, a highly successful and respected figure in the US Church, rose via Opus Dei, and I have no disagreement with him.

Nevertheless, a web search brings up numerous links to sites and news accounts that accuse Opus Dei of cult-like practices. Whether Francis's intent in moving Opus Dei under the supervision of the Dicastery for Clergy might be to promote reforms that could minimize such controversy is a matter beyond my competence. It's also beyond my competence to say whether this move could reflect any disposition by the Holy Father to modify the current structure of the Anglican ordinariates, although these have proven to be a disappointment at best -- but they're juridically different from Opus Dei.

"I Knew These Vaccines Were Not Going To protect Against Infection."

Fox ran a remarkable interview with Dr Deborah Birx yesterday evening:

DR. BIRX: I knew these vaccines were not going to protect against infection. And I think we overplayed the vaccines, and it made people then worry that it's not going to protect against severe disease and hospitalization. It will. But let's be very clear: 50% of the people who died from the Omicron surge were older, vaccinated. So that's why I'm saying even if you're vaccinated and boosted, if you're unvaccinated right now, the key is testing and Paxlovid. It's effective. It's a great antiviral.

Wait a moment. Wasn't it just this past January that the US Supreme Court blocked an OSHA order requiring 80 million workers to be vaccinated or lose their jobs? Haven't the US armed forces still been firing service members who don't get vaxxed, except that it's become abundantly clear that the vax doesn't work? But now Dr Birx says she knew about that all along.

And it turns out that the newest vademecum isn't to vax at all, it's something called Paxlovid. It's effective. It's a great antiviral. Well then. That'll sure work, huh? In fact, they're giving it to President Brandon as he powers through his 8+ hour workdays with the virus. By the way, how's he doing?

On Thursday, the White House announced that Biden had come down with COVID, and they gave out some information. The White House tried to stifle any questions about where Biden might have gotten the virus from, claiming that wasn’t important, even though one has to consider it for things like contact tracing and who he might have been in contact with. On top of that, what was very abnormal was that we weren’t hearing from Joe Biden’s doctor, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the person who is treating him.

Instead, they trotted out White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House coronavirus coordinator, neither of whom is treating Joe Biden. Even the perpetually incurious, liberal White House media found this odd and asked why they were having to play “telephone” to get any information that was being fed through the White House. Why wasn’t the doctor speaking about Biden’s condition?

. . . Jean-Pierre shared that Biden said he was still working more than eight hours a day. . . . in the two days before his trip to Massachusetts earlier this week, he had nothing on his public schedule and the White House couldn’t give any real explanation for that other than to say that “he was in meetings.” Uh-huh. Given that he later came down with COVID, I wonder if he wasn’t feeling well at that point. But because they’re not straight with us, it’s harder to get at the truth.

Another story goes farther:

What is the Biden team trying to hide?

If Joe Biden has COVID, he should be doing all he can to rest and recover. Instead, his team is trying to convince us that everything is normal; they said he’s working an eight-hour day. Heck, I don’t think he worked an eight-hour day when he was well.

But he should be taking it easy and not working when he’s sick; he’s 79 years old. But they had him sitting up in a suit for a remote meeting and quite frankly, to me — who has been covering him for a while and is used to how he normally looks — he looked awful.

He looks like he’s not well, and out of it, not absorbing anything that’s being said; his eyes just have sort of a vacant look.

What's so unusual about that? But there's more. Vice President Harris joined in trhe comedy:

[E]very once in a while not even their minders can explain away something their bosses said and/or did, which brings me to the appearance Harris made Friday at the National Urban League annual conference.

As we previously reported, one of the first things Harris did when she walked onto the stage was to take her mask off and hug Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin, who was also maskless.

The problem with this is that Biden, as we all know, has COVID, and Harris is considered a “close contact” of Biden’s. Because of that, she is supposed to be masked when she’s around other people per the CDC’s guidlines, you know, the ones we common folks are supposed to follow according to them.

. . . Refreshingly, during the Friday press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Biden COVID Response Coordinator Ashish Jha were grilled by multiple reporters as to why Harris wasn’t masked when the CDC very clearly says that she should be. . . . At one point he got so desperate he tried to bow out by saying he really couldn’t comment on something he hadn’t personally seen. He even looked to Jean-Pierre for assistance but she ended up deferring right back to him because she couldn’t explain it, either[.]

Nobody in the loop takes any of this COVID stuff seriously. Exactly why it fell on Dr Birx to announce the vax didn't work as they claimed is a bit puzzling -- she's been out of the government for more than a year and is warming a seat in a well-paid sinecure. I suppose it if were Dr Fauci who let the cat out of the bag, there'd be demands that he quit or be fired, but Dr Birx is already out.

Nevertheless, the whole charade is wobbling to a stop.

COVID, Biden, And The Fuddy-Duddy Factor

The annoucement that the First Fuddy-Duddy has caught the 'rona was accompanied by wags on social media who reminded us that one of the symptoms is brain fog. The White House issued the photo above that looks like it was carefully composed to show that Brandon is hydrating properly. has his whole dysfunctional family in his thoughts, and, apparently, is even about to read some books. That in itself should show how phony the whole tableau is.

Contrast this with Franklin Roosevelt lending his prestige to finding a cure for polio via the March of Dimes, even though his administration normally kept the fact that he'd had the disease himself very quiet. A big problem for his successor is that he insisted throughout last year that if you're vaxxed and boosted, you can't catch COVID. So instead of being the champion of the cure, Brandon is the case in point that the health authorities have had it wrong throughout. Biden himself variously said duriing a July 22, 2021 town hall,

If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in the IC unit, and you’re not going to die. . . . You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.

When challenged after the event, he said,

It may be possible, I know of none where they’re hospitalized, in ICU and or have passed away so at a minimum I can say even if they did contract it, which I’m sorry they did, it’s such a tiny percentage and it’s not life threatening.

So now, fully vaxxed and fully boosted, he's the poster boy for his own bloviation. Roosevelt was the man of fortitude and foresight, Biden is the man of fuddy-duddy and brain fog. Roosevelt is to polio as Biden is to COVID, which says a great deal about both Biden and COVID.

The problem goes beyond Biden, the problem is that the public health authorities have been losing prestige over their pronouncements that have been overtaken by events throughout the pandemic. The gradual recognition during 2022 that the vaccines and boosters now have no efficacy in preventing infections, while at the same time infections are less and less serious, vax or no, is only the most recent blow to the authorities' credibility. That began with "15 days to flatten the curve", after all.

"Dr" Barbara Ferrer, the Los Angeles County public health director, has been threatening to reimpose indoor masking for the last two months.

Mandatory indoor mask-wearing could return to Los Angeles County in a matter of weeks, possibly by the end of June, absent a downturn in the rate of new COVID-19 cases and virus-related hospitalizations, the county's public health director said Thursday.

But the end of June came and went with no new indoor masking order. And while she's been threatening to reimpose indoor masking at the end of this month now, she may be about to let this deadline pass as well:

Los Angeles Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer today gave Angelenos a ray of hope on the looming prospect of a universal countywide mask mandate next week.

While caveating her statement with “I think it’s highly likely we could stay in High” — meaning the CDC’s High community category — “should we start seeing steep declines in our [case] numbers next week, because we know hospitalizations are this lagging indicator, we are likely to want to take a pause on moving too quickly on indoor universal masking. Because if our cases start a steep decline, it’s likely that our hospitalizations will take a steep decline [two weeks later].”

. . . Earlier in the day, an alliance of Los Angeles County business groups today called on health officials to abandon plans for the mask mandate, saying the move would be “heavy-handed” and a burden on businesses that will be forced to enforce the rule.

It would, of course, be absurd for health officials to order indoor masking, only to see any justification for it disappear in a matter of weeks. Beyond that, it'd become more and more accepted that most masks are ineffective in stopping transmission, while each new COVID variant is more contagious but less dangerous. And whatever LA County does is unlikely to be emulated elsewhere, while states like Texas and Florida continue to show that masking has no effect on the disease.

The public health authorities are finding there are limits to crying wolf, and COVID is no longer sexy. That Biden would contract it this late in the game is the best possible indication of that.

Monkeypox Hype

It looks like we're back to the political conundrum of the early 1980s with the spread of AIDS. It was recognized that AIDS was a disease spread almost entirely through sexual contact, and beyond that, it was spread via promiscuous sexual contact among gay males. This reflected badly on gays, especially when the discussion focused on institutions like bath houses and unsanitary things that went on there. On the other hand, gays argued that if the government didn't make finding a cure and vaccines a priority, this discriminated against gays.

Thus there was a media-driven messsage that AIDS wasn't a gay disease, anyone could catch it, although the circumstances advanced to prove this were limited to cases like contaminated blood in transfusions. Nevertheless, I remember consternation at my then Episcopalian parish about whether it could be transmitted via the communion vessels. This sort of public hysteria advanced the interests of the gay lobby, but it also advanced the interest of the public health establishment in creating a more general attitude that epidemics should be the cause of panic.

So we move forward 40 years to Monkeypox, which is clearly being advanced in the media as the next big epidemic. Thus via CBS News:

Clinics that treat sexually transmitted diseases — already struggling to contain an explosive increase in infections such as syphilis and gonorrhea — now find themselves on the front lines in the nation’s fight to control the rapidly growing monkeypox outbreak.

After decades of underfunding and 2½ years into a pandemic that severely disrupted care, clinic staffers and public health officials say the clinics are ill-equipped for yet another epidemic.

“America does not have what it needs to adequately and totally fight monkeypox,” said David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors. “We are already stretched to capacity.”

Note the words "struggling . . . on the front lines in the nation's fight" blah blah blah. It's World War II! The whole nation is struggling! Dr Scott Gottlieb furthers the narrative on Face the Nation:

MARGARET BRENNAN: Give us a sense of the scale of this because the CDC numbers are out. They say they're only eight women within that. No children. You're saying this is a pandemic? That's not a word the administration is using yet, what level of emergency are we at?

DR. GOTTLIEB: Yeah look, and I think they're going to be reluctant to use the word pandemic, because it implies that they've failed to contain this. And I think at this point, we've failed to contain this. . . . I think the window for getting control of this and containing it probably has closed, and if it hasn't closed, it's certainly starting to close. 11,000 cases across the world right now. 1,800 cases, as you said, in the US. We're probably detecting just a fraction of the actual cases because we have a very, we had for a long time a very narrow case definition on who got tested. And by and large, we're looking in the community of men who have sex with men and STD clinics. So we're looking there, we're finding cases there. But it's a fact that there's cases outside that community right now. We're not picking them up, because we're not looking there. This has spread more broadly in the community. I wouldn't be surprised there's thousands of cases right now.

MARGARET BRENNAN: It's a little chilling to hear you say containment has failed. I've heard you say that before with COVID.

DR. GOTTLIEB: Well look, this isn't going to explode like COVID. This is a slower moving virus, which is why we could have gotten control of this if we had been more aggressive up front, and we made a lot of the same mistakes that we made with COVID with this - having a very narrow case definition not having enough testing early enough, not deploying vaccine in an aggressive fact- fashion to ring vaccinate. But now this is firmly embedded in the community.

So the narrative is being shaped -- it's already out of control. Well, maybe not as bad as COVID, but it's gonna be like COVID! We haven't been doing enough! It's probably too late! And of course, this isn't just gay men, it's just that we haven't tested enough straights and women! Just wait! It's embedded in the community!

Again, as with AIDS, two groups benefit from this narrative. The first is the public health establishment, which has benefited enormously in both funding and prestige from driving public policy in the COVID pandemic, and it would like to continue to do this. The second group is the gay lobby, which secures priority for public health spending on diseases that spread primarily among men who have promiscuous sex with men. This is done in some measure by making misleading claims about how such diseases aren't sexually transmitted, and that anyone can catch them.

Thus the reaction is predictable:

Demonstrators in San Francisco protested Monday against what they called the federal government’s “failure” to provide enough monkeypox vaccine to prevent the outbreak from becoming a major problem, particularly in the gay community.

The disease, which is transmitted through prolonged and intense physical contact, often results in a fever and in unsightly blisters. It is rarely fatal, but is uncomfortable and can last for several weeks.

. . . Demonstrators in San Francisco were concerned that the Biden administration had failed to provide enough vaccines to prevent the monkeypox virus from becoming endemic within the community, noting that a vaccine had been developed in 2019 but was then “ignored.”

Kabuki

In Politico yesterday,

White House officials plotting the administration’s post-Roe response are weighing a narrow public health directive aimed at safeguarding nationwide access to abortion pills, three people familiar with the discussions told POLITICO.

The Biden team has zeroed in on that authority in recent days. They consider it the most feasible of the White House’s limited options for protecting abortion rights, and have concluded that it could have the most immediate on-the-ground impact while also quelling Democrats’ demands for stronger action.

In addition to trying to circumvent the Dobbs decision with an abortion public health emergency, there's also been an idea of circumventing Sen Manchin's rejection of the Green New Deal by declaring a climate emergency:

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that President Biden won’t declare a climate emergency this week, but that doesn’t mean he won’t do it eventually.

“He’s going to take, as I said, additional climate actions in that vein tomorrow, and he’s going to continue — he’s not going to just stop with the actions of tomorrow, but I would not plan [an] announcement this week on [a] national climate emergency,” Jean-Pierre told reporters during a press briefing.

“Everything’s on the table. It’s just not going to be this week on that decision,” she added.

But here's the problem:

Sometimes, the media presses and asks some good questions. They did that on Tuesday, asking why wasn’t there anything on Joe Biden’s public schedule for the past two days. The scramble from first, National Security Council coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby and then, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, to try to cover for Biden was something to behold.

Co-Press Secretary John Kirby says Biden has been “quite busy” the past few days despite having ZERO public events on his schedule. pic.twitter.com/2VlGtHlDU0

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 19, 2022

Kirby claimed that just because there weren’t things listed on the public schedule didn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of work going on. Then he passed the buck to explain things to Jean-Pierre. That didn’t go any better.

“What, exactly, has he been doing yesterday and today?” a reporter asked.

. . . “So, he’s been in meetings,” Jean-Pierre claimed, blinking furiously and not looking directly at the reporters. “I was scheduled to meet with him today,” she said, saying he was meeting with senior staff. She also said that they may have seen him briefly with Jill Biden and the First Lady of Ukraine. “He’s been very busy dealing with the issues of the American people and meeting with his staff, senior staff,” she argued.

Nevertheless, there ain't gonna be a climate emergency this week. And if "Dr" Jill is right, he's just so busy he can't seem to get around to either Dobbs or the climate:

“[The President] had so many hopes and plans for things he wanted to do, but every time you turned around, he had to address the problems of the moment,” the First Lady reportedly told about two dozen people at a private home.

Jill Biden referenced gun violence, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade and opposition to signature legislation within his own party as examples of unforeseen obstacles her husband has contended with.

“He’s just had so many things thrown his way,” she reportedly said. “Who would have ever thought about what happened [with the Supreme Court overturning] Roe v. Wade? Well, maybe we saw it coming, but still we didn’t believe it. The gun violence in this country is absolutely appalling. We didn’t see the war in Ukraine coming.”

In other words, things like Dobbs and Build Back Better going south have made the big guy so busy he can't even deal with Dobbs and Build Back Better going south. I think this actually gives Hunter, the First Crackhead, a certain level of gravitas now that he's been quoted as calling his stepmom a "selfish, silly, entitled [moron]" (more ior less). But it's not just Dr Jill who's selfish, silly, and entitled. It sounds like it applies to the whole family.

They're all coasting. So, of course, is Speaker Pelosi.

"The Speaker Does Not Own Any Stocks."

I've already pointed out the Pelosi family's insistence that "Madam Speaker doesn’t even drink alcohol!", but now we have a new whopper to add to the list. According to Fox Business,

Nancy Pelosi's office responded to her husband's controversial computer chip stock trades ahead of Congress' vote on the semiconductor industry.

FOX Business reached out to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office for comment about her husband’s recent stock trades, particularly inquiring about Paul Pelosi's million-dollar purchase of stock in a semiconductor company as Congress is slated to vote on a $52 billion subsidy to the industry as part of a bill to increase U.S. manufacturing of computer chips to make the country less reliant and more competitive with China.

"The Speaker does not own any stocks. As you can see from the required disclosures, with which the Speaker fully cooperates, these transactions are marked ‘SP’ for Spouse. The Speaker has no prior knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions," Nancy Pelosi’s spokesman, Drew Hammill, said in a statement to FOX Business.

And of course, Joe Biden has never discussed Hunter's business dealings with the First Crackhead. According to the International Business Times,

Through his various business ventures, [Paul] Pelosi has accumulated a net worth of $120 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.

. . . The businessman is the founder of the San Francisco-based real estate and venture capital investment and consulting firm Financial Leasing Services. Through the company, he and his wife have amassed a personal fortune of more than $100 million.

Pelosi also has shares in a number of major companies, including Apple, Facebook, Walt Disney, Comcast, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon and the real estate group Russell Ranch.

His biggest investment reportedly came in June 2021, when he purchased around $4.8 million worth of shares in Google’s parent company Alphabet.

Not much is known about Paul Pelosi or his family, but there are intriguing hints in hs Wikipedia entry:

Pelosi was born and raised in San Francisco, the youngest in a family of three boys. His father was John Pelosi, a wholesale druggist. He attended St. Ignatius High School and graduated from Malvern Preparatory School in Pennsylvania. He earned a bachelor of science (BS) in foreign service at Georgetown University, during which he met his future wife, Nancy D'Alesandro, who was attending a Roman Catholic women's college, Trinity College, in Washington, D.C. He earned an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Graduating from an exclusive prep school is an important social marker, as is studying for the foreign service -- the US State Department was then, and continues to be, an institution for the socially connected. In the wake of his May arrest for drunk driving, it emerged that in 1957, he was responsible for his brother's death in a sports car accident:

Paul Pelosi was just 16, a high school sophomore, when his sports car flipped over in February 1957 in Northern California.

A newspaper report at the time said Paul, a high school sophomore, would be cited for misdemeanor manslaughter. In the end there was no court case and he was exonerated by a coroner's jury.

. . . The crash occurred at 2:40 am on February 22, 1957. Paul had picked up his brother from a girlfriend's house in San Francisco and the siblings decided to go on a joyride rather than go straight home.

David Pelosi, a freshman at the College of San Mateo, was dead on arrival at the hospital.

So Paul had a sports car, and it's hard to avoid thinking his dad had connections that could fix things with the coroner's jury. His wife-to-be, Nancy D'Alessandro, according to the Washington Post,

came from a prominent Italian-American family. Her father, Thomas J. D'Alesandro Jr., also known as Old Tommy or Tommy the Elder, was [a] flamboyant and legendary machine politician, a Roosevelt Democrat. . . . Big Tommy served 22 consecutive terms in public office, from state delegate to city councilman to U.S. congressman to Baltimore mayor, followed by a low-level appointment from President John F. Kennedy to something called the Federal Renegotiation Board.

One of Pelosi's five brothers, Thomas J. D'Alesandro III, Young Tommy, served on the Baltimore City Council and became the city's mayor as well.

It's hard to avoid thinking that the marriage of Nancy and Paul at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore on September 7, 1963 was an important event for two prominent Italian-American families. The couple moved to San Francisco in 1969, where Paul’s brother Ronald Pelosi was a member of the City and County of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. According to Wikipedia, Ron Pelosi

was a member of the San Francisco City Planning Commission, and of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 1968 to 1980, of which he was president from 1978 to 1980. He was chairman of the board of the San Francisco Employees' Retirement System and was on the boards of directors of the Association of Bay Area Governments, Golden Gate Bridge District and the League of California Cities.

He was also married to Barbara Newsom, an aunt of California Gov Gavin Newsom, from 1966 to 1977.

This is a remarkable story of people who've gotten by on political connections for generations. The Speaker doesn't drink, and she doesn't own any stocks.

That's Their Story, And They're Sticking To It

It turns out that I'm not the only one who hasn't bought the Institute for the Study of War's line that the Russians undertook an "operational pause" over the past week. The Daily Kos, whose reporting on the war is among the best, had this to say this morning:

Russia is stalled, pretending it is undertaking an “operational pause.” In reality, Russia is 1) exhausted from the [Donbas] effort, 2) still unable to cross the Donetsk river north of Sivers’k, 3) having to extend its supply lines, something they suck at doing, and 4) dealing with HIMARS’ systematic destruction of supply depots, dramatically exacerbating those supply problems.

Yesterday, CNN reported,

While Russian forces fire at Ukrainian positions in Donetsk in preparation for the next stage of full-scale fighting in the war, the country's defense ministry in Moscow on Saturday ordered commanders to take action to prevent Ukrainian strikes on Russian-held territory.

"(Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu) gave the necessary instructions to further increase the actions of groups in all operational areas in order to exclude the possibility of the Kyiv regime to launch massive rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents of settlements in Donbas and other regions," the ministry said in a statement.

. . . The order comes in response to a sharp rise in Ukrainian attacks far behind the front lines using recently acquired western howitzers and artillery.

Yesterday, I noted the ISW's reference to this same announcement, which it characterized as, "The Russian Defense Ministry announced that the Russian operational pause has concluded on July 16, confirming ISW’s July 15 assessment." But CNN quotes this announcement, presumably in translation, and neither CNN nor the ISW links to the original text. It puts me on my guard, though, that CNN doesn't seem to regard the announcement as the end of an "operational pause", but more like what the Daily Kos sees as a change in battlefield conditions.

Meanwhile, the ISW this morning says,

Russian forces are continuing a measured return from the operational pause and conducted limited ground attacks in Donetsk Oblast on July 17. As ISW has previously noted, the end of the Russian operational pause is unlikely to create a massive new wave of ground assaults across multiple axes of advance despite Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s public order for exactly that. . . . Russian forces continued to set conditions for resumed offensives toward Slovyansk, shelled settlements along the Izyum-Slovyansk salient, and otherwise conducted artillery, missile, and air strikes throughout Ukraine. The Russian Ministry of Defense notably did not claim any new territorial gains on July 17. ISW continues to forecast that the end of the operational pause will be characterized by a fluctuating and staggered resumption of ground offensives.

But we're back to the question everyone seems to have had all along: even the ISW agrees the Russians never stopped shooting. Where was the "operational pause"? The ISW has been replying that, well, US doctrine (!) says you can't stop shooting, because then the enemy will know you're having an operational pause, and you can't make the enemy think that, so you have to keep shooting to fool them. Or something.

So throughout this discussion, the ISW has been saying in effect, there's been an operational pause, but it doesn't look like one, because the Russians have had to make it look like they're trying to continue to advance. Of course, they haven't advanced over the past week, despite they've been trying to look like that's what they're doing, but now that they've officially ended the "operational pause", they're gonna start moving. By fits and starts. Or maybe they won't. But anyhow, they've officially ended their operational pause. That's what Sergei Shoigu says, so it's true.

Frederick W Kagan, whose name appears on almost all these reports, was one of the major architects of the Iraq boondoggle. This drove me to see what I could find via web searches, and it turns out there's a lot of material on Kagan and his wife, Kimberly, from the late Bush and early Obama eras. Here's just a start, from 2008, Too Many Kagans, Too Little Knowledge:

Fresh from his assertion that the Iraq civil war was “over” a week ago, here’s Fred–plus added bonus attraction Kimberly–Kagan reinforcing their profoundly warped view of Iraq in the Weekly Standard. There are several truly disingenuous, and flat out misleading, things here:

1. The promulgation of the myth that Maliki’s Folly was to clean out “terrorists” rather than a violent election-year ploy to clear out his legitimate Sadrist political opposition.

2. Perpetuation of the myth that effective Iraqi Security Forces actually exist and aren’t primarily composed of (a) pro-Maliki and pro-Hakim militias and (b) former Iraqi soldiers more interested in making a living than in fighting. (Add: No acknowledgment that U.S. troops in the field simply do not trust their Iraqi counterparts…Oh, and I should also add: Some of the most “effective” ISF units are Kurdish pesh merga militias.)

It goes on. The best I can conclude is that Kagan and his wife make a good living from getting things wrong, and they're able to keep doing this despite an atrocious track record because they have -- connections.

I'm not sure how much time I should spend tracking this stuff down. It depends on whether anyone who matters, as opposed to news outlets nobody takes seriously, currently listens to the Kagans. Whether they're just naturally stupid, or whether someone is paying them to be this stupid, is an interesting question. My antennae are up.