All right, let's take a time out right now.

This is a link to the Wikipedia entry for en passant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant

The expression denotes a maneuver in chess. Readers who already play chess will recognize that this maneuver has, logically, no relation to Andrew Bacevich showing Moveon.org anything. For use of the expression to even begin to make sense in this context, Bacevich and Moveon.org would have to be on opposing sides. En passant's literal meaning -- in passing -- makes sense, but there is no good reason to use the French expression because a) its most common usage does not apply here and b) its literal English translation is in common use by all English speakers not trying to show off as to their knowledge of French phrases.

Writing styles are subjective, and there are plenty of cases where words or phrases from languages other than English must be used, for example because they have no precise English equivalent or (as with many Latin expressions) because they have been in such long use that rendering them in English would cause confusion. But there are also plenty of bloggers, and commenters, familiar with languages other than English but with enough sense not to try displaying their facility and communicating with a mainly Anglophone audience at the same time.

Posted by: Zathras at October 11, 2007 01:08 AM | Permalink to this comment

The clarity and rigor of Bacevich exposition is noteworthy. And with all well constructed arguments, the premises are clearly presented and subject to examination. In my view the following two sentences in Bacevich exposition are key premises which demand further consideration:

(a) we can get serious about designing a strategy to address the threat that we actually face, which is not terrorism but violent Islamic radicalism.

(b) The antidote to Islamic radicalism, if there is one, won’t involve invading and occupying places like Iraq.

(a) Is islamic radicalism a threat that america actually faces? Or is it a threat to a particular political or economic interest group (say the petroleum industry) that has succesfully used its political influence to equate that threat it faces with a national threat.

(b) is phrased as a question; I am not convinced there is an affirmative answer or that the lack of an affirmative answer is something that necessarily should be dealt with as a political issue at the national level. For example, should we consider Christian radicalism or Jewish radicalism or Buddhist radicalism an issue that the state department should be considered with? In some cases, religious radicalism may become a law enforcement concern (if fanatics threaten violence) but I don't see that it is the major issue of our time as is frequently claimed.

Posted by: CSTAR at October 11, 2007 03:56 AM | Permalink to this comment

This is not meant a slam on Zathras, whose always sage commentary makes me wish he had a blog of his own, but as a (not great) chess player, as well as a (not great) francophone, I understood GD's reference in its literal French meaning. Yes, I recognized the chess meaning also, but as Zathras already pointed out, this wouldn't have made any sense.

It's not exactly a rare occurrence for GD to drop French phrases in his blogging, particularly when he's in the process of being snarky. So, although that wasn't it's usage in this instance, I believe that his trotting out the odd French hardly detracts from his posts, and in fact signals to his readers that there's probably a bomb or two thrown in the text somewher close by.

Posted by: je ne sais quoi at October 11, 2007 12:02 PM | Permalink to this comment

as the estimable zathras likely preemptively ruined any substantive thread on bacevich, and i've misplaced his personal email, just a quick word to assure him i'm not trying to "show off" my knowledge of french to anyone here. my mother is french, my wife is french-brazilian, i speak to my baby girl often in french, as well as my mother, and maternal grandmother, and so on. in other words, when i get home after 12 hrs at the office and try to find an interesting link to put up for readers here so the site isn't stale (b/c i don't have time for a longer post as i'm exhausted) i throw together a quick comment and often the words that leap to mind are in my maternal tongue, that is, french. i'm really sorry it annoys zathras, but as he points out, there are a lot of blogs out there that don't engage in such showy francophile puffery...

Posted by: greg djerejian at October 11, 2007 12:19 PM | Permalink to this comment

"Francais, Francais? nous n'avons pas besoin de ce francais puant." (ou quelque chose pareille) G. W. Bush.

Posted by: CSTAR at October 11, 2007 12:53 PM | Permalink to this comment

Hmm. Punctuation but no capital letters. I suspect someone is typing with a baby in his arms...

Posted by: DRS at October 11, 2007 04:38 PM | Permalink to this comment

Zathras mate, bloody hell, three paragraphs whinging on about en passant, putain merde, c'est deux mots ecrire en passant par notre cher Greg.

Posted by: The Lounsbury at October 11, 2007 05:33 PM | Permalink to this comment

I've said my piece on language. In deference to Greg's interest in a substantive thread on Andrew Becevich's commentary about Gen. Petraeus, I'll repost something I wrote a couple of days ago on the DA site:

Sympathetic though I am to much of Bacevich's critique of the political general, we've arrived at a truly desperate pass if we think that a combat commander is the one man to make civilian government leaders live up to their responsibilities.

Leave the executive branch aside for the moment. Members of four Congressional committees had Petraeus before them, available to discuss all the issues Bacevich raises or, alternately, to make clear that he, as a combat commander in one theater of operations, was not the right man to discuss them with. They chose to use the hearings to make "look-at-me" speeches -- Sen. Obama's, which used up nearly all his time, was particularly memorable as an effort to make the hearings about getting his own face on television -- or to ask rhetorical questions designed to advertise each lawmaker's support of or distance from President Bush.

A few legislators -- Sen. Warner, who is older than my own long-retired father, was one -- did better. But no group of Congressmen or Senators coordinated their questioning of Petraeus and Amb. Crocker to expose the details of critical tactical issues, nor did any address the President's habit of deferring in public to military commanders, of whom Petraeus is only the latest, on political questions relevant to the war in Iraq. Finally, I'm not aware that any of the dozens of Congressmen and Senators did at any point during the hearings last month suggest enlarging the army, or any of the other steps Bacevich suggests to bring the country fully into the war that the President insists is so vital to our nation's future.

I thought from the day of his appointment as ground commander in Iraq that Petraeus' enthusiasm for his counterinsurgency doctrine, and frustration at having had to watch while in subordinate command as officers senior to him mismanaged the Iraq war, likely blinded him to all the water that had passed under the bridge since he commanded the 101st Division around Mosul in 2003. What might have been possible had the insurgency been addressed properly right at the beginning just wasn't, and isn't, anymore. Petraeus should have seen that, and should have communicated that through his chain of command, before the surge ever started.

But that is a different critique that Bacevich makes. The one he makes demands things we should never expect of any military officer, particularly one commanding troops in the field. Generals can't make Congress, let alone the President, act on large questions of national policy. If elected officials are determined to avoid the questions only they can answer, the responsibility for that rests with them alone.

Posted by: Zathras at October 11, 2007 10:55 PM | Permalink to this comment