Make a Desert and Call It Peace

2008-08-31T14:23:00.002-04:00

Who Says You Can't Return

Well, I took a seven month sabbatical from the blog, mostly due to my teaching load. And I even thought about tanking the blog altogether, but some little voice said, "eh, give it another try."

Since I last wrote, one of the authors I recommended has been redeployed to Iraq. That would be Colby Buzzell, author of My War: Killing Time in Iraq. I had decided to teach this book, along with Imperial Life in the Emerald City, the Washington Post's head editor of the foreign bureau's scathing account of the excesses of the Green Zone. Not the salacious excesses that one used to occasionally read about in the press, but more the fiscal irresponsibility that makes the Grant administration, one of the most corrupt in American history, read like amateur hour. For instance, 1.7 billion dollars in cash, that went missing between the delivery in an army cargo plane and the Green Zone, and the replacement of a seasoned veteran of Wall Street by a 24-year-old whose sole mission in Iraq, and one that was completely unreasonable (and the reason why the veteran was replaced: he wisely objected against the administration's protestations that this was a "great idea"), was to get the Iraq stock market up and running with computers and high tech stuff that amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars without taking into account that the grid that powered Baghdad was basically cobbled together with baling wire, and was only supporting three hours of electricity a day. The Iraqi stock analysts and traders were using grease boards, with success, and continued to use them after the equipment was in place because there was no electricity on a regular basis. That's called a billion dollar answer to a one hundred dollar solution.

Colby's book is from an American soldier's POV, and is compelling and interesting reading. My students love it. I have to remind myself that they (the freshmen) were, on average, twelve years old when the war in Iraq started, and therefore they are inured to it in the way an older student usually is not. So, I wanted to teach them how to write effectively, both in an informal way like Colby Buzzell, and a formal way like Chandrasekaran, the author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City, while waking them up to the fact that there is a war taking place. Actually, kids, there are two wars taking place (a lot of my freshmen said they thought the Afghanistan war "was over").

So a shout out to Colby. Hope he resumes his irreverent blog on his second deployment, and stays out of harm's way.

Nice to be back!

2008-01-25T15:10:00.000-05:00

DemoMockracy

You know that the Democrats are overconfident when they pull the plug on a primary in a blue state that turned purple and now is really red, for all practical purposes. Personally, I hate this "red state, "blue state" and the newly-coined "purple state"—not quite republican or democratic—designation, but since I'm metaphorically challenged today, I'll use the lexicon most familiar. Because Michigan moved its primary from March something to January 15th, the National Democratic Party invoked some arcane rule about giving Iowa, New Hampshire precedence, ( and apparently Nevada too.) So it was a square-off between the national party, led by the feisty Howard Dean, and the state party. The state party lost the battle (and the war), and therefore, like refusing to cross a picket line, almost all the democratic candidates opted off of the primary ballot. You could for Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, who had already withdrawn from the race, or be "Undecided": if you dare wrote someone in, your ballot was thrown out. The Republicans, to their credit, didn't pull the same shenanigans, so they had the full list of candidates. So, since the Michigan primary is an open primary, Democrats, such as myself, went to play in the Republican sandbox. Unfortunately, many did so in a nefarious way. Most Democrats I know voted for Mitt Romney in order to split up the primaries between Republican candidates, and thus make it a more arduous task for a Republican candidate to win, and then begin the presidential campaign as the party's nominee. I, instead, voted my conscience.

So why this Democratic hubris? Does the national party think that Michigan doesn't count? That its citizens will overlook the fact that we were basically disenfranchised? Presently, there is a lawsuit being filed against the national party, alleging "taxation without representation," basically that voters who wanted to cast votes for Obama or Edwards were thwarted by the party's Machiavellian antics. Although litigation is not always the best means to pursue political equity, in this case it's merited.

I have one word for Howard Dean: Ohio.

2008-01-19T11:23:00.000-05:00

Return of the Prodigal Daughter

I know, I know, it's been forever since I posted. Initially it was due to poor health and teaching load, but then—as many of you know—it became like a room that really needs painting: you want to paint it, you have the paint, you moved out all the furniture, but due to circumstances became sidetracked, and then find it extremely hard to resume. Then you feel guilty for not painting, and find other things to do, like cleaning out closets. It becomes a vicious cycle of guilt and regret that nothing short of sheer will (and maybe psychoanalysis) will break.

So it is a new semester and year, thus a fresh start.

I'm teaching Oedipus Rex by Sophocles this semester, and it never fails to provoke the thought that humankind has not learned much in 3000 years about the narcosis of power, and what it leads to: exile and a willful blindness, in order to not face the truth of what a fine mess the misuse of power and resulting hubris has wrought. Sometimes I feel like the United States is a figurative Oedipus, exiled from much of the world community and becoming so insular, it leads to "a blindness" of sorts, a reluctance to accept criticism or truth. Oedipus threatens to either torture or kill those who come to him bearing truth (fearing that they are trying to destroy him or usurp his crown); our government bullies the UN (which has its own power issues) or NATO or governments that disagree with our policies. Presently, we are in a dust up with NATO, who has repeatedly indicated over the past six years that the U.S. has not dedicated enough troops to fighting the Taliban (most returning U.S. vets from Afghanistan state the same). So, in a classic example of hubris, Defense Secretary Gates launched a salvo at NATO, implying that we are now sending 3000 marines to the country because the NATO forces 'do not know how to fight a guerrilla war.' I'm sure that our stunning success in Iraq before the surge, and perhaps even with the surge, fighting a guerrilla war impresses NATO commanders. And I'm sure that British forces, who have fought guerrilla wars around the globe for over a century, were especially impressed! We risk further "exile" if we anger NATO partners to the point they decide to reduce their respective troop strength.

Because of the impending presidential election, and because of the interminable campaigning and primary season, a lot of the recent government's machinations regarding Afghanistan have gone unnoticed. We, the public, are blinded by power too.

The election, the primaries, and especially what happened in Michigan are for another post.

2007-10-31T18:53:00.000-04:00

Where's the Northern Alliance When You Need Them?

Hi folks,

Sorry about the, again, delay. It has been an interesting few weeks. Recently, I have become a target of a hate group, who either hacked into university email and a listserv or someone in IT forwarded it to them: a very disturbing thought. The faculty was discussing the hate group and one member in particular—now we are being threatened. Threatened with lawsuits, threatened with appealed grades, threatened with "being exposed," (whatever that means). Who says the Taliban is not alive and well. . .and living in the midwest of America. Except it would be Bizarro World Taliban since this group has shoved anti-Islamic pamphlets under my door, and has posted ominous, and to foreign students from the middle-east, threatening fliers. It is just a matter of time before they find this blog, I'm sure of that since they seem to be monitoring our department's activities.

So, to you little hate-filled, logic-challenged, can't-see-the-forest-through-the-burning cross brownshirts,

MAKE MY DAY!

I'm not scared of you.

2007-10-22T19:25:00.000-04:00

A Voice From the Wilderness. . .

Sorry about the absence. I've been attempting to sell a house in the worst state economy since the 1970s, and in the state that has the worst economy in the nation, period. People are swarming out of Michigan. It reminds me of the great immigration of 1977. Will write more later.

2007-09-20T13:21:00.000-04:00

"Who ARE those guys?" Redux

Recently, I had several classes read an article that concerned 9/11 and respond to it in an essay. One of the questions I posed during class was "who are the Taliban?" Wowie zowie! Now I know these kids, on average, were 13 or 14 when the planes hit the towers, and I realize that they don't watch the news, but I was shocked at some of the answers I received. (I mean I was three during the Cuban missile crisis, but as I grew older, 10 or so, I realized it's importance). Here are some actual students answers. (Out of 66 students, approximately 12 correctly identified who the group is)

1. They are fighters in Iraq
2. They are fighters in Iran
3. They were on the planes that hit the towers
4. They are helping the Americans in Iraq
5. They are members of some new religion, like pagans.
6. I have no clue.

Apparently, the Taliban is very mobile, very organized, comprised of seemingly helpful pagans, when Iraq, but alternately commanded the planes that took down the towers and the Pentagon.

Someone help me out here. Is this lack of knowledge of crucial current events pandemic? Or is it solely an American phenomenon? I really, really would appreciate some feedback, especially from international readers. I'm quite discouraged. . .

2007-09-05T17:51:00.000-04:00

Football Faux Pas

We have an Afghan graduate student in our department. He is studying here so he may return and work at university in Afghanistan. I had lunch with him the other day, and he told me a fascinating story. He complained that head officers of NATO and the U.S. never really listened to or employed cultural translators (not just language translators), so there have been an ongoing series of incidents that have really riled the public and have played right into the Taliban's hand. A recent "bright idea" was to air drop hundreds of footballs (or soccer balls in the U.S.) for children to play with. The only problem was that each ball had the flags of several countries on it, and one of those flags was Saudi Arabia, which contains a verse from the Qu'ran. Sort of like putting a crucifix on a football. Many citizens were outraged, and the Taliban released statements that essentially said "See how they disrespect your religion? They hate you."

Good lord, if you can't even get the recreational equipment right, what about the serious negotiations with various groups, your interaction with the citizens of Afghanistan? Not good. Not good at all. Especially considering all the sacrifices of and by the soldiers of NATO and the U.S., and their efforts to rebuild a country that was completely destroyed by the Soviet/Afghan war.

2007-08-14T16:09:00.000-04:00

Pinky Sans the Brain

Well, "The Architect" is leaving the President, and bid tearful farewells before he boarded a plane, flying back to Texas—the land of political bloodbaths and resulting political rebirths. We will not see the last of Karl Rove. Or rather, we will not see the last of his influence, since he is careful not to leave fingerprints. In some ways, he was easier to monitor when in the West Wing. Now he will truly be "the Great Oz," operating behind a big curtain of bluff, cynicism and arrogance. And it was Rove's superciliousness that brought him down, and Josh Bolton, Chief of Staff; the man, who after taking the reins, moved Rove to a small corner office without a window (hint, hint, Karl). Bolton told Rove that if he was going to leave, he had to do it by August 31st.

This is a no brainer. Petraeus' report comes in September, and Rove leaving after that would appear to be a direct "cause and effect," further weakening, if that is possible, the administration. Geez, Karl, it is said that you are a devout and insatiable student of history; Bill Bennett says you have five full rooms full of books. But what is the downfall of rulers engaged in battle, from Darius to Napoleon? Huh, huh? It's hubris. Hubris is ubiquitous "tragic flaw" that connects all failed power-hungry leaders. Now you claim you would like to teach. Hmmmmm, methinks you should reconsider that profession since your book-schooling didn't teach you what any first year history or literature major knows. I suggest that you read Shakespeare, read Richard II, Macbeth, and Richard III since you have squandered your "political capital" and leave your position plagued by subpoenas (which you can't claim "executive privilege" anymore as an excuse not to appear before Congress) and infamy. Read Shakespeare. He knows the soulless pursuit of power and its consequences better than any pop historian or political hack. Better than most any writer in the Western canon.

So who is Bush's brain now? Other than Cheney? Bolton? Tony Snow? Sometimes the devil you know is better than the one you don't know.

Speaking of "soulless," read the American soldier, Teflon Don's blog on the deficits of Kellogg, Brown and Root:
http://acutepolitics.blogspot.com/2007/07/sleeping-in-hell.html
You know, the no-bid contractors in Iraq. It's sickening.

2007-08-12T14:54:00.000-04:00

Of Myth, Man and Movies

A few years ago I read Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur," which I have discussed in this blog before. What struck me about the "original" Arthurian compilation (Malory patched together a lot of oral tradition and some written tradition into a coherent whole) is that Arthur was not a nice guy, not much of hero (at least in modern Hollywood terms). He effectively killed all children, three and under, after he learned of the birth of Mordred, his son, the product of an incestuous union with his half sister. It was prophesied that Mordred would kill Arthur, and the kingdom would end disastrously. So Arthur launched his own "slaughter of the Innocents" by launching an unmanned ship with all the children aboard into the sea. Although this seems absolutely barbaric, it was in keeping of the times. Sacrifice children to save the community.

So I have to laugh when I see the recent spat of Arthurian movies, such as "Arthur" and "The Legion," which is yet to be released. Although they claim to portray the historical Arthur, an Arthur that serious historians don't know if he actually existed, they portray a heroic man, a man that kills only his enemies, and respects the honor of the women and the sanctity of children. Right. That's what we want to happen in war, but that 's not reality. Malory is closer to the truth than the movie biz. War is brutal, and brutality is not just an attribute of the 'enemy,' but anyone who engages in it. There is little chivalry in Malory's 15th century account, and there is little chivalry in actual war. So, Hollywood, spare us the "300"s and all the other "heroic" tales. Give us something real. Give us an "Apocalypse Now," not "The Legion." Give us "The Deer Hunter" updated; give us something real and gritty. Give us an Arthur that is willing to ship the progeny of his kingdom in order to "save" the kingdom (he ultimately fails, of course). If I see one more glorified legend released during the time of an inglorious war (all wars are inglorious), I'm boycotting the studio that produced it.

2007-08-05T15:14:00.001-04:00

Doh!

I saw Defense Secretary, Gates, on "Meet the Press" this a.m. I must admit he is absolutely refreshing after the almost cartoonish Rumsfeld (you know, V.P. Cheney's nomination for "the best Secretary of Defense this country has ever had," an accolade from Cheney at Rumsfeld's resignation ceremony). Personally, I think Rumsfeld should have traveled to wherever he hails from "by light of [his] own burning effigies" as an unpopular Civil War general noted about himself when he was removed from his post and traveled from Kansas to Boston.

Gates played his cards close to the vest, but did note that he was incredibly unhappy with the Iraqi government's decision to go on vacation when Baghdad's citizens are suffering the majority of the day and night without electricity in 130 degree heat. He apparently told the government of Iraq that "their vacation would be paid for in the blood of fallen Americans." Not to mention Iraqi civilians and Iraqi troops and police. (Read Treasure of Baghdad's blog about the ineffectual government: his blog is linked to this one)

Gates also noted, rather cryptically, that "things would change," if Petraeus' report was negative." Do tell. We would like to have more detail, Secretary Gates, on what those changes would entail. Don't tell us your battle tactics: give us the broad strokes. We KNOW the report will not be good, regarding Baghdad and the military relations with the government—that's a given—but what are we to do? Withdraw? Chaos. Stay? Chaos. Withdraw to the borders and let the sects and groups slug it out? Chaos and unethical. Overthrow Maliki? Chaos and hypocrisy (like we see in Gaza). What exactly do you have to threaten the Iraqi government with? The government that refuses to work on the division of oil profits (at this point, what oil? The sabotage and inability to fix the sanction-damaged equipment has strangled oil production). That Americans are going to leave? Maliki said that would be fine, that the Iraqi government could handle an American withdrawal. That America will withdraw financial support? That sounds familiar, sort of like sanctions, and there are plenty of bad actors that will funnel money to their proxies in Iraq. What's the plan? We, and Iraqis, want a plan. You know, the "plan B" that in the past was the same as plan"A" and better be different now? Even Homer Simpson has a plan B, albeit "we move to Alaska, where you can never be too fat or too drunk." (See the Simpson movie. It is a scathing commentary on the mismanagement of the war by "the suits." There is even a depiction of the outrageousness and the affront that is the "Green Zone," but I won't give it away. I hate it when people give away an entire movie I haven't seen.")

The complexity of this war is mind-boggling, and I wouldn't want to be in Gate's shoes for any amount of money. But I hope his clarity and seeming honesty manifest in some sort of solutions, solutions that are spelled out for the American and Iraqi public.

2007-07-23T11:23:00.000-04:00

I Heart Iraq

This week I showed the comedy "I Heart Huckabees" in class. Granted, this is an obscure film (although it has very well-known actors such as Mark Wahlberg, Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin), and if you don't know anything about Buddhism, Existentialism, Nihilism, String Theory, Environmentalists and Suburban Sprawl, you are apt to find the film ridiculous, devoid of meaning, and definitely not funny. My students had to research all of the above before watching the film: they got it.

One of the film's main themes is the idea of interconnectivity. We are all connected to everything else, and the past, the present and the future manifest themselves simultaneously. In a nutshell, as Dustin Hoffman's character notes, "You are now what you were and will ever be." We are not free of the past as it dwells in every action we take in the present and in the future. We are also not isolated; our actions and very being are connected to world and to everything in it. As String Theory postulates, the only thing that differentiates you from the chair that you are presently sitting in is that the sub-sub atomic strings that make up you are oscillating at a different "frequency" than the chair's. But really, you and the chair are fundamentally interconnected by these strings. Like Zeno's Paradox, there is no dividing line, no separation between things at a sub-atomic level: separation is an illusion perpetrated by the macroscopic world we live our lives in.

While the above may seem strange or hippy-dippy, it can be applied to Iraq. We are now what we were and will ever be in Iraq. Our actions in the past resonate in the present, and manifest themselves in the future. We, the American public, like to think we are somehow isolated, or not a part of the war, but this is an illusion. Every action or non-action taken in Iraq affects all of us in some way. For some it is a direct connection, such as a family member that serves in the armed forces; for others, it is more indirect, such as the rise in fuel prices because of instability in the region, and the consequent rise in food prices and energy. But every child that dies in Iraq has some impact on a child in the U.S., whether the death manifests itself in a revenge killing of a soldier/parent, or helps turn the good will of the Iraqi people into a smoldering hatred of the United States, which in turn creates more instability in Iraq, which in turn affects the region, and affects us. Perhaps mom can't pay the gas bill and buy enough food, and the child lives without heat and adequate nutrition, which affects his or her performance in school, and may indeed determine whether he or she succeeds in life. This is just one example of a myriad of examples of interconnectivity.

So how do we leave Iraq without shaping a more problematic future for the country, the region, the world? We do not live in one bubble and the war does not exist in another. We went in carelessly, and must exit carefully (to crib a line from Obama). I would love for readers to post their ideas of an exit strategy, or whether there should even be one. Post away!

2007-07-12T12:35:00.000-04:00

Dog-tag Days Redux. . .

Steven Coll's book Ghost Wars is a must read for anyone who is interested in how the Taliban movement took shape in Afghanistan and the tribal territories of Pakistan. Coll, a former CIA officer, was in on the ground floor of supplying arms to militants to fight the Soviet's invasion of Afghanistan. But he notes that the CIA's relationship with the militants was never a love fest, and that it was born out of cold war policies, rather than any clear-headed evaluation of the fomenting civil strife in the region. He also traces the beginnings of bin Laden's influence, or in some cases, the lack thereof. Bin Laden had an "aid society" of sorts set up in Pakistan, very close to the CIA's offices (about which Coll gives a harrowing account of a siege orchestrated by protesters).

Coll traces the CIA's interest in bin Laden, which really became acute when bin Laden and company moved, in the early 1990s, to the Sudan. There was a group in the CIA that was assigned to monitor bin Laden, and they became known within the agency as the "Manson Family" due to the fact the group was composed of a male analyst and several female analysts. The moniker was also a reflection of their obsession with bin Laden and their impressions that he was, and would become even more so, a major player and organizer of attacks directed toward the West. The group's worries were dismissed, and in time, the analysts were disbanded and assigned to other tasks. Coll paints a really distressing portrait of the CIA's leadership being completely out of touch with the "people on the ground," the regional experts, linguists and analysts.

I heartily recommend this book. Although it is quite thick, it is an absolute page turner!

2007-07-09T13:38:00.000-04:00

"Run away, run away''!

For those of you who have seen the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the above line should evoke the memory of "brave Sir Robin," who even had a minstrel following him and singing his praises; a knight who turned out to be not so brave, and would cry "run away, run away" at any daunting challenge (A great comedy, can't recommend it highly enough, and even funnier if you have read Thomas Malory's Le Mort d'Arthur.)

But I couldn't help but think of this when reading about the sudden defections of Republican senators from the president's vision of the war in Iraq. Some of them were the loudest saber-rattlers when the war was initiated, and now, in the face of all the senseless carnage, they want to throw in the towel.

Blame the Iraqi government, blame poor leadership, blame the inability to adequately train Iraqi soldiers and recruit American ones, but whatever or whomever you, dear Senators, blame, don't blame yourselves. Never mind that Hans Blix, inspector for the U.N. said there were no serious "weapons of mass destruction," never mind that middle-east experts said that this would be folly, never mind that the Syrians said "you will be opening the gates of hell," never mind that you didn't have enough soldiers or the equipment to protect them, and never mind that none of you, not a single one, seemed to have any appreciation of the history of Iraq, the various occupations, and the results—never mind and don't blame yourselves.

And those of us who opposed this foray into another quagmire, a mere thirty years after we did exactly the same thing in Vietnam? We were unpatriotic. We were even called traitors. We were, in the words of Donald Rumsfeld, "very naive." So we packed up our humble, naive opinions, and let the "seasoned and knowledgeable" Secretary Rumsfeld run and turn this war into what can be best described as "Apocalypse Now II: Mesopotamia."

Now you want to run away? And what of the Iraqi citizens? Whose lives this war has reduced to praying for electricity in 120 degree heat, praying for water, and praying that the banging at the door is a relative, and not a kidnapper or militiaman, or the police or Iraqi forces. "Democracy is messy," but so is an insurgent war. We lose soldiers, sometimes seven to ten a day, but the Iraqis lose around sixty civilians a day, on "a 'good' day," as the journalist David Brookes chillingly noted.

I have never supported this war; anyone with even a whit of knowledge about the region knew this would be a benighted adventure. But leaving the Iraqi citizens in such dire straits is shameful; it's beyond despicable. And it will come back to haunt us. Blood on our hands.

Just like the minstrel following "brave Sir Robin" changed his tune to something not-so-flattering when Sir Robin retreated in the face of hardship, so will the world change its tune about us.

2007-06-26T14:12:00.000-04:00

Dog-tag Days of Summer

I am swamped, between the odious move to another house and the summer courses, but still make time to do the traditional summer reading. NPR, yesterday, had a Georgetown professor on Fresh Air who made recommendations for summer reading that were for lack of a better term, "fiction lite." Yawn. For those nonfiction and non-lite readers, I have a few suggestions that I will post over the next few days.

My War: Killing Time in Iraq
Colby Buzzell
Putnam Press

An unemployed and unrepentant bad ass joins the military after a hard night of drinking, and, big surprise, is deployed to Iraq. What makes this self-admitted sloth different is that he can write, and write he does, much to his commanders' displeasure. Buzzell's book started out as a blog, straight from Baghdad, and the book connects blog entries by a narrative that gives them background and depth. Buzzell, for all his initial posturing, is a avid reader and a gifted observer and writer of the absurdities of the "War on Terror" in Iraq. Some of his entries are hilarious, some heart-breaking, and some just downright terrifying. I taught this book in my literary analysis course, and my students gained insight into a war that they are incredibly disconnected from, e.g. one student, I hazard to guess, mistook Iraq for Afghanistan and asked why Buzzell never mentioned bin Laden. As related by a myriad of emails, many students didn't sell back the book and gave it to friends and relatives. This, in itself, is a small miracle and speaks to what is so compelling about Buzzell's writing: it speaks to nearly everyone, in some manner, who reads it. He sugarcoats nothing, and is not afraid to portray himself as a complete idiot in a couple of entries (illicit liquor and the phrase "money" fuels one of the most hilarious and yet pitiful examples). Buzzell's book is a glorious page-turner, no matter what your position is on the war. His position, which I personally think is compellingly written, is complex, as complex as the problems that plague benighted Iraq.

2007-06-13T15:24:00.000-04:00

Tighten the belt, tighten the noose.

Back in internet land. I have lived the last two weeks as I lived during my youth: with a TV that gets two channels and no internet. I, gasp!, had to read when I finished painting, and doing the stuff that a big move requires, at the end of the day. And I realized, once away from all the technology, why my students, for the most part, are poor writers. As a kid and a young adult, my primary news sources were papers and magazines, and I read avidly. I always had a book at my side, as well. After spending a couple of weeks working with a 20-something, who is renting my former residence (the one I have been refurbishing for future sale), and watching her nearly have a meltdown because of lack of internet and tv, I realize that most people born after 1985 have made the net their primary means of communication, reading material, and social medium, and tv consumes as much or more of their time. But by primary reading material, I mean Facebook or myspace. Although the 20-something working with me is a serious reader, she has a hard time reading for long stretches. She usually multi-tasks: reads, runs AIM, and myspace at the same time. Evenings crept by for her at a snail's pace, while I reverted to habits learned young: I read for hours.

This brings me to education. Our education budget in our state is taking a huge hit. Enrollments in state universities are down, we have a huge deficit, and the federal government is not helping one iota. The secondary schools in Michigan are in pitiful shape. In Detroit, only 24% of those who start high school finish, and in the entire state, only 59% of those who begin a four-year degree university depart with a diploma. Now we have state representatives who would rather shutdown schools, reduce support to state universities in a draconian fashion, and generally gut all education than raise taxes. So kids who are struggling now will continue to struggle, and ultimately will not raise revenue for the state because they will either have little education, poor education or will have left the state. It really bothers me that our country is willing to funnel 1 billion dollars a day to the fiasco in Iraq rather than educate the entire populace, especially the at-risk populace. An uneducated country is a country at risk itself.

But back to the net. It is a fantastic tool, a necessary one, but it shouldn't replace reading newspapers or books. One of the reasons that 18-30 year-olds have little interest in Iraq or Afghanistan (and more interest in the misdeeds of one heiress/celebrity) is because they tend to get news exclusively from the net, which doesn't give you the experience of reading one article and then discovering one right next to it that may pique your interest (or not). You have to select an article and hit links for others: not the same thing. We may turn out to have the most technologically advanced youth in human history, but also the most functionally illiterate youth as well. Something to ponder while sending out CVs to more affluent states, or ones that are not willing to sacrifice their children's future because they won't raise property taxes by 2 mills.

2007-06-03T16:40:00.000-04:00

Sunday Round-up

Although I haven't turned on the cable yet, I was, through fiddling with rabbit-ears (antennas for those who are too young to remember life without cable/Directv) able to pick up a snowy-screened "Meet the Press." I could listen to it on podcast, but I like to see people's facial expressions and gestures—they are often more telling than their words. Anyway, today it was disappointing: a lot of "talking heads," such as the Frick and Frack/husband and wife political consultants, Mary Maitland and James Carville. It's really hard to take them seriously when they had a sitcom on HBO that parodied their own consulting firm (the cancelled "K street"). They were guests, along with a couple of other consultants that had run, sometimes disastrously, presidential campaigns. It almost wasn't worth the effort of manipulating the antennas.

But what struck me was that they were talking about the presidential election fifteen months before it occurs in a way that people used to talk about an election that was just a couple months away. Yikes! Also, Fred Thompson (of "Law and Order" fame, a tv show for those of you who are not familiar with the program) may throw his hat in the ring. He is a one-term, and an unremarkable term, congressman and actor who has a reputation for slacking. The consultants all agreed that he is a viable candidate for the Republican party, and that he may challenge Rudy and John McCain. I find this hard to believe, polls or no polls: people want experience or someone with a reputation for a good grasp of current and foreign affairs. I think nearly eight years of ignominious and ignorant stewardship has taught the majority of Americans that you had better damn well have a president whose best accomplishment is more than a role on a hit tv series. I could be very wrong on this point, but I certainly hope I'm not.

Whoever wins, from either party, will inherit two wars on two fronts, or now that we are firing missiles into Somalia, maybe more fronts. This is complex, and it calls for someone who can intellectually tackle the wars, not just lob more soldiers at it (or in Afghanistan's case, not enough soldiers). Fourteen more soldiers died in the last two days in Iraq. If this bloody pace keeps up at half the rate of the last three days, 709 American soldiers will have died by the time the election occurs in Iraq alone. Furthermore, there will be more American deaths in Afghanistan, along with the deaths of Afghan civilians. And who knows how many thousands of Iraqis will die; no one seems to be tracking their casualties very well. You can speak all you want about "fostering a new democratic Iraq," but when neither the Iraqi government or the American administration can really tell the world how many Iraqis have died, it screams "subaltern people."

Anyway, I hope all the consultants, or rather exorbitantly paid soothsayers, are wrong about both parties' candidates. And I hope that the next president grasps the fact that "al qaeda" is an ideology, not just a loose coalition of groups. And to combat a militant ideology, you must have a better ideology, one that provides jobs and stability as opposed to nostalgia for the 12 century. Militarism alone cannot fight an ideology. Turning on the electricity for twenty-four hours a day (especially during the summer) will be far more appreciated than someone ordering you to grow a beard or shaving your head because you aren't wearing a head scarf (as documented by "Treasure of Baghdad" and "Zappy" of "Where date palms grow"). I know that is easier said than done, but infrastructure should be paramount now, in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Without this, as Yeats put it, from his poem, "The Second Coming,"

Things fall apart; the centre will not hold.
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Yeats, in 1919, was a prescient man.

2007-05-29T15:23:00.000-04:00

Dulce et Decorum est.

My grandfather, whom I never knew as he was a bit older when he became a father, fought in WWI. He was in the trenches for two solid years, only getting brief respites at a staging camp behind the lines. He was a typist and a gunner. He would type orders as the shells rained down upon him and his comrades, while the cannon-shot gas canisters sputtered just outside the trenches (he suffered lung damage from chlorine gas, which is making a comeback in Iraq), and he was so far out there in the 23,000 miles of winding, man-dug trenches (nearly once around the earth's circumference!), no one would venture out to aid the soliders other than the army supply trains (infrequently) and the Salvation Army. The Red Cross wouldn't even go into "no man's land" (another parallel with Iraq). It was total war. Everything that could be shot or dropped on your enemy was: there was no Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention arose from the aftermath of WWI because there had never been so savage a war, and one fought with such total disregard for life. The "Great War" was supposed to be the war that ended all wars. Well, we know better now, don't we?

On memorial day, when I saw all the pictures of parents and loved ones, faces twisted with grief, in Arlington Cemetary, and saw the newest graves strewn with flowers, teddie bears, and pictures of children, and when I saw pictures of the burials of Iraqis, such as a twenty-year-old man who had been walking home and was shot for no apparent reason by a masked man in a car, I thought of my grandfather and of his (and one of mine) favorite poet, the WWI poet Wilfred Owen.

Owen had been a big booster of the war, like many at home in England, until he became a soldier. He had written poetry before the war, but it was soppy, dreadful stuff. It was only during the war, he came into his voice—a voice that haunts us still. Owen was wounded at least once, recovered in hospital, and was sent back to the front lines. He was killed at the very end of the war; if I remember right, only hours before it officially ended. He left us an invaluable and disturbing collection of war poetry. It seems so much more applicable to the Iraq or Afghanistan war than, let's say, WWII because of the sheer savagery and insanity of it all, and the seeming indifference of the architects of the war for those who are on the front lines, or in the cities and villages of Iraq and Afghanistan. I am going to post below Owen's most popular poem. Oxford University has a database of his works online if you care to read more. Just enter "Wilfred Owen" into google, and it is the second or third entry.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.*

* Translated from Latin as “It is sweet and right to die for your country.” These lines are take from an ode by Horace and were often used in support for WWI.

2007-05-26T16:19:00.000-04:00

Disappearing Act

I haven't quite vanished off the face of the planet, but I have moved. What a nightmare. Of course, nightmares are relative. I haven't suffered the fate of the poor Iraqis who are forced at gunpoint to move from integrated neighborhoods by radicals and militiamen of differing sects. So my suffering is really, really minor in comparison. But my back and wallet have seen better days.

I haven't watched as much news as of late, but I did catch "Meet the Press" this past Sunday. Both Christopher Dodd and Newt Gingrich were on the show discussing the quagmire in Iraq. Gingrich started with the argument that 'al qaeda is in Iraq. This is a war against our enemies who want to destroy our way of life. We leave and al qaeda will think we are a paper tiger.' Dodd responded that 'the occupation brought al qaeda to Iraq—that they weren't there before (which is correct), and that we provided a great recruiting opportunity for al qaeda because the Iraqis might hate al qaeda, but they hate us more (as one shopkeeper in Kirkuk stated).' Dodd asserted that we can't help Iraqis in the middle of a civil war, and that the Iraqi government must be held accountable. Gingrich said that the Iraqi government is too weak and too new to be held fully accountable (which is correct as well). Dodd countered that we were running out of troops and that we will appear weak anyway if we can't maintain troop strength in the area. The longer a soldier stays in Iraq, the more likely he or she is to engage in egregious or self-destructive behavior because morale drops precipitously after two fifteen-month tours of duty. When speaking about such things, I think the Union (American Civil War) General William Tecumseh Sherman put it best:

I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting—its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation

"War is hell,"as Sherman famously stated later in an address to a Michigan Military academy. And it is the people who never experienced war, i.e. the President, Vice President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and the rest of the neo-con clan, who started this death spiral in Iraq. A spiral that has made millions of Iraqis lives more miserable than they were under Hussein and has opened the door to insurgents of every stripe and sect. And a war that has killed nearly 4000 American troops. Iraq has become the new Afghanistan, post-Soviet invasion. A lot of good the Soviets did, and a lot of good we have done, and the parallels are striking, indeed. Each country sought to thrust its ideology on a country at gunpoint. People don't take kindly to that sort of thing, even if their present government is repressive and blood-thirsty. History is replete with examples and the resulting insurgencies.

But back to Sherman. When he made his infamous "march to the sea" during the American Civil War, he was seeking to end the war by inflicting total war, if that makes any sense. He literally burned and plundered his way south. He told his troops to live off of the civilians because they aided the confederate rebels. He torched fields and cities. "Hearts and Minds"?, no. He didn't care. Because Sherman thought the South had gone mad when it attempted to secede, he felt no compunction to treat it with respect or restraint.

So do we want to be Sherman in Iraq, or do we want to be United Nations Peace Keepers? Or do we want to be something in-between. Sherman would argue that it is impossible to win hearts and minds when you are invading a people's land, but it is impossible to harness the aid and talent of the people if you don't. So far, we have not had much success with this. It is a true dilemma in the classical sense of the word.

So I see Dodd's point, but I also see Gingrich's. We cannot abandon Iraqis, but we must find a better way to help. And if that means a smaller footprint, then so be it. And if it means a bigger footprint, then we need a draft. Few Americans are making any sacrifices for this war. Perhaps it's time that we do.

Ultimately, it is up to the Iraqis. If they want us to leave, we must respect this and do so—even if the consequences are dire. The specter of sectarian blood-shed is a scary and appalling possible consequence. But there are nearly 100 Iraqis dying everyday. I'm not sure that it could be much worse than this (of course, it could be). I also think the Iraqis are capable of dealing with both the militias and the al qaeda insurgents. Tribal leaders in the "Sunni Triangle" have successfully recruited and trained local men to fight al qaeda and have done so with some success.

This war is hell; I would argue even more hellish than Vietnam. As Sherman so eloquently wrote "even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies. . ."

2007-04-29T18:08:00.000-04:00

"The Culture of Cruelty"

This is what David Brookes of the NY Times said about American culture on a talk show after the tragedy of the VT shootings, and I've been ruminating over this for the last week or so, and I must agree. We, obviously by how highly they are rated, love watching the humiliation of people on reality shows, the Simon Crowells of the world making snide and outright devastating remarks to contestants that are willing to be bashed in front of millions for their thirty seconds of infamy. This humiliation is forgotten in an equal amount of seconds by the audience, but probably is never forgotten by the unfortunate victim (of course, as we see it, he or she "deserved it" because "no one is on the show against his or her will"). We tolerate the Don Imus's and the Howard Sterns—we love the way they taunt and belittle people; we love violent films, the gorier the better; we embrace the business culture that says you have to be a bastard to get ahead, or "You're Fired" by some side-combed egocrat that is just that much more Machiavellian than you are.

The NRA has one thing right. It's not the guns that kill people; it's the downright ugliness of our blatant disregard for our fellow countrymen, let alone the entire world. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.

What causes this penchant for violence and vulgarity? I can offer one possible reason. Education, or lack thereof. We don't teach history, so our children don't learn from our, let alone ancient, mistakes. We don't teach them anything about foreign cultures. As I noted in another post, most of my students, in high school, didn't study any history other than American history, and a bland, dessicated version of American history at that. We have stripped the arts from our schools' curricula because our schools are underfunded. Towns won't pass millages, states won't raise taxes, and the federal government—well, if you have a president who brags about being a "C" student, then that sets a precedent. Crassness rules, art is liberal sissy stuff. And history? Who needs it when you make it. If we read history, we would understand all too well what happens to civilizations who acted and thought as we do presently. They became irrelevant, and self-destructed, as T.S. Eliot put it, with a whimper not a bang.

I'm tired of the culture of ignorance, of cruelty, of crassness. This is not JFK's New Frontier, or Johnson's Great Society. It's not Reagan's City on the Hill. It is madness. Self-centered and ultimately self-destructive.

2007-04-19T13:54:00.000-04:00

Glad I'm Not The Only One

This is an interesting OP-ED piece from a professor who has had encounters like I documented below (but more intimidating than mine). She also wonders where personal rights end and the university community rights begin. Good reading from the NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/opinion/19oakley.html

This has definitely started a discussion that has been long overdue: personal rights, personal safety, the downsides of a gun culture. Canada has more guns per capita than the U.S., but far, far less gun violence per capita. But Canada doesn't have the huge amount of hand guns that we have. As one student pointed out in class (and he is a hunter and a gun owner) "Cho would have had a harder time not being stopped/detected if he had been carrying a thirty-ought-six." Polls show that most U.S. citizens want better gun control, but it has been presented as the fallacious "either/or" argument by the lobbyists: "Either you allow 50 mm guns, or you are taking away all our gun rights." There has to be some sort of sane compromise. The fact that Cho had been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution within the past 48 months is reason enough to deny him a gun, but this sort of mental health material is not taken into consideration in the majority (if not all) states when one applies for a gun permit, unless the psychiatric episode involved a felony. I wonder if most people know this? I used to work in community mental health and know this fact too well; I remember the suicides of at least two clients who had legally purchased guns.

2007-04-17T10:09:00.001-04:00

In Memoriam

First, I would like to give my condolences to the students, faculty and parents of Virginia Tech. This is such a horrifying event, and one that few parents envision will take place on the campus where they send their children to study. It's beyond comprehension, this act of violence, as most acts of supreme violence are. And you think the worst thing that might happen to your child on an American campus (and I note "American" because a campus such as the University of Baghdad has faced incredible carnage due to sectarian conflict) is that his or she might receive a "minor in possession" charge or a failing grade. You never think he or she might be randomly shot four times in a German class or an Engineering class.

As a professor at a Division I school, I cannot say that this scenario has never crossed my mind. But I can say it hadn't crossed my mind until about five years ago, which is when I started noticing a subtle and disturbing trend in a small minority of students: unfettered anger. In the last five years, I have had a student block my way out of a classroom because of a perceived poor grade (a "C"), several students yell at me, and a few who have written emails that were just short of threats. These encounters were all over the matter of grades. For many students, it's not enough to receive a "B" anymore; it must be an "A" for the purposes of being competitive. But of course, the vast majority of students deal with their disappointment with grades, or with college in general, gracefully. But those that don't can be very scary—not only for the instructor, but also for fellow students if an outburst occurs in class (which has, thankfully, only happened once to me and my students, but I hear other faculty report incidents more frequently than I can remember).

So, I don't think we can just write this shooting off to a "nutter": we must look at ourselves, at our culture, and at what could be behind the rage. I am not trying to make excuses for the perpetrator of this massacare; I have a vested interest in trying to understand why shootings like this, and the recent one at the University of Montreal, happen. These incidents, with the exception of Charles Whitman who killed 16 people and wounded 31 at the University of Texas in 1966, did not occur thirty years ago. (The Whitman murderous rage may have been a lethal combination of amphetamines for finals, and a brain tumor that was found during an autopsy—his behavior had markedly changed in the last weeks of his life). Why did these incidents begin to occur in the late 70s and have accelerated since then? I really am at a loss for an answer. My students think it is technology: the inability to cope with vast amounts of stimuli and information, and instant access to nearly anybody. As one student put it, "technology radically changes every 18 months, and we as students bear the brunt and stress of keeping on top of it." I don't know if this a valid answer, but at least it is an answer.

I have none.

2007-04-08T19:22:00.000-04:00

The Long Gaze of the Realist

I had the privilege of seeing retired four-star General Wesley Clark speak last week to an enthusiastic crowd of about 900. The program board scheduled his talk on the night of the NCAA basketball final: brilliant. I expected to see few students there, but I was pleasantly surprised when hundreds showed up—there obviously were more important events than getting drunk and watching Florida pound Ohio State.

Clark started with a brief history of the cold war with the former USSR,(pre many students' conception) and the ramifications of it ending, which nobody in the U.S. had anticipated. He claims we lost our way at that moment. We no longer could define ourselves by what we were and were not in contrast to the Soviets.
We had values.
We had capitalism.
We had no plan.
And when you don't have a plan, there are always forces willing to impose their own antiquated world view because of their inability to grow. Hence someone like Cheney, who didn't believe that the Soviets would crumble, and who was alarmed at the fall of the Berlin wall, had to shift his world axis and focus upon another "enemy." The "axis of evil" even has a familiar ring to it. Reagan called the former USSR something very similar, "The Evil Empire," in the early 1980s. It's Soviet speak, only tweaked a bit so it is now "Islamofascists" instead of "the Reds."

Clark stated that the only way we, as a country, would survive is if we negotiate--talk to people, "even bad people" as he put it. He said we cannot go "cowboy on the world" and expect to win hearts and minds. He also said that the military should always be the last option. The very last option.

Of course, he is disgusted with the mishandling of Iraq, but doesn't think we should abandon the Iraqis by unilaterally pulling out. He stated that we need to talk to Iran, to the Saudis, to the Jordanians and Syrians—all those that have something to gain and lose if Iraq continues as a failed state. He said in the last eight years, the "fine art of negotiations" had been abandoned for a "my way or the highway" stance that has only weakened us as even NATO is having second thoughts about the U.S. and its current foreign policy (or lack thereof). Clark would know of what he speaks since he was in command of NATO forces in Bosnia during the bombing of Serbia. Clark also is a veteran of Vietnam. He took four rounds of an AK47, and this changed his world view; he said it took nine years for him to look into a mirror and realize he was still deeply angry about being shot, that he hadn't killed the man that had shot him, that the war itself had been such a disaster.

One of the most interesting moments came during the Q & A that followed the speech. He was very generous with his time. But an awkward moment arose when Clark had to reiterate his belief that military action is an action of last resort during an exchange with a student who had escaped southern Sudan as a teenager, leading a pack of children out of the country during Khartoum's war with South Sudan. The student asked "Shoudn't the United States intevene militarily in Darfur?" And Clark answered "No. We have to negotiate with Khartoum and the rebels: they both have blood on their hands." He then spoke awhile about the disaster and genocide that was taking place in the Sudan, but stated that this was not something the U.S. military could solve. It must have been hard to say this to the Sudanese student, knowing full well what horrors this young man had seen, and that Africa is neglected (as he noted in his speech as well).

Overall, I was very impressed. If you can catch him speaking somewhere, do so. It's worth your time.

2007-03-29T09:34:00.000-04:00

Lost in Translation

I read a truly disturbing article in March 26th's New Yorker Magazine about the fates of translators in Iraq who had helped the United States: it wasn't pretty—not the article nor the fates. Basically, it appears that the Greenzone was being run by high school students (not literally) during the Bremer years, and didn't really improve much afterward. Translators, who were allowed to view privy information and documents, were made to wait up to three to four hours in the "Greenzone" line to get to work: they were denied the "speedy passes" to bypass the lines (But Jordanians were given them!). This allowed the translators to easily be spotted by insurgents, and then targeted by the same. Many translators lost their property when forced to flee from their homes; in some cases, they lost relatives or even their own lives. Very few Visas to the United States were given to "outed" translators; most of them fled to Jordan, Syria, England, Sweden, Canada, essentially anywhere other than the country that they laid their lives on the line for.

This is a national disgrace. But a familiar one. We did the same to the Hmong, who helped us in Vietnam. They are still feeling the heat from the Vietnamese government, and still are trying to immigrate to the U.S. Fortunately, the governor of Minnesota, who was helped by the Hmong when his plane was shot down over Vietnam, has done a great deal to try to bring as many Hmong as he can to his state. Our federal government apparently has had no such attack of conscience.

But back to the translators.

Our treatment of them brings up a couple of very obvious questions. 1) If you trust Iraqis to translate documents that might be sensitive, it seems that you would trust them not to bring bombs into the Greenzone, especially if they had worked for you for years. 2) Hearts and minds. If you alienate the very people who are willing to lay their lives on the line to help, you aren't going to stand much of a chance with those less enamored with your occupation. Furthermore, if translators were so inclined to help the insurgents after you turned them over to the jackals of war by not helping move them and their families to safety, they would be a great asset: translators know you, and know you better than you think.

As Bugs Bunny would say, "What a maroon." It's the stupidity, stupid.

2007-03-18T12:33:00.001-04:00

The Hammer, or, "If I Only Had a Brain"

My neighbor said to me yesterday, "Do you know what lesson you should teach a man with two black eyes? . . . None: he's already learned the lesson twice." Entirely relevant to the 4th anniversary of the war in Iraq.

As I am wont to do, I watched NBC's "Meet the Press" this morning, and was amused/distressed to see Tom Delay, aka "The Hammer," squaring off against Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), a retired Vice Admiral of the U.S. Navy who is the highest ranking former military officer to serve in the House. Also on the program were Richard Perle (who looks terrible--one wonders if the stress is killing him), primary, and unapologetic, co-architect of the war, and rounding out the foursome, a former house member who is involved in an organization that opposes the war. Delay is still the ridiculous former-pesticide huckster (appropriately, since he is "toxic" beyond belief) and was promoting a new book that deems all those are opposed to the war as "traitors" and the purveyors of "treason." Hmmmm, democracy? Methinks Mr. Delay should clarify what his own country's democracy is—you know, the freedom of dissent—before foisting it off on countries who never asked for it in the first place. When Rep. Sestak pointed out that the vast number of Iraqi citizens wanted the U.S. out of Iraq, Delay responded with his usual brilliance, "I only care about American citizens." Good lord!

The report that caught my ear, and the one that was most distressing, as Delay is hopelessy and willfully ignorant and will never be more than a bilious clown, was Sestak's narrative that told of resources being lifted from Afghanistan and being, unnecessarily and stupidly in his mind, directed to Iraq. He was actually there—launching airstrikes and other operations from his carrier—unlike anyone else on the show. He told of how when his ships were ordered to go to the Persian Gulf, the only ships from the coalition that followed them there were the British and the Australians. The Japanese, Italians, et al did not go. That, according to him, spoke volumes. He is not the first former brass that has spoken against the war. The six retired generals that spoke out earlier this year were recently profiled in Vanity Fair, (a must read) and their stories are heartbreaking—the most compelling is Lt. General Newbold's, who resigned in protest of the the impending Iraq war because he did not see, along with other officers, Saddam Hussein as a threat. He saw the battle in Afghanistan as being of primary importance. He has been reviled by many, but history, I believe, will redeem him, and will prove him to be a real patriot, not a paper-tiger patriot like Delay.

But back to the "black eye" analogy. We are running out of eyes, and limbs for that matter. What will it take to refocus our efforts on Afghanistan? Not just militarily, but economically? What will it take for us to eat humble pie and seriously, and I mean seriously, negotiate with all the warring factions in Iraq and Iraq's neighbors? It won't take a hammer to the head; it will take a brain transplant—essentially a change in our government. I hope that all parties concerned can hang in there for two more years.

2007-03-06T20:45:00.000-05:00

Oh, the inhumanity

It is said that you can judge a country's humanity by how it treats it veterans. I guess that places us somewhere between the bone-wielding primates in "2001 Space Odyssey" and the Visigoths. The military hospital, Walter Reed, and the Veterans Administration are a plague upon our house. Billeting the war-wounded in conditions that include rats, molding walls, and water leaks is horrifying enough--to find out that the present adminstration tried to cut the budget of the already overwhelmed Veterans Administration last fiscal period is just inconceivable. There are over 24,000 wounded from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and because "we" didn't plan for this amount of wounded passing through the system, it somehow becomes a "tragic mistake" rather than a idiotic miscalculation on our government's part. You can dress this ugly up in any sematics that you want, but it is sheer callousness. Both the adminstration and the legistrative branch deserve a prolonged vacation in Fallujah. You can't convince me that veterans and/or their families didn't complain to their respective congressmen, or didn't write letters to the administration.

And I haven't even discussed the Iraqi hospitals, and our government's blatant refusal to give anything but nominal help. Non-profit organizations have extended more of a hand.

The shame, the shame. If my grandfather, who fought in the trenches of WWI, was alive, he would be horrified. He received better care, in 1920, for exposure to mustard gas, than our veterans receive presently.

Good luck with that recruiting for a "Volunteer Army" after this fiasco. As if the war, itself, wasn't bad enough.

2007-02-28T15:41:00.000-05:00

filed under "New Signs of the Impending Apocalypse."
Ok, I am officially scared. Don't read the following link if you are not willing to grow a few grey hairs, stock up on Power Bars, distilled water, and and draw up plans to build a bomb shelter.

www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070305fa_fact_hersh

2007-02-23T16:48:00.000-05:00

The Culture of "24"

I admit, I've never been a fan of the American TV show, "24." It always seemed implausible and rather ridiculous. I viewed it the same way I view shows about hospitals, after working in one for several years during grad school: not remotely in touch with any sort of reality of how a hospital really works, how doctors interact with patients, etc., etc.

So I read with great interest in the latest New Yorker (well, latest here in the hinterland) that a Dean from a U.S. military school and several FBI agents visited the "24" set to talk to the producer, director, and actors about the negative effect the show was having on soldiers, both in the field and in school. Apparently there have been 67 instances of torture in the show's total seasons, which is a giant benchmark, and most of these have been committed by the Americans, the "good guys," in a "ticking bomb" scenario. The scenes of torture have included stabbing, gouging, waterboarding, breaking limbs, and faking the death of a "terrorist's" child in order to make him talk, and the denial of pain medication to a "female terrorist" after she is shot.

The Dean and the FBI agents told the writers and the director during a meeting (the producer chose not to attend) that the show was creating a "culture of permissable torture" in the soliders who watched the show, and took cues from the show's ideology that "all is fair in war." The producer, who is a great friend and supporter of Rush Limbaugh, was not moved. Basically he said that it's a TV show: get real.

Ok, who should "get real" here? I'm thinking "24." The "ticking bomb" scenario is a red herring. It rarely happens. Very rarely. As the FBI pointed out to the writers, most cooperation with interrogators is gained from offers of small favors and reprieves, not breaking arms. In fact, as the agents pointed out to show's staff, torture often results in the subject not talking at all, or giving information that is wrong or information the interrogators already know. Normally, I would say "yeah, it's a TV show--I don't see the big deal." But when you have representatives from the military and the FBI pleading with "24's" executives to be more realistic, and that the show is contributing to captives' abuse, then it gives me pause. It's sad that individuals can't distinguish fantasy from reality, but unfortunately certain individuals cannot, and this manifests itself in either actual abuse or the opinion that torture/abuse is morally acceptable in the name of patriotism. It's not limited to the military. I've seen this attitude in students--thankfully a small minority. But of course, the students are not carrying weapons or being fired upon, so they don't feel personally threatened.

It's always the armchair warriors that are Mar's rah rah cheerleaders. Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, the Producer of "24," although all were of age to be drafted during the Vietnam war, none of them went due to status, privilege and being enrolled in university. Those who have actually fought are not so keen to stoke the fire of senseless violence and warfare.

My grandmother always said that TV was bad for you. It seems in this case, it truly is.

2007-02-10T14:49:00.000-05:00

The Forgotten War

I often read the blogs of soliders in Afghanistan, and agonize over how little people in the United States acknowledge, or even remember, this war. I know that the brass is worried about a spring offensive from the Taliban, who have regrouped in the tribal areas of Pakistan, and southern Afghanistan. The Canadians feel the pain acutely--they have lost a lot of soliders and have had many injured. I watch "Hockey Night in Canada," the grand old man of hockey shows on the CBC, and it seems like every week (the controversial intermission commentator) Don Cherry gives tribute to a wounded or killed Canadian soldier. Afghanistan is front page in Canada; I can find nary a whisper of it in American papers.

Wasn't this supposed to be our focus? To cut off the head of the 9/11 serpent in Afghanistan? To rebuild a country devastated by the Soviet and tribal wars? Much of it the CIA contributed to by arming the mujahideen with Stinger missles--many that we didn't get back and were turned on us--because anything was essentially permittable in our efforts to thwart the Soviet Union. "Blowback" at its finest.

Now, it seems like an afterthought, even for NATO. This is disheartening--for the soliders in Afghanistan, and the country's struggle to rebuild.

2007-02-07T16:54:00.000-05:00

The Ides of February

Somehow I lost a post, and I'm not happy about it. . .it disappeared on me. Hmmmm

My state is going down in flames. We have a 800 million dollar deficit, and all industries and citizens are going to feel the pain. It is the 1970s redux. Then, we had a recession, and in my state, 14.5 percent unemployment, which is very high in the United States. In the 1970s, we were bogged down in another unwinnable war, our economy tanked, and people fled south as though there was an outbreak of plague. I did too. I went to Texas. I remember seeing a bumpersticker in Ft. Worth that read "The last one out of Michigan please turn off the lights." (The auto industry was collapsing, yet again.) It seemed like every Northern Midwestern youth had moved to the Southwest. I see the same thing happening now. It is ridiculous that we spend 2 billion a week to fight a war that is incredibly unpopular here and abroad, and our grade schools are closing because of a lack of funds. In my state, the citizens are adamantly against imposing new state taxes. I feel like I'm living Groundhog Day--"deja vu all over again." (Bring back KC and the Sunshine Band and platform shoes) You can't have it all. You can't fight a war, fix roads, fund schools, and provide services if your citizenry will not pony-up the money. But if your citizenry is stratified into the rich and the moderately poor, you are left with the mess we have presently. The rich feel that they have earned their money and shouldn't have to support the poor, and the moderately poor, which used to be the middle-class, cannot afford to pay more taxes. So schools close, services are curtailed, and yet, 2 billion, 2 billion, 2 billion a week is marching overseas. One half of a week of funding for the war in Iraq would erase my state's deficit (some of it caused by "Homeland Security" spending that was not reinbursed by the federal government, and most of it due to outsourcing to other countries: we have lost around 85,000 jobs this year alone). Argh.

I was horrifed to read on "Where Date Palms Grow" that United States visas cannot be obtained, without basically pledging one's first born, for those who helped the U.S., and/or that are threatened by the insurgents/militias. More Iraqis (mostly the intelligentsia) are going to Canada, the U.K., Jordan and other countries other than the States. That makes a hell of a lot of sense, doesn't it? We basically dismantle Iraq and then say, "Sorry, you have to remain here and become a walking target--our regrets, but we can't help you." Is any of the 2 billion a week helping these souls? Forget about it. An example: Paul Bremer testified before congress that he gave out 9 billion in cash (how could you even physically do this?), but he can't account for any of it. That's many countries' yearly GDP, and he can't "account for it." My god, no wonder no one wants to pay more taxes.

2007-01-30T17:04:00.000-05:00

Today it's your birthday, it's my birthday too, yeah. . .

Today is my birthday, and I really don't see anything to celebrate. President Bush is ignoring congress, going cowboy, and saber-rattling against Iran. This madness is unfathomable. Sometimes I think, when I am in the depths of despair, because he is super devote evangelical Christian, that he is trying to effect "the end days." Not that I think all evangelical Christians are praying for this, but there is a certain "nut factor" in their camp (as well as any other religion's--I read a couple of months ago about Buddhist monks having a rumble in the streets), and I think Bush may have "drank the Koolaid." (For people not familiar with this reference, this phrase refers to Jim Jones and his cult which, in the 1970s, committed mass suicide by drinking Koolaid spiked with cyanide--900 souls died). Even Arlen Spector (R) admonished the president by stating "you are not the sole decision maker." I hope congress develops a spine. Especially after seeing CNN's interview with Dick Cheney, in which he stated that things were great in Iraq--that the media hypes the "bad stories." Well, around 50 people dying a day from bombs decidedly is a "bad story," but it is reality, something Cheney seems to be disconnected from. He, unfortunately, reminded me of Hitler in his bunker during the fall of Berlin telling his staff that the German war effort was going great as the Russians overan the city, and old men and young boys were put on the front line, basically as cannon fodder.

2007-01-22T15:30:00.000-05:00

Let's go, you and I, into the PowerPoint sty. . .

It is reported in the U.S. Press that PM Maliki gave a PowerPoint presentation to U.S. President Bush, which asked for more support for the Iraqi forces, and for the Americans to leave. This presentation was given while Maliki and Bush met in Jordan--obviously the democracy is too dangerous of a place for Mr. Bush.

I find this ironic and a sad comment of our times. I wrote earlier in this blog that Thomas Rick, in his wonderful and terrifying book, Fiasco: the American Adventure in Iraq, reported that the DoD was sending orders in PowerPoint, much to the military's consternation because they were huge files, and one really can't write/read coherent military orders in PowerPoint. The military was told to "get with the technology" by Rumsfeld.

There is this prevailing teleological group-think in the U.S. administration that all new technology is good technology, with design and purpose to improve the world, so surely one should use it.

Sorry, remember Beta? Eight Track tapes? Just because it is there, doesn't mean that it serves the purpose at hand. It really frightens me that very, very important world decisions and theories are reduced to Powerpoint Presentations (I wonder if anyone has use the "clapping hands" sound to punctuate some particularly salient point). It's a kind of Foreign Policy for Dummies. Mr. Maliki surely noted at some time that Mr. Bush is not an avid reader (although he claimed to be reading Camus' The Stranger over the summer: if he finished it, Camus obviously made no lasting impression). So the Iraqi administration concocted a PowerPoint presentation for Mr. Bush--little text and lots of graphics, I'm sure. Unfortunately, it didn't work. More Americans, not less, are going into the seventh circle of Hell, and the Iraqi forces are ill-equipped and poorly-trained as usual; not to mention that they are barely eating and are living, in some cases, horrible conditions.

If Americans do go in, the GIs need to live and work with the Iraqi troops. That means LIVE with them. Don't go back to the Forward Operating Bases, with the Burger Kings and Taco Bells. This seems painfully obvious. It would be rough for the Americans initially, but it would be a far more successful strategy.

Perhaps someone will compose a PowerPoint presentation asserting this very idea. Yikes.

2007-01-17T12:41:00.000-05:00

Ghazal

Today, because I'm a bit tired of expository writing, and I believe, like Horace who wrote in his Ars Poetica Writers! Write what you can, and/Think: can you really? really?", I am posting a Ghazal. Poetry is the moral compass of the world and this Ghazal, written in English by Agha Shahid Ali, is dead on.

Ghazal

The only language of loss left in the world is Arabic—
These words were said to me in a language not Arabic.

Ancestors, you've left me a plot in the family graveyard—
Why must I look, in your eyes, for prayers in Arabic?

Majnoon, his clothes ripped, still weeps for Laila
Oh, this is the madness of the desert, his crazy Arabic.

Who listens to Ishmael? Even now he cries out:
Abraham, throw away your knives, recite a psalm in Arabic.

From exile Mahmoud Darwish writes to the world:
You'll all pass between the fleeting words of Arabic.

The sky is stunned, it's become a ceiling of stone.
I tell you it must weep. So kneel, pray for rain in Arabic.

At an exhibition of Mughal miniatures, such delicate calligraphy:
Kashmiri paisleys tied into the golden hair of Arabic!

The Koran prophesied a fire of men and stones.
Well, it's all now come true, as it was said in the Arabic.

When Lorca died, they left the balconies open and saw:
his qasidas braided, on the horizon, into knots of Arabic.

Memory is no longer confused, it has a homeland—
Says Shammas: Territorialize each confusion into graceful Arabic.

Where there were homes in Deir Yassein, you'll see dense forests—
The village was razed. There's no sign of Arabic.

I too, Oh Amichai, saw the dresses of beautiful women.
And everything else, just like you, in Death, Hebrew, and Arabic.

They ask me to tell them what "Shahid" means—
Listen: it means "The Beloved" in Persian, "Witness" in Arabic.

2007-01-08T17:16:00.000-05:00

Dilemma

I saw Joe Biden (D) and Lindsey Graham (R) on "Meet the Press" this past Sunday. They both made compelling arguments for (Graham) the surge of troops and against (Biden). I understand the need to bring the horrific violence under control in Baghdad, but I just don't think this can be done with the widely reported 20,000 troops (and neither does Graham--he agrees with McCain that at least 50,000 would be needed). I also think unless the military, along with the Iraqi military (and this is very important as there is some sentiment that the Iraqi government wouldn't supply the troops needed), can go into Sadr city, it is all for naught. Sadr is calling the shots, and Maliki doesn't even want to govern anymore (not a good sign). Iraq is steadily evolving from a secular dictatorship to a theocracy run by a radical. (Hmmm, I don't think this is progress.) The Iraqi blogs state how men wearing western garb are being shot by militias, and women not wearing the habib are having their heads shaved. This is complete madness and not a positive sign as far as fostering a "democracy" is concerned. I hope someone in the Pentagon is reading the English language Iraqi blogs because they are heart-breaking, and really demonstrate what is happening to the educated; there is a "brain-drain" as the professionals and educated Iraqis are leaving in droves because they are targeted by the militas, regardless of sect. The intellectuals are always the first killed in any coup or civil strife.

I tend to think Biden's idea of talking to all the neighboring countries, and yes this means Iran and Syria, is feasible and worth doing. It is not in even Iran's interest if Iraq descends into complete chaos--it will have hoards of poor Shiites flooding the border, trying to escape Sunni insurgents and mercanaries from the surrounding Sunni countries. Iran's border villages are already problematic--a vast surge of immigrants would destablize the Iranian regime by fostering conflicts between the various ethnic groups in Iran. And it would not be a good destablization as Sadr's huge flock is even more radical than the ayatollahs in Iran, and far more radical than the Iranian populace.

We can't go at this alone, and Britain is not going to send anymore troops. I'm interested in what others have to say about this. . .please post your responses!

2007-01-02T16:35:00.000-05:00

Making a Dictator Look Good

The hanging of Saddam turns out to be an absolutely sordid event. Even the Nazis, who were responsible for the deaths of millions, were given respectful hangings after the Nuremberg trials. They were not hanged by militia thugs chanting the name of a religious leader, and taunting the condemned men. Saddam comes off as heroic, even in many westerners' eyes, by challenging his tormenters' motives and national/ethnic identity--"You call yourself Arabs?" "This is your idea of unifying the country? You have torn it apart." The fact that the U.S. handed Saddam over to the goverment of Iraq without any oversight of how he was going to be treated is outrageous. We have dictated so many other aspects of the Iraqi government's actions, we can't plead "well, it's their country." Saddam should have gone to the Hague, like all other deposed leaders accused of genocide. But instead, he was hanged without the respect you would give a rabid dog. He was terrible man who committed terrible crimes against his people, but he went to the gallows as a martyr for many, and a stark warning of what is to come. The devil you know is always better than the one you don't know. We met the one we didn't know in the shaky cellphone video of an execution.

2006-12-29T14:16:00.000-05:00

HANGING SADDAM

So now it is being reported by Reuters, the AP and the London Times that Saddam will be hanged within 24 hours (which means he may already be dead since I'm writing in the States). This is madness; there is definitely a question of due process here (it takes YEARS to execute someone in the U.S.) and there is nothing like making something worse out of a bad man: a martyr. The U.S. has handed over custody of Saddam to the Iraqi government, and handed over any vestiges of sanity as well. In a time when it is imperative for Baghdad to be pacified by negotiations, by jobs for angry young men, by a strong and able government, hanging Saddam is a good idea? This action does nothing but illustrate how weak the government of Iraq actually is; rather than working on the real problems, it creates more for itself. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, or for that matter the foot soldier on the ground, to realize that all hell is going to break loose--if not immediately, then it will be dished out in small, but deadly, doses--against Shiites, against the Iraqi government, and especially against American forces since they are perceived by many Iraqis as helping "rig" the trial.

I am no supporter of the man--he was a tyrant, he was a killer, and he involved his country in horrible wars--but his crimes never took the toll that the present war has. There was at least a society, and there was law and order. Now, Iraq is chaos, death and stripped of any civilizing force, basic services such as electricity and water, and its government (such painfully obvious irony!) is holed up in one of Saddam's old palaces, suffering none of the deprivations of the average person in Baghdad. "Democracy is messy" . . .indeed!

2006-12-22T12:39:00.000-05:00

Surge

I can understand why military leaders might question the idea of a "surge" of troops into Baghdad (and by a "surge," we are talking about 40,000 more troops at the most--some of them newbies, and some returning for their second or even third tour-of-duty). As former Secretary of State and Joint Chiefs of Staff member, Colin Powell, noted on CBS's Face The Nation, if there is no specific strategy in place, then throwing more troops at the problem of violence in Baghdad will be a collosal waste of lives and time (btw, he was misparaphrased by Reuters, who stated that he supported a "troop surge": I watched the program, and this definitely was not what he said). Unfortunately, by conservative estimates, it would take around 500,000 troops to "pacify" Baghdad and the surrounding small towns. Baghdad is a huge city, and if you employ only 40,000 troops added to the 50,000 that are in and around Baghdad, you are again in the position of possibly playing "whack a mole." Furthermore you are in danger of doing the following: 1) alienating Iraqis by increasing the "footprint" of American forces 2) using this "surge" as an excuse not to engage in meaningful negotiations with factions inside and outside of Iraq 3) putting more soliders', and civilians', lives at risk since as the "footprint" grows larger, so does the "target" for insurgents.

If you are going to put down internecine conflicts, which now involve different factions of Sadr's militias, the police, the Iraqi army, the various ministries' militias, Iraqi Sunni insurgents, both Islamists and secular, foreign fighters and criminal gangs, you are going to need more than 100,000 American soliders and a vague plan to impose the peace. You are going to need divine intervention.

I'm not clear that anyone in the administration knows exactly what they are up against. This reminds me so much of Northern Ireland and the insertion of the British Army, but about 100 times deadlier and with about 10 times more players.

Someone please, please wake-up and smell the cordite.

2006-12-19T16:18:00.000-05:00

Euphemisms

What they say, and What they mean

"War on Terror"

"War" by its very definition is "terror." So it's "Terror on Terror." Or as General W.T. Sherman said, "War is Hell," so it's "Hell Terror on Terror." Or "We Really Have No clue Who the Hell We are Terror Fighting."

"Collateral Damage"

Damn, the 500 ton bombs are just a tad more devastating to the neighborhood than we thought. . .

"Democracy for the Middle East"

Geez, Tito is really looking good right now. . .

"The Best Secretary of Defense in American
History" (Dick Cheney on
Donald Rumsfeld).

We need an intervention. . .would someone
please contact A&E?

2006-12-14T15:11:00.000-05:00

The war in Iraq was launched with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions -- or bury the results. Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold

If they want a war, we are the sons of war. Iraqi insurgent's posting on a website

The Iraq Study Group, of course, released its report last week, and apparently it is going to be wholly disregarded by the administration. The group that met this week to "discuss the shift in strategy," was the same group that was the architect of the current benighted policy and strategy. This seems to me, to say the very least, problematic. The group consists of Rumsfeld (who is not quite done yet), Cheney and others, and has already shown itself resistant to advice and quite immutable in their understanding and implementation of "victory and democracy" for Iraq. We, as the Iraq Study, pointed out, are involved in an insurgent war, now a civil war, that is entirely of our own creating. As any military historian knows, there are two approaches to an insurgency: scorched earth, like the quote that inspired this blog's title--the Caledonian chieftan said of the Romans, "They make a desert and call it peace"; the other approach is diplomacy, with all interested parties involved. You don't pick and choose who you talk to: you talk to everybody--Shiite milita, Sunni insurgent, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, and the list goes on. I don't think the administration will choose either option. A scorched earth policy is morally and ethically untenable (not that this administration hasn't entertained that idea, but we don't have the troops, and no one who wants a political future will call for a draft), and like middle-school children, the adminstration is inclined to talk to those who agree with our policy (or at least are not vocally against it). As Jim Baker, and even the Machiavellian Henry Kissinger, noted, you "must talk to your enemies." I don't see this happening, and I see a very bleak future for Iraq if policy and strategy has not changed radically within 90 days. I am despairing at this point.

2006-12-07T10:54:00.000-05:00

HISTORY REDUX

Some have asked me when my interest in the Middle East began. That's easy to answer. In 1978, I worked at a hotel in Dallas Texas with an Iranian student named Dareesh (he was attending UTA--University of Texas at Arlington). We became great friends. His father was quite wealthy and his family seemed to be apolitical. But then in the latter part of that year, his father was taken from his home by the Shah's secret police, jailed, and ultimately executed. Dareesh knew, when he found out that his father was dead, that he couldn't go back to Iran--at least not at the moment.

Dareesh was a secular man, but when the Iranian student movement agitated to bring back the Ayatollah Khomeini from exile in Paris, he was an adamant supporter. He told me, and I will never forget this, "We thought that America was our friend, but they brought this tyrant [the Shah] to power, and he killed my father, and he's killed thousands more." He then gave me a pamphlet about the Ayatollah, and told me not to show it to anybody else. He was worried about his mother and brothers in Tehran. I was a teenager at the time, and I didn't understand what this was all about (the Shah? Ayatollah?), but I saw Dareesh become angrier and angrier, and increasingly strident. Granted, I don't think he thought very much about the Shah, or at least he didn't talk about him, until his father was arrested and killed--but he was a teenager too, and more concerned with friends and his studies.

After the Shah sought exile in America, this nearly drove Dareesh mad. "How can America give amnesty to such a man?" he would repeatedly ask me. I, at the time, didn't even really understand what amnesty entailed, or even what it was. I would stand mute while Dareesh would unleash a torrent of anger, hurt and frustration. And then, the U.S. Embassy was taken over and the staff held hostage for over four hundred days. Dareesh, and other students, found the environment in the U.S. increasingly hostile (the Pakistani guys that worked in the kitchen of the hotel made T-shirts that read "I am NOT an Iranian," half as a joke, and half as an answer to the local rednecks who would occasionally throw a beer can from a speeding truck at them as they walked to school). Finally, Dareesh decided to go home. We had a going away party for him, and he seemed elated, so full of hope for Iran. I'm sure he didn't reckon on what would follow. We never heard from him again, and I often wonder if he fought in the Iraq-Iran war (when we were Saddam Hussein's friends), and if he lost his life in this brutal eight-year war.

So here we are in Iraq, our former ally when the Iranians were incoveniently militant. And I wonder whom or what will come to replace Hussein, our former man in Arabia? What form will this once oppressive, like Iran, but secular government take? What great beast, its hour come at last, is slouching toward Baghdad to be born?

2006-12-01T14:44:00.000-05:00

Singing the End of The Semester Blues

This has been an interesting semester. The introduction of students to the world of Iraqi and American blogs was at times hard and at other times rewarding. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was, at many of my students' sheer ignorance of the war and what exactly it entails. It's not their fault; the war has been so media-managed by the Pentagon that one doesn't see the graphic images that I did as a child during the Vietnam war. I remember flag-draped coffins and soldiers who were near death carried into helicopters on stretchers. It was apparent that war was brutal and ugly. The sacrifice was obvious, even to a ten-year-old like myself. Presently, the Pentagon will not allow the media to film the caskets of the war dead being unloaded from the planes, and American, or any Western, correspondents can't leave the Green Zone, which, in itself, is the height of neocolonialsim madness and hubris.

I am half way through "Fiasco." At times, I have to put it down because I find myself getting so angry. If you planned to screw up a war so badly, I don't think you could. The CPA and the Pentagon should be held accountable for all the deaths of American soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians. They should be accountable for the Dantesque condition of Baghdad. They should be accountable for the millions of educated Iraqis who are fleeing because of the violence, and because the intelligentsia is always first on the firing line during wartime. And young Americans need to occasionally divert their attention from their iPods, their Playstation 3s, their "Grey's Anatomy" and watch the news. We, as civilians, aren't asked to sacrifice anything-- except our soldiers' lives: to not dignify them by being aware and holding our officials accountable is unforgivable. Not to speak of the Iraqis whose plights are spelled out in their blogs, in English, for Americans to read and digest.

Finally (I'll get off my soapbox here), I'm so glad to see (and very saddened in a way because this should have never happened) that Zappy of "Where Date Palms Grow" has left Baghdad. Every time he didn't post for a while, his readers held their collective breath. Read of his darkly funny escape from Iraq. He is linked to this blog.

2006-11-18T13:10:00.000-05:00

X-treme Proofreading

Well, there's "X-treme cooking," "X-treme Makeovers," and now I just discovered an example of "X-treme Proofreading." I am reading FIASCO: the American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas Ricks. It's a devastating potrayal of the lack of planning, mostly by civilians in the Department of Defense for post-invasion Iraq. My blood pressure hasn't been normal for a week.
Anyway, in the book, Ricks writes about Rumsfeld's Under Secretary for Defense for Policy, Douglas J. Feith, who is/was the darling of the department--at least for Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz--and who could not even manage his own office personnel let alone policy concerning troops and Iraq, and post-invasion Iraq.

Ricks writes, and I'm paraphrasing here, that Feith once kept a plane full of American soldiers on the runway for hours while he demanded that the comma-usage in their orders be corrected.

Heads up, kids! If you want to work for the DoD, make sure that you have learned comma usage to a T.

Ricks also notes that the civilians, such as Feith, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, refused to issue orders in the normal written protocol. They issued them as PowerPoint slides, which was a mess since the slide files were huge and could not easily be copied for those in the field. It drove the military crazy.

Heads up again! If you want to work for the DoD, make sure you know how to use PowerPoint as well!

To quote Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, "Who ARE these guys?"

2006-11-12T14:30:00.001-05:00

The following post is from "Ahmed," Treasure of Baghdad's friend, who is still in Iraq. This is a personal account of what happens on a day-to-day basis in Baghdad. Read and learn.

It has been almost two weeks since I talked to Ahmed, one of my best friends, who lives in my neighborhood. I received an email from him. To be honest, I don’t know whether I should be happy or sad after reading this email. On one hand I am happy because he is alive and on the other I am sad because of the content of this email that broke my heart.

His email was all about what he went through for the last week. He is left alone with no friends around him. All of us left and now he is just so miserable living in the most dangerous spot on earth. His words broke my heart especially the part where he said he had to sit in the garden by himself where we all used to gather.

The situation in my neighborhood is deteriorating, he said. The Mahdi army and the armed men are the only controlling power there. Iraqi Police and army are just names they hear about and have never seen there to protect the neighborhood and its people.

Here is the translation of his email.

Hi ****,
How is it going? I hope everything is going well in your
school and work. I miss you a lot and I don’t know what to do without you,
Safaa, Ahmed, Sameem and the others. I miss you so much but at the same time I feel you did the best thing by leaving Iraq.

I am sorry that I
feel so creepy in this email but I really wanted to share what I saw and what I
see everyday with you as we used to do before. I can’t keep it inside me. I am
afraid I could kill myself one day if I keep them inside.

Day one:

I was going back home one day when clashes between US forces and armed men erupted in front of us. The bus didn’t go further, so I decided to walk through one of the shortcuts to our house. The clashes were near the gas station [which is a little bit far from the shortcut]. Suddenly an American soldier showed up pointing his gun at me. He asked me and the six other people to stop and so we did. He looked so nervous. He was shouting in English and all I could understand was the word “fuck” coming out his mouth. He was followed by three other soldiers who were looking around. It seems they were expecting bullets from snipers who might have been hiding in the houses.

The nervous soldier asked us to turn our backs. The man next to me told me not to say a word because [the soldiers] may do something stupid and kill us. They were so nervous that they could kill anyone in front of them.

One of the three soldiers searched my pockets as he asked me to raise my hands up. He pulled my wallet from my back pocket, saw what was inside and then threw it on the floor. It was windy and I was afraid that some of the identification might be lost. I wanted to lift them up but couldn’t do it as it might cause my life.

Then the same soldier came and took me near his humvee hummer. He asked me several questions and looked at my ID. He and the other soldiers interrogated all of us for two and a half hours. After that they let us go

.

Day two:

I was in the garden alone. As usual, shootings and explosion rocked the neighborhood next to ours. But there was something weird. The sound of the shootings was coming closer. I didn’t really care that much because it is not something new. So I stayed there but the shooting started coming closer. Suddenly, armed groups took positions in the neighborhood. Then the a convoy of about ten pickups loaded with the Mahdi Army broke into the neighborhood and started shooting randomly. I couldn’t feel but the bullets at my house’s front door. So I ran inside the house away from the clashes. My neighbor said bullets broke his window but he was unhurt.

Day three:

Almost the same thing happened today but it was by armed men wearing army uniform in white pickups. They were shooting randomly at the houses in my neighborhood. We didn’t know whether these were army or interior ministry forces or men disguising in their uniform. In all cases, the front fence and door were riddled with bullets again. This time I was inside the house. I ran to warn my brothers and parents and we all gathered in the house corridor away form the windows. We found out later that two old men were killed as they were chatting in one of their gardens.

Day four:

Fourteen young men were kidnapped by the [interior ministry] commandos from the neighborhood. They young men were in a KIA minibus and were going to different areas. Their bodies were found dead, tortured and thrown under the highway bridge.

Day five:

I was helpless. I needed to smoke hookah as we used to when you and the guys were here. I set it up and started smoking in the garden where we used to hang out remembering you and Safaa and how we had fun together in spite of our shitty life. I sat alone. I waited for someone I know to pass by that I could talk to but no one did. No one dares to leave his house anymore. I was so desperate that I fell into tears. But I am really happy that you are not here. At least you could be able to get the hell out of hell. I am sure one day we would see each other again.

Day Six:

I was in the market buying some stuff for my mother when the Mahdi army broke into the neighborhood again. The armed men in our neighborhood took up arms and clashed with the Mahdi army. I was really scared at that day. People started running, I left everything and ran, and the shop owners closed their shops and ran. It was nasty and scary. Finally I could reach my house but the clashes continued and reached our street. Eight bullets broke the windows of our kitchen this time.

The clashes remained for about an hour until the Americans came. The Mahdi army and the armed men disappeared in minutes as if they were ghosts. However, we couldn’t sleep that night. I expected someone would break into my house and kidnap me and my other brothers.

Day Seven:

By that time, the Americans had left. The neighborhood was left loose again. The Mahdi army came back again. In the middle of the day in the shopping area, they kidnapped two young men and started beating them in front of the people who could not do anything because the Mahdi army fighters were carrying weapons and anyone came near them could have been shot immediately. As they were beating the young men, a woman pleaded them from a distance to leave these boys alone. The fighters yelled at the women and said, “Shut up you bitch. We’ll clean this neighborhood from you. The young men were strong enough to resist. They ran away from the Mahdi army. The fighters started shooting but the men ran fast and entered a nearby mosque. Then the Mahdi army shot some bullets around the mosque and drove out of the neighborhood.

Saddam’s trial verdict day:

I was at home at that day because curfew was imposed. The moment Saddam was sentenced to death, mortars started falling randomly on our neighborhood, Suleikh, and center Adhamiya. Explosions rocked the neighborhood. I said that’s it. There must be a mortar that is going to kill us this time. It is unbelievable how we survive every time such things happen.

Finally, our neighborhood and center Adhamiya is not the same neighborhood you used to see before you left. It’s worse. It’s a neighborhood of ghosts. Sometimes I walk by myself, or with one or two people. It is really scary to walk by yourself in the streets. They are empty and horrifying.

End of e-mail.

This is just an account of one week of one person in one area in Baghdad. So what about the other days and other places?

Finally, my neighbor, who was kidnapped few weeks ago, was found shot dead. His family found his body at the Baghdad Morgue. He was tortured to death. His entire family sold their house and left the country for no intention to come back even in the far future.

Treasure of Baghdad

2006-11-11T14:28:00.000-05:00

I have been a bit remiss in my posting: ahhhh, the joys of grading. Well, Rumsfeld is gone. Just like that: Poof! Many military analysts thought he was still fighting the Vietnam war, since he had been in the Defense Department during this war and was livid over the way we packed it in and left. Well, he got his "Vietnam," only worse and with more dire consequences, and he was dismissed a week after the president stated that Rumsfeld would serve out the next two years. Ah yes, the fickle hand of fate in American politics. "Doing a hecka'va job Rummy!"

So do you see anything changing since he has left? Do you think things will get better or worse? This question is open to anyone--students, non-students, Iraqis, Amerians, Svensk, etc.

Iraq:The hidden story

2006-11-04T15:34:00.000-05:00


I got this from Treasure of Baghdad's site: this is from the BBC. It is very graphic and is 48 minutes long. I would suggest that any of my students who are writing papers on Iraq (paper 3) watch this: in fact, although I won't make it mandatory, I really think that not watching this would be a shame.

2006-11-04T14:39:00.000-05:00

THE WAR DEAD AND COLLEGE MATH IV

In the month of October, 103 American soliders died, and an unknown about were injured (the ratio has been about 1:10, so we can estimate around 1000 have been injured).
This means, if these soliders were my students, that

•All my students are casualties with the exception of one lucky soul, and the chance that he or she would be injured is very high.

•In a mere thirty days, all four of my classes would be gone.

•This number of students would occupy 26 dormrooms.

In the month of October approximately 2170 Iraqis died (and this is a low estimate). If these Iraqis were students,

•Only 1679 would have been my students during my entire 7.5 year teaching career at this university.

•The other 491 would fill all my classes over the next 2.5 years. In other words, it would take me a decade to teach all of these students.

•The 2170 students would constitute at least 1/2 the freshman class

•This number of students would occupy 543 dormrooms.

The soldiers and Iraqis had hopes, dreams and families. They looked forward to Eid and Thanksgiving and Christmas. They were loved and they loved, and they were all dead in 31 short days.

2006-10-28T08:38:00.000-04:00

FORMATTING CHANGE
I decided to change to a cleaner blog format, so the site isn't as messy and ill-constructed. If I left the link of your blog off my list, please be sure either post your blog's URL in comments or email it to me!

tack!

2006-10-28T00:55:00.000-04:00

REAL NO BRAINERS

The Third Geneva Convention’s Article 3

Principled public officials—not valedictorians of “The de Sade School of Martial Debriefing.”

“Patriotism [not torture] being the last refuge of scoundrels.” --Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson’s reincarnation to provide the much-needed public service of witty, succinct and razor-sharp political opprobrium.

The only “waterboard” employed by any agency being a surfboard.

Soldiers’ memoirs of the “Hanoi Hilton” as mandatory reading for the Executive Branch and Congress.

Senator John McCain’s X-ray’s, taken immediately after returning from Vietnam, to accompany the above.

All the notorious pictures of Abu Ghraib to accompany the above.

A mandatory viewing of the Nuremberg trials for both branches for good measure.

The Third Geneva Convention’s Article 4.

2006-10-26T09:47:00.000-04:00

THE WAR DEAD AND COLLEGE MATH III

1100 Iraqis have died since Oct. 15th. (The official estimate that 100 Iraqis are dying a day--the "official estimate" is usally a low estimate). If these Iraqis were students, this number would

•fill 36 classrooms, which is nearly my entire three storey building.

•would represent nearly 1/3 of the Freshman class

•would be 1 in 11 of every student who attended the last football game.

All of these people died within the last 11 days. They had families, shops and hopes. They were doctors, lawyers, and carpenters. They had dreams and were loved.

96 American soldiers have died this month. This is 26 more than in my last post, on October 18th. If these soldiers were my students

•All my students in my composition class would be casualties.

•All but 8 of my students in my literature class would be casualties: essentially I would have only 8 students left out of all my classes.

•The twenty-six soldiers that died in the last 8 days would represent an entire composition course.

•96 soldiers would fill three classrooms.

They all had families, hobbies and hopes. They were professional soliders, and they were also reservists who had farms, businesses and jobs. They left behind everyone their lives touched, and that could literally be thousands of people.

2006-10-20T16:26:00.000-04:00

WHAT RABBIT HOLE HAVE I FALLEN DOWN?

It turns out, as I secretly thought but couldn't bring myself to believe, that many officials involved in counter-intelligence have no clue whom they are actually fighting: they don't know basic information that the majority of my students who wrote a paper on this last semester know. Essentially, they don't know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. This passage an op-ed article in the NY Times on 10/17/2006. (I tried to post the link, but the site wouldn't let me--but if you go to http://www.nytimes.com and search the archives, you can find the article titled "Can You Tell a Sunni From A Shiite?")

As the author pointedly notes in the preface of his article,

British counterterrorism officials responsible for Northern Ireland know the difference between the Catholics [IRA] and the Protestants [UDA] [both the battling parties' respective paramilitary groups].

In the following section, the interviewer and author is Jeff Stein,the national security editor at Congressional Quarterly. The official being interviewed is Willie Hulon, chief of the FBI's new national security branch.

At the end of a long interview, I asked Willie Hulon, chief of the bureau's new national security branch, whether he thought that it was important for a man in his position to know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. "Yes, sure, it's right to know the difference," he said. "It's important to know who your targets are."

That was a big advance over 2005. So next I asked him if he could tell me the difference. He was flummoxed. "The basics goes back to their beliefs and who they were following," he said. "And the conflicts between the Sunnis and the Shia and the difference between who they were following."

O.K., I asked, trying to help, what about today? Which one is Iran -- Sunni or Shiite? He thought for a second. "Iran and Hezbollah," I prompted. "Which are they?"

He took a stab: "Sunni."

Wrong.

Al Qaeda? "Sunni."

Right.

Thank god he got the second one right, although it's of little consolation.

In the 15th century, Machiavelli wrote that as important as it is for a leader to train his troops to fight, it is as equally important that he read histories. How can anyone conduct intelligence without knowing whom he is fighting? And more importantly, whom he is NOT fighting?

It seems that six centuries ago, the thinking was a little more aligned with reality.

Double Yikes.

2006-10-18T19:58:00.000-04:00

WAR DEAD AND COLLEGE MATH II

Since I last posted on the 15th, the death count for American soldiers has reached 70 for this month, and 400 hundred have been wounded.

• Seventy soldiers is three shy of the total of my composition students. So if these soldiers were my students, and since I have three classes of composition, only one student in each class would have survived the first half of October, and thirteen classrooms of students (which is one floor in my building) would have been wounded--and some would not survive their wounds.

• Twenty-three soldiers have died since my posting on October 15th. This is an average of seven soldiers a day over the past three days. Twenty-three soldiers would be 74% of my Literature course. And since the literature course has 5 groups of five and 1 group of six, totaling 31 students, if these soldiers were my students, this would mean that 4 of the six groups would be casualties, and one additional group would lose 3 of its members. And this in three days.

These were individuals with families, and dreams, loves and losses, favorite TV shows and iPod collections, cats and dogs, and they are gone in three short days.

• • •The death count for Iraqis since October 15th has not been posted. They are lost to us, and have not even earned a number. But their families know that a son or daughter, or mother or father, niece or nephew will not break fast with them this Ramadan. . . or any other.

2006-10-15T14:00:00.000-04:00

THE WAR DEAD AND COLLEGE MATH

In the last forty eight hours, 83 people (that the media are reporting), Iraqi civilians, have died: to put that in some perspective for my university readers, this is

• Thirteen more individuals than the total number of students in my three composition courses.

• You would need three classrooms to contain this amount of people in our building (and not comfortably, I might add).

• To house this number of students in a dorm, it would take twenty-one dorm rooms--essentially an entire floor.

These were people with hopes, dreams and families. And this was a mere 48 hours in Baghdad.

Since August 11th, when I started this blog, 159 U.S. soldiers have died (official count). This is

• Forty-seven more soldiers than I noted in my October 1st entry

• This is an average of three soldiers being killed a day since the beginning of October

• The total number of soldiers killed in this war would not fit into any auditorium we have on campus, except the football stadium.

• The total number of soldiers killed in this war would almost entirely occupy the largest dorm complex we have (a total of eight buildings).

These were soldiers with hopes, dreams and families, and they died in foreign country serving their nation honorably, but to what purpose, no one seems to know.

2006-10-14T14:22:00.000-04:00

THE DOG KING

In Scandinavian legend, after the death of the Danish king, the Swedish king, Hakun, sent the Danes a small dog and ordered them to appoint it as their new king. The Danes, at this time oppressed by the Swedes, did so without question. The small dog king ruled the former king's great hall, running up and down the tables until one day, when excited by the large hounds below, he jumped into a fray, and they tore him to bits.

I think this is a great cautionary tale--especially for the U.S. We might think ourselves the top dog, but in reality, we may be running up and down on the top of tables, never really taking into account, or acknowledging, the large hounds watching us intently from beneath the table.

2006-10-04T13:48:00.000-04:00

CAN WE HAVE A PLAN, PLEASE?

As I was watching the usual suspects appear on Sunday morning "poli-talk" TV ("Meet the Press" et al), I was struck by two things: 1) politics, which has always been a full-contact sport, has turned into a Darwinian free-for-all, ala "Lord of the Flies." I saw a democrat and republican, who were running for the same senate seat, get into a verbal scrap that reminded me of two little boys quarreling over their Hot Wheels cars, only with louder voices and better vocabularies. 2) Plans for Iraq are vague at best. The republican basically said let the generals and the president handle it, and the democrat said we need an orderly withdrawal from what appears to be a civil war. In other words, put the Iraqis on notice that they must take over.

If you read "Where Date Palms Grow"'s last two entries, you will realize that the Iraqi government seems to be up to its neck in nasty militia business, which is no news to the U.S. military. These militias are responsible for the burgeoning practice of kidnapping entire groups citizens--who are most often found bound, tortured and dead.

So I think it is safe to say this war is not going well. The violence in Baghdad just surpassed a new high today, and we, the U.S. seem unable to control it in any significant fashion, and the Iraqi government seems unable or unwilling to rein in the militias, who are running Baghdad like their own personal abattoir.

So what do we do? Do we stay the course? Do we ship more troops to Iraq so we can attempt to control the violence? Or do we start a gradual pull-out, putting the Iraqi government on notice that we are leaving, and that they can't hide in the Green Zone forever? Or do we pull out now--in the next six months?

What do you think? What is a reasonable plan? And how can it be implemented? This question is for anyone to answer!

2006-10-01T14:42:00.000-04:00

Just to note that since I started this blog on August 11, 2006 that 112 American soldiers (the officially released count) and over 7500 Iraqis have died. I think a few lines from Shakespeare are appropriate here.

And many of our bodies, shall no doubt
Find native graves; upon the which, I trust
Shall witness live in brass of this day's work.
And those that leave their valiant bones [here]
Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills,
They shall be famed; for there the sun shall greet them.

Henry V 4.3. ls 95-100

2006-09-30T15:33:00.000-04:00

A New Blog to Visit & Talar bara du English?

I have posted a link to a blogger who lives in Baghdad. His blog is titled "Where Date Palms Grow" and is located right under "Treasure of Baghdad." He posted a very disturbing account of some developments in Baghdad yesterday--some of which are talked about in the American Media, but he provides a "boots on the ground" point of view that is invaluable.

A Sunni politician had his house raided last night, and some of the upheaval has to do with this. I think this blog is excellent, and would recommend it to students who are doing any of the topics for your paper. And I would recommend it to anyone else as well!

I'm struck by how many Iraqis blog in English, their great command of English (including idiomatic expressions), and how beautifully they write. I would dare say that not many of us, native non-Arab citizens, could post such blogs in Arabic (or Farsi). When a professor at our university proposed to teach Arabic (he taught in another department) to students at no extra cost, he was turned down. This decision amazed me. Arabic and Chinese are two of the languages most in demand around the world, not just for the United States' purposes. In Brazil, there are a multitude of "Chinese Language Schools," which are highly in demand, so that those in business can communicate with the Chinese, the largest growing market in the world. The same goes for Arabic. I would venture to say that besides Spanish, Arabic and Chinese would be the languages to learn, starting in either elementary or middle school. Also, those who study foreign languages do so much better in English courses--because they know the parts of speech, can see grammatical strutures that work and don't work, and in general are more savvy about language arts. And like reading, speaking another language builds the ability to understand abtractions, which helps not only in language, but in math (which is a language, only with different symbols, if you think about it).

But we don't encourage other language arts in our schools, and this is to our great detriment. If I were a Chinese business person, I would probably be more impressed with a Brazilian that spoke even elementary Chinese than an American who assumed that I either spoke English or had to have a translator. The Brazilians' efforts to learn Chinese should be a wake up call to International Business majors. . .

2006-09-25T16:45:00.000-04:00

Draft

This is open to both my students and anyone else that wants to answer this question.

If there was a draft implemented to cover the shortage of troops both for Iraq and if we move on Iran, as some pundits think we will, would you go? Or would you try to seek asylum? Do you think the draft is a good idea to put more "boots on the ground," which several generals have indicated that we need--especially if we attack Iran.

Do you think women should be drafted as well? If women want equal rights at home, shouldn't this apply to the military draft as well? Or do you think that women should be exempted from the draft? And why?

2006-09-25T11:11:00.000-04:00

ATTENTION STUDENTS

Our blog's good friend and soldier in Iraq, Trevor, posted this article from Time Magazine by a correspondent that covered Iraq and lost his hand in an attack. It may prove useful for your papers since it is sort of journal/article, and stresses the hazards of covering this war. It also is a personal account, which fits into our paper about blogs--whether or not they are becoming a popular and more personal way (and sometimes more accurate) to get news about conflicts. Just click on the words: Time Magazine above. Visit Trevor at "will to exist": he is one of our solider bloggers who, fortunately, will be returning to the states soon.

2006-09-18T16:22:00.000-04:00

After reading about all the furor surrounding the pope's address (which I read in it entirety, and did find demeaning), I decided to post one of my favorite poems of all time, by American poet, Thomas Lux (and he does bring light in poem to what seems to be an eternal and horrible truth)

THE PEOPLE OF THE OTHER VILLAGE

hate the people of this village
and would nail our hats
to our heads for refusing in their presence to remove them
or staple our hands to our foreheads
for refusing to salute them
if we did not hurt them first: mail them packages of rats,
mix their flour at night with broken glass.
We do this, they do that.
They peel the larynx from one of our brother's throats.
We devein one of their sisters.
The quicksand pits they built were good.
Our amputation teams were better.
We trained some birds to steal their wheat.
They sent to us exploding ambassadors of peace.
They do this, we do that.
We canceled our sheep imports.
They no longer bought our blankets.
We mocked their greatest poet
and when that had no effect
we parodied the way they dance
which did cause pain, so they, in turn, said our God
was leprous, hairless.
We do this, they do that.
Ten thousand (10,000) years, ten thousand
(10,000) brutal, beautiful years.

from SPLIT HORIZON, (Houghton Mifflin, 1994)

2006-09-12T10:09:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, in my classes, I had students write an essay about September 11th: e.g. where they were when the planes hit the towers, what their reactions were to seeing this, and how it changed their lives, and how they view the incident in the light of the 5th anniversary of 9/11. It was really enlightening to see how differently people reacted and still react to this attack. One of my students, from another country that has had its share of terror and strife, sympathized deeply with the victims and their families, but pointed out that America has to move on, put this incident behind it because so many other countries have experienced similar tragedies, albeit not in such a spectacular "action film" sort of manner. Think of Rwanda, the Sudan, Chechnya, the Balkans--these bloody conflicts have dotted the map in just the last 15 years, and over 2 million people have died as the result. We don't hear much about them.

Many Americans had thought they were immune--that attacks on civilians just happened "on TV," in countries that most younger people never heard of, let alone knew their history and what events spurred on the conflicts. The majority of citizens in the U.S. had never heard of Osama bin Laden, even though his henchmen had bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, and the people in Tanzania and Kenya knew him well as al Qaida bombed the American embassies there and killed hundreds of people, and wounded thousands in 1998. Bin Laden had even given an interview with correspondent Peter Bergen in 1998 stating he was determined to implement attacks on Americans in order, in his view, "to wake them up" and force American troops to leave Saudi Arabia, where they had been stationed since the Gulf War, and bring some resolution to the plight of the Palestinian people, which he envisioned as eliminating Israel (although there is debate on this matter--some have reported that he wants Israel to retreat to the 1967 borders). Shortly after the embassy attacks, he initiated an attack that blew up the U.S. Cole, docked in Yemen, killing 17 sailors. We cannot say we were not warned.

Our popularity, as a country, as sunk so low internationally that only 2% of the world's polled citizens (a Pew poll) reported that they felt "postively about the United States." Two percent!!!! So we live treading on egg shells, waiting for the next attack. But the world is not as sympathetic now; as one European paper noted, "America squandered its goodwill after 9/11 by invading Iraq." We now know that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks, and that Saddam was a target of bin Laden too (for reasons too numerous and cumbersome to get into here). A European friend of mine, who has experienced sectarian violence firsthand told me that "the 9/11 attacks were like America getting slapped--we felt that the slap was too hard and too devastating, but it was about time that America experienced what the rest of the world has had to endure."

So what do we do? Do we continue an endless "war on terror," or do we look at the reasons behind terrorism? What attracts people to movements like al Qaida? Poverty? A sense of inequity? A sense of being bullied by countries and forces one has no control over? Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies flying planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but we must understand this was not an irrational act: it was a statement. And considering how unpopular we are with the rest of the world, we probably should pay some attention to what's behind all this aminosity (and please don't say it's because "they hate our freedom": it's a cop out, and doesn't address the more pressing and complex issues).

Where do we go from here? I'd love some feedback from my international friends.

2006-09-04T14:43:00.000-04:00

Vietnam guilt-syndrome, The U.S. Open, and Iraq.

I have been watching the U.S. Open (tennis) all weekend. Overall, sports, especially hockey, are my narcotic, my escape, but watching the U.S. Open is really a ritual. Andre Agassi retired after being beat by a 25 y/o German. Agassi was obviously in physical distress (wincing during every serve and sometimes crying out in pain), and that was emotionally very hard to watch, since I had seen every one of his 21 U.S. Open performances: I hated to see him go out on such a painful, psychologically and physically, note.

But this entertainment brings me to something that I noticed during the Vietnam war (I was a young kid) and even more so now. The war in Iraq seems like some bad dream that no one, except for people, like me, who have a relative in the service, wants to think or talk about. Everyday life is everyday life, and the war is really not a part of it. One of the reasons I posted the U.S. and Iraqi "death counters" on my blog was to remind myself and everyone who visits the blog the cost of this war. Just since Friday, the U.S. death count has risen by 10 (actually more have died, but the counter only records those officially announced as deceased) and the Iraqi death count has risen by 300. While I've been watching tennis, good people have died (and some bad people too). Both figures are appalling, but I don't see any urgency on the U.S. public's part, especially younger citizens, to address this conflict or even discuss it. When it has been brought up in my classes (least semester), some students said, and I quote verbatim here, "I don't want to talk about this--it's too depressing." It's really hard for me not to become distressed by such comments, but I realize that this war is an abstraction (unless a student has lost a friend or family member) and that life goes on as usual, and little thought is given to either U.S. soldiers or Iraqis, unless it is some regurgitated patriotic lip service that falls apart upon questioning the speaker about what he or she has read or really knows about Iraq, its people, and our presence there. Those who have relatives or friends in the conflict speak far more realistically and with more authority. When protesters on both sides of the war demonstrated last year (pro-war and anti-war), they consisted of a handful of people, and most students laughed at them when walking by the protests between classes.

My father's theory about this apathy is that there is no draft. He thinks there should be one, and that, unlike in Vietnam, college students should not be exempt. He also feels that women should not be exempt, since equality shouldn't stop at the battlefield. Many argue that drafted soldiers are horrible. Their morale is bad. They aren't there because they want to be. But others argue that morale is already bad among the troops who are doing the actual fighting since they are serving an average of 18 month or more deployments (during Vietnam, it was 6 months), and they don't know who the enemy is since it is an asymetrical war, like Vietnam. Also an argument for a draft is that if more kids go, it will relieve those who have been there too long, and it may force a conclusion to this war sooner, since the draft is never popular.

What do you think?

2006-08-31T09:37:00.000-04:00

Quantrill's Raiders, Baghdad and asymmetrical warfare. . .

I'm going to go back to Kansas-Missouri border war that inspired the name of this blog. As noted before, Kansas, pre-civil war and during the war, was an abolitionist state--meaning that it did not support slavery, slavery was outlawed in Kansas, and that it provided a "safe haven" for slaves who ran away from as far as Arkansas and Alabama. But it was initially the slaves in Missouri that sparked the border war, which was arguably more vicious than the civil war itself, since it mostly involved attacks on civilians.

The "Red Legs" (because of the red stockings they wore) or "Jayhawkers" were militias from Kansas that raided across the border in western Missouri ostensibly for the purpose of "freeing slaves," but more often for the purpose of lining their own pockets. The raiders included a lot of backwater farmers, but also physicians and a state senator. Missouri was not officially a part of the confederacy, but it allowed slavery--but less than 10% of Missourians owned slaves. Missourians were mostly immigrants from Germany, Scandinavia and other European nations that had come to what was then the western frontier for the homesteading act, which allotted them land if they farmed it. Many of the Germans that lived in Missouri, especially around St. Louis, were also virulent abolitionists.

When the "Red Legs/Jayhawkers" started burning down homesteads, rustling cattle and other livestock and "liberating" farmers of all their possessions, a large militia was formed in Missouri that consisted of both Missourians and some former (AWOL) confederate soldiers: it was headed by William Quantrill, thought to be one of the best guerilla fighters and strategists in American history, second only to maybe Crazy Horse. He organized a raid on Lawrence Kansas (where the University of Kansas is located) which was a "liberal and abolitionist stronghold" and slaughtered around 200 people and burned the town to the ground in retaliation for Jayhawkers' transgressions in Missouri, but also because he perceived Kansans to be unionists. Later, while on the run from federal/Union soldiers, he and "Bloody Bill" Anderson split the militia of over 400 horsemen into smaller units and melted into the woods and thickets of Missouri. From there, they ambushed Union soldiers and used unconventional means of warfare. Riding with Anderson were the Younger boys and Jesse and Frank James--later all famous outlaws. As noted before, to stop the border raids on both sides, General Ewing required anyone within 30 miles of the Missouri border (and notably this did not include Kansans) to move within 3 months, and then he burned a 30 mile wide and 150 mile long swath so that soldiers could see anyone riding over what was effectively a "desert." Read about William Clark Quantrill and the "burnt district" here.

Quantrill's raids were notoriously violent: essentially no male was safe, including adolescent boys. And he instilled such fear in Kansans that there were often reports of his raiders being sighted in up to ten different cities simultaneously. He was truly an American Terrorist. His raiders often took human "trophies" such as ears, and even the confederacy, which supported him, was fearful of his men.

This brings me to my observation and a question. Quantrill waged classic, asymmetrical warfare--namely his insurgents raised hell and inspired such terror that no Missourian dared say "no" to any of Quantrill's requests for shelter, horses, and food--even if it meant starvation for the provider. He did not fight conventionally, face-to-face with his enemy, and relied on the terrified Missouri citizenry to feed and house his men. Not to say he didn't have true supporters in Missouri who gladly and freely provided him with provisions.

In Baghdad we see much of type of warfare. Do we demand too much of Iraqi citizens to turn down insurgents or report them if they know it will definitely result in their deaths and/or the deaths of their families? And does dealing with insurgencies and internecine battles between militias demand an "Order 11" General Ewing type of action on the American forces/government of Iraq's part? Which essentially means bulldozing a line around the city and in violent, insurgent-saturated neighborhoods like Sadr city to keep the peace. Or would this cause even more resentment and provide an incentive for young unemployed men to join militias?

2006-08-29T10:06:00.000-04:00

An interesting piece in the NY Times today. Although Iran is theocracy, and intolerant one at that, the interviewee brings up interesting and salient points about Iran under the Shah, whom the US, propped up until the Iranian Revolution in 1979, which was in response to the Shah's hardball tactics like the ones that he describes. I worked with an Iranian in Texas during this turbulent time, and the Shah had executed my Iranian friend's father. He was itching to get back to Tehran and participate in the overthrow of the Shah's government--who could blame him? But for many Iranians, the revolution didn't turn out like they planned: it was taken over by hardliner Islamists who eventually took the US embassy staff hostage for more than a year. Thus began our long and painful "coldwar" with Iran. We actually helped Saddam Hussein in the early eighties by supplying him with weapons because he was fighting Iran over disputed territory. Wars make for strange bedfellows.

Now we are concerned about Iran's nuclear ambitions. Iran states that it wants to use uranium enrichment for nuclear power stations, not weapons. The US and much of Europe does not believe this. There is talk of sanctions against Iran, but China and Russia will not support this as Iran is one of their biggest trading partners. Also if sanctions go through, we can expect to see oil hit over $100 a barrel--about 4 or 5 dollars a gallon at the pump. The president of Iran, whom another blogger described aptly as a "millenarian moonbat" has written an 18 page letter to President Bush and is now offering to "debate President Bush" on national TV to prove "to the American people" that he wants peace and good relations. Obviously this "debate" is not going to happen, and there was no official response to the letter. The Iranian president has made absolutely hideous remarks about Israel, saying that "the Zionists should be wiped off the map." When Mike Wallace, in a 60 Minutes (TV program) interview confronted him on this remark, he demurred--stating that he "just wanted the Palestinians to be treated fairly." But he had also said in the past that Israel should be relocated to Europe or Canada or Texas. Obviously the man is a loose and vicious cannon.

Bush, in response to today's announcement that Iran wouldn't stop enrichment of uranium, stated that if the security council, which includes China and Russia, wouldn't vote for sanctions, we, the US, along with "like-minded countries" (unnamed) may pursue "other methods." Most military experts and political/military think tanks read this as military intervention. So we would have three fronts: Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.

Should we attempt better diplomacy with Iran? Should we ignore the President of Iran (who a lot of Iranians despise) and negotiate with those who may be a bit more reasonable and less rabid in their rhetoric? Obviously Iran wants to talk to us, but our diplomacy has been limited and mostly done through European proxies. What do you think? Can the US afford another war? Or cannot it not afford not to have a war?

NOTE: the highlighted words, except for the NY Times article, are definitions of words and world events--mostly for my students' sakes. And if you, as a student, participate in discussion on this blog, you receive "participation credit."

2006-08-25T15:32:00.000-04:00

WELCOME STUDENTS!

I am going to use this post to welcome aboard my students. I hope your summer went well and that you are getting settled into your new (or old) digs. It has been a gloomy welcome week as the weather has been dank and cool, but aside from that I'm really excited about this coming semester and meeting all of you.

As you can see, this blog has many links to bloggers around the world--mostly in the states and in the middle east. As the world seems convulsed by conflict and strife, the blogosphere has been both a reflection of these conflicts and also refutation of them as well. You will meet interesting men and women who will challenge the way you think, and perhaps even change your mind about some things (and that's OK). I ask you to participate in this blog (and yes, you can use "pen names" such as mine, Mariestaad, in fact I encourage you to do so--do not reveal your full name).

I am also reaching out to bloggers such as Bad Vilbel, Trevor, and Treasure of Baghdad, to, if you have time, write about your experience and your perceptions of what is happening in Iraq and Lebanon. If you email me a short essay or post about what you believe the one thing my students should know about the middle east, I will post it. You are eloquent writers! In fact, I'm encouraging any blogger who has insight to write. It doesn't matter where you live.

So, to my students, explore the blogosphere, post questions opinions, but always, always be respectful. Don't be a "troll"--someone who is rude, crude, and cares not for meaningful dialogue.

2006-08-23T17:22:00.000-04:00

Of the blogosphere, news and trolls. . .

I've been reading misneach's, Bad Vilbel's, and Treasure of Baghdad's blogs for news about their respective concerns in the ME. Also have frequented "will to exist," which is some American soldiers' blog (each soldier has a distinct voice and POV) as well as "an unsealed room," which is an Israeli blog.

My question to fellow bloggers, experienced and non-experienced, is this: how much of the news you read comes from blogs as opposed to conventional sources, such as newspapers and television? Even media sites, such as CNN, have correspondent bloggers. Do you find that the news from blogs is "less reliable" because it is often more subjective. Or is media "objectivity" an illusion? Or is the subjectivity of blogs the attraction?

And finally, what of the ever-present trolls (several who have seemed to have taken up lodging at poor Allison's site of late)? Do you avoid blogs with a large troll contingent? Have you ever seen a troll "flipped"? Change his or her mind about a topic? Who are the trolls? Where do most of them come from?

2006-08-19T19:12:00.000-04:00

I haven't been on task here. I haven't posted anything really about Iraq, and I frequent the Iraqi blogs listed as links often.

Michael Gordon, author of "Cobra II," wrote a very interesting piece about the Iraqi soldiers fighting with the Americans in very dangerous and insurgent-infested areas. Gordon wrote this for the New York Times, and it paints a poignant and somewhat depressing portrait of the Iraqi army. He points out that many Iraqi soldiers have not been paid for months, and that the bureucracy in the various ministries, which Gordon notes are corrupt, often don't send wages, and when they do, the Americans have to dole them out everyone gets paid fairly. He also notes that the Iraqi soldiers often receive spoiled meat and vegetables from the ministries' vendors. Medical care is provided by the Americans because, again, there is little provided by the state.

My question is this. In order to recruit and retain Iraqi soldiers, should America take over from the ministries the job of taking care of the army--for now? Is it too much to try to train a crack Iraqi army and at the same time expect the fledgling ministries to run smoothly and compentently? Would it violate soverignty if Americans provided food, medical care and wages to the Iraqi army?

2006-08-18T17:45:00.000-04:00

I was listening, the other day, to a report about the shutdown of a Seattle port because of some "suspicious freight" from Pakistan. Apparently the cargo triggered two bomb dogs to react. So federal authorities, along with a bomb squad, tore the shipping containers open and found what was on the cargo manifest: oily rags from Pakistan. There were no explosives. Apparently, these rags are used in "industry" (sorry, no details on how or what for provided).

In the U.S., the majority of our goods are imported, and a lot of our labor outsourced, but this particular imported item beats all I've heard of--dirty, oily rags? C'mon America, certainly you can manufacture your own dirty, oily rags! In fact, I'm willing to donate a box full of dirty, oily rags from my basement to the cause. One has to draw a line in the sand somewhere! I think we, as citizens, should write our respective congressperson and insist No more dirty oily rags from Pakistan--Buy American!

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

2006-08-15T16:55:00.000-04:00

This debate has been taking place on "an unsealed room," but I thought I'd post something here. Bad Vilbel, and a few others, including me, were debating what the fate of Hezbollah will be, or should be. (Perhaps two completely different states of being or not being.) Hezbollah has a political branch, but unfortunately its armed branch seems to be controlling the discourse. How does one disarm Hezbollah? Can Lebanon approach this like the British with the IRA--who also had no other vision than British out of Ireland, and Northern Island being reunited with Ireland proper. Sinn Fein is the political branch of the IRA, and it is and has been negotiating a disarming of the military branch of the iRA. Of course not all arms will be turned over--the caches will dot Derry and Ulster--but at least the politcal wing has become more powerful and relevant than the armed wing. Is this possible in Lebanon, or is the comparison between Lebanon and Northern Ireland a bad analogy?

2006-08-14T23:14:00.000-04:00

This post is a little different. A break from current events.

I was thinking about what I needed in order to post or respond to a post on another blog. And the list was revealing. First, I need my trusty iBook. I am a Mac person, have been since 1984. This says something about me, of course, because only 13 % of the American population use Macs. Also, I need a very strong cup of coffee--spoon-stands-up-in-it strong, with real cream & sweetener. Usually a Sumatra brew. My grandfather was a Swede, and he thought coffee was the elixer of life. He gave me coffee for breakfast when I was a child, (it was mostly milk) so I was hooked. I can't imagine life without coffee. Usually 2 or 3 cups while writing will do.

I listen to music, sometimes, while posting. I am very eclectic--love about anything. I am the progeny of two professors of music, so classical music was the soundtrack of my childhood. But I ventured outside that rarified world. Love radiohead. Love Johnny Cash. Love Elbow. Love Nada Surf. Love Pink Floyd and Cuban music, Emmy Lou Harris and Rufus Wainwright Tricky and Massive Attack, Mozart and Sibelius. Love Radio Paradise, which you can find on the iTunes radio list under "Alternative." It plays everything from Beethoven to Camper Van Beethoven. Presently listening to this station, and a string quintet is playing Metallica, suitably weird. It is listener supported--no commercials.

The location I write in the sun porch of my 100 year-old house, at least during the summer. During the rest of the year, I write in my subterranean office at the university, where the only natural light is through a narrow transom near the ceiling. But the porch is on the second story in the back, and is high enough that I can use a small telescope and see Mars, Venus and sometimes Saturn, and of course the moon. The porch has eight windows, and yet it is only about 10' by 5'. I write while sitting on a wicker chase lounge. Earlier in the summer, I had to listen to blue jays battle each other over my mulberry tree--which is now completely denuded of berries. Glad that period has passed as these birds eardrum-splittingly raucus. Sometimes I listen to a baseball game (Detroit Tigers), or a hockey game (Toronto Maple Leafs) during the fall, winter, and spring. I tend to kind of tune games out until I hear the play-by-play guy's voice rising a few octaves, and know a big play is at hand.

So what do you need to blog or respond to blogs? And what are your surroundings like? Are you at work? At home? What do you listen to while blogging, if anything?

2006-08-12T14:27:00.000-04:00

I got this from YouTube after seeing it on a Lebanese blog. I think it is absolutely hilarious. But that being noted, it brings up a valid point--are most Americans just concerned with the impact that both active conflicts in the middle east has on their wallets? What amount of "wallet trauma" do you think it will take before Americans start turning their attention to current affairs and demanding accountability from their government, and more comprehensive foreign policy? I'm saying 6 dollars a gallon, which is incredibly cheap compared to Europe, where I paid nearly this amount in 1985. Also, if the world turns its focus to alternative energy sources, do you think a lesser world-wide demand for fossil fuels would have much of an impact on the problems in the middle east?

WHOOPS, MY YOU-TUBE HTML VANISHED! 8/13/06

2006-08-11T17:36:00.000-04:00

I read on AP wire that Israel has accepted a cease-fire. Here is a podcast of the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. on the aims of the Israeli war with Hezbollah (I have seen 7 spellings of this in English--anyone with an idea what the definitive spelling is, or is there even a definitive spelling?) If you listen to the podcast, let me know what you think. I think he has some good points--that Hezbollah is largely aided by other countries with eyes on Lebanon for their own political purposes. But I also think, like U.S. governmental officials (on both sides of the house), he seems to be talking from a script that includes the completely-pounded-into- inanity-by-the-assumption your audience members are cretins buzzwords like "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and "Nuclear Ambitions" (the one I fancy the most--I wish I had nuclear ambition! Presently, my ambition is hamster-powered). And on that note--as a good English teacher who preaches that cliches show a distinct lack of critical thinking--if I hear the phrase "We don't want to go back to the status quo ante one more time, then my hamster will go all 3-mile-island. Say it in English. In Hebrew. In Arabic. In Farsi, Pashtun, Dari/Urdu/Gaelic/Ice Landic, but please, please, don't turn a dead language into a mind-numbing poli-zombie. The Ambassador does not, thank God, say this phrase in the podcast, but every American policy-maker has adopted this phrase as his or her media mantra.

Here is the link to the podcast. . .I haven't a clue how to html embed podcasts/Mp3s. Someone wanna tell me?

That brings me to my question for those who don't have time to/don't want to listen to the podcast. How do you think the blogosphere has changed the face of conflicts? I think it is so interesting to see the war carried on line with parrying between parties involved, if by proxy, in Israeli and Lebanon, and the U.S. and Iraq. I have also seen olive branches offered--people trying to rationally discuss the conflicts and work toward a better understanding of other communities. Are you hopeful or pessimistic about the ability of blogs to alter the reality of war? The media in Vietnam radically altered America's view of the war, and thus the war itself--no media had covered a war like that before--at least in the states. Hope I get at least one answer on this!

2006-08-09T17:48:00.000-04:00

Wolf Blitzer interviewing the Foreign Minister of Qatar on CNN: “Will the Arab League guarantee that Hezbollah will cease raining missiles down on Israel?”

The Foreign Minister from Qatar stated (I’m paraphrasing here: I typed as he spoke) that this conflict cannot be solved by military action. Qatar is trying to intervene with Hezbollah, but the Minister states that continued military action could collapse the fragile Lebanese government. He said that both sides want to show that they can stand up to each other, and they both need to back down. They cannot fight until “they completely break each others’ bones.” He also stated this war is a much more complicated issue than the UN and the West acknowledges—that this conflict involves many parties and countries. He feels that the United States and the West in general has not appreciated the complexity of the war. He also says that violence just encourages other militant groups to express their political complaints through even more violent means. He would like to see real dialogue, not just military posturing by Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel.

Do you think his observation is valid? Also how should America intervene in this conflict? What incentives could it offer to both parties? Israel is presently launching a large ground offensive further into Lebanon and is encountering fierce resistance, and many soldiers are reported dead (on both sides). Israel claims that it has killed Iranian Revolutionary Guards (this is not confirmed by CNN, AP or Reuters), which could bolster the theory that Iran is fighting this war by proxy and is contributing forces. news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060809/ts_nm/mideast_lebanon_iranians_dc_2 Some military observers say that Israel will be bogged down in south Lebanon, like the U.S. is bogged down Iraq. If you could be Condi Rice for a day, how would you effect a cease fire? Seriously, I want opinions! Or do you think this war is spiraling out of anybody's control?

(On a lighter note, Wolf is interviewing Pat Robertson, the American Evangelist who said that Ariel Sharon deserved his stroke for “giving away Gaza”—he is apparently waiting for the End Days in Jerusalem. See “an unsealed room’s” blog for John Stewart’s take on Armageddon and network news. It’s hilarious. I can’t believe that Blitzer is interviewing this man as a serious source. Yikes!)

2006-08-08T21:13:00.000-04:00

Well, the idea for the question for tomorrow (or today for some) is taken from the 18th century French political theorist, Jean-Jacques Rousseau--this is an excerpt from "The Origin of Civil Society."

"War, therefore, is something that occurs not between man and man, but between States. The individuals who become involved in it are enemies only by accident. They fight not as men or even citizens, but as soliders: not members of this or that national group, but as its defenders. A State can have as its enemies only others States, no men at all, seeing that there can be no true relationship between things of a different nature."

What does this quote mean to you? Do you think this true? What about the last sentence? Is this applicable now? I was quite struck by this excerpt and thought it quite relevant. (If you have suggestions for other applicable excerpts/quotes, please email me them!)

2006-08-08T16:48:00.000-04:00

I have started this blog in hopes that it can provoke an exchange of ideas between all. The only thing I ask of contributors is that you post real arguments or observations, and not indulge in blatant stereotyping, ugly remarks, and racist comments. This may be wishful thinking, but I am putting on my optimist's cap.

Where did the title of this blog come from? It seems so at odds with what this blog is about, right? Actually this is a Kansas slogan from the American Civil War period, during the bloodiest, most horrible war within a war between the border states of Kansas and Missouri. Kansas was an anti-slavery state, and Missouri was a "not for or against slavery state" (in other words you could have slaves, but it was not a part of the Confederacy, at least officially).

The war between these two states started because of
militias on both sides, who committed atrocities that would make your hair stand on end (beheadings, castrations, trophy-taking, such as stringing "kills'" ears and testicles on their bridles). It is a little known conflict, even in America, and is a all-to-typical example of factional feuding that punishes those who are just going about their business. It was tit-for-tat for five mean years. Eventually, a Federal General, Thomas Ewing, did create "desert" between the two states. He burned a 30 mile wide swath that was over 150 miles long on the border between the two states. It was known as the "burnt district" He did this so his troops could spot militias trying to cross over into enemy territory.

Obviously, this is not the way to endear either side, or engage "hearts and minds." This is what we should avoid at all costs, anywhere. It took decades for people on both sides to get over Ewing's no-holds-barred way of enforcing order. Hundreds lost their homesteads and fields--permanently. If citizens lived witin the General's "burnt district," they had to move. These citizens were never compensated for loss of their property.

FYI: I'm not an idealist. I'm pragmatic. Think about it. . .even Machiavelli was ultimately a pragmatist. And the only way people can enact change is to start talking to one another. Again, light a single candle. . .

The first question I will throw out is this. . .King Abdullah of Jordan announced today, according to Reuters, that the U.S., Europe, and Israel have no comprehensive strategy in the Middle East. . ."The United States, Britain and the European countries as well as Israel have got to listen to what we are saying," [King Abdullah] said. How could a more comprehensive strategy be organized? What would it entail?