Blog entries are in chronological order:

November 3, 2004:  The United States had an election yesterday, which re-elected President Bush by a popular vote margin of 51-48%, and an electoral vote margin that is still uncertain.   Now the Bush Administration has to decide, without worrying about political pressure, how to deal with Iraq, terrorism, and frayed alliances.

One reason the GOP did so well, people argue, is the focus on moral values.  While I may disagree with the particular take they have on some of these (e.g., I support gay marriage, stem cell research, and am a civil libertarian), I do think that ethical values need to be injected into our policy deliberations on these issues, and that might actually provide a more practical solution.

Iraq: it is easy to try to solve the problem with violence.  Kill the insurgents.  Pacify the countryside.  Solve the problem objectively.  Alas, that also means killing a lot of people, and in a place like Fallujah, urban fighting means numerous dead civilians, including large numbers of children.  An ethical approach would be to declare a major assault on an urban area off limits.  Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar has likened an assault on the city to shooting a horse in the head to kill a fly sitting on the horse's ear.  The fly will simply fly away, but the horse will be dead.  Not only will numerous innocents die and insurgents escape to fight another day, but the anger at the US that the Arab world will experience (as well as in Iraq) will inspire new insurgents and terrorism world wide.  We reap what we sow.  If the Iraqi people really want democracy and stability (and if they don't, we don't have a chance there anyway), then stepping back, taking away the 'foreign enemy' that they use to inspire resistance, could lead to a loss of support by insurgents, especially as they attack Iraqi targets.  Pull troops out, limit activity, provide humanitarian assistance to win the hearts and minds of the citizens there.  The ethical thing may also be the practical thing.

Terrorism: In a future blog entry I'll talk more about this, but it's clear that a "war on terror" is unwinnable, since terrorism is a strategy chosen for a reason, it isn't a defined "enemy" or something "insane."  Address the root causes of terrorism and the symptoms will start to disappear.   Alliances: Again, I'll deal with this topic more in the future, but the bottom line here is to recognize that in an era of globalization, no state can go it alone, not even a super power like the US.  Only through cooperation and partnership (not 'our way or the highway') can intensely complex problems be solved.  That ultimately is ethical, and more effective than thinking military victories will bring long term solutions. 

I suspect President Bush will, now that there is no election hanging over him, make some real policy changes to respond to the problems caused by the March 2003 invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.   If he opposes stem cell research and abortion rights because they cost a human life, then one has to hope that as he reflects on this issue, he recognizes that attempts at a military solution in Iraq contradict his 'pro-life' stance. 

November 5, 2004:  A lot of Kerry supporters these days are depressed by the election result.  That's understandable; the election was close and emotional.  But people do need to keep perspective, whether your side won or lost.  Another election will come, and people can still be active and work for causes they believe.   It’s important people don’t lose their idealism; disappointed idealists often become bitter cynics, and that’s a fate I wouldn’t wish on anybody!   Also, even if your side lost, that doesn't mean the efforts were in vain.  The old chaos theory example of how a butterfly flapping its wings in the amazon rain forest later affects weather world wide applies.  Your acts (no matter who you supported) during the campaign make a difference in the scheme of things, and may have a profound impact on peoples' lives, or even future political outcomes.  You'll never know the true long term impact of your actions in this or any facet of life, you just have to have faith that it matters.  If you were disappointed by the election outcome, don't become cynical.   If you do good, you are changing the world, even if it seems you are doing something minor.  There will be many more elections, but every day you have the power to act on your values and beliefs, and in so doing you inevitably make a real difference in the world.

November 8, 2004:  Today the United States launched an assault on Fallujah to try to take the city and, hopefully, bring more stability to Iraq.  This is a high stakes strategy which, if it fails, could mark a real crisis for US activity in Iraq.  We won't know how successful it is until one sees what happens after the battle -- will the insurgency falter, or will we find that most simply dissipated to fight on in other battles and cities?   The damage being done to the city is immense, with massive bombardments turning the city into a place that looked like an earthquake hit it.  From a beginning population of 300,000, only 30,000 are there now.  Of those, supposedly 3000 are insurgent fighters.  Women and children have been asked to leave, but all men under 45 who try to leave are being detained.  It sounds as though the US attack will consider any male to be a combatant, even though most males left are not insurgents.  That, of course, raises human rights concerns.  An innocent man being killed is no less a tragedy than an innocent woman being killed.  In general, the morality of this kind of urban assault is questionable.   I can only hope that those who argue this will bring stability more quickly are right.  JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) estimates that 100,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq since March 20, 2003.   We aren't seeing the reality of this war, and I doubt we'll truly grasp what will happen in urban warfare in Fallujah.  I wouldn't choose an urban assault, I have grave concerns about human rights and the impact this will have on the region (inspiring more anti-americanism, etc.)  But obviously no one in the White House is paying attention to me on this, so I can only hope that whatever happens, stability comes soon. 

November 9, 2004:  15 years ago today the wall in Berlin came down, and final phase of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe begun.  I think today it's important to reflect on what we can learn from that event.  I was in Berlin in early August 1989, just before the mass migration from East to West began.  I had interviews with academics studying East-West German relations, and none of them saw the change coming; they envisioned slow reform, and maybe after twenty years or so, possible German unification.  I remember walking the streets of East Berlin after going through an arduous border crossing at Friedrichstrasse, amazed by how different the city was than the Western portion.  The West was loud, prosperous and active; the East had historical beauty, but was quiet and obviously not as wealthy.  I had to go to down the Unter den Linden street to the back of the Brandenburg gate to convince myself I was in the same city.  I looked across to people in the west, on a platform I had stood upon the day before, designed to allow them to glimpse over the wall into the East.   It all seemed so pointless and stupid, and it was obvious that the communist system wasn't working.

A couple weeks later, just before I left back to the US the migration via Hungary began.  As I followed the news as slowly events unraveled, I got a sense that change was in the air.  When I got back to the US, I boldly predicted "Germany will unify within five years."  It would actually be one year, but at the time people dismissed the prediction as wishful thinking -- and maybe it was.  The wall had divided family and friends, I heard Germans talk about how they were unable to ever visit relatives or best friends after the wall came up.   It was a powerful symbol of both the power of politics to intrude on people's lives, and on the failure of communism -- they had to build a wall to keep people from trying to escape the "farmers and workers' paradise."   Then on November 9th as I was driving in to grad school I heard the news on the radio.  I ran in and told people, we gathered to watch things unfold on the TV (no internet yet).   At home that night as I watched the celebration, I was overcome with emotion, the joy of this division ending, and the awe that it was the people who drove the change, people protesting, people leaving, people telling their government they'd had enough.  It wasn't just a result of what the leaders were deciding, the people took matters into their own hands, and it happened peacefully.  It showed that political scientists can be surprised by events; the biggest event in Europe since WWII, and virtually no one saw it coming, even the experts on East Germany I'd interviewed for my research.

I could ramble on here about how the change became very difficult, but I'd rather just remember the joy that this day brought fifteen years ago.  It ended the forty plus year Cold War, for all practical purposes, and an era where we were afraid of nuclear holocaust, superpower conflict, and World War III.   Within a month, communism would fall all across Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union was clearly not the threat it was -- and it would cease to exist in December 1991.  All that fear was replaced with real optimism -- with the Cold War gone, democracy could flourish, the US was secure, and now we could go on to build what then President Bush called "a new world order" built on democratic values and cooperative international organizations.  15 years later, that optimism has been replaced with new fears and divisions, but maybe the memory of a November day fifteen years ago can remind us that we humans can transform our world, and as dark as things might get, there is always hope.

November 17, 2004:  The battle in Fallujah appears over, though there is dispute about how much control of the city the United States has obtained.   The city itself has suffered extensive damage, in some parts every building is either destroyed or damaged.  The adage in Vietnam was "we had to destroy the village to save it," here the US destroyed a city to save it.  To "get" a little over 1000 insurgents, a city of 300,000 was leveled.  Most civilians fled before the fighting, but those who stayed had to endure massive and indiscriminate fire.  The number of dead are unknown, though it appears many (most?) insurgents escaped.  The United Nations Human Rights Commission is going to investigate possible war crimes by both the insurgents and the United States.   One wonders what the US "won" here, if indeed they got control of the city.  300,000 people cannot come back to a destroyed city and live normally, the insurgents move on -- violence has increased in Mosul.

One thing the US did accomplish is to arouse anger across the Arab world, including amongst sources friendly to the US.  As civilians tried to flee Fallujah, they were other fired on or turned back -- if they were male, they were forced to stay in a city without food, water, or electricity.  When the Red Crescent organization tried to help, they were denied entry (though some convoys finally got through).  The US again provides terrorists and radicals with excellent recruiting footage, and inspires even more hatred for America's brutality and disregard for Arab life or citizens.  The US was caught between a rock and a hard place -- do you accept insurgents controlling Fallujah and perhaps hindering a January election, or do you attack?  They used the militarist answer, and it appears a failure.  They have destroyed a city, but helped the insurgency.  This war could indeed be a turning point -- but a point where it starts becoming clear to everyone that the US cannot win in Iraq, at least not with these methods.  It is sickening and shameful.

November 22, 2004:  A recent report notes that children are suffering greatly the cost of war and its aftermath in Iraq.   Acute malnutrition of children under five has shot up from 4% two years ago to 7.7% this year.  400,000 (according to a Washington Post report by Karl Vick) are suffering from "wasting," caused by protein deficiency.   The article describes some of this; I suspect things will get worse before they get better.  Insurgents remain active in the wake of the Fallujah battle, and the military now says they need more troops (John McCain claims 50,000) to be able to really control things.   At the same time, "hawks" who supported Saddam's overthrow are said now to be arguing that the US can't stabilize the situation, and that our presence only fuels the resistance (gee, it took them awhile to perceive the obvious, didn't it?)  That still is counter the Administration's official position, but could signal a coming change.  I suspect, though, many of them want to have more troops "free" to deal with Iran or North Korea.  But I doubt there is much the US could do militarily in either of those cases.  Maybe reality is starting to set in that Iraq is a hole, and the first law of holes is that if you are in one, stop digging!

But even if we pulled out now, recognized that we are doing more harm than good, and even increasing aid, I don't know what can be done to bring stability to the country.  It looks set for a long struggle, with, of course, children suffering the most.  If, on March 19, 2003, President Bush had decided not to order a military strike, Saddam would likely still be in charge.  But would that really have been worse for the majority of the Iraqi people?  Saddam wasn't omnipotent or immortal, he could have been pushed out, or die.  He was under surveillance, his movements controlled.  Everyone says it's good that Saddam is gone, and all other things being equal, that is true.  But all things are not equal.  What we are seeing in Iraq is a country whose citizens are worse off by far than they were 20 months ago.  There is no reason to be optimistic that will change any time soon, but as a country we don't seem to be noticing the suffering and pain of average Iraqis. 

The future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in the wake of Arafat's death, remains in limbo.  I don't see much cause for optimism, except that stirring the pot can maybe create a new order of things that opens up possibilities.  One can hope.  But the opposite is true as well, especially if hawks in Israel and amongst the Palestinians use this to enhance their position.

Otherwise, in the wake of this last election I see a real change in students. There seems much less apathy, much more of a sense of engagement and activism. Students, at least, seem to be waking up. If Iraq continues to be a disaster, and if economic problems continue (watch the dollar's value -- we can't maintain the current accounts deficit at over 5% of GDP and not have a steep drop in the dollar, which could mean inflation and foreigners bailing out of American investments), then 2008, and maybe even 2006 could see a huge turn around. Maybe it's good (so long as they don't start a war with Iran or anything) that the GOP have complete control of government as all these problems culminate; they'll have to take responsibility.

December 7, 2004:  On patriotism:

“Some people say a country is more an idea than a place.” – Al Stewart


Having studied Germany my whole life, I certainly know what patriotism is NOT. It is not mindless nationalism. It’s not a belief that it is wrong to criticize a country’s policies, or that one has to stand up for their country because it is their country. It is not a fetish with land or borders, it is not a belief that there is something special about where one lives that requires one to show it loyalty and defend it. Mindless nationalism is rooted in emotion, requires people to ignore the bad their country does (and EVERY country does bad – and every population tends to want to ignore that, a trap educated people have to avoid falling into), and often leads to war, jingoism, and xenophobia. Mindless nationalism includes the worship of symbols – flags, emblems, etc. – as somehow being the secular equivalent of holy objects. That again is rooted in emotion, and often clouds rather than aids clear thinking.

So if patriotism is not mindless nationalism, what is it? To me, it is a belief in ideals. The American constitution sets forth ideals that precisely deny the kind of mindless nationalism I describe above. All are created equal. Governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed. Individual rights are paramount. Freedom and liberty is essential for us to live as human beings who can actualize their potential and fully experience life. The meaning of the constitution, the declaration of independence, and other documents that define what America is – America as more of an idea than just a piece of territory – that is where I find my patriotism.

Back during the Vietnam war, so-called patriots (really mindless nationalists) would say to those protesting the war that they should “love it or leave it” – if they didn’t like America’s policies, they should go somewhere else. That was an emotional attempt to say that if you don’t support whatever the government does, then you aren’t supporting America and shouldn’t be here. The true patriots were those who supported the war, but listened to and respected the right of those to oppose it, and also were those not afraid to criticize their government, since the government and its policies are not the equivalent of America and the American people. If a government, which derives its power from the consent of the governed, acts against the ideals of the constitution, and the basic ideals that this country was founded upon, a true patriot has to do what he or she can to try to persuade people that the government should change its policies. This can range from political debates, opinion pieces in newspapers, bar room arguments (just don’t let them become brawls!), or discussion on university campuses.

So who determines if the government is acting against the ideals of the constitution? The answer: the people. But, one might argue, if the people support the government, hasn’t that settled the question? The answer: No. The ideals of our constitution depend on INDIVIDUALS having the freedom (I’d argue the duty, even) to speak out their opinions and continue trying to change things, even if that means a lot of criticism of policies. The reason a democracy is superior to a dictatorship is that this freedom is not only allowed, but is essential. If you don’t have all voices making their arguments heard, it is much more likely that you will end up with policies that aren’t critically assessed, and which could lead a country to disaster. (This is the argument in Walter Lippman’s piece ‘The Essential Opposition’).

What, then, would be unpatriotic? First, trying to deny the values of the constitution would be unpatriotic – individual rights, liberty, etc. To engage in violence is almost always unpatriotic, as it denies rights to others, and threatens to upend the democratic process. I personally think that we are doing acts of evil in Iraq. But I see it as my patriotic duty to make that argument, to help people see that, and to provide my opinions. But if the polity chooses to believe that we are doing good, then my patriotic duty is to continue to peacefully make my case, and not do anything to disrupt the functioning of democracy. Personally I think patriotism requires me to also extend respect to those with other opinions and beliefs, recognizing that just as my view is needed and demanded in a democracy is to serve its function, so are the views of those who disagree with me. Not that everything is opinion – there are facts out there, but what these facts mean and what actions should be taken often have no clear right answer.  Democracy, as Lippman noted, is a method for trying to determine truth -- or to get as close as possible.  Democracy has a self-correcting mechanism that dictatorships do not.

So in a nutshell: patriotism is about believing in the values this country was founded upon, recognizing that dissent and opposition to any policy is essential if democracy is to work, avoiding mindless nationalism, respecting those with different perspectives, standing up against violations of the values of this country be they from government or private citizens, and keeping our debates and disagreements civil, to be worked through the process laid out by the constitution.

December 30, 2004:  It's always a bit sad to write a year and know that pretty soon that year will be in the past.  2004 was for me personally, a very good year.  Ryan, now 21 months old (or will be on January 3) has been a pure delight, and watching him grow this last year and develop was enough right there to make 2004 fantastic.  But I was lucky to teach really interesting courses with top notch faculty, including "Modern Times" with Steve Pane and Sarah Maline, and "Children and War" with Mellisa Clawson.  I also learned a lot about teaching in working with these three, and know I'll be a better teacher in the future because of the experience.  They also taught me a lot about issues and subjects I had not investigated before, and really feel like this has been a year of intellectual growth for me.  Beyond that the year started with a great trip to Germany with students on a travel course, included conferences in Boston, Amherst and Washington (I presented at all of them), and in all I've been very satisfied with life in 2004, a very good year.  Personally.  But when I consider the globe (and these blogs will be mostly about the world and my thoughts, NOT about my personal life -- the above was the end of the year indulgence), it's been a year that has hit me emotionally.

The most recent news, of course, is horrific -- a Tsunami/earthquake hitting Southeast Asia and killing at least 120,000 people (that's today's count, it's been going up dramatically each day).  At least a third of these are children.  I heard a story on CNN of a boy about Ryan's age who was found alone.  They finally figured out that he was Swedish (that was the language he responded to), and luckily were able to locate the boy's father in another hospital (the mother is still missing).  Just thinking of a young child alone away from his parents after such a disaster is disturbing.  Multiply it by the thousands...  Then, of course, add all of what is going on in Iraq, all the pain in the various terrorist attacks such as the Russian school shooting.  Consider the violence in Sudan, the poverty world wide.  I don't know if it was opening up to new perspectives through teaching a course like "Children and War," or the fact I now have a child and can relate better, but this year I've found myself more often than ever before having to turn off the radio and brush back tears as I'm driving to or from work, thinking about how horrible it must be to experience what so many have been experiencing.  Then there are the stories of a woman scalding a 20 month old infant who would die of third degree burns -- on purpose, putting her in a tub with ultra hot water.  Or...well, there were a lot of really disturbing stories.  No one should live like that, should have these things happen, yet world wide it is far more common than most of us care to believe.  I'm finding it harder than ever to just enjoy my corner of the world without feeling a bit haunted by the reality that far too many face.

Still, I'm an optimist, and a pragmatist.  The world is as it is, and it will not change overnight, or even in my life, at least not to the point that these problems go away.  All I can do is try my best to make a difference where I can, and trust that this will, in time, have an impact on the world.  That's all anyone can do.  I will not let the ugly parts of reality blind me to the beauty; I will not let the causes for cynicism blind me to the necessity of idealism.  I will not give up my faith in the power of love and truth just because too many people put their faith in hate and lies.  And the beauty does outweigh the ugliness, even if the ugliness makes the headlines.

Iraq remains a quagmire, sapping America of its economic and moral standing, even as it means the deaths of over a thousand Americans, and perhaps over 100,000 Iraqis.  I'm living in an empire that is starting its decline, I'm just not sure how fast and far it will fall.  Of course, our ideals are grand, but our actions often betray them -- even if they are undertaken in the belief they will serve the ideals.    So 2004 ends with a world plagued by disasters natural and human made, but with hope.  People genuinely care about those hurt in the Tsunamis, and the world is trying to help.   Overall, I think the desire to help is a stronger component of human nature than the desire to achieve self-interest at the cost of others.  But now it's on to 2005.   So I wish everyone a joyous New Year -- and to remember that love is more powerful than hate, and hope more potent than pessimism!