Note: entries are in chronological order

May 2:  Speaking Truthiness to Power

I've been watching the Colbert Report since it started last fall, following The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  I record it to the DVR and then watch it the next day (I haven't seen last night's show yet).  At first I wasn't sure if he could handle a whole half hour, especially coming right after a classic like The Daily Show (where he had worked), but within weeks I was hooked.  "The Word" is the funniest segment in comedy television, in my opinion.

Last Saturday night Colbert was a featured speaker at the Correspondent's Dinner which yearly brings together the President, top government officials, and top journalists to lampoon themselves in a way to reduce tension in what by definition is a tense working relationship.  Colbert's talk, featuring a funny chase segment with Helen Thomas when he pretends he's the press secretary, was hilarious -- and bitingly accurate.  He talked about taboo subjects, made fun of the press, and did so in a way that, well here are some examples:

"I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world."

"The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday."

On Iraq: "I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."

And skewering the press: "Let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know -- fiction."

Talking about the press claimed recent personnel changes were like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic he said:  "This administration is soaring, not sinking. “If anything, they are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.”

The talk was 15 minutes, but while people present noted that the President stopped smiling and did not seem to appreciate the humor, the mainstream press didn't write much at all about Colbert's routine -- the New York Times didn't even mention it.  It hit them as hard as it the President, Colbert attacked both parties -- he is a comedian, after all.   But he's not like Jay Leno who is funny but politically bland.  He used satire effectively, and in a manner that many deemed "inappropriate" for that venue.

And that, it seems to me, is the problem.  It is never appropriate to "speak truthiness to power" (Colbert coined the term 'truthiness' on his show).  The press avoids really confronting the issues, as they fear being pegged as "liberal" or "biased."  They also are part of an establishment elite which encompasses both parties and many journalists, setting ground rules for discussion and even the type of possibilities that will be taken seriously.  This is broad enough to allow real debate, and tension between journalists and the President, but Colbert's comments cut through that to core principles and issues which should be questioned, but are not.  Mostly people question the President's tactics, or choices, or "how the war was fought," for instance.  Colbert's comments went deeper, they got to issues of trust, leadership, the role of the press, and what this country is all about.  That's how it should be.

For a rare moment the inside the beltway crowd was given a dose of cutting reality, and they didn't like it.  They prefer the shelter of their shared establishment elite "discourse."  I found it refreshing that in all the debate that tends to be about personalities, sensationalism, and partisan ranting, a comedian showed that satire can still be very effective. 

May 3:  Immigration and Globalization

I've not written at all about immigration, in part because I haven't really been that interested in all that's going on.  For the record: I agree with President Bush's proposals almost completely on this, and find it a shame that emotion has trumped rationality on this issue.  However, it's an issue that is not going to go away, and thanks to globalization, it's not just an American issue.  Indeed, we'll likely have an easier time dealing with this than the Europeans will, since our identity is not based on ethnicity.

One interesting and telling issue is the reaction to the Spanish language national anthem.  Even though the US commissioned a Spanish language version near the turn of the century, and the State Department apparently has them on their website, suddenly what once was viewed as good is now arousing anger.   The difference, of course, is a perception of some kind of threat.  In the early 20th century Spanish speaking immigrants weren't a threat, and we wanted to make it easier for them to learn and use the symbols of American patriotism.  Now some parts of society see foreign language use and the influx of more immigrants as a threat to our very identity.  The fact that whites will be less than 50% of the population in a few decades fills some people with dread.

Consider: We have low unemployment, and the illegal immigrants pay taxes, including to social security and other programs they aren't allowed to participate in.  If they weren't there, the jobs they do would have to go to Americans.  Yet with low unemployment, that would boost the wages, and take workers from other sectors.  Overall, that would raise prices and likely weaken the economy; many economists say the boom of the 90's was driven by immigration, legal and illegal.  The real problem here is that illegal immigrants are being exploited so we have cheap goods.   From the perspective of business, this is a good thing.

Beyond that, American workers are apparently hurt the most since wages are lower -- it's simple supply and demand, if you have more workers, there isn't as much wage pressure.  But that is oversimplified.  The increased economic activity caused by the influx of workers may actually boost the economy in such a way that its better for everyone than it would be if the illegal immigrants weren't there.  So the problem seems at base to be that there are illegal workers being exploited, but who seem to benefit the economy.  That is unacceptable because we shouldn't exploit foreign workers, and we can't have illegal activity be a persistent and important part of our economy.  The rational thing to do is: a) control immigration; and b) find a way to integrate current workers into the system by creating a path to citizenship.

Yet..."a" is easy to call for, but harder to produce.  And "b" arouses emotions -- xenophobia, nationalism, and prejudice.  In this way, the immigration issue is an example of the general political challenge of globalization.   The rational thing to do in many issues (environmental concerns, human rights, global trade, etc.) is complex, requires cooperation across borders, and compromises.  But this is hard.  In our sound-bite nation where people are more likely to enjoy getting their emotions stoked by a talk radio screamer than engaging in NPR style analysis of an issue, the emotional reaction is going to gain more traction.  That leads to a response to globalization that is tribal: define our own identity and protect those who are like us.  That could lead to protectionism, more conflicts, and potentially could make the "good" side of globalization beyond reach.  Rather than having economic interdependence lead to global prosperity and an obsolescence of military conflict, the backlash could lead to violence and economic crisis.

We're standing at a crossroads.  The 21st century could be a century of expanding prosperity, less military conflict, and one where we finally start coming to grips with problems like the 300,000 child soldiers on the planet, global poverty, disease, and genocides.  Or it could be a century of chaos and disaster, made worse by the environmental aftermath of the high flying 20th century lifestyle.  Which direction will we choose?

May 4:  Unfinished business and unintended consequences

When Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, no doubt remembering how the first Gulf War didn't need the 600,000 troops and six week air campaign to push Saddam out of Kuwait, demanded a much smaller force than the Pentagon recommended, he betrayed a few assumptions which turned out to be disastrous.  First, he assumed Afghanistan was already stable, and the international force there could help push Afghanistan into becoming a stable democracy.  After all, the world was behind the US, and a conference in Germany brought in massive aid to the new Afghan government.  Second, he assumed that the hard part in Iraq would be defeating Saddam.  The dangers he envisioned were the possibility Saddam would strike Israel, the possibility WMD would be used against American troops, and the fear that if the war wasn't a quick success, WMD could be given to terrorists.  The aftermath would be like in Afghanistan -- the US would choose a leader that had credibility but was pro-American, give him the perks of power to assure he wins election, and then use Iraq as America's major Mideast ally. 

No doubt Rumsfeld remembered his stint in the seventies, when Iran was a strong American ally.  With a major military force friendly to the West in the region, the oil fields of the region were safe.  Thanks to the Shah's hatred of religion, he had no qualms about being friendly with Israel, and thus Israel did not mind the US arming its Iranian ally to the teeth.  But when Iran had its revolution everything fell apart.  The region became vulnerable to outside influences, and Islamic extremism emerged as a threat.  But a victory in Iraq could right all that.  The US could again have a strong ally, and this time the military presence would be primarily American.  That would ensure against another revolt, and allow us to work from Iraq in a way which nonetheless did not threaten Israel.  Potentially this could be used as the neo-cons wanted, to pressure Syria and Iran to reform (or even to invade them), but it could also be a benefit from a realist perspective, giving the US a presence in the region that allowed it influence and power.

Assumption one, however, was incorrect.  Afghanistan remains in turmoil.  It's not in the news as much as the troops there are hunkered down, but the Taliban has regained control of vast sections of the country, and warlords control other areas.  Karzai may be pro-American, but outside Kabul, his power is limited.  Afghanistan again is the top world opium producer, and in many sections terrorists have haven and can train.  The victory there was incomplete, and the forces remaining aren't able to create stability and unity.

Assumption two was completely off.  The Secretary was right in thinking that fewer troops were needed to win the war against Saddam's army.  Saddam folded quickly, his army disintegrated.  But that was the easy part, not the hard part.  So now what?  We have unfinished business in Afghanistan, and a vast array of unintended and dangerous consequences of our actions in Iraq, not the least of which is an emboldened Iranian leadership, whose right wing won elections for the first time since the revolution riding the wave of anti-Americanism. 

Both assumptions were made for a reason: they fit an ideology that saw democracy and markets as naturally effective, and which viewed American power and wealth as being enough to alter a country's political system.  Both were wrong because they loosely looked to history (look how Germany and Japan changed) rather than taking into account the specifics of the region and its culture.  Both were wrong because the intelligence gathered was done so in a biased manner, looking not to figure out the best course of action, but trying to justify the desired course of action.  The biggest lessons of this policy failure involve: a) ideology cannot prove that  a policy will work in practical terms; b) American power and wealth have limited capacity to rebuild or reshape cultures and political systems; c) it is important to truly understand the nuances and specifics of a region before developing a policy; and d) intelligence should not be a tool used to justify policy, but a tool used to choose between policy options.  Unfortunately, looking at the Iran debate, it still appears to me that a mix of ideological certainty and an overestimation of American power remain, despite the problems in Iraq.  

It looks like the government is not learning.   (Tomorrow I'll try to get back to the discussion on oil I started last week...my brain is scattered at this point in the semester!)

May 5:  Cheney on the attack! Or: Old fashioned geopolitics

Given his low poll numbers (his popularity is down around 20%, I think), Vice President Cheney stays out of the public eye as much as possible in the US.  And when he does make the news, it's usually not good (shooting someone in the face, for instance!)  But yesterday in Russia Cheney launched a blistering attack on Russia's government while in Lithuania.   This connects to oil, Iran, and the growing realization in the US that American options are limited.  But rather than bite the bullet and realize that compromise and diplomacy must be grasped, Cheney, and presumably the President as well, want to try intimidation and threat.  It won't work.

First, though, it should be pointed out that Cheney's general charge -- that Russia is not truly democratic and that the government doesn't grant true civil liberty -- is correct.  Yet that in and of itself shouldn't be a problem for the West, since we routinely deal with other states much less open and democratic across the globe.  The US embraced Russia under Yeltsin, and Yeltsin literally watched over a shift from being a totalitarian state with a broken economy to being an utterly corrupt and impoverished state with a collapsing economy.  The question I would ponder is whether it would have been possible for Putin to try to reform basic fundamental problems in the functioning of government and the stability of society without a shift towards authoritarianism?  Probably not.  But that doesn't let Putin off the hook.

The high price of oil leads to a temptation for elites to enrich themselves, and most countries with oil have problems with corruption.  While corruption has gone down under Putin (I think Russia is third behind Iraq and Nigeria in corruption levels), it's still dangerously high.  If Russia does not allow reforms to build a true industrial economy with a growing middle class, and instead becomes a rentier state simply living off the sale of raw materials with government corruption endemic, then the future is bleak.  So Cheney has a point...but it's the geopolitical implications, and what this says about US policy that interests me.

The US seems to have either given up on a Security Council resolution punishing or threatening Iran over its nuclear program, or it believes that intimidating Russia will lead them to try to get back on the good side of the Bush Administration through supporting action.  I can't believe they think intimidation will work (though the Administration has miscalculated numerous times in its diplomatic moves) so I assume they believe Russia is working against American interests and now see Russia as, if not a threat, at least a rival and a nuisance.

Russia, of course, calculates that their future is affected less by the US and more by the EU and China.  It is not coincidental that Putin has emphasized strong ties to Germany and France, improved relations with China, and is courting Iran (which China is doing as well).  It's the old game of geopolitics.  What is striking about this is that the US has staked its position on an untenable strategy of relying on Saudi Arabia's friendship and oil on the one hand, and then hoping to augment it with a military presence in Iraq on the other.  The goal clearly is to stake out a dominant American position in the Mideast, limiting Chinese, European and Russian influence.  Iran, meanwhile, sees itself as the emerging regional power and representative of Islam in world politics.

The problems America is having in Iraq create an opening for China and Russia, and give the EU some real clout.  If the EU were to join the US in treating Russia as a rival, that would aid the American position.  But Russia is closer, and they have a strong desire in seeing a stable and friendly Russia.  They don't want to treat them like an enemy.  The EU sees real economic opportunities in China, and sees that partnership growing.  At the same time, European public opinion is down on the US, and the militarism of the current administration appalls European politicians.  For the first time since WWII Europeans have an "eastern option," and aren't as solidly tied to the United States. 

Wild cards: Iran, Islam, Oil, and future US policy.  Clearly a less bombastic and militarist American foreign policy would quickly win over the Europeans who still see themselves along with America as part of a distinct western culture.    The Europeans don't want to see a nuclear Iran, but they are clearly unwilling to support going to war over that issue.  They also recognize that their growing Islamic population necessitates that a "culture war" with the Muslim world be avoided, and that the military approach of the US exacerbates rather than solves the problem.  This creates an incentive to work with the Russians and Chinese to limit American influence and options.

In short, geopolitical reality has dealt the US a losing hand, at least to the extent we try to dominate.  Our military is stretched to thin to truly dominate the Mideast, and military power/threats are utterly useless and irrelevant against China, Russia and EU.   They have no reason to need or to fear us, except for fear of how our willingness to use military power creates real problems.   The only solution is for the United States to fundamentally alter the approach to the geopolitics of the Mideast to work away from believing the answer is a dominant American force and presence to recognizing the need to work with other global and regional powers to create stability.  The lesson we are learning is that the days of hegemony are over, and imperialism is a non-starter.  The US has to learn to cooperate and compromise -- to play well with others!   (Hmmm, that's also a lesson my three year old needs to learn...)

May 8:  "We all know that crap is king, give them dirty laundry" - Don Henley

Don Henley's early eighties slam on the media with the song "Dirty Laundry" made the case that televised news was all about sensationalism, sexy anchors, and "crap" -- not about really trying to report what truly is happening, what matters.  If anything, things have gotten worse in the last 25 years.

Most media outlets are concerned about money and ratings, not about reporting what truly matters.  Corporations which control most media outlets operate with concern for the bottom line first; and for large corporations like CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC and CBS, the news is only a small (and increasingly) smaller part of the organization, judged on its revenue potential not its journalistic quality.

For the televised news this becomes clear when one compares foreign news with American news, or even CNN International (which actually does a pretty good job) with CNN domestic (which has become like Fox, only without the right wing tilt).  CNN International services an international audience that includes Americans traveling abroad and foreigners interested in the "American" perspective.  As such, its audience is better educated and more likely to reject or be turned off by sensationalism.  So at least I know CNN can do good televised reporting if it chose too. 

Newspapers also seem not to be as focused on truly investigative reporting as in the past, and face different challenges.  Local papers are often owned by larger corporations which limit their resources and reach.  To be sure, I enjoy reading my daily Kennebec Journal, and it actually does a good job choosing wire stories to run, but except for a few local issues it's not really breaking new ground.  Others like the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe are still worthwhile, but have had real problems lately in terms of being willing to take on power.  That's not completely their fault, though.

Even when Dana Priest wins a Pulitzer for reporting on the CNN secret prisons, threats loom that she or the Washington Post will face legal charges or be accused of "aiding the enemy."  Moreover, with the spread of the internet and the increasing desire of a new generation of Americans for glitzy news now, newspaper circulations are declining, meaning papers are also subject to the market pressures which have pushed televised media towards sensationalism.  They don't want to be accused of being too liberal or to lose audience (when my local paper pulled a conservative columnist because he just wrote about the same boring thing for four weeks, they were subject to numerous complaints of 'censorship and bias').  Moreover, even the big papers are increasingly under corporate control, which often creates conflicts of interest.  They claim not to "interfere" with editorial decisions, but you can do a lot if you own a paper to shape what kind of reporting is done even if you keep your hands off the specific day to day decisions.

So, other than Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, how can one break through this sensationalist prism?  One possibility, of course, is the internet.  And there is indeed access to reporting that is superb.  You can compare Al jeezera with CNN, read perspectives from Jerusalem, Berlin, Paris, London and Lagos.  It's possible to find blogs (some very reputable, like www.juancole.com) which gives inside information on what's "really happening" in Iraq and the Mideast.  With a desire to learn about the world and a willingness to dig, you  can get more detailed and better news about global affairs than any other time in history. 

So what's the problem?  The mainstream sources are becoming more sensationalized (newspapers are trying to hold their ground), but there is access to better information on the new media source, the internet.  Why not just go there?  Well, the problem is that most people aren't going to want to do the work to find that information, and while you and I can better inform ourselves, a democracy like the US needs a well informed public.  And the internet has enough sensationalistic bombast as well that most people will stick with that kind of stuff rather than truly digging and learning.  So you end up with a small well educated and well informed population -- those who want to be that way -- while the general public's knowledge of world events and their background recedes.  And that, perhaps more than anything else, is the most severe and dangerous national crisis we face.  

May 10:  Ahmadinejad's letter

Iranian President Ahmadinejad sent a 8 page letter to President Bush which the US brushed aside as meaningless posturing.  However, I think that perhaps it does contain clues about the fundamental cultural differences between each country.

We know how Americans feel about Iran.  It is a country run by fanatical Muslim extremists who hate Israel and cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons.  They are reckless, a threat to international stability, and had the gall to threaten the existence of Israel, bringing back memories of the holocaust.  Their religious practices are pre-modern and offend our sense of individual liberty.  We represent rationality and freedom, they represent religious intolerance and fanaticism.

Yet how do we look from the perspective of the Iranian government (or people)?  As Ahmadinejad points out in his letter, we claim to believe in peace and President Bush claims to be a Christian, but our actions suggest we are an out of control militarist bully who won't even allow other states to engage in nuclear research because of the possibility they could use that to get the bomb.   We have been aggressive, committed war crimes at Abu Ghraib, seem oblivious to the suffering of Iraqis and are arrogant in our use of power.  In their eyes, we look no better than Iran looks in the eyes of most Americans.

Ahmadinejad asks how the President can believe in Jesus Christ, whom Ahmadinejad calls "the Great messenger of God," and the "great messenger of peace and forgiveness" and yet justify the mass violence and aggression used.  He agrees that Saddam was a dictator and evil, but questions why the United States supported him when he was fighting against Iran and using chemical weapons against Iran.  He doesn't attack Judaism, but makes traditional political arguments against the existence of an Israeli state.  He argues that current political and economic trends are causing a disintegration of families, a loss of moral values, and a loss of tradition and culture.  This, he says, is leading to a rejection of western liberal democracy towards Islam (presumably Islamic democracy of the Iranian style).   Western liberal democracy has led to a vast gap between the rich and poor, massive corruption in the third world, and a loss of moral values. 

He doesn't try to convert President Bush to Islam, to be sure.  Apparently recognizing that the argument of cultural identities cuts both ways, he calls on Europe and the US to return to Christian principles, and reminds the President that Jesus and Christian traditions are very important in Islam as well.   At one point he seems to suggest that Iran and the US should work together to spread social justice and fight poverty and despair.  At the very least, his emphasis is not to threaten or bombast, but to stress spiritual and social values, and at least appear to reach out to President Bush.

Of course the hawks simply dismiss the letter as propaganda, and clearly one would be foolish to take any political leader at his word on an issue like this.  But within his words one did see that Iran's motivation is not some kind of rabid desire to attack Israel or expand Islam, but rather driven by what they see as a dangerous and aggressive west, threatening their values.  And it also contains a ray of hope, a possibility of getting out of this supposed "clash of civilizations" people talk about.

Respond positively.  If it's a bluff, call it.  If not, then perhaps we can turn the corner on this crisis, both here and in Iraq.   The President should tell him that he understands the difficulties, and he is willing to try to put aside past misunderstandings to focus on common values.  We should promise to respect Islam and not try to control politics in the Mideast, and work towards greater global social justice.  We should agree that poverty, corruption, and aggression create responses dangerous to even the most powerful state on the planet, and that we should do all we can to avoid militarism and embrace cooperative problem solving.  We should be steadfast in saying that we also expect our traditions to be respected, and our modern, liberal democratic system reflects deeply held western values.  We won't force it on them, just as we don't want Islam forced on us.  We will welcome a dialogue about the region, Israel, and a path to true stability. 

Neysayers will say "that's just appeasement, he's tricking us."  They said that about Gorbachev too.  To some, every "opponent" is a lurking Hitler, and the safest way is to simply oppose and not try to cooperate.  Clearly, we need to take care every step of the way; as Reagan and Gorbachev used to say, "trust, but verify."  But a true clash of cultures would ultimately devastate the West as well as much of the planet.  We can't even successfully occupy Iraq, let alone take on Iran and "Islam."  More aggression in the region will lead to more violence and anger.  Iran seems our biggest threat, but if we are willing to think creatively and take a chance, it could offer a great opportunity.   Simply treating Iran's regime as "by definition" an enemy of the United States may create a dangerous, self-fulfilling prophecy.  Now is the time to turn the relationship around.

(Note to all Simpsons' fans: Happy Snake Wacking day!)

May 11:  Declaring victory and leaving...slowly...

Lately there have been reports that the Pentagon is thinking of slowly drawing down forces in Iraq, perhaps to 110,000 by the end of the year, to maybe 70,000 at the end of next year.  The idea is not that people will leave early (since that creates morale problems for those left behind) but that as some units return they won't be replaced.  The rationale given for this is that more Iraqi soldiers have been trained and that a government is finally forming.  A government forming really isn't much of a reason; it should have formed long ago, the fact it took so long is actually a sign of worry, but the training of Iraqi troops is something to consider.  The bottom line: the US apparently is not striving for victory in Iraq, but rather looking for a way to exit without having to admit error or defeat. 

The insurgency is not declining in strength.  April was one of the deadliest months -- the deadliest this year -- and May is off to a bad start.  In April over 1100 Iraqis were killed just in the capital of Baghdad.   Areas in the south are becoming under the control of militias, and crowds cheered when a British helicopter was shot down.  Sabotage continues to keep oil production below pre-war levels, electricity in the heat of early summer is on only an hour or two a day (meaning food spoils), and sectarian killings are rampant.  Every day corpses are found, every day there are bombings and killings, there has been no increase in safety or no weakening of the insurgency.

But isn't al qaeda in decline?  People have been pointing to recent documents that suggest al qaeda considers itself to be losing in Iraq.  Well..DUH!  The insurgency has never been about terrorism or al qaeda, they've never been more than a small portion of Iraq's problems and aren't really a factor.  The war in Iraq is not about terrorism, not about al qaeda, and not about Islamic extremism.   Al qaeda like thinking has never been dominant in the Mideast, and if the US was not arousing anger by its militarism and killing in the region extremist Islam would be much weaker.  Al qaeda hoped the US attack in Iraq would give them an opening to replace the secular Baathist government with a radical Islamic one.  But in a country dominated by Shi'ites (al qaeda is Sunni) and Sunnis more interested in holding on to the perks of power, they really never had a chance.

I think the Bush Administration has realized that its hope of reshaping the Mideast by establishing a model democracy in Iraq that would house US bases and serve to support US interests in destabilizing the regimes in Tehran and Damascus has failed.  The Iraq war is a failure.  It got rid of Saddam but created dangers and costs far greater than any threat Saddam posed.  Overconfidence in the ability to project power to shape political outcomes carries a high price.  Now they realize, as the US public rebels against 'permanent bases,' and the Iraqi people against the 'US embassy - palace' with Shi'ite governments and al-Sadr as the kingmaker, it isn't going to happen.  So they will stick to their plan.  As soon as Iraqis can continue the right, the US will pull out.  The insurgency will continue, Iraq may slip into full scale civil war, but the US will simply extricate itself from the conflict it started.  There really is no other choice.  With public approval of the war and of Bush's Presidency at record lows, there is no chance to 'up the ante' and push for "victory," whatever that would mean.  The reality on the ground in Iraq isn't changing; every "turning point" turns out to be an illusion.

So, slowly, with more deaths and injuries (nearly 20,000 wounded so far -- some say that if medical care hadn't improved greatly since Vietnam, over half these could easily have been fatalities), the US will exit and leave Iraq and the region in a mess.   One can only hope that somehow once the foreign presence becomes less intense, the Iraqis will realize they can't use the US to promote their own ethnic interests or to have as the face of the enemy, and instead start to work together.  But it's up to them.  Even if one thinks we should fix what we broke, we don't have that capacity.  Reality bites.

May 12:  Rove panic attack

According to sources Karl Rove is planning a 2006 election campaign to hold Republican majorities in the House and Senate that will make the past brutally contested campaigns "look like Barney" (the children's show about a dinosaur who spreads love).  The idea will be to try to scare Americans that a Democratic congress would rise taxes, ruin the economy, make us weak against terrorism, and put the nation at risk.  There are two reasons for this strategy.  First, with the latest Bush approval rating at 29% (WSJ) he can't run on the positives of the GOP -- the GOP is increasingly split on issues like immigration and budget.  Second, the key in winning off year elections is to have your loyal voters turn out, and without creating fear of what a Democratic victory would mean, the GOP base -- the most conservative voters -- may not feel motivated to vote.

Of course what Rove and the Administration fear the most (besides a possible indictment of Rove down the line) is that a Democratic House or Senate would start a large number of investigations into the Bush Administration which would effectively end any hope that the Administration could put forth new initiatives.  It could also create campaign material for a 2008 Democratic campaign, and may even mean more legal troubles for many in the administration.   In short, this administration has not had to be accountable to Congress because the Republican Congress agreed to turn the other way on a variety of issues for political reasons.  A Democratic Congress would do the opposite, it would over-investigate, also for political reasons.

All this is troubling for a number of reasons, by two stick out: a) Congress should regardless of party hold a President accountable; and 2) the tactics envisioned by Rove contribute to the disintegration of a stable, democratic political culture in the US.  While many blame talk radio on the right for this disintegration of civility, at this point anger at President Bush and the emotion of the Iraq war mean that this affects the right and the left.

The problem isn't disagreement: as anyone reading this blog can see, I feel very comfortable disagreeing strongly with various policies and positions.  The problem comes when disagreement moves towards emotion, demonization, and fear mongering -- the kind of tactic that Rove is allegedly planning.  And, of course, this kind of approach works.  Propaganda is extremely dangerous.  The Rwandan genocide was made possible by intense anti-Tutsi propaganda, Hitler could not have risen to power without Goebbels propaganda machine.  Propaganda works because it succeeds, through the use of emotion and the repetition of basic themes, in altering how people think.  What once would have been dismissed as absurd suddenly becomes the conventional wisdom. 

People are susceptible to this primarily when they either choose a "side" and then stick with it no matter what.  That means it becomes acceptable to do whatever it takes to defeat an opponent, and they start believing their rhetoric -- the opponents are evil, bad, and not deserving of respect.  It also is acceptable to by-standers if they are not themselves informed about the issues.   Cognitive activity can limit affective biases -- if you're thinking about the issues you're less likely to be emotionally manipulated.  But our news media's sensationalism and lack of detail on the specifics of the large issues facing the country actually makes it more likely that propaganda will be effective.

All of this could ultimately lead to a breakdown in the core values of our democratic political culture, make it harder to solve problems, and in a worst case scenario even lead (perhaps in response to a terror attack) to one side seizing power and completely ignoring the constitution.  More likely we'll find ourselves unable to deal with major issues facing the US.  So whether one is Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Socialist, Green or Independent, please try to keep civility and remember that your political opponent is not an enemy, but another American wanting to figure out what's best. 

May 16:  The Great Society and The Ownership Society

Two Texans who loved to entertain guests at their ranch had bold visions for their Presidential administration.  One wanted to finish the work of Franklin Roosevelt to fight a war on poverty and build the "great society;" the other wanted to finish the work of Ronald Reagan to privatize social security, cut taxes and build the 'ownership society.'  The domestic visions of each were torn apart by an unpopular war, yet another parallel between Vietnam and Iraq.

After the 2004 election the President talked constantly about creating an "ownership society," with privatization of social security a major first step in a series of domestic reforms.   Like LBJ's view that expanding the American dream through governmental action would assure Democrats of dominance in the future, Bush's dream of expanding personal ownership and limiting governmental action was meant to assure future Republican dominance.  In either case we never really found out since neither leader could truly implement their agenda due to an ill-advised war.

My hunch is that most Americans find no contradiction between the vision of Roosevelt and the vision of Reagan.  We need government action to address severe problems of poverty and poor health, but we want a country of people who can help themselves and don't need government.  We want a great society that aspires to becoming an ownership society.  The political pendulum swings one way than the other, but ultimately both are needed not just to check and balance the other, but to complement the other.

Yet the example of how domestic plans were thwarted by international adventurism offers an important lesson.  For President Bush the grand vision was built on projections of budget surpluses (the tax cut was just giving back some of the projected surplus, according to Bush at the time) and lack of new government spending projects.  The terrorist attack of 9-11-01 did deal the economy a short term blow, and the projections of projections made in 2000 were built on an unrealistic assumption that economic cycles had been done away with, so some of what has happened was inevitable.  But the Iraq war is likely to cost $1 trillion in time, and has had a variety of ramifications on the American economy.  Now we have an extreme high debt and deficit, with no solution in site.  That, combined with Bush's unpopularity, assures that grand domestic policy change is exceedingly unlikely.  He cut taxes, but that's about it.

Johnson's efforts at building the "great society" yielded some benefits (and were continued by Nixon and Ford, who oversaw the building of most of America's modern social welfare system), but with 50,000 dead in Vietnam, the public split, and the Democratic party in disarray, LBJ could not muster the support to implement something more like what the Europeans have in terms of social protections. 

Regardless of whether you as a partisan love Johnson's approach and hate Bush's (or the other way around), or if you are a more typical American who say "both have a point, but can be taken too far," it's clear that the ability to address domestic problems and explore how best to "promote the general welfare" is far more difficult when we're involved in wars.  And, while some wars may be necessary, Vietnam and Iraq were clearly wars of choice based on a overconfident vision of American power.   I've focused on the cost of this war in terms of lives lost (American and Iraqi), families destroyed, life in Iraq becoming violent and chaotic (and things have been getting worse the past few weeks), and a variety of international consequences which weakens America's status in the world.  Another cost is the opportunity cost of being distracted from focusing on the problems we have at home.

May 17:  The immigration shuffle: how to distract America

Only time for a brief blog today.  I didn't see the Presidential address on immigration, but it seems interesting that suddenly that's all everyone can talk about, even as the rate of violence increases in Iraq, with the south near Basra becoming virtually ungovernable, and the insurgency more organized and lethal.  Even with a less intrusive set of tactics, American deaths remain constant, and the only "progress" people can report is that they may soon finally get a government, something it was thought they'd form long ago.

The GOP may suffer severely in the upcoming Midterm elections, and it is about the war -- President Bush's credibility has been lost (that was a strong point for him during his first administration), scandals continue, and the policy looks no closer to a successful conclusion than ever.  It is, of course, a quagmire, a civil war.  So what can one do politically in such a circumstance?  Distract.  Find another issue where one can appeal to emotion, can arouse a heated debate, create "something else" for a war-weary public to focus upon.  It doesn't even matter that President Bush's position (which is actually at base pretty good, though putting national guard troops at the border is a bit silly) is challenged even within his own party, at least people are talking about something else.   Continuing reports about plans on bombing Iran (though now usually called contingency rather than operational plans) are wholly ignored, and the violence in Iraq simply skimmed over.

I doubt that can last, but it does give us a taste of what a President can do politically to shape the conversation and political discourse.  Low approval ratings persist, however, and the most telling stat is that nearly 70% think the country is on the "wrong track."  While "normal rules" of a Midterm election would not expect the Democrats to regain power in Congress, especially after gerrymandering after the last census, there could be a political shift that will bring unexpected results and potentially major Democratic gains.  That is what the President is going to do everything in his power to avoid.  That means not talking about Iraq (when he did try to persuade the public a couple months ago, giving major speeches, support of the war dropped even more quickly than before).  I understand the political logic, but it seems a shame that it works.  What we should be doing is viewing graphic images of the war, see clear up the violence done to families, to children, to villages and towns.  We should get a taste of the kind of horror we helped unleash by invading Iraq and turning it into a near anarchy in much of the country (and the Turks and Iranians are massing troops on their border with Kurdish sections of Iraq, fearing Kurd intrusions).

One thing Democrats should do is make the war an issue and talk about it.  But most of them don't seem to want to take a principled stand, instead they want to be politically safe.  The Democratic party has real divisions, but often they remind me of a football team that is so concerned about making a mistake that they don't take risks and let their players perform.  Politics should be about principle, not power.  A principled argument against the war in Iraq is needed; without it, it will remain easier to distract the American public and prevent them from taking a close look at the most important issue facing the country today: our foreign policy means and goals.

May 23:  Iraq's future

The picture is clearing in Iraq, and it's not giving a very positive image.  Every day dozens are killed in sectarian violence, and anyone who knows the history of ethnic conflict knows that there is by this time a number of hardened well armed and fanatical warriors for their cause.  As the Taliban flexes new muscle in Afghanistan, the US and Great Britain have ceased even trying to promote reconstruction or assuring security.  Now the job is to figure out how to get out.  The leaders realize it's a lost cause, that the dream of spreading democracy is over.  But the hope is that they can spin it well enough to generate some 'benefit of the doubt.'  Bush needs it because he does not want to face a Democratic congress willing to use its right to investigate, Blair to try to have some efficacy at the end of this term.

New Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops by the end of the year.  Analysts here guess that the best we can do is be down to 100,000, and that's simply by scaling back our efforts.  So what do we make of all this?

First, one thing to be clear on: Iraq is a policy failure.  None of the original goals were met, and we are in a situation where the best case scenario would have been scoffed at as gloom and doom forecasting if predicted back in 2003.

A few points: Iraq is extremely corrupt, often abetted by American officials and business.  Iraq is likely the most corrupt state on the planet right now, as there is no real rule of law, and the parties share government power primarily to get a piece of the action.    This spells disaster, as there will likely be either fighting between and within sects for more of the pie, or an authoritarian power grab to control corruption and render the leadership immune from legal consequences.  Second, assassinations and violence are intense, Basra is in disarray, and bodies pile up at the morgue every day.  This has not declined, despite decreased American news coverage.  Such violence doesn't stop overnight, and could explode into a full scale civil war in the midst of anarchy in a worst case scenario.  There is little the US can do about this; we screwed up the country immensely, but can offer no solutions.

Al-Maliki's call for the removal of all foreign troops could be populist rhetoric, or it could be a sign that the Shi'ite leadership believes they are in the drivers seat and American involvement is only a nuisance -- especially since we try to shape who gets specific ministries or even who becomes prime minister.   The Kurds realize that they can probably accomplish more negotiating with the Shi'ites than with the Americans, whose alliance with Turkey limits what the US will tolerate.  The Shi'ites may believe that in any civil war they'll have the upper hand, so the Americans are unneeded.  If the foreign troops go, the Sunnis will realize that the Americans are out and won't be coming back.  Can they really regain power, or do they have to negotiate.  The Shi'ites, controlling vast wealth (remember the corruption) could make an offer -- support us and get a piece of the action, or fight a war you'll likely lose.  The rational thing would be support, but once violence reaches the level its at, rationality is often a casualty.   The longer US presence inflames the passions of the insurgents/resistance, the chance for all out civil war grows.

So what next?  Some report that the US is building what appears to be permanent bases around Iraq, and the embassy is described as palatial (I'd say even imperial).  But those were planned when people thought Iraq would end up a model democracy, welcoming a US presence, and allowing the US to pressure Syria and Iran to democratize the region.  In April 2003 I suspect a lot of neo-conservatives would have predicted that the US would have removed the Syrian regime and a humbled Iran would be negotiating reform.  Still, given the importance to the Bush administration of Iran, I suspect many hope that once things "settle down" in Iraq, a welcome to some kind of long term force will still be open.  But what if a massive conflict breaks out?  What if the current low level civil war explodes?  Or, what if the US leaves, is there any way to try to help Iraq's future?

The answer isn't promising.  One organization can come to the rescue.   The United Nations could provide a peace keeping force, contingent upon a political agreement in Iraq (likely one involving American withdrawal).  If this force was well-equiped, had legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi people, and had broad international support.  All of this costs money and people power, and the world community has historically been stingy about this.  Rwanda is a classic example.  But Iraq has oil and is strategically important, perhaps Russia, China, the countries of the region and the EU will decide that once the US gives up its imperial pretensions and accepts being part of a larger UN force, they'll pitch in and try to save Iraq.

Bottom line: the worst may be yet to come in Iraq.  The situation is not stable, current withdrawal talk is not due to the US "winning," but more due to changing domestic politics at home, and Shi'ite recognition of their position of power which the US could threaten.   This could still boil over and bring instability to the region, and of course an attack on Iran would create immense difficulty.  So welcome the coming draw down of troops, but recognize that despite their best efforts, the political deck was stacked against them.  The strategic disaster of attacking Iraq affects the thousands of widows, orphans, and destroyed families there, as well as American families and military personal.  For what?

May 24:  Shake Hands With the Devil

I have just completed the most powerful book I think I've ever read:  Shake Hands With the Devil by Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian General who headed the UNAMIR peacekeeping operation -- the operation in Rwanda during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The book was powerful on numerous levels.  Having a three year old son, he grabbed my heart right away with his story of his encounter with a three year old Rwandan boy, who was barely surviving, living in the same hut which contained the rotting corpses of his father and mother.  Dallaire decided to adopt the boy, but was prevented to do so by other boys -- RPF child soldiers who took him away.   He wonders what happened to the boy -- is he a child soldier himself now, did he survive, how has he coped with the life.  He reflects too on the impact such a genocide has on a society, as children and adults both are scared by the horror they endured -- a horror that gave Dallaire Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and brought him to the verge of self-destruction.

The most powerful and depressing aspects of his book, however, were his description of how much information the UN (and the Security Council) had, and how little was done.  He notes many times he tried to get the UN to undertake action to prevent things from unraveling, including sending on direct warnings of a slaughter.  He was ignored or brushed aside.  The really haunting question is not why didn't we get involved to stop the genocide, but why didn't we do what we could have to prevent it from even starting.  That is the lesson I hope comes from this (though looking at Darfur I'm doubtful it has), that if you ignore a problem until it becomes a crisis, the cost of solving it is much greater.  A strong UN show of force and concern in January 1994 may have prevented the deaths of nearly a million people.

His description of the French and Belgians evacuating their people and leaving Rwandians to suffer, the way in which his warnings were ignored, and his force cut to bare bones, having to scavenge for basic materials, is shocking.  While the suffering of the people touched him personally -- the people dying were humans, had families and lives -- they were treated as abstract objects by most of the international community, even those who visited and saw the suffering.  His details of the slaughter convey a small sense of how things must have looked, sounded and smelled, it defies ones' conception of humanity.  He also relays one surreal and sickening conversation with an American official where it was noted that one American life lost would only be worth it to save 85,000 Rwandans!  (One wonders if there was a kind of racial scale here -- 1 American = 500 Bosnians or 100 Germans or 50 British...)  And, while Republicans were aghast at Clinton's lies about Monica Lewinsky later on, no one called the President on his lies concerning Rwanda -- the US didn't let on how much it knew, then expressed regret after the fact.

But it wasn't just the Americans, French and Belgians who turned their backs, most of the world did.  Even the Tutsi RPF refused to compromise before the slaughter started, making it impossible for Hutu moderates to hold back the extremists, and Dallaire criticizes the RPF for its slow pace of military progress when so many Tutsis were dying.    He told the UN many times that just a few thousand soldiers could make a huge difference and perhaps stop the genocide (the killers were irregular militias armed with machetes -- even one UN soldier could usually drive them a crowd), only to be turned down and told not to intervene.  He was criticized for the rescues he did undertake, as they "needlessly" put UN blue helmets lives at stake.  I could go on and on, but if anyone is reading this blog, I want you to go to amazon.com now, and order the book.  It is something everybody should read, the mix of moral outrage and sadness wjll  lead to a determination by any conscientious reader to make the world a better place.   In his conclusion to the book he makes the following point:

"But many signs point to the fact that the youth of the Third World will no longer tolerate living in circumstances that give them no hope for the future. From the young boys I met in the demobilization camps in Sierra Leone to the suicide bombers of Palestine and Chechnya, to the young  terrorists who fly planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we can no longer afford to ignore them. We have to take concrete steps to remove the causes of their rage, or we have to be prepared to suffer the consequences. The global village is deteriorating at a rapid pace, and in the children of the world the result is rage. It is the rage I saw in the eyes of the teenage Interahamwe militiamen in Rwanda, it is the rage sensed in the hearts of the children in Sierra Leone, it is the rage I felt in crowds of ordinary civilians in Rwanda, and it is the rage that resulted in September 11. Human beings who have no rights, no security, no future, no hope and no means to survive are a desperate group who will do desperate things to take what they believe they need and deserve."  (page 521).

The book also helps show why some people are touched and driven to action by such cases, and why others can ignore them and pursue their self-interest regardless of the suffering of others.  I'll address that issue in my next blog.

May 26:  Disconnected Minds

Yesterday I ended with a question: why is it that some people take seriously the suffering of others, while others ignore it?  The newspaper yesterday also had a headline about legal proceedings concerning a local woman who killed a foster child, a five year old girl, by wrapping her up in duct tape and putting her in a closet as punishment.  How can someone do that to another human? 

It is clear in the case of foster children that if a child isn't ones' own biological child the tendency for abuse is greater.  Cinderella put that notion into a fairy tale with an evil step mother.  So it seems that there is something in our make up that gives us a kind of collective identity with our families that we don't share with others.   However, it would be too easy to say that nature simply causes us to connect with "our people" and ignore others.  Most foster parents and parents who adopt do not abuse, and love their children as their own -- biology doesn't matter to them.   People learn to identify with friends, with their community, and even their country and ethnic group.  Perhaps the ability to connect is natural, but our social structures work against that natural compassion, causing us to limit our connections to family and/or close friends.

So what do we make of Romeo Dallaire and the committed UN peace keepers he lead?  How is it that they connected to the people of Rwanda while the rest of the world saw them in the abstract?  His story about the three year old is telling -- he was ready to adopt the boy.  He felt a kind of compassion and even love for a stranger because he saw him as an innocent in the midst of intense suffering, and his compassion allowed him to feel a connection, a connection that is with him to this day as he wonders what happened to that child.  Compare that to the bureaucrat in New York, or the person reading about Rwanda on the bus.  All those strange black Africans killing each other.  Horrid, but far away, a different people, a different culture.  As Neil Peart put it, "we disengage, we turn the page."

Dallaire could not disengage or turn the page, the suffering was in his face every day, he knew the people and their humanity.  He knew that every one of the nearly 1 million Rwandan deaths was a tragedy, that families were being destroyed, childrens' lives brought into disarray, and a society scarred.  Being there, he felt the trauma.  To the bureaucrat or casual newspaper reader, the killing is an abstraction, easily rationalized away -- we can't intervene because it's a civil war, we don't want to take sides, it's not worth us getting involved in their fight, and war and military violence aren't the solution to anything.  While we can make good solid arguments for all of those points, to someone like Dallaire in the field they must sound like a lot of navel gazing.  People are being butchered!

Does one cynically say that you have to be there in order to truly identify with the people; that it's impossible for someone sitting far away reading about the tragedy to have that sense of commonality?  I don't think so.  You can't get the immediacy of Dallaire's experience, but that doesn't mean connection is impossible.  Conversely, Dallaire writes of people who visited Rwanda but nonetheless did not have the same sense of urgency he and some others had.  Clearly someone can experience it and still retain their disengaged approach.  No, the key is how individuals consider the situation, do their minds connect with the victims and their sufferings, or do they disengage and convert reality to mental abstractions?

If you don't have the immediacy of the experience (and most of us hope we never will), the key is imagination.  I remember a commercial for a horror film back when I was in high school.  The end was, "keep telling yourself, it's only a movie."  In other words, you'll be so engrossed in the story that you'll need to remember it's fiction, an abstraction.  Your imagination can lead you to an experience of fear similar to that portrayed in the film; we have the ability to connect with experiences we don't directly encounter.  One movie reviewer wrote recently that when films are disturbing he'll focus on the technical aspects in order to treat the film as an object to be analyzed rather than to engage the subject matter.  We have the capacity as humans to imagine an identification with others, and feel compassion and empathy, or to abstract and detach, to analyze and categorize.  Our culture pushes us to the latter.   Connecting with others leads to difficult questions and can be personally disturbing, and in our culture it is met with distrust.

David Hume argued that novels were a way to develop moral education because it would get us to identify with people different than ourselves, and thus recognize we share a common humanity.  People who read Dallaire's book, or Loung Ung's book on her experiences in the Cambodian genocide, or hear Chanda Luker speak about her Cambodia experience, or see gripping accounts of current suffering in Darfur and other parts of Africa often find themselves totally engrossed in that very human and ennobling experience of compassion and identification with the other.  When Luker spoke at UMF, people told me later it changed the way they look at life, that they were disturbed for days.  The Cambodian genocide was no longer just an abstraction, they had learned at least in part to identify with the victims. 

This is getting long, so I'll sum up and continue with the next blog (as well as discussing the move from compassion and imagination to commitment and action).  We have the capacity to identify with victims.  Our culture gives us tools to easily avoid that by disconnecting our minds from that natural compassion through abstraction and objectification.  We can over come this -- and no matter how disturbing we should try -- through imagination, by trying to identify with the victims.  Think of what you would feel if it were your child suffering, or you were in a particular circumstance.  Books like Dallaire's, or movies like Schindler's List and Hotel Rwanda can make that task easier.  And, I think the more people read about such things and practice their compassion and connection to others, the easier it will come.  We have the ability to care.  We can't simply blame nature and say, "people care about their own family/tribe and it's natural not to care about others."  People simply are able to care; personally and culturally we construct the limits and confines of that caring. 

May 28:  Rep. John Murtha, Haditha and two kinds of victims

I do have another blog coming in response to the Dallaire book and the issues I've brought up in the last two entries, but today I feel compelled to write about something else -- so I will!

In March Time magazine had a story of two dozen or so Iraqis killed, including women and children.  Iraqis claimed it was a brutal attack by the Americans on innocents, the US military claimed it was the result of a roadside bomb and a firefight with insurgents.   A few weeks ago Representative John Murtha, D-PA spoke out claiming that American troops had committed atrocities.  He was viciously attacked by some on the right for making such a charge that "only helps our enemies" and can be "used for propaganda," but now the military is admitting that indeed this looks like a mass killing of innocents, and murder charges may be filed. 

The news media is dealing with the obvious comparisons to Mai Lai, what this does for America's image in Iraq and the Muslim world, and a host of angles which guarantee this will be a big media story.  So I just want to focus on two aspects that don't get as much attention: the role of John Murtha, and the "other" victims of war -- those soldiers who had likely been honorable good men, but who when thrown in the context of bloodshed and violence became killers of women and children.  They are a different kind of victim, they are not innocent victims, nor can they be excused for what they did.  But it also would be wrong to simply focus on them as the 'bad guys' and ignore the whole context.  But first to Murtha.

Rep. Murtha, a former military man who is a military hawk originally in favor of the war, is definitely not some kind of "peacenik" who wants to discredit the military; quite the opposite. He is known to have numerous inside connections to the Pentagon, and has a strong devotion to the American military. So all the bloggers and radio talk jocks trying to attack him as hurting the war effort or grandstanding for political purposes have it wrong: he is saying publicly what many in the Pentagon want to say, but can't.  His opposition to the war and consistent criticism was driven not by politics, but by listening to his military friends at top levels of the Pentagon.  So I assume that he brought this issue forward because people at high levels wanted it brought forward, and were afraid that some in the military, perhaps the civilians at DOD, were trying to brush this aside.  The temptation to deny and cover this up is immense, given how it hurts America's cause and reputation.  But as with Abu Graib, the truth ultimately does come out, and a cover up is harmful to the military in a multitude of ways.  So I read Murtha as the Pentagon's "inside man," telling what some of the top military brass want the public to hear, even as they have to tread the party line.  Whatever the case, it's clear that Murtha helped assure this would be a thorough public investigation.

Trickier is how to look at the soldiers who perpetrated such acts.  Clearly one cannot excuse or justify such brutality, but it strikes me that things are more complex than at first glance.  The Administration will claim these are a few bad apples who don't reflect the true character of the American military, the anti-war crowd will call it symptomatic of the problems in Iraq, and say Americans simply don't care about average Iraqis.

It seems to me that in a sense the soldiers were also victims, albeit not innocent victms.  It is unlikely they are natural born killers, who, absent a war in Iraq, would have viciously attacked people on the streets back in the US.  They likely were good, dedicated people who found themselves in a war, perhaps a year or two of active duty in Iraq, fighting an enemy whose tactics of surprise assure constant stress and fear.  Add to that the fact that the public there dislikes the American presence, while the military people believe their job is to put their lives on the line to help these people.  Over time a kind of anger and resentment can build and explode in a burst of angry violence, unpremeditated and out of character for the people involved.  These soldiers will never have a normal life.  Even if they manage to avoid the worst punishment, once they are back in the "real world" the horror of what they've done will never leave them, it will eat away at their heart and soul every single day of their lives.  And unlike innocent victims, they won't find a lot of sympathy; they killed women and children after all.

People say "support the troops," but what does that mean?  By sending troops into a war, and keeping them there even after the reasons for the war are shown to be wrong, does real damage to these troops.   The experience damages them psychologically as well as physically in ways that will be part of their lives (and their families' lives) forever.  Not all suffer to an extreme; combat veterans suffer more than support staff, in most cases.  But even if it isn't the lions' share who come back with severe problems, enough people will have been scared, changed, and perhaps even had their lives ruined (it happened to many Vietnam vets) because of a political decision to go to war.   Once home, they will be forgotten about; already we hear stories of the military abandoning injured Iraq vets needed special care.  Estimates are that 30 to 50% will suffer post-traumatic stress disorder; this can itself destroy a life, lead to suicide, divorce, child abuse, and other problems.

Because we buy what Chris Hedges (in *War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning*) calls the "myths" of war, people don't comprehend the human cost on the soldiers.  Soldiers are considered honorable and brave, and it is said they are 'sacrificing' to 'protect freedom.'   Yet they are trained to kill, must endure intense stress, and easily can crack.   I find myself with mixed feelings about soldiers such as those at Abu Ghraib and Haditha.  Yes, they have committed war crimes, most soldiers don't succumb to that, and this must be dealt with harshly.  But it seems a shame that the people who put them in situations so extreme, stressful and violent, who created the conditions that made these crimes possible, don't have to share the responsibility.  It's a shame that we buy the myths of war so fully that we accept the "bad apples" excuse and aren't able to truly confront what we're doing to our fellow citizens -- barely adults, at the start of their lives -- by sending them to war.  Perhaps if people understood this, they'd be less likely to support unnecessary wars sold on abstract causes or fears.   

May 30:  Abstraction and Invisibility

On September 11, 2001 nearly 3000 people, mostly Americans, were killed in the al qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.  The world watched, the names were listed, families interviewed, pictures and stories told.  The outrage inflamed American passions, and we expected the world to respond in kind (and for awhile they did).

Rwanda 1994.  Or Afghanistan 2006.  Monday there were massive anti-American riots in Kabul, Afghanistan with at least 30 killed, over a hundred wounded, and thousands participating.  The cause was an accident where an American military convey collided with a car killing several passengers.  Obviously, for one car accident to spark riots, there is more to the story.  At the same time, a US air strike in Helmand against a Mosque allegedly holding Taliban leaders killed fifty.  The military says these were all Taliban fighters, but locals claim innocents have been killed.  A massive US bombing campaign in Afghanistan has killed hundreds in the past few weeks, including an incident where 16 children were confirmed dead.  The mix of lack of internal security and a US bombing campaign that is driving up the number of innocent deaths lies behind the surging anti-Americanism in Afghanistan.

The official line: the Taliban has been mounting an aggressive and effective effort to destabilize the countryside and thus action has to be taken to stop them, lest Afghanistan become a breeding ground for terror again.

OK...but why such massive bombing?  Doesn't that just aid the Taliban by helping them generate recruits?  We tried similar tactics in Cambodia to support Lon Nol in the early seventies, and that just helped push the Khmer Rouge into power.   Right now the Taliban is waging a fierce offensive in southern Afghanistan, and could likely control a relatively large portion of the country.  NATO troops find themselves having to fight their way out; they were just there as a 'stabilization and reconstruction' force.  NATO states, however, don't show a desire to increase force levels, meaning that there may be little to stop Afghanistan from a larger war.  For the Taliban, this is the fifth year of a war that started in 2001.  Moreover, Iran and Pakistan have their hands in the mess; Iran could create havoc in Afghanistan as well as Iraq should the US attack Iran.

The unofficial line: We have no resources to do anything but bomb in Afghanistan because coalition troop presence is too small.   After the Taliban's defeat and the instillation of a new government, the Bush administration assumed democracy would take, and Afghanistan would be a success.  They did not spend time or effort to guarantee success, they moved on to Iraq.  Now with the problems in Iraq, the US cannot divert troops to Afghanistan, and with public opinion so low at home, cannot add a second war.   This is also similar to the situation with Cambodia in the early seventies; there were no options to do more to aid the Lon Nol government, so bombing was the answer:  Cheap, easy, relatively safe (for those in the planes) and 'collateral damage' can be brushed aside by focusing on what was targeted.

The problem is, such a strategy doesn't work, and usually makes things worse.   People need to understand that while Afghan (and Iraqi) civilian deaths seem minor (they hardly get mentioned on the news), and the destruction of villages and parts of cities seems "normal" (it's war after all), the impact these acts have on the people there is the same as the impact of 9-11 on Americans.  It arouses anger -- anger being expressed throughout Afghanistan (and Iraq) at the US.

There are two parallels with Rwanda.  One, of course, is the invisibility of the victims as far as the west and western media were concerned.  The other is that there is an understaffed force there with a  job that's beyond its capacity.   General James Jones' situation isn't as dire as Dallaire's -- he's not facing a genocide, and as an American NATO commander he assures the US isn't going to completely brush him off.  But the rules of engagement for the troops are strict, reflecting the concerns of various NATO states.  He begs for more support (he has 18,000, but the violence jeopardizes support from countries who did not see themselves involved in a guerrilla war), but is unlikely to get it (even the US is pulling 3000 more troops out this year, if things go as planned). 

I'm not yet sure what I would recommend for policy in Afghanistan -- I'll have to gather more information and think about it.  But a root problem connects our failures in Iraq and Afghanistan with genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda -- the invisibility and abstraction of the victims in western eyes.  In Rwanda this led to inaction, even at a time before the genocide began when warnings were there and something far short of a massive military intervention could have been done.  In Cambodia and now Afghanistan this led to the use of bombing campaigns to try to defeat the enemy on the cheap, not truly appreciating the 'blow back' in terms of public unrest and anger.  In Iraq it's been a major reason the Administration was so surprised by the strength and endurance of the insurgency.  By keeping the victims invisible to our eyes, we (including top leaders) didn't comprehend how such death and destruction would affect the people to whom the victims are very visible -- their families and fellow citizens.  If Rwanda shows how this abstraction and invisibility can lead the West to ignore genocide, Iraq and Afghanistan show it can also lead to foreign policy fiascos for the powerful who don't understand the true impact of their actions on real people.

May 31:  Just a thought...

Today is busy so the entry will be short, and not touch on the heavy topics of the last week or so.  But I am a bit taken aback by how Republicans such as Sensenbrenner and Hastert are so upset over the search of Rep. William Jefferson's (a democrat) home.  People have already pled guilty to bribing Jefferson, and documents and money were found in the search, which was approved by a judge.  Sensenbrenner argues that this is a separation of powers issue, but separation of powers doesn't mean Congressmen are immune from the law.

ABC reported awhile back that Hastert was being investigated for bribery; Hastert's office and the FBI denied that vehemently, ABC stuck by their story.  So it makes me wonder...

Just over a decade ago Italy was caught in a scandal labeled Tangentopoli (bribery city) as the "Mani Pulite" (clean hands) campaign brought down virtually all of Italy's political leaders from a variety of parties.  The DC (Christian Democrat) and PSI (Italian Socialist Party) ceased to exist as their leaders were caught up in the scandal.  Many Italians mark that as the end of the "first republic," with a new era (though given Berlusconi's record, not an era without corruption) unfolded.

Could it be that a kind of cultural of corruption has developed in Washington, which is much greater than the kinds of cases we expect or have seen in the past?  Could Abramoff be symbolic of something far deeper in Washington, one that might touch the top levels of Congress?  Could Hastert and Sensenbrenner be fighting to try to assure that a major corruption scandal doesn't unfold? 

Probably not, I'm not usually persuaded by conspiracy theories, and Italy was always known for its inside deals and corruption.  I lived there for a year in the eighties and have a lot of stories about little bits of corruption in politics and everyday life.  It's unlikely anything as extensive as Tangentopoli is happening here.  But even skeptical Italians were taken aback by the level of corruption (which really grew under Craxi in the eighties), and there could be more to this than meets the eye...