The Global Citizen |
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We make our friends. We make our enemies. God makes our neighbors. G.K. Chesterton
Is there a great moral nation, The Global Citizen is published in conjunction with The McGill Report, where international news is a good local story.
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3.31.2003
HAVE WE FORGOTTEN? You didn't see doubt at a "Support Our Troops” rally here in Rochester yesterday, but I don't know why -- there were lots of Vietnam veterans in the crowd. Hundreds of people waved American flags and cars were parked a half-mile in every direction. "Liberate Iraq" was the favorite placard and card tables were stacked with inspirational articles, poems, and letters from the Internet. A biker club showed up – I counted 75 Harley Davidson’s parked – and there were plenty of leather chaps, vests, and biker boots in the crowd. Lots of folks sat in folding chairs on the grass and it felt a bit like a tailgate party. An Uncle Sam on stilts was walking around.
A country music song was playing on the PA system when I arrived: Some people say we don’t need this war,The song recalled for me the high-minded rationales for the Vietnam War and how the patriotism in the early part of that war turned ultimately, for so many veterans, into bitterness and a sense of betrayal. Are we applying the right lessons from that experience to this war? A Fox radio broadcaster was the event's emcee. A singer from Plainview, Donna Chapel, sang the national anthem, and then all the kids in the audience came to front to lead the audience in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. A Mayo Clinic ambulance helicopter flew overhead, in lieu of an F-15. A woman from an eagle aviary in Wabasha, MN, on the Mississippi River, showed a beautiful eagle to the crowd, pumping her arm so the eagle spread its wings to an impressive four feet across or so. A few anti-war protestors stood off to the side, maybe 20 of them, holding up signs abjuring all war and violence, and a half-dozen city police stood nervously between them and the pro-war crowd. U.S. Representative Gil Gutknecht told the audience in his speech that “periodically the tree of liberty needs to be nourished with the blood of patriots.” The best speech was by a local county sheriff, Terese Amazi. She said: “Many people ask me, ‘What can we do to make our neighborhoods safer?’ And my answer is, know your neighbors. Somewhere along the line we’ve gotten away from knowing our neighbors, and we’ve got to get back there.” I wondered how far the idea of "neighbors" might expand. Could it reach to Iraq?
3.30.2003
THE LANGUAGE OF WAR: I'm going to collect war language I hear and read in our mainstream media these days. Specimen #1: "We're going to hunt them down and kill them like the dogs that they are." -- Major Robert Bevilacqua, a talking head on Fox TV.
3.29.2003
GLOBAL SAR VIRUS: In Hong Kong, everyone is wearing masks and they shut the schools for nine days. Here's an FAQ.
"AMERICANS ARE EASIER TO TERR0RIZE:" On the Fresh Air radio show yesterday, host Terry Gross asked Christopher Dickey, the Middle East editor of Newsweek magazine who is now in Jordon, why even among Iraqi exiles there is only ambiguous support for the American action to oust Saddam. Dickey said:
What you hear again and again from Iraqis, who can obviously more freely here than they can in Iraq, and many of whom are deeply opposed to Saddam, is “Look, we couldn’t get rid of Saddam, but we’re glad the Americans are getting rid of Saddam because we know that then we can get rid of Americans. Not that that they’ll leave, but the Americans are a lot easier to terrorize, and they’re a lot easier to eliminate, and a lot easier to get rid of, than Saddam Hussein."
"IF THEY COULD DIP THEIR HANDS IN HIS BLOOD:" Later in the program, Gross asked Dickey, "Why haven’t people been running out in Iraq and greeting the tanks and greeting the soldiers as liberators?" Dickey's response:
People like Kanan Makiya Achmed Chalabi, these leading exiles that the Pentagon, or at least the civilians in the Pentago, listen to very closely, have been preaching the same line for years. And that is, that the Iraqi people hate Saddam Hussein, they detest Saddam Hussein and therefore they will love the Americans when they arrive. Well the truth is the Iraqi people do detest Saddam Hussein, but they don’t love the Americans. And that is a huge miscalculation. In terms of what’s happening on the ground, Saddam has been very smart in the way he’s distributed his thugs throughout the country. Instead of concentrating all his ability to intimidate in Baghdad the way he used to do, he’s distributed his thugs throughout the country. Instead of concentrating all his ability to intimidate in Baghdad, the way he used to do, what he’s done is to take some of the Saddam Fedayeen, the Republican Guard, the Special Guard, and spread them around the country so their presence is felt in every medium-sized city and even small towns in Iraq. People are afraid of Saddam and afraid of these people. Fear is a motivating factor with them. I don’t think it’s the only factor but it certainly is an important one. Saddam’s ability to terrorize his population has a kind of mythical aspect to it. It’s built into the population. You could almost say its genetic after 35 years of Baath party rule with Saddam either in the background or at the head of government. People are not going to believe that Saddam is not in power, or not able to retaliate against them, until they know he’s dead. I mean really dead. If they could dip their hands in his blood maybe they would be convinced.
"THIS WAR HAS NO CREDIBILITY:" Dickey had this to say about the impact of the war on America's reputation in the world:
The important thing for people in the U.S. to understand is that this war has almost no credibility as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Certainly not in the Arab world. The media coverage people are seeing coming out of the U.S., on CNN and other networks, and in the American press, just doesn’t fit with the perception that exists here among Arabs, among Muslims, and in fact among most Europeans. I think that is going to lead to a greater and greater disconnect between the U.S. and the American public and this part of the world that could prove very dangers and a real long-term liability.
"I FEEL SICK WHEN I SEE BUSH ON TV": Just got this e-mail from a friend in Hong Kong:
Thinking about the Iraq people. If no mass destruction weapons are found, why do you think the U.S. and U.K. invaded Iraq? If no such weapons are found, how can Bush justify the war? Of course, he can justify it -- for money, for the American economy. A good reason for Americans. I read the news about the U.S. government granting a contract to a U.S. company for re-building Iraq. It's shameful! Bush is destroying other peoples' country and stealing their money for American firms to rebuild their own home! I just feel sick when I saw Bush on the TV. His presentation skills are terrible. When he talks, I feel that he really enjoys killing the Iraq people. He shouldn't claim himself a Christian.
WATCH THE MONEY: The ultimate test of the war in Iraq will be the depth of our committment to helping Iraq rebuild and to establish a humane civil society and at least proto-democratic institutions. So far, the Bush administration isn't doing well on this score. The $74.7 billion that Bush has requested from Congress to pay for the war includes $63 billion for fighting the war, including replenishing used munitions and other matériel to prewar levels; and only about $8 billion for relief efforts and immediate reconstruction. Of the $8 billion in relief and reconstruction, roughtly $5 billion is not even earmarked for spending in Iraq but rather to aid "supportive" countries in the region affected by the war, like Pakistan, Israel, Jordan and Turkey. The request is only for expenditures through this September and does not include long-term reconstruction costs, the administration said. Still, the symbolism is lousy. I would argue that we should spend money on reconstruction dollar-for-dollar against money for the war. Instead, we're looking at a paltry 4% so far. This figure suggests that Bush & Co. consider the reconstruction of Iraq, and the support of democracy there, a mere afterthought.
BRIGHT AND SHINING LIES? I awoke this morning uneasy for having written idealistically about the war in Iraq -- for having argued that it would be a good thing to remove Saddam Hussein if it were done in the right way and for the right reasons.
But if we decide our leaders are fighting the wrong way and for the wrong reasons, then what? Even as I was writing yesterday, Rumseld was equivocating, and very possibly blatantly lying, to the American people at his daily Pentagon press briefing. I caught it on C-SPAN last night and it was troubling. A reporter asked Rumsfeld about a statement made in the Washington Post that morning from Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, the senior ground commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, who was quoted as saying: "The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against." Rumsfeld answered the reporter's question by saying: "I have not read the article, [and] I know of no one in Washington who's said anything to General Wallace." If these statements are true, Rumsfeld's ass should be fired immediately for incompetence that threatens the lives of our soldiers. If it is false, he's lying and he can't be trusted. It's a bad situation. Chris Hedges, a foreign correspondent who has covered many wars (e.g., in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Kosovo, Sierra Leone), recently wrote a book called "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning." The other day I heard him say: "War always ends in betrayal of the young by the old, and of the people by the politicians." Those of us who have argued that a possible good can come of eliminating Saddam Hussein, even at the cost of human lives, have ascribed to an "ends justifies the means" morality in this case. We've made an allowance for the evil of war. It's an idealistic stance and by taking it we run the risk, in being eager to stress the positive and to work for a good outcome, of not seeing reality as clearly as we should. We should remember Chris Hedges' warning. We should ask what history teaches and we should search our memories both from our reading, and from our own experience, about what we've learned about how wars usually play out from beginning to end. When have we heard bright and shining lies told about war? Are we hearing them told to us again? If we lose trust in the leaders who are pursuing this war in our names, we must withdraw our support.
SADDAM HUSSEIN IS A WMD: I think we should keep fighting in Iraq until Saddam Hussein is gone, but only if the American people can look themselves in the mirror and agree on a few important points. I’ll enummerate those points in a minute. Here's how I arrived at my position.
Watching interviews with U.S. soldiers in southern Iraq -- bone-weary yet adrenalized from the shock of combat -- and hearing them talk about what they've witnessed of Iraq through their gunsights, a thought came to me. We talk about weapons of mass destruction. We ask whether we will find weapons of mass destruction when the war is over and Saddam is gone. I think the question may be beside the point. I think Saddam himself is a WMD. Look at the picture of ordinary Iraqis running out of their mud houses to get water from Marine trucks. Watch the interviews that jobless Iraqi men in Nasriya and El Qasr give to the "embedded" newsmen travelling with the U.S. and British troops. They're not only sick and starving and dressed in rags, but their eyes are filled with fear. They look like horses or dogs that have been whipped and starved by their owners, their ribs sticking out, shrinking from the gentlest approach of another human being. They distrust a compassionate smile. Why should we expect them to greet us like liberators? They haven't had a promise kept to them by any government for more than 30 years. Meanwhile, they have seen friends and family members disappear, whisked away by Saddam's guards to be tortured and killed on the mere suspicion of disloyalty. Saddam's henchmen make surprise visits to kindergarten classes where they ask the kids: "What do your parents think of Saddam?" If the child gives the wrong answer, the entire family disappears that night. The reporter John Burns said on NPR tonight: "I was speaking with an Iraqi friend, a man of very considerable moral and physical courage. And yet, he shared an honest thought with me today about Saddam and then immediately was reduced to the most pitiable state, quivering with fear and saying 'They'll shoot me ... they'll shoot me.'" Then Burns said: "I've been to the torture rooms of the Abu Ghareb prison, which stands three kilometers from where I am standing at the moment. And I have seen the meat hooks hanging from the ceiling in those rooms, rows and rows of them. So I know where the story ends for people who disagree with Saddam." Now we have the sight of Iraqi soldiers with bullet holes in their heads, shot by their commanders. And waves of suicide bombers peddling bicycles directly into tanks. Is there a word for societal suicide? Societal suicide has been ordered by Saddam. He's a WMD. Am I wrong? Some say there are many evil dictators in the world and we can't be judge, jury, and executioner to every one. But isn’t it reasonable to suggest that the U.S. would be doing itself and the world a favor by helping to eliminate the very most dangerous of these global criminals? Every sovereign country seeks to permanently confine its most dangerous criminals. Shouldn’t the world try to do the same to those who threaten the progress of global life? If we ask ourselves which of these super-criminals the U.S. is in the best position to do something about right now, wouldn’t that be Saddam Hussein?Listening on my car radio tonight to reporters give their eye-witness accounts of the grotesque distortion of a human society that Iraq has become, I composed a proposition that goes like this: The world will be a better place without Saddam Hussein, and the U.S. should continue the military effort to eliminate him, either acting alone or as leader of an international coalition, if and only if a majority of the American people agree to the following:If we can't agree on these points we should pack up our troops as quickly as possible, withdraw from Iraq, and proceed directly to a long national town meeting to finally decide who we are and what we believe and what we really want to accomplish with our lives as Americans in this super-endangered world.
3.28.2003
GOOD PEOPLE WANT US TO FAIL: It's depressing yet true as per this good editorial from Nicholas Kristof today. I get similar e-mails from friends in China who are educated, have lived in the United States, and are compassionate -- and they now fear the United States and would like to see it fail in Iraq. This really saddens me. Our President is a major reason for this. On top of being intellectually narrow and internationally inexperienced, he is also totally tone deaf as a speaker. Yesterday I heard him say to reporters: "The Iraqi people have to know that we are going to liberate them." The tone of his voice was determined, yes, but it was also snappy and petulant and bitter in a way that would have made the word "destroy" sound far more natural in the sentence than the word "liberate" actually did sound. So Bush says the former, but I think people hear the latter. And that is a real problem for us in the world.
3.27.2003
WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING: How's that for a between-the-eyes book title? It's the title of a new book by Chris Hedges, a reporter at The New York Times. It's certainly not the definitive take on war, but it's a really important one. Maybe the critical one -- the meaning of war to individual human beings. In the introduction, Hedges doesn't argue that war is always morally wrong, only that it's inevitably done with foreknowledge of its evil, and thus must be followed with conscious repentance. He cites Reinhold Niebuhr's reminder that we must all act, and then ask for forgiveness. Indeed the book so far reads like Hedge's own act of repentance -- he's been a war correspondent for many years in Central America and Central Europe. And he's suffered whopping doses of war addiction, war stress, and post-traumatic stress syndrome. Here's a good interview with him at Poynter, containing a timely warning for journos covering any war:
In war you need a hero. We turned Schwarzkopf into a hero. You need a hero in wartime. That mythic narrative of war boosts ratings, it sells newspapers -- it's how William Randolph Hearst built his empire -- and sensory reporting, without that imposed mythic narrative, doesn't. So yes, I think journalists always think about how they're going to tell the story. The problem is in wartime, we need the hero, we need the evil enemy, we need the hometown boy, we need the story of pathos. We fill the slots on the stage to fit the myth. And that's part of the danger, I think.Here in Minnesota the local newspapers are filled with these stories of hometown heroes marching off to war. We should read these stories with interest and compassion, yet also critically, asking ourselves what kinds of myths we are propagating and buying into during this confrontation with the evil of war.
AN APOLOGY FROM AN ARAB: I missed this when it first appeared in Time last September on the anniversay of 9/11. It's from the Egyptian playwright Ali Salem and it explains, like no other 800 words I've read, why that tragedy happened. Don't miss it.
3.26.2003
IRAQ, ISRAEL, AND THE U.S.: Here's a truly strategic, scheming, Kissingerian look at the power politics of the war in Iraq from writer Robert D. Kaplan. Is it really possible that our policymakers are thinking this far ahead? Probably not. But this writer is and he may be giving them ideas. (I'm not sure if I like that or not.) For example:
Only after we have achieved something more decisive in our war against al Qaeda, or have removed the Iraqi leadership, or both, can we pressure the Israelis into a staged withdrawal from the occupied territories. We would then be doing so from a position of newfound strength and would not appear to be giving in to the blackmail of those September 11-category criminals, the Palestinian suicide bombers. But after the Israelis have reduced the frequency of suicide bombings (through whatever tactics are necessary), and after, say, the right-wing Israeli leader Ariel Sharon has passed from the scene, Bush, if he achieves a second term and thus faces no future elections, will act.Is there any doubt that we are getting our ass into deep alligators here?
A MUCH TOUGHER FIGHT: An excellent on-the-ground report from Michael Kelly in Iraq -- best I've seen. And very troubling.
RUMSFELD & MCNAMARA: Donald Rumsfeld reminds me of Robert McNamara. Both were largely shaped by the corporate world and by the "business as warfare" model. McNamara tried to run Vietnam like GM, and Rumsfeld may be trying to run Iraq like Searle. Following this article by General Wesley Clarke, Rumsfeld seems to be using a "just in time" strategy of troop deployment -- emphasizing speed and flexibility and leanness over amassing irresistible force. But Vietnam showed that strategy doesn't work in strange lands, far away, where societies live by different values and lowly footsoldiers know every nook and cranny of the landscape and can melt into civilian populations whenever they want. Chris Hedges, the NYT war reporter, recently said on a TV appearance: "Every war ends in a betrayal, of the young by the old, and of the people by the politicians." Vietnam was the ultimate example. I hope we aren't repeating old mistakes. Nader's focus on the evils of corporate-think may apply more to this war than we think.
3.25.2003
MOBSTER AMERICA? Don't call me unpatriotic or a disrespectful lefty or a peacenik, because I'm not, and that headline isn't mine alone. It's derived directly from Donald Rumsfeld, who likes to quote this maxim of the Chicago gangster Al Capone: "You will get more with a kind word and a gun, than with a kind word alone.” George Bush's fatal flaw – and let’s hope it doesn’t become our Achille’s heel as a nation – is that in his person and the people he surrounds himself with, he indelibly communicates arrogance, intimidation, and a patronizing scorn to the rest of the world. It doesn't matter that getting rid of Saddam is a good thing for all the world. The way Bush is doing it, spitting in the face of the world community and going ahead alone, essentially, is driving a wedge between the U.S. and old allies and setting the course for a world dominated by a haughty, all-powerful America. Tearing up the Kyoto Protocol; trashing the previous U.S.-Korea agreements; withdrawing from five international treaties; and pushing into Iraq despite failure to secure United Nations support -- it's all of a piece, all part of the Bush Doctrine, which emphasizes above all America's willingness to "go it alone" and indeed to take steps to ensure that no other global power, ever again, gains economic or military superiority over the U.S. Each of these points is made explicitly in The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, the White House document published last year that enshrines neoconservative ideology as the keystone of American foreign policy. As Fareed Zakaria argues in his important Newsweek essay this week, Bush is scrapping a half-century of a concensus-building approach to U.S. foreign policy, which was forged at mid-century, whose centerpiece was the Marshall Plan, and which included also the founding of the IMF, the World Bank, and other supranational institutions that have usefully guided the global economy until today. Bush’s manifest lack of interest or experience in foreign affairs and foreign countries is really hurting the United States today, Zakaria argues, because even when he does the right thing it’s done the wrong way, with the wrong message, and thus his every international action turns against him:
The Bush administration could reasonably point out that it doesn’t get enough credit for reaching out to the rest of the world. President Bush has, after all, worked with the United Nations on Iraq, increased foreign aid by 50%, announced a $15 billion AIDS program and formally endorsed a Palestinian state. Yet none of these actions seem to earn him any good will. The reason for this is plain. In almost every case, the administration comes to multilateralism grudgingly, reluctantly, and with a transparent lack of sincerity.Bush sees the world in starkly moralistic terms, as a battle between good and evil. There’s nothing wrong with that. Few people would deny that Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden, are evil. I subscribe to that. But Bush hasn’t found a way, and he never will because it's not in the fiber of the man, to communicate to the world that the U.S. can beat this evil with means that are as subtle and manifold and respectful, as the evil of Saddam is simple and uncomplicated and brutal. A TV anchor today asked one of those ubiquitous retired generals: “The Iraqi henchmen are using unfair tactics to terrorize U.S. soldiers. How can we turn the tables? How can we terrorize them?” Unfortunately, Bush and his colleagues have adopted a somewhat similar view, not in their military actions (which genuinely are more considerate of civilian losses than Saddam), but in their rhetoric. That’s the basis of the “shock and awe” rhetoric and of the tight-lipped, big-stick machismo we see daily on display from the Pentagon briefing podium. Of course, we need guns and not kind words to defeat the evil of Saddam. But we also need, along with the guns, a more subtle and respectful and worldly approach to how we explain ourselves and present ourselves to the rest of the world. We must find a way to make our high ideals sound inspiring and appealing, not bullying frightening. Saying things the wrong way will ultimately hurt us just as much as sending a missile mistakenly into a bus filled with civilians. If our words turn the world against us, we’ll pay that dear a price down the road. As Zakaria ask, in his gloss on Rumsfeld’s fondness for the Al Capone maxim: “Should the guiding philosophy of the world’s leading democracy really be the tough talk of a Chicago mobster? In terms of effectiveness, this strategy has been a disaster. It has alienated friends and delighted enemies.”Exactly.
3.22.2003
CAN WAR BE ACCOMPLISHED BY THE MARKET? A lovely discussion on C-SPAN this morning by Philip Bobbitt, the author of The Shield of Achilles, and Michael Howard, the Yale historian. Bobbitt's book argues that a global system built on free market democratic states consigns the world to basically endless small-scale local wars to keep errant states (like Iraq) in line, but saves the world from global wars of apocalypse. Michael Howard argued that Bobbitt didn't adequately account for societies' need to be cemented by religious and nationalist fervor. No matter how successful the Enlightenment-inspired nation state, built on rationality and a constitution, Howard argued there is always a need, especially at time of war, for the individuals in a state to fall back on essentially strong and irrational emotions that bind society together. Can market states be real communities? Can a nation essentially "contract out" the wars that it fights? Can war itself be accomplished by the market? Bobbitt came back with "Yes" and suggested that this is what the U.S. is doing in Iraq, that being the richest nation in the world, they've been contracted to get rid of Saddam, a threat to the whole. I suppose the volunteer army would also have to be called a market phenomenon and so in that sense too the war against Iraq is being accomplished by the market. Interesting.
THE ANTI-WAR PROTESTS: Zbigniew Brzezinski made a great comment last night on PBS about an important contribution the peace movement is making: btaking to the streets they are showing the world that we are a free democracy. They are putting the values of pluralism and tolerance on display. Of course, they are challenging the government's reasons for removing Saddam by force -- but more importantly, to those of us unconvinced by their reasoning, they are showing the rest of the world that American citizens can do this freely and without government retribution. My sense is that the worst thing that's happened in the war so far is that the American administration, in its drive to war, has not convinced, because it has not tried to convince, the rest of the world of America's basically high-minded purpose in removing Saddam. To the contrary, by ignoring and running roughshod over the opinions of the United Nations and old allies, they've convinced most of the world of the opposite -- that the United States is selfish, bullying, even tyrannical. To some degree the peace protesters are a counterbalance to that perception. They are adding texture, depth, and color to the severely limited portrait of the U.S. that the Bush administration is painting for the rest of the world. To that extent, we should be happy the protestors are on the streets.
3.21.2003
AFTER THE WAR: For any of us (and that would include me) who in the end leaned just barely in favor of supporting the U.S. action to depose Saddam, the real test will start when the bombing stops. I wouldn't demonstrate against the war; but I would demonstrate against any American failure to follow-through the war with real committment to help Iraq get back on its feet, not just from the war but from more than a decade of disastrous economic sanctions. The to-do list includes: reconstructing the country (especially schools, hospitals, businesses, and farms); offering humanitarian aid wherever needed; and to helping establish democratic reforms in Iraq. Okay, okay: hemi-demi-semi-democratic reforms along Turkish lines will do.
WILL IRAQIS WELCOME THEIR LIBERATORS? It's the question of the moment. (Well, just after whether Saddam will use chem or bio weapons.) Check this out from the International Crisis Group which did a field trip to Iraq in December to answer that question. One of their findings:
The overwhelming sentiment among those interviewed was one of frustration and impatience with the status quo. Perhaps most widespread is a desire to return to "normalcy" and put an end to the abnormal domestic and international situation they have been living through. A significant number of those Iraqis interviewed, with surprising candour, expressed their view that, if such a change required an American-led attack, they would support it.Is that hopeful or what?
"IT'S OUR OWN FAULT" SAYS AN ARAB EDITORIAL: From the Beirut Daily Star:
It is vital, as we navigate this landscape of recurring national weakness and disgrace, that we attempt at least to reach a consensus on how we got here and what ails us. It is easy to blame imperialism, colonialism, Zionism, Arab oligarchy, and American bias as culprits that have confounded and battered the Arab world, and there is some truth in all these quarters. Yet just as troubling as our passive passage through this frustrating terrain of national transformation is the reality that we in the Arab world have never really fully diagnosed our own condition in a methodical and truthful manner.The whole piece is here.
ARAB REACTION TO THE WAR: Here's a compliation of Arab newspaper editorials and interviews from MEMRI. It's hard to grasp the real meaning of these writings -- some of them ring with a peculiar high Arab rhetoric; others are oddly detached; others seem to take perfunctory swipes at America yet are essentially pragmatic. It's an indication of the amount of cultural education we need to even begin to understand the Middle East. We're not in Kansas anymore.
BRIGHT MEDIA MOMENT? Here is William Powers on journalism in Gulf War II:
As the media went to war, you could feel the whole culture fall into a dark, foreboding kind of mood. War always has this effect, but this time the gloom has more bite. The hundreds of embedded journalists aren't just reporting on this war; they're serving as surrogates for all civilians. And they've given the story a visceral immediacy, a that-could-be-me feeling that's been missing from most wars of the last quarter-century.
3.20.2003
NEXT STOP IRAN? I had lunch today with an Iranian friend, a Mayo Clinic researcher who's lived in the U.S. for years but whose parents and siblings still live in Iran. I asked him whether he fears that if the war in Iraq is over quickly with relatively few casualties, that Iran might be next on the U.S. military hit list. "If the goal is to knock out the Iranian government’s nuclear weapons development program, I have no problem with that," he said. "The only question is at what cost? I don't want the government of Iran to have nuclear weapons. But I don't want an American military occupation of Iran and of Teheran, either. “The power struggle between the conservatives and the reformers and student movements is a healthy struggle,” he said. “I’d love to see it speeded up. But again, I wouldn’t want see that struggle replaced with an invasion.” A big difference between Iran and Iraq, he said, was that easily 10% of Iranians strongly support the conservative clerics who run the country. “These people would be willing to walk across mine fields and die for their religious beliefs,” he said. Last month, Iran's President Mohammad Khatami announced that Iran has its own deposits of uranium and has begun extraction to produce nuclear fuel. Khatami said Iran's purpose was purely to develop commercial nuclear energy, but the U.S. last year released satellite photographs of Iranian sites it said could be used to make nuclear weapons. The amount of support the U.S. military would get from reformers within Iran, should the U.S. try to destroy the potential nuclear weapons facilities, was hard to estimate, my friend said. But any support could only occur, he said, if the U.S. approached Iran with respect as well as power, and showed a nuanced understanding of Iranian society. He had his doubts whether Bush & Co. could pull that off. “I’ve been trying to figure out what Bush is trying to do in Iraq,” my friend said, “and still I have absolutely no idea of his real motives.”
THE PRICE OF ESCAPE: An NBC news team had to pay Iraqi shakedown artists $60,000 to get out of the country.
THE ETERNAL NOTE OF SADNESS: Matthew Arnold's reminder is playing in my mind:
Ah, love, let us be true
DIS-INFORMATION ALERT: I watched the war begin as I was on the treadmill last night, channel surfing from CNN to MSNBC to Fox. One thing that no anchor mentioned was the issue of dis-information. The U.S. military knows that whatever it tells the press goes straight to Saddam. Therefore they will use the press to keep him off-guard. As a matter of military strategy -- smart and justified military strategy -- they'll say one thing and do another. In other words, they will intentionally mislead the press. That's just axiomatic. Why doesn't the press report this? It should. All it would take is a one-sentence dislcaimer or explainer and that's all.
3.19.2003
IT'S STARTED: My prediction: Bush and the will do fine on prosecuting the war itself (it'll go quickly with few casualties) while flunking the "before" part (which he's already done) and the "after" part.
3.18.2003
SUPERPOWER IRAQ: Kenneth Pollack, a former Iraqi military analyst for the CIA, has offered the strongest evidence of Iraq's development program for WMD's and also of Saddam's on-the-record statements of intent to use them. Here's the 1,700-word New York Times editorial in which he boils down his booklength The Threatening Storm in which he lays out his evidence, and makes the case for war, in detail. Check this out from the editorial:
[Saddam] has been anything but circumspect about his aspirations: He has stated that he wants to turn Iraq into a "superpower" that will dominate the Middle East, to liberate Jerusalem and to drive the United States out of the region. He has said he believes the only way he can achieve his goals is through the use of force. Indeed, his half-brother and former chief of intelligence, Barzan al-Tikriti, was reported to say that Iraq needs nuclear weapons because it wants "a strong hand in order to redraw the map of the Middle East."I can't help but believe that with Saddam, we'll have to take him out either now or later -- and the cost will be less if we do it now.
THE LEFT'S NIGHTMARE SCENARIO: If the war goes quickly, few lives are lost, Iraqis welcome America as liberators, and a quasi-democracy is established in Iraq, the hardcore left would be devastated. A friend writes (and I agree):
This piece by an avid peace movement member highlights how shallow (non-global, anti-internatinal) the peace movement is at its heart. There is no feeling of responsibility for our neighbors, just an overdeveloped sense of delight in critisizing America. America is in many ways a force for good in the world. But, for some of these people, even a successful military operation in Iraq would be considered devastating b/c it would enhance America's power.
WHAT'S THAT RACKET? A great bit of media criticism from William Powers. The juicy bit:
The word "ideology" comes from the Greek idea, and the dictionary defines it as a system of ideas, a way of thinking about the world. But in the media today, ideology is not about thinking at all. It's about the opposite of thinking: perfect allegiance to a rigid menu of positions and attitudes, and unbending fealty to either Team A or Team B. There's no room for variation, eccentricity, originality, or independence, because the two teams are engaged in a battle for an enormously valuable prize.Someone should do a deep critique of opinion journalism. It's corrupting in its own special way.
THE IRAQ-AL QAEDA CONNECTION -- Walter Russell Mead's theory:
The existence of al Qaeda, and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are part of the price the United States has paid to contain Saddam Hussein.
3.10.2003
WHAT WILL WE BE LEFT WITH? Forcibly deposing Hussein will cause more problems than it fixes, Paul Scanlon argues:
I'm tired of listening to everyone assume it was wrong to end the invasion of Iraq before unseating Saddam Hussein. 3.7.2003
GLOBAL MINNESOTA: A daily roundup of the Minnesota angle on global news and trends:
The War on Iraq
HAS ANYONE SEEN THE ACTUAL PIC? A NASA aerial photo is said to show the actual crater left by the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. Wow!
BIG WAR, LITTLE WAR: A great back-from-the-brink proposal from Michael Walzer. Of course, it too is possible only because Bush has marched this far. Still, how great it would be if the president gave an inch here. But nothing from his past suggests he has it in him.
3.6.2003
WOMEN AND WAR: A trend among my married friends is the husband is for the war and the wife is against, with both being leaners as opposed to stalwarts one way or the other. Their positions are so close in all respects but their conclusions, that the final difference would seem to be rooted, perhaps, in gender. What's up with that? Maybe these women have some answers.
PEACE CORPS RECRUITING IS UP: The corps often does well in a down economy. What is it about recession that brings out idealism in our young folk?
FRIENDS WRITE ABOUT IRAQ: In response to "Four Middle-Class White Guys Wrestle Over Iraq," these e-mails:
"Our open society is at stake."
WORLD MINNESOTA: A daily roundup of the Minnesota angle on global news and trends:
The War in Iraq 3.5.2003
GLOBAL MINNESOTA: A daily roundup of the Minnesota angle on global news and trends:
The War in Iraq 3.4.2003
GLOBAL MINNESOTA: A daily roundup of the Minnesota angle on global news and trends:
The War in Iraq
3.3.2003
THE WAR AT HOME: A daily roundup of Minnesota activity on the likely war in Iraq:
Arabs in Minnesota Favor Al Jazeera Over Dan Rather and CNN (Pioneer Press)
BUILDING CIVIL SOCIETY AND DEMOCRACY: George W. Bush will probably soon show a talent for dropping bombs on faraway places. Will he then show a talent for building civil society and democracy in faraway places? The signs are not good.
 
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