On the Daily Show yesterday, Bob Kerrey said he had left off his Naval service on his first resume. This from a Medal of Honor winner, one of three SEAL's to win the medal in Vietnam.
While Bush dregdes up Vietnam to discrete John Kerry, he forgets exactly how ugly a time it was.
I first became familiar with John Kerry in the mid-1980's, when I read the Winter Soldier hearings transcripts. They were bound, like all hearing transcripts, and lots of soliders were angry about their service in Vietnam. People forget the insane tension which had existed in the US during 1970-71.
Vets were caught in the middle between anti-war protestors, who had only recently gained steam, and the working class who'd fought in WWII and Korea. Construction workers attacked an anti-war protest in downtown Manhattan, while the White House chortled. Domestic enemies of Nixon faced the Huston plan, a full-scale violation of their rights. Only J. Edgar Hoover's common sense prevented the White House from making the Plumbers illegal break-ins state policy.
The US Army was collapsing, drug use exploding, combat refusals rife, fragging (the murder of officers and senior NCO's) common. People have forgotten how divided the US was. Veterans were routinely attacked on college campuses. Wearing a fatgue jacket with a unit patch was asking to be called baby killer.
And while stories of vets being spit on at airports were probably fictional, the open hostility they faced was not. Admitting service in Vietnam was an easy way to be scorned by both pro-war supporters and anti-war activists. The reason Vets now seem so self-protective and cloistered is that they only had each other to turn to.
The Nixon Administration was full of big talk, but their VA hospitals were rundown and as Bob Kerry found out, filled with rats, as one ran over his chest.
John Kerry joined the anti-war movement older and probably angrier than a lot of his peers. He knew the folly that he saw was wrong. So, yes, like a lot of angry young men, especially those who had been betrayed by both their government and their peers, said things which didn't sound great. But the cold hard fact was there were atrocities in Vietnam, as there are in every war. The Toledo Blade just won a Pulitzer for uncovering the activities of Tiger Force, a unit of the 101st which killed over a hundred innocent Vietnamese.
The vets who are so indignant about Kerry's public statements in 1971 are for the most part lying or didn't see enough combat to know people at war kill civilians as well as the enemy.
For Bush to drag this all up, especially behind the skirts of Karen Hughes, is insane. Bush not only supported the war, he avoided service in it, and thus benefitted from being a part-time soldier, which advanced his career, such that it was.
What people forget is that despite the success of John Kerry, Vietnam was like a giant weight on people's lives long after the war was over. To say the words "Vietnam Vet" was to create a stigma which lasted well into the 1980's. All those who didn't serve, the Clinton's, the Cheney's, they had their careers enahanced while those who did either downplayed their service or faced roadblocks. Bob Kerry didn't hide his military service for no reason. Employers simply did not hire Vets. They didn't and they never said why. My father worked with Vietnam Vets and they had a brutal time in the 70's and 80's.
Most people didn't go to Canada or lie to avoid the draft. Going to Canada was a lifetime decision. You couldn't expect to come back. Meanwhile over 30,000 Canadians served in Vietnam. So the idea that they wanted draft dodgers, deserters and draft avoiders has been overblown in popular legend. More than a few men with short haircuts were turned over to the FBI by the Mounties. While going into exile was a brave decision, so was facing the draft.
Bush made his decision, one that many people tried to make, which was to avoid service in Vietnam. The problem with what Bush did, as opposed to Clinton was that he supported the war. Now he's trying to denigrate Kerry's service, which should engrage people. Kerry didn't take the easy way out. He didn't avoid combat, and he could have, having served a tour off Vietnam on a destroyer. Instead, in a span of five months, he won three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star, a remarkable record for a junior officer. There is absolutely no question about his service or his personal bravery.
John Kerry did what George Bush never had the guts to do, which is face the Vietcong. Bush wanted the aura of military service and risk, without the actual risk of death. Now flying a jet is risky, but Bush couldn't even do that. At least a year of his service was missing from his record. They don't even know he showed up and they don't know why he was booted from flight status.
George Bush could have gotten his daddy to send him into an F-4 Squadron in Thailand, but he didn't. He wanted to emulate daddy without daddy's balls. He refused to fight in a war he supported. For God's sake, he could have been a supply officer at Udon, Thailand, stayed drunk and still served his country. Daddy fought the Japanese and was shot down. Bush wanted to be a pilot without the risk. A lifetime of personal cowardice which continues today.
The new Iraqi flag reminds me of what the Israelis would impose over the West Bank, so everyone would know they had a colony. The colors are an anti-semite's dream, and Iraq is filled with Jew-haters, convinced they are being colonized by Israel, and who's people are buying up houses in Baghdad.
This flag is ridiculous, because it violates traditional Islamic and Arab rules for flags, which include green, white, black and red. Blue and white is most often seen on fire in the Arab world, because it is usually in the Israeli flag.
The colors in the Arab flag have specific meanings which respresent Islam and Arab nationalism. None of which are represented by the current Iraqi flag.
One would have to wonder, exactly why someone would pick a flag which reflects nothing of 1500 years of Islamic and Arab culture, and only make a nod to it by throwing in a crescent of the wrong color.
Riverbend has a rather concise comment on the new "Iraqi" flag:
I also heard today that the Puppets are changing the flag. It looks nothing like the old one and at first I was angry and upset, but then I realized that it wouldn't make a difference. The Puppets are illegitimate, hence their constitution is null and void and their flag is theirs alone. It is as representative of Iraq as they are- it might as well have "Made in America" stitched along the inside seam. It can be their flag and every time we see it, we'll see Chalabi et al. against its pale white background.
My email buddy and fellow Iraqi S.A. in America said it best in her email, "I am sure we are all terribly excited about the extreme significance of the adoption by the completely illegitimate Iraq Puppet Council of a new national piece of garishly colored cloth. Of course the design of the new national rag was approved by the always tastefully dressed self-declared counter terrorism expert viceroy of Iraq, Paul Bremer, who is well known for wearing expensive hand-stitched combat boots with thousand dollar custom tailored suits and silk designer ties.
The next big piece of news will be the new pledge of allegiance to said national rag, and the empire for which it stands. The American author of said pledge has yet to be announced."
Now they can burn a third flag in Arab street demonstrations.
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page A01
While attention remains riveted on the rising count of Americans killed in action -- more than 100 so far in April -- doctors at the main combat support hospital in Iraq are reeling from a stream of young soldiers with wounds so devastating that they probably would have been fatal in any previous war.
More and more in Iraq, combat surgeons say, the wounds involve severe damage to the head and eyes -- injuries that leave soldiers brain damaged or blind, or both, and the doctors who see them first struggling against despair.
For months the gravest wounds have been caused by roadside bombs -- improvised explosives that negate the protection of Kevlar helmets by blowing shrapnel and dirt upward into the face. In addition, firefights with guerrillas have surged recently, causing a sharp rise in gunshot wounds to the only vital area not protected by body armor.
The neurosurgeons at the 31st Combat Support Hospital measure the damage in the number of skulls they remove to get to the injured brain inside, a procedure known as a craniotomy. "We've done more in eight weeks than the previous neurosurgery team did in eight months," Poffenbarger said. "So there's been a change in the intensity level of the war."
Numbers tell part of the story. So far in April, more than 900 soldiers and Marines have been wounded in Iraq, more than twice the number wounded in October, the previous high. With the tally still climbing, this month's injuries account for about a quarter of the 3,864 U.S. servicemen and women listed as wounded in action since the March 2003 invasion.
About half the wounded troops have suffered injuries light enough that they were able to return to duty after treatment, according to the Pentagon.
The others arrive on stretchers at the hospitals operated by the 31st CSH. "These injuries," said Lt. Col. Stephen M. Smith, executive officer of the Baghdad facility, "are horrific."
100 killed, 600 wounded.
And the Iraqis have 800 dead and god knows how many wounded.
Our war in Iraq is not going well, except to the White House.
Karen Hughes, a campaign adviser to President Bush, described herself as "very troubled" by the fact that Kerry only throw away his ribbons -- not the medals themselves.
"He only pretended to throw his," she charged Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."
"Now, I can understand if out of conscience you take a principled stand and you would decide that you were so opposed to this that you would actually throw your medals. But to pretend to do so, I think that's very revealing."
Here's a wonderful idea: why doesn't Karen Hughes shut the fuck up? What does she know about Vietnam, being under fire or being wounded.
Her boss was too much of a pussy to go to Canada, blow his eardrum out, much less go to Vietnam, happily sending a poor Texan to take his place, so he ran to Daddy's friends and got slid into a "champagne" squadron protecting the US from Mexico, and then coudn't even complete his service. He got booted off of flight status.
Meanwhile, people were trying to kill Kerry every day he was in Vietnam.
They're dragging out people who don't know the man, don't have Silver Stars and didn't serve with him to play the same game they did with John McCain. But their problem is that Kerry isn't going to take this, since it is the seminal event in his life, and seems ready to toss it back in Bush's face.
Bush and his campaign keep trying to press this issue, and it bites them in the ass. Kerry was fearlessly courageous, and won two medals in less than five months. While the Bronze Star is awarded frequently, the Silver Star is not.
It's nice to see the chickenhawks quibble over Kerry's wounds. Have any of them been wounded in combat? No? Any of them aware of the lifelong pain most shrapnel wounds can cause? No? Then they should all be ashamed of themselves. My father was wounded by shrapnel in a training exercise in Japan. It is still a nasty wound, decades later. And he didn't get a Purple Heart, either. It wasn't massive, but it sure as hell hurt. Anyone who hasn't been wounded and isn't a doctor is in no position to discuss this.
John Kerry was wounded in the service of his country. He was highly decorated. Unlike Bush, he went to Vietnam, already opposed to the war. Yet, he sought out combat duty, writing his request during the Tet Offensive and despite his opposition, served honorably. His actions were consistent with his beliefs.
There aren't many words I would use to express my contempt for this tactic. Why even raise the subject? Kerry served honorably, Bush slacked his way through. It shouldn't matter now. But it does. The Bush campaign is, dishonorably and disgustingly slandering Kerry's service. I don't care if his first Purple Heart was a scratch. He got it in combat. His third certainly wasn't, considering he picked up a SF Officer from the drink with a wounded arm. The man was so impressed, he put him in for a Silver Star, and he got a Bronze
George Bush avoided ANY service in Vietnam. He asked to not serve overseas. He wrangled his way into the Guard because of his daddy. He didn't even attend OCS. Yet, he allows his campaign to attack Kerry's war record?
Bush has been a coward his entire life. John Kerry clearly was not. If they want to compare the two records, let's do so. Too bad he can't get daddy to buy him a few medals now. Bush's entire career is the result of a father's errant love for his son. He never asked of his son what he asked of himself. Which is a tragedy. Maybe if he had, maybe his son wouldn't be the cowardly failure that he is today. He even has to hide behind a woman to attack Kerry. If he thinks Kerry didn't deserve his awards, why not say so himself? No, like a coward, he sends a woman to do his dirty work. If he were a man, he'd say it himself or drop the issue.
I don't watch American Idol, I watch Gilmore Girls instead. Why? I think the writing on Gilmore Girls is some of the best on TV and I think most of the people one American Idol can't sing to save their lives. Even though the subject matter may not, at first, be appealing, I will watch or read anything which is well written or compelling, which is how I've been drawn into watching Nova, American Chopper and Trading Spaces, even the Roman Empire in the First Century.
How do I know if the writing is good? Well, if I watch something and it makes sense, like many of the romantic complications on Gilmore Girls, something many shows get wrong or just recycle from movies (how many times can Ross and Rachel play at being a couple), then I'm going to watch it.
Of course, I have to excuse 24's plot holes because any group of writers who can keep the plot moving, which is a pretty hard task, deserves praise. You try moving a story along from plot point to plot point for 22 episodes. Few people can do it for two hours. Ever see the Battle of Algiers? That movie is captivating because it moves quickly and there are few movies which do.
But, if anything is a Rorhschact test on the American pysche, American Idol is it, at least with teenagers. And as this piece from Salon indicates, there is something else going on:
Take, for example, last week's results on "American Idol." As I mentioned in my last column, there are three extremely talented contestants on "American Idol" this year, all of whom happen to be black women. The other contestants range from just OK to cringe-inducingly bad. This past week, when Ryan Seacrest announced the three contestants who received the least number of votes, most viewers assumed that Diana DiGarmo and John Stevens, two white teenagers who should be practicing their box steps in show choir instead of paining the nation with their clumsy karaoke routines, would surely land in the bottom heap.
Not so, America! Instead, La Toya London, Fantasia Barrino and Jennifer Hudson, all of whom were praised to high heaven for their fantastic performances, were in the bottom three. The judges were asked what they thought of the results. They expressed disappointment, but reminded us that, after all, this is a democracy.
Others talked about a conspiracy.
Um, racism isn't really a conspiracy. It's pretty much out in the open. This is a racist country. Most people in this country are racists. Every single black person in this country knows it. Can't you just take their word for it? Even if you don't personally see evidence of racism in this country, can't you trust those who are in the position to see it, those who are telling you, day after day, that it's there?
Or do you not trust them?
Now, having seen just enough of the show to understand this, the black girls are the only ones with real talent. But Idol is as much about appeal as talent. And there is clearly a racial cast to all "reality" shows. Was anyone really surprised that Donald Trump, a man well known for his racial issues, didn't hand over a company to Harvard MBA Kwame? Or that in the history of reality shows, only ONE black contestant has won.
And as Dave Chappelle so adroitly pointed out, black male characters are usually driven off shows like the Real World?
The reality, however, is a bit more complex than racism. Remember, Ruben Studdard won the last season and Justin Guarini, who is biracial, came in second in the first season. I'd argue that it isn't racism alone, although that's a factor, but an unwillingness to vote for certain kinds of black people.
On reality skill shows, black men are at a disavantage. On talent-based shows, black women are at a disadvantage. While it is perfectly fine for black men to sing, and a lot of this is based on sexual attraction as much as talent, black women are simply discarded. No matter how talented black women are, they will lose to either a cute white girl or a man. Who do you think watches and votes on American Idol? White teenage girls. Why else do you think Clay Aiken came in second and got an insane amount of publicity?
As to the question if white people believe black people's claims of racism, of course not. No way in hell. White people live in a state of denial. Which is how, as Atrios keeps pointing out, Howie Kurtz could harp on Jayson Blair, seeing only his race, and not his asskissing and backstabbing skills, and ignore Jack Kelley, who wrote some of the most turgid, racially and ethinically tained prose since Theodore Bilbo published Segregation or Mongrelization, a copy of which is on Stormfront.
Unless directly confronted with evidence of racial bias, most whites will treat minority claims of racism with the sort of eyerolling denial small children get when monsters are under their bed. But unlike the monsters, whom to date have eaten no children, racism is quite real.
White people can see it, as in police stops of minority kids, and excuse it. They excused the beating of Rodney King "because he was threatening". He was on the ground, getting stomped, the only threat he posed was bleeding on their uniforms.
You can see that the most talented singers on American Idol gets the least votes. Why? Well, it just happens that they are black women. Even the show's hosts and judges were stunned by the result. Now, people will deny it, as they deny the open racism of US troops in Iraq, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Today's abortion rights march was successful and hopefully reminded people that pro-choice is not a slogan, but critical for millions of women and the people who sleep with them.
This is the nonsense Karen Hughes spewed today:
"I think that after September 11, the American people are valuing life more and we need policies to value the dignity and worth of every life," she said. "President Bush has worked to say, let's be reasonable, let's work to value life, let's reduce the number of abortions, let's increase adoptions. And I think those are the kinds of policies the American people can support, particularly at a time when we're facing an enemy and, really, the fundamental issue between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life."
Huh? What does 9/11 have to do with abortion? Nothing. Bush knows if he said he thought abortion was a sin next to gay marriage, he'd be doomed. But he is so close to the Jesus freaks we know his personal prayers include the "unborn". Except when it may embarass him or his kin.
The fact is that every doctor who worked in an emergency room before 1970 knew exactly what abortions were, because they would see the effects every weekend. Lye, hangers, self-infliction of wounds. Women were desperate to end their pregnancies and did anything to do so.
Hughes is offensive as hell, considering that her boss revels in death. Death row in Texas, death in Iraq. Hell, he's even been accused of paying for an abortion in his Prince Hal days. His daughter, Jenna, is rumored to have had two abortions, on the account she likes to get drunk and sleep around and there are witnesses for both. Although none for the abortions except people who can't talk.
Not that it should matter. No one should have a child they don't want and can't care for. Seeing teenage mothers struggle with children they can't take care of is far from a pretty sight. The pro-life movement makes claims to care about these kids, but you don't see them talking about adopting seven year olds.
Most people rarely ever discuss their abortions. It remains hidden long after the fact. There is little joy or casualness about the issue. No one does it frivilously or without thinking. The additional cruelty the pro-life movement inflicts on people seems both pointless and needless. No harridan screaming keep your baby is going to buy Pampers or clean shit 10 months later. And if they think abortion is bad, what about child abuse? Nothing like seeing a 14 month old with it's head caved in.
The pro-life movement is based on a smug sense of personal moral superiority, as in "we're saving babies". Which they aren't, of course. They aren't saving anything, just annoying and scaring the clinic workers.
But what's even worse is the way many of these folks are against birth control and sex education. The Army realized that abstinance education didn't work in 1940 and handed out billions of condoms. And don't think those 11 Bravos in Iraq are going without. Condoms are part of their basic equipment. But when a servicewoman gets pregnant, she either goes home and has the kid, or pays for the abortion out of her own pocket. Why? To satisfy the right wingers. No federal funds for abortion.
This ridiculous notion extends to foreign policy. No funding of family planning programs overseas, no matter how it benefits the people affected.
These people aren't just a danger to pregnant women, but to everyone's reproductive freedom. They want schools to tell kids not to have sex, which is as successful as their don't go crash diets and stop smoking dope programs. In other words, a complete and utter failure. No culture is as obsessed with sex and as ashamed of it. We pour $11 Billion into porn yet debate Howard Stern's language. America is a land of vast sexual hypocrisy.
It is important that the national debate not be reduced into a sterile conversation about abortion. I'm not going to have one in this lifetime, yet these people pose a clear and present danger to my reproductive freedom. I want to know my partner can get birth control so we might be able to plan when we have kids, or that I can buy condoms without a hassle any time or any place. Or that my niece and nephews are taught about sex and not some wacky absitnance program. Their religious impetus is fine for them but for most of us, who don't talk to Jesus every day, we'd like to live by common sense rules not dictated from God, at least directly.
Too often, the abortion debate is reduced to liberal spokeswomen on one side, and creepy bearded men using young women as their spokespersons. Most of whom are hypocrites and don't know it. Abortion is like combat in one sense, you have no idea what you'll do until you're faced with the decision. I'm sure some pro-choice women had their kids and kept marching. I'm positive some pro-life women have snuck into abortion clinics to dump their unwanted fetus.
The reason the pro-life movement offends me is simple: they are so certain of their cause and so indifferent to the consequences. No one chooses abortion casually. To vilify them or to act morally superior is dead wrong. It's a hard choice for anyone, at any time, one they wish they wouldn't have to make. To think, as Hughes's insulting words imply "we just need to respect life" is to reduce humn reporductive freedom to that of brood mares.
Part of freedom is to have the choice to have children or not and not have it dictated by people who think God has a pipeline to them and blessed them specially.
If you listen to John Kerry, you would think Iraq could be fixed. If you listened to Joe Biden, you would think all we have to do is defeat the insurgency and get the UN aboard. Even if you listened to Howard Dean, you would think the great sin was not getting the UN aboard.
The neocon's delusion was that we were invading France, 1944 and the Iraqi people were waiting for liberation. The reality is that we were invading Yugoslavia, 1943 and most of the country hating us.
The central problem is that we have no allies in Iraq. No Charles DeGaulle who was on our side. Instead, we had a shifty crook who most Iraqis will kill on sight. Without a base of support, no US occupation can last months, much less years. To be honest, I was surprised Sistani gave us a year. We will not get another one. I cringe when I hear Democratic politicians say we will need to be in Iraq for years. Because what legitimate government would allow us, the hated occupiers, to just set up bases there?
The British tried that game and were rewarded in 1941 with a Nazi-inspired rebellion.
The Democratic Party is in a bad position. They cannot say the obvious: we will be lucky to escape Iraq with our army. The American public still conflates the war on terror with Iraq and the reality is that the two are as related as lemurs and goldfish. So they say things, which if the Europeans didn't hate Bush with a passion usually reserved for mistresses, any EU MP would fall down laughing to refute. No, NATO isn't going to Iraq. No, the UN will not bail you out.
Then you get Biden as well as Howard Dean saying "we need arab troops on the ground."
Huh? Which ruler risks being overthrown by doing that? Egypt? Syria? Algeria? Morocco? Nope, nope, nope, nope. The Arabs are not going to join a fight being quickly tied to Israel's eternal war with the Palerstinians. Israel's assasination campaign has already had a blowback in Iraq. Those for mercenaries were killed inrevenge for the murder of Sheik Yassin. By endorsing Sharon's land theft for peace policy, even the Jordanians want nothing to do with Bush.
The new neocon theme "the other Arabs don't want democracy in Iraq" is nonsense. Arab states don't usually interfere in the internal machinations in other countries, except for the Saudi wahhbist imams, bringing madrassas to a country near you. They don't care how you run your counry as long as you control it.
Dean gets a lot of credit for being against the war, but his postwar solutions don't have much basis in current reality. Neither does John Kerry's.
The problem is security and we can't do anything to fix it. The Times says send more troops. Ok, where are they coming from? The National Guard Brigades will take six months to activate and become combat ready. And as a Times story so clearly notes, long deployments to combat sends Guard families into penury.
What no one says, and is self-evident, is that the US is missing it's Pakistani auxilliaries. We could use a couple of divisions of Pakistani troops to patrol the highways and Sadr City, but since Musharraf realized his head would be on a pike if he had agreed, they stayed home. We aren't misisng NATO, a few battalions of paras and mech infantry would be nice, but they won't change much. We need our Pakistani and Egyptian friends to kick in tens of thouands of troops. We had almost bribed the Indians into joining in and then that government realized that they were in trouble.
This constant expectation that The UN can make things right is also delusional. There is no evidence that the UN, any more than the US, can even be secured in Iraq, or that Iraqis want them there. While Sistani may trust them, to some degree, others may not be so willing.
Too many Democrats endorse the war aims without understanding what they truly entail. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said on CNN that we have to "crack that nut" Fallujah, or it would be "a symbol to the Islamic world". Well, you can't crack anything with a one to one ratio of troops and that is what we have with the Marines in Fallujah. To too many Democrats, it's all about making Bush's policy work, when there is no way it can ever work. Killing more women and children is no solution and no matter what lies the Marines tell, they will kill more women and children unless they evacuate the entire city,
It's nausiating seeing all the hype fortaking on the resistance, as if they are a few bandits and not whole battalions of the Iraqi Army. They're attacking in platoon and company strength for God's sake. I'm tired of people mouthing the platitudes that "we can beat them." "They're not a military problem". So why haven't they been beaten? Why haven't the ammo dumps been blown up? They cut the highway to Baghdad. Sounds like a military problem to me.
Now, a year later, you want to add more troops? A year of combat experience and training for the resistance? With our Iraqi forces nearly useless in combat?
The Democrats are checkmated by Bush's faux-Western resolve. What he says sounds great to many people who do not follow the news daily. He sounds like he's in charge. In reality, he's a babbling idiot scaring no one. But to call him on that plays into the GOP's hands. The Iraqis have taken everything we've thrown at them and not quit. Bush, who is sure briefed differently, pretends to America that there is both a point to this war and it has something to do with protecting America. That we are fighting Saddam groupies.
In my ideal world, the Dems would challenge Bush, claim he's losing the war and decide to end it so we can reenforce Afghanistan. But that's electoral suicide until we are truly embarassed in Iraq. The sad fact is that pictures of coffins and 100 dead will not change mids.
You would think our ready acceptance of cease-fires would be a hint. But until we lose a company in an ambush or see thousands of Sadr City residents flooding into the Green Zone with weapons or some other horrific disaster, no one will speak the truth, which is that we have already lost Iraq, It only matters how we leave it.
The sad fact is that Iraq is an immoral war fought for reasons bordering on fantasy. A particularly American fantasy, where we ignore history, the conduct of our troops (who gunned down four kids in a routinely miserable display of fire discipline), and wonder why the Iraqis do not see what good people we are. It is utterly ridiculous for John Kerry to say we can stay in Iraq for years, a position hardly different than the anti-war Howard Dean often annunciated. We broke it, we fix it is not a policy. It is not an explaination for 700 dead Americans. It is, most importantly, not going to work.
We need to get out of Iraq before we are kicked out of Iraq and then start over.
April 4 began as a routine day in the slum. A 19-man patrol in four Humvees was escorting three Iraqi "honey wagons" on their rounds collecting sewage. Platoon leader Sgt. Shane Aguero noticed one unusual thing, though. "People were throwing more rocks than usual at the trucks and at our gunners. Our work crews were threatened at each stop. At the last place about 400 people said [to the workers] "˜if you come back we'll kill you.'" All three drivers hauled their cargo to the disposal site, dumped it and quit on the spot.
Next the patrol encountered a number of armed men in a mosque and told them the weapons would have to be confiscated. The militants refused, and the Humvees moved on after some muddled negotiations about how the weapons would be turned in at a future date. Around 5:40 p.m., the patrol rolled past the Sadr Bureau, headquarters for the political wing of his organization. Aguero noticed at least 200 men out front who "quickly ran away when we arrived. Another 15 or 20 people outside were waving their hands at us"”but to say "˜stay away'? Or to say hello? We couldn't tell". A block later, the soldiers heard a few rounds of small arms fire. "We couldn't tell where it came from, it was just three to five rounds," says Sgt. Jerry Swope of Austin, Texas, who was in the last vehicle, "we figured it was a lone gunman."
Aguero decided to try to detain the shooter. But as they tried to determine the source of the gunfire, suddenly more gunmen joined in from street-level and form second-story balconies. "We began to engage the enemy, then got back in our vehicles and headed north," he says. Sudden, Aguero found his unit heading into a Mad Max gauntlet of burning tires and road obstacles of every imaginable description: concrete blocks, metal market stalls, air conditioners, scrap metal, truck axles, even refrigerators. The burning debris put out so much choking black smoke that visibility was down to 300 meters.
The street had become "a 300-meter-long kill zone," recalls Aguero. The vehicles swerved and ran onto sidewalks, rolling on the rims of flat tires, as gunmen kept up the barrage of bullets. Suddenly Sgt. Yihjyh Chen, gunner in the lead truck, collapsed after taking a hit. The Iraqi translator in his vehicle began administering first aid. Another soldier was shot, and began bleeding from the mouth. Then two of the Humvees became disabled. Aguero yelled at one driver to gun the engine to get his Humvee moving. That's when the engine literally fell out. It was time to bail. As they'd been drilled to do, the soldiers set out to strip the disabled vehicles of sensitive items and to "Zee off the radio""”to ensure critical communications codes and equipment don't fall into enemy hands.
Now the problem was how to secure everyone in just two Humvees. "I said, "˜Okay, take that alley 250 meters to the left," recalls Aguero. The two still-functioning vehicles pulled next to a three-story building, one facing forward and the other in the opposite direction. Aguero led the remaining soldiers on foot to the door, kicked it down, secured four startled Iraqi men in one room, and set up machine-gun positions on the roof. ("The Iraqis were scared," says Aguero. But not entirely hostile. "when it was over they tried to give us water," recalls Swope.)
All the while, gunmen kept up a battery of small-arms fire. Swope stayed with his vehicle to keep communications open to the battalion and the quick reaction force. Aguero ran up and down the stairs, checking the defensive positions on the roof and in the street. By this time, Iraqi militants were in the adjacent alley, lobbing grenades. One detonated a few feet from Aguero, peppering him with shrapnel and deafening him temporarily in one ear. Over the radio, Swope heard that the first quick-reaction force (QRF) sent to assist them had been ambushed two streets away. "That's when we realized the uprising was citywide," says Swope, "And we were going to be there awhile." (In all, Swope stayed in the alley, manning his radio, for three nerve-wracking hours.)
The gunfight had erupted just fifteen minutes after Volesky formally took command. "It was in my box," he says. The radio was alive with details of the engagement. "Contact! Contact! ...we're taking fire, heavy fire." From the camp other soldiers could easily hear explosions, and they saw the ominous arcs of tracer fire on the horizon. One of the quick reaction forces rolled out of Camp Eagle about at 2200 hours with Humvees, Bradleys and a couple big LMTV trucks. A civil-affairs team was part of the force. "We knew a big engagement was on," recalls Capt. Jeff Embree. Casualties had already begun to pour into Camp Eagle, soldiers moaning and bleeding in a truck driving noisily on its rims. Embree, who was in the last Humvee of the 18-vehicle convoy, says "we could see the tracer fire, there was a mess of traffic on the radio."
As the story notes, there are 2.5 million people in Sadr City. If 10 percent decide the US should leave, there is nothing we could do to stay.
It is a miracle only 12 soldiers got killed this day. If Bush has decided to move into Najaf, daily firefights in Sadr City will be common.
After watching Band of Brothers, I was struck about the love those men had for each other. Not romantic love, of course, but fraternal love. The love of men for each other because they had shared mortal danger.
We often think about romantic love, but that is often the most illusive and hard to define of all the kinds of love we feel. It is hard to explain why or how you give your heart to someone, without sounding completely selfish.
But fraternal love is something different, an unselfish love, one which comes from sacrifice and time.
When we see rows of coffins, whether on a tarmac or on a plane, each one of those people leaves behind those who loved them. Family members, friends from home, but most importantly, those they served with. All their little kindnesses, the shared meals, the pre-war adventures, the down moments, all lost.
When someone tries to minimize the death of those in combat by comparing it to traffic accidents or murders, they deny the pain and tragedy of teenagers killed in combat. There is no other kind of death as painful or as pointless. The hole from the death of any child is tremendously painful. But when it is a combat death, it is worse. Because while sacrifice has meaning, to that family, their child is gone,alone, far away, in the company of strangers.
We also forget that to many people, their friends are gone. It is just as painful to those who serve to see their friends die as it is for anyone else. The mental burden on those who serve doesn't diminish. Death is death and painful for everyone. Losing a friend is a painful thing and life-altering. It drives many people into madness, long after combat is over.
Fraternal love is the bond which holds the combat units of any military together. The closeness, the sense of shared sacrifice and suffering, keeps men fighting when the rational thing would be to flee danger. When someone is killed in that fight, and most people survive, it is a tragedy. The more we save, the more painful that each death becomes, the sharper the questions become around their loss, could it have been prevented?
It is the bonds of fraternal love and the horrors of war which forever marks those who survive it.
I was just watching TLC's Not what to wear, where twin Filipina sisters dressed 10 years younger than they were. Their coworkers had nothing but negative comments on their clothes. Which was a problem, since they were accountants for ad agencies.
See, the first rule of work is look the part. Nothing marks the losers from the winners than the people who show up dressed work appropriate. In some places, you have to wear a suit, in some places, you have to wear a Spiderman T-shirt. But you need to look the part. Apperances matter, more than you would think. A lot of programmers, who are wickedly bright, can't get promoted because they never mastered basic hygene. You can't send someone to meet a client who reeks of not taking a bath.
That may seem minor, but it isn't. It's bad enough that no programmer think they suck, but to smell bad?
The second rule is be loyal. Now, a lot of people were waxing about how Tami Silicio did this great thing. Few of you, because you agreed with her actions, thought about how she was disloyal to her employer. This is a woman who'd already sued Halliburton (more on that later), and who's employment prospects were shaky, at least as an overseas contractor.
Now, if you're her boss, how can you trust her? You've already given her a chance, and this is how she repays you. In the greater scheme of things, her's was a moral act. But as an employee, she's completely untrustworthy.
Here's a simple solution: quit. If your company's morals don't match yours, quit. All of you rushing to Silicio defense, should consider another case of personal morals in the workplace. Many pharmacists are now refusing to fill birth control prescriptions because they consider it a form of abortion. Now, imagine you're going to get a refill, and the pharmacist now is making a moral judgment on your life. You'd be outraged, demand the pharmacist be fired. He's not there to make moral judgments on how you live, but to fill your prescription.
My feeling is simple: quit. Work in a place which allows you to pick and choose who you serve. Forcing your employer to accomodate your political beliefs is unfair to them and their customers.
Third, your company has a culture. Try to change it and you'll be fired. I once read a letter from a guy who said he could revolutionize the Internet, but that everyone he worked with was stupid. After I kept reading, I realized the guy was as loony as they come. The public rarely sees such letters, journalists always do.
Unless you're the CEO, you either deal with the culture as is, or you quit. Or be fired. Companies, as a rule, like friction free workplaces. So guy screaming about how this process or that process sucks, usually with no tact, is going to get noticed and then fired. There are ways to change things, usually involving politics and negotiations, otherwise, if you stick up, you'll be pulled out and tossed aside.
Being right is less important than being smart. People are right about a lot of things, few people are listened to. The person who fits in, establishes themselves as ethical and responsible, is the person who can say no and mean it. Credibility is everything at work and few people bother to establish it.
Fourth is protect yourself. Someone claimed that Joe Wilson and Richard Clarke were whistleblowers. They were anything but. They secured their incomes, pensions and new jobs before they ever said a word. Clarke waited until he left before he said a word about counterterrorism in public. Suing your employer will, in most cases, get you blackballed in that industry. Tami Silicio, in normal times, would have been unhireable as an overseas contractor, because she sued Halliburton for violating her rights.
Being right is one thing, few companies will hire someone who sues their employer in a given field. Companies are litigiation shy and want to avoid anyone who will unleash the lawyers. Even firing people is fraught with legal challenges.
If you know this, you don't then place yourself at risk. Unless you're hired to make policy, you have to live by it.
While some whistleblowers are genuine heroes, most have an axe to grind in one way or the other. While people sang the praises of Colleen Rowley, it is no mystery as to why her information didn't make it up the chain of command. She not only didn't coopt her bosses into endorsing her viewpoint, she dressed like a mouse and was socially isolated from her peers. Now, in the real world, you can be as right as rain, but if people look at you as a freak, no one will take you seriously. No one was going to risk their career for her.
Richard Clarke and Rand Beers were a lot smarter. Beers just quit and went to work for Kerry. He threw up his hands and walked away. Clarke took a different job, kept his notes and waited. So when he wrote his book, all the White House could do was call him a liar. They couldn't take any money out of his pocket. They had the effect they wanted, but they protected themselves in the process.
When Sherron Watkins ratted out her bosses at Enron, she was depicted as a hero. But when people talked to her coworkers, it became a case of who would drop a dime first. Watkins was described as an always screaming workplace bully, little better than her bosses. She was roundly detested by her peers.
What people need to consider is that truly ethical people will quit a job before they violate their sense of ethics. If someone expects to keep a job after violating their employer's trust, which in some cases needs to be violated, they are naive or delusional.
The fifth rule is that you aren't working with your friends. Too many people expect that their "friends" at work will support them. Well, if you get in trouble, they are usually the first people to run away. Always have a social life seperate from work, with different people. It's OK to get along with your coworkers, but your relationship is economic. Expecting them to be loyal to you over the job will often lead to disappointment. Your life should be seperate from what you do, unless you are in a band.
Why? Well, see all the glowing pieces on Google? How they fix lunch and dinner for their employees? Well, why do they do that? Because the fuckers never leave the place. They have people pushing 10-12 hour days easy. You cannot have a life and work for them. Any place where you can wear what you want and play with toys is going to ask for your soul in exchange. You will have no life as long as you work there. You will become socially and morally stunted.
I don't care if you can become rich, you will lose part of your humanity in the process.
..............
At the top of the list of those likely to be jettisoned is Ahmed Chalabi, a Shiite politician who for years was a favorite of the Pentagon and the office of Vice President Cheney, and who was once expected to assume a powerful role after the ouster of Saddam Hussein, U.S. officials acknowledged.
Chalabi has increasingly alienated the Bush administration, including President Bush, in recent months, U.S. officials said. He generated anger in Washington yesterday when he said a new U.S. plan to allow some former officials of Hussein's ruling Baath Party and military to return to office is the equivalent of returning Nazis to power in Germany after World War II.
Chalabi has headed the committee in charge of removing former Baathist officials. In a nationwide address yesterday designed to promote national reconciliation, U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer said complaints that the program is "unevenly and unjustly" administered are "legitimate" and that the overall program has been "poorly implemented."
That criticism may curtail Chalabi's influence over the removal of former officials -- and his power over the employment and income prospects of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
Washington is also seriously considering cutting off the $340,000 monthly stipend to Chalabi's party, the Iraqi National Congress, according to a senior administration official familiar with the discussions. This would be a major change, because the INC has received millions of dollars in U.S. aid over the past decade as the primary vehicle for supporting the Iraqi opposition.
Chalabi is part of a wider problem, however. Polls indicate that most of the 25 members of the Iraqi Governing Council have little public support nine months after they were appointed. The lack of popular backing is the main reason the United States and United Nations are seeking a new body to govern Iraq before national elections are held in January 2005, U.S. and U.N. officials said.
I wouldn't count on the demise of Ahmed Chalabi just yet. They left him with the files to blackmail people and put him his nephew in charge of Saddam's tribunal.
He's got a deep backfield in Washington, which has kept him alive before. To be blunt, he's the neocon's Iraqi house nigger. He mouths what they expect and he gets his cash. This leak, and this is what it is, is either designed to smack him back in line, or to have State and the NSC undercut DOD and Cheney.
People still expect that he can run Iraq. No Iraqi expects that, but the folks at the neocon think tanks do. And they were still trying to shovel him in. The CPA memo, stupidly, goes on at length about how CIA and State prevented Chalabi from being in charge. Which is insane on it's face. You wouldn't have to worry about Sadr in Najaf if that happened. You'd have to worry about Sadr City emptying out to lynch him. Last year, a resistance member said "the day Chalabi takes over, the next day we will blow up his house." I would take that at face value.
By rights, Chalabi should be in a US jail for fraud. Or back in Jordan. Either way, this trial balloon about him being tossed from massa's house is just that. The UN may not want him in charge, but Dick Cheney may still. And Dick Cheney gets what he wants.
Take this as a warning shot over his bow. Chalabi foisted the debaathisation as a way to seize power and keep potential rivals at bay. Someone once did a survey of Iraqi exiles about their leadership styles and they all resembled Saddam. So instead of chopping up a critic and sending his pieces back home to his wife, Chalabi uses blackmail and US money to keep people in line.
Only his influence with the CPA and their GOP masters back home has kept him a player in Iraqi politics. If people remember, Jorge Mas Canosa, a Cuban exile, had the same connections and the same fantasy about running a post-Castro Cuba. Until people realized that exiles are not particularly liked. The idea that Mas Canosa could land at Mariel Harbor and take over was comical, especially after the Angolan war.
Chalabi is seen as at best, an American puppet. Which will eventually drive him from Iraq or get him killed. US reliance on his crooked ass is both sad and a testiment to his ability to con people. But to the average Iraqi, he's not anyone they would trust. Let me put it another way, Sadr is far more popular than Chalabi could dream of being. Imagine the outrage if Americans exlied in France wanted to come back and run America in 1784. People wouldn't have tolerated it. Why should Iraqis tolerate a leader who had not suffered with them. Sadr's credibility comes from that suffering and loss. Just because Chalabi paints a tone poem they like in Washington, it may sound like noise in Arabic.
I've just read the umpteenth defense of Silicio and her adventures with cameras and no one seems to get the point.
Her employer probably had no choice but to fire her. If they didn't act, they would have been vunerable to losing their contract and lawsuits from the families for invasion of privacy. It's easy to characterize Maytag Air Group's action as some kind of right-wing solidarity move, but the reality is that Silicio violated the terms of her employment by taking those pictures.
Having covered work issues for years, I have to say the first rule is to not be stupid. Taking pictures at a Kuwaiti Airport is stupid. If she had been Kuwaiti, she'd probably be in jail. As it was, she and her husband, who helped her, were just fired.
The reality is that as a contract employee, she can probably be fired at will. Especially when US law may or may not apply. But she wasn't fired at will. She was fired for cause, which means she violated a work rule. Which has to do with shooting pictures inside US military aircraft, regardless of the cargo.
Now, I think it was a beautiful picture, a great one, but it wasn't her job to take them. By doing so, she placed her company in potential liability from both the DOD and the families of the dead. Her job was to load aircraft. I wonder why the Air Police didn't detain her on the spot. Think about the security risk she could have created if she had taken a picture of equipment going to Iraq? Now, she obviously didn't do that, but if you let employees run around wth cameras, some may look to line their pockets and inform the Iraqi resistance.
I find the policy of hiding the dead arriving at Dover, odious. It is to the shame of the US media that they did not challenge this policy in court. And that they had to hide behind a runway worker to do their job. Now hundreds of pictures, due to the FOIA request of a blogger, are out there. The quotes from the editors of the major news organizations , which have run to use these photos,are embarassing.
But right and keeping your job are two different things. What company could tolerate an employee violating a basic rule of employment and of security? The DOD would well be within their contract rights to demand that any employee snapping pictures be canned.
I know this isn't the popular position, but frankly, I've seen too many cases where employees make their own policies at the expense of their employer. It's easy to defend Silicio behind a keyboard, but I would bet, if an employee you had violated a basic work rule, your understanding would evaporate like water in a New York August day.
She should have realized that her act would have cost her the job she had and then done it anyway. After all, she was right. But to expect her employer to lose a contract behind that is a bit much.
As a contractee in a foreign country, the rights she had were probably few and far between, which is one of the risks you take when you become a contractor. Which means she worked at her employers pleasure at any rate.
Ed Offey of Defense Watch argues that the Marines are engaged in a delicate balancing act in Fallujah.
Say a quiet prayer for our Marines in Fallujah.
It is becoming clearer by the day that they are going to have to clean out the band of several thousand Iraqi insurgents and foreign terrorists the old-fashioned way – in block-by-block city fighting at the squad and platoon level.
A solitary act of barbarism three weeks ago, the murder and defiling of the bodies of four American contract security guards, has now prompted a major military show of force that could well be the defining moment for the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. With only three months before the June 30 deadline for the handover of power in Iraq, the stakes in Fallujah could not be higher for the coalition.
Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, the senior Marine commander in Iraq, said yesterday that only surrender by the insurgents would forestall a Marine sweep of Fallujah. “There are X number of days left,” the general told reporters. “In that period of time, we need to see some distinctive cooperation on the part of the Iraqis inside the city to disarm. If that doesn’t happen, it’s inevitable that we'll go in and attack those people.”
Two events point to that stark scenario taking place.
First, despite a tenuous cease-fire, a group of insurgents mounted an attack on Wednesday that quickly escalated into a prolonged five-hour battle that only ended after several air strikes on the Iraqis’ positions. At one point, dozens of Iraqis rushed the Marines’ positions in what one Marine described as “almost a suicide-like attack.” Three Marines were injured and nine Iraqis killed with an unknown number of wounded.
Second, efforts to have insurgents turn in their weapons as part of the cease-fire have had scant results. When one truck showed up with a small pile of rusty and dysfunctional weapons, one Marine said, “This is one of those tests to see how stupid we are.”
Despite alarmist reports by some news organizations that the Iraqis have assembled a skilled fighting force in the city, a careful review of the news coverage suggests this is an exaggeration. As the Christian Science Monitor noted today:
“From a purely military viewpoint, the unrest in Iraq is not necessarily a massive problem. Fighting in Fallujah has involved around 1,000 dedicated insurgents, in a city of 300,000. The broader insurgency seems to involve 10,000 to 15,000 fighters, according to data compiled by Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.”
There have been some isolated signs of military cohesion among the insurgents that suggests a number of former Iraqi Special Republican Guard soldiers may have joined up, but it remains clear the Marines would ultimately prevail given their training, superior weapons and night-fighting capabilities.
Conway and his subordinate commanders have brought in several thousand reinforcements, providing a force of 3,500 Marines who are currently conducting raids and stockpiling ammunition and supplies in event the attack proceeds. He has also brought in AH-1 Super Cobra attack helicopters and Air Force AC-130 Spectre gunships to patrol over the city by night.
I have to disagree with a couple of his premises here.
First, there may be 1,000 guerrillas, but they are definitely backed by locals. Iraq is one of the most militarized societies on earth. There are so many AK-47's about, every family has one. Kids carry them freely, and most importantly, the adults know how to use them. So any assault into Fallujah could get very ugly, very quickly. NVG gear is fine, but the locals know every street and ally, and they are not the Palestinians, they have enough guns and skill to do ambushes.
Second, as Offey describes, the resistance is hardly afraid of the Marines. The rusted weapons in the truck was a gigantic fuck you, akin to McAuliffe's telling the Germans Nuts at Bastogne. Then they launch a five hour attack? They are not afraid of the Marines or the casualities they can create. They are reportedly fighting in platoon and company-sized units. Without the weapons the US can bring, they will certainly get killed in large numbers.
But, the problem is that the US doesn't have enough forces to drive them from the city. At most, they can bring a regiment, and then still have to deal with diversionary attacks, which will pull away forces and more importantly, air support.
At most, the US can get a three to one advantage, and I suspect the forces are a lot closer to equal than we'd like to believe. This makes offensive operations very difficult. The problem is that the Iraqis are not farm boys with shiny guns, they're mostly ex-soldiers. There may be some foreign fighters in the mix, but the Marines are facing soldiers, trained soldiers, some with combat experience. They're also facing a coordinated command which can shift forces around.
Also, the local leaders are no longer in charge. They can make any deal they want, but the ex-colonels are running the defense of Fallujah. It's not some radicals or some foriegn fighters in charge, but real soldiers fighting a real defense. Knowing the power the US can bring, and to still send out a pile of junk weapons means someone has a set of balls on them. And that doesn't bode well for our Marines in Fallujah.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan after walking away from a multimillion-dollar NFL contract to join the Army Rangers, U.S. officials said Friday.
Tillman, who served with the Army Rangers, was 27.
Although the military had not officially confirmed his death, the White House put out a statement of sympathy that praised Tillman as ``an inspiration both on an off the football field.''
Former Cardinals head coach Dave McGinnis said he felt both overwhelming sorrow and tremendous pride in Tillman, who ``represented all that was good in sports.''
``Pat knew his purpose in life,'' McGinnis said. ``He proudly walked away from a career in football to a greater calling.''
Several of Tillman's friends have said the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks influenced his decision to enlist.
Lt. Col. Matt Beevers, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Kabul, confirmed that a U.S. soldier was killed Thursday evening, but would not say whether it was Tillman.
He said the soldier died after a firefight with anti-coalition militia forces about 25 miles southwest of a U.S. military base at Khost, which has been the scene of frequent attacks.
Tillman turned his back on the NFL to serve with his brother as a Ranger. His service was one of the few acts of sacrifice that anyone can recount in the days after 9/11, where a rich, comfortable person actually risked his life. There was plenty of selflessness around Ground Zero, but sadly, it never left there.
It is an absolute shame that he died in combat. But he died protecting his country from a threat we actually knew existed. Of course, his death is no less tragic than the hundreds of others killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but maybe people might pay attention since he was once famous. Maybe Bush might even go to his funeral. After all, there's nothing presidents like better that the NFL. Even the former baseball owner Bush. Remember the noxious pro-war rally the NFL launched at the start of their last season? Using service personnel as props? The NFL will exploit his death as they exploited his body in life.
The fact is that instead of appealing to the best of Americans, Bush appealed to their pockets.
People may wonder if a draft would equal out the scales, send more middle class and rich kids into the military. It wouldn't. The Army has remained the same for 230 years. The draft existed for about 40 of those years, and those who take the risks are a very small group. If you looked at the economic backgrounds of the average infantry platoon, they would look the same, the working poor and lower middle class. Whether climbing Stony Point, charging Vicksburg, chasing Pancho Villa or walking around Pusan, the lower end of the society has born the greater risk. The rich either avoided service or sought the most glamorous duty. The number of college students, forget college graduates, in an infantry platoon has always been limited. College is usually what comes after the army and has since 1945.
The reality is that the draft would not be fair, but sweep thousands of poor men into the Army when they would have chosen to work in a garage or Walmart or do anything else. The middle class will always have an out in American society, medical deferments, claims of homosexuality, alternative service. They will almost never be given a rifle, placed in a tank or act as a gun bunny, humping 105 shells in the summer sun. Their education and skills will send them into staff jobs far away from combat.
Dos anyone think that given national service, the class of Duke 2005 would be running to serve in a infantry unit? Or would they sweep an old folks home and still take graduate classes at night? Only the poor would be shoved into the Army and then the combat arms. Which is what happened in every war, even WWII. Our view of WWII is shaped by the GI Bill, which fundamentally changed the society.
The military has been the greatest promoter of education in the US. They have embraced it so completely, that no ranking oifficer can be promoted without a masters. Many have doctorates, which makes them, by far, the most educated managerial class in the US. During WWI and WWII, the Army shifted thousands of soldiers into colleges to teach them advanced technical and civil skills. In 1944, the Army, in desperate need for infantry replacements, emptied out these programs and shoved these men into combat. This lasted for all of six months.
So when we look back at WWII, we see all these successful, college educated men coming from the military. Well, they were poor and working class kids when they went into the military. It was the GI Bill which allowed them to become middle class. If you look at the difference between a NG Infantry platoon and a Regular Army platoon, and you'll see that the NG platoon is middle class. Why? Because after their initial service in the Regular Army, which most NG soldiers have, they go to school, get jobs and join the middle class. They rejoin the service because they miss the Army, but still want a life.
The Army has always been a tool for social promotion. It has taken the poor and working class and given them access to social advancement. This is nothing new. We cannot confuse the idea of social equality with the realities of the military. Which is the American military has always been a home for the poor and working class, while the upper middle class and rich have never served. Even in the Civil War, the officers were the local politicans and merchants, elected by their men. During the Indian Wars, the ranks were filled by immigrants, ex-confederates and the poor.
The idea that national service, of any sort, would spread the burden, is not born out by 230 years of history. It can only change when education and access to health care are equalized. As long as some Americans get better educations and better health care than others, those who bear the risk of combat will not change.
NAJAF, Iraq - Nassir al Asadi is angry that Americans are running his country. He's upset that the police force he works for does nothing to oppose them. And the 35-year-old father has lost patience with the Iraqi holy men of his Shiite Muslim faith who fail to condemn the occupiers.
So when rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr last July called on Iraqis to join the armed resistance, al Asadi didn't hesitate. Nor did his siblings. They believe that should they be martyrs while in al Sadr's Mahdi Army - named after the Shiite messiah - it would be a ticket to heaven, a far better fate than serving any foreign master on earth.
The Mahdi Army is the key threat to American-led forces in central and southern Iraq, and the anger of al Asadi and his family offers a glimpse into why many Shiites the United States had counted on as allies are enemies instead.
"Hopefully, the Americans won't be able to take Seyed Muqtada, but if they do, it'll only be over our dead bodies," said al Asadi, giving Muqtada the title used by Shiites whose families are descended from Islam's prophet Muhammad. Al Asadi was sitting cross-legged on the floor of his parents' living room, slicing apples for his 2-year-old son, Hussein.
Al Asadi's siblings live in a rundown neighborhood that's accessible by a dirt road on the outskirts of the holy city of Najaf.
Although nine of her 10 children have joined the Mahdi Army, Basim Jihad isn't rattled by the prospect of losing them to violence. The 50-year-old Jihad shares her children's loyalty to al Sadr. She beamed at her sons and their seemingly futile quest.
"I think of them as the Fedayeen (men of sacrifice) for our faith," she said. "If they are killed, it's a bravery medal for me."
So far, the medal has eluded her. Jihad's sons have been in a single gun battle against coalition forces, attacking Spanish-led troops in Najaf during an April 4 demonstration. The three-hour firefight killed 22 people and wounded at least 100.
The al Asadi brothers are reluctant to say how they train. "We were soldiers in Saddam's army. We know how to fight," Nassir al Asadi said.
Their weapons hidden as they await orders, the al Asadis are an untapped layer of Mahdi guerrillas who'd pose a far greater threat to U.S. soldiers than the often teenage al Sadr loyalists who patrol the streets of Najaf and Kufa with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
"The Americans promised us freedom, but they lied," Nassir al Asadi said, adding that he doesn't believe the Bush administration will return control of Iraq to its people on June 30 as scheduled. "Since they won't give it, we'll take it by force."
Such sentiments have made April the bloodiest month for U.S. forces since they invaded Iraq 13 months ago. While Sunni Muslim insurgents fight Marines in the west, al Sadr's gunmen fire on U.S. soldiers in the south.
Even al Asadi's sister, Worood, 19, has joined the group. Her gender limits her role to demonstrator and security guard, searching women entering the Kufa Mosque, where al Sadr delivered his call to arms. But like her brothers, she's hungry to fight the Americans and would do so if al Sadr changes his mind.
Yeah, thugs and criminals. That's who follows Sadr, right?
This is what I've argued: Sadr's militia is backed by former Iraqi soldiers, people who have the ability to fight in combat. The kids are all well and fine for showing off in the street, but American troops would meet a far different army when they hit the streets of Najaf.
Another thing is that civilian officials have very little sway over these militias. In Fallujah, it's even worse, because they've formed up in military formations led by ex-officers. It turns out, without the oppressive paranoia of Saddam and his Tikriti clique, they're pretty good soldiers. Because they've halted the Marine advance there, regardless of any propaganda. The Marines may try to drive deeper in the city, but they can't force their way into a city of 300,000 people with 2500 men. Not unless they bomb the entire city into rubble.
Given the religious significance of Najaf, any fight there could be brutal.
The media never points out one simple fact, Iraq is filled with ex-soldiers, some with very recent training.
AsJuan Cole points out, the whole demobilization of Iraq's Army was a gift to Ahmed Chalabi, who so belongs in jail for embezzlement, either here or Jordan, and American soldiers have paid for with blood ever since. The one calculation about Sadr which no one says in the mainstream media is this: the majority of Saddam's Army was Shia. If you force them into the streets, most have not only military training, but combat experience. Far more than some Al Qaeda recruit run through an Afghan guerrilla camp. They may not be organized now, but a few smart captains and majors could pull together units and make it very hard for Americans.
Why these Pentagon folks think that the Iraqi Army, held together by nationalism, would let the exile thief Chalabi run their country. He got them out of the way so they couldn't organize a political base, but with 5 million AK's floating around, and plenty of young, eager, and broke mid-level officers floating around as well, a clash was inevitable. Only money and status could have prevented it. Just because they wouldn't fight for Saddam doesn't mean they can't fight. Ask the Iranians.
Kos has a lively debate on John Kerry's above average service record which you should check out.
But after looking at some of the docs, I have to wonder why they're bringing this up. Kerry volunteered for combat duty on Swift boats, which he didn't have to do, and almost got killed. The right wants to debate if he got wounded the first time, but since he was treated for it, he got his medal.
My only thought is that the Bushies are trying to do to Kerry what they did to McCain and Clelland, slander their service and question their patriotism by dragging out right-wing cranks who have an axe to grind.
The only problem here is that Bush's own service record is so deficient that they need to avoid the whole issue. Kerry had completed a tour on a destroyer. He didn't have to seek combat duty, and he did and pretty much did as well as one can do without some major disaster befalling them. There is nothing but praise for Kerry in his records and his crew still stands by him. Unlike Clelland and McCain, Kerry's got witnesses to his acts of bravery. He's got a real live Green Beret officer who he saved while wounded.
The simple fact was that John Kerry was a fearless officer who showed total disregard for his personal safety.
Someone suggested that the Rove plan is to attack him for his anti-war activism. Which would be even dumber.Bush used his connections to be assigned to a fighter squadron with obsolete aircraft, refused an overseas assignment and was taken off flight status. Does he really want to answer questions about his support of the war? If he opposed it, how can he attack Kerry for his very public stand, which got him noticed by the White House. If he supported it, why wasn't he flying an F-4 over Vietnam? Kerry, coming from exactly the same background, fought in Vietnam, then opposed the war.
This is a stupid argument which will harm Bush. Raising it was even dumber. They had to know his service record was good. The glowing words describing his conduct cut into Bush's less than glowing service like a hot knife through butter.
If they want to debate patriotism, John Kerry is the perfect vehicle for it. I don't think they'll ambush him like McCain and Clelland. a few eyewitness stories will shut them down cold.
WHAT is great sushi? Of course, said Seki, the chef and owner of Sushi Seki on First Avenue, great sushi needs great fish. But, he continued, great fish is not enough.
"Sushi is so simple that each element must be perfect, and all the elements must be balanced," he said. "Like pizza."
Like pizza, sushi can be downed as a quick lunch or dwelt upon obsessively for a lifetime. Once your sushi consciousness has been raised, it becomes a pleasure to appreciate its subtle distinctions: the rice should be warm, so that the chilled fish begins to approach body temperature before the piece goes into your mouth; nori, seaweed sheets used for rolling maki, should be thin and crisp, instead of tough and leathery; the wasabi and gari (pickled ginger) should be freshly made.
In Japan, aficionados judge a sushi chef by more than the quality of his fish. ("His" because there are almost no women who are sushi chefs in Japan: legend has it that women's hands are too warm to make sushi.) The proportion of rice to fish is carefully considered. Even the arc described by a piece of sushi fish as it rests on top of the rice has a prescribed shape.
"It should have the same curve as the pages of a book, when you open it and place it on a table" said Gen Mizoguchi, the sushi chef at the new Megu in TriBeCa. Traditional sushi chefs arrange the pieces in rows to mimic the appearance of a school of fish swimming.
Despite this cultural and culinary baggage, it is worth noting that sushi began not as an elegant way to eat raw fish but as a way to preserve it. Packed between layers of cooked rice, whole raw fish fermented slowly instead of rotting, becoming lightly pickled. That pickled flavor is still a faint but essential element in sushi. It is why sushi rice is sprinkled with vinegar.
I came late to eating sushi, in my mid-30's. The sublime nature of raw fish had escaped me well past the time it should have. I liked cooked Japanese food, but sushi had always seemed, well, icky, to me.
I was at a party when raw salmon was served in sashimi style. I took a piece and ate it, and liked it. There were no women to pick up, I was already drunk, so, I had nothing to lose.
Sushi is one of those things you have to try and once you do, it is the perfect dinner. Why? Because it is great for a date, shows you're sophisticated, and is relatively cheap. New York's East Village is filled with both Japanese expats and a ton of sushi restaurants. Jen loves sushi and celebrated her last two birthdays over sushi. In fact, because I was recovering when her birthday came, I owe her a sushi dinner. Which is fine by me, because sushi, like single malt scotch, is an aquired taste I didn't mind aquiring.
I know we talk a lot about home cooking here, but sushi is one of the things I have no interest in learning how to cook. Given that a sushi chef is so skilled, I would rather just have them make it and revel in his skill rather than make some half-baked version at home. Japanese food is not hard to cook, but sushi is as much art as food. There is something refreshing in the effort placed in seeing a skilled artisan at work.
Sushi, oddly enough, is one of the most subtle foods I have ever eaten. It doesn't have strong flavors, unlike most western seafood. The polar opposite of sushi and sashimi is Maryland crab. Old Bay seasoning is as unsubtle a flavor as one can have on food. I find it a bit too salty for my taste, but it smacks you in the face.
With seafood, subtle flavors are best, unless you want to cover the food with something so outstanding that it stands up and salutes. Most seafood doesn't need it. Crab, is of course, the exception. Even mussels do better with a simple garlic and butter sauce. Not crabs. If you don't come with big flavor, don't come at all. A little butter and lemon won't do. It's not a lobster or clams.
Now, I grew up in a seafood loving family. Crabs were our delicacy where others would save that for barbecue or roast meat. We would boil crabs when there was any chance, especially in mid-summer. Shrimp was nice, but crabs was the special meal. Not that we would have it with anything, nope, not even hot sauce. Crab was always special on its own. Old Bay Seasoning wasn't even an issue. A beer boil was a post-adulthood innovation. No squeamishness about boiling live crabs. Just toss them in a large pot and boil them.
The thing about sushi, which I came to later on, is that it is the most sophisticated meal you can have and not have it soaked in buttery sauces and have to dress up for. Good sushi, which can be as expensive as any meal in Manhattan, is subtle, not because of the ingredients, which are pretty much the same, but because of the skill of the chef, the use of the knife, the way he handles the fish, the way he displays it. That's the thing which you don't notice, but marks his skill as clearly as a flag.
Sushi is a simple food, but it is often simple food where the most skill is required to execute it successfully.
US Christian fundamentalists are driving Bush's Middle East policy
George Monbiot
Tuesday April 20, 2004
The Guardian
To understand what is happening in the Middle East, you must first understand what is happening in Texas. To understand what is happening there, you should read the resolutions passed at the state's Republican party conventions last month. Take a look, for example, at the decisions made in Harris County, which covers much of Houston.
The delegates began by nodding through a few uncontroversial matters: homosexuality is contrary to the truths ordained by God; "any mechanism to process, license, record, register or monitor the ownership of guns" should be repealed; income tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax and corporation tax should be abolished; and immigrants should be deterred by electric fences. Thus fortified, they turned to the real issue: the affairs of a small state 7,000 miles away. It was then, according to a participant, that the "screaming and near fist fights" began.
I don't know what the original motion said, but apparently it was "watered down significantly" as a result of the shouting match. The motion they adopted stated that Israel has an undivided claim to Jerusalem and the West Bank, that Arab states should be "pressured" to absorb refugees from Palestine, and that Israel should do whatever it wishes in seeking to eliminate terrorism. Good to see that the extremists didn't prevail then.
But why should all this be of such pressing interest to the people of a state which is seldom celebrated for its fascination with foreign affairs? The explanation is slowly becoming familiar to us, but we still have some difficulty in taking it seriously.
In the United States, several million people have succumbed to an extraordinary delusion. In the 19th century, two immigrant preachers cobbled together a series of unrelated passages from the Bible to create what appears to be a consistent narrative: Jesus will return to Earth when certain preconditions have been met. The first of these was the establishment of a state of Israel. The next involves Israel's occupation of the rest of its "biblical lands" (most of the Middle East), and the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques. The legions of the antichrist will then be deployed against Israel, and their war will lead to a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. The Jews will either burn or convert to Christianity, and the Messiah will return to Earth.
What makes the story so appealing to Christian fundamentalists is that before the big battle begins, all "true believers" (ie those who believe what they believe) will be lifted out of their clothes and wafted up to heaven during an event called the Rapture. Not only do the worthy get to sit at the right hand of God, but they will be able to watch, from the best seats, their political and religious opponents being devoured by boils, sores, locusts and frogs, during the seven years of Tribulation which follow.
The true believers are now seeking to bring all this about. This means staging confrontations at the old temple site (in 2000, three US Christians were deported for trying to blow up the mosques there), sponsoring Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, demanding ever more US support for Israel, and seeking to provoke a final battle with the Muslim world/Axis of Evil/United Nations/ European Union/France or whoever the legions of the antichrist turn out to be.
The believers are convinced that they will soon be rewarded for their efforts. The antichrist is apparently walking among us, in the guise of Kofi Annan, Javier Solana, Yasser Arafat or, more plausibly, Silvio Berlusconi. The Wal-Mart corporation is also a candidate (in my view a very good one), because it wants to radio-tag its stock, thereby exposing humankind to the Mark of the Beast.
This nonsense about the Rapture makes for a good movie, but the reality is that millenial movements are nothing new. Hell, Calvinism had pre-ordination as a major tenant of faith. If these people want to spend their money on badly written novels, who am I to complain. After all, I have a few Tom Clancy's around.
But the scary part is that these people are expecting to be lifted off out of their lives, because they are saved and the Jews will get the rest of their final solution and the Muslims will join them. Which is nonsense. When I'm asked about religion, far from my favorite topic, I say I'm a Methodist, which I am. A nice, safe, liberal faith which doesn't hate gays andn won't embarass themselves like the Episcopalians.
I don't expect God to murder all non-born again people, since that's most of the earth, nor do I think bringing about Armageddon is a smart move. There was already a battle of Meggidio, in 1918 and the world didn't end.
While I believe in God and good works, these people use religion as a cudgel. They pervert the concept of being saved into some kind of supernatural cloak. They can be bigoted, small minded and cruel and whip out Jesus as a shield.
At it's most extreme, they use religion as a cynical tool, like Judge Roy Moore. The dingbats who thought God's word had to be represented by some sculpture profaned the word of God. If you believe in the Ten Commandments, they should be in your heart, not tossed in someone's face.
And the idea that all other faiths must fall before Jesus, is well, deeply offensive. If there is a God, then He must lead us to find our own ways to him.
This sort of religious thuggery has gotten people killed in Iraq. For some reason, people were offended by Christian prostelization. As if they didn't have their own faith.
This drive to denigrate other religions on the part of the born agains comes from a profound ignorance of the world. They think their little patch of Dogpatch was ordained by God and anyone else who doesn't share in a love of BBQ and Nascar needs to be brought to Jesus. Yet, it never occurs to them that they might not like Imams trying to convert them to Islam, to bring them to the true light of Allah.
These millenialists think End Times are here. I might be more impressed if this didn't happen every 1000 years or so. These people, with their blather about the Rapture are nothing new. At the end of every century someone thinks Jesus is going to come back and take them with him, and of course, they are disappointed.
The support these wackos give to Israeli is really a kinder, gentler version of the Final Solution. Sure, they don't compare them to vermins and rats, but they clearly want to exterminate the Jews as much as Himmler. But instead of gassing them and turning them to fertilizer, they want to bring them to Jesus, preferably as Southern Babtists or Pentacostals. They have nothing but disdain for Judaism and would like to eliminate it.
The Israelis know this and game them for support. But like with all cynical alliances, the bill will come due one day and these folks will expect their climatic battle, which will kill lots of Jews and Muslims while they, a distinct worldwide minority, gets to
