Between Hope and Fear

Youth, Interrupted

2007-04-18T21:25:00.001-07:00

Somewhere I was listening to an interview with a witness of the Kent State massacre in 1970. The horror of the campus killings 37 years ago were compared to events at Virginia Tech.

Hearing about Kent State reminded me how that massacre helped to forge a generation. So too will Virginia Tech, though quite differently.

Kent State was a tragedy that was the result of two sides facing off over the war in Vietnam. One side was protesting the seemingly endless and expanding conflict in Indochina; the other side was called in to maintain civil order. Guns went off, and four people lay dead. The young generation just emerging from the 1960s rallied around this event. The antiwar cause was buttressed. Their deaths, while tragic, were at least casualties in a battle of ideas.

But what of today's young generation? The Virginia Tech massacre seems prophetic for them. Nine times the number died at Virginia Tech than did at Kent. What cause did these young people die for?

None at all. They died because a lunatic got his hands on some very effective killing technology. The press looks for meaning, and answers. They'll never be found. Because they're not there.

Today's young generation must contend with mass death at the hands of anonymous people, with anonymous causes. Certainly, murder sprees are not unique to today's young generation. But situational catastrophe seems to have taken on a life of its own in the past 10 years. In terms of age, it's possible that some of the kids who were shot at by Cho Seung-Hui might have dodged bullets of similar intent at Columbine High School in 1999. This is a generation that has become accustomed to being distracted, influenced, and sometimes killed en masse by random occurrence without a coherent purpose.

Some of these kids are in school, others among them are in Iraq and Afghanistan. There too, they must contend with anonymous, random violence. International Jihad does indeed represent a cause, albeit incoherent much of the time. But each act of violence in the name of Jihad seems arbitrary, and murderous.

What must today's young people make of the world they must engage? What are their expectations, as a generation? Media has pounded them all their lives about how the world is dangerous; it's full of child molesters, murderers, disease and vice. They're a generation raised with interior childhoods, safe from what lurks outside, but free to observe it on a screen. All their worldly needs could be met in homes and safe places. Childhood became a crafted vocation.

Virginia Tech was the slaughter of the lambs by one of their tormented own. While their lives had purpose and meaning, their deaths had none. That's the despicable truth. Where Kent defined the older generation's opposition to war, Virginia Tech defines only an rising tide of random atrocity without end.

Wish them well.

Running Interference

2007-02-01T20:22:00.000-08:00

I live in Boston's backyard. I've been hearing the buzz and fuss about the 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force' guerrilla marketing campaign snafu:

The US city of Boston was snarled in traffic jams January 31st as police investigated hoax boaxes with flashing lights placed around bridges all over the city.
Turner Broadcasting Systems had hired people to plant the strange devices around the city of Boston to market a television cartoon called "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" which has a movie coming out February 23rd.

Road and rail traffic was disrupted by the Police as they investigated the hoax and removed the boxes within emergency protocols for bomb scares. Two men alleged to have placed the boxes have been charged, and Turner Broadcast Systems apologized. Boston's mayor will pursue compensation to the city for the cost of the scare.

The media circus seems to have oscillated around this event. Most people think Bostonians have overreacted. I agree.

If this were just the work of renegade guerilla artists, it would be one thing. But this isn't quite that.

Guerrilla tactics are flourishing in the hyper-networked age. We see the guerrilla meme changing the nature of war, marketing and advertising -- even childhood. We see it in art, as a form of expression.

The magnetic lighted boards planted in Boston by Berdovsky and Stevens were a kind of guerilla art that is ultimately funded by a large entertainment conglomerate -- Turner Broadcasting. It was apparently the brainchild of Interference Marketing, Inc., engaged by Turner to promote 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force.' In the end, it was all part of a promotion created to enrich a mega-corporation that is shrewd enough to hijack the emerging guerrilla cultural meme.

A friend of mine said that this is a pathology of the wartime mentality we have assumed over five years. Indeed, these are jittery times. In some ways, there's a similarity between this event and the overreaction to Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast in 1938. It was the eve of another war then. People had lost their sense of humor. Who can fault them, under the circumstances?

The two men arrested for planting the devices later gave a surreal press interview for television. They made a mockery of the situation, which on some level couldn't be denied as being ridiculous. I wanted to like them and appreciate their Dada moment.

But I didn't. What troubles me is that I can't determine if Berdovsky and Stevens are renegade Dadaist artists, brilliant marketing tacticians, hapless idiots or corporate stooges.

People wag their fingers at an overreactive, jittery populace as being the villain in this situation. But really, it's hard to tell who the villain is. People living in a paranoid age acting irrationally? The pathologies created by the war on terror? Artists? Marketing? Corporate media? The guerilla mentality?

The whole bloody circus?

Hama Complex

2007-01-26T06:40:00.000-08:00

One of the arguments for pulling out of Iraq is that its citizens are not capable of establishing anything remotely like a democracy. We flatter ourselves to believe that our 230 year old democratic experiment has any chance of getting off the ground in a region defined by clan, religious edict and ethnic rivalries that reach back into antiquity.

I will confess that I myself have nursed this opinion on and off, agog at the carnage in Iraq. Whether or not our boys and girls on the ground are the stewards of a fledgling democracy or are greasing the gears of Iraq's next ethnic meat machine, it's not obvious which will prevail.

I read somewhere that the Americans are too nice to run a place like Iraq. Our introspection gets us caught up in our moral lapses in places like Abu Ghraib, much less actually rule with an iron fist. No, I don't think Abu Ghraib was a good thing, or necessary. I don't particularly want our soldiers to become common thugs. There's nothing to win when that happens.

But the point of our light-handedness -- our niceness -- remains.

Many readers here might be familiar with the massacre in Hama, Syria, in 1982. Here's the background from Wikipedia:

At the time, the Middle East was in deep turmoil and Syria had been deeply involved in Lebanon's Civil War since 1976 and the beginning of the 1982 Lebanon War. Problems also arose from Turkey, which mobilized troops on its borders with Syria primarily to deal with Kurdish rebels and accused Syria of supporting and training the PKK rebels within Turkey. The Muslim Brotherhood took advantage of this situation to start defying Hafez al-Assad's rule. It undertook guerrilla activities in multiple cities within the country targeting officers, government officials and infrastructure. The anti-regime violence included the killings of eighty-three young military cadets at an artillery school in Aleppo in June 1979, and three car bomb attacks in Damascus between August and November 1980 that killed several hundred people. In July 1980, membership in the Muslim Brotherhood was made a capital offense punishable by death, with the ratification of Law No. 49. Throughout the early 1980s the Muslim Brotherhood staged a series of bomb attacks against the government and its officials, including a nearly successful attempt to assassinate president Hafiz al-Assad on June 26, 1980, during an official state reception for the president of Mali. When a machine gun salvo missed him, al-Assad ran to kick a hand grenade aside, and his bodyguard sacrificed himself to smother the explosion of another one. Surviving with only light injuries, al-Assad's revenge was swift and merciless: only hours later many hundreds of imprisoned Islamists were murdered in a massacre carried out by his brother Rifaat al-Assad in Tadmor Prison.
Calls for vengeance grew within the brotherhood, and bomb attacks increased in frequency. Events culminated with a general insurrection in the conservative Sunni town of Hama in February 1982. Islamists and other opposition activists proclaimed Hama a "liberated city" and urged Syria to rise up against the "infidel". Brotherhood fighters swept the city of Ba'thists, breaking into the homes of government employees and suspected supporters of the regime, killing about 50. The goal of the attack on Hama was to cease the rebellious activities of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. The assault began on February 2 with extensive shelling of the town of 350 000 inhabitants. Before the attack, the Syrian government called for the city's surrender and warned that anyone remaining in the city would be considered as a rebel. Robert Fisk in his book Pity the Nation described how civilians were fleeing Hama while tanks and troops were moving towards the city's outskirts to start the siege. He cites reports from fleeing civilians and soldiers of mass death and shortages of food and water.(Pity the Nation, pages 185-86)

According to Amnesty International, the Syrian military bombed the old streets of the city from the air to facilitate the introduction of military forces and tanks through the narrow streets, where homes were crushed by tanks during the first four days of fighting. They also claim that the Syrian military pumped poison gas into buildings where insurgents were said to be hiding.

The army was mobilized, and Hafez again sent Rifaat's special forces and Mukhabarat agents to the city. After encountering fierce resistance, they used artillery to blast Hama into submission. After a two-week battle, the town was securely in government hands again. Then followed several weeks of torture and mass executions of suspected rebel sympathizers, killing many thousands, known as the Hama Massacre. Journalist Robert Fisk, who was in Hama shortly after the massacre, estimated at the time that 10,000 citizens were killed and later described the death count as as many as 20,000; (Pity the Nation, pages 186; [1]), but according to Thomas Friedman (From Beirut to Jerusalem, pages 76-105) Rifaat later boasted of killing 38,000 people. The Syrian Human Rights Committee estimates 30,000 to 40,000 were killed. Most of the old city was completely destroyed, including its palaces, mosques, ancient ruins and the famous Azzem Palace mansion. After the Hama uprising, the Islamist insurrection was broken, and the Brotherhood has since operated in exile. Government repression in Syria hardened considerably, as al-Assad had spent in Hama any goodwill he previously had left with the Sunni majority, and now was compelled to rely on pure force to stay in power.

Ever since Hama, for better and for worse, the al-Assad regime has kept Syria relatively quiet. Islamicists have been put in their place, working either underground or abroad.

I was struck by an article concerning ancient weapons found in the ruins of Hamoukar in Syria. The archeological dig is located near the Iraqi border. Clemens Reichel, the American co-director of the expedition, has seen explosions just over the border. He said:

"It's somewhat surreal. We're not living in a vacuum there. We know exactly what's happening across the border," Reichel said. "But working in Syria is like working in the eye of the storm. It's very peaceful to work there. Practically no problems."

'No problems' in Syria for the western archeologist. The spoils of Hama, perhaps?

I have wanted to believe -- and would like to believe -- that there is a 'third way' in the Arab Middle East. It's glimmers can be seen in Lebanon, though intermittently, where modernity has not translated to autocracy or theocracy. The moment seems rare though, as we now look at Lebanon's apparent slide into war. Can this region and these people secure themselves without invoking Hama?

Would the world be a better place had Hama not been obliterated? Would it have been better for the Muslim Brotherhood to get control over Syria in 1982? Or was it better that a relatively secular autocrat put down religious extremists? Which is preferable?

This question vexes me. I don't like to ask it. I don't think it gets asked enough. I think we want to believe that it's a false choice allowing only two oppressive outcomes. We want to believe that people in that region yearn for freedom, and don't want to choose between two blunt evils. It may be, however, that what we hope for is not what history delivers.

Eventually, some kind of parity and order will restore itself in Iraq. It might not happen until another Hama occurs. I doubt that we will be capable of enacting the wanton slaughter required to beat anarchy into submission. I'm sure I wouldn't want us to. Not only would we betray the core purpose of our mission in Iraq, we would wind up putting down one side of an ancient war in favor of another. There's no winning that war.

'Hama II' will likely happen in our absence. Or be perpetrated in our midst.

When we leave the region, people who have advocated that Iraq and Arabs are incapable of democracy will be vindicated. But I hope they don't run victory laps in the streets. Because there's an inevitable logic that follows. If Iraqis cannot find democracy because of their deep cultural, ethnic and religious bigotry, then there's no argument that Muslims can live in secular Europe among French or English natives. Or in America, such as Dearborn Michigan. There would be no case for Palestinians taking part in a peace process, or having the capacity to run their own state on a democratic basis. There would be no case that Egyptians and North Africans could transcend tyranny.

'Losing Iraq' -- meaning Iraq losing its chance to join the free world as a beacon to its Arab and Muslim brethren -- does not bode well for Muslims across the globe. If it is clear they cannot be civilized -- yes, civilized by our standards -- then civilization will circle its wagons and exclude them, en masse. Somewhere down that road will come another Hama. And another. And another.

The New York Times published a telling story from our Surge Troops on the ground in Baghdad:

When the Iraqi units finally did show up, it was with the air of a class outing, cheering and laughing as the Americans blew locks off doors with shotguns. As the morning wore on and the troops came under fire from all directions, another apparent flaw in this strategy became clear as empty apartments became lairs for gunmen who flitted from window to window and killed at least one American soldier, with a shot to the head.
Whether the gunfire was coming from Sunni or Shiite insurgents or militia fighters or some of the Iraqi soldiers who had disappeared into the Gotham-like cityscape, no one could say.

"Who the hell is shooting at us?" shouted Sgt. First Class Marc Biletski, whose platoon was jammed into a small room off an alley that was being swept by a sniper’s bullets. "Who's shooting at us? Do we know who they are?"

In the end, the answer to Sgt. Biletski's question might come with an exasperated, apologetic shrug. "Who's shooting at us? Do we know who they are?" Yes, we know who they are. They're Muslims. Some are Sunni. Some are Shi'ite. Some are young. Some are old. Some are Arabs. Some are Persians. Some are in America. Some are in Iraq. Some are in Europe, and Africa and the Pacific. Some are moderate. Some are radical. It's become impossible to pick out who's who. They're all shooting at us, and at each other.

Hama awaits. Who lights the fuse?

Guardedly Skeptical

2007-01-12T05:51:00.000-08:00

I've been a nay-sayer here about the war recently. I have found it increasingly difficult to have much faith in the president's competence in prosecuting the war. I still believe we are on the threshold of taking a side in an ancient religious feud. Let's hope not.

I would at least like to upgrade my negative position to 'guardedly skeptical'. I was reminded this morning that my armchair viewpoint is spun from a digital tower. There are people whose experience on the ground in Iraq trumps the prognostications I dream up on the Blogosphere.

Here's the views from some soldiers on the ground in Iraq. In this article at least, they're more optimistic that the fresh troops being deployed will be a positive development.

I hope they're right. And I hope they can do their work well and come home, in spite of the politics at home. And in spite of my skepticism. Read on:

U.S. troops: Fresh faces must be used correctly

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A few hours after President Bush announced more than 20,000 additional troops would deploy to Iraq, U.S. Army Sgt. Michael Casper was doing inventory with his soldiers.

Like most soldiers here, Casper did not catch Bush's speech, but he knew the basics: More troops are on the way.

"It's trying something new, and if it works, it works; and if not, we will have to find something else," he said.

Staff Sgt. Roy Starbeck also didn't hear Bush's remarks, but he did hear some of the dissenting reaction from politicians and others -- and it irked him to no end.

"It's just ... really just aggravating," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "People saying that they don't support the war because they don't like the president or saying they don't support the war because they are Democrats or saying they support the war because they are Republicans.

"None of them are taking the time or energy to find out what is actually going on over here."

Most of the soldiers who spoke with CNN said they believe that if the fresh troops are used in the right way, the increase could be a significant help. But these men have no say in policy.

In the words of one soldier, "I am just a little fish."

Starbeck said he believes that Bush "did a pretty good job of owning up to what is going on over here."

That sentiment -- that Americans don't fully understand what's going on in Iraq -- is one that resonates among troops.

A lot of them said they feel that those who make the decisions and the American people don't have a clue what they --- the soldiers, Marines and other forces --- are going through. And dealing with that is not easy...

Based on their experiences fighting in Baghdad, troops who talked with CNN said they feel that more troops would be best used alongside Iraqi security forces. Even in areas that already have been handed over to Iraqi control, the Americans still find themselves coaching and mentoring the Iraqis down to the last detail.

The Iraqi troops also have told CNN they want the American firepower on their side because it bolsters their confidence.

In addition, U.S. soldiers have said they have noticed that when they are present in force, the sectarian violence tends to decrease.

"We would drive right down the Sunni-Shia fault line when we heard the gunfight going on and that would calm things down," Staff Sgt. Daniel Beard told us out on patrol.

His platoon commander, Charles Moffit, said he thinks the increased troops will help.

"We can only be in so many places at one time. ... If we have more soldiers here, we can be more places at one time."

Many of the soldiers here are on their second -- if not third or fourth -- deployments and have a solid grasp on the countless challenges they face.

They know that military power alone is not going to win the fight. And they also know that while, as many of them said, the plans often sound great on paper, it translates differently on the streets of Baghdad.

"I think it's a double-edged sword," Army Sgt. Jason Dooley said, peering over the shoulder of an American sniper about halfway into Tuesday's 10-hour gunbattle for Haifa Street.

"Increasing troops could show more force, could incite the insurgents or get them to back off. You never really know. They do what they want to do -- that's what makes it so hard."

Lose, Lose, Lose

2007-01-10T20:05:00.000-08:00

Here's some snippets from President Bush's speech on a new Iraq strategy this evening:

The consequence of failure:

The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people...

The cause of failure:

There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have.

The new security arrangement:

The Iraqi government will deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad’s nine districts. When these forces are fully deployed, there will be 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades committed to this effort – along with local police. These Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations – conducting patrols, setting up checkpoints, and going door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents.

...this will require increasing American force levels.

The intended result:

...over time, we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad’s residents. When this happens, daily life will improve, Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders, and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas. Most of Iraq’s Sunni and Shia want to live together in peace – and reducing the violence in Baghdad will help make reconciliation possible.

- - -

The President's Iraq plan assumes that there is a cogent, non-sectarian, uncorrupted Iraqi national government to partner with. I propose that this is an illusion, laid bare by Saddam's mob-like execution at the hands of revenging Shi'a. There is no real national government in Iraq that represents all the factions. I don't believe it is possible at this hour.

We're pouring 20,000 more of our forces to go "door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents". Translation: We're going to unwittingly assist one side of this sectarian conflict suppress the other. We will be taking sides in a conflict that goes back more than a millennium.

It has become inordinately difficult to see how our token force of 20,000 additional troops embedded in Iraq's sectarian war will turn the tide in the Global War on Terror.

I supported this war because I felt it was a gamble worth taking, given the data we had at the time regarding Saddam's WMD programs. But through deception from many sides, error, misjudgment, incompetence, stupidity, naiveté, over-exuberance and bad luck, the gamble failed. 20,000 troops in 2007 is 20,000 troops too late.

Perhaps some will think this is an overarching strategy to beef-up forces in the region pending engaging the Iranians. If we need to do that, we need to consider how taking sides in a pointless sectarian war in Iraq now is going to strengthen our resolve in dealing with Iran later. Here's a hint: It won't. It will sap us. The pointlessness of the exercise will be self-fulfilling.

Hell, I'm no military strategist. I don't have a specific strategy in mind to secure even a limited defeat, short of withdrawal. But I think the President's calling for 20,000 troops at this stage of the conflict is not serious. You and I -- private citizens not in uniform -- are asked to do nothing but fret. The sacrifice expected of us is, once again, minimal.

Enjoy your iPhones.

Nothing

2006-12-30T07:46:00.000-08:00

On the way to his execution, Saddam Hussein said, "Iraq without me is nothing."

I am glad the Saddam era is over. But I wouldn't say I am relieved. I wonder if his last words are prescient. The nation called Iraq is slipping into civil war. Indeed, is Iraq a nation? Is its national continuity impossible without the bindings of a brutal autocrat? Much relies on the answer to this question.

Bellamy's Buzzer

2006-12-11T18:24:00.000-08:00

Our first winter here in Massachusetts is just beginning. We have house squirrels, I think. I'm told that when the wind chills, they take refuge where they can. I don't like squirrels in my house, between the ceilings and floors, banging and nibbling acorns up there, unseen. If only I could reason with them, and strike a bargain. Ah, the life of a country squire...

There's a lot of buzz about 'next moves' -- what to do in Iraq, with Iran, and North Korea. What will Hezbollah's next move be in Lebanon and Israel? What of our lame duck president, for two years coming? The Democrats have the helm now, more or less. Maybe they'll bumble onto something positive. Obama seems like a breath of fresh air.

I've been trying to draw my own personal conclusion about the war in Iraq. I was for it. At the war's outset, the cause seemed justified, a gamble I thought worth taking. It seemed positive in the face of the alternative, which was to continue fiddling in the corridors of the UN and in the salons of Arabia and Europe while Saddam would break apart the sanctions regime. Maybe it was just me, but in 2003 the option for more circular diplomacy and realpolitik seemed pessimistic and hopelessly spent in the wake of 9/11.

But I won't kid you. My optimism clouded my better judgement. I mistook a clear view for a short distance. It's not practicable to throw democracy into a region that's never known it, like a hand grenade. Once it explodes, everyone is supposed to head for the polls and be good citizens. Well alright, it was never sold as being that simple, but I admit that I had a few dreams in the fantasy lounge, inspired by Cool Aid. So be it. I'm a dreamer. There most certainly is little room left for peaceable dreams of any kind for the Middle East.

I might say that Project Iraqi Democracy could've worked out more positively under more competent leadership. I might say that it would've been useful to have a few more friends on our side in Europe and elsewhere. And that we played the war too safe, if you can believe that. We should've doubled our effort, and been more serious about nation building. But those things aren't really the whole nut. Not even the war is the whole nut.

Iraq might possibly be the last war this country will fight against another one, in the traditional sense. After this, it's more likely to be America versus various private armies. Empowered by the Internet, black market economies, ideology and fluctuating alliances, such armies will merit enough traction to burst forth in mass-murderous fury, then shrink away like black violets. Many will be Islamic; some will not. Perhaps in the process of these battles, America will also break down into a collection of little armies with global reach. It's nowhere I want to be.

Iraq is a crossover war: It started Clauswitzian, and became fourth generation. Fourth generation warfare can perpetuate anarchy, which is normally short-lived in the vacuum of power. A peculiar rough parity between violent private armies seems to have settled in on places like Iraq, and parts of Afghanistan -- not to mention the Palestinian territories, southern Lebanon and vast tracts of Africa. This may be the omen from Iraq, offering a glimpse into our not too distant future. Or the parity may be temporary, and I just can't see past it.

Under duress, we think of ourselves as a country. We rely on patriotic lore and national will to pull us through war, blight, and now terrorism. I think that most people sense that the bedrock of our national identity is at play in this era. It isn't just Iraq, or Al Qaeda. It's everything. In the 1990s we celebrated high tech companies that came out of nowhere and unseated industry gorillas. Technology is enabling. It clears the decks and capsizes ships. By that measure, it's exciting, especially if the disruption is tied to a bit of equity with your name on it. But decentralization and disruption spares nothing. It not only capsizes companies and industries, but countries too. For now, we can go on pretending that our sovereignty is assured. We gas our cars and water our lawns in the face of a mighty wind, my friends.

* * *

After we tuck our toddler daughter into bed, my wife and I enjoy our evening cocoa stirred with a Netflix show. Right now we're watching all 1,232,849 episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs. After thirty-plus years, it still captivates. It transports one to the Belle Epoch years over six seasons, then into World War I and the Roaring 20s, set in classist England.

Upstairs, Downstairs takes place in a high-class London home, whose master is a Member of Parliament, Lord Richard Bellamy and his family. The upstairs of the house is the living quarters of the elite Bellamys; the downstairs is the working quarters of the lower class servants and tradesmen, led by the head butler, Mr. Hudson. The series examines the intricate interrelationship of the two classes under one roof. Over the many episodes the class system, the fabric of British culture at the time, frays to the forces of world war, industrialism, technological modernity and socialism.

One of the first innovative uses of electricity at the Bellamy residence merely replaced the bells-and-pulley system that rang the servants from throughout the house. The bells gave way to lights and buzzers; the ropes and pulleys to wires and buttons. They imagined that electricity would simply buttress the world they preferred to know -- not destroy it.

Midway through Upstairs, Downstairs, the Bellamys' son, James, becomes a Major in the King's Army during World War I. He winds up commanding machine gunners in France. Over the course of the war, he is transformed from being a young upper-class wastrel to a disenchanted, weary and shell-shocked man. He decries the war as senseless; an appalling waste of millions of men chopped down by death machines in the service of an immoral order. "Nobody's going to win this war," he tells his father, the M.P. "There can be no disagreement so egregious to justify this carnage."

A popular sentiment among the hawks in the current war amounts to this lament: "If only we could summon the will to fight our avowed terrorist enemies in a spirit of patriotism like in World War II." I've thought that myself, more than a few times. I breezed over the inevitable screeds on Pearl Harbor Day, reminiscing when we responded patriotically, which carried us through the long haul to victory. That's the happy-ending story often told.

Patriotism was enormously important for fueling the armies of the Great War that clashed in the Somme and Verdun. Theirs was the more unquestioning variety of patriotism that is demanded today. But what a strange beast those hapless patriots were sacrificed to. Millions of farmers, bakers, and tradesmen on all sides were shoveled into the maw of an uncomprehending, self-serving beast in denial about it's own immorality. Into the Beast's jowls they marched, dispatched in part by their sense of duty to God and King. Regardless of victory, the center did not hold, no matter which sovereign's honor they defended. Larger forces were at play.

We should be careful of what we wish for. "Acting as one" is the password to the Beast's lair. We live in an era where established centers are imploding. We're all an integral part of the process. It doesn't mean we should just give up and give ourselves to despair. But neither should we fantasize about the glory of past wars that were inglorious. It was one of civilization's lowest points.

Clicking on the 'Buy Now' button for cheap Chinese-made goods at Amazon.com, we're little different than Lord Bellamy summoning servants with his new-fangled electric buzzer for afternoon tea. Like him, we want to believe that all this technology is only here to make life as we know it better, easier and more efficient. We can't imagine that the present has no future. So we tell ourselves stories, hoping they become history someday.

'Twas ever thus.

Muddle

2006-11-01T20:23:00.000-08:00

So.

I've been lying back on the couch these days. No blogging. No lots-of-things beyond work and being Papa. I am now taking daily walks after learning that my cholesterol levels read like fiction. Getting life insurance is sobering. You sit at home with an agent and talk about your life's value in mere dollars. Your blood is drawn. Then you're told by someone whose living involves making bets on people's lives that you're a risky prospect. Feh. Forty three.

So, it's fish oil pills, oat bran, beans, niacin and rabbit food. This is my new grind. The daily red wine is a bonus. Walking the New England woods does me well, though it takes a lot of time. Sorry about not finding the time to blog a little more frequently. I've just been walking in the woods, through the headlines of late.

I haven't had much to say. Sometimes the best etiquette in the salon is to politely listen, and reflect while gazing out the window. Lots of the talk in the salon sounds plausible and impossible all at once. "Intriguing idea, that man has. And yet..."

Muddle. That's the word that tumbles in front of me as I take on November, 2006. It's an odd time; the stock market is soaring, but exuberance is muted. It's as though we're donning our summer trunks, tossing the beach ball while manning the grill. The laundry's on the line, and the larder is full in the house. But the summer sky is silvery gray. The air is forty degrees. It's not summer. Not really -- and everyone knows it. But for the moment everything is okay.

I know that bravado has gotten us nowhere. I was a part of that, in some small way. I don't believe I was exactly ecstatic for war in Iraq, but I was for it. It seemed like a gamble worth taking, and I felt it possible that some good could come out of it. That was optimistic of me. Since then I've wanted to be supportive of the cause in any way possible. At this point, I see a muddle, if not in my own head then in the blank stare of our president. I voted for that fellow. I think he's trying his best. But I don't think he or his party can cut the mustard.

"Lead, damn it," I say to myself when I see the president tongue-tied for the umpteenth time. It's not going to happen. And now the other half is leaving the stage -- Tony Blair. Say what you want about him, but the man could articulate what our president could not.

I feel muddled about the upcoming election. I don't feel a passion for most of these people. I'm certainly not knee-jerking into voting Republican. My gut tells me to generally vote Democrat because the Republicans' hold on all three branches of government has become a thick layer of ice at this point. Voting Democrat means voting for the ice pick. That's the new gamble. And no, I don't think Democrats have the key out of this muddle, per se. It's as much their making as anyone else's.

So in essence, I feel to be a part of the problem right now. A part of that 'ole western malaise. I don't want to make regular installments of malaise on this blog, which is about ideas and debate. So for now I will listen until the spark returns.

John Robb of Global Guerillas is coming out with a new book soon, called Brave New War. In the book description it says:

The tragedy of 9/11 represents the pinnacle -- and finale -- of terrorism the old way.

I've been turning that coin over and over again ever since I read it. 9/11 was the end of an era, not the beginning, as we tend to see it. The next 'big attack' will be of the new variety. I think that's part of the muddle. I think somewhere in most people's minds, they know it. But there's little to be done, so let's have a barbecue under a gray sky. Why not?

Mr. Robb makes a compelling case that we're facing a fundamental shift in warfare, and that we must adjust to win. But I really don't know what winning means by his definition. He conveys the sense that we must structurally mirror our 4GW adversaries to such a degree that we won't recognize ourselves in short order.

Mr. Robb writes dispassionately, simply exposing the new rules such as they are. Take it or leave it, but ignore them at your own peril. That's his tone. It's like being told by an anonymous, brilliant physician that you have cancer, and your limbs must be amputated to give you a chance at survival. This physician may be right, but it doesn't occur to him that you might be a craftsman whose purpose for living emanates from your hands. No, those must be sacrificed to achieve clinical success, even if the cost is spiritual ruin.

Thanks, Doc.

Last night my two and a half year old daughter took to trick-or-treating as a red ladybug. She was shaped like a little barrel in her foam outfit, replete with ladybug spots and wings -- and little antennae with fuzzy balls on the end. She flew from house to house with her pumpkin pail, buzzing in character. "Bzzzzz!" People who she didn't know answered their doors, smiling and laughing, giving the little ladybug candy and winks. "Bye-bye!" she hollered, running to the next friendly house lit up with glowing pumpkins.

My daughter the ladybug must think the world is a wondrously safe and friendly place. That's an illusion that any parent wants to perpetuate, perhaps long after it is constructive. I think it is because we all want to believe it. My little ladybug girl buzzed across a kind of cultural stage on Halloween night, one that we all hold dear. The stage holds us all up, whether real or not.

How fragile has this stage become? That's the muddle.

Autumn

2006-10-02T06:14:00.000-07:00

I love forests. New England, my new home, has no end of them. This time of year the trees are beginning to quake with fall color. Red and yellow branches are beginning to lash out of the green canopies that shroud this land. Soon the leaves will briefly dominate the hills in a quiet fire, then fall to the ground like ash, waiting for the embrace of snow.

My wife and I just completed a westward journey across the state of Massachusetts. We wound up in the small town of Stockbridge, near the New York border along the road to Albany. Stockbridge, Massachusetts is considered to be an American icon. It was dubbed as such by another American icon, Norman Rockwell, who painted American icons during America's most iconographic era. He spent many years in Stockbridge. The people and settings there were the subjects of many of his canvases that celebrated the American spirit.

We visited his museum. Every single painting on its walls were the originals of reproductions I'd seen hundreds of times. One painting that had been etched in my mind, long before seeing the original, was his depiction of a snowy Main Street in Stockbridge at Christmastime.

We walked around Stockbridge and took in Mr. Rockwell's view of America. There remain the small stores and quaint colonial houses from his Christmas painting. We stood across the street from them to find the viewpoint he occupied to create his famous masterpiece. Just behind us on that corner was St. Paul's Episcopal Church. I guess it's still a church -- I don't know -- the steeple is crowned with a copper chicken, not a cross. Perhaps the congregation dwindled down too far for the building to remain a church. I couldn't bring myself to ask how the chicken made its way up there. I'm sure it found its way to the top of the pecking order well after Mr. Rockwell's time.

- - -

As Autumn breaks, the chill of winter has begun to descend from the north. With the frost I have found myself contemplating a long, cold winter.

It's been five years since 9/11. During that time I have seen my country's lights pulse brightly and then dim, its shades drawn. The political landscape is enervated. I had hoped that we might find a new voice, a new beginning, a newfound patriotism; something that a new Rockwell might anxiously render on canvas to national acclaim. It hasn't happened. On 9/12, I placed myself outside the two governing parties of our country and took stock. It's five years later, and here's where I stand.

Our president might aim for moral clarity, but he offers little else. He recites well-worn bromides, assuming that he will be vindicated in the years to come. He stays the course, because he set it. We need more in a president. For all of President Bush's bold moves, it is striking how little vision there is behind them. There's been incompetent followup to get through the details; no comprehensible articulation of this country's worth and values; and little willingness to risk alienating his base to win this fight. Now his policy on torture has derailed whatever moral authority he had. I don't see a man who is leading. I, for one, do not feel led. Instead I feel dragged around by his transparent coterie of advisors. I feel numb.

One look at the other party offers little consolation. Democrats like Gore decry the Bush administration for fear mongering, who equate fighting terror with voting Republican. But then there's Gore's movie, and his own bromides on global warming. And there's Gore to begin with, still with us after losing six years ago to Governor Bush on the heels of the golden Clinton years. Still barking away, somehow considered still relevant in this era.

My option as a voter appears to be a false choice. Either I can vote Republican, lest we ignore the war on terror, or I can vote Democrat, lest we lose the planet to the sun. Our political culture is coarse and cramped with soundbites that have overshadowed eloquent debate. There are no Daniel Websters anymore, riveting packed galleries in the Senate chamber with soaring rhetoric expounding on the great issues of the age. No Lincoln-Douglas debates. After Martin Luther King was assassinated, Robert Kennedy stood on the back of a truck in Indianapolis quoting Aeschylus on the meaning of grief to angry black Americans. No more.

There are few genuine debates taking place in congress. There is little eloquence. There is mostly position-taking and attack. We find mostly 'where's the beef' and 'gotchya' politics. We've come nowhere after five years of war. If anything, we've devolved.

Now we're looking down the barrel at a nuclear Iran -- a nuclear religious death cult. What we need to counter this threat is a fresh approach, employing all of the weapons in our arsenal: military, diplomatic, economic and moral. We need a better international diplomat and politician than the President. Successful leaders are shrewd; they shape public opinion to their own ends. At this late date President Bush needs to throw a few curveballs. It may be unconventional, but he could have answered Ahmadinejad's letter from a few months ago, much like Lincoln answered Horace Greeley and other critics. The same with Chavez's blistering speech at the U.N. The President should articulate a tighly reasoned, forthright defense of Western values. He should do something stunningly bipartisan, and ignore the political fallout -- perhaps appoint Bill Clinton to some important task in the Middle East.

Bush's one-dimensional, 'I'm-a-man-of-principle' approach is failing. We have to mix things up like Nixon going to China, or Roosevelt being a traitor to his class. The challenges of this era demand it.

If anyone harbors any doubt about what the next real war proffers, read the Rand report Considering the Effects of a Catastrophic Terrorist Attack by Charles Meade and Roger Molander. It games-out a hypothetical nuclear terrorist attack on the Port of Long Beach, California. Long Beach is the second busiest seaport in the United States. It's in the Los Angeles region, handling 30 percent of U.S. shipping imports. The attack studies the short-term and long term effects of a ten kiloton Hiroshima-sized atomic device ground-bursted from within a shipping container on a pier. It examines the policy issues that would result, identifying the high-priority concerns for different stakeholder groups.

In a nutshell, all hell will break lose. The ripple effect into the global economy borders on apocalyptic. Just from one "small" nuke in a western port.

There has been a lot of debate here on ways to deal with Iran. Many think we should preempt. I think it might work, but only if we had the right leadership. I see no such leadership in Washington -- neither from the President or from Congress. It's a fool's errand to believe that the present leadership can marshal the political, civilian, military and international resources required to prevent the Party of God from nuclearizing. In essence, I think it's too late. The necessary isotopes can be purchased as well as produced within Iran. This has been true now for years. The game of prevention is over. Proliferation is here.

At this point, because we have weak government, a tail-biting political system and hollow allies, we're not in a position to take out Iran's nuclear program, let alone its regime. I've come to believe that if we preempt, utter disaster will ensue. And if Iran promulgates nuclear terror, disaster will also ensue. Preemption is not a strategy -- it's a last ditch Hail Mary pass.

Since I believe that's the case -- that we're on the verge of a terrifyingly new world, no matter what we do -- I think we should take the moral high ground. That means letting Iran take the low ground. Europe is too weak and corrupt to block Iran's threat. We're too sapped, too bereft of creative leadership. This isn't a nihilistic suicide wish on my part. It's a reality observed as coldly as anyone who advocates preemption. Given the absolute fog that shrouds Iran's nuclear program, who's the expert? Whose data is sound enough to stand the Iraq Test? Only great leadership might overcome this problem. We don't have it.

If preempting Iran is not a viable option in this political climate, a strategy of containment, fence-mending, alliance-building, and homeland protection may be the best we can do. Sometimes you have to wait on events. Diplomacy is all about patience and maneuver, requiring the kind of leadership strengths our president and congress lack.

My conclusion is as kitsch as Rockwell's paintings: I believe our spirit as free people can overcome the odds. It's not entirely rational, but it's where I find hope. There's plenty of room for doubt. But I have more faith this country can reinvent itself in the aftermath of a catastrophic attack -- far better than it can lead the world into a series of bungled, unsupported, desperate Hail Mary passes to stave off the inevitable. After 25 years, five presidents, a dozen congresses, countless U.N. sessions and the maturation of a hollow European Union, the free world has long since dropped the ball on nuclear proliferation. Now it all leads to Rand. Frankly, I can't see past Rand. I don't think anyone can.

For our country to lead again, we will apparently need to have our genesis forced upon us. Our response to what inevitably lies ahead may turn out to be our finest hour. It will be a call for greatness -- in ourselves, and in a new generation of true leaders. In order to regain greatness, we will have to take on monumental risks and sacrifices. We will have to do more than face-down our demons; we will have to personally fight them and rebuild a nation that short-circuits them. It will be then that we might redefine the meaning of kitsch patriotism, if the 21st century has a place for it at all.

That's the only way we'll be able to chase the chicken down from Rockwell's steeple.

Harmony

2006-09-15T05:19:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have small children might be familiar with the daily grind of watching the same children's shows, over and over again. In our household there is no cable and no antenna. Instead, there's a stack of DVDs, VHS tapes from the town library and red NetFlix envelopes, along with BitTorrent, YouTube and other Internet-based media.

Some of our daughter's favorite shows are Sesame Street. At two years old, she likes the musicals more than the stories. So everyday we hear this particular Sesame Street lyric that seems to have been imbedded in nearly all of their programs:

My hair is black and red
My hair is yellow
My eyes are brown and green and blue

My name is Jack and Fred
My name's Amanda Sue
I'm called Kareem Abdul
My name is you

I live in southern France
I'm from a Texas ranch
I come from Mecca and Peru
I live across the street
In the mountains, on a beach
I come from everywhere
And my name is you

We all sing with the same voice
The same song, the same voice
We all sing with the same voice
And we sing in harmony

Along with this song, We All Sing with the Same Voice, we see children of the early 1980s playing together somewhere on a Manhattan playground, of all different races, lip-synching the lyrics. And there I am on the couch, brooding, while my daughter mouths some of the lyrics, uncomprehendingly.

The song is innocent enough but it summons conflicts within me. Sometimes it's really angered me although I believe it's intentions are benevolent.

The song is a multicultural anthem designed for children. It's not necessarily bad. It makes sense to propose to young children that on some level, all of us humans are the same. Our differences should be ironed over by concentrating on what we have in common. We all eat; we all love; we all get mad, get sick and can be happy. Children all over the planet run and play, work and sleep. All of them. So why pick on our differences? How can this world survive unless we see we're all a part of the same human tapestry?

Being born in 1963, I grew up with that message, albeit before this particular lyric hit the airwaves in 1982. A world threatened by nuclear armageddon could use a little peace, love and understanding. This song embodies that kind of logical thinking.

So why do I wince at the television screen when I hear this song in 2006? It's as though I want to like the song more than I can bring myself to do so. This ditty has put me in a sour mood some mornings, and I've had to think long and hard to understand why.

The assumption of the lyric, We All Sing with the Same Voice, is that we're really all the same, deep down. True, we are the same species, flung across the globe. We all have two eyes, hair, and a lot of the same innate behavior. The message of the song assumes that because we're all human beings, we therefore all have the same values. If anything about the past few tumultuous years has taught me anything, it's that we don't all have the same values. And while the song concentrates on bridging racial and ethnic divides, it completely overlooks the possibility that some human ideologies are not necessarily compatible with others.

Multiculturalist thinking tends to dwell on, well, culture -- as well as race and ethnicity. But these forms of human identity are often focused by ideology. Ideology is very amorphous and contemporary, changing constantly. Unlike culture, it's not necessarily rooted in antiquity, though it may appeal to history. Ideology is a collective vision -- the ideal mental image of what defines common sense to the majority of people in a culture. Since it proposes the ideal, it changes form constantly, adjusting to the challenges of the real world.

We All Sing With the Same Voice makes simple common sense that we should overlook our physical and cultural differences and just get along. It sounds nice. I'm all for it. But that message is more than wholesomely simple. It's simplistic.

Multiculturalism is often passed off as sophisticated. But it can also be unrealistically simple. It's nice, perhaps positive, to have our kids say a prayer for world unity. But as adults, we should recognize that what we idealize as common sense is not necessarily the soil that we're actually planted on. If we are inordinately certain that we have a global monopoly on common sense, we won't notice that there are competing ideologies that make common sense out of our demise.

Lamb Pullao

2006-08-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

I made a new friend today. He started his first day as a software engineer today at the office where I work. He sits next to my cubicle. We were chatting it up after he gave me a spoonful of his wife's pullao, a dish of spicy lamb and rice. Delicious!

He's from Pakistan. He's very warm and friendly. After I shared my enthusiasm for the epicurean delights from the subcontinent, he opened up and told me a bit about his background in Lahore.

I asked him if he was Muslim. "Yes," he said, "but really it doesn't mean much. I eat pork and drink beer. I never go to the mosque." He seemed anxious to let me know that he was just a normal guy.

"In the city, most the people I know are like me. We live good lives and try to stay away from politics. It's totally different out in the country. People are backwards and conservative. They're crazy."

He told me how it was embarrassing to him that most of the immigrants in high tech were Indians, not Pakistanis.

"The Indians have great technical institutes. They value education and dominate the industry. Most Pakistanis have businesses that sell food, or they drive taxis. It's disgraceful."

It was only took a few minutes of banter about food when he asked me over to meet his family and have a lamb barbecue.

I've only just met this fellow, but he impressed me for being so much like me. It's too easy to group all Muslims into a distrustful category. Yet he defies such a simplistic categorization. A poll recently taken in the UK shows the distrust rising:

Most people in the UK feel threatened by Islam, a poll has revealed, after the Government launched a bid to tackle inter-faith tensions. The YouGov survey for the Daily Telegraph found 53% were concerned about the impact of the religion -- not just fundamentalist elements -- up 21% from 2001. There had also been a near doubling of the number agreeing that "a large proportion of British Muslims feel no sense of loyalty to this country and are prepared to condone or even carry out acts of terrorism".

I suspect my new work mate also feels threatened by Islam, in his own way. We don't hear enough from people like him -- people who are just like most of us, for the most part, who want peaceful lives, who aren't fanatics. People who call themselves Muslims who are only guilty of shrugging their shoulders at the fanatics around them. They just want to get away from the backwoods simpletons and get ahead in life. That's the picture he painted.

We should hear a lot more about these hard working people caught in the middle of a maelstrom. I worry for him. If this war gets hot enough, he might find his H1B visa revoked, bundled on a plane headed back to Lahore.

I would rather have him sitting next to my cubicle, working towards the good life, and sharing his wife's spicy lamb pullao with me. I think his presence in my country makes us safer, and richer.

Caricature

2006-08-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

It has become common to think of 'The West', as depicted by Cox and Forkum, as clueless -- groping at any hope for peace with its enemies. Cox and Forkum's 'The West' character looks like a middle-aged geek with thick glasses, tie and soft belly, comfortable on his knees; he's an apparachik of the easy life, submissive before any appeasement that guarantees another meal.

Of course, this is a cartoon. A cartoon makes caricatures of people and things in simple, pointed exaggerations. But it is still instructive in terms of how we see ourselves.

It's been a while since I had a television, but I remember a phase of advertising that I called 'Dumb Guy.' It's probably still somewhat prevalent. Dumb Guy is the fortyish-year old upper-middle class American male, depicted as an amiable, soft-headed, impressionable dunce. His beautiful wife and kids are always smarter than he is. And yet, there he stands in his palatial suburban house with twin SUVs, unable to solve a simple domestic challenge. He's easily coerced and happily led to a simple answer from the sponsor.

I found the Dumb Guy ads to be particularly condescending. Impossibly, Dumb Guy is able to amass great wealth in spite of his idiocy. Apparently, an army of milquetoasts wound at the top of the global food chain -- not innovative, proud, courageous, manipulative or shrewd individualists. What does Dumb Guy do for a living? Sell balloons to puppies? How could this simpleton get this far in life and represent our culture? Is this how we see ourselves -- as a bunch of soft-hearted simpletons who inexplicably became the spineless backbone of our culture?

I worry that Dumb Guy is our self image -- being that of the West, or America. But our self image as American-consumerist-Bible-thumping Dumb Guys, or European-socialist-teat-nursing-appeaser Dumb Guys doesn't really matter. Either way, we're just dumb. Isn't Cox and Forkum's 'West' hopelessly condescending, and inaccurate?

'Dumb Guy West' also has a huge nuclear arsenal in his back pocket. He is complex, and not merely a caricature of a Pavlovian idiot who is led towards carrots, away from sticks. 'The West' is fearsome -- for its sheer power to create and destroy at huge levels of magnitude. The West is still fearsome.

Boiling 'The West' down to a single caricature is telling. When has the West ever been one? Michael Totten says that it never was on the same page. Why should we all be on the same page now? Is a common threat really a uniter? I doubt it. Common threats more often expose rifts that are normally glossed over. That seems to be the case now.

The Iranian nuclear crisis challenges the idea that 'The West' can act together as one. Political realities are what they are -- Europeans and Americans wound up where they are for different reasons. Expecting a concerted effort against Iran is a fantasy. Presuming that we should act as one in this crisis is a fantasy too. It sounds nice -- I just don't think it's ultimately workable.

Cox and Forkum's cartoon would be more accurate if 'The West' was a pack of animals that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was trying to ride atop of, all at once -- not just one Dumb Guy. Some of the animals might be bears, others sheep, monkeys and birds, running in all directions. It's silly to boil the West down into a single meek caricature while portraying Ahmadinejad as the master manipulator. In spite of Western divisions on the challenges Ahmadinejad poses, I hardly see him as being in control, riding the West like a Persian cowboy. He's on very thin ice.

These are dangerous times, for a lot of reasons. Boiling the present historical fulcrum down to caricatures is a job best left to cartoonists. Hopefully, we're not the dumb guys that just buy into it.

The Art Scene

2006-08-11T06:07:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons why I blog anonymously is so that I can listen to all kinds of unguarded opinions from people I know. I received an email yesterday from a very close friend of mine. We are both a part of the fine arts world, with art in galleries in New York City, Seattle and Milwaukee. My friend is a celebrity of sorts -- some of you would know who he is if I revealed his name. He and I have been collaborating for years on artistic endeavors. We would both lay down our lives for each other if need be. He's like a brother to me -- I love him dearly. He's kind, thoughtful, loyal and earnest.

Politically, I am the one who changed since 9/11. My art friend seems content to rely on the same leftist conspiracies that sustained his political thinking since the 1970s.

Yesterday I received an email from him regarding the day's terrorist threats in England. None of what he has said is a surprise to me, but this time I thought I would share it with you here. It reads like it's right out of Democratic Underground, Common Dreams or Daily KOS.

I am sure you've seen the news today of the "liquid threat" to planes from the UK. I sure don't trust the official story. None of the coverage mentions any real evidence whatsoever. Seen any? I haven't. Its all hearsay from the governments so far. I am sure they will trot some "evidence" out by tomorrows news cycle, but so far it all looks like it's not what it appears to be.

Like that "plot" they found down in Florida recently that was pretty much nothing, but was trumpeted in a big way to ratchet up our fear level. This one smells similar, but it's on a much HUGER scale. Calling out the National Guard, the timing of the "revelation" for maximum media coverage, the press conferences, the talk of Islamic Fascism, the posturing of Bush and pals, going to code "red" for the first time ever, dramatically amping up airport security etc.

And it's right after Lieberman goes down, public opinion on Iraq is 65% against, polls show incumbents have a lot to be afraid of, and those November elections coming right up.... of course I expected Bush and Co to pull something huge to freak everyone the f-ck out before the elections. At the very least, they are jumping all over this story for political advatage. But if they are indeed escalating things so they can keep political control and keep us afraid, how much farther will it escalate beyond todays news event?

I guess I sound like ALex Jones here, sorry, but I read enough news to be able to notice how odd the coverage is of this news event. They are suddenly making all the airports change their security as if this plot just dropped on their heads this morning, when of course they woudl have been tracking this "plot" for weeks or months and there is nothing "new" or sudden about the story at all. They've done this a few times before where it will turned out the supposed "new" threat was really old news, but they made it public at a time that was politically advantageous to them.

And how in hell is it a revelation to them that people could make a bomb from stuff hidden in a hair gel or soft drink bottle and set it offf with an iPod or cell phone? They would have to have know this all along, so why suddenly change the security rules now, as if they just figured it out? Very weird.

This whole email leaves me feeling depressed. I love this guy. His art is ingenious. We've covered so much ground together, for so long. He's one of our best and brightest. And he doesn't get it. All problems emanate from the United States. The only thing we have to fear is ourselves, apparently. His denial of any kind of existential threat from the Islamic world is complete. I have no idea how to get through to him and I have long given up trying.

I wouldn't mind so much if I didn't love him, and if I didn't think that the millions of people like him are our Achilles heal in this war. While I think it's perfectly legitimate to be against the Iraq war for sound reasons, my friend and so many like him take such a conspiratorial view of our world that they offer little that is constructive to solving the problems of our time.

Our being featured in an art show last year in New York was really eye opening. The show was a great success. The opening night was packed with people. There was wine and cheese, and lots of posing and photos. I stood in the corner with my cocktail, watching the hip crowd impress itself. I felt that the gulf between myself and these people was epic. It's odd that I should be considered an artist, plying art circles, and yet I feel completely alienated from the people who support the arts.

And so I remain anonymous.

Blair's Arc of Extremism

2006-08-04T05:41:00.000-07:00

Via Andrew Sullivan -- Tony Blair made a speech in LA the other day that deserves absorption. Mr. Sullivan compares this speech to Churchill's famous 'Iron Curtain' speech in 1946, redefining the scope of a new war.

I don't have much to add to this right now but I think it should be read widely.

Sigh... I wish this country was lead by someone like Blair. I don't agree with all his policies but he's a liberal who sees the big picture and understands the stakes for Western civilization. And the man is truly eloquent and pursuasive.

Here's the whole speech for some light weekend reading. Here's the nutshell:

We will continue to do all we can to halt the hostilities. But once that has happened, we must commit ourselves to a complete renaissance of our strategy to defeat those that threaten us. There is an arc of extremism now stretching across the Middle East and touching, with increasing definition, countries far outside that region. To defeat it will need an alliance of moderation, that paints a different future in which Muslim, Jew and Christian; Arab and Western; wealthy and developing nations can make progress in peace and harmony with each other. My argument to you today is this: we will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even-handed, fair and just in our application of those values to the world...

Unless we re-appraise our strategy, unless we revitalise the broader global agenda on poverty, climate change, trade, and in respect of the Middle East, bend every sinew of our will to making peace between Israel and Palestine, we will not win. And this is a battle we must win.

What is happening today out in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and beyond is an elemental struggle about the values that will shape our future.

It is in part a struggle between what I will call Reactionary Islam and Moderate, Mainstream Islam. But its implications go far wider. We are fighting a war, but not just against terrorism but about how the world should govern itself in the early 21st century, about global values...

We only win people to [our] positions if our policy is not just about interests but about values, not just about what is necessary but about what is right.

Which brings me to my final reflection about US policy. My advice is: always be in the lead, always at the forefront, always engaged in building alliances, in reaching out, in showing that whereas unilateral action can never be ruled out, it is not the preference.

How we get a sensible, balanced but effective framework to tackle climate change after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012 should be an American priority. America wants a low-carbon economy; it is investing heavily in clean technology; it needs China and India to grow substantially. The world is ready for a new start here. Lead it. The same is true for the WTO talks, now precariously in the balance; or for Africa, whose poverty is shameful. If we are championing the cause of development in Africa, it is right in itself but it is also sending the message of moral purpose, that reinforces our value system as credible in all other aspects of policy.

It serves one other objective. There is a risk that the world, after the Cold War, goes back to a global policy based on spheres of influence. Think ahead. Think China, within 20 or 30 years, surely the world's other super-power. Think Russia and its precious energy reserves. Think India. I believe all of these great emerging powers want a benign relationship with the West. But I also believe that the stronger and more appealing our world-view is, the more it is seen as based not just on power but on justice, the easier it will be for us to shape the future in which Europe and the US will no longer, economically or politically, be transcendant. Long before then, we want Moderate, Mainstream Islam to triumph over Reactionary Islam.

That is why I say this struggle is one about values. Our values are worth struggling for. They represent humanity's progress throughout the ages and at each point we have had to fight for them and defend them. As a new age beckons, it is time to fight for them again.

War Is Peace

2006-07-19T05:55:00.000-07:00

Victor Davis Hanson makes a plea for national clarity, lamenting the Bush Administration's inability to articulate the broader context of the war. He points out that there is precedence for the wartime suspension of civil liberties to serve a greater cause:

It is worth reminding the American public that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and shut down newspapers; that Woodrow Wilson imprisoned prominent dissenters like Eugene Debs; and that Franklin Roosevelt ordered the internment of Japanese-American citizens and secret military tribunals for German saboteurs (six of whom were executed) and allowed for the cover-up of military catastrophes (such as the hundreds killed during training exercises for the Normandy landings).

Mr. Hanson has a salient point. In wartime, special allowances must be made that impinge on our rights as free citizens, so we can defeat our enemy. In the present conflict, bending civil liberties involves wiretapping, intrusive security and Gitmo detainees imprisoned without trial.

But Mr. Hanson misses something that has no precedent in the present war. FDR, Wilson or Lincoln could essentially contend, "I authorize the suspension of some civil liberties so that we will be victorious against our declared enemy. One day, the war will be over and our rights fully restored."

Let's face it. This war will never be over. The war against terrorism is a permanent condition of modern existence. Our most organized, ideologically potent and empowered enemy today is primarily Islamic, but that needn't always be the case. The terrorist's toolbox fits with any ideology that has a significant enough beef with its enemies.

People know, deep inside, that reducing our civil liberties is a slippery slope because the war against terror will never be ended with peace treaties that are signed by adversaries who fully represent both sides. People know that in this era, war is peace. And they resist it. They want to go back to a simpler time -- back to pre-Internet, television days.

This war seeks to maintain the status quo of our society. We lose when we stop being normal. If the status quo is only maintained by a reduction of our civil liberties, the darkness of a reduced sense of normalcy becomes obvious to most people.

How can any president really sell this war? It seems as though President Bush has to sell an oxymoron: "Terrorists want to destroy our way of life. So go to Disneyland. Buy a new car. Go out to dinner and travel. But in order for you to do these things I must rescind some of your civil liberties, for security's sake. This is World War III. The enemy is faceless, and everywhere. So watch your back while you enjoy your steak at Disneyland."

The wars that Mr. Hanson refers to as examples of sensible curtailing of civil liberties began with a formality -- a declaration of war. A declaration of war suggests that there's a light at the end of the tunnel -- armistice, and treaty -- started with a signature, and ended with a signature. In the past sixty years, wars have been officially undeclared: Korea, Vietnam, the Balkans, the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq. And the biggest ideological war that has the most relevant precedence to our current crisis was officially undeclared: The Cold War. All of these conflicts have no formally sanctioned beginning as enshrined in the Constitution.

Mr. Hanson relies on a wartime precedent that does not fit our novel situation in 2006. No president can sell his countrymen that war is peace. But indeed, that seems to have been the case all along, starting in 1945. Except this time the war is hot, not cold. Maintaining the duplicity of normalcy at home while war rages abroad is stretching, and thinning.

Comments Disabled

2006-07-16T09:57:00.000-07:00

Too much spam, too little time. Since the bulk of my comments appear at Winds of Change and Donkelphant, the only thing I get here is trash. Sorry for the inconvenience. If you want to comment, please visit one of those two blogs. This blog serves mainly as an archive of my work.

Limits

2006-07-14T06:50:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine said yesterday that he believes Israel and the United States have reached the limits of their power. He believes the battle is joined, is highly asymmetric, and has ground American and Israeli forces to a halt. He wasn't gloating, but was hypothesizing.

He might be wrong. Having power assumes a monopoly of violence. As we restrain our power to appeal to our allies and win friends on the ground, Islamicists do everything they can to monopolize violence through random acts of terror. They're quite unrestrained in that pursuit, and on that level, we are neck-and-neck with them for control on the ground. The battle for the monopoly of violence is symmetrical in this war because we restrain ourselves from unleashing our full fury. My friend assumes that we will restrain ourselves indefinitely, and so we have reached the limit of our power.

My friend will be right -- that the Israelis and Americans have hit their wall -- only if we continue self-restraint. We've made war with our seat belts on. There's no guarantee that things can't get to a point where further self-restraint makes no sense.

I am chastened when I consider the unlatching of our seat belts. Real war is total, not self-restrained. Real war is horrible for both sides, when everything is at stake; when everything can be lost. Real war is a desperate struggle for survival. Since 2001, we have not been fighting that kind of war, though the battles have been many, the losses tragic.

If July, 2006 marks the beginning of real war, I will have to take my friend's observation with a healthy dose of skepticism. Our force must be fully unleashed before his hypothesis can be proven. Once we get to a point to where we really believe we are fighting for our lives, the limits of our power will truly be tested.

In the years to come, we may wonder how this thing started. We may look back through a haze and wonder why 9/11 happened, and why we went into Iraq. Our moral and political calculus will have evolved after the fury is unleashed. It isn't for us to say today how our current motives will be interpreted by the survivors of this great war.

Part of me wants to see our self-restraint maintained; we have the keys to Hell's door, a Pandora's Box that is best kept shut. Another part of me wants to see our civilization's enemies mercilessly vanquished. We can't have it both ways forever.

Weird

2006-06-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

There's a story on the Jerusalem Post via Drudge reporting that the Aksa Martyrs Brigades are claiming they possess weapons of mass destruction -- Al-Aksa claims chemical capabilities:

The Aksa Martyrs Brigades announced on Sunday that its members have succeeded in manufacturing chemical and biological weapons.
In a leaflet distributed in the Gaza Strip, the group, which belongs to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Party, said the weapons were the result of a three-year effort.

According to the statement, the first of its kind, the group has managed to manufacture and develop at least 20 different types of biological and chemical weapons.

The group said its members would not hesitate to add the new weapons to Kassam rockets that are being fired at Israeli communities almost every day. It also threatened to use the weapons against IDF soldiers if Israel carried out its threats to invade the Gaza Strip.

"We want to tell [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert and [Defense Minister Amir] Peretz that your threats don't frighten us," the leaflet said.

"We will surprise you with our new weapons the moment the first soldier sets foot in the Gaza Strip."

This may be bluster. If it isn't -- if the Palestinians follow through on their threat to lob biological and chemical weapons into Israel -- they will experience severe retribution by the IDF. It's really doubtful that Israel will encounter much diplomatic resistance to eliminating Hamas and the Al Aksa Martyr Brigades in the wake of a WMD attack.

These people's capacity for bone-headed self destruction amazes me. What fantasy are they living under? That they'll use WMDs against Irsrael and the world will back them, with Israel backing off into the sea? Couldn't they at least exercise a little savoir-faire in their war making? As it stands, the next time a chemical or biological weapon is used in the region, they're the automatic fall guys. Do they really want to be eliminated that badly?

Weird.

X

2006-06-15T07:57:00.000-07:00

This week Abu Musab al-Zarqawi made the cover of Time Magazine. The cover's design shows al-Zarqawi's face crossed out with an x. Time has done this kind of cover only on three other occasions. When Germany surrendered in 1945, Hitler got crossed out; later that year, when Japan surrendered, the rising sun was crossed out; and in 2003, Saddam Hussein's mug got the famous X treatment when Baghdad fell. And now Abu Musab al-Zarqawi makes the fourth time.

It's a better world to have al-Zarqawi gone. Good riddance. Time's x-treatment of al-Zarqawi makes an interesting statement about what constitutes a threat in this age. Time's first two x-covers marked the end of malevolent regimes that controlled nation states. Hitler's Germany and Tojo's Japan were corrupt governments bent on empire. Their commonality was their nationalist ideologies of racial superiority and their view that all others were to be conquered, giving them license to commit great human atrocities like Nanking and Auschwitz. They were still nation states, nonetheless. They had economies, cities, borders, populations, courts, militaries and diplomats. As evil as the German and Japanese regimes were, they had a basic commonality with the world, being a part of the Westphalian order.

Time's 1945 x-covers marked the defeat of clear threats to the international order. It's interesting to note that no x-cover came out in December, 1991 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. The lack of an x-cover to mark the end of the Cold War suggests we were reluctant to declare victory since the divide within the West deepened during that long struggle. Perhaps the West's relationship with socialism is complex, making declaring victory untenable. Maybe we just didn't want to rub it in the Russian's faces that they lost the war. The absence of a Cold War x-cover is the invisible marker that christens the era we are in now, where threats are not obvious and our determination defeat them is not unanimous.

Hilterism died in May, 1945. Japanese imperialism died in September, 1945. Soviet international communism died in December, 1991, even without a Time x-cover. Ba'athism was wounded in April, 2003 -- perhaps mortally. But Syria's Ba'athists live on, and many of Saddam's lurk in Iraq. Though Ba'athism is unlikely to revitalize, it nevertheless is not dead. And Islamicism is not dead with al-Zarqawi's demise. At best, we can celebrate the destruction of a petty thug who had tacit support from al Qaeda, a man who visited great violence on the innocent. But al-Zarqawi commanded no army that we can fully oppose. He was a part of an ideology that hates infidels and dreams of a global caliphate; but he was not in control of that ideology. Al-Zarqawi was really not in control at all -- he was an acolyte in a virtual empire, far outside of the international system. He disrupted and killed on its behalf. He waged effective asymmetrical warfare through mid-scale terror. This man is now in the rarified company of Hitler, Tojo and Saddam on the cover of Time Magazine. How far we've come.

Taken in their order of appearance, the Time x-covers illustrate how the world has changed. Relatively obscure people can quickly surface and become international threats. Medieval revivalists like al-Zarqawi are strikingly modern, in spite of their dark dreams of a restored caliphate; they're amplified by technology to the degree that they really can threaten the world order. This phenomenon will increase as technology continues to empower on the individual level. Modern technology puts control in the hands of 'the user' as much as possible. If the user is a fanatic, he might get a Time X-cover with his face on it.

There is no stopping technological innovation, nor should we attempt it. But we should recognize when it changes the rules. Whether or not Time realizes it, their four x-covers tell a story, when history moved from a top-down world to a bottom-up world. We reap many benefits from this change, but take on many risks. Al-Zarqawi is one of them.

Looking at Time's four x-covers, one can see that the threshold of what constitutes an international threat is lowering to non-state actors, even below the stature of bin Laden. Small, petty men were once made large by controlling the power of the state. Now they're made large by leveraging the power of the Internet, telecommunications, modern media and weaponizing the very things we depend on for modern life.

Time's x-covers will probably become more frequent, splashed with obscure faces whose deaths mark not the end of tyranny, but its defining moment.

Baghdad

2006-06-06T08:09:00.000-07:00

From Healing Iraq:(via Andrew Sullivan)

Baghdadis are reporting that radical Islamists have taken control over the Dora, Amiriya and Ghazaliya districts of Baghdad, where they operate in broad daylight. They have near full control of Saidiya, Jihad, Jami’a, Khadhraa’ and Adil. And their area of influence has spread over the last few weeks to Mansour, Yarmouk, Harthiya, and very recently, to Adhamiya.

All of these districts, with the exception of Adhamiya, are more or less mixed or Sunni majority areas. They make up the western part of the capital, or what is known as the Karkh sector (the eastern half of Baghdad is called Rusafa). These areas also witnessed an influx of families displaced by the violence in the Anbar governorate, since many residents of the western part of Baghdad have roots in western areas of the country, such as Fallujah and Ramadi.

People who live in the mentioned districts claim that unknown groups have distributed leaflets (often handwritten), warning residents of several practices, ranging from instructions on dress codes to the prohibition of selling or dealing with certain goods.

The instructions vary between neighbourhoods. Amiriya and Ghazaliya have the full menu, while others stress only 2 or more of them. So far, enforcing the hijab for women and a ban on shorts for men are consistent in most districts of western Baghdad. In other areas, women are not allowed to drive, to go out without a chaperone, and to use cell phones in public; men are not allowed to dress in jeans, shave their beards, wear goatees, put styling hair gel, or to wear necklaces; it is forbidden to sell ice, to sell cigarettes at street stands, to sell Iranian merchandise, to sell newspapers, and to sell ring tones, CDs, and DVDs. Butchers are not allowed to slaughter during certain religious anniversaries. Municipality workers will be killed if they try to collect garbage from certain areas. Private neighbourhood generators are banned in a few areas. And the last I heard is that they are threatening Internet cafés and wireless providers.

As a result, the remaining Iraqi women who haven’t yet covered their heads are now buying veils and more moderate dress. My sister now covers her head when she goes out to college, as do most of my female relatives. Trousers and short skirts have long been abandoned. Guys are now either wearing Bermuda shorts that cover their knees or just plain trousers. Me? I have insisted so far to keep my hairy legs exposed.

Other Iraqi bloggers who have posted about this phenomenon: here, here, here, here, here, and here.

I will try to get hold of one of these fliers, but so far no one has produced any.
And while the fliers may be a rumour, the killings of those who failed to observe the guidelines are not.

The capital is rife with all kinds of morbid rumours. Some examples below:

- An armed group stopped a minibus full of high school female students. 2 girls, who had their hair exposed, had their heads shaven clean as an example for others.

- 4 young men wearing shorts near a local bakery at Mansour were all shot in the legs.

- A young high school student at Ma’moun was shot twice in the head with a notice saying that he was killed for wearing jeans.

- A lady was forced out of her car and stripped naked near the Nida’ mosque in Adhamiya.

Why don’t they just blow up the city and erect tents instead? It would make life much easier. We could go to school or work riding on camels. We could sit at the mosque all day, stroking and scratching our filthy beards and waiving flies away, while our women recline in their harems.

In short, they are trying to take us back to the 7th century, so we can experience the simple life of the prophet and his pious companions. We should abandon everything and anything that was not available at the time of the prophet in order to be true Muslims.

Yet the followers of this simplistic, backwards ideology have no problem with using hi-tech explosives, IEDs, machine guns and RPGs. According to their sick creed, it is not against Islam to detonate a car bomb at a bustling market or to shoot a kid twice in the head because he had gel on his hair. No, that is okay in Islam.

Are we winning? At this point in the war, I am not certain where to put my confidence.

Faith on Faith

2006-05-15T19:29:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, in the baleful, relentless May rains of Massachusetts, my wife, two year old daughter and I went to the neighboring town to try out their 9:00 Catholic mass. We've been church shopping since our move from California, trying different parishes in neighboring towns.

We arrived drenched in rain, at about 8:50. The church building was small and plain. Inside, the congregation filled the pews and spilled into the aisles, where children of all ages were doing their best to behave. Near the altar were the musicians. They had guitars, a synthesized bongo drum, and voice. They were practicing their bits with the microphones turned off. There was confabulation between neighbors and parents. The priest and the altar girls were near the front entrance of the church, lighting candles and inspecting each other's vestments.

We sat in the last pew. My wife and I couldn't help but notice that the average family size in this little church must have been three children. We saw some families arrive that had five or six children. Many of the families were young. The human energy in this little refuge from the gray rain torrents outside was palpable. And loud.

- - - - - - -

We've begun looking for a Catholic church to regularly attend for many reasons. The most pressing reason is our two year old daughter, who can now speak in short sentences and recall events from a few weeks before. Her memory is astonishing. If we want our little girl to be a part of the culture from which her parents came, now is the time. Up until now, not going to church seemed logical if only to avoid the sheer hassle of her infantile months. Hardly a young lady at two, she is at least manageable, and more importantly, impressionable.

Going to church is unusual for me. I was raised Catholic, in a very conservative parish. I grew up believing, then later disbelieving. Then still later, believing alternative things, only to find them dry and unfulfilling. Religion hardly seemed like my vocation; it was more like a club where all the members would nod their heads at the same things, followed by donuts and coffee. And sometimes, not even that. Much of the time growing up in the Church, I was simply there. Nothing else was apparent, or possible.

To this day I have troubles with many facets of the Catholic faith, taken in parts. I'm just not sure what to think about the Church's absolute stand on homosexuality, celibate male priests and the role of the laity. I'm suspicious of some of the notional aspects that any religion tends to promote.

But now I am 43, and part of me thinks it'd be nice to go to a good old fashioned Latin mass, with the works: Gregorian chants; the priest standing towards the altar; the mighty pipes of the organ; frankincense wafting from the gentle chain-swinging of the priest's brass thurible. At my age, all that seems comforting in its solemnity. It respects my past, and my culture's origins. My craving for the Old Ways is like a boomerang fulfilling its 30 year trajectory, hitting me in the back of the head with a thud.

"BANG! I told you I'd be back someday."

The truth must be told, since I'm on the topic of an institution that promotes The Truth. The truth is that I'm not sure if I am looking for God, or simply taking refuge in aesthetic. It's a very old aesthetic, going back to my youngest days, and to my civilization's beginning. I now go back to tap into a deep well whose surface remains quite parched. I cannot deny my daughter these waters, though seldom do they quench my sorrows and pains. It's the sound of their trickling that suffices for now. I want her to hear the waters that I once heard so well in early morning masses. I want to give her the opportunity to drink from that well. I want to give her something richer than I alone can provide, in spite of my doubts.

"But why Catholic," one of my coworkers asked me. "You guys sound like you'd love the Unitarian Church I go to. It's so inclusive and it puts all religions on equal ground."

That does sound very egalitarian. But somehow, a smorgasbord of religions sounds too postmodern for me. It is odd, but at this point in my life I feel like a salmon who must swim back upstream to spawn -- for my daughter's sake. It may not be logical. But it is necessary. And putting all the religions on a lazy susan and spinning it in front of her is not what I want to do to her.

In these times, finding certainty can be an obsession. Religion offers the possibility of an eternal order that includes you, where you can feel protected and safe. For all the detractors calling religion irrational, looking for order and the Creator's love might be the most rational thing in the world. I take no umbrage at other people's faith, as long as it does not impinge upon my own -- or lack thereof. Unlike in my twenties, when I felt the need to shake-off a Catholicism that I felt was imposed upon me, in my forties I respect people's quest for certainty and solace.

- - - - - - -

Back to last Sunday, at the little New England church. It's 9:00. People have quieted down. The rain can be heard pounding on the roof and dripping on the outside of the stained glass windows. The building feels like a sanctuary in this weather. Then the music begins. The priest and the altar girls make their procession to the altar. Though somewhat stale, the words of the mass fall out of my mouth in familiar tones. It's all still there, deep inside of me.

In front of us is a family with a little girl, the same age as ours. They make faces at each other during the mass, fiddling with their sweater buttons and flipping the pages of the missals. I remember doing these things. I remember my father would sit in the pew, holding his missile a certain way in his hands, partially scrolled with his thumbs crossed to hold it shut. I remember doing the same thing as him, trying to be like him.

Maybe I've conflated God with religion, religion with aesthetic, with community, with culture, nostalgia and a father's need to do right by his daughter. Maybe none of those things have anything in common with each other. That is never far from my mind, and is a barrier to faith for me.

Faith is a mysterious thing. I don't know that I have much left in me. That's sad. But maybe for my daughter, I will simply have to take faith on faith.

Greater Expectations

2006-05-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know that my family and I recently took up residence in Massachusetts. Left far behind us are cheap burrito lunches, supermarket liquors and the occasional San Andreas tremor. Now our landscape is filled with maples and apple farms that surround our little Cape Cod style house. It's spring here in New England, bursting with blossoms and young leaves. For every large lawn, there seems to be a cardinal on its periphery who is a sentinel to the grass and sky.

Certainly, life here is different. We expected that. But not just because we're Californians transplanted in New England. We also crossed what might arguably be a more precipitous border that crisscrosses many American landscapes. Some forty miles inland from the metropolis, we have planted ourselves in a kind of 'sub-suburban' world that borders on being rural. But not quite rural, no. Among the apple farms and around the Town Forest are homes, some quite palatial. This isn't quite rural, not with tractor mowers, Trader Joe's and Talbots just a few miles away.

Not only is New England novel to us, but so is this newly-defined pastoral life that we now have here. Certainly, this kind of existence is not unique to New England. There is a kind of urge for the pastoral life that is satisfied far beyond the fringes of city life. It can be found across the country. It can be soothing, where one might fantasize about reading Byron all day in a shaded hammock and leaving the trappings of civilization behind, to fester in its own self-perpetuated demise.

On Saturdays -- now that Spring is in full throttle -- I've noted the din of the John Deeres all around me. The summer gear is making its way out of the garages. Hedges are getting trimmed, lawns groomed, flowers planted, and volleyball nets are rising. Commercial vans pull up to large lawns and 'hydroseed' them with high-pressure hoses that blast out a greenish mix of grass seed and fertilizer. Bird fountains are swept out and turned on. The energy that is put into the yards that surround these clapboard castles is astonishing. Being the new, first time home owner, I see the frenzy of yard activity around us and look at my own lawn with a sigh. "Look how brown our grass is," I tell my wife. "What a lot of work this is."

Naturally I can't help but be myself. So instead of watering and 'hydroseeding' my anemic lawn, I sit on my deck gazing out at the neighbor who is plodding along at five miles an hour, sitting resplendently on his green John Deere, coffee in hand. It's perhaps 11:00 in the morning, and I'm onto my second Bass Ale. His lawn must be about two acres. His house -- though quite nice, and very tidy -- must be about 3,500 square feet. His driveway must be a couple hundred feet long, as it winds up the slight hill his house sits upon. And I am amazed.

Amazed, and nervous. I bought the smallest house in this neighborhood -- though palatial compared to what we rented in California -- because I couldn't fathom taking care of too much property. And because I think there's some big challenges ahead for us in the not too distant future, mostly to do with energy. A career opportunity took me to New England, where energy really, really matters. In California, you can get away with not heating your house in the winter. It'd be very uncomfortable, and not much of a life without heat. But you'd survive. In New England, turning off the heat would simply kill you. Energy is imperative. And so it concerns me that I now live somewhere that is energy-intensive, in an era at the threshold of an energy crisis.

After two or three Bass Ales, I wax poetic on my deck. And I wonder: does Mr. John Deere over there with his coffee see what's coming down the pike? Is it really possible that his carefully constructed domestic universe that's buffered by tall maples is on the brink of extinction? On the surface, it's so lovely, all of this. It's so simple and fresh. Grass with romping children and lots of trees and space, with redbirds flitting across the sky. People trim-out their domestic fantasies with hedge clippers purchased from Home Depot and made in China. Every house has a wooden castle for children in the back yard with slides, swings and dealybobs they can amuse themselves with. Propane-fueled mosquito lures bracket the yards. Is all of this truly sustainable? Are we kidding ourselves that this is normal? Is this realistic?

Beer is supposed to suppress thoughts about the apocalypse and lure one into the complacency of numbness. Or some such. But not this Bass Ale. Each passing day has me more convinced that our lives are carefully constructed fantasies, scripted in the last 60 years or so. Our fantastic expectations on how to live well are built upon the assumption that energy will be abundant, and cheap. But we are fragile and exposed. Many people don't know it. They see themselves as hard workers who paid their dues, and their John Deere was fairly earned. Perhaps so, in the context of our culture's expectations. But should the basic relationship we have with energy be disrupted, much of this paradise around my house will be changed.

Today, Iran's leader sent a letter to the President, lecturing him on democracy and religion. He all but demanded that the American president convert to Islam.

It was hardly a letter that approached reconciliation, or laid a foundation for setting terms that might reduce tensions. The letter was bravado, and I believe it was the observance of an Islamic a technicality -- da’wa, a call to accept Islam offered to one's enemies before war. It's a foreboding letter that might mean many things, coming from a country that can easily destabilize the cost of energy for the world.

I really don't know how this crisis can or should play out. But however it works out, much of what we consider normal will probably not endure. It wouldn't be so tragic if all that was at stake was mowed grass and palatial living. I think we might come to be surprised to learn how many of our goals and dreams for the good life are tied into energy from places that have values that are far different than our own. We will need to adjust our values to greater expectations that might be more realistic, if not more wholesome.

Last beer. I hear it rains here a lot in the summer. That's good. That should keep my grass green. I'm looking into a push mower, but heaven help me in this era of change. The neighbors will think I'm crazy.

Morning Jolt

2006-04-25T05:52:00.000-07:00

Folks,

It's time for a break from all the serious topics on this blog. Every once in a while I go to YouTube for amusement. Well, this is most amusing:

Base Jumping

I have to hand it to these people. Either they're insane or they possess a certain verve that left my body when I turned 18. I dunno. I'm certain this beats coffee as a morning jolt.

Threshold

2006-03-26T12:24:00.000-08:00

I am quite aware of Thomas Friedman's 'Flat Earth,' and agree that globalization has done far more to spread wealth than just about any other historical economic influence. I know that telecommunications and the Internet have compressed the world economically and politically. I understand the interdependent ties between global regions and the nations within them. Look at isolated countries like North Korea or Talibanian Afghanistan, and it is obvious that in our time, countries that 'go it alone' face massive economic privations, often accompanied with the horror of internal repression.

In spite of the view that the globalized world will deliver long-term freedom and prosperity, I have begun to wonder if openness will be an option as we cross history's harsh thresholds, hidden in the tall grass. History always reaps the unexpected; its scythe is strident.

I will admit that I was duped by Mark Buehner's recent satire, How I Learned to Stop Worrying about Mullahs and Embrace The Bomb. I see that it was satire in hindsight, and I feel sheepish in admitting I was so easily deceived. But the large wave that is barreling down upon us at the moment disarmed me from parodic sensitivity. Mr. Buehner's satire was laden with factual, convincing sources. It felt like yelling 'fire' in a theater to me because the nuclear scenarios he laid out are credible in so many minds. We live in a world on edge.

I believe we are already at a historical threshold. The first indication is utter confusion. The secular world's response to Shi'a Islam's nuclear ambition is confused, on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific. There really is no cogent consensus on what to do, because Iran's challenge is a square peg that will not fit in our round hole. Responsive, credible policy is paralyzed from transnational organizations down to national governments because no political strategy promises a clear solution.

It is clear that the crisis is upon us and all roads lead to a very different world. We may not realize it, but we are not really talking about a country that is seeking nuclear arms. We are talking about a fundamentalist, ancient Islamic cult seeking nuclear arms as its ultimate sacrament. While it is necessary for a 'country' called 'Iran' to exercise its sovereignty in order to achieve the making of nuclear weapons, once achieved those weapons will respect no borders. They are being constructed to defy and nullify sovereign borders as we know them. Shi'a's nukes will proliferate like smoke in the wind; their very being is meant to unravel our world, which we have slowly conceived over centuries, at the expense of the Mullahs' world.

The headlines in our papers betray our fundamental misunderstanding of the crisis, referring to the 'Iranian nuclear program,' presuming that this is an entirely Westphalian affair. Therein lies the guise -- the mask about to be lowered. We only see things through the prism of our own perspective, which moves the crisis into high gear. To help clarify what is happening, swap 'Iran' for 'Hezbollah' and ''President Ahmadinejad' for 'Sheik Hassan Nasrallah' in the headlines about the nuclear crisis. Here's a few examples culled from the presses, so altered:

Germany, IAEA to Discuss Hezbollah Nuclear Activities

Russia Opposes Issuing Hezbollah an "Ultimatum" on its Nuclear Program

Hezbollah to Go Nuclear This Year, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah Says

UN Inspectors to Check Up on Hezbollah Nuclear Program

Looks pretty bad, doesn't it? Cultists dedicated to our destruction, answerable to no one but their vengeful god, playing with nukes? To not consider Hezbollah and Persian Shi'a as morally and strategically interchangeable is to tragically misinterpret the hallmark of our time.

A religious suicide cult funded by billions of our petrodollars obtaining weapons of mass destruction has no historical precedent. None. The rules of engagement will be completely upended. Familiar metaphors of superpower warring will be unworkable and irrelevant. Watching sovereign entities flail and dither like paper dolls before their ultimate post-sovereign challenger indicates that the threshold is beneath our feet, if we care to look down.

This is no satire. These are the stakes in 2006.

If Shi'a's radical mullahs manage to proliferate their nukes like smoke through their post-sovereign proxies, certain as-yet-to-be-named cities will unexpectedly fall through trapdoors. No one will lay claim to the atrocities. It need only happen once. If London, or Paris, or New York, or Detroit, or even Fresno falls into oblivion, our well-oiled socioeconomic global merry-go-round stops. Indefinitely. Because of the threat of mass destruction, all borders will be shut. All ports closed. All shipping stopped. Air travel halted. Since the very infrastructure of modern commerce will be the delivery device for Shi'a's nukes, that infrastructure will be indefinitely frozen solid. It won't be an option. There won't be a debate.

If the 'West' manages enough moxy to attempt a preemption of Shi'a Persia, the result will be different than their striking first, but only by degrees. The rubicon will have been crossed. The fact is, we don't know if the mullahs have nukes at this point. It is plausible to suppose that they do. It would be reckless to presume otherwise. We can nuke their nukes with all the gusto we have and not come out of it thinking that we have fully abated the threat of rogue nuclear strikes. Striking first wounds radical Shi'a, but doesn't kill it. And like a wounded bear, it will chase off into the woods for a while, only to come back with a bloody vengeance. Striking first also puts aside the idea of sovereignty, if only for self defense. The world will take that baton and run with it.

What struck me about Mr. Buehner's piece was how his idea of the absurd came off as plausible, depending on one's view of the threat's enormity. And even then, the most aggressive preemptive strike against Persian Shi'a still leaves us stranded between the world that we know -- with largely open borders that facilitate free trade and expansive prosperity -- and the next world, where borders are defined by padlocks, moats and walls, not openness -- just like the good old days of sovereignty, when borders meant 'stop, go no further.' In a world of nuclear trapdoors, there will be a lock-down of borders to secure their inviolability. Globalism, transnationalism and our jet-setting postmodern lifestyle presume that we can have our cake and eat it too: National borders exist to contain political, social and economic zones while cultures, religions and civilizations are free to transgress sovereignty ad infinitum. That wonderfully open-minded and trusting view of the world is on the chopping block, whether we attack first or Shi'a attacks first.

As far as whether or not to strike first or wait to be struck, I guess I am in the 'Strike First' camp. Spin the bottle -- better to take the initiative than sit around and wait for the enemy's blow. But I am not deluded in thinking that our marvelously open world will survive this crisis unchanged. What we have now is historically unprecedented, and incredibly fragile. We hang by a thread.

After the 3/11 Madrid bombings, Lewis ‘Atiyyatullah, claiming to represent al-Qaeda, said:

The international system built-up by the West since the Treaty of Westphalia will collapse; and a new international system will rise under the leadership of a mighty Islamic state.

Al Qaeda is Sunni, not Shi'a, but that may be a difference that will be temporarily patched-up to achieve a common, pan-Islamist goal. Mr. ‘Atiyyatullah is right. Our open system is not impervious. It is, in fact, quite pervious. How we engage being in a closed world will be most telling to our character as free people.

I will end this dour essay on an optimistic note. If the world becomes closed in the name of self-preservation, some countries will fare better than others in isolation. Though all modern countries are thoroughly ensnared in global economics, if ripped away, some countries have enough national will, freedom, natural resources and innovative citizens to positively reinvent themselves in a closed planet. I think the United States can weather isolation better than most countries, should isolation be foisted upon us.

I am not suggesting isolation as some kind of regressive policy option that we can choose; I am suggesting that it might be the only option left, whoever pulls the nuclear trigger. It will be incredibly painful to endure, but perhaps out of the transition we will reclaim our sense of self-worth. Our history of independence is still longer than our history of dependence. Out of all the uncertainty of this time, relying on our indomitable free spirit is the one possible future I can still imagine.

Just Say It

2006-02-24T11:31:00.000-08:00

To the mainstream media:

The reason why you won't publish the Danish cartoons is because you're scared. It's because you don't want your buildings to be the next targets of jet planes. It's because you want to keep your heads on -- literally. It's because you really do believe there is a war of civilizations, though you won't say it, and any false move could ignite the seas.

If you would just say that fear motivates your censuring some cartoons, I might respect you more. Because fear is real. Sometimes it can't easily be overcome. Sometimes the price of freedom is very high, and we stumble, dither and grope before we stand.

So please just tell the truth. Don't lie and say that you won't publish the cartoons out of 'respect' for Muhammad. Western presses have long, long since let that noun go as a relic of antiquity. And that's fine -- we pay the price for free speech by enduring disrespect -- or else we become a culture mutes.

Have the presses of the free world become mutes?

I remember reading accounts of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Young Iranian zealots ran across mine fields in order to clear them. Well, certainly some of those kids were unwilling martyrs; but many weren't. They had the same fire as Japanese kamikazes -- the same viscous fervor, inspired by divine afterlife. I remember thinking: Boy, I wonder if we can hold it together enough to fight these guys someday if they have nukes.

Are you fearful? I am. And I admit it. Very soon we will need to find the courage of our forefathers whose burdens we have inherited, not surpassed. We've had it too easy for too long, and now we're soft on fear. We call fear respect.

Fear is not respect. Fear is fear. So just say it.