For what it's worth

The news cycle has become so fast that when events occur, stories are reported, analyzed, debated and then dropped for the next one before the public has the time (or makes the time) to fully absorb the issues they are continuously bombarded with or consider them in greater context.

Whether a major political event (post-election demonstrations in Iran), a dramatic accident (Air France crash off Brazil), a titillating scandal (South Carolina Governor Sanford’s Argentinean rendevous), a global health crisis (H1N1 flu), or the American media’s favorite event, a celebrity death (Farrah, Michael, Walter), it seems each story has about six to ten days to be seriously milked and then, no matter how juicy, it’s cast aside in favor of the next BREAKING NEWS. (Wars, it should be noted, don’t merit much attention other than as a kind of low-grade static hum that never ends but one which news consumers just get used to ignoring).

One story that got huge play last week which already seems to be “dying down,” having hit the critical ten day mark, is the well-publicized arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gate Jr. at his own home. Cambridge police were responding to a call from a passerby who saw Gates and a friend forcing open a stuck door (of Gates’ own home). When police arrived, Gates was inside his house on the phone with the university reporting the door as in need of repair. The police reported Gates was very agitated and upset when the police demanded his I.D.

According to the police, Gates was shouting accusations of racial bias, but he did produce two piece of identification to prove he was indeed in his own home. Gates says that when he asked the arresting officer for his name and badge number, the officer – Sgt. James Crowley – refused to comply. Gates was eventually lured out of his house and onto the front porch where he was arrested for disorderly conduct and taken into custody.

There's something happening here,

what it is ain't exactly clear

The whole incident has been thoroughly reported and debated, but what I think is safe to say is that most Americans in a similar situation as Prof. Gates might be a little cranky with the police after providing two forms of I.D. and proving they were indeed in their own home. Even if Gates was in fact disorderly, why was it necessary for the police to lure him out of his front door where he could legally be arrested and hauled off? Why didn’t the police, having satisfied their duties and determined that Gates was not a burglar, just leave him to rant and rave (if that is what he was indeed doing) inside his own home. How disorderly can a 58-year-old Harvard professor armed only with a walking stick alone in his own home be? Was it really necessary to arrest him?

You step out of line,

the man come and take you away

Whether Gates was black, white, purple or green, one has to wonder, at what point is a law abiding citizen fair game for the police to arrest in his own home? One could easily ask if perhaps both Gates and the police wanted the other one to “bring it on” so they could prove their own points. Only those at Gates’ house at that time can know for sure.

Later in the week, the story gained new, bigger legs when President Obama, usually very eloquent and careful with his words, carelessly used the blunt criticism “acted stupidly” in referring to the Cambridge Police arrest of Gates. This characterization by Obama was sure to backfire and probably he or the people around him very quickly realized that his comments had the potential to do real damage and could come back to bite him in a number of ways.

There's battle lines being drawn,

nobody's right if everybody's wrong

By Friday Obama expressed regret over how he added heat, but not light to the Gates affair and admitted that he could have “calibrated his words differently.” Obama announced that he was considering inviting both Officer Crowley and Professor Gates to the White House for a beer (and presumably some high profile photos of everyone smiling and shaking hands).

By Saturday Gates had publicly said he was ready to move on and, aside from the smiling beer-on-the-lawn moment to come, this story may have run its course or will at least fade into the background as next week’s crises and disasters unfold.

But before we move on to whatever tragedies and scandals next week may offer, it is worth pausing to consider the current atmosphere of racial tensions, particularly black-white relations, in the U.S. today.

There are a number of disturbing examples of many white Americans ongoing fear and distrust of black Americans, not the least of which is the unbelievable story (get ready all you folks reading this outside the United States…) of continuing efforts to demonstrate Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen.

From early in the last presidential campaign, and still today, Obama has been portrayed as everything from a Muslim to a socialist, a communist, a radical liberal, and a non-U.S. citizen. Such wild claims are easy to laugh off as a hollow scare tactic intended to motivate and excite the uneducated, but the story is being given plenty of attention by CNN commentator, the self-proclaimed “tough, relentless, independent” Lou Dobbs.

Paranoia strikes deep,

into your life it will creep,

it starts when you're always afraid

Incredibly, Dobbs continues to pursue the “story,” now more than six months into Obama’s term. Dobbs says he believes Obama is indeed a U.S. citizen but that he thinks Obama should present his birth certificate just to dispel rumors. Never mind Obama’s Certification of Live Birth document can be seen online here, Dobbs and others just want to make sure.

Last week Jon Stewart examined CNN and Dobbs' dogged pursuit of the question of Obama's birthplace and, as nobody but Stewart could, brilliantly revealed Obama as having fooled the world with the "Kenyan Prince Birth Announcement Scam."

On June 30 Delaware Republican Congressman Mike Castle was confronted at a town hall meeting by an angry woman toting an American flag who wanted to know why Rep. Castle and other law makers were “ignoring the question of Obama’s birth certificate.” When Castle said that the president is an American citizen, he was booed.

More frightening though, was later in the meeting when the aforementioned crackpot commandeered the meeting and insisted that all in attendance immediately stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance and Congressman Castle, apparently afraid of looking un-American, joined in with the recitation.

If you haven't read Naomi Wolf's The End of America,check it out. You can see how we barely need any type of fascism imposed on us - many Americans are mentally already there and primed to follow in the steps of the "good Germans" of the 1930s, having deep faith in their Christian God, a deep-rooted fear of both internal and external "enemies," and being unfettered by a comprehensive understanding of people and events beyond their own church yard, gun shop and big box stores.

How else can one explain this irrational fear of America being infiltrated at the very top by a foreign-born black Muslim?

As utterly comedic as all this sounds, it comes against an American cultural and social backdrop in which:

- Political pundit Pat Buchanan recently appeared on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show talking about how America was built “by white folks.” See Maddow’s brilliant refutation of his “facts” here.

- Fox News network host Brian Kimeade spoke about how Americans “keep marrying other species and other ethnics (sic).”

A thousand people in the street,

singing songs and carrying signs

mostly say, hooray for our side

- Demonstrators in Paris, Texas protested the dismissal of charges against two white men arrested in the dragging death of 24-year-old Brandon McClelland, an African American man. Last September McClelland died after being dragged 70-feet beneath a truck. The charges were dismissed due to “lack of evidence,” prompting members of a Black Panther’s group and white supremacists to demonstrate outside the court room with respective protesters shouting “black power!” and “white power!”

- In early July, a group of mostly black young day camp children were denied entry and had their pre-paid fees returned from The Valley Club, a suburban swim club in Philadelphia. The club’s president said quote: “There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion…and the atmosphere of the club.”

I could go on and on, but you get the point.

The message I take away from this assemblage of stories and statements from America in the summer of 2009 is this: racism in America, far from being stamped out or even driven into retreat, is alive and well.

If you have the time and interest, Chris Hedges presents a truly frightening profile of white Americans who are well-armed and ready to fight to “take back their country.” The 25-minute documentary shows what fear, frustration, military training, liberal gun laws, and a weak education system can produce – it is pretty terrifying stuff.

It’s not enough to fear the Russians, the Chinese, the Cubans, the North Koreans, the Venezuelans, the leftists, the socialists, the communists, the French, the Arabs, the Muslims, the Indians, non-English speakers, Mexicans and other Latinos, many white Americans have a need to fear other Americans, especially if they have African roots.

From Los Angeles to Philadelphia and Paris, Texas to Cambridge, Massachusetts, all the way to the doors of the White House, it doesn’t matter if you are the King of Pop, a distinguished professor, a 10-year-old day camper or the President of the United States, if you are black, it seems you are still held in suspicion, still seen as having to bear the burden of proof that you are who you say you are, that this really is your home and really is your country.

Next week, and beyond, as the news cycle spits out ever-new stories and dramas, it's in everyone’s interest to give the above matters serious thought. What will it take to move beyond these issues of race, and how can we learn from what’s going down?

*Thanks to Buffalo Springfield for the timeless lyrics.

Humiliation and Humility

Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl in a Taliban-made video. July 14, 2009

Nearly three weeks after his capture in eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province, a 23-year-old American soldier from Idaho named Bowe Bergdahl has the extreme misfortune of explaining himself and U.S. foreign policy before a video camera operated by his captors.

Given the circumstances under which the video was made, what Bergdahl says is not surprising - he wants to go home, the U.S. should not be in Afghanistan, American soldiers are told Afghani civilian deaths "don't matter", and so on.

In the 28-minute video (on Youtube here), Bergdahl, who worked as a barista in a coffee shop in Hailey, Idaho and was active as a ballet dancer, is seen seated cross-legged answering questions and, at the end of the video, eating rice, bread and what looks like green tea.

In response to the video, a U.S. military spokesman said, "We condemn the use of this video and the public humiliation of prisoners. It is against international law."

Unfortunately, these words ring hollow when one considers American treatment of its own prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba and so-called "black sites" around the world. Recalling ugly images and descriptions of prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib, Bagram Air Base, Gitmo, as well as Charleston, South Carolina (see; Padilla, Jose).

Prisoners held by the U.S. military in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

Bowe Bergdahl, it seems, is now a pawn in a war of images. He knows, as everyone else does, that footage of him being questioned in a civil manner, looking well-taken care of, dressed in clean, local garb, indeed eating a meal, are in stark contrast with the vile display of naked prisoners, hooded and stacked in pyramids, or orange-jump suit-clad hooded detainees kneeling against fences, or any one of hundreds of other painful images of those captured and held by the American military.

Images of detainee abuse from Abu Ghraib prison won't fade any time soon.

For the U.S. military to bark about "international law" and "humiliation of prisoners" now is only cruel irony. Thanks to the policies and precedents established under George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others, America has no legs on which to stand when it comes to talking about issues of "international law" and humane treatment of prisoners.

This glaring irony must, in itself, be a form of torture (at least mentally) that haunts young Bowe Bergdahl the ballet dancer and his own family and friends as they ponder his fate.

The Lesson of the Toothless Island

Argemone glauca (pua kala) and Layasan albatross on Lehua islet, Hawaii
Photos by Ken Wood, NTBG

Far from the kitchens and gardens of Hilo, the clamor of Honolulu’s Chinatown and the eateries along Lahaina’s Front Street, tiny Lehua pokes its head out of the water off the northern tip of Niihau. At 290 acres, Lehua is Hawaii’s largest offshore islet, a crescent-shaped tuff crater floating like a mirage within view from Kauai’s western shores. An uninhabited volcanic lip too steep and dry to support humans or agriculture, Lehua is home to a restoration project that holds a valuable lesson about conservation and balance.

Bathed in almost constant sunshine, Lehua is surrounded by clear blue waters and, removed from civilization, at first glance appears to be an ideal “desert island” until you consider the reality of an extremely arid environment with scant resources.

Long ago Hawaiians likely used the island to gather birds, eggs and feathers and the remains of a kuula (Hawaiian fishing shrine) indicate Lehua was an important fishing ground. Only half a mile from Niihau, Lehua’s waters are filled with sea turtles, manta rays, whales and dolphins, but with a healthy shark population that includes occasional great whites, this is not Gilligan’s Island.

It is, however, one of Hawaii’s most important breeding grounds for seabirds, many found nowhere else in the Islands. According to the Offshore Islet Restoration Committee, a multi-agency group that surveys and protects over 40 of Hawaii’s largest islets, Lehua supports at least 35 species of birds like the red-footed booby, Newell’s shearwater, and the rare black-footed albatross. Unlike those on larger, populated Hawaiian islands, birds on Lehua thrive without dogs, cats, humans or cars.

Frequently overlooked, but of no less importance, are insects, including 11 species endemic to Hawaii.Many of these tiny inhabitants serve as plant pollinators and play an important role in maintaining the islet’s ecological balance.

Over the last century, the greatest damage to Lehua has come from feral rabbits and rats. Whether introduced intentionally or accidentally, these creatures have decimated native plants and some bird species while causing loss of vegetation, leading to soil instability and increased sediment runoff into the ocean, extending their impact beneath the waves. Before any restoration efforts could begin, the rabbits and rats had to be removed.

Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service partners with the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) to reintroduce and maintain native plants, which are expected to improve nesting and habitat conditions for birds and help restore the islet.

NTBG’s Conservation Director, Dr. David Burney, explains the importance of the project. “Lehua has the best potential for long-term, large-scale conservation in the entire Hawaiian Islands. It has an extremely effective fence called the Pacific Ocean which pigs and goats can’t get over. It’s also the largest nearby island which can be reached in just under an hour by catamaran.”

Burney calls Lehua a “toothless island” for its lack of mammals, which he says will help native plants, land snails and birds like the endangered Nihoa finch get re-established.

Because Lehua receives very little rainfall, NTBG had to go to extreme lengths to water the young plants, transporting 100 gallons of fresh water at a time by boat charter, offloading on the Lehua’s southern flank below the plant introduction site. Using five-gallon water containers and surfboards, conservation staff ferried water to land, then used a small pump to drive the water to the highest point above the planting site. An open-valve gravity-fed drip line allowed small amounts of water to sustain the young plants as they became established. Today rain catchment tanks capture any precipitation.

Since botanist Ken Wood’s first trip to Lehua in 2001, he and fellow NTBG staff have visited at least 25 times to bring water, monitor progress and scatter native seeds.The Kauai-based institute is growing native plants like hinahina, naupaka, aalii, portulaca, naio (false sandalwood), ma`o (Hawaiian cotton), maiapilo (Hawaiian caper) and nanea (beach pea) for outplanting on Lehua. These, and native grasses like pili, kawelu and akiaki, have been selected based on fossil evidence that suggests they once grew on Lehua or neighboring islands.

As reintroduced plants recover, they join successful Hawaiian plants like ilima and pua kala (native poppy) which still occur naturally on Lehua.

And while Lehua is largely unknown by the general public, floating a world away from the dramas and delights of the human world, its health, balance and role as a connection between creatures of the seas, skies and soil, make it a prime example of the importance of conservation on all the Hawaiian islands and beyond.

NTBG’s Assistant Director of Living Collections and Horticulture Mike DeMotta says, “the lesson of Lehua is that it’s easier to preserve what we already have than to go back and fix it."

from edible Hawaiian Islands, Summer 2009 issue

Peering into the fog

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (1961-68), TIME magazine, Feb. 16,1963

The death of Robert McNamara marks the passing of one of the most complex, and still widely reviled figures from the Vietnam era. As Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson (1961 -68), McNamara oversaw the U.S. military during what was generally considered to be, up until our current forays into Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, the most disastrous and destructive war undertaken by America.

During McNamara's tenure as Secretary of Defense, some 16,000 U.S. soldiers died in Vietnam (with 42,000 more to follow). How many Vietnamese died? Two million? Some say three million with perhaps 750,000 dead in Laos and Cambodia. The numbers hide the actual horrors.

McNamara remained famously and frustratingly tight-lipped about his role in Vietnam for many years, but eventually did open up in a brilliant film by Errol Morris called The Fog of War which was first released at Cannes in May 2003, exactly three weeks after George W. Bush's infamous "mission accomplished" speech.

If you've never seen this film, watch it. If you haven't seen it in a while, watch it again. It serves as a stark reminder why we were wrong in Vietnam and why, tragically, unforgivably, we are making the very same mistakes again four decades later in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Pakistan.

The film is based on a series of interviews with McNamara in which he very candidly and, with a visible sense of regret, painfully reflects on the American war making he has witnessed during his own life beginning with his earliest memory of Armistice Day, November 11, 1918 up to his time serving in the Pacific during World War II and his days as Secretary of Defense during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the escalation of America's war in Vietnam through 1968.

McNamara, who has been described as everything from a "whiz kid" and "brainy" to an "arrogant dictator," "war monger" and "con-man," comes clean, to a degree, as he lays out 11 lessons he says he has learned during his life. A decidedly troubled-looking McNamara, now looking back at wars he has experienced, asks questions about human judgment and unavoidable mistakes, about the morality vs. immorality in making war, and the what he describes as the importance of empathizing with one's enemy.

He asks if it is right and proper that there are 7,500 strategic offensive nuclear warheads, of which 2,500 are on a 15-minute alert to be launched by the decision of one human being.

"In order to win a war, should you kill 100,000 people in one night?"

To give viewers a sense of proportionality, and perhaps illicit some empathy, McNamara lists some of the main Japanese cities where large portions of the civilian populace was killed before Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed. As the names Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Toyama, Kobe, and others flash on the screen, they are followed with the names of American cities of similar size flashing beside their Japanese equivalent with a background of archival footage of pulverized Japanese cities.

"I think the human race needs to think more about killing. How much evil must we do in order to do good?"

It is hard to watch the film and not feel that McNamara has, albeit belatedly, "seen the light."

In one telling moment, McNamara recalls the words of Air Force General Curtis LeMay who said, "'If we'd lost the war, I think we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals.' And I think he's right," McNamara says. "He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals." With a bleak facial expression that can only be described as grim recognition, McNamara asks, "What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"

THEN Sec. Defense Robert McNamara with President Lyndon Johnson in November of 1967.
Photo by Yoichi Okamoto/LBJ Library

The film documents a deteriorating situation in Vietnam and McNamara's clashes with President Johnson and his own speculation of what might have been had Kennedy not be assassinated. Liberal use of archival footage and raw reel-to-reel taped conversations reveal a White House script from the 1960s which could have been taken straight from the mouths of Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld in the 2000s.

NOW: Robert McNamara (seated) shaking hands with Sec. Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2003.
Photo by Stephen Crowley/New York Times.

As the above eerie photo reveals, history is repeating itself in a number of ways. Above we have Robert McNamara who oversaw the early years of the disaster of Vietnam shaking hands with Don Rumsfeld who oversaw the early years of the disaster(s) of Afghanistan and Iraq. McNamara and Rumsfeld were born only 16 years and one month (to the day) apart and they look like they could be brothers. From the matching staid navy jackets and blue neck ties, the thinning slicked-back greasy hair, the wire-rimmed glasses and the greyish skin stretched over their thin frames, the two make for downright spooky apparitions.

The difference, we may find one day, is that unlike McNamara who, at times, appears to show honest remorse and regret, Rumsfeld might simply lack the humanity and humility do the same. And though it is impossible to say McNamara was not an enabler and facilitator of the war in Vietnam, he does at least, in The Fog of War, admit the policies during his tenure were "wrong, terribly wrong."

He continues:

"The conventional wisdom is don't make the same mistake twice. Learn from your mistakes."

Unfortunately, if you take the time to read Robert McNamara's 11 lessons from his 1995 book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, you can see clearly that during the Bush administration, and now under the Obama administration, we are committing the exact same mistakes McNamara warns of in our current wars.

1. We misjudged then — and we have since — the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries … and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.
2. We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience … We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.
3. We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values.
4. Our judgments of friend and foe, alike, reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders.
5. We failed then — and have since — to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, forces, and doctrine.
6. We failed, as well, to adapt our military tactics to the task of winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.
7. We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement … before we initiated the action.
8. After the action got under way, and unanticipated events forced us off our planned course … we did not fully explain what was happening, and why we were doing what we did.
9. We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgment of what is in another people's or country's best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.
10. We did not hold to the principle that U.S. military action … should be carried out only in conjunction with multinational forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.
11. We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions … At times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.

Confronting Washington's current leader's folly against the backdrop of eternity, McNamara must be shuddering in his grave. Perhaps the one thing we can do to see that McNamara's realizations were not all for naught, is to watch the film, consider the ideas, and learn from our errors.

You can watch The Fog of War (1 hour 47 min) free simply by clicking here.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/fogofwar/

The Will to Resist (a short book review)

Some of you may have heard about a young mountain guide in Alaska who was so disgusted by the "cheerleading" mainstream media in the prelude to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he decided to head to Iraq himself and find out what was going on.

That journalist's name is Dahr Jamail. He is originally from Texas, but over the last six years he's traveled to the Middle East many times, reporting independently (as in unembedded, that is not "in bed with" the military) from around Iraq as well as Syria and the Gulf states.

Dahr also travels extensively across North America and Europe speaking about the realities of America's war making and the cold, ugly truth about how it impacts civilian populations. I was fortunate enough to meet, interview and listen to Dahr here on Kauai in December 2006. I was impressed with Dahr's ability to tell in very stark, honest terms what he saw and experienced in Iraq. Dahr is a raging critic of U.S. militarism, but he is far from unhinged; rather he's calm, measured and has done his homework, and then some.

An interview I did with him at that first meeting ran in the Haleakala Times, a one-time liberal small newspaper on Maui. The accompanying story is still on line here. A second article about Dahr's work ran in the Monthly Review (MR Zine on line) here.

Better still, google "Dahr Jamail" and listen to what he has to say. There is plenty out there...

This week, Dahr's second book was published. It is a quick, sharp read and essential for anyone who wants to know how many in the military are holding up under the prolonged strain of war.

A short review of this new book follows:

For those who thought the anti-war movement in America was dead, independent journalist Dahr Jamail shines a brilliant, revealing light on an under-reported, overlooked segment of the resistance in his second book The Will to Resist: Soldiers who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jamail, a former mountain guide in Alaska, was so dissatisfied by the lack of critical reporting in the early days of the Iraq war, he decided to head for the conflict and dig for the truth on his own, unembedded. The result was a hard-hitting look at the U.S. military’s devastating impact on Iraqi civilians in Beyond the Green Zone (2007).

In The Will to Resist, Jamail examines the U.S. military’s impact on the very people fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – the soldiers themselves. What he describes is a brutal system that teaches young recruits to dehumanize “the enemy” and each other.

From a military culture of misogyny, homophobia, racism, and intimidation to a system that “chews ‘em up and spits ‘em out,” (battle wounds, stop-loss, and veteran’s benefits be damned), Jamail interviews scores of veterans and active duty soldiers who’ve come to realize they can’t “be all they can be” if they are killing civilians, dodging bombs, struggling with traumatic brain injuries, or plagued by suicidal urges.

Jamail documents the soldier’s experiences in their own blunt language, giving the war, and swelling internal resistance, an immediacy and realism the U.S. Military would rather go unexamined, but is increasingly hard to ignore.

With detail and clarity, Jamail describes how a growing number of soldiers are resisting by refusing orders, speaking out, acting up, coming out (of the closet), writing, blogging, demonstrating, and just plain saying “no” to wars in which they find themselves being used as disposable pawns.

Some of the stories Jamail tells are shocking, some are depressing, while others are inspiring, irrepressibly human and unexpectedly brimming with promise. The soldiers in The Will to Resist offer hope at a time when America’s war-making seems to be accepted as “just one of those things.” Even if the American public is too busy, too indifferent, or too desensitized to offer any meaningful resistance to the ongoing American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, there are a growing number of military personnel who will.

Find The Will to Resist at Haymarket Books or Amazon.