American Dunces

Lots of talk about the importance of educating American children, but not at the expense of the U.S. War Machine.

So Obama delivered his first State of the Union address tonight.

Whoop-dee-do.

No sense in debating whether or not it was a good speech. All of Obama's speeches are good. He's a great speaker and has the ability to make a shit sandwich sound like a filet mignon. But when you look what's inside the bun... eewwww!

The question is what is behind the pretty language and the $954,000,000,000 smile (the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001). Despite a long speech with lots and lots of self-serving applause and back slapping, Congress, the *Supreme Court and the cabinet sat compliantly as Obama proved that he can talk tough like Bush and wag his finger at other countries.

What caught my ear most was when BHO said, "We need to invest in the skills and education of our people... In the 21st century, the best anti-poverty program around is a world-class education. (Applause) And in this country, the success of our children cannot depend more on where they live than on their potential."

Ok, yes- education is the key to success in the 21st century... No, we'll never play second fiddle to China or Europe... Yes, investing in education is investing in our future, blah, blah, blah.

It all sounds nice, but Obama failed to remind his audience that he comes from Hawaii, the state with the fewest classroom days in the entire nation and one of the lowest academic achievement levels. He neglected to remind his listeners that in his own home state, the governor, the Department of Education and the Board of Education are literally furloughing all public school students. As of last Friday, Hawaii public school kids have had eight days of classroom instruction cut (with nine more to come before this school year ends) all because in Hawaii public education is not a top priority.

He forgot to mention while the nation under his rule has trillions of dollars to export war and death, our nation, and his own home state can't even keep its children in school because the states are broke and the federal government chooses to spend its money on war.

And while he says he "hated" bailing out the banks (applause), there has been no bail out for education programs in Hawaii or anywhere else -- just lofty rhetoric about "investing in education" and "the future of our children."

As Rep. Dennis Kucinich said not so long ago: "Why is it we have finite resources for health care, but unlimited money for war? ...Trillions for war, for Wall Street. Billions for insurance companies. When we were promised change, we weren't thinking it meant we give a dollar and get back two cents.... A Democratic version of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is no more acceptable than a Republican version of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

If unfathomable amounts of spending for war continues while we can't even keep our own schools and libraries open represents the kind of change we're being offered, I'll pass thanks.

By chance, renowned historian, activist and thinker Howard Zinn died less than 24 hours ago in California. In what may have been his final published column of his long and productive life, he wrote:

"I think people are dazzled by Obama's rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president -- which means, in our time, a dangerous president -- unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction."

If we, the American electorate, are going to continue to sit docile and silent while we are fed an endless stream of lies about how valued our health and well-being are, even as our government neglects our own basic needs in favor of manufacturing and exporting more war, than it is we who should be wearing the dunce caps.

*Brought to you by GE, DuPont, Bechtel, Time Warner, Bank of America...

Icelandic Rocks

A glacial rock found along the Hvita River in west Iceland.

In 2006 I followed one of the best rules of travel: Be spontaneous and follow your true desires. Without telling my wife where we were going, I planned a trip abroad to a place I had wanted to visit for a long time: Iceland.

There are a number of reasons why I wanted to go there - it's very different from where I live (although I later learned there are also many similarities), its most famous assets are natural wonders (waterfalls, glaciers, volcanic landscapes, bird life), and it has qualities I like in place: cold and remote (I learned this is very true the hard way).

Even before I told her where we were going, my wife, being my wife, said, "it's somewhere cold, isn't it?" She was right. I had actually checked average temperatures for Reykjavik in late May when we would be there and it appeared we could expect temperatures in the low 50s (around 10c) unless...

...Unless we happened to visit during an unseasonal cold wave which, to my wife's chagrin, we did. During our first two days in Reykjavik we fought bitter winds that blew snow flurries around Reykjavik with the following days not much warmer. Later we learned that we had come to Iceland during the coldest late-May temperatures in one hundred years.

After a night from hell (ask me about it some time) which climaxed with us stuck in the snow on a remote mountain pass at 4:30 in the morning, we ended up in the hamlet of Reykholt which is a few hundred kilometers north-east of Reykjavik and just west of Langjokull, Iceland's second largest glacier.

After a much needed two hours of intense, deep sleep in the driver's seat of our rented Volkswagen Polo (not the car to take to the Icelandic hinterlands, trust me), I awoke and checked us into the Foss Hotel in central Reykholt. If you are interested in Norse mythology and Icelandic saga heritage (I know you are out there!!), this is the place to stay. The hotel is decorated with all things Norse and includes a Freyja "honeymoon room," an outdoor hot spring and stairwells and corridors plastered with images of Freyja, a Norse pagan godess, and Icelandic poetry with accompanying runes.

Freya and Svipdag as illustrated by John Bauer in 1911.

The poems were like Icelandic medieval haiku minus the 5-7-5 metrics. I really liked them so I will reproduce several of them here:

Beorc (Birch) No flowers, no fruit, yet the birch is beautiful, its clustering leaves near the sky.

Rad (Riding) Riding seems easy at home though on the long road the horse feels hard as stone.

Ac (Oak) The oak is on earth for us, feed pigs the acorns. Make a good boat.

The other attraction of Reykholt is that it is home to Snorri Sturluson, Iceland's greatest Saga writer, poet and 11th century historian. So if you are into Snorri, again, Reykholt is your place. But if you are looking for action, excitement and nightlife, you might try New York, Bangkok or Shanghai.

Running wild near Reykholt, west Iceland...Baaaaaaah!

Reykholt, as far as I saw, consisted of the hotel, an Esso petrol station, a church, a statue of Snorri, and some greenhouses that appeared to be growing tomatoes. The greenhouses and the hotel, like most of the country, use renewable energy (geothermal, hydroelectric) to generate their power and heat (80% of Iceland's overall energy consumption is from renewable sources according to an article in the most recent Iceland Review).

Central Reykholt: a petrol station, a road and wisps of geothermal steam.

Like almost all of Iceland, Reykholt is geothermally active and as such there are wisps of steam rising from every crack and crevice in the earth. The area around Reykholt is mostly low expansive hills dotted with huge, largely unseen farms and lots of sheep and lovely Icelandic horses.

No wonder Icelanders are proud and protective of their horses: they're gorgeous.

After a much needed hot breakfast and a shower, I decided it was time for a family drive east toward the nearby Langjokull Glacier. There were some well known waterfalls nearby and, despite the ominous name of one of them (Barnafoss, "children's falls," said to be named for two children who were swept to their deaths from a natural arch near the falls), I wanted to visit.

The drive from Reykholt was, after the decidedly difficult driving and drama of the night before, very easy. The two lane road (a highway) runs east toward the glacier and falls and rises smoothly with no surprises or sharp turns. Unlike many roads in Iceland, this stretch of road was smooth and could be driven without fear of sliding into the abyss. Like virtually all of Iceland, traffic is not just light, it is non-existent. You can easily drive in Iceland for an hour or more and not see another car (or sign or town or...gas station).

One detail I recall clearly from that drive was that on the radio one of the local stations was playing Frank Zappa's Dancing Fool which is a pretty cool song to hear while driving in the Icelandic wilderness.

Along the way, perhaps 15 km west of the massive Langjokull Glacier, I saw a good place to pull off the road for a better look at the Hvita River which flows off the glacier. It was still cold and windy outside and so my wife and 20-month-old son happily remained inside the car while their odd-ball husband/father went out to inspect the riverbank.

The Hvita River at Barnafoss (left), glacial till on the river bank (right).

What I found were rocks. Lots of rocks. As you might imagine, 950 square kilometers of slow moving ice does some pretty amazing things to the earth below it and as a result, the rocks just downstream from the glacier are themselves pretty amazing.

The rocks on the banks of the Hvita (White) River may have been just "poorly sorted" glacial till, but to me they were like gems. These were really fantastic rocks of all sizes, shapes and colors - some smooth, some rough, some striped. Like a hungry child clutching candies from a jar, I picked up and pocketed rocks that struck my fancy.

Some of the rocks were the color of toast or oatmeal, others were purple, green or red. There were small tan pebbles, column-shaped miniature bricks and one palm-sized rock that is my favorite, which had two roughly flat faces with a third rounded end that was colored a combination of mustard yellow with patches of slate grey, maroon and brown. I have never seen a rock like it and I still never tire of holding it.

"Poorly sorted" glacial till from Langjokull Glacier (my "favorite rock" on the right).

I took perhaps two dozen of these glacial river rocks with me that day. I carried them all the way from Reykholt to Geyser (home of the "original" geyser) to Gullfoss, Selfoss, Grindavik, then on to Reykjavik, beyond to England, from London to Oxford and around the Cotswolds, back to Iceland, then San Francisco, Honolulu and finally home to where the rocks sit now.

Some of these rocks are in front of my computer monitor -- I am looking at them right now. Others, like my favorite mustard colored rock, are on the window sill beside my bed. I see them every day and often pick them up.

Icelandic glacial till comes in purple, orange, red, gold, tan, pink, grey and the color of honey, oats and burnt toast.

Aside from the memories and experience of visiting Iceland itself, they are my most treasured souvenir from that trip. In fact, they are virtually my only souvenir.

There is another Icelandic rock in the collection that I did not pick up. Amongst these glacial rocks from the Hvita River, is one small, mostly smooth pock-marked black rock, only about the size of a small plum pit, it is a bit of volcanic rock my wife found near Gullfoss, one of Iceland's largest and best known waterfalls.

Gullfoss is an amazing sight. The sheer volume of water and the angle from which it is viewed are remarkable. To see Gullfoss alone would merit a trip to Iceland, I think, and so to have a small bit of rock from there is something special.

Gullfoss ("Gold Falls") is one of Iceland's most remarkable sights and Europe's largest falls.

These wonderful rocks from this stunning island are something I enjoy seeing and holding quite often. Rocks are wonderful things and so it is nice to have them scattered around the house and garden, there to be held and admired at any time. Picking up rocks as souvenirs can be rather laborious and, of course, puts one at risk of going over airline luggage weight allowances, but to have a beautiful rock from an amazing place is to have a piece of geologic history and a bit of the power and wonder of that place to revisit and ponder years later.

A rock, like a picture, a map, a song or a story, can take you back to a place you've been or perhaps some place you hope to return to someday.

The World Below My Desk

Below my desk I have a bankers box full of maps I've collected over the years. These days I rarely open it, but recently, following the lead of my five-year-old son Kailash who was interested in a map I was showing him, I pulled out the box and we had a look together.

I am a firm believer in studying geography, and while there are definitely pockets of the world where I would probably fail miserably on a test (capital cities of Melanesia, principal rivers of the Baltic states), I have a modest understanding of where some places are on a world map.

Because I think geography is important (and interesting), long ago I posted a world map in the bathroom my son uses and so, ever since the earliest days of potty training, we have combined that activity with geography. As a result, at the tender age of five he can already easily locate Iceland, China, Senegal, Argentina, New Zealand, Pakistan, Canada and a dozen or more other countries on the map. He can find tiny Kauai on most world maps and, unlike some adults, he understands that Africa is a continent, not a country.

Wanting to foster and advance his knowledge of the world even as he is still mastering his ABCs, I took out the map box and showed him some of my maps. What I found delighted me because it reaffirmed my love of maps and appreciation for printed words and images.

The maps I've collected over the last two decades come from a wide range of places, many of which I have visited (San Francisco, Korea, Jerusalem) but others which I have not (Ireland, the West Indies, Bulgaria). Because of where I've lived for most of the last 19 years, I have a pretty large selection of maps from Japan and Hawaii.

These are useful if you want to navigate the Saddle Road, the Kalalau Trail or any place between Yonaguni-shima (Japan's southernmost island, just east of Taiwan) and Soya misaki (the northernmost point of Hokkaido). I've got several dozen variations of maps that show the trains and subways of Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto and a small pocket-sized book from a 1994 planning diary that shows every single JR (Japan Rail) station on the country's four main islands in print so small and so crisp, even 15 years later it is entirely usable.

I also have a number of maps from the National Geographic Society. You may recall a time when every few issues National Geographic magazine included a large folding map with titles like "Historic Italy," "Everest 50" or "Middle East: Crossroads of Faith and Conflict." These are great maps. I don't think NG still puts maps in their magazines, but if you have any of these maps, you know how beautiful and useful they are.

Today I unfolded a 58cm x 58cm NG map entitled SOUTH ASIA with Afghanistan and Myanmar. With this map, on a single sheet of paper I can follow the roads and ridges from Mashhad in remote north-east Iran across Afghanistan, Pakistan's restive Frontier Province, over Kashmir and Ladakh, and east across the lake-pocked western Tibetan plateau all the way to Xining in Qinghai, then directly south to Phuket and Krabi in Thailand. From there I can drag my finger west over the Andaman Sea and Nicobar Islands, across the tear drop-shaped island of Ceylon and further west over the Maldives and Lakshadweep Islands. All that and dominating this beautiful blue, tan and green map is the Indian subcontinent with places like Rajasthan, Darjeeling, Punjab, the Western Ghats and Tirukalukundram.

The names alone bring me back to sleeping in a 2nd class berth on overnight train rides across the Gangetic plain, frightening bus journeys along winding mountain roads through langur monkey-filled pine forests, lonely, cold afternoons in British hill stations, dog bites in Varanasi, curfews in Calcutta and hitchhiking to Lhasa. The map is not obscure, but it captures one of the most incredible and diverse regions of the planet and includes the world's loftiest peaks and the lowest tropical islands.

Owing to several visits to Russia, I have a number of maps that illustrate that vast land. Because Russia is an unparralleled behemouth, a single map of the entire country by necessity includes everything between Finland, Georgia, Japan and Alaska. Just unfolding a map of the country gives one an appreciation for how enormous the country is.

During a 1996 visit I picked up two detailed maps of the Russian Far East -- one of Vladivostok and the other of the entire Primorskii Krai (region) in southeasternmost Russia. The latter is a beautiful piece of cartography, printed on rough, heavy paper that gives an indication of both time and place. The map has small tears around the edges and is yellowing, but still retains its greens, pinks, blues and blacks. Fine print at the bottom of the map indicates it reads MOCKBA (Moscow) 1990 and true to the era, has the letters "CCCP" on the bottom. If you are looking for the best border crossing into North Korea, this map will prove useful.

Later on that same trip, while on Sakhalin island (what the Japanese used to call Karafuto), I found a true cartographic gem. Holding it in my hand now, it's on that same low-quality paper as the Primorskii map, but this is a complete atlas (80 pages!) covering in great detail the entirety of Sakhalinskaya Oblast (the region of Sakhalin Island and the northern and southern Kuril Islands that arc between Hokkaido and Kamchatka. Published at 1:4300000, it is unlikely you will find a better geographic guide to Sakhalin, that fish-shaped island the size of Scotland that is moored off the southeast of Russia.

The maps in this "Topograficheskaya Karta" are so detailed that I can look on page 49 and find the exact spot where I camped with friends one warm, vodka-drenched August night in 1999. We were at a salt water lake called Ozero Tunaicha which is just east of the regional capital Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and seperated from the Sea of Okhotsk by a narrow strip of land. I don't refer to this atlas much these days, but when I need it, it's there.

Other maps in the box include a small garish depiction of Bulgaria (helpful for locating the Valley of the Roses!) and an attractive hand drawn postcard map of Bali that reveals the similarity in shape between the Island of the Gods and Maui, the Valley Isle. I have old photo copied maps of Nepal's Helambu district where I have drawn black circles indicating our route. Those black dots remind me that we walked from Pati Bhanjyang to Kutumsang in a single day. I probably would never have remembered it, but just reading the name "Kutumsang" brings back memories of the simple room where we stayed and the amazing Himalayan sunrise Hiroko and I enjoyed that April morning a dozen years ago.

I have a handy four-fold lamenated Gousha Fastmap of Seattle that helps me locate Port Orchard in relationship to Bremerton or find the Muckleshoot Indian Reservation at a glance.

Another favorite, easy-to-use map series is by Nelles Verlag - though I have just three: Southern India, North-Eastern China and Kauai. If you have never browsed a Nelles, check them out-- they are still commonly found in any place carrying maps, I think.

Also among my map collection is the simply labeled "UK Road Map" with the National and Alamao car rental logos at the bottom. The map is in near pristine condition and a joy to look at simply because the UK has such a complex and irresistably squiggly coastline. Besides, who doesn't delight in reading names like Swansea, Nottingham, Kirkcaldy and Dungannon? And did you know that you can drive from Lochboisdale in South Uist all the way up to Tigharry in North Uist? It really doesn't look that far at all.

Maps, like books, are incredible time pieces and can capture a sense of how a place was at a given past. Places are constantly changing, but a map remains frozen at a moment in time. My mother gave me a tourist map of the island of Kauai where I now live. The artwork on the map is cutesy and kitsch but irresistable to gaze upon with little hand-drawn rain clouds pouring onto Mt. Waialeale sending half a dozen cascades spilling over green mountains populated with hunters chasing pheasants, pigs and goats. The Kekaha Sugar mill is depicted as still in operation (it closed nearly a decade ago) as are the mills in Lihue, Kaumakani, Kalaheo and Koloa. The illustrated map is as charming as it is dated, but the year on the bottom of the map reveals it is only 32 years old- hardly an antique, but it will remain as a slice of how this place was perceived at one time.

Amongst all these maps, I have randomly kept various other bits of printed paraphernalia -- relics of places that complement the maps. Here is a ticket stub from Tenryuji, a zen garden in Kyoto, and beside it raised relief bumper sticker-sized depiction of some esoteric Hindu iconography associated with Lord Venkateswara (Bala-ji) which I must have picked up in Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh during a visit 11 years ago.

I've got old black and white or sepia photos from Ulan Bator and Kuala Lumpur, and a photo I took one morning in Mahabalipuram that shows a row of cleanly shaven Hindu pilgrims gazing in awe at the Bay of Bengal from the safety of water's edge. In a captured moment of action, one small child with a pink baseball cap appears to be trying to break away from his mother to get a closer look at the sea, but she is pulling him back from the waves.

Another photo in my map box is a studio portrait of me and Hiroko which we had taken in the spring of 1993 in the town of Hospet, south India. In the picture Hiroko is wearing a dark green sari and I have a simple piece of cloth draped over me. In the photo my face is freshly shaven because the photographer insisted I get a shave before he take our picture.

There are countless rail guides to London and Tokyo, perfectly preserved paper napkins from a European train with the word WARS printed on them, a large business card for Inn-Sung Do at 120 Nae Su-dong Jong Ro-ku in Seoul (a room was 10,000 won without a bath), a 1993 Amtrak rail schedule for the PIONEER from Chicago to Seattle (arrive at Pocatello at 17:50) and a well-preserved sticker showing a Winnie the Pooh look-a-like being carried aloft by balloons adversting Coffeeshop Pick Up The Pieces at Oude Hoogstr.5 in Amsterdam.

Postcards from Ghana, and Shiraz, and a complete series of 14 color cards depicting the Gandantegchinlen Monastery (courtesy of Zhuulchin Mongolian Tourist Organization) all remind me of places I have been or would like to go.

A small wallet-sized Heisei 10 (1998) calendar from Takahashi book store shows a beady-eyed chipmunk eating grass in a simpler, happier time. And in a real indication of how travel and the world have changed in recent years, I come across a pristine cardstock quality white envelope with the unmistakable winged hammer and sickle of AEROFLOT Soviet Airlines. Inside are two solid, sharp plastic color postcards with raised red border trim around two sharp images of iconic Moscow buildings, both with raised 3D surfaces. One card shows a historical building which I cannot identify, but it appears to be a government building, perhaps from the early 20th century. The second card is the Kremlin illuminated on a still winter night, complete with bright red stars and onion domes across a snow-dusted Red Square. I suppose these unusual cards were given as a simple passenger's souvenir and I must have received them on an Aeroflot flight I took from Heathrow to Moscow to Tashkent to Delhi (although it is hard to believe they would have survived the subsequent five months traveling in India in such good shape). Honestly, I can't remember how I got them, but they are a testament of just how far air travel has fallen. Not only would most airlines (certainly a major U.S. carrier not hand out souvenir postcards), today we are lucky if they will sell us a turkey sandwich.


And so back the Kremlin card goes, once again neatly tucked away into its little envelope. I slide it between Taiwan and the Taj Mahal. Folded up neatly into a single cardboard box, I've got the world (at least large parts of it) packed away smart. I keep these maps on file, for any time I want to revisit the world, remember the past, or plan for the future.

Like the memories they evoke, the maps are really slivers of another time, captured in ink on paper, folded and frayed, sometimes torn or in need of mending, but valuable, each and every one of them, not only as a way to understand where we're going or where we've been but, more importantly perhaps, where others are coming from.

The freedom myth and those who pay the price

"Little Patriots" by Nina Berman from Homeland series

There is an axiom in the modern American psyche that states "freedom isn't free."

The cost of being free, as most Americans define it, is paid most dearly, by innocent civilians in far off places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan whose lives are taken as we claim to promote "freedom and democracy" while defending "American interests" abroad.

Secondly, that cost is paid by American soldiers on behalf of all of us. Their sacrifice - physical, mental, spiritual - is what ensures us the freedom we enjoy day in, day out, no matter what those soldiers are doing. At least that is the belief as it is commonly held.

The idea that American freedom stems directly from U.S. troops at home and abroad is generally not open for debate. It is, in fact, more like a rudimentary principle that one dare not even question. Just as one plus one equals two, most people in this country would probably agree with the equation American military might = American freedom. This notion is the air we breathe and the water we drink; to suggest otherwise is to doubt the very laws of physics.

And so even when Americans criticize U.S. foreign policy or our latest military adventures in Iraq or Afghanistan, the overwhelming majority are very quick to add, "...but of course, I support the troops. I am against the war(s), but I support the troops." To suggest anything less would be to open oneself up to vicious charges of sedition, perhaps even treason.

Injured American soldier photo by Peter van Agtmael

But at the risk of questioning the unquestionable, let me ask if America's liberal use of its military, particularly in foreign countries, and its ongoing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, is really protecting our freedom or is it imperiling it?

If America had not invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 and then Iraq on March 20, 2003, and if we didn't continue these wars and foreign occupations today, would we be any less free or any less safe than we are now?

During the Bush presidency, Americans were told time and again that our military was "taking the fight to the enemy, fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here." But are we to believe that insurgents (who were not insurgents prior to our invasion) or the followers of radical Shiite clerics or Afghan war lords, or the Taliban would rush into the United States and take away our freedom unless we invaded their countries?

Our enormous military might around the world prior to September 11, 2001 didn't prevent the terrible events of that day. Those hijackers booked their airline tickets and walked right onto the planes. Our military wasn't able to stop Sgt. John Russell from going on a shooting rampage against his fellow American soldiers outside Camp Liberty last May in Baghdad (he killed five fellow soldiers). Nor were our soldiers able to prevent the killing of 13 at Ft. Hood by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

Could it be that America's unprecedented human and financial investment in its own military actually helped set in place the circumstances that led to 9/11 or the violent outbursts by Russell and Hasan?

Instead of making us "freer" or "safer" or improving the lives of Americans in general, could it be that our own soldiers are being misused in a way that is actually chipping away at our freedom and making us less safe? And are America's unfathomable expenditures on the military and war-making actually doing great harm to our nation?

Despite what may be good intentions, are our own forces unwittingly contributing to the long-term detriment of the United States? Uncomfortable questions for most people, yes, I know.

Think of the last time you went through security at the airport or sent a package at the post office. Now think about that same experience ten or 15 years ago. Do you feel freer now than you did then? If not, where is that freedom and security that is supposed to come from our use of military might?

Think about your personal communications today - the emails you send, the blogs you post, your FaceBook, your Twitter, the Internet or telephone communications you conduct today compared with communications ten years ago. Freer? Safer?

Think of your rights under the law not to be arrested or imprisoned without charge. Think of the practice of extraordinary rendition, of black sites and widespread and openly acknowledged use of torture, even on American (and Canadian) citizens who were later proven innocent, but had no recourse to American law. Freer? Safer?

Think about civil and social services in the U.S. today -- from public schools and universities, hospitals and health care. Think about this nation's infrastructure from its bridges and highways, to its levees, dams and large buildings. Freer? Safer?

What about television news, print media and radio broadcasting in 2009 compared with 1999? In 2002, America's Freedom Press Index ranking was #17. In 2006 it fell to #53. In 2009 it is at #20.

How about taking part in a political demonstration, trying to attend a political rally or wearing a political slogan on an article of clothing? Have things changed for the better under nearly a decade of war and occupation? Freer and safer?

Everywhere we look, we can easily find evidence of our country falling deeper and deeper into a state of neglect, disrepair or dysfunction. Everything is being underfunded or cut out of the budget except for the military.

Talk to America's new veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and ask them if they feel they have helped successfully made America freer and safer. What do they tell you?

Step back for a moment and unpeel your eyes from Reality TV. Look at the state of our soldiers. Returning after two, three or four tours of duty, many against their will, they come back to America with broken bodies, broken minds and broken spirits. Their marriages and relationships are in shambles, their children are strangers, their job prospects are bleak and the country, it seems, couldn't care less. Military suicide rates, even when grossly under-reported, are spiking, as soldiers come back from hell to a country drunk on ignorance, apathy and distraction.

Even our so-called "liberal" president who was, and in some circles still is, painted as a radical-left wing peacenik, seems to be doing his best to dislodge much needed American troops from Iraq ("been there, done that") only so that they can be sent over to Afghanistan.

In the coming days or weeks, it appears President Obama will tell us he has a plan for Afghanistan. The man is smart, but he will offer us the same stupid argument that "our resolve is unshakable" and that "losing this war is not an option." To placate the critics, he will invoke the courage and honor and valor of "our brave young men and women." Case closed. For once he brings the question of more war and more death down to "our brave young men and women," that will be it. Americans will shut up and take it. After all, freedom isn't free, right?

Obama, like both Bushes, Clinton, Reagan and others before, knows that as long as he liberally uses the F-word (freedom) and the S-word (security), no one will argue with him.

But judging by what we got from eight years of Ronald Reagan and four years of George H. W. Bush (unpredictable Afghan forces well-trained to fight against occupying armies and widespread Muslim resentment of U.S. foreign policy [esp. in Saudi Arabia]), it seems reasonable to expect that we have some extreme unpleasantness to look forward to in the next few decades as we reap what we have sown under Bush-Cheney and now Obama. Future blowback conceived in the 2000s will perhaps make September 11 look like a Sunday picnic.

And as we watch our already grossly bloated military budget swell as it binge-feeds on ungodly amounts of money, the wars we are waging continue to create literally tens of thousands of ticking human time bombs (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere) and, of course, here in the United States as our own soldiers come back unable to recover from the horrors we have sent them to carry out.

We continue to set policies that create enemies where there were none, or at least fewer, before. Meanwhile we all like to bleat that we "support the troops" with hollow slogans, cliches and easy-to-remove bumper magnets. We aren't supporting them - we are misusing them and bankrupting our own nation, even as we destroy others. The massive foreign deployments we maintain around the world in over 700 foreign U.S. bases are not making us freer, safer, or better off in any way.

Instead, we are using our own citizens (volunteer soldiers) as a kind of invisible, disposable fantasy of what we'd like to think makes America strong, free and safe.

But if we really wanted these things for our country, and if we really "supported the troops," we wouldn't be sending them to Iraq or Afghanistan at all.

-------

Perhaps if we all saw images like this more often,
there would be a lot more vocal opposition to America's war making.

Photo by Peter van Agtmael

Most Americans would probably rather not think about Iraq or Afghanistan, except as a kind of vague, cliche example of American bravery, determination and grit. Saying "I support the troops" is an easy way to show off one's "patriotism."

The new video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, estimated to have grossed $550 million worldwide in the first five days after its release, is another example of American's perverse disconnect with war. For a much more realistic and unpleasant look at what our troops are experiencing in Iraq and Afghanistan, I strongly urge you to view the photography of freelance photojournalist Peter van Agtmael http://www.petervanagtmael.com/ . Go to this site and spend some time looking at all the photos listed under the heading American Wars. Note that many of these photos have extensive, detailed captions by clicking on the word "info" in the upper right-hand corner of the thumbnails. The bathroom stall graffitti written by American troops and photographed by van Agtmael is in itself very revealing.

Get 'em young, get 'em fresh

How old is old enough for military recruiters to approach students?

High school? Jr. High? Fourth grade?

How about ten weeks into kindergarten?

Tonight at the dinner table, my son Kailash, who turned five-years-old earlier this month, announced rather blithely, "soldiers came to school today."

What?

"Soldiers came to school," he repeated. "They only kill bad people. They don't kill good people," he said, with the same five-year-old levity he uses in recalling the plot line of Frog and Toad or a Nemo video.

My wife and I looked at each other incredulously.

"Soldiers came to school? What do you mean?" I asked.

He repeated himself and then I remembered -- today was "Career Day" at school. Kailash had mentioned a bus driver also came, but it was the soldier who stuck out in his mind, it seemed because, when my wife asked if the soldier was cool, he nodded in the affirmative, "yes."

Besides, the soldier had given my five-year-old a gift. From his yellow backpack, my son produced a six-inch white plastic ruler with big bold red letters reading ARMY NATIONAL GUARD next to a waving American flag and below that www.1-800-GO-GUARD.com.

So, now we know the answer to the above question.

Kindergarteners - children with Dora the Explorer and Spiderman backpacks and bedrooms full of stuffed animals who are still working to master their A-B-C's are now prime targets for early conditioning by the U.S. military.

Be all you can be

I could feel my blood pressure rising as I realized that recruitment now begins as soon as a child enters a public school. Nevermind that Hawaii public schools are in financial dire straits and have just approved an almost 10% cut in instructional days (17 fewer classroom days for the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years), bringing Hawaii's classroom time to the bottom position among all 50 states. Even with the cuts, the school still seemed to have time to welcome the Army National Guard to come in and hand out gifts to the wide-eyed five-year-olds.

After all, Obama has already said it's full-steam ahead in Afghanistan and now it appears it is not if but how many more troops he will commit to that war.

Everyone agrees that Afghanistan is going to get harder, much harder, before it gets easier and despite what looks like the plan to "wind down" the war in Iraq so that those soldiers can be redeployed (some for their 5th tour of duty) further east in Afghanistan, the army is still strapped for bodies.

Fortunately (for the military), the economic collapse has been a boon for military recruiters as education and job-hungry young people flock to a place they know will offer what many other employers cannot - a job with benefits.

And with Department of Defense projections indicating that baseline military budget increases over the next decade could surpass $1,333,000,000 (billion), it seems likely that a dozen years from now, in 2022, when my son turns 18, there will still be plenty need for more soldiers.

So what that means, is appears, is that it is never too soon to plant the military seed in the rich, fertile minds of those little kindergarteners who will, before you know it, be old enough to drive a Humvee, carry a gun, and kill people.

But only the bad ones.

To be continued...

Just between you, me and...Visible Technologies

Surely you didn't think social media was just for reconnecting with your high school crush or updating people about what kind of syrup you put on your waffle this morning, did you?

There must be another use for Facebook other than playing Mafia Wars and telling the world which Michael Jackson song you are and doesn't blogspot have a greater function than as a space to celebrate your cat's new holiday outfit?

Of course it does!

Check out this segment from yesterday's Democracy Now! (again, yes, I know...) in which WIRED reporter Noah Shachtman describes how the CIA's investment arm In-Q-Tel is investing in technologies that can crawl across half a million websites a day, tracking blogs, online forums, and postings on Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon.

Shachtman lays it out very clearly in this column for WIRED magazine's national security section Danger Room and what he says is pretty compelling and, I suppose, a bit terrifying.

Again, for all you busy executives who need to get back to the serious business of hiding your bailout bonuses-- the Executive Summary: In short, the CIA's In-Q-Tel uses a company called Visible Technologies to read, rank and record what you post online.

"The way Visible works is it kind of grabs all the blogs and all the tweets out there, then it sorts for certain key words, it sorts for a sentiment about whether things are positive or negative."

"Well, duhh!" you say-- tell me something I didn't know. Maybe you are one of those conspiracy theory nuts who thinks that the Agency has a mic in your Fruit Loops and cameras in your sock drawer. But why would they? Who gives a rat's nut about your drunken frat boy days or if you're ticked off because your neighbor's boyfriend is sleeping with your sister's teacher?

Bo-ring!

But (there's always a but) what if you are up to something subversive or salacious or downright nefarious? Suppose you just took a really bitchin' class on how to convert fertilizer into, err... something else, and you uploaded it to YouTube? Or what if you just posted a book review for the newly published 2nd edition of "How To Dwell in a Cave in Southern Waziristan and Not Be Found" (only two stars-- lacked forward thrust, photos blurry)?

Would that be enough to catch the unblinking eye of the ever-helpful people at Visible Technologies?

If so, that might make you think twice about posting a tweet that read "just saw that new Osama bin laden vid on CNN- it was da bomb!" or uploading a picture of you and your friends getting jiggy during your Spring Break in Peshawar.

In fact, there are a whole host of buzz words you might feel a slight inclination to avoid using, especially if it means you are going to attract unwanted attention.

In his WIRED article, Shachtman writes that currently Facebook remains untouched by Visible Technology monitoring. At the end of the article, however, he quotes a former senior technology officer from the Defense Intelligence Agency as saying that if the intelligence community ignored the "tsunami of real-time information" coming from FB or non-English Twitter clone sites, it would be called incompetent.

So next time you tweet someone's blog, remember, there is no such thing as invisibility.

Our Costly Priorities

Earlier this month, on October 7, the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, as President Obama ruled out a significant reduction of troops in Afghanistan, and the White House was denying a BBC report that the U.S. could be sending up to 45,000 more, the Senate passed an additional $626,000,000,000 (billion) for military and war funding by a vote of 93-to-7.

And even though the head of U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus said in May that al-Qaeda is effecitively out of Afghanistan, Obama said, "We will target al-Qaeda wherever they take root, we will not yield in our pursuit..."

The president's ever-obedient lap dog, the U.S. Senate, naturally rolled over and said (through the house-broken Sen. Harry Reid), "One thing I think was interesting is that everyone, Democrats and Republicans, said, 'Whatever decision you make, we'll support it."

Now all this is well and good and I am delighted to see that Obama has memorized his script, but one cannot help but notice that these wars in Afganistan and... oh, where was that other place? - are costing us a lot of money.

And as we watch more and more home foreclosures, layoffs, furlough days, public school closures and cut backs across this great-but-kind-of-struggling-and-sort-of-crumbling nation of ours, one has to wonder just what are our national priorities?

We need someone who can examine the taxing questions of which it is that Americans value more - a solid education system, top notch affordable health care, better, cleaner, more environmentally-friendly energy production (and consumption), a well-maintained infrastucture, and an informed, civic-minded, refined culture and society OR war, war and more war.

It's not an easy choice, of course, and so fortunately there's The National Priorities Project.

If you have never heard of this group, well, you should. And rather than read my explanation of who they are and what they do, you could just cut to the chase and click on the above link. Or, if you are too busy scrambling to keep your head above water to sift through the site, you could just sit down and watch/listen/read yesterday's appearance of National Priorities Project's executive director Jo Comerford on Democracy Now! The segment is only about 13 minutes long (that's only 10% the time it takes to watch an empty balloon float across Colorado) and in the segment, Ms. Comerford offers some pretty interesting food for thought, some of which I have further consolidated for those of you who need to get back to watching the Larry King analysis of the arrest of balloon boy's family.

But before you sink back into RealityTV, please consider this (courtesy of the National Priorities Project research):

Fact: 2010 Pentagon budget: $704,000,000,000 (billion)

Fact: Combined total budget of 48 U.S. states projected to be in deficit for 2010 is $689,000,000,000 (billion)

Fact: Nearly 20% of the 2010 U.S. federal budget is for the Pentagon.

Fact: Less than 3 cents of every federal tax dollar goes to energy, environment and science. Over 37 cents goes to the military.

Fact: Number of active military bases the U.S. maintained in foreign countries in 2008: 761

Fact: Number of foreign (non-U.S.) active military bases maintained in the United States: 0

Fact: New York City residents have spent $30,600,000,000 (billion) in taxpayer dollars to fund wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.

Fact: As of 9-30-09 the U.S. has spent $915,000,000,000 (billion) on war in Iraq and Afghanistan (and counting)

Fact: Baseline U.S. military budget projected to increase 2.5% each year for next 10 years (a growth of at least $133,000,000,000 [billion]) *does not include funding wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If all that sounds just a little unbalanced, well maybe it should. How is it that our country makes up for 45% of the total global military expenditures, outspending the next 14 largest spending countries combined? And how is it that the so-called "Rogue Nations" -- Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria, comprise just 1% of the world military budget?

Well, aside from the fact that the U.S. military is paying $400 a gallon for gasoline in Afghanistan (kind of a rip-off, dont'cha think?), and the Marines alone suck down 800,000 gallons a day, the U.S. War Machine also has to pay for the upkeep of over 700 U.S. military bases in foreign countries every day. That means shipping a lot of Mountain Dew, Marlboros and Burger King to weird places like Okinawa, Kuwait and Diego Garcia.


Oh, and don't forget about the Predator Drone War being waged by joystick from the suburbs of north Vegas -- that costs a few bucks too.

No wonder we are planning to increase our military spending by at least $133,100,000,000 (billion) in the next decade.

Besides, nobody said it was cheap fighting evil and defending freedom, so come on America- buck up! Quit whining about health care, school, libraries, roads, jobs, houses, cities, old people, kids, and the working class - shut up and prioritize.

America is a war to fight, yes, we are a war. Today, tomorrow and until we have nothing left.

These, my dear, are our priorities.


P.S. And if you wish to learn how others are paying for our war making, read this article in the Times of London.