Saturday, April 30, 2005
US Insularity
The Insular America
by Derrick Z. Jackson
by Derrick Z. Jackson
Published on Friday, April 29, 2005 by the Boston Globe
Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka used to ask people not to exaggerate the insularity of Americans by saying things like: ''Can you imagine the Americans? Nobody else plays baseball and yet they call their series the World Series." He used to say, ''C'mon, that's not the issue. That's superficial."
He does not defend us anymore. ''I'm sorry," he says, chuckling. ''I've come around to the conclusion that it's not superficial at all, that it is an index we better be aware of."
Soyinka, who turned 70 last year, is in Cambridge to be honored by Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute. In an interview yesterday, Soyinka, who has braved death many times in his native, turbulent Nigeria, says that for all of our technology, Americans are now among the most insular and least curious people in the world...
He does not defend us anymore. ''I'm sorry," he says, chuckling. ''I've come around to the conclusion that it's not superficial at all, that it is an index we better be aware of."
Soyinka, who turned 70 last year, is in Cambridge to be honored by Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute. In an interview yesterday, Soyinka, who has braved death many times in his native, turbulent Nigeria, says that for all of our technology, Americans are now among the most insular and least curious people in the world...
© 2005 Boston Globe
Friday, April 29, 2005
Anniversary of Abu Ghraib
Stain of Torture Lingers
by Reed Brody
Published on Thursday, April 28, 2005 by the Baltimore Sun
It has been one year since the appearance of the first pictures of U.S. soldiers humiliating and torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
When the pictures first stunned the world, Washington sought to portray them as an isolated incident, the work of a few "bad apples." President Bush spoke of "disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values."
We now know, however, that the only truly exceptional aspect of the horrors at Abu Ghraib was that they were photographed.
Abu Ghraib was, in fact, only the tip of the iceberg...
When the pictures first stunned the world, Washington sought to portray them as an isolated incident, the work of a few "bad apples." President Bush spoke of "disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values."
We now know, however, that the only truly exceptional aspect of the horrors at Abu Ghraib was that they were photographed.
Abu Ghraib was, in fact, only the tip of the iceberg...
© 2005 Baltimore Sun
The Enlightment in Danger
When John Kennedy was running for president and passions were running high about whether a Catholic could serve both the American citizenry and Rome, a joke made the rounds about a priest and a minister whose friendship nearly came to blows. Finally the priest phoned his old friend. ''What a pity," he said. ''Here we are, both men of the cloth, fighting over politics." ''It's true," said the minister. ''We're both Christians. We both worship the same God -- you in your way, and I in His."
America, which separated church and state precisely to protect the private right to worship, has long had its share of religious absolutists who have wanted to harness the power of the state to their own view of revealed truth. But never before in our history has the government deliberately and cynically intervened on the side of the zealots.
President Bush, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, and company are playing with serious fire. As the joke suggests, there is no challenging revealed truth. That's why the state stays neutral.
What's under siege here is nothing less than the Enlightenment...
© 2005 Boston Globe
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Revisiting the '50s
Redux 1950s: We Need to Talk
by Robert Steinback
Published on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 by the Miami Herald
Imagine a decade of domestic peace and harmony - but which is an illusion that ignores the cries of a scorned minority trying desperately to make the majority understand that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Imagine a decade in which our armed forces, the world's best, nevertheless become bogged down in an unwinnable, interminable conflict, while security paranoia induces Americans to sacrifice civil liberties in a frantic witch hunt for anyone with subversive ideas.
Imagine a decade in which the people in power don't listen to anyone else but themselves - and make egregious mistakes because of it.
If you're within striking range of retirement or older, you're probably thinking of the 1950s - when the forced segregation of black Americans was beginning to foment the civil rights movement, American troops were drawn into a meat grinder in Korea, and supposed patriots were blacklisting suspected communists on flimsy evidence and even flimsier constitutional grounds.
Retro trend
Rather, I was thinking about our current decade - what shall we call it, Decade 2K? (''The two-thousands'' seems insufferably awkward.) But the more I ponder it, the more parallels I see between Decade 2K and the 1950s - and the more they trouble me...
Imagine a decade in which our armed forces, the world's best, nevertheless become bogged down in an unwinnable, interminable conflict, while security paranoia induces Americans to sacrifice civil liberties in a frantic witch hunt for anyone with subversive ideas.
Imagine a decade in which the people in power don't listen to anyone else but themselves - and make egregious mistakes because of it.
If you're within striking range of retirement or older, you're probably thinking of the 1950s - when the forced segregation of black Americans was beginning to foment the civil rights movement, American troops were drawn into a meat grinder in Korea, and supposed patriots were blacklisting suspected communists on flimsy evidence and even flimsier constitutional grounds.
Retro trend
Rather, I was thinking about our current decade - what shall we call it, Decade 2K? (''The two-thousands'' seems insufferably awkward.) But the more I ponder it, the more parallels I see between Decade 2K and the 1950s - and the more they trouble me...
© 2005 Miami Herald
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
End of a Superpower?
Iraq “Uptick,” Superpower Downtick?
by Tom Engelhardt
Published on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 by TomDispatch.com
Quote of the month (November, 1967)
"In November, as their plans gelled, General Westmoreland embarked on a whirlwind tour of the U.S. to testify before Congress and drum up support for the Johnson Administration. ‘With 1968,' he said, speaking before the National Press Club in Washington, ‘a new phase is starting... we have reached an important point where the end begins to come into view.' In a televised news conference, he used the phrase ‘light at the end of the tunnel' to describe improved U.S. fortunes, repeating almost word-for-word a prognostication made by French General Henri Navarre in May of 1953." (General William Westmoreland, then Commander of American forces in Vietnam, announced that he saw the light at the end of the famed tunnel less than three months before the Vietnamese began their nationwide Tet Offensive. He was also known for saying, "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does the Westerner," a sentiment that undoubtedly helped account for the numbers of deaths we were willing to inflict in South Vietnam.)
Quotes of the month (March 2005)
"Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, said yesterday that the strength of the Iraqi insurgency is waning as a result of momentum from elections, and he predicted Iraqi security forces would be leading the fight against insurgents in most of Iraq by the end of 2005." (Ann Scott Tyson, Iraqi Insurgency Is Weakening, Abizaid Says, the Washington Post, March 2, 2005.)
"[Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler,] the top Marine officer in Iraq said Friday that the number of attacks against American troops in Sunni-dominated western Iraq and death tolls had dropped sharply over the last four months, a development that he called evidence that the insurgency was weakening in one of the most violent areas of the country." (Eric Schmitt, "Insurgency Loses Ground, Top Marine In Iraq Says," the New York Times, March 18, 2005.)
"In the privacy of their E-ring offices, senior Pentagon officials have begun to entertain thoughts that were unimaginable a year ago: Iraq is turning the corner… ‘This is still a tough fight. We don't want anyone to think that it is not,' said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a military analyst who strongly supports Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. ‘But the momentum is in our direction…' A military source in Iraq declined to give raw number of attacks, but said, ‘There has been a decided downward trend in the number and lethality of attacks since the January 30 elections.'" (Rowan Scarborough, Pentagon begins to see Iraq momentum shift, the Washington Times, March 28, 2005.)
"In the last two years, you have accomplished much, yet your work isn't over. Freedom still faces dangerous adversaries. Terrorists still want to attack our people. But they're losing. These terrorists are losing the struggle because they're under constant pressure from our Armed Forces, and they will remain under constant pressure from our Armed Forces. (Hoo-ah!)" (George Bush, President Discusses War on Terror, Ft. Hood, Texas, April 12.)
Quotes of the week (April 21-23, 2005)
"The suspected attack on the helicopter and the recovery of so many Iraqi bodies -- whether or not they were killed in a single episode last weekend -- speak to the continued virulence of the insurgency. A relative calm prevailed for a time and attacks against American troops fell sharply after the Jan. 30 elections. But violence against Iraqis has been rising, and there have been many recent strikes on American patrols. 'It is a fact that in the last week or two, there's been an uptick,' the Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, said Thursday." (Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Robert F. Worth, A Private Copter Crashes in Iraq; 6 Americans Die, the New York Times, April 22, 2005.)
"Despite claims that the insurgency in Iraq has declined, an internal Army analysis finds that attacks haven't necessarily lessened in recent months, but rather appear to have shifted away from U.S. troops to more vulnerable Iraqis… The report also concludes that Iraqi insurgents seem to be staging increasingly sophisticated attacks on both Iraqi and U.S. forces… In recent months some senior U.S. defense officials have suggested that the Iraqi elections held in January and stepped-up U.S. raids have badly hurt the insurgency. Based on recent successes targeting insurgents and building Iraqi security forces, defense officials have hinted that the U.S. military would be able to reduce its numbers in Iraq later this year." (Gregg Jaffe and Yaroslav Trofimov, Iraq Insurgents Change Their Focus, the Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2005. In print, this piece had the subhead: "Attacks Aren't on the Wane, Increasingly Target Iraqis, U.S. Army Report Concludes.")
"I would say that things are becoming more unstable here on the ground and every day you can just see people are a little more scared." (An Australian "contractor" identified only as "Rodge" on Australian radio. Iraq Deteriorating: Australian Contractor, The Age, April 22, 2005.)
"Violence is escalating sharply in Iraq after a period of relative calm that followed the January elections… Many attacks have gone unchallenged by Iraqi forces in large areas of the country dominated by insurgents, according to the U.S. military, Iraqi officials and civilians and visits by Washington Post correspondents… ‘Definitely, violence is getting worse,' said a U.S. official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity… In city after city and town after town, security forces who had signed up to secure Iraq and replace U.S. forces appear to have abandoned posts or taken refuge inside them for fear of attacks." (Ellen Knickmeyer, Insurgent Violence Escalates In Iraq, the Washington Post, April 23, 2005.)
The Tunnel at the End of the Light
Okay, okay, Iraq's not Vietnam. For one thing, just about no one there speaks Vietnamese. Oh, but here's a similarity, almost no Americans sent into Vietnam spoke Vietnamese (including diplomats); and almost no Americans sent into Iraq spoke Arabic (including diplomats). Oh, but here's a difference, the iconic photos of the horrors of the war in Vietnam were largely taken by a series of remarkable war photographers like Don McCullin, Eddie Adams, and Catherine Leroy (whose book Under Fire: Great Photographers and Writers in Vietnam is just out); on the other hand, the iconic photos of the Iraq War were not taken by our embedded photojournalists, but on digital cameras by a group of prison guards...
"In November, as their plans gelled, General Westmoreland embarked on a whirlwind tour of the U.S. to testify before Congress and drum up support for the Johnson Administration. ‘With 1968,' he said, speaking before the National Press Club in Washington, ‘a new phase is starting... we have reached an important point where the end begins to come into view.' In a televised news conference, he used the phrase ‘light at the end of the tunnel' to describe improved U.S. fortunes, repeating almost word-for-word a prognostication made by French General Henri Navarre in May of 1953." (General William Westmoreland, then Commander of American forces in Vietnam, announced that he saw the light at the end of the famed tunnel less than three months before the Vietnamese began their nationwide Tet Offensive. He was also known for saying, "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does the Westerner," a sentiment that undoubtedly helped account for the numbers of deaths we were willing to inflict in South Vietnam.)
Quotes of the month (March 2005)
"Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, said yesterday that the strength of the Iraqi insurgency is waning as a result of momentum from elections, and he predicted Iraqi security forces would be leading the fight against insurgents in most of Iraq by the end of 2005." (Ann Scott Tyson, Iraqi Insurgency Is Weakening, Abizaid Says, the Washington Post, March 2, 2005.)
"[Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler,] the top Marine officer in Iraq said Friday that the number of attacks against American troops in Sunni-dominated western Iraq and death tolls had dropped sharply over the last four months, a development that he called evidence that the insurgency was weakening in one of the most violent areas of the country." (Eric Schmitt, "Insurgency Loses Ground, Top Marine In Iraq Says," the New York Times, March 18, 2005.)
"In the privacy of their E-ring offices, senior Pentagon officials have begun to entertain thoughts that were unimaginable a year ago: Iraq is turning the corner… ‘This is still a tough fight. We don't want anyone to think that it is not,' said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a military analyst who strongly supports Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. ‘But the momentum is in our direction…' A military source in Iraq declined to give raw number of attacks, but said, ‘There has been a decided downward trend in the number and lethality of attacks since the January 30 elections.'" (Rowan Scarborough, Pentagon begins to see Iraq momentum shift, the Washington Times, March 28, 2005.)
"In the last two years, you have accomplished much, yet your work isn't over. Freedom still faces dangerous adversaries. Terrorists still want to attack our people. But they're losing. These terrorists are losing the struggle because they're under constant pressure from our Armed Forces, and they will remain under constant pressure from our Armed Forces. (Hoo-ah!)" (George Bush, President Discusses War on Terror, Ft. Hood, Texas, April 12.)
Quotes of the week (April 21-23, 2005)
"The suspected attack on the helicopter and the recovery of so many Iraqi bodies -- whether or not they were killed in a single episode last weekend -- speak to the continued virulence of the insurgency. A relative calm prevailed for a time and attacks against American troops fell sharply after the Jan. 30 elections. But violence against Iraqis has been rising, and there have been many recent strikes on American patrols. 'It is a fact that in the last week or two, there's been an uptick,' the Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, said Thursday." (Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Robert F. Worth, A Private Copter Crashes in Iraq; 6 Americans Die, the New York Times, April 22, 2005.)
"Despite claims that the insurgency in Iraq has declined, an internal Army analysis finds that attacks haven't necessarily lessened in recent months, but rather appear to have shifted away from U.S. troops to more vulnerable Iraqis… The report also concludes that Iraqi insurgents seem to be staging increasingly sophisticated attacks on both Iraqi and U.S. forces… In recent months some senior U.S. defense officials have suggested that the Iraqi elections held in January and stepped-up U.S. raids have badly hurt the insurgency. Based on recent successes targeting insurgents and building Iraqi security forces, defense officials have hinted that the U.S. military would be able to reduce its numbers in Iraq later this year." (Gregg Jaffe and Yaroslav Trofimov, Iraq Insurgents Change Their Focus, the Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2005. In print, this piece had the subhead: "Attacks Aren't on the Wane, Increasingly Target Iraqis, U.S. Army Report Concludes.")
"I would say that things are becoming more unstable here on the ground and every day you can just see people are a little more scared." (An Australian "contractor" identified only as "Rodge" on Australian radio. Iraq Deteriorating: Australian Contractor, The Age, April 22, 2005.)
"Violence is escalating sharply in Iraq after a period of relative calm that followed the January elections… Many attacks have gone unchallenged by Iraqi forces in large areas of the country dominated by insurgents, according to the U.S. military, Iraqi officials and civilians and visits by Washington Post correspondents… ‘Definitely, violence is getting worse,' said a U.S. official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity… In city after city and town after town, security forces who had signed up to secure Iraq and replace U.S. forces appear to have abandoned posts or taken refuge inside them for fear of attacks." (Ellen Knickmeyer, Insurgent Violence Escalates In Iraq, the Washington Post, April 23, 2005.)
The Tunnel at the End of the Light
Okay, okay, Iraq's not Vietnam. For one thing, just about no one there speaks Vietnamese. Oh, but here's a similarity, almost no Americans sent into Vietnam spoke Vietnamese (including diplomats); and almost no Americans sent into Iraq spoke Arabic (including diplomats). Oh, but here's a difference, the iconic photos of the horrors of the war in Vietnam were largely taken by a series of remarkable war photographers like Don McCullin, Eddie Adams, and Catherine Leroy (whose book Under Fire: Great Photographers and Writers in Vietnam is just out); on the other hand, the iconic photos of the Iraq War were not taken by our embedded photojournalists, but on digital cameras by a group of prison guards...
© 2005 TomDispatch.com
