'WHAT THE HELL AMERICA??' So Asked Sergeant Wood . . .

Over the years, several Iraq War veterans have explained to me the same story. How, once they get back stateside, they feel an overwhelming urge to go back. Being home, being safe, wasn't, to reduce a hugely complex sensation to simple terms, the right thing to do.

In the stories, which I also heard from a war photographer that readily explained his bout with post traumatic stress disorder and consequential time spent with his shrink, there seems to be equal parts duty and humanity. As for the former, soldiers have left their own to fight a battle without them: could I be there to save . . . As for the latter, how can I be here, of all places, when the war is going on there?

Humanity chooses entirely arbitrary landmarks with which to commemorate events, and today comes another: 4,000 dead U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Considering the way the war is disappearing from popular discourse, perhaps it's wise to take any mention possible.

And in its piece (everybody plans the thousand spot), the Times assembles a collection of heart wrenching notes from soldiers. War is hell, it's been said, and it's true. But sometimes these anecdotes hit close to home, whoever you are. Or, actually, to put it bluntly, they indict.

From 22-year-old Sergeant Ryan Wood's Myspace blog in May of 2007, a month before he was killed by an bomb in his Humvee.

WHAT THE HELL AMERICA??

“What the hell happened?” any intelligent American might ask themselves throughout their day. While the ignorant, dragging themselves to thier closed off cubicle, contemplate the simple things in life such as “fast food tonight?” or “I wonder what motivated Brittany Spears to shave her unsightly, mishaped domepiece?”

To the simpleton, this news might appear “devastating.” I assume not everyone thinks this way, but from my little corner of the earth, Iraq, a spot in the world a majority of Americans could’nt point out on the map, it certainly appears so. This little piece of truly, heart-breaking news captured headlines and apparently American imaginations as FOX news did a two hour, truly enlightening piece of breaking news history. American veiwers watched intently, and impatiently as the pretty colors flashed and the media exposed the inner workings of Brittany’s obviously, deep character. I was amazed, truly dumbfounded wondering how we as Americans have sank so low. To all Americans I have but one phrase that helps me throughout my day of constant dangers and ever present death around the corner, “WHO THE [expletive] CARES!” Wow America, we have truly become a nation of self-absorbed retards. ... This world has serious problems and it’s time for America to start addressing them.

This world has serious problems, no doubt about that.

[Image is the cover of the current issue of The Atlantic, founded in 1857, ostensibly aimed at 'thought leaders.']

Never Mind That, it's Just the War in Iraq

Associated Press Television writer David Bauder files this report; as a television story, Americans are just paying Iraq no mind.

He quotes CNN correspondent Arwa Damon, "It's no big secret that this is a war that everyone has grown tired of . . . Iraqis are aware of it. They think it's a story that people are tired of hearing about." While a year ago the war filled 23 percent of news, today it's just 3 percent.

Violence in Iraq did level off, but rose again this past month. The number of troops has not decreased significantly, nor has spending. What's changed is that there's no audience, no broadcast.

Newspapers and magazines have moved on, too. Richard Pérez Peña summarizes in the Times, "The drop in coverage parallels—and may be explained by—a decline in public interest. Surveys by the Pew Research Center show that more than 50 percent of Americans said they followed events in Iraq 'very closely' in the months just before and after the war began, but that slid to an average of 40 percent in 2006, and has been running below 30 percent since last fall."

It's a confounding situation. The war barrels on in the middle of a desert. The audience dwindles. No change in plans is scheduled. In short, there's no end in sight. Is there a reason for all this?

Al-Qaeda? Iran? Or . . .

With the shuttering title, "A Crude Case For War," the Washington Post takes seriously the question of why Iraq? And why stay? Like a 600-lb. gorilla in the middle of the fetid and stinking room where this war has been shuttered for more than five years, all arrows point to the world's second largest known reserves, with more discovered all the time, and contracts being signed regularly, it's very much about the oil.

Perhaps it began long ago, but this is the point at which the Iraq War becomes—at least it stands center stage, nearly invisible, for all to see who bother to look—hauntingly, the cost of doing business. The country has the privilege to look away, and the thousands tick off, all for . . . ?

Obama's Obligatory Speech on Iraq

There's been so much talk lately about substance. Barack Obama's rousing and inspiring oratories about change, change, change, make people ask, change to what? Take Iraq. When pressed recently on 60 Minutes about withdrawing troops by 2009, Obama didn't flinch. "Absolutely," he said, "I think now is precisely the time."

The decision is weighted with more dire facts than any single man or woman can comprehend, yet it is the single most important question facing the country.

Should he keep his word, what follows would be his 7 p.m. television address, the first Monday evening after he takes office.

"My fellow Americans, I talk to you this January evening with both serious concern as well as great hope. Early in my campaign for the presidency, I often said that I would tell you not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear. Now that moment has come.

"I promised you that I would begin withdrawing our troops from Iraq, and I will keep that promise. This decision weighs heavily on me, as it does on you, because once we leave, there will be more violence. There is a chance that the entire region, as it is said, could fall into war. Yet, staying any longer, remaining party to the anguished and centuries-old conflicts that ignite such hatreds is no longer our place.

"The state of our finances at home, in Washington, in your state capital, likely even in your local government, is in disarray. As uncertainty in Iraq and the Middle East escalates with our withdrawal, the price of oil will likely rise, only complicating matters further. What I propose might at first sound counterintuitive. I want to keep budgeting for about 70% of the $160 billion we're spending in Iraq each year. Undoubtedly, this will hurt financially. But where that money goes will put this country on track for another century.

"When John F. Kennedy made his bold declaration in 1961, he said, ‘We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’ And tonight, I declare that in the next decade we will reduce our consumption of oil—across the board—by one half, with a goal of being free from dependence on any kind of oil by the year 2050.

"This is the only way to extricate ourselves from the fiasco of our own creation, and we will do so with apologies and hope for the Iraqi people. Change is a challenging calling. And one from which we no longer have the option of looking away."

Heavy enough?

If this is what it means, and watching John McCain tour Iraq this week, Obama has decisions to make sooner rather than later, for should his position evolve, the progressives, democrats, the left, whatever this discombobulated party calls itself these days, could again cower and end up facing a convention of Republicans waving footwear in the air.

['Obama and the Citizen Press' from flickr.]

New Budget, New Payouts, Same Profiteers, Same War

[At right: five-year charts, tracking roughly since the launch of the Iraq War, stock prices of major Pentagon contractors; from top to bottom: Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corporation, Raytheon Co., and Northrop Grumman Corp. Charts from Yahoo! Finance.]

Economists discuss the difference between markets and nonmarkets, the latter being a stand-in term for 'government.' Interestingly, both are prone to failure, albeit in different ways.

Markets fail all the time, hence government regulation. The current subprime mortgage crisis and the ensuing radical steps by the Federal Reserve. Governments also fail, but in entirely different ways. One of the main differences is that governments find ways to use up all their money and then justify a budget increase. Case in point: in 2000, George II ran on a conservative platform of smaller government; however, bureaucracy and the billions that fund it have since skyrocketed.

The Pentagon's $515.4 billion request, part of Bush II's $3+ trillion budget for 2009, marks a 30 percent increase in spending for the military since he took office.

This includes neither the $600 billion already spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor the spending for those wars over the projected budget year.

The Times claims, "If [the Pentagon's budget] is approved in full, annual military spending, when adjusted for inflation, will have reached its highest level since World War II." Taking the paper at its word, for perspective, it is worth it to mention that military spending in the US, while still an inordinate amount of money that dwarfs combined military budgets of developed nations around the world many times over, is still less than five percent of the country's gross domestic product, one of the lower points since WWII. Compiling the costs of the Iraq war would bump this up, but not to a point, as a share of the country's economy, to rival past highs.

Perhaps, with a glance at the stock prices to the right, this is good for the economy. After all, government spending pumps in money, and high school economics teaches you that the step in an economic cycle that bridges recession with recovery is war.

Barring the claims of varying candidates for whom you voted today, considering that the Iraq War has drawn on almost six years and currently faces no serious chance of ending, how salient is the suggestion that the postmodern, globalized, [insert your own adjective here], transnational form of capitalism governing the planet makes possible the permanent (for the time being, at least) occupation of a dusty country atop massive amounts of oil reserves. The NewsHour continues with its honor roll of US personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan almost every night, yet as a campaign issue, the war has been bumped almost entirely off the stage.

Is the war, then, the cost of doing business?

Iraqi Widows Have Nowhere to Turn, Except Prostitution

You would think the anecdote about coffins in Iraq would top the list of stories about the newfound life there:

Cost of a coffin in Baghdad: $50-75. Cost of a coffin in Saddam Hussein's time, $5-10.

And then there is the prostitution.

According to a number of reports (Al Jazeera, CNN, the Telegraph), Iraqi widows, and there are now many of them, are prostituting themselves to pay for healthcare and food for their children.

Humanitarian groups say that it is a combination of violence, inflation and no federal support that leave the women with little other option.

Worse? Iraqi families are selling their daughters to survive.

60,000 Iraqis Are Now Fleeing Their Homes Every Month

On the heels of a New York Times report about an Iraqi Red Crescent Organization assessment that the number of internally displaced Iraqis has doubled since February, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has announced that the humanitarian situation is worsening, and displacements are "soaring."

According to the UN, 60,000 people a month are now fleeing their homes. A total of 2 million are scattered within the country. More than 1.4 million more now live in Syria. Neighboring countries are feeling the strain on their infrastructure and schools. Refugees are also flooding into Europe, Jordan and Iran.

“Displacement is rising as Iraqis are finding it harder to get access to social services inside Iraq and many Iraqis are choosing to leave ethnically mixed areas before they are forced to do so," said UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis in a statement. "Some Iraqis who stayed in the country until the end of the school year recently started leaving the country with their families.”

United Nations Installs David Shearer as Iraq Envoy, A Way Forward in Baghdad?

Following up on the United Nations' expanded role in Iraq (see earlier Inquirer report), UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appointed New Zealander David Shearer as his deputy envoy to the torn nation. Shearer relieves Jean-Marie Fakhouri who was a Deputy Special Representative working on humanitarian, reconstruction and development. Shearer takes on that load, and additionally, he will serve as the UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator.

Shearer had been working in Jerusalem and Lebanon for the last three years and has also led humanitarian operations in Albania, Rwanda and Liberia. In Lebanon, while he had to deal with Hezbollah, as to how he conducted his operations, he said, "We are trying  to work as much as we can through local government, particularly the municipalities, which are very close to the people. On occasion, we have worked with particularly effective local non-governmental organizations. We find the better way to reach the people is by working with the established authorities."

Only, in Shearer's new role in Iraq, anything resembling an established authority is fleeting. How will the UN move forward in Baghdad?

In a BBC report that compiles the mixed feelings over the UN's role, they report that, "The number of staff will only increase from 65 to 95 - a small but very symbolic step for the world body." While the US has been urging an increased UN role, but the obvious criticism surfaces quickly: George II's administration harps with a hollow voice after it shunned the international organization during the 2003 invasion.

Meanwhile, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to the UN that helped to engineer the expanded UN role and, himself being a radical departure from his predecessor John Bolton, is shaping the discussion by highlighting the internationalism of the endeavor. Khalilzad's words from the BBC: "We in the international community have had our differences in regards to Iraq, but despite these differences I believe we all share our vision for Iraq's future."

Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Johanna Mendelson Forman assesses the US's embracing of the UN as a possible sea change of US foreign policy: "It sends a signal to the world that the US is ready to engage and work with friends and allies – and also with its adversaries – to find a way to manage the crisis in Iraq and the region. The unanimous vote demonstrated a consensus by UN member states that only through a diplomatic engagement would the security that Iraqis long for be realized. It also underscored the skills of Khalilzad to bring back the members of the council to a point where they were willing to revisit a UN role. Is multilateralism making a comeback?"

Shocking that the US would reach out to the UN not only at a moment in a disastrous war, but also as the humanitarian crisis in Iraq grows to be one of the foremost on the planet? Perhaps this speaks directly to the heart of the matter.

Recently, just-retired British Permanent Representative to the UN Emyr Jones Parry suggested that the UN will bring a much-needed "impartial presence," responsible for what might conveniently be called the three R's: reconciliation, regional involvement and refugees.

It seems he's most certainly right, only, no matter if the staff were amped from 65 to 95 or to 950, does the mix of conflict, disaster and will for war between the Tigris and Euphrates today lend itself to even the finest political instrumentation of the UN?

United Nations Updates Mandate on Iraq, Expands Role

In the sordid history of 21st century Iraq, August 19, 2003 sticks out as a chilling turning point. The US had invaded five months earlier and since holed up their governing operation inside a secluded Green Zone on a bend in the Tigris river. Looting, unrest, and a general sense of chaos had overtaken the city, despite the rosy assurances US officials.

The UN, however, set up headquarters out among the population at the Canal Hotel, the mission led by one of the world's most respected diplomats, the Brazilian Sergio Vieira de Mello.

When the massive truck bomb exploded outside the hotel, under his window, it killed him and 21 others including staff from countries all over the world: Egypt, UK, Italy, France, US, Iraq, Philippines, Iran, Canada, Jordan and Spain.

In a sense, that day, any internationalism left for a post-Saddam Iraq, after the US's snub of the UN and its battle with France and Germany about the invasion, went up in smoke. Since, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has moved on, replaced by Ban Ki-Moon. New leaders rule France and Germany. Iraq has fallen through the hands of malfeasance into a nightmarish civil war.

Now, almost exactly four years later, the Security Council has unanimously approved an update to its mandate, UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), broadening the UN's role in the broken country. Despite the worrying security situation, Ban is in favor.

There are currently about 50 UN staff working in the Green Zone. That number is expected to increase, and while the mission had been working on elections issues and monitoring human rights, in an expanded role, the UN will now try to promote reconciliation between warring Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds.

The thinking is that the impartiality of the UN will engender its hand at the negotiating table. Yet, without a table to sit at, that's tough to imagine, regardless if the organization may be the best qualified in the world for such a challenge.

More importantly, considering the UN's fresh wounds from Baghdad, even if Ban asks his top people to go, would they?

(Image of the Canal Hotel bombing.)

Cairo Trilogy, Pt. II: Through Children's Eyes

by Andrew Bast

(Also published, in a slightly different form, in Metro.)

CAIRO -- Perhaps the best way to look at a city is to stare into the eyes of its children. Two weeks ago, the day I arrived, I set off exploring and walked across the Nile river, which does indeed bear an emerald sheen. I stumbled on a government complex where patches of green grass provided refuge from the dry sands of the Sahara for couples to chat and kids to play soccer. I sat down to stare, and before I knew it, a crew of young boys—probably around 10 years old—surrounded me, smiling.

What does Egypt have in store for these soon-to-be-teenagers, for these young men? It's an important question in a mostly Muslim Middle Eastern country of 80 million, and in a city that's commonly known as the cultural capital of the Arab world. In fact, Egypt is a young country. One in three here are under the age of 15. And it was fitting that we were all together in front of large government buildings; the bloated, and often corrupt, bureaucracy here employs more than 6 million. This is certainly an option: a comfortable, yet not terribly prosperous profession in the civil service.

Schooling is free through university, yet the prospects don't seem all that good. I spoke to a very intelligent young man named Ahmed who explained that his two years of university education in business only got him a sales clerk job in the souvenir shop of a decent tourist hotel. He said that even if he finished his degree, finding employment worth his education would be very difficult, if not impossible.

Interestingly, the situation for young women is different. While society here is unquestionably male-dominated—outside of my own hotel, in six days I can't remember interacting with a single woman—the veil has actually become a kind of tool for women's empowerment. Over lunch, Max Rodenbeck, the Middle East bureau chief for The Economist magazine explained that in 1980, only one in twenty girls wore a headscarf, while today, 80% of women cover their hair. Only, rather than being a tool of oppression, the trend has actually invited women into society, so to speak. What's more, it has allowed them to take on a job; wearing a headscarf actually opens up doors to a career.

Cairo is a cacophonous city. Horns, hustlers, the call to prayer, screaming from the minarets five times a day all make the city a bustling and exciting place. The boys in front of the government building shouted at me, their faces lit with curiosity. "Assalam aleikum," I said, using the little bit of Arabic I know. "Wa-lakeum salaam!" They roared back.

The boys in the concrete lot, no more than a stones throw away, continued kicking the soccer ball, some wearing a single shoe, some barefoot entirely. And then one boy in a green t-shirt stepped directly to me and asked, with perfect English in a demanding tone, "What is your name?"

"Andy," I said.

He peered at me and said, "Pleased to meet you."

(Photo by Ana M. Bast. Click image for more.)

News Break: Germans to try Rumsfeld et al for War Crimes? Berkeley City Council Backs Measure

According to a report by the German magazine Der Spiegel, Berlin-based lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck has filed a lawsuit against 14 people, including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former CIA director George Tenet and Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. It is a 384-page document (full text: part one | part two), currently in a holding pattern in Germany's federal prosecutor's office, and it says these US leaders, according to Der Spiegel, "violated both international law and the United Nations Convention Against Torture in Abu Ghraib prison and the Guantanamo Bay detention camp."

Jurisdiction in international law has long been vexing, and Kalek is apparently basing his lawsuit on the 2002 Code of Crimes Against International Law, under which, according to the Der Spiegel report, "Germany's chief prosecutor is entitled to prosecute individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes--irrespective of the location of the defendant or plaintiff, the place where the crime was carried out or the nationality of the persons involved."

Reportedly, German authorities are not pleased with the action. In diplomatic terms, this is bad news for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who of late has been working to improve her country's relationship with the US.

Kalek, from Ulrike Demmer's Der Spiegel report, "We're not so arrogant as to think we can put Rumsfeld behind bars on the first attempt." Kalek goes on to say, "Rumsfeld should know he will be held responsible for his acts even though he is currently on safe territory."

In the US, the Berkeley, Calif. city council last month passed a resolution in support of Kalek's lawsuit. Additionally, while some have been convicted in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, a significant amount of work by legal scholars has traced the paper trail to the upper echelons of the administration, notably in an exhaustive tome entitled The Torture Papers.