'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 . . . ?

Africa: US, In; China, In; France, Out.

No continent suffers violence today on the level of Africa. Nor is there a land so massive and so poor. In the past few years, superpowers have ramped up strategies to exploit the land's resources and angle for military superiority. China has been building infrastructure in the south, to be paid in future oil deliveries. At the same time, the US has launched AFRICOM, a centralized military command.

One would think that the European Union would follow suit. Lest we forget that the most powerful nations in Europe a hundred years ago colonized all of Africa, divided the spoils, and left it in tatters after World War II. However, the EU seems to be turning the other way.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy, midway through a trip through the continent has announced sweeping changes in his country's military power in Africa. Lately he's come under fire for France's recent involvement in the Chadian crisis. (Chad is a former French colony.) He said, "Defense agreements must reflect the Africa of today and not yesterday."

France has four bases throughout Africa, some of which are now rumored to be shut down. "It is unthinkable that the French Army should be drawn into domestic conflicts," Sarkozy said.

Western involvement on the continent, even when done with the best intentions, so often seems to be a refashioned colonialism, minus the guns, plus the paternalism. Only, France's move presents the quandary: naming quickly five massive conflicts -- Darfur, Southern Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, and Kenya -- would the continent fare better left to its own devices?

 

The thought exercise may be a worthy one as France retreats, but neither China, nor the US, are going anywhere anytime soon.

[Image: movie poster for L'Afrance, 2001.]

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?

Gisele, Jian, and the Dropping Dollar

Open up your wallet, pull out a dollar bill, look at it closely, and things get weird. So weird that last week both supermodel Gisele Bündchen and Chinese Bank official Xu Jian became the strangest of bedfellows. I would wager that the two have never before been mentioned in the same breath. However, as the value of U.S. currency hits record lows around the world, they both threatened to dump the dollar. Today, whether you are a made-up mannequin or a bumbling bureaucrat, American cash in your pocket is a problem.

Bündchen, a Brazilian bombshell, works all over the globe, flaunting her scantily clad curves for companies like Dolce & Gabbana and Christian Dior. She is reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the richest supermodel on the face of the planet. Only, as Bloomberg reported last week, Bündchen — like many major hedge funds — has decided to be paid for a recent American shampoo deal in Euros rather than dollars. Her manager (who is also her twin sister) said in September that “we don’t know what will happen to the dollar.” Last week she denied ever saying it, perhaps trying to save face in front of the American public. But can anyone blame her?

Switch gears to Jian, the Chinese central banker. Last Wednesday he said the dollar is “losing its status as the world currency . . . We will favor stronger currencies over weaker ones and will readjust accordingly.” China, second only to Japan in terms of U.S. currency reserves, holds $400 billion in U.S. dollars, the U.S. Treasury says. And should China “readjust,” that is, decide the dollar is a weak investment and sell off their chunk of change, there could be hell to pay.

Even Alan Greenspan, former chair of the Federal Reserve, recently told “60 Minutes” that it didn’t matter how he was paid because he would immediately diversify.

When the dollar drops abroad, inflation rises at home. Current Fed chair Ben Bernanke said as much last Thursday. Why is this all happening?

Economists agree there’s nothing radical or controversial here: For far too long, the U.S. has been living beyond its means. And there’s no quick fix. The bankers who botched the housing market are going to have to pay. But for the rest of us, our hard-earned cash is worth less and less. Maybe we should all pull a Gisele and demand to be paid in Euros.

(Also published in Metro. Image from flickr.)

Brand America Wears Thin

Cairo, the cultural capital of the Arab world, is a loud city. Car horns mix with calls to prayer from the city's minarets. When I visited earlier this year, what I heard from Egyptians sounded like a broken record. Conversations went like this: "Where are you from?" "New York," I always said first. "Oh, you're an American!" "Well, yes," I muttered. "See, I like you. I like Americans. It's the American government that is terrible."

Karen Hughes would probably sympathize. She was the State Department official encumbered with the task of boosting the image of the U.S. in the Islamic world who announced her resignation last week. A former NBC reporter and director of the Texas Republican Party, Hughes served President Bush for five years when he was governor. She was appointed two years ago, and other than her prior service to Bush, one has to wonder about her credentials. She had no experience as an ambassador, and more confounding, she speaks no Arabic.

According to a recent Pew survey of 7,200 people across the Middle East, America has an image problem. The U.S. is "wildly unpopular," and perceptions of the country are "abysmal." Indeed, we've come a long way since the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when the Middle East held candlelight vigils to show their solidarity with our grief. It's almost hard to believe how bad things have gotten, until you remember the arrogant bungling foreign policy that led us to war.

The war has instigated a rebellion at home, too. Hughes' colleagues at the State Department are revolting against forced service in Iraq. Resignations could be imminent. At a raucous, hour-long town hall meeting last week in Washington, veteran diplomat Jack Croddy stood up and said to a State Department official, "It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment. I'm sorry, but basically that's a potential death sentence, and you know it."

The Cairenes I met know that reconciliation with the U.S. won't come from more of the same. The world won't be safe for our diplomats--let alone for the folks at home--until our administration fully grasps that.

There's a difference between diplomacy and deceit. The Egyptians know this. It's time for Washington to learn.

(Also published in Metro.)

AFRICOM: US Going it Alone Again, Naturally

New peace talks aimed at resolving the crisis in Darfur began this weekend in Libya. The prospects don’t look good. Although the Sudanese government agreed to a cease-fire on Saturday, leaders of some of the most potent rebel groups did not even show up.

Congress, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and President Bush have all called the situation a genocide. But while the U.S. has given more than $2 billion in aid since 2005, according to Bush, at the same time it’s changed its military position in Africa. You have to ask, is the U.S. repeating its go-it alone style of foreign policy in yet another hotspot?

Since February 2003, when violence broke out in Darfur — an area of the Sudan that is roughly the size of France — more than 200,000 people have been killed, and nearly 3 million have been driven from their homes. Tens of thousands live in refugee camps, sheltered by tattered brown tents. Not only has the situation grown far more complex as rebel groups have splintered, but violence in Chad, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo suggest that Darfur isn’t an isolated issue.

“We all know that Africa cannot fully develop economically, politically or socially where there is violence, the threat of terrorism or fear about the security of legitimate governments and the people they represent,” Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary for African affairs, told Congress in August. Her testimony explained the U.S.’s “new strategic relationship with Africa” by way of Africa Command, or AFRICOM, which will create a permanent U.S. military command on the continent in conjunction with the State Department. To put it simply, the endeavor is an attempt at diplomacy and nation-building backed by military firepower.

The State Department has acknowledged how touchy the notion is, but what may be more worrisome is the idea that, with military might and economic leverage, the U.S. can act alone in this world.

Glancing back at recent history, this has proved to be a dubious strategy at best. Earlier this fall, the climate change talks Bush orchestrated alongside those held by the U.N. turned out to be a disaster. Moreover, flying solo in Iraq has left the U.S. without a friend to help shoulder the burden.

Given the situation in Iraq, and adding the increasingly dire situation in Darfur, can the U.S. really afford to continue to go it alone?

(Originally published in Metro in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Image of Intifada transit refugee camp from USAID.)

World War III, Redux

Are you ready for World War III?

Last week, President Bush threatened as much, should Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad develop a nuclear weapon. (Yet, few have remembered to mention that this isn't his first such quip.) Add that to the Senate’s recently approved resolution urging Bush to label a faction of Iran’s standing army as a foreign terrorist organization and you’ve got some serious ramped-up talk. But is it in perspective?

World War I, deemed the “war to end all wars,” killed 10 million people, wounded 20 million more and left wounds deep enough to bring about World War II. Challenging comprehension, WWII killed 70 million and was the most deadly era in human existence. It reduced Europe to rubble and gave
birth to the atomic bomb. The current situation, however, rings more confounding because, other than Bush, there seem to be few willing combatants for WWIII.

As the president issued warnings from a podium last week, Ahmadinejad smiled, hip to hip with Russian
President Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader — who has lately developed several autocratic tendencies — declared his country’s vehement opposition to any action against Iran. Is Bush going to pick a fight with Putin, the man he still calls a friend?

And then there’s China. At first glance, China may seem to have little to do with American action in the
Middle East, but the emerging superpower’s current concerns offer a foreboding echo to Bush’s latest threat by saber-rattling over Taiwan and the Dalai Lama’s visit to Washington. China’s Communist Party congress, which meets twice a decade, assembled in Beijing last week. Their chief challenge? Managing the country’s frenetic economic growth. As China continues to loan billions to the U.S. to fund the ongoing war in Iraq, the agenda in Beijing was very telling. While China has to address growing income inequality and potential environmental disaster, World War is nowhere to be found.

So, what do you think about waging World War III? Before you decide, there’s one more puzzling development. Last Tuesday, Iraq also announced $1.1 billion in contracts for desperately needed power plants. Who is going to build them? Iran and China.

Perhaps, as the White House later suggested, Bush’s World War III remark was just “a rhetorical point.” In such tense and uncertain times, there’s a danger in rhetorical flourishes meant for effect. With the stock market in flux and other economic indicators painting a cautious picture for next year, the president should focus on reality rather than conjuring up new wars.

(Also published in Metro.)

Save the Lemmings from Islam and America: Majid's 'A Call for Heresy'

There’s a haunting television commercial in rotation these days. Thousands of nondescript people are bustling across a heavenly green meadow toward a gaping, bottomless hole where, like lemmings, they plunge into nonexistence. With their arms at their sides and their complicit legs still pumping, mass mentality, according to the ad, deprives them of a sizzling hamburger. It’s supposed to be funny.

Instead of making you laugh, though, the spot tunes into some newfound hardwiring of the American brain. For the last six years, out of the mainstream has meant you’re out of your mind.

According to a new book, at least now we have one thing in common with the Muslim world. Anouar Majid’s provocative new tome, “A Call for Heresy: Why Dissent is Vital to Islam and America,” argues that both Islam and the U.S. must look critically at history and propose serious alternatives to the injustices that globalization breeds today, the most damning and destructive of which, according to Majid, is Islamist terrorism.

“I am interested primarily in the ways [Muslims and Americans] are increasingly being subjected to religious, political and economic orthodoxies that suppress the intellectual legacies that once gave both traditions, however briefly, their greatest cultural élans,” Majid writes. At least in the U.S. today, it’s tough to argue with him — these years will prove to be anything but our finest cultural, political or spiritual era of our history.

During the Inquisition in the 13th century, heretics were burned at the stake. Today you can stand in front of the White House, call George W. Bush a war criminal (or worse, as some do), and police officers will walk right past you. When you are free to say anything, as the old adage goes, nobody listens. At the same time, remember what happened when Salman Rushdie committed what some considered blasphemy by writing a novel critical of the Prophet Muhammad? It earned Rushdie a fatwa from Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini that called for good Muslims to kill the author.

Neither the meaningless cacophony of the U.S. nor the reactionary repression by some radical Muslims ought to silence anyone, because Majid makes it clear that Islam and the U.S. have a lot more in common than we think. Both need to summon the courage, brilliance and wit to usurp the rapacious rules we’re all following, or it’s straight into the big hole we go.

(Also published in Metro. Majid will be reading Wednesday, October 10th at 7pm at Bluestockings in New York.)

Six Years On, and September 11th is Politics as Usual

Flaring tempers, big talk about Iraq and another video from Osama bin Laden: It must be September 11th.

Last week, families of those who died six years ago today slammed New York's ABC Channel 7 Eyewitness News with angry e-mails and phone calls, and convinced the station to broadcast all of today's memorial services. Also, Gen. David Petraeus, the head honcho in Iraq, today concludes his assessment of the war to Congress. And the wretched man at the heart of the whole matter, appearing older and fatter in a recent videotape, has called for Americans to "embrace" Islam to stop the war in Iraq. September it is, indeed.

Since I moved into my apartment two years ago, through my living room window I have watched four--count them, four--high-rise buildings shoot skyward. They're luxury apartment buildings, and in seemingly no time, they are massive and fully occupied.

At the same time it has been six years and just finally are the "final" plans for a rebuilt World Trade Center showing up on the evening news. Construction is on, but it has been a long time coming, held up by interests, money and power. Books, literally, have been written on the monstrous egos, collective grief and financial disaster the project has become.

To think it is a coincidence that the White House chooses to present Petraeus on the  Hill this week, as opposed to any other of the 51 this year, would be utter denial. The attack six years ago, which had nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq, is here on public trail again with the same cheap, false associations. Sept. 11 is still peddled as one in the same with the now devastated lands of modern-day Mesopotamia.

Everyone mourns in his or her own way, and if we, as a country, had some class, we wouldn't necessarily have any more memorials, but we would at least leave ceremonies the time and space to take place in peace, free of the slimy banter of politics.

I was surprised the other night when I saw the twin beams of blue light bursting from Ground Zero, piercing a layer of thick clouds above. Watch them closely tonight, because each in our own way and without the callous cacophony to muck up our minds, the "Tribute in Light" allows us to do what a true memorial should: Remember.

(by Andrew Bast, also published in Metro.)