Looking out for Number 1

The case can be made that everything you've done so far in your adminstration, Bush, has been in America's best interests. Certainly, one way to respond to a physical threat is to try to annihilate that threat, and to gradually transform - through economics, regime change, and warfare - the region where that threat originated.

The motivations for your dogged pursuit of America's strategic interests are still unclear to me. Patriotism? Divine inspiration? Avarice?

Regardless of the motivation, it's clear to me that you are looking out for #1 - that is, the United States. (Not necessarily it's citizens, mind you, but rather the state as a whole.) This has been our MO ever since independence. Which is not surprising, either. Nearly all countries act toward the same end.

But what if we had a new #1? What if #1 was peace and prosperity for all people? Then, when you looked out for number 1, you'd have to take into account all of the death and misery resulting from military actions that preserve America's "safety" (read: dominance) in the world. The victims of state violence would no longer be expendable.

I think it's time to make that change. At this moment in history, no one is threatening us with full-scale invasion. The physical safety of Americans is jeopardized not by our way of life but by our single-minded economic expansionism. At this time in history, we have some slack to begin assuaging the antogonism between states that leads to violence, economic ruin for the losers, and to the rise of extremism.

Yes, given the current state of things, we will sometimes have to resort to force. But what are we doing to start down the path of eventual peace? What are you doing, Bush? What are any of us doing?

May I be so bold as to suggest a place to start? Admit the failings of our Iraq policy to the international community, and bring forward a proposition to the United Nations through which the world can come together to stabilize that nation. Our vulnerability is on display already. Own up to it, and ask for help. Be the kind of leader the world can respect, and not just at the point of a gun. In a phrase, Bush, help America grow up.

On Israel, the Power of the Individual, and Haloscan

Posted by Cardozo--and welcome back!

Practically every story I’ve ever heard or read about the modern state of Israel has involved an explosion of some kind. So when I left Los Angeles for Tel Aviv last month, part of me wondered if there would be anything there left to see. How many explosions can one small piece of land absorb?

Quite a few, apparently, because the cities I visited were pretty well intact. Furthermore, I survived two weeks in Israel without encountering a single one. No bus or café bombings, no rockets falling from the sky. As far as I could tell, everything was a-okay. Of course, the recent war with Hizbollah was a frequent topic of conservation, especially in the North. But the Israelis I met talked about the war like Californians talk about earthquakes: as an isolated event that scared them half to death at the time, but that is no longer relevant to daily life.

The relative state of calm that I found in Israel caused me to reflect on war, and its persistence. Israelis have been forced to endure a lot: not infrequent invasions, a burgeoning threat of nuclear annihilation from its neighbors, and the possibility that a suicide bomber might at any time be walking among them. And yet, in between such wars and acts of violence, life quickly returns to normal, apparently. Why, I wondered, aren’t Israelis more obsessive about the political conflict that makes their existence so precarious? How could they possibly think about anything else?

On reflection, I think the answer is simple. Life finds a way. When and where it is possible, people will pursue fun, love, adventure, art – all the things that make life tolerable. Furthermore, the average Israeli lacks the power to actually impact the direction of the political situation, so why bother obsessing over it?

This dynamic (it occurs to me, Bush) is the very thing that makes the development of peace so difficult to achieve. We find the same dynamic, of course, here in the United States, and practically everywhere else. Even in Iraq, where daily life is absolutely co-opted by war, people can do very little but try and protect themselves and eke out whatever satisfaction they can from life. We are pawns in a global chess game that alternately bores (in the case of the U.S.) or overwhelms us (in the case of Iraq or any other location currently experiencing the localized effects of the latest chess move.)

My conclusion? Those of us who have the luxury of walking the streets in relative safety, of having reliable access to food and shelter, of pursuing happiness, in short; we, the fortunate, must live our lives to the fullest. This means not only maximizing our personal happiness, but also staying as true as possible to our values, thereby living out our potential. I cannot tell you, Bush, that your paradigm of good versus evil is destructive to peace. I cannot tell you that compassion must lie behind all actions, even warfare. But I can certainly live these truths and trust that, eventually, they will trickle up.

My biggest pet-peeve about the progressive blogosphere is that compassion and a belief in the goodness inherent in mankind – the basic tenets of progressivism, in my opinion – are not borne out. Check out the discussions on Haloscan or Blogger or WordPress, Bush, and you will find accusations flying (mostly directed at you, of course), and compassion reserved for the victims of your tyrannical foreign policy. Progressives believe that hatred when acted upon cannot lead to peace, and yet many of the participants in these online diaologues hate you, and (it would seem) all conservatives, too.

More thoughts on why this apparent discrepancy exists in a future entry, Bush.

Protest the War

Here's a site to protest the escalation of the war that I have received from a couple of different sources this morning, Bush. You might be hearing more of this. I hope so.

Big Day: The Speech

Well, Bush, here we are, three months after you started promising us that mother of all speeches--or at least the one that will lay out your "new way forward" in Iraq and, presumably, lead to the war's satisfactory conclusion. Or "victory", as you like to call it. The speech has been quite a while in the gestation, so I have to guess it will be a good one. I imagine that your trusty speechwriters are sitting around as I write, sweating out the eloquent details.

Were I your speechwriter, I'd have a couple of suggestions. I offer them without much hope that you'll approve them, but I thought I'd let you have them anyway.

Speech #1 (my personal preference)

My fellow Americans (that's de rigueur, I know), I have been thinking long and hard about this situation in Iraq, and I have consulted with the best advisors I know, both military and civilian. I have also listened to your voice, the American people, who have indicated unambiguously in every recent poll as well as the election this past November that you wish for this war to be over and the troops brought home. I now recognize that the invasion of Iraq was a ghastly mistake on the part of my administration. We fudged the intelligence and manipulated your post-9/11 goodwill to justify an action that a bunch of my neoconservative advisors had been pitching for years. Their rosy predictions about the ease of the job and their assessments of the probable outcome have proved disastrously wrong. Their failure to understand the history and culture of that region of the world--let alone our own--has led us on a tragically misguided and arrogant path into what most observers now agree to be a terminally chaotic situation.

Despite all my best hopes to the contrary, democracy has not taken root in Iraq; the government there has proved incapable of stemming the centuries-old animosity and violence between religious sects; the military and police forces have proved at best feckless and at worst brutally traitrous to the interests of the country as a whole; the Iraqi people have repeatedly indicated that they believe that the presence of American forces does more to promote violence than to stem it; and there seems to be little or no prospect of achieving an American-imposed peace.

In view of all this, and listening to both the military and civilian advice I have received in the course of the past three months, I have now decided that the wisest--indeed the only course--for our country is to apologize profusely for having intruded in the first place, to offer financial compensation for the physical damage caused, and to recall our troops as soon as dignity and their security allow. This action will make it clear to Iraq and the rest of the world that we are capable of recognizing and rectifying our mistakes and that we do not harbor those imperial intentions that much of the world attributes to us. Instead of arms and warfare, we will offer compassion, aid and hope.

Good night, God bless the United States of America (can't leave this out, Bush!) and God bless the rest of world.


Speech #2 would sound much the same, but the conclusion would be different. Here's what I would (reluctantly) propose:

Despite all the above, and despite the mistakes that have been made by my administration--mistakes for which I assume full and sole responsibility--I continue to hold to the belief that our troops must remain in Iraq until some lasting settlement has been reached. I now recognize, however, that it is not enough to ask Americans to support my actions without question or to go out and shop. This war must become a national priority. The military has been significantly weakened both in manpower and materiel, and will need a new infusion of srtength if we are to persevere and, at the same timne, fulfill other military obligations in the world as they arise.

I am therefore asking the Congress of the United States to act on two fronts: first, to reinstate the draft, or at least some form of national service for all Americans. And second, to consider what modifications must be made in our current tax obligations to properly fund the war. I was mistaken in believing those who told me that this war could be successfully concluded on the cheap, and the tax cuts I have pushed through in the course of my tenure in this office are proving to be unafforadable.

My fellow Americans, iI is time for all of us, not just those brave young men and women in uniform, to make the sacrifices needed if we are to prevail. It is time for all of us to play our part, and I am asking you tonight to support our troops in a significant new way. Good night, etc.


So there you go, Bush. My suggestions. I still think Speech #1 is the right one for the country. But at the very least, please give us #2. Good luck.