Showing posts with label Saddam Hussein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saddam Hussein. Show all posts
Monday, December 01, 2014
An open letter to President George W. Bush
Originally published in Reader Weekly
December 4, 2003
Note: most of the links are no longer available.
Dear President Bush:
You have said dozens of times that you will “do whatever it takes” to win the war on terrorism, the latest being when you signed the National Defense Authorization Act for 2004 on November 24, 2003. (1) At that time you said, “We will do whatever it takes to keep our nation strong, to keep the peace, and to keep the American people secure.”
I submit that you are not doing everything it takes to do all that you promised. Here are some ideas of what it takes to leave Iraq satisfactorily and continue the “war on terrorism.”
First, accelerate training in Arabic. I have read that the Army is short of Arabic translators (2)(3) and I have read how effective good translators are (see Stars and Stripes among others). I have also seen it reported that troops have killed unarmed people because they could not speak Arabic and had no translator. However, nowhere in your speech or in the Defense Authorization Act do the words Arabic or language appear.
You should not only accelerate training for more Arabic translators, but you should provide training for all Iraq-based troops to learn as much Arabic as they wish. This latter could be with CDs, small-classes, or just a mass distribution of phrase books. I know from personal experience that speaking the local language even a little bit builds better relations.
Second, you should start reading newspapers and magazines and stop depending on your staff to filter the news for you. The best you can depend on your staff to do is to tell you what they think you want to hear, not what you need to know. I recommend that you read The New York Times, The Washington Post, The American Spectator, The Progressive Magazine, Stars and Stripes, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Magazine, The Daily Star of Lebanon, and Dawn of Pakistan, especially the editorials in all of these. They should give you a very wide range of opinions to provide you a much better basis for your decisions. Among recent articles I highly recommend is “Tour of Duty” in the December issue of The Atlantic Monthly; it includes accounts of now-Sen. John Kerry’s experiences as a Navy officer on river duty in Viet Nam. It will give you some insight in the disconnect between what is happening on the battlefield and what is happening in the Pentagon. Read some books on recent Iraq history – an example is Sandra Mackey’s The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein. Iraq is a very complex country with a long history of domination by outsiders. One cannot make judgments about Iraq without understanding these complexities.
Third, have a long private talk with General John Abizaid, no advisors present, just you and him. Let him tell you what he thinks needs to be done to get Iraqis governing themselves peacefully. Not only does General Abizaid speak Arabic, but he has lived and studied in the Middle East. He also has made a specialty of unconventional warfare using semi-independent units rather than big coordinated units. This style is much better for fighting small-scale insurgencies such as occur in Iraq on a daily basis.
Fourth, have a long private talk with Senator John Kerry. Again no advisors. He should be able to give you a good understanding about what really happens in war. He understands that what headquarters thinks is happening or wants to happen is not always what is really happening or should happen.
Sixth, rename the “War on Terror”. The struggle against terrorism really is more a police investigation on a massive scale. Are you going to bomb Germany, France, Turkey, England, and Canada because they are “harboring” terrorists? Bombs did not arrest those who were found in these countries, police did. On the other hand bombs dropped on civilians are a good recruiting tool for any resistance.
Finally, don’t worry about re-election. Which would you rather do - pass your successor in 2005 a plan that is bringing about your goals or pass your successor in 2009 a mess that is spiraling out of control? Short-term actions that may please a large number of voters may work against long-term interests that would “keep our nation strong, … keep the peace, and … keep the American people secure.” If you are going to do whatever it takes, do the right thing.
(1) Signing the National Defense Authorization Act for 2004, November 24, 2003, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031124-2.html
(2) "Expert: Lack of Arabic hurts U.S. in Iraq", Washington Times, July 25, 2003, http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20030725-032406-5262r.htm
(3) "U.S. 'desperately in need' of Arabic speakers to hold Iraq", World Tribune.com, July 9, 2003, article no longer available online
P.S. May 26, 2007, one of my sources for this article was "Iraq Today, The Independent Voice of Iraq". I can find no direct reference to it. The URL http://www.iraq-today.com cannot be found. The editor, Hassan Fattah, left Iraq in March or April 2004 when his situation became too dangerous. See "Goodbye, Baghdad", by Hassan Fattah, published in the July/August 2004 Columbia Journalism Review. This article is not available directly from CJR.
©2003, 2007 Melvyn D. Magree
Friday, January 17, 2014
Lies, damn lies, and misstatements
Much political hay is being made about President Obama saying that people could keep their current insurance. As thousands find that their current insurance is being cancelled, there is a clamor that Obama lied.
Did he really lie? That is, did he make a statement that he knew with certainty to be untrue? Or did he make a statement that he believed to be true given the information that he had?
Consider that any leader has to rely on the advice and information provided by hundreds of people. If that leader had to verify every piece of information he or she was given, would anything ever get done in government or business?
What Obama and his staff had no control over was all the insurance companies deciding it was not in their best interest to have people keep those older policies. I’ll leave that to historians to figure out who was right or wrong, truthful or deceitful.
Now the shoe is on “the other foot”. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is accused of lying about the deliberate traffic jams caused around Fort Lee by his staff and associates. He had directly asked some of them if they had any involvement in the situation. They all said no.
Christie has worked with some of these people for years and has relied on them for good advice. Should he believe anything differently? If he was suspicious, how much time should he spend finding out more? If he did so, how many other things that he should attend to would be ignored.
If Christie was not actively involved in the traffic jams, he did make the mistake of being gleeful about Fort Lee’s problems. After all, the Democratic mayor did not support him in his reelection.
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman” is probably one of the most infamous lie and even damnedest lie ever made by a U.S. President. Bill Clinton later backed off that strong denial, but the Republicans jumped with joy over his predicament. Lots of federal money was spent on this investigation and that investigation and an impeachment.
But the whole mess rings hollow when Republicans have done similar acts and made similar denials. I wish politicians would spend more time on thoughtful evaluation of laws and policies and less on personal attacks. What a way to run a country!
Many have criticized President George W. Bush for a long string of lies about Iraq, for example Saddam Hussein’s stockpile of “weapons of mass destruction”. Now, was he just parroting what his advisors were telling him because of their own agendas or was he directly involved in creating these falsehoods? We may never know.
But I can guess about one misstatement that he made that has become infamous – his advice that in response to the World Trade Center attacks Americans should go shopping. It was a stupid remark, but consider its underlying meaning. The attacks were meant to disrupt the United States. If people went about their ordinary business, then the planners of the attack would have failed in their attempt to disrupt the country. In other words, if we shopped as we normally did, then the country would not have been disrupted as much as planned.
We probably all have experiences of sales people telling us what they think we want to hear, not what we need to know. Sometimes they withhold details; sometimes they really do lie; and sometimes they divert us. How often have you heard, “It’s a standard contract”? In other words, just sign, don’t bother reading it. Do you wonder why we had a mortgage crisis?
My favorite misdirection was decades ago when we bought a TV in a big box store. We told the salesman that we liked a particular model, and he replied that he had one in the back room. Only later did we see that as a ploy to get us to buy on the spot. Of course he had one in the backroom; he may have also had one dozen.
This whole column is a misdirection to write about an irate phone message I had last week. The caller was upset that I had spoken badly about Gannucci’s in my column of January 2. I was flabbergasted! I meant no such thing!
OK, let’s parse what I wrote to find the irritant. Remember that I was writing about going to a plant-based diet and doing my best to stick to it.
“Just my luck that every item on the menu had cheese and/or meat.” Many restaurants have meat, dairy, or eggs in most if not all of their menu choices.
“So I went with a turkey sandwich, figuring that was the leanest meat that I could get.” I thought that was a neutral statement. Maybe I should have said the turkey sandwich was delicious. It was, but is that relevant to that fact that I made a choice?
“The organizers of the monthly social plan to go back in January. I think I better call ahead to Gannucci’s.” If I want to join the group and would like to avoid meat, dairy, and eggs, I should ask the restaurant in advance if they have any alternatives. If not, maybe I’ll have a turkey sandwich again. I am a vegan not because I object to turkeys having their heads cut off but because I don’t like what the turkeys might do to me.
This was also published in the Duluth Reader, 2013-01-16 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/01/16/2766_lies_damn_lies_and_misstatements
Did he really lie? That is, did he make a statement that he knew with certainty to be untrue? Or did he make a statement that he believed to be true given the information that he had?
Consider that any leader has to rely on the advice and information provided by hundreds of people. If that leader had to verify every piece of information he or she was given, would anything ever get done in government or business?
What Obama and his staff had no control over was all the insurance companies deciding it was not in their best interest to have people keep those older policies. I’ll leave that to historians to figure out who was right or wrong, truthful or deceitful.
Now the shoe is on “the other foot”. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is accused of lying about the deliberate traffic jams caused around Fort Lee by his staff and associates. He had directly asked some of them if they had any involvement in the situation. They all said no.
Christie has worked with some of these people for years and has relied on them for good advice. Should he believe anything differently? If he was suspicious, how much time should he spend finding out more? If he did so, how many other things that he should attend to would be ignored.
If Christie was not actively involved in the traffic jams, he did make the mistake of being gleeful about Fort Lee’s problems. After all, the Democratic mayor did not support him in his reelection.
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman” is probably one of the most infamous lie and even damnedest lie ever made by a U.S. President. Bill Clinton later backed off that strong denial, but the Republicans jumped with joy over his predicament. Lots of federal money was spent on this investigation and that investigation and an impeachment.
But the whole mess rings hollow when Republicans have done similar acts and made similar denials. I wish politicians would spend more time on thoughtful evaluation of laws and policies and less on personal attacks. What a way to run a country!
Many have criticized President George W. Bush for a long string of lies about Iraq, for example Saddam Hussein’s stockpile of “weapons of mass destruction”. Now, was he just parroting what his advisors were telling him because of their own agendas or was he directly involved in creating these falsehoods? We may never know.
But I can guess about one misstatement that he made that has become infamous – his advice that in response to the World Trade Center attacks Americans should go shopping. It was a stupid remark, but consider its underlying meaning. The attacks were meant to disrupt the United States. If people went about their ordinary business, then the planners of the attack would have failed in their attempt to disrupt the country. In other words, if we shopped as we normally did, then the country would not have been disrupted as much as planned.
We probably all have experiences of sales people telling us what they think we want to hear, not what we need to know. Sometimes they withhold details; sometimes they really do lie; and sometimes they divert us. How often have you heard, “It’s a standard contract”? In other words, just sign, don’t bother reading it. Do you wonder why we had a mortgage crisis?
My favorite misdirection was decades ago when we bought a TV in a big box store. We told the salesman that we liked a particular model, and he replied that he had one in the back room. Only later did we see that as a ploy to get us to buy on the spot. Of course he had one in the backroom; he may have also had one dozen.
This whole column is a misdirection to write about an irate phone message I had last week. The caller was upset that I had spoken badly about Gannucci’s in my column of January 2. I was flabbergasted! I meant no such thing!
OK, let’s parse what I wrote to find the irritant. Remember that I was writing about going to a plant-based diet and doing my best to stick to it.
“Just my luck that every item on the menu had cheese and/or meat.” Many restaurants have meat, dairy, or eggs in most if not all of their menu choices.
“So I went with a turkey sandwich, figuring that was the leanest meat that I could get.” I thought that was a neutral statement. Maybe I should have said the turkey sandwich was delicious. It was, but is that relevant to that fact that I made a choice?
“The organizers of the monthly social plan to go back in January. I think I better call ahead to Gannucci’s.” If I want to join the group and would like to avoid meat, dairy, and eggs, I should ask the restaurant in advance if they have any alternatives. If not, maybe I’ll have a turkey sandwich again. I am a vegan not because I object to turkeys having their heads cut off but because I don’t like what the turkeys might do to me.
This was also published in the Duluth Reader, 2013-01-16 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/01/16/2766_lies_damn_lies_and_misstatements
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Guns and poses
U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio of Florida has been quoted as saying that the Iranian people should have more guns. I forgot where I saw that framing, but what he actually wrote on Twitter was "I have a feeling the situation in Iran would be a little different if they had a 2nd amendment like ours." The National Journal has a more detailed explanation from a Rubio spokesman.
This comment is all over the web and the comments on it are multiplying even faster. On one side are people who say our freedoms are being protected by guns in the hands of the people. Others point out gun in the hands of the people have begot even more violence, like ethnic cleansing. One commentator said that Saddam Hussein required every family to have a gun and many had AK-47s. Well, the AK-47s didn't protect the people against Saddam but they certainly were used against the invasion by Americans.
Guns in the hands of the people have not worked against the U.S. Government: Shay's Rebellion, the Whiskey Rebellion, and Waco. Let's not forget the Civil War and all the Indian tribes defending their homes and lands with rifles. The government will always have more and bigger guns.
Suppose the Iranian people had more guns. The government is now fighting the people mostly with batons, water cannons, and tear gas. If the people counteracted with guns, more than the Basaji will be shooting. If the people kept fighting with guns, don't you think the Iranian Army might be coming back with tanks? How many people keep a tank in their garage? Think Tiananmen Square.
This comment is all over the web and the comments on it are multiplying even faster. On one side are people who say our freedoms are being protected by guns in the hands of the people. Others point out gun in the hands of the people have begot even more violence, like ethnic cleansing. One commentator said that Saddam Hussein required every family to have a gun and many had AK-47s. Well, the AK-47s didn't protect the people against Saddam but they certainly were used against the invasion by Americans.
Guns in the hands of the people have not worked against the U.S. Government: Shay's Rebellion, the Whiskey Rebellion, and Waco. Let's not forget the Civil War and all the Indian tribes defending their homes and lands with rifles. The government will always have more and bigger guns.
Suppose the Iranian people had more guns. The government is now fighting the people mostly with batons, water cannons, and tear gas. If the people counteracted with guns, more than the Basaji will be shooting. If the people kept fighting with guns, don't you think the Iranian Army might be coming back with tanks? How many people keep a tank in their garage? Think Tiananmen Square.
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