Category Archives: politics

politics, travel

In the continued series of blogging about the war on Iraq from the nation’s bars,

I was in Golden, Colorado over the Christmas break. Golden is the home of the Coors Brewery, and also the home of Kersti, a friend from Ashland. We were at the Buffalo Rose – a biker bar with dollar bills with tacks in them stuck all over the ceiling – if you throw the dollar up and it sticks, you get a free drink.

And I talked to a veteran of the first Iraq war. He enlisted to get an education and to travel, and served for two years. His politics had now shifted to the point of being against this conflict.

We talked about union politics in the merger between Coors and Miller – Miller is unionized, apparently, but Coors isn’t, and the Coors employees don’t want the union because their benefits already exceed what the union guarantees – and then we talked about Iraq.

I told him that wherever I had gone in the US for the past six months, people started talking about the war, and he agreed that it was on everyone’s mind. His perspective was that the only people who weren’t willing to consider that the war might be a mistake, or its continuation might be a mistake, were those whose conviction in it came from religious beliefs.

The next day, as Kersti and I were driving back to Denver to have breakfast with the Millans, under falling snow, we heard the news about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and mourned the death of another moderate political leader.

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politics, travel

San Antonio continued…”And the war…”

The first day I was here, we visited the Alamo and had nachos and margaritas on the river walk – a walled-in stretch of the San Antonio river which has the feeling of a Texas Disneyland. There were military cadets in bright blue uniforms marching along the water’s edge with their families and girlfriends, looking as clean and perfect as Disney characters.

But then I met the war correspondent from Sari’s paper. He had just finished a 3-hour-long interview with a veteran from Iraq who had had both his legs blown off.

The reporter told us: “We sat in the restaurant for 3 hours and no one came up to the man to thank him for his service to the country.” (I was ashamed that I myself have seen maimed veterans and not done that.)

The veteran asked him: “How can I be a father with no legs?”

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a propos of nothing, classics, politics

About time, Augustus

Appropriately, I hear this in Los Angeles: “Italian archaeologists believe they have found the cave where, according to legend, a she-wolf nursed Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of Rome.”

Do we use that prefix “she-” for anything else? She-bear? I want to be a she-human. It sounds more like you’re a predator.

I also love this sentence, which sounds like it comes from a real estate bulletin, or something about the ongoing Malibu fires: “Closed to the public for decades due to the risk of collapse, Augustus’ palace will reopen in February.”

We went to Zuma yesterday, but the canyons are burning today.

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politics, workstyle

As Easy As Jumping Out Of A Plane

Last night we ate at Madeleine’s on the Commons with a group of Amina and David’s friends, including a guy who’s a veteran of the war in Afghanistan and a member of IVAW, Iraq Veterans Against The War. He’s involved in the planning for their March 2008 event, Winter Soldier, where a group of veterans will testify in Washington about the war crimes in Iraq.

We talked about this, and also about his training (he was part of an airborne unit) which involved, among other things, training to jump out of a plane with other medics, find a Humvee loaded with medical supplies (which had also been dropped out of a plane) turn it upright, and drive it around looking for injuries sustained by other soldiers who ALSO jumped out of planes.

I asked him why soldiers jump out of planes, which is something I’ve never completely understood. His answer was that if you can land a force from any point in a country, defense no longer becomes about defending borders, but about defending every square inch of territory – forcing nations to spread out their armed forces in their own defense.

Practically speaking, he thinks this technique doesn’t work very well, and never has in practice – you land and are usually separated from your unit, confused, and often injured, and its successful results during WWII had more to do with the Germans being overwhelmed by the surprise of it – but that the continued existence of airborne units is a really strong recruiting pull for the Army. People like the myth and the bravado of jumping out of planes.

(He didn’t actually jump out of planes in the war in Afghanistan, only in training.)

We talked about how we could help out Winter Soldier, and he said that a big part of it was just getting the word out and helping to publicize their efforts. In that spirit, here’s the statement from their website:

In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.

Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine’s famous admonishing of the “summer soldier” who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.

Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming “a few bad apples” instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.

Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.

In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation’s capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars.

Here’s the statement of support for Winter Soldier, and more on how to get involved.

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humor rhymes with tumor, politics

Colbert writes Maureen Dowd’s column

“First of all, I don’t think Nobel Prizes should go to people I was seated next to at the Emmys. Second, winning the Nobel Prize does not automatically qualify you to be commander in chief. I think George Bush has proved definitively that to be president, you don’t need to care about science, literature or peace.”

Brilliant.

And Frank Rich links to a Post article about WW2 veterans who didn’t use torture in interrogation in their day and are speaking out against current practices.

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