11/20/2003

Cut and Run

Now that the World Series is over, baseball periodicals resort to all the old tricks to get through the off-season. A favorite is the “What ever happened to____?” article. Pick a moderately famous ballplayer who retired 20 years ago and find out what he’s been up to. More often than not, the answer is: fishing.

Baseball aside, what ever happened to the hunt for Osama bin Laden? He’s the guy who got our national preoccupation going 26 months ago. He pops up on video once in a while, but we can’t seem to find him. The face that launched the war on terrorism, the man GWB vowed to bring in “dead or alive” is still alive and not brought in. What happened to the search and destroy mission on al Qaeda, Osama’s international cadre of thugs? While the US Army is playing midwife to the “world’s newest democracy” in Iraq, al Qaeda is blowing up buildings in Saudi Arabia.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
11/13/2003

The Janitor’s Son

Do you feel a draft? Maybe not yet, but you might feel one soon. I have yet to see it in an American news source, but the Toronto Star and the UK’s Guardian are both reporting that the Department of Defense is shoring up the infrastructure for a national draft.

This is no surprise. The U.S. military currently has 9,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan and 130,000 in Iraq. After extending tours of duty several times, the Army has promised soldiers and their families that troops will not have to remain in a war zone for longer than a year at a stretch, which means troops will be rotating out of Iraq by late winter. This should not be a problem, as the Pentagon has estimated that troop numbers in Iraq will be reduced over time.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
11/06/2003

The Metric System

In his “long, hard slog” memorandum three weeks ago, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrote, “Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror.”

Like so many other statements in that memo, Mr. Rumsfeld’s quest for metrics reveals much about our position in the war on terror, regardless of how the enemy may be doing. First, it tells us Don Rumsfeld, like so many Washington bureaucrats before him, loves a good buzzword, in this case “metrics.” When Mr. Rumsfeld writes that the Pentagon lacks “metrics,” he means he has no standards of measurement to evaluate the war on terror.

No competent defense secretary can write “standards of measurement” when he means “standards of measurement.” He must find some jargon, a shibboleth to discern the initiated from the unwashed. If a defense secretary did not write “metrics” when he means “standards of measurement,” then he might be in danger of saying “retreat” when he means “strategic withdrawal” or “dead civilians” when he means “collateral damage.”
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
10/30/2003

Fundamental Issues

The Islamic holy month of Ramadan began Monday, and not in the usual way. Five suicide bombers took 34 lives and wounded dozens of others. More bombings and violence followed Tuesday and is likely to continue for the rest of the lunar month.

Ramadan is not supposed to be about violence, it’s supposed to be about preparing to receive the word of God. In Muslim tradition, the prophet Mohammed received the Quran, the holy book of Islam, on the last night of the ninth month of the year. Observant – and even non-observant – Muslims commemorate the month in a way that resembles a combination of the Christian traditions of Advent and Lent. During daylight hours of Ramadan, adult Muslims abstain from food, liquids, tobacco and sex. Ritual meals are eaten before dawn and after sunset. It’s traditional to break the fast with dates and water, as Mohammed did. After the evening meal, visits are exchanged among family and friends; Ramadan is a time for reinforcing blood and community bonds. Because Muslims are symbolically preparing themselves to receive the word of Allah, deeds, – both good and ill – performed during Ramadan carry more weight than in other months of the year.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
10/23/2003

Have A Nice War

Congress has given President Bush the $87 billion he’s asked for Iraq and Afghanistan. Eighty-seven billion dollars is one of those Washington numbers that floats through the newspaper headlines without having a chance to sink into the public consciousness in a meaningful way.

If you had a pile of 87 billion one-dollar bills, neatly stacked, it would be 100 feet high, 250 feet deep and 125 feet wide. If you used a football field, that most American standard of measurement, $87 billion would cover it to a depth of 55 feet. The White House should give serious consideration to creating this exact spectacle before they spend the money. Take it all down to the Superdome, throw it on the field and charge admission for people to come look at it. Money porn. They could have the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders rolling around in it, naked. Funds from ticket sales could go toward reducing the deficit, or a Republican fundraiser.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
10/16/2003

Misapplication of Law

When people discover I used to work for Greenpeace, they often ask how many times I’ve been arrested. I never tell them. I point out Greenpeace’s direct actions are designed to go to those places where environmental crimes are being committed and bear witness to them, using cameras and the media to draw the attention of the general public. The idea was never to “go out and get arrested.” People become confused on that point, because Greenpeace does not let the possibility of arrest prevent its activists from going to the scene of environmental crimes. A federal prosecutor in Florida is adding to the confusion by telling a judge that “the heart of Greenpeace’s mission is violation of the law.”
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
10/09/2003

The Voter’s Touch

Gray Davis is soon to be a private citizen again; Arnold Schwarzeneggar is king of California. All I can think of is Florida in 2000, when so many people thought elections couldn’t get any stranger. It seems so long ago.

If November 2000 seems long ago, then Bill Clinton’s impeachment must have faded into the mist of ancient history, for how else can we explain the sudden silence of the once-outraged religious right when it comes to the groping, grasping fingers of the governor-elect? Elections are, as Al Gore said, about the future not the past and what happened Tuesday is worth examination, because we all may be seeing something similar soon.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)