Happy Birthday to Me!

Actually, Happy Birthday to Hair on the Soap – it’s one year old today! Like all one year olds, HOTS is hoping for a chocolate birthday cake that it can eat with its hands. In other words, it wants to make a bit of a mess in a fun sort of way. It wants to celebrate its lack of inhibitions and enjoy the present moment with everyone watching. While the motives of one year olds are somewhat obscure, it probably likes being the center of attention from time to time.

192 postings have been hung on the walls of this blog, an average of a little more than one every other day. As most blogs go, I suppose that’s not too bad in terms of consistent productivity. More importantly, I like to think that there’s been some content worth reading along the way. Suffice it to say, there have been relatively few times in the last year when someone in my family or my inner circle of friends has had to ask, “What do you think about …?”

Blogging is like exhibitionism. It can reveal some impressive strengths; but it can also reveal some unimpressive shortcomings. I trust I’ve revealed both. I think I’ve turned a few good phrases on these pages and that several postings are keepers. But, there have been a few that, in the rear view mirror, appear to have been road-kill. I thought I heard and felt something go thump-thump under the tires as I drove over a couple of those topics.

Blogging is also an interesting experience in personal growth. When I began I was hesitant to give out the link to anyone other than family and a small number of trusted friends. I think I feared the reaction of people outside that warm campfire circle. After all, I was revealing an inner voice that very few others had heard. As time passed, so did that concern. Now, I’m happy to give the link to almost anyone. I admit that there is still a single-digit list of people whose reaction I’d just as soon not have to deal with.

Expressing our inner voice leads to a couple of things that are very important to our well being – authenticity and integrity. It’s not healthy to hear one voice inside your head and another voice come outside your mouth. Finding a path to the fresh air of authenticity is vital, and aligning our words and actions with our beliefs is the only way to be whole; to be integrated; to have integrity. Some people will like what they hear and see in our integrated lives; some people won’t like it; others won’t quite know what to make of it. So be it. There’s a price to be paid for authenticity and integrity, but it’s an affordable price and well worth what we get in return – the freedom that comes with being true to ourselves.

If becoming authentic were a crime and I was charged with violating that law, then Exhibit A would probably be what I’ve written on the war in Iraq. Actually, the evidence against me would begin with what I didn’t write. Early on I approached the war as if I were walking on the thinnest of ice. I regarded it as a sensitive topic among family, friends and colleagues at work – too sensitive to take head on. As time passed it became obvious to me that I could no longer go on addressing a long list of other issues while allowing the most critical issue of our day to go unaddressed. Heaven knows it was being addressed inside my head. It eventually became a personal imperative to allow the inner voice to become the outer voice.

So, Hair on the Soap has been a gift from me to me – an offering of authenticity and integrity from my inner voice to my outer voice. I’m grateful. I won’t be so bold as to declare that I’m now a fully revealed, authentic and integrated man living a life inner and outer harmony. But, I’m better now than I was 365 days ago and I’ll settle for that.

It’s like finding hair on the soap and realizing, “Hey, that’s mine.” You may not be clean yet, but you’ve resolved one concern.

The Ladder of Giving

One of the elements of my New Year’s resolution is to make a meaningful charitable donation at least once a week. By “meaningful”, I mean not just giving to an organization that has a worthy purpose and important objectives, but one that is fiscally and ethically responsible in the way that it handles our money. There are certain charities that we’ve been supporting for a number of years, such as St. Jude’s; City of Hope; Habitat for Humanity; the Southern Poverty Law Center; the Carter Center; Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation; the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society; the USO and VFW. There are others that we’ve begun supporting more recently, such as UNICEF; CARE; Save Darfur; the One Campaign; International Rescue Committee; Doctors Without Borders; Heifer International; Smile Train; etc.

After deciding that I should understand more about the “responsible” element, I checked out Charity Navigator (http://www.charitynavigator.org) and the American Institute of Philanthropy (http://www.charitywatch.org/), two non-profit organizations that publish charity ratings and provide excellent background data and information to help donors make more informed decisions about the organizations to which they donate (another source is GuideStar (http://www.guidestar.org). My objective this year is to focus on organizations that have an “A” or “B” rating from AIP or a 4-star or 3-star rating from Charity Navigator. Some of the organizations that we’ve supported in the past don’t appear on those lists, so added research is in order.

The 12th-century Jewish scholar, Maimonides, developed a “ladder of giving” with each rung representing a higher level of charitable virtue. His eight rungs are:

1. The Lowest: Giving begrudgingly and making the recipient feel disgraced or embarrassed.
2. Giving cheerfully but giving too little.
3. Giving cheerfully and adequately but only after being asked.
4. Giving cheerfully and adequately before being asked.
5. Giving when you don’t know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient knows your identity.
6. Giving when you know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient does not know your identity.
7. Giving when neither you nor the recipient knows the other's identity.
8. The Highest: Giving money, a loan, time or whatever else it takes to enable an individual to be self-reliant.

I’m not aware that I’ve ever stood on the lowest rung and I don’t think I’ve ever risen to the highest rung, unless helping my children become self-reliant qualifies. In my younger years I stood mostly on rungs 2 and 3, then I moved up to rungs 4 and 5 when I got more established. The challenge on rungs 6 and 7 is to give anonymously. Maimonides developed his ladder before checks, credit cards, receipts, tax deductions, Internet giving, and organization membership were part and parcel of the giving process. Complete anonymity is a bit of a challenge these days. I think it’s probably sufficient to simply donate without seeking or getting any public recognition for it.

I’ve given up some anonymity by mentioning here some of the groups my wife and I are supporting. But, no one other than my wife and our accountant (and who knows how many people at the IRS and the White House) knows the full list of whom we’ve supported and to what extent we’ve supported them.

I’m addressing the subject here in order to encourage my family and friends to: make regular donations to a variety of causes; to challenge themselves to step up a rung or two on the “ladder of giving”; to consider donating to the groups that we’ve supported; and to make more informed decisions by checking out the available charity rating services.

Most of my family and friends are in a position to help others to some extent. Obviously, that ability varies from family to family, but the point is that we can all get involved and do something, even if it’s small. Even if donating more isn’t possible right now, just becoming more informed about the human condition across our country and around the world by investigating these charitable organizations costs nothing but a little time on the computer.

Eventually, the people being helped by one or more of these charities will “speak to us” in ways that motivate action that we didn’t think was possible. They remind us that we’re all in this life together; that we’re all in need; that we’re all needed; and that we’re all able to step up the ladder and help each other in some way.

Two States of the Union

Last Friday, my wife communicated with a good friend who led a humanitarian trip from Racine, Wisconsin, to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Their small group gathered, wrapped and handed out a truckload of Christmas gifts, primarily to children, to those who lost their homes in the hurricane. That communication reminded me that the president said nothing about the states of Louisiana and Mississippi in his State of the Union address.

Katrina, arguably the most devastating natural disaster in our history, was never mentioned. It was a notable part of the president’s State of the Union address in 2006. In 2007, it was notable only by its complete absence.

I was very pleased to hear the president mention our national commitment to continuing to help combat poverty and disease in Africa and to hear him single out the need for the world to respond to the crisis in Darfur. Those are conditions that I care about a great deal and I want them to remain on the national agenda for the coming year and well beyond.

But, the poverty that was revealed in New Orleans, the diseases that befell many of the storm victims, and the utter devastation that was visited upon countless homes and families in the Gulf Coast demand the continued humanitarian attention of the federal government as much as anything outside our borders demands such attention. No one thinks for a second that Louisiana and Mississippi have even gotten close to recovering. Forgetting about them, or just ignoring them in the State of the Union, is inexcusable.

Because jazz can be heard in the restaurants and bars of the French Quarter and crews are again displaying spectacular floats in Mardi Gras parades doesn’t mean things are back to normal in the Crescent City. It just means that the party façade has been put back in place. Of course, for the vast majority of Americans, that façade is what New Orleans stands for; it’s what people feared they had lost; it’s what really matters to too many people.

But this commentary can’t be limited to the president. What about the rest of the government? Other than the congressional delegations from the impacted states, who else in Congress is paying attention? Other than a couple of reporters who became identified with covering the storm and its aftermath, like Anderson Cooper, how often is the media paying attention? Not often enough.

What about us? I made donations that were directed to the Gulf Coast in 2005, but I didn’t in 2006. I signed petitions and wrote to elected officials about the Gulf Coast in 2005, but I didn’t in 2006. In 2006, I acted like all that mattered were the events outside of the United States – in Iraq and Africa and Mexico and China – but not at home. Who am I to criticize the president if I’m not willing to walk my own talk?

This is an example of how something like the war in Iraq can drain not just the fiscal resources of our country, but deplete our ability to pay attention and respond to other matters of great significance in our country. We’re so focused on making ourselves secure from terrorism that we’ve lost sight of the need to make ourselves secure from the poverty, disease, and destruction that are already present in the homeland. Katrina doesn’t represent the threat of destruction. It is the all-too-real presence of destruction.

When the president finally went to New Orleans after Katrina he gave a dramatically backlit speech in Jackson Square. He vowed, "We will do what it takes; we will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities. This great city will rise again." The city has yet to rise again, notwithstanding Bourbon Street being afloat with music and mint juleps. We have not yet done what it takes to rebuild a city that is still missing hundreds of thousands of its former residents – because they have no place to live.

Espousing a decidedly Eastern philosophy, one with which I wholeheartedly agree, the president reminded us that night that, “Nature’s trials remind us that we’re tied together in this life, in this nation — and that the despair of any touches us all.”

There is still despair in Louisiana and Mississippi. Perhaps we all need to be reminded periodically that we’re still being touched by that despair. Perhaps we’ve become a little numb to the touch.

We can do better at responding to that touch. The first step is to simply remain aware; then to continue caring; then to continue speaking about it; then to continuing doing whatever we can to help – like that small humanitarian group from Racine, Wisconsin.

A Way Forward

An commenter responding to my post on the 24 troops who died last Saturday asked: “What would be your suggestion?” Fair question. This is my answer.

I’m not suggesting that this is the way forward; it’s a way. But, if I heard this option being discussed I would say that it sounds plausible. It may be fundamentally flawed on several levels. Military strategists or geopolitical experts might look at it and laugh at the naiveté or the glaring omissions. Nonetheless, here it is:

o Establish a 5 – 10 mile wide DMZ inside the Iraqi – Iranian border and inside the Iraqi – Syrian border to prevent incursions into Iraq from within Iran or Syria.

o If requested by Kurdish leaders, establish a 3 – 5 mile wide DMZ inside the Iraqi – Turkish border to prevent incursions into Kurdish territory.

o In Baghdad, establish a 1 – 3 mile DMZ around the Green Zone to provide a secure operational center for the Iraqi government.

o Establish a 1 – 3 mile DMZ along the eastern border of Anbar Province to prevent incursions from that province into other areas in Iraq.

o Commit the coalition troops necessary to clear the above zones of Sunni insurgents and Shia militia and to prevent incursions across the above zones by any form of militant personnel.

o Provide adequate air cover to enforce these zones.

o Except for securing the above zones, pull the coalition troops out of Iraq over a 20-month phased withdrawal, leaving the most secure areas first and the least secure areas last. Move Iraqi security forces in behind the departing troops.

o Position enough well-armed coalition troops in Kuwait to maintain a rapid response force that can reenter a discrete area in Iraq if requested by the Iraqi government under a force mobilization agreement that spells out the scenarios under which such support may be requested. No mobilization would be longer than 60 days without the approval of the president and the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.

o Such military support would be provided only if the Iraqi government has met certain milestones as of specific dates, including: maintaining a functioning coalition government that includes Sunnis and Kurds; an equitable distribution of oil revenue throughout Iraq; rescinding certain de-Baathification laws to allow former Iraqi Baathists to reenter the mainstream; establishing effective employment programs; refusing military or economic aid from Iran, Syria or other countries that support terrorism; taking definitive action to disarm and eliminate Shia militants as well as Sunni insurgents; recruiting and training security forces; reestablishing a military force.

o Maintain air cover over Iraq based on clear rules of engagement.

o Commit to a significant infusion of economic aid over a 10-year period provided that certain milestones for restoring an effective infrastructure are met by specific dates (e.g., water and electricity supply; medical facilities; adequate schools; employment programs; etc.).

That’s my answer, for what it’s worth.

The State of the Union

Unlike most of the pundits and commentators, I thought the president’s State of the Union address on Tuesday was one of his better speeches. Some may regard the relativity of that statement as damning him with faint praise.

First, his demeanor was much more presidential. The smirks and swagger were no where to be seen. He seemed confident and focused. There was a lot of commentary about how subdued and somber the speech seemed, especially when compared to other State of the Union addresses that this president and others have given. In my opinion, this speech should have been restrained; anything else would probably have come off as seriously inconsistent with the context in which it was being delivered.

A president whose job performance is now approved by only 30% or less of the American public should come before the nation in a somber and reflective mood. It’s not a time for this president to be cheerleading or to be acting like the country isn’t in a somber and reflective mood. Sometimes the public reflects the mood of the president; but sometimes it’s appropriate if not essential for the reflection to be in the other direction.

The president led with his domestic agenda, which surprised some people given the wounded elephant in the room – his strategy for the war in Iraq. I thought there was nothing inappropriate about leading from the domestic side. Arguably, the “state of the Union” is primarily a domestic subject, anyway.

The president focused primarily on three subjects that are worthy of immediate national debate – healthcare, energy independence, and immigration. On these subjects I give the president a mixed review. On the positive side, his proposals were not so partisan in tone or content that they could be summarily dismissed by the opposition party. They were serious and substantive enough to serve as a call to meaningful debate on each of them in this congressional session. The healthcare proposal the president mentioned is probably DOA, but it can serve as the beginning of new deliberations. The energy independence proposal that he offered is a worthy concept, but one that is filled with challenges and is focused initially on several highly debatable objectives. The immigration proposal that Mr. Bush has favored for some time may have a better chance of success in this Congress than in the one before it.

On the negative side, the president did not seem deeply engaged or enthusiastic about anything he offered, in spite of the fact that this portion of the speech was generally regarded as the door through which he would walk in order to try to create a legacy that extends beyond the war in Iraq. It was an opportunity that he let slip through his fingers. There was no emotional punch or inspiration to be seen or heard. In this regard, his somber approach to the evening made him ineffective in rallying support in the room.

Most of the applause he received was obligatory and polite, and just as restrained as the comments to which it was directed. The one notable exception was the almost ridiculous level of giddy excitement exhibited by the delegation from Iowa in response to the president securing that state’s future by recommending that the U.S. should shift our addiction to oil to an addiction to ethanol.

Notably, the president did not say a single word about the tripartite right wing-nut social agenda – abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research. I appreciated that undoubtedly deliberate omission. Those are subjects that get beaten to death on the campaign trail and at almost every partisan gathering, so we can give ourselves permission to lay them aside and turn to other more pressing matters from time to time, if not most of the time, if not all of the time.

Finally the president turned to the wounded elephant – Iraq. Having recently addressed the nation on the “new way forward”, there wasn’t much else that was new in this part of the speech – except for one huge admission, an admission that is bigger than admitting that we’re not winning and bigger than admitting that we’ve made mistakes. The president said:

“This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we're in.”

The president and his administration have said at one time or another that we entered the fight in Iraq for one or more of the following reasons:

o To eliminate weapons of mass destruction
o To topple the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein
o To bring freedom and democracy to Iraq and other parts of the Middle East
o To engage in the central battle in the war on terrorism
o To engage in the defining battle of our times
o To engage in a fight for civilization
o To wage a decisive ideological struggle against Islamist extremism
o To “fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here”

On Tuesday night, the president admitted for the first time that the war in Iraq is no longer a fight for these things; it is no longer the fight we entered. The fighting in Iraq has become something else. The president has yet to admit that the war against terrorism in Iraq has become a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites. It’s an inescapable admission that even the president will have to acknowledge at some time.

My conclusion is simple: if this is no longer the fight we entered, and I agree that it isn’t, then it’s a fight we should no longer be in. Just because this is the fight we now find ourselves in does not mean that it's a fight that we must or should stay in. A sleepwalker who suddenly awakens in the middle of a busy highway is not compelled to stay there and take a stand against the traffic. A fight must have a purpose and the purpose for which we got into this one, no matter how one characterizes that purpose, is no longer valid.

The president would probably declare that our purpose is now to defend the nascent Iraqi democracy and that we’re there at their request. In other words, a war that we entered for our purpose has now become a war that we’re staying in for someone else’s purpose. Even that assumes that the Iraqi government actually wants us to remain, which is something that has become highly debatable in the last two to three months.

And as for the Iraqi democracy, that’s an institution that probably has to progress in order to actually become nascent. The Iraqi parliament has been able to hold very few meetings since November for one fundamental reason – they can’t get a quorum to show up to the meetings. In fact, a number of the members of the Iraqi parliament have not just left the building with Frasier; they’ve left the country. The government for whom we’re fighting, the government upon which the “new way forward” depends, is almost inoperative.

Like the president said, this is not why we entered Iraq. It is, however, why we should join certain members of the Iraqi parliament and leave the country.

Back to Africa

Day before yesterday I reflected on having revisited the Live8 concerts held in 2005. That led to a little more research into the state of human affairs on the African continent. It’s a sobering reality. Think about the following, while remembering that there are millions of men, women and children involved in these black and white “facts”:

§ 50% of the people in Africa are under 16 years of age
§ One of every six African children dies before age five
§ Child mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa is 25 times greater than in the countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development
§ The average life expectancy in Africa is 41
§ 70% of the worldwide HIV-positive cases are in Africa
§ Per capita income is less than $1,500 a year
§ 350 million Africans, half of the Sub-Saharan population, survive on less than $1 a day
§ 185 million Africans, 33% of the population, are malnourished
§ More than 300 million lack safe drinking water
§ Less than 50% have access to doctors and hospitals
§ Only 57% of primary school age children are in school
§ Less than 20% of the population has electricity; less than 15% has a telephone; less than 8% has Internet access

While Americans are spending $42 billion a year on diet and health books, the United States spends $19 billion a year to fight poverty and disease – only $4 billion a year of which goes to Africa. The U.S. should be the leader, or at least among the leaders, in terms of the percentage of its wealth that it redirects to fight poverty and human suffering of this kind. We are not among the leaders. The U.S. has spent almost $500 billion in four years in Iraq. After moving past the WMD reason for invading, we finally settled on a mission that was focused on relieving the Iraqi people from the suffering inflicted by a brutal dictator. Extreme poverty is a far more brutal and deadly dictator. It kills and inflicts untold suffering on millions of people every, single day – day after day after day. An invasion against this enemy is in order.

In 2000, a United Nations General Assembly summit established the Millennium Development Goals for Africa and other poor countries. The primary goal is to cut poverty, hunger and illness by 50% in 175 of the poorest countries by 2015. The summit recognized that the responsibility for achieving this goal is shared by developing and developed countries but placed the primary responsibility on the developing countries.

In July 2003, admittedly only three years into the 15-year effort, the UN Development Program issued a report regarding the 175 countries targeted in the Millennium Development Goals. This report brings the sobering reality reflected in the above facts into even starker focus. It says:

§ Progress in 31 of the 175 countries has stalled or reversed
§ Based on current economic trends, 20 of these countries will not halve poverty until 2147 and will not overcome poverty before 2165, the same time that they’re projected to cut childhood mortality rates by two-thirds
§ 54 of these nations are poorer than they were in 1990, 20 of which are in Sub-Saharan Africa and 17 of which are in East Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States
§ 21 of these countries have greater hunger than in 1990
§ 14 of the countries have an increased rate of children dying before age five
§ In 12 of these countries, primary school enrollment has declined

The conditions noted above are so remote from ours that it’s hard to take them in and accept the fact that they represent the daily reality for not millions but billions of fellow human beings. There is no silver bullet for poverty and money won’t solve all the problems. As I’ve mentioned previously, the fair and effective redistribution of wealth is a huge challenge and one of the greatest challenges comes from rampant corruption in the governments of the underdeveloped and developing countries; there are times when they are their worst enemy. Dictators in Africa have inflicted more suffering or more people than a Saddam Hussein could even think about.

But the challenges can’t become an excuse for inaction by developed countries or by the citizens of developed countries. We must raise our level of awareness and become involved. We can redirect a portion of our own spending to provide what assistance we’re capable of providing. We can teach our children and we can educate our friends and we can make sure our elected officials know that we care as much about fighting extreme poverty as we do about fighting terrorism.

For starters, here are a couple of links that offer some insight into the struggle that is barely outlined above:

www.care.org
www.globalfundforchildren.org
www.doctorswithoutborders.org
www.heifer.org
www.unicefusa.org
www.oecd.org

We can do more.

24

Twenty four American troops were killed in Iraq yesterday.
It was the third deadliest day since the war began.
Hundreds of American lives in 24 families were forever altered.

The beat goes on.

We need a new way forward.

Save a Life, Maybe Two!

I’ve been wearing a white wristband since July 2, 2005. Wristbands of almost every color are now so prevalent that they risk losing their meaning. Mine still means as much to me today as it did in the summer of 2005, perhaps more.

The white band is imprinted with a single word – ONE. It stands for The ONE Campaign (http://www.one.org/), which is dedicated to “making poverty history”. This campaign is driven by one overarching reality – a child dies every three seconds from the impacts of extreme poverty or AIDS. Extreme poverty is defined as living, if you can call it that, on less than $1 a day. The campaign calls on developed countries around the world to give at least 1% of their GNP to fight poverty in underdeveloped countries; or, preferably, to increase such spending by an amount equal to that 1%.

July 2, 2005, is the day that the Live8 poverty-awareness concerts were held and broadcast around the world. There were concerts in nine cities; one thousand artists performed; more than two million people attended; more than three billion people watched. It was a remarkable gathering that was timed to coincide with the G8 meeting that was being held in Scotland that same week. I think it’s fair to say that it made an impression. It’s hard to ignore the gathering of millions of people.

For me, the inspirational highpoint of Live8 came when a video clip showed a little girl lying in her mother’s arms. She was emaciated and almost lifeless. Flies were landing around her eyes, nose and mouth. She was days, if not just hours from death. But an intervention funded by money raised at a previous poverty-awareness concert program saved her life. This girl, now a young woman, was introduced to the Live8 audience. She is healthy, vibrant, and strikingly beautiful. She has married and completed her university studies. She stood there as the antithesis of the dying child we’d just watched.

A friend loaned me the DVD recording of the Live8 concerts. At the end of the DVD, hidden in the “Extras” section, is a short film that makes a compelling comparison that would not be lost on anyone who watches it. It shows African women and children holding, wearing or doing something that those of us in the developed world would regard as common, everyday things.

Moving from scene to scene the film points out that every year we in the world spend:

§ $900 billion on weapons
§ $600 billion on vacations
§ $300 billion on alcoholic drinks
§ $260 billion on cigarettes
§ $170 billion on fast food
§ $55 billion on denim clothing
§ $50 billion on pornography
§ $50 billion on weight-loss programs
§ $46 billion on sporting goods
§ $45 billion on fashion accessories
§ $40 billion on music sales
§ $40 billion on Barbie dolls
§ $40 billon on getting fit in gyms and spas
§ $40 billion on sneakers
§ $34 billion on toiletries
§ $27 billion on makeup
§ $22 billion on perfume
§ $20 billion on candy
§ $18 billion on pet food
§ $4 billion on souvenir t-shirts

These items total more than $2.75 trillion a year.

The essential point is driven home by the last scene in the film:

$50 billion a year could save 50,000 lives a day

No one is suggesting that we give up any or all of the items listed above. But, accepting the above formula for the sake of discussion, if we gave up only 1% of these things worldwide, much less donating 1% of our GNP, that alone would allow us to redirect more than $25 billion a year toward saving more than 25,000 lives a day. A bold reduction of 10% of the above items would allow us to redirect an astonishing $275 billion dollars a year toward saving a quarter of a million lives each day!

I know that the above formula may be an overstatement or at least an over-simplification. I know that it’s hard to draw a direct line between reduced consumption in the developing world and reduced mortality and increased well being in the underdeveloped world. The redistribution of wealth is fraught with challenges throughout the process. But the above numbers illustrate a principle if not a reality – we can do more; we can make different choices; we can spend less on things that are not essential to sustaining our lives; and we can spend more on providing food, water, clothing, shelter and medicine to the billions of people in our world who cannot sustain their lives. This much is indisputable.

Each of us can do the math. Each of us can examine our choices. Each of us can reassess our priorities. Each of us can make a difference. In fact, each of us can save the life of at least one human being and some of us can save the lives of many. That’s something worth living and spending for.

I Need a New Way Forward

This is the third time that I’ve gotten high-centered on a posting that involves the Bush administration and a decision related to Iraq. The president announced his “new way forward” in Iraq on January 10. I started this posting on January 11. It’s taken eight days to get back to it, not for lack of interest but for lack of knowing where to stop. I have trouble moving on to other topics I want to write about when a topic that I think is more important is in the queue. I’ve got to find my own version of a new way forward.

The January 10 speech was fairly well written and was more substantive and informative than most prior speeches given by the president on the subject of Iraq. While it lacked any inspirational or emotional punch it was by and large free of campaign-like slogans and attempts at catchy phrases. To his credit, the president acknowledged that the administration’s strategy has not worked; that mistakes have been made; and that he accepts personal responsibility for those mistakes.

Unfortunately, the speech revealed a new tactical approach more than it revealed a new strategy. My comment that night, one that has since been echoed by countless others, is “Too little, too late”.

We’re sending in an additional 21,500 troops, with 17,500 soldiers headed to Baghdad and 4,000 Marines headed to Anbar province. This deployment, which will cost almost $6 billion, will unfold over the next 3 – 5 months. In addition, we’re tossing in $1.1 billion in economic aid, spread among three focal points.

The tactical shift is built around the idea that Iraqi security forces will now take the lead in quelling the Sunni insurgency and the sectarian militias and death squads, with the Americans being in something akin to a support role. Supposedly, this leadership change will be immediate in Baghdad and completed by November in the provinces.

That’s it. A 16% increase in troop levels, with most of those troops being dropped into the midst of an escalating civil war, and the equivalent of an economic band-aid for a country that has a completely broken infrastructure. In short, there’s not much “new” here and it remains to be seen if there’s anything “forward” about this “way” of doing things. Frankly, I don’t know how we can get the “forward” without the “new”. Nonetheless, I hope and pray that it works.

Sadly, America has been hoping and praying for success for almost four years. Every other new shift of strategy or tactics has failed, including two Baghdad-focused shifts within the last year (Operation Together Forward I & II). One of the problems is that we can’t do this on our own. We have to have the full and unwavering commitment of the Iraqi government and its security forces. Therein lays one of the major flaws in this plan.

In effect, we’re relying on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the same man whom Stephen Hadley, the president’s national security advisor, branded as potentially unreliable just a month or two ago. Unfortunately, the prime minister has a track record, and it’s not one that justifies laying down a big wager to “win”. The president’s plan lays out a number of milestones that have to be met by the Iraqi government, most of which have been previously requested or “demanded” and most of which have never been met.

But, there’s an even bigger hang-up here and it goes by the name of Muqtada al-Sadr, the violently anti-American Shiite cleric who controls the infamous Mahdi militia and a phalanx of death squads who bear significant responsibility for the escalating sectarian violence. No less than 30 members of the Iraqi parliament are members of al-Sadr’s party, and those 30 members effectively prop up the prime minister’s government. If they withdraw their support, the current coalition government collapses. The insidious influence of ad-Sadr was never more apparent than at the hanging of Saddam Hussein. The last words Saddam heard were guards yelling the praises of al-Sadr not the praises of the al-Maliki government that was supposedly carrying out the execution.

More disturbing than these generalities are the reports from multiple media sources connected to members of the al-Maliki inner circle who indicate that the Iraqi prime minister doesn’t want an American troop increase – he wants just the opposite – for the Americans to draw down and “let history run its course”. Last week, The New York Times reported that al-Maliki sent a written recommendation to that effect to the White House on November 30. A little more than a month later the president is on TV announcing that a troop increase is part and parcel of a new Iraqi security plan. Really?

By the way, when al-Maliki says that he wants history to run its course, that means let the Shiites have their turn on the butt-end of the rifles with the Sunnis staring into the business end for a few decades. Guess who that invites to the table – the Saudis, who are Sunni. In the last 10 days they’ve not only joined the Sunnis in Iraq in supporting the president’s plan, to no one’s surprise, they’ve also indicated that if the Americans leave, then the Saudis will be compelled to enter Iraq to protect the Sunni minority. This is, plain and simple, a war of religion being fought along sectarian lines. This is no longer a war on terrorism, except to the extent that both sides of this sectarian war are employing terrorism against each other, with Americans being caught in the crossfire. It’s not our ballgame any longer. It was when we started it, and we bear a large share of the responsibility for many (but not all) of the consequences, but this conflict has outgrown our intention and our presence.

But, we’re still on the field, where we obviously have to rely on our military and its leadership. Unfortunately, for the first time in this ill-fated endeavor we appear to have disconnected the military and political leadership – they're no longer aligned. Before the president made his decision to increase troop strength, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Abizaid and General Casey all made it clear that a troop “surge” was not their recommendation. Former generals, Colin Powell and Barry McCaffrey, the leaders in the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq, have added their opposition to this plan. General McCaffrey, joined by three other retired generals who testified against the plan before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week, referred to it as “a fool’s errand”.

Rather than following the recommendations of his military leaders, the president has decided to replace them with new leaders who will follow his recommendations. That is the prerogative of the commander-in-chief. But for several years this president has defended his war strategy by claiming that he has relied on the advice of our military leadership, a cover that he will no longer have. The strategy in Iraq, for the first time since the invasion, is now owned by one man.

General Casey, the current commander in Iraq, will apparently be replaced by General David Petraeus. Petraeus is the military equivalent of an alpha-wolf. He comes with a very impressive resume, including a PhD in international relations from Princeton. If military success rests on the uniformed man in charge, then he’s as good a shot at that success as we could hope for. After all, this is the man who wrote the Army’s brand new, hot-off-the-shelf counter-insurgency manual. This is his expertise. But on day one in Iraq he will face a status on the ground that can only be described as grossly inadequate based on that manual.

The new manual says that when attempting to counter an insurgency the troop levels should be at the ratio of 20 troops for every 1,000 residents being secured. That suggests the need for 100,000 – 250,000 more troops in Iraq, depending on the number of residents those troops are intended to secure. That would bring the force levels up to the level that General Eric Shinseki, the former Army Chief of Staff, said was needed in the first place, an opinion for which he was soundly rebuked by Donald Rumsfeld, who called Shinseki’s estimate “wildly off the mark”. Any way you cut it, 21,500 more troops doesn’t cut it.

Then, only yesterday, General Casey says that we might be able to start drawing down troop levels in the late summer. When I read that I looked around to see if the Mad Hatter was anywhere nearby. We will only complete our brand new, hot-off-the-shelf troop buildup by early summer. So we now expect they will have made Baghdad and Anbar safe and sound in a matter of a few fortnights? Who would have thought it would be that quick and easy?

Other than in the ranks of the partisan hardcore, it’s hard to find too many people who wholeheartedly support this new way forward. Several Reb senators have expressed opposition, with several others likely to follow. That breakdown in party solidarity may be coming from the fact that more than 70% of the American public now disapprove of the administration’s handling of the war – and, according to the most recent poll by the Military Times, for the first time a majority of the troops in Iraq now share that same opinion.

Supporters of the plan, like Senators McCain and Graham, ask those who favor either an immediate or phased withdrawal: “What will we do when Iraq and possibly the region collapse into utter chaos after we leave?” That’s a fair question. But that line of reasoning clearly leads to the possibility that we can never leave Iraq because it may never be secure enough without our presence (of course that begs the question as to whether our presence can ever achieve security, there being ample evidence that Iraq is sliding deeper into chaos with us there).

What then? Is there no point at which America gets to say to the Iraqis, “That’s it; we’ve done what we can do; this is your country and its problems are yours to solve from this point on.” After all, those who truly believe that we’ve already made a meaningful difference in Iraq by helping it develop a democratic constitution and elect a representative government, should believe that we are leaving it better than we found it. It’s ironic that many of those who want us to leave now are the people who believe that we may be leaving it worse than we found it.

Our invasion created many of the conditions that have led to the situation that currently exists there. Before we invaded, al-Qaeda was not welcome in Iraq; there was no insurgency; there was no civil war between Sunnis and Shiites; there was no threatened intervention from Iran and Saudi Arabia. There was brutal sectarian oppression to be sure, which only highlights the fact that sectarian divisions were deeply entrenched before we got there and will remain deeply entrench long after we leave – they’ve just been exacerbated by the complete destabilization of the country since March 2003.

There’s still a significant divide in this country because there’s no good answer to the question – what should we do next in that country? We have to face up the increasingly likely probability that this chapter in U.S. and world history is not going to have a good ending. We have to pick the ending from the choices we have, not from the choices we really, really want to have. And we have to make that choice well before President Bush hands the war over to someone else in January 2009.

It’s time to adopt and implement an exit strategy that has been completed before the election in November 2008. By that time this president will have had over five years to fulfill his vision in Iraq. If he can’t get the “mission accomplished” in five years then he should clean up his own mess rather than leaving it for someone else. When we get to that point maybe we can finally turn our attention back to Afghanistan and the elimination of the Taliban and the capture of Osama bin Laden. Only then will we have responded appropriately to the attack on September 11, 2001.

Thus ends the longest posting I’ve made on this blog. Like I said, I need to find a new way forward.

Hard Work

I’ll acknowledge up front that this posting is more than a little self-congratulatory. To that observation I add, “Okay, so what. Patting oneself on the back is good exercise if done in moderation.” I’ll try to be moderate.

Today is my youngest son’s birthday. When I called him this morning to wish him a Happy Birthday I was reminded of having done something good as a dad – and that was to have passed to my children something that my dad passed to me – a strong work ethic. I was taught to work hard, to get the job done, and to get it done right. My children have learned the same lesson.

I reached my son at home at 10:30 in the morning. He was not working. He was enjoying the morning with his wife and son. He granted himself the morning off because he’s been working 15 – 20 hours a day for the last couple of months, weathering a huge wave of important assignments in his engineering firm. He would not get home until after midnight, yet again, so this morning’s break was his birthday celebration (the cake was cut last night). The surge will hopefully dissipate by the end of this week and he’ll get to settle back into his “normal” routine, a mere 12 hours-a-day job.

As each of my children has entered the workforce I have watched them work very hard at whatever they’re doing. They’ve each become a highly valued employee because they care about what they’re doing. They don’t as much strive to excel as they excel by striving. It’s good to see, and I’m very proud of them.

My dad taught me to work like a man when I was a teenager. He taught me that hard work is its own reward; but, that it also “pays off” with other rewards, sooner or later. I didn’t like it then, but I feel the imprint of that lesson to this day. While my children didn’t work on a ranch wrangling and branding cattle, building fence, hauling hay, stacking feed bags, moving water pipe, irrigating in the middle of the night, clearing brush, milking cows, and slopping pigs, they were all given the responsibility of a hefty load of household and personal chores and they learned that with few exceptions doing those things, along with their schoolwork, came before doing other things.

At the same time, they watched their dad and mom work hard at what we were doing outside or inside the home. We taught them that the combination of hard work, genuine dedication and, very importantly, a good attitude will bring good things their way, because, frankly, the world isn’t overflowing with people who bring that combination to the table. There are a lot of hard workers who have bad attitudes, and there are a lot of workers with great attitudes who don’t work very hard. In both cases, genuine dedication to what they’re doing is missing.

As a result of learning the right combination I can see each of my children beginning to pick the fruit of their good labor and I know that they’re truly capable of providing for themselves and their families. I rest comfortably in the knowledge that they’ve become productive citizens who are each making a meaningful contribution in their chosen work.

It feels good. Now, they’re given the opportunity to pass that baton to the next generation. They’ll feel good when they do so.

Happy New Year!

As I look ahead to 2007, I anticipate my youngest daughter giving birth to my ninth grandchild, and seventh grandson, in February; my oldest son graduating from Independent Duty Corpsman School, being promoted and entering the submarine service in February; my youngest son making a significant career step in early spring; my stepson and my daughter-in-law graduating from college in June; and my son-in-law graduating from college in December – six wonderful and significant milestones for the coming year.

With a large and active family, other milestones that are unplanned and unknown at this point will almost assuredly come to pass. It’s never dull around my Rice Krispies® family – things go Snap! Crackle! Pop! in our bowl all the time.

In addition, I will be one year closer to a so-well-deserved-it’s-hard-to-express-it retirement. Of course that goal, which is now close enough to see, surpasses all the other family milestones in significance. This time next year, I’ll be close enough to smell it; two years from now, I’ll be touching it if not grasping it.

I’ve never been fond of the idea of New Year’s resolutions because they seem too contrived. Nonetheless, this year I’ve made the Mother of All Resolutions. In keeping with the popular vernacular of the day, I’ve dubbed it “The Way Forward”. It was motivated in part by a realization that is captured by Ajahn Chah in “Still Forest Pool”:

“There are two kinds of suffering: the suffering that leads to more suffering and the suffering that leads to the end of suffering. If you are not willing to face the second kind of suffering, you will surely continue to experience the first.”

Because I can’t bear the thought of public humiliation, at least no more than I otherwise bring upon myself from time to time, I won’t reveal either the general scope or the gory details of my resolution here or elsewhere. Suffice it to say, sufficient suffering, of one kind or another, will be involved.

Because I can bear the thought of public approbation, I’ll most certainly reveal the Mother of All Resolutions if I’m successful in keeping it. If I’m not successful, the subject will never be mentioned again, here or elsewhere.

2007 will also bring the 5th anniversary of Danny’s death. I don’t know why anniversaries that end in “5” and “0” seem to have greater significant, but they’re almost always experienced as more noteworthy milestones. It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years. I miss you, Sir Dan.

With countless others, I hope and pray for better developments in world events. The world is filled with wars, rebellions, insurrections, oppression, torture, poverty, and disease and no single year will bring momentous advancements on all fronts. But, maybe, just maybe, one or two of these global challenges will truly move forward toward peace and well being for those of our fellow human beings who are caught in the snares that each of these challenges represent.

With that, I open my book on 2007.

Happy New Year to my family, friends and colleagues!
May the coming year be filled with peace and joy for each of you!