The British Are Leaving; The British Are Leaving

If Paul Revere were alive today he’d have to saddle up and ride backwards through the streets of Boston unwinding his midnight message about the British forces coming our way. The Brits have finally found the reverse gear on their Range Rovers and are backing out of Iraq.

Tony Blair announced Wednesday that he’s initiating a timetable for a phased withdrawal of British troops from southern Iraq, starting with 1,600 in the spring. British sources indicate that the current commitment of 7,100 troops will be cut in half by the end of this year and reduced to zero by the end of 2008. Denmark announced that it’s pulling all of its troops out this year and it appears that Lithuania will be the next country using the door marked “Exit”. The coalition is unraveling. Frankly, with the British leaving, it has already unraveled because the coalition has rested on the legs of the U.S. and the U.K. from the beginning.

The Brits confirmed yesterday that Prince Harry will be deployed to Iraq in the spring as a troop commander for a recon unit. If he’s not careful, he’ll meet himself turning around as soon as he touches down in Basra. Perhaps he’ll be the one who gets to flip the light switch off a year from now. I commend him for going because he’s going into a real combat zone and he will be a highly sought after target of opportunity for the bad guys.

There wasn't much surprise in the British announcement. It’s been expected ever since Blair announced last year that he intended to step down as prime minister later this year. He doesn’t want someone who succeeds him, especially from his own party, to have to tidy up after his four-year dalliance with his colonial soul mate from Crawford. Apart from any personal agenda, the public opposition to the war in the U.K. has become too substantial for either major party in the U.K. to continue to support British involvement.

But there’s a more practical element to the British decision. They have developed a case of projectile dysfunction – they can’t keep up the firepower in Basra anymore. The former head of the British military declared earlier this week that the Brits were approaching “operational failure” due to the overwhelming demands imposed on their forces by the deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Something had to give; thus the pullout from Basra.

Never at loss for words that amaze and amuse, the White House has declared that the British withdrawal is an indication of victory in Iraq, to which I say, “Cue the white rabbit. Alice has entered the foxhole.” The White House said:

"We're pleased that conditions in Basra have improved sufficiently that they are able to transition more control to the Iraqis. President Bush sees this as a sign of success and what is possible for us once we help the Iraqis deal with sectarian violence."

Wow. That West Wing hookah is loaded with some powerful stuff. There’s very little semblance of success in Basra. The Brits have all but abandoned their former HQ in downtown Basra and are basically holed up at the airport. Two Shiite political factions are running things there already and not because the Brits have brought about a peaceful transition in the region. The Shia have simply taken over, no doubt to the delight of Iran, and violence continues there almost unabated.

That opinion is supported by the most recent quarterly report on the status of security in Iraq issued by – drum roll, please – none other than the U.S. Department of Defense. Just when you think that it’s not possible for one more clown to crawl out of the administration’s car in the center ring – another one emerges with a big red nose. While Bush, Cheney and Rice are slapping celebratory high-fives all around Washington in the wake of this British “success”, the Pentagon is simultaneously declaring that Basra is one of the two provinces in Iraq not ready for transition to the Iraqis, the other one being the infamous Anbar province. The Pentagon includes the city of Basra on a list of the five most violent cities in the country. Note that the secretary of defense is not out on the silk-purse walkway brandishing around the sow’s ear of success in Basra.

The violence in Basra isn’t the same as the violence in Baghdad. There are no Sunni insurgents or al-Qaeda operatives in Basra. There is no Sunni – Shia sectarian violence there, either. The violence in Basra is between competing Shia factions and between any Shia militia and the British. Some analysts suggest there is a higher percentage of violence specifically targeted against coalition troops, as opposed to other Iraqi forces, in Basra than in any other region in Iraq. It’s easy to see why the Pentagon regards Basra as being as unstable as Anbar. It’s almost impossible to see why the White House regards Basra as a success.

Given all this, we’re left with the question asked last night by Keith Olbermann on Countdown – if the U.S. can declare the current status in Basra to constitute a victory and the model of a successful transition to Iraqi control, then why can’t we make the same declaration about Baghdad and its surrounding region? It’s probably time for us to follow the British lead out the side door, the one that’s been repainted and re-hung and is now being called the front door. After all, that’s what the Iraqi prime minister asked us to do back in November.

We, of course, know better than the Iraqis for whom we’re fighting as defenders, and we know better than the British with whom we’re fighting as comrades. Leadership can be such a lonely position.

Lewis Carroll couldn’t have made this stuff up. His drugs weren’t strong enough.

We're Not Aiming at the Right Target

Night before last, I watched Michael Scheuer, the former head of the bin Laden unit at the CIA, be interviewed on MSNBC. Mr. Scheuer talked about the difference between addressing Islamic terrorism on a transnational basis, which he believes we must do, versus addressing it one country at a time – first, Iraq; then, Iran; then, Syria; then, who knows – which is what he believes the Bush administration is doing. Regarding the most serious threat to America, Mr. Scheuer said:

“[W]e still have a government that doesn‘t, as a whole, both parties, don‘t take this threat very seriously. The idea that we‘re going to do with 40,000 troops in Afghanistan what the Soviets couldn‘t do with 150,000 troops is a bit of madness.”

“We‘ve always overestimated the damage we did to al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We didn‘t close the borders there. We won the cities, but the Taliban and al Qaeda escaped basically intact, and they‘ve been rebuilding and reequipping over the past five years.”

“[T]he central place in terms of [the threat of] an attack inside the United States is Afghanistan and Pakistan. When the next attack occurs in America, it will be planned and orchestrated out of Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

“We don‘t treat this Islamist enemy as seriously as we should. We think somehow we‘re going to arrest them, one man at a time. These people are going to detonate a nuclear device inside the United States, and we‘re going to have absolutely nothing to respond against. It‘s going to be a unique situation for a great power, and we‘re going to have no one to blame but ourselves.”

“The Iranians are no threat to the United States unless we provoke them. They may be a threat to the Israelis; they‘re not a threat to the United States. The threat to the United States, inside the United States, comes from al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If you want to address the threat to America, that‘s where it is.”

That was a sobering assessment to hear. If by chance anyone in Washington is a little intoxicated by their belief in the efficacy of American firepower in the war on terrorism being waged in Iraq, then it may be time for them to sober up as well. The World Trade Center got hit twice, eight years apart, and neither of those strikes were planned or executed from Iraq or Iran. Therefore, it stands to reason that nothing we’re doing in Iraq or would do in Iran is going to prevent a third strike in the U.S.

The president and his minions are fond of saying that 1) the war in Iraq is the reason we haven’t been attacked since 2001; and 2) if we leave Iraq then terrorists will follow us home. There is no logical basis for either of those statements. In effect, it took al-Qaeda eight years to “reload” between the first and second attack. In all likelihood, they’re in the process of reloading again while we continue to bark up the wrong tree in the wrong forest.

The threat from Islamic terrorism is, as Mr. Scheuer indicates, a transnational problem and it must be addressed as such. Just as the attacks of 1993 and 2001 had nothing to do with us being in or out of Iraq, the next attack won’t have anything to with us staying or leaving Iraq. The planning and execution of terrorist attacks against America have arisen from the mountain ranges and valleys along the Afghan – Pakistani border, and nothing we’re doing elsewhere will prevent the next one. Furthermore, even if we stomp on al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan then, like a bubble under the carpet, it will pop up somewhere else. That’s not an argument against stomping on them there; it’s just a reality check on our expectations.

The problem that we’re trying to solve with Islamic extremists involves a virulent and militant belief system that has no geopolitical boundaries. It owes its allegiance to its twisted version of god, not to any nation or to any earthly leader. The current version of our war on terror is like trying to solve world hunger by passing out milk and cheese for a couple of years in one African country. The issues are systemic and the forces at play are numerous, complex and deeply embedded in a transnational network. We need a completely revised “war” plan.

History makes it perfectly clear that one country will never solve this kind of problem with its tanks, grenade launchers and rifles. This is a problem that will only be solved by world leaders sitting down at a round table to relentlessly pursue a mutual understanding of what is driving the madness we witness every day and then negotiating a resolution that recognizes current realities and future needs more than the errors and omissions of the past.

Along the way, there may be a need for a country to defend itself, as is each country’s right, and that defense may entail military action similar to the U.S. entering Afghanistan after being attacked from Afghanistan – as long as we understand that such action will not solve the underlying problem for longer than a handful of years. Along the way, there may be a need for various forms of non-military confrontation, such as tough economic and trade sanctions that are enforced without hesitation – as long as we understand that such action will not solve the underlying problem for longer than a handful of years.

Sooner or later we will come to understand that most problems between people get solved the way they have since the beginning of time – by negotiating settlements that recognize competing interests and differing worldviews and by finding a middle ground in which we can coexist in relative peace and prosperity consistent with the values and principles that we share. We must start with a dialog regarding our common ground and thereby earn the trust necessary to allow an effective discussion of our differences.

We need a new plan.

This Plan Is Not a Plan; It's Just a Plan

President Bush has said that he does not plan to attack Iran – but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a plan for an attack on Iran. The BBC is reporting today that “U.S. contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure.”

If such an attack is launched it would apparently hit air and naval bases, missile sites and command centers. The “target sets” include uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz, Isfahan, Arak and Bushehr, with B2-delivered, bunker-busting bombs being used at Natanz, where facilities are more than 25 yards underground. The U.S. and the UN have urged Iran to stop its uranium enrichment program or face further economic sanctions. The UN deadline is tomorrow.

The BBC reports that there are two triggers for such an attack. The first is “any confirmation” that the Iranians are developing a nuclear weapon, which they deny. The second trigger is any “high-casualty attack” on U.S. forces in Iraq that can be traced to Tehran. Both triggers raise cause for serious concern, given the administration’s trigger-happy track record.

Regarding the first trigger, we’ve watched this administration “confirm” with almost absolute certainty the development of a nuclear weapons program once before, in Iraq. Problem: there was no such program; the administration was wrong. Regarding the second trigger, the U.S. can’t decide what it can and cannot trace to senior Iranian leadership. At various times this month certain U.S. sources have claimed they had evidence Iran was providing weapons to Shia militias. Other U.S. sources said they only had proof that some weapons being used in Iraq were "made in Iran". General Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he didn’t know if the Iranian government "clearly knows or is complicit" in providing any weapons.

Which sources will the president listen to as he fingers that second trigger? Will those sources be more reliable than the sources he relied on in 2002 and 2003? This is an issue of trust. Should we trust that the president and his administration will receive sound intelligence and make equally sound judgments in assessing and responding to any risk that may be presented by Iran? We have ample reason to withhold that trust; what reason do we have to maintain it? It’s no longer enough to just say, “He’s our commander-in-chief; we should trust him.” “Game over” on that one.

I don’t fault the administration or the Pentagon for having a detailed contingency plan for military action against Iran. Given the state of affairs in the world, the region and in Iran itself, we’d be foolish not to have such plans on the shelf and ready to use if needed. But that readiness begs more questions than it answers – are those plans fit-for-purpose and reasonable in scope; have the right “triggers” been identified and well defined; will those triggers be properly and clearly confirmed; will we employ those plans only in reaction to aggressive and threatening Iranian action; will we employ them preemptively to prevent Iranian action that we believe is or may be aggressive, threatening and imminent based on sound intelligence; will we go forward unilaterally or with international support – or, will we once again stand up alone and yell “Ready, fire, aim!” like we did in 2003?

One doesn’t have to be a Middle East analyst in order to perceive potentially catastrophic consequences following a U.S. attack on Iran. In fact, it’s hard to see how those consequences could be anything other than catastrophic, at least in the Middle East and other Islamic areas of the world, if not in America.

It’s time to engage the Iranian government in direct talks, as we’ve successfully done in a number of other highly charged international conflicts over the last 50 years. There’s no excuse for failure in this situation. We’ve had enough failure in Washington over the last few years. Let’s try something that has a higher probability of success than just blowing up some big chunk of another country.

Leo vs. Gemini in the House of Representatives

Last week the U.S. House of Representatives passed a nonbinding resolution disapproving the president’s plan to increase combat troop levels in Iraq by more than 21,000 (which doesn’t count the 20,000 other troops that must be added to support that combat troop “surge”). The outcome of this vote was never in doubt. The only question was how many Rebs would cross the aisle and join the Dims in supporting this congressional rebuke of the administration. The answer to that question was 17, with only two Dims crossing the partisan divide in the other direction.

With the partisan split being largely a foregone conclusion, I was interested in other breakdowns of the 246 – 182 vote (there were six no-shows; one seat is unfilled). A friend pointed out a Washington Post website that reports congressional voting statistics. The vote on this resolution reveals some semi-informative observations.

Of those voting, 71% of the female House members voted in favor of the resolution. One conclusion: women don’t like this war. A more intriguing possibility is that women are less inclined to support any war or are at least quicker to come to the conclusion that a given war effort is no longer supportable. I don’t want to go too far down the sexist equivalent of a dark alley, but as a voter I’m interested in what gender differences may bring to the table in Washington. Do wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters see war through different eyes than their male counterparts? I can only speculate. I’ll have to leave the real answer, to the extent there is one, to the social scientists – and to women.

The age breakdown for this vote might be more surprising. The strongest support for this resolution came from the pre-boomers, members born before the end of World War II. 67.5% of the members in this age group voted in favor. The next highest age-based support came from the post-boomers, members born after 1960, with 57.5% of these younger members voting in favor. The voted was closer for the baby boomers in the House, which is by far the largest age category, with 53% supporting the resolution. One conclusion: older people are less inclined to support this war; perhaps any war. Perhaps they’ve lived long enough to see the results of various and sundry wars, revolutions and other armed conflicts and have learned that the fighting often doesn’t solve much in the long run and its cost can be staggering. Similarly, younger people may not be as quick to give up their ideals of peace and diplomacy. They’re also closer in age to the young men and women who make the ultimate sacrifice on any battlefield.

The regional breakdown of this vote was predictable. The strongest support came from the Northeast bastion of liberalism, where 71% of the members from this region supported the resolution. The least support came from the South, where only 47.5% of the members voted in favor, making the South the only region that didn’t have a majority of its members in favor. 57.5% of the members from the West and 55.5% from the Midwest supported it.

Moving into the decidedly trivial stats, the Post’s website also reports on a voting breakdown by astrological sign. This head nod to cultural fascination, while irrelevant, is somewhat interesting. I suspect that people who make something out of astrology can find some kind of meaning in the breakdown. That meaning escapes me. Anyway, there were only two astrological groups of House members who opposed the resolution – Gemini and Capricorn. Only 46% of the Gemini members, which is the largest astrological group in the House, voted in favor. In contrast, 63% of the second largest astrological group, the Cancer members, voted in favor. Leo provided the strongest support for the resolution – 68%. Capricorn, Libra and Sagittarius were each within one or two votes of being evenly divided.

What’s the takeaway here? I guess it’s this: if you’re opposed to this war in particular or the use preemptive force in general, then you should hope for the election of more women from the Northeast who were born under the sign of Leo. On the other hand, it you support this war or preemptive strikes, then you should hope for the election of more men from the South who are under the influence of Gemini.

Like I said – semi-informative. Maybe.

Building 18 - A National Shame

There’s little doubt that the most popular bumper sticker in the country for the last several years has been one of a hundred different ways of saying “Support the Troops”. No matter how controversial or unpopular the war in Iraq may be, or may become, there is essentially universal support for the men and women in uniform who are fulfilling their duty day after day with honor, courage and commitment without regard to the political debate or the public division of opinion.

It’s clear that the country has learned from the mistakes made during Vietnam War when supporting the troops got twisted up and confused with supporting the war. Now, when our servicemen and servicewomen are mentioned even briefly at any public event there is a spontaneous outburst of cheers and applause. These brave men and women indisputably have the respect and appreciation of a grateful nation.

Unbelievably, the treatment being given to some of our most severely wounded troops may belie the “support” being professed for them on the rear end of Fords and Chevys all around the country. Today The Washington Post is running a story about the conditions the wounded are suffering under while hospitalized at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center just five miles from the White House.

Rather than trying to repeat or digest the disturbing conditions revealed in this article, I will provide the link and urge everyone to read it. The article is at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021701172.html. Anyone who believes that s/he supports our service members should read this article and then write the president, the secretary of defense and their congressional representatives to express their dismay in the strongest terms.

The article focuses on Walter Reed with one critical side reference to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. I don’t know if the Navy has the same problems at Bethesda that the Army has at Walter Reed, but if it’s only half as bad at Bethesda then it’s something that must be addressed as well. When my son returned to the states after being seriously wounded in Fallujah in May 2004 he spent a few days in the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany before passing through Andrews AFB for one night on his way to the Naval Medical Center San Diego. While he wasn’t impressed with his experience in the Army hospital in Germany, he was never in Walter Reed. His treatment in San Diego and the condition of the medical facilities there seemed very good.

We can’t just honor the troops with bumper stickers, flags, parades and applause at public gatherings; and we can’t just honor those who continue to serve in good health or those who have been killed in action. We must honor those men and women who have been wounded to the extent that they can’t return to full duty – those who have lost arms and legs; those who have been paralyzed; those who have lost sight or hearing; those who have been seriously burned; those who have suffered brain injuries; and those who struggle with debilitating post-traumatic stress. We cannot forget or fail to support any of these courageous men and women who have served in our behalf.

We owe them far better than Building 18 at Walter Reed. We owe them a debt that equals or exceeds what they have sacrificed for us. Anything less is a national shame.

A Bad Report Card for Good Kids

UNICEF released a report in Germany this week that shows the United States ranking near the bottom in a U.N. survey of child welfare in 21 wealthy countries. We ended up 20th, with only Britain below us. Countries that are less than 20 years removed from being part of the less-developed Eastern Bloc – Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary – ranked ahead of the U.S. The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Spain took the top five spots.

The survey focused on six categories: material well being; health and safety; education; peer and family relationships; behaviors and risks; and young people’s own subjective sense of well being. The U.S. and Britain were in the bottom two-thirds in five of the six categories.

The following reasons were cited for the poor showing by the U.S. and Britain, despite their high levels of material well being:

§ Greater economic inequality
§ Higher levels of child poverty
§ Higher infant mortality
§ Poorer childhood health and health coverage, including preventative care
§ Fewer daycare facilities
§ Levels of investment in children
§ Poor levels of public services and support for families
§ Levels of risky behavior among children, such as drinking and sexual activity
§ Percentage of children living in single-parent homes or with stepparents
§ (90% of the children in Italy and Greece live with both parents; only 60% in the U.S. do)
§ School dropout rate
§ Schoolyard bullying
§ Percentage of children who eat their main meal of the day with their families at least several times a week
§ Proportion of children who said they had “kind” or “helpful” relationships with other children

This isn’t a good national report card, especially for a country that spends so much political energy pontificating about “family values”. A study like this suggests that there are family values that are far more important than the ones that get all the heated rhetoric in this country – gay marriage; sex and violence on TV and in movies; pornography; stem cell research; school vouchers; school prayer; etc.

A lot of people in this country are rabid defenders of embryos, fetuses, and unborn children, but then too many of those same people aren’t advocating for the protection and well being of children after they’re born. Many pro-lifers are, perhaps, more pro-birth than they are pro-life. They want government to ensure that a child gets into childhood; but they don’t want government doing much to ensure that a child gets through childhood. Government is always good when it’s doing what we want it to do.

A number of other studies make it clear that children in the U.S. are falling woefully behind other well-developed countries in multiple key educational measures, which will hurt our ability to compete successfully in a global economy, which will have a direct bearing on the future well being of the American family and its children. One day the U.S. and Britain may discover that even their relative material well being has slipped into the bottom of these rankings.

Americans don’t take criticism about their country very well. I’m sure there will be more than a little pushback on this study. Disparaging comments about UNICEF and the UN are likely to be spit here and there on talk radio and by Faux News commentators.

We’re grieving the loss of American leadership in the world on several fronts and, as everyone knows, the first stage in the grieving process is denial. Hopefully, many of us will at least move on to second-stage anger and eventually to fifth-stage acceptance, which is where we will begin the work of reversing these trends.

We owe not just the best we have to offer to our children, but the best the world has to offer. Just as others have learned from us in the past, we should try to learn from others in the future.

Déjà Vu

At a news conference on Wednesday, President Bush said “I can say with certainty that the Quds Force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided sophisticated IEDs [to Shiite militants] that have harmed our troops [in Iraq].” The Quds Force, an elite branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has historically reported to the top Iranian religious leaders.

The president has previously gone before the American people and expressed certainty about threats from his self-designated “axis of evil”, only to have his certain claims about WMDs in Iraq go up in a misguided mushroom-shaped cloud of hot air and dust. Needless to say, there are credibility issues around White House pronouncements of this nature.

Mr. Bush said that if the U.S. found networks or individuals “who are moving these devices into Iraq, we will deal with them.” It’s not farfetched to conclude that Mr. Bush will decide to “deal with” the Iranians just like he dealt with the Iraqis. It’s not farfetched to ask whether we’re witnessing the initial steps in laying the foundation for another war. 2007 could be 2002 all over again.

Asked about our response to Iranian interference, he said, “We will continue to protect our troops.” Indeed we should; but that broad principle, with which no one disagrees, begs more questions than it answers in this situation. Will we attack Iran but label it a “troop-protection mission”? How far do we go in taking military action under the guise of “protecting our troops”? Who else in the world has supplied Sunni insurgents or Shiite militants with weapons, equipment or other forms of support – will we attack them all? What about other militants in the world who fall under the “war on terror” umbrella – will we attack anyone and everyone who supports one militant faction or another?

What is the logical extension of taking action to protect our troops? It’s as if this president thinks he can parachute a division of troops into Tehran and then declare he has to blow up the country in order to protect the troops he sent there.

Mr. Bush said. “I do not know whether the Quds Force was ordered from the top echelons of the [Iranian] government. But my point is, what’s worse, them ordering it and it happening, or them not ordering it and its happening?” Answering his own question, Mr. Bush suggested that it didn’t matter whether senior Iranian leaders were involved. “What matters is, is that we’re responding,” Mr. Bush said.

Excuse me – but it matters a great deal. If you don’t know who’s involved, then to whom are we responding? It’s obviously worse if this weapons channeling is being ordered from the top echelons in Iran as opposed to some rogue group in the government or in radical Islamic echelons. The implications and consequences are very different in terms of who is held accountable and, more importantly, how they’re held accountable.

U.S. military officials have indicated that we have suspected Iranian involvement of this nature since late 2003, so why are we only reacting to it in early 2007? It may be that the House and Senate debates on resolutions disapproving Mr. Bush’s plan to send more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq is emboldening the White House. The administration says the answer to that question is the recent increase in attacks and casualties, as if the lower levels of earlier attacks and casualties weren’t of equal or sufficient concern. Color me skeptical, but this feels like the White House looking for a scapegoat for its failures in Iraq.

As Mr. Bush held his news conference in Washington, the chief American military spokesman in Baghdad briefed the press on how the administration believes the weapons, particularly lethal devices known as explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs), got to Iraq. Through these coordinated messages the White House is trying to squelch the appearance of divisions in the U.S. government about who in Iran is responsible for shipping these EFPs. A senior DOD analyst said at a briefing last weekend that the shipments were being directed “from the highest levels of the Iranian government.” But General Peter Pace, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, contradicted that account saying, that while some bomb materials were made in Iran, “that does not translate that the Iranian government, per se, for sure, is directly involved in doing this.”

Inexplicably to many people, Mr. Bush has refused to meet with Iranian leaders, notwithstanding the example of several presidents having negotiated directly with the “enemy” to end the Cold War; and notwithstanding the recent success in direct negotiations with the North Koreans, the third member of the evil axis. The president continues to say that he doesn’t believe such negotiations would be effective. “This is a world in which people say, ‘Meet! Sit down and meet!’” he said. “And my answer is, if it yields results, that’s what I’m interested in.”

How in the world do you know whether it will yield results if you don’t attempt it?! Sometimes it’s maddening to listen to the White House “reasoning” that gets offered up day after day like a soup de jour. And heaven forbid that Mr. Bush would do something that the rest of world thinks is reasonable and appropriate.

January 20, 2009, can’t come soon enough.

We Have a Texan Among Us!

I’m proud to announce that my ninth grandchild, and seventh grandson, was just born in Amarillo, Texas! He and his mom, my youngest child, are doing great following a scheduled C-section. My son-in-law is too giddy to deal with right now, as he welcomes a 9 lb. male addition to his beautiful wife and twin girls.

February 15 will now take its spot on our family’s Big Day list. We’re excited to welcome a true Lone Star native as our newest member!

On a day like this, there is no war in Iraq; there is no poverty in the world; there are no political or religious issues to be contended. There’s just peace in the heart and a sense of gratitude for my family and their well being.

Two Missing Linebackers Is Enough

I have struggled with being overweight most of my adult life. During my childhood I never had problems with weight. I was a very active kid; could eat anything I wanted; and never thought about the subject. I don’t think my family owned a bathroom scale and, except for a couple of institutional weigh-ins, I don’t recall even knowing how much I weighed until I got out of college. It was a non-issue for over 25 years.

I failed to see the danger lurking in the above paragraph – the fact that I thought I “could eat anything I wanted” and the fact that I had gotten away with anything I wanted because of continual physical activity. I eventually learned that the seeds of my problems in adulthood were sown and nurtured in childhood and adolescence.

In high school it was common for me to go to a Mexican restaurant and order “three deuces”- two tacos, two enchiladas, and two tostadas (back in the old days a tostada was a flat, grilled tortilla covered with refried beans, cheese, lettuce and tomato). It wasn’t unusual to add a fourth deuce – two slices of the cheese quesadilla that family or friends ordered as an appetizer. There were also the obligatory chips and salsa, and it all got washed down with fully-leaded Coke. No one ever suggested that I ate like a pig. I was told that I ate like a horse; and horses are good, honorable, hard-working, fast-running animals.

Because I was active, I burned the calories. When I was in grade school and junior high, essentially all of my recreation was outside – biking, hiking, all kinds of sports, and running around playing the proverbial backyard versions of “war” and “cowboys and Indians”. In high school, the balance shifted to include more indoor “activities” but there was still a good deal of outdoor recreation. There was also hard work on the family ranch on weekends and during the summer. I was, indeed, a good, honorable, hard-working, fast-running animal.

I entered college tall and slender, still eating whatever I wanted to eat. We would go to an Artic Circle in Salt Lake City and get four hamburgers, fries, their world-famous fry sauce, and a large Coke for less than a buck fifty, and never give it a second thought. And, there was beer, and more beer, and then a little more beer – again, no thought. If I suffered from such indulgence, then basic infantry training at Fort Ord returned me to my lean, mean, fighting-machine status, the best physical condition I’ve ever achieved. But, as an Army Reservist that condition was too short-lived. The balance was eventually lost and the scales began to tip, though it didn’t really register until I got out of law school and began fulltime work. Somewhere around 28 or 29, I realized I had a problem and that problem weighed about 30 pounds, at that time.

Because I entered the Navy after law school and weight monitoring is constant in the military, I jumped on that problem fairly quickly – but on only one end of the equation. I ratcheted up the physical activity by playing competitive tennis, both singles and doubles, in the heat and humidity of the Philippines. Problem solved. I kept active on the courts until I got out of the service. When I went into private practice and became very involved in church leadership in my early 30s, any pretense of balanced eating and physical activity was abandoned. Before long, the problem I carried no longer weighed only 30 pounds.

For the last 25 years I’ve been at war with myself on this issue, a war in which I’ve won and lost many, many battles. In that period the scales have teetered and tottered in wild oscillations – covering a range of 115 pounds. Nope, that’s not a typo. Over the span of those years I’ve lost the equivalent of two NFL linebackers, over 500 pounds, maybe well over. Nope, that’s not a typo, either. As is usually the case, I regained almost the same amount in varying chunks at various times.

It’s been a bloody war; there have been many self-inflicted wounds; there are scars; there have been recurring bouts of post-traumatic stress. Through it all, it never occurred to me that I should stop fighting the war. It never occurred to me that I should surrender to myself or that I should negotiate peace with honor.

Battle fatigue has finally made the old war horse tired and ready for green and peaceful pastures. So – I’ve signed a peace treaty between me and myself. This pact calls for the most basic solution – a new lifestyle, one that attempts to reestablish a natural balance. No diets; no exercise “programs”; no weight-loss “plans” – just a new approach to food and physical activity for the next 30+ years. My goal is to live long enough to have lived more adult years without this weighty problem than I’ve lived with it. That’s an odd form of “balance,” I suppose; but it works for me.

So, I leave my former battlefield to much younger men and women. Sadly, it appears that there is a large and growing army marching relentlessly onto that battlefield. I hurt for them; there will be many casualties; some will not survive.

I say that, and have written this post because I read a report on childhood obesity recently released by the GAO. It concludes that over 18% of the children and adolescents in the U.S. are obese, and that number will rise to 20% by 2010. We’re already spending almost a billion dollars a year in healthcare for children diagnosed as obese. The report finds that our kids are violating the fundamental law of energy balance – they’re consuming more calories than they’re burning – because their level of physical activity has fallen dramatically. People of my generation probably don’t need the GAO to tell us that fact about today’s generation. We can see it all around us.

The report finds that there is a correlation between low childhood physical activity and low socioeconomic status. There is an obvious correlation between activity level and the amount of sedentary behavior – i.e., watching TV, playing video games and using a PC. Adolescents in older suburban areas are more physically active; adolescents in unsafe neighborhoods are less active. Infrastructure factors, like the presence of streetlights, help determine whether children walk or ride a bike to school or get driven. Areas with high minority populations have fewer venues for physical activity (e.g., pools, parks, ball fields, basketball courts, and other sports areas). There are a lot of factors at play in this growing problem.

The bottom line is that the energy balance has to be restored – kids must consume less and burn more. Increasing physical activity and developing a commitment to a lifetime of activity is the single most important step in preventing and combating obesity in children and adolescents. It works for adults, too.

I’ve never publicly disclosed my “numbers”, as I did above. Those aren’t numbers to flaunt. Before this posting there were only a handful of people with whom I’ve discussed them. One benefit to going public is to increase the accountability level. It’s easier to fail in private; it’s harder when it’s public. But accountability isn’t enough of an incentive for me to discuss a personal issue, especially a fairly difficult one, in a venue like this. I can get my wife or a wellness coach to help with accountability.

I’m doing it because I’m the father of five, the stepfather of one and, as of the day after tomorrow, the grandfather of nine. I don’t want those 15 people and other grandkids that may follow to live the kind of imbalanced life that has produced those numbers. Those numbers don’t deserve to see the light of day unless a lifestyle change eventually makes them meaningful in the context of a “good lesson well learned”. Of course, as my dad used to say, “If we serve no other purpose we can always serve as a bad example.”

I’m taking a risk that my commitment to a lifestyle change will take root; will be sustained and become ingrained; and will produce results that makes the old numbers part of a meaningful lesson for others. We’ll see. I may eat these words, along with some quesadilla, chips and salsa.

I’m mostly concerned for my grandchildren because, statistically, at least in the U.S., two or three of them will become obese, while others may just become overweight. No one who has been in a war of any kind wants their loved ones to go through the same experience. War may be necessary from time to time, but it’s no way to live day to day. Fortunately, none of my grandkids exhibit this tendency so far. Perhaps their parents have learned something from their grandfather’s bad example. Maybe all 15+ can yet learn something from his good example.

So, to all within the reach of this posting – maintain a steady energy balance by eating less; eating healthy; and staying physically active throughout your life. Doing so will help lead you to green and peaceful pastures.


(Note: a Blogspot.com problem caused yesterday’s post to be delayed. It didn’t get posted until this morning.)

Happy Birthday to Abe and Uriah

Today is Lincoln’s birthday, certainly a noteworthy event. But more important to me, it’s my Grandpa Uriah’s birthday. I’ve written here about his home in Camp Verde, Arizona, having been the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters for the cavalry unit stationed at Fort Verde in the late 19th century.

I can probably count the number of times that I saw my dad’s father. Grandpa was not a traveling man. He visited our home only twice in my lifetime that I recall, once in San Bernardino, California, and once in Phoenix. We visited him in Camp Verde once and sometimes twice a year, and after frailty caused him to move into Mother Warfield’s, a rest home in Prescott, Arizona.

Grandpa was a quiet and simple man. He didn’t initiate a lot of talk, and his responses to other people’s questions and comments were succinct. When he did start a conversation there weren’t many extra words; he’d get to the point quickly, with no indication that he wanted to go long or deep. He had a good, if dry sense of humor and liked to laugh. He had a mischievous streak and wasn’t above practical jokes, causing my dad to once refer to him as a “man-child”. Interestingly, my mom hung the same title on her father.

Grandpa would sit in his wooden rocking chair, smoking a pipe, almost always wearing a plaid, woolen shirt that had several tiny burn holes due to flying pipe embers. He would sit and rock and more or less preside over his home and those who were in it. His living room had an alcove with a round table on which sat pictures of his loved ones. His family was small, my dad being his only child, but he always wanted new pictures and would display them with pride.

My dad’s mother had died in 1917 when my dad was only four years old. Grandpa eventually remarried a gentle and loving woman named Emma. My dad loved her like a mom. Emma died on my 7th birthday, so I knew my Grandpa mostly as a single man, who, by the way, was frequently flirtatious with women of any age.

I’d be overstating it to say that the trips to Camp Verde were magical visits, but there was something about them that always appealed to me. No matter how old I got I never balked about going there. As a kid, the first anticipation upon arrival was filthy lucre! As soon as we settled into his living room, Grandpa would give my brother and me a Prince Albert tobacco can filled with pennies. We never tired of that little ritual. We’d pour the booty on the floor and count them several times, enjoying the tobacco smell that not only encased them but marked them as special coins of the realm.

Inside this cavernous home we had no trouble finding a spot to play, always avoiding the mysterious “unsafe” third floor with its locked doors that promised imaginable and unimaginable things. Even a journey to the second floor would draw a “Be careful on those stairs” caution from mom or dad – but never from Grandpa. Those stairs are the only reason that my brother and I ever had for owning a Slinky. Who knows how many trips that marvel of twisted wire made down those steps.

The home’s original dining room had been converted to a kitchen and dining area. The original kitchen had become a storage room that was filled with a vast array of old things, including layers and layers of dust and cobwebs. Opening the door to that room was like stepping back a hundred years in time.

Out on the kitchen table we would sit down to the hearty meals favored by a former cowboy. Grandpa worked on several large ranches in the Verde Valley and was a true country boy. At the table, that translated into meat and potatoes. You could vary the meat and the potatoes, but you couldn’t add anything green to his plate. His belief was that animals are supposed to eat green plants and people are supposed to eat animals. Potatoes were given some special categorical dispensation, and he would eat corn occasionally if it was still on the cob. You were welcome to add gravy to the potatoes, but just a slab real butter was always acceptable. On holidays, you could throw in some form of stuffing to the mix, but that wasn’t expected or required. I don’t recall his position on fruit, though I suspect it was marginal.

True to his Scottish heritage, Grandpa would “occasionally” indulge in an evening hot toddy. That makes him the only person I’ve ever known who actually drank this fabled beverage for non-medicinal reasons. His mixture was whiskey, coffee and a little honey. He would accept brandy or rum, but Jack was preferred.

This is where I should mention that my pipe-smoking, meat-and-potatoes-eating, hot-toddy-drinking Grandpa lived to within one month of his 90th birthday. He was still pinching nurses’ butts, too. I said he was quiet and not too talkative; but I also said that he had a mischievous spirit, sometimes almost boyish.

Outside his home, there were things to captivate a boy, including the bathroom. No, I don’t mean an outhouse. I mean a bathroom that had been added to the home at some point, but it could only be accessed from outside on the back porch. In that bathroom sat a classic four-legged bathtub that, unlike Grandpa’s conversations, was long and deep. A youngster or a small woman could barely see over the edge of that thing. In the winter, only a small spacer heater stood between a wet body and the cold air.

Next to that bathroom, where the outhouse used to stand, was the septic tank. I’m certain it was septic; I’m less sure about the presence of any tank. This “tank” was partly covered, loosely speaking, by some sheets of corrugated tin roofing material. The rest of it was covered by soil – soil that seemed to subside in a menacing manner more and more each year. The only parental warning in Camp Verde that ever exceeded the third-floor stairway warning was the one about that septic tank. I violated the third-floor warning from time to time, but I never even thought about getting too close to the sinking earth and its accompanying sheets of tin.

Several times Camp Verde was overwhelmed with grasshoppers. These weren’t normal grasshoppers. These grasshoppers could be saddled and ridden by small children. They could and would jump over a small child with disquieting ease. If captured they would emit enough “tobacco juice” to warrant keeping a spittoon in the yard.

Nearby was the home of my Aunt Lola Wingfield. Lola wasn’t a real aunt. She was married to my dad’s cousin and became one of those special people who are given the honorary “aunt” or “uncle” designation. She collected antique bottles and glass, in their varying shades of purple and green, but not the kind that you buy – the kind that you find half buried in old washes, alongside dirt roads or near old trash sites. I never turned down a chance to go bottle and glass hunting with Aunt Lola. Lola’s conversion to Mormonism at some point in her adult life made her a bit of a “foreigner” in the family, so she loved being around non-judgmental children. She kept her proselytizing to a minimum. Plus, her semi-outcast status freed her to share family secrets that others wouldn’t talk about. It was Aunt Lola who first told me that my mom had been married to someone else before my dad. That was a piece of family “glass” that had gotten buried and turned purple, which made it Lola’s stock and trade.

I could go on. I didn’t mean this to become a piece of family history when I started it. I just wanted to wish President Abe and Grandpa Uriah a Happy Birthday. I’m grateful for both of them.

Anna Nicole Smith - Free From Us At Last

Did we kill Anna Nicole Smith?

Should we turn ourselves in to the police and confess that we were accessories and co-conspirators in the systematic disintegration of her 39-year old life? Are we guilty of involuntary manslaughter? Worse, could some of us have actually been voluntary participants in her slow and painful death?

The coroner has yet to determine the putative cause of death, an answer that will probably come from the toxicology reports that will undoubtedly be made public in a few weeks. But, that’s just after-the-fact lab work. It isn’t really going to identify the underlying cause of death.

Anna Nicole Smith died from public exposure. We stared her to death. We ogled every move she made on her perilous journey; we strained to hear every inarticulate and garbled word that she could speak. We plucked her from obscurity and made her a celebrity, thereby tossing her into a cauldron filled with a cultural acid that strips first the clothing and then the flesh off victim after victim.

There are many versions of the celebrity cauldron – one for “stars” of stage and screen; one for recording artists; one for professional athletes and Olympic champions; one for “super” models; one even for notorious rogues and occasional criminals; and then there’s the one that Anna was dumped in – the celebrity of appearance. We initiated her into a cleavage cult, where she was brainwashed and emotionally tortured into believing that blond hair, a bright smile, well-rounded hips and big breasts were a form of talent. Once we had her captive, or should I say captivated, we refused to let her go. She died still being held in our custody; she died under the influence of us.

What did she do to deserve our influential attention? She took off her clothes for a few pages of photographs in a soft-porn magazine that has become an anachronism to all but a few drooling, thick-browed chauvinists; she wore tight jeans in an ad campaign; and she married an incredibility rich and incredibly old man. For these accomplishments of mere appearance, we made her the subject of a reality TV show that bore no relationship to anyone’s reality other than hers.

At that point we had become voyeurs of an almost macabre scene – the breakdown of beauty, the dismembering of an otherwise common woman who happened to have blond hair, a bright smile, well-rounded hips and big breasts. We sat and watched a horrific accident unfold in slow motion right in front of us, and after the potentially deadly crash no one called 911, no one attempted CPR. We just gathered around the scene of the accident and watched the victim gasp for air and bleed to death. And then we walked away and asked, “I wonder what will happen to her baby?”

Her baby’s fate will likely turn on how much attention we pay to her. Will we take her captive and hold her in our custody year after year? Will we throw her into some boiling cauldron of celebrity, the one reserved for the offspring of publicly-proclaimed “stars”? Will we pay attention to this child because she inherits her mother’s “talents” and then tries to prove that fact to us on glossy pages or narrow runways?

We have to ask ourselves, “What are we doing to these people whom we choose to captivate, elevate, celebrate and shower with adoration that so often crosses the boundary into idol worship?” Are we so starved for celebration in our lives that we have to create surrogates so we can live fantasy lives through them? That proximate unreality; that parallel starry, starry night we inhabit is filled with pathos worthy of stage and screen. It makes our lives as sad and pitiful as those whom we crown as our celebrities and christen as our idols.

When it comes to Anna Nicole Smith I am perhaps painting with too broad a brush for those who will read these words. But, who among us is not an accessory to the death of someone higher and brighter in the starry firmament, someone like Princess Diana. She died running from people who wanted to show us yet another set of pictures of her with a man in a Mercedes. Apparently, we, the buyers of those pictures, made mediocre shots worth tens of thousands of dollars; good shots worth hundreds of thousands; and, dear god, a titillating shot worth millions.

To the voyeurs among us who find titillation and celebration only in the lives of others, it’s time for us to stop and build something worth celebrating in our lives. We’re unlikely to ever be charged in the death of Anna Nicole Smith or Princess Diana or any other celebrity, guilty though we may be. But we can atone for our crimes and offer penance in the form of lives worth celebrating in our homes and communities. That would be worth watching day after day.