Back in World War II, my late great father Stanley Wild -- who we lost exactly one year ago on Sunday -- was a very young, very scared and very brave Naval Lieutenant serving his country in the Pacific. Though my father was not shy about sharing some colorful war stories with his kids, the truth is I have probably learned more about our Second World War from Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg than I ever did from Dad or any of the other great teachers in my life. To me that's a true public service and a rather excellent use of our airwaves and time. Band Of Brothers forever deepened my understanding of war, peace and history, and so I will meekly but fittingly honor my father's guts and grace by tuning into HBO on Sunday night to begin a whole new journey into The Pacific. I only wish my Dad were still here to watch it too.
To put myself in the proper mindset to enter The Pacific, I've come up with a playlist of great songs that -- at least for me - speak powerfully to the very big subject of war & peace from a variety of perspectives and eras. Though I'm no expert on history, I'm fairly certain they did not have iPods on Naval ships during World War II. Yet if they did, here are a few songs I might load onto one for Dad as he shipped off to serve this country and help try to save the world.
More...
March 12, 2010
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: A Story Highlighting the Anguish Faced By Soldiers with Indispensable Skills
Beirut -- On Sergeant Jed Anderson's back is tattooed "I give life and death." As a US Army Arabic linguist in Iraq he did just that -- process intelligence that saved or ended lives. He performed this crucial role in the war effort until becoming the 64th Arabic linguist discharged under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
President Obama, Secretary of Defense Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Mullen support overturning "don't ask don't tell" -- signaling the possible demise of the controversial sixteen year-old policy. Although it humiliated and ruined the careers of many soldiers, Arabic linguists suffered disproportionately at a time when their skills were indispensable. By adhering to the policy -- especially during wartime -- three Presidential administrations handicapped American military capability and demonstrated the policy not only inhumane but self-defeating.
More...
President Obama, Secretary of Defense Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Mullen support overturning "don't ask don't tell" -- signaling the possible demise of the controversial sixteen year-old policy. Although it humiliated and ruined the careers of many soldiers, Arabic linguists suffered disproportionately at a time when their skills were indispensable. By adhering to the policy -- especially during wartime -- three Presidential administrations handicapped American military capability and demonstrated the policy not only inhumane but self-defeating.
More...
Karl Rove Terms Al Gore “One Angry Dude,” Claims Missing Florida Ballots From 2000 Election Are “In His Garage”
Karl Rove has very few regrets. At an intense Q&A yesterday, the senior adviser to President George W. Bush defended the Administration on everything from the Iraq war, to campaign tactics, to its response to Hurricane Katrina. On the invasion of Iraq, Rove said that one of the few things he would have changed is coming out against the critics -- including Democrats who had voted for the invasion -- sooner when it was determined that there were no weapons of mass destruction.
"You've got to either hold everybody accountable, or you've got to drop this myth," said Rove, who recently admitted to the error. "This pernicious, corrosive, hypocritical lie that Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction."
More...
"You've got to either hold everybody accountable, or you've got to drop this myth," said Rove, who recently admitted to the error. "This pernicious, corrosive, hypocritical lie that Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction."
More...
March 11, 2010
House Afghanistan Debate: What Kucinich Accomplished
Yesterday, at long last, there was a vigorous debate about the war in Afghanistan on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. The legislative vehicle was a resolution introduced by Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich calling for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of the year. But House critics of the war have long been agitating for a real debate.
This is the debate that should have been held - at least - last fall when the Administration was considering sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, or - at least - when the Administration announced its plans to send more troops. If the House had held this debate while the Administration was mulling its decision, the Congressional airing of arguments against military escalation and in favor of political and diplomatic solutions would have attracted a lot more attention, and could have affected the decision. No doubt, the possibility that a Congressional debate then might have affected the policy was a key motivation for some in the House leadership not to allow this debate to occur then.
More...
This is the debate that should have been held - at least - last fall when the Administration was considering sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, or - at least - when the Administration announced its plans to send more troops. If the House had held this debate while the Administration was mulling its decision, the Congressional airing of arguments against military escalation and in favor of political and diplomatic solutions would have attracted a lot more attention, and could have affected the decision. No doubt, the possibility that a Congressional debate then might have affected the policy was a key motivation for some in the House leadership not to allow this debate to occur then.
More...
Middle Class Bailout: Celebrating Harry Hopkins’ 120th Birthday with 4 Million Jobs by August 17th.
The middle class needs a bailout for the same reason the banks needed a bailout--long-term systemic risk. If the (much smaller) government during the Great Depression could hire 4 million people in 4 months, why can we not do that today, now, immediately during the Great Recession?
Like the as-yet to be incurred, but already embedded, long-term costs of the Iraq War, the psychological and career trauma inflicted by prolonged unemployment are yet to be felt. But, they are real, they are profound, and they are increasing every day.
More...
Like the as-yet to be incurred, but already embedded, long-term costs of the Iraq War, the psychological and career trauma inflicted by prolonged unemployment are yet to be felt. But, they are real, they are profound, and they are increasing every day.
More...
March 10, 2010
An Oscar for America’s Hubris
What a shame that the one movie about the Iraq war that has a chance of being viewed by a large worldwide audience should be so disappointing. According to press reports, members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally found a movie about the Iraq war they liked because it is "apolitical." Actually, "The Hurt Locker" is just the opposite; it's an endorsement of the politically chauvinistic view that the world is a stage upon which Americans get to deal with their demons no matter the consequence for others.
It is imperial hubris turned into an art form in which the Iraqi people appear as numbed bystanders when they are not deranged extras. It is a perverse tribute to the film's accuracy in portraying the insanity of the U.S. invasion--while ignoring its root causes--that the Iraqis are at no point treated as though they are important.
More...
It is imperial hubris turned into an art form in which the Iraqi people appear as numbed bystanders when they are not deranged extras. It is a perverse tribute to the film's accuracy in portraying the insanity of the U.S. invasion--while ignoring its root causes--that the Iraqis are at no point treated as though they are important.
More...
Moral Cowardice and the Third Reich: The Legacy of Pius XII
Of late it's been a tough time for those working to prevent genocide. Darfur has been off the world's radar screen for months. Then there's the poor Armenians. It wasn't enough that 1.5 million were murdered in a genocide perpetrated by the Ottomon Turks during the First World War. Turns out that for the sake of appeasing Turkey and its increasingly militant Islamist Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Obama is prepared to allow others to rewrite history and deny there was ever a genocide in the first place.
Breaking his campaign promise of January, 2008, where he said that he "stood with the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey's acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide" and that "as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide [which is] not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence," President Obama changed his tune last week. After the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a resolution that declares the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide, the Obama Administration urged the committee not to pass the measure. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has vowed to stop the resolution where it stands for fear of angering Turkey.
More...
Breaking his campaign promise of January, 2008, where he said that he "stood with the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey's acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide" and that "as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide [which is] not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence," President Obama changed his tune last week. After the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a resolution that declares the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide, the Obama Administration urged the committee not to pass the measure. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has vowed to stop the resolution where it stands for fear of angering Turkey.
More...
March 9, 2010
Democracy in Crisis: How China And IMF Crowned Eduardo Dos Santos As The King of Angola
According to the 2009 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions index table, Angola is ranked number 162, one of the most brazenly corrupt countries in the world, tied with Venezuela and countries that media often neglect in global news cycles like Kyrgystan, Congo Brazzaville, Guinea Bissau, and the Democratic Republic of Congo and ranked one or two points better above Somalia, and Sudan at the bottom of the table. Interestingly, Nigeria, a country where corruption is the order of the day, ranked better this time around than Angola at number 130.
During Angola's twenty seven years of ravaging civil war, about six hundred thousands people died. The abnormal level of corruption in the country was downplayed despite the fact that government controlled MPLA used oil revenues to pay all sorts of frivolous bills, while UNITA led by warmonger Jonas Savimbi got a boost from Washington super lobbyist Jack Abramoff's Heritage Foundation, and Reagan's White House, smuggling diamonds to prosecute the war. However, after the killing of Jonas Savimbi by the government troops in 2002, there was a relative calm in Angola with the signing of what was called the Luena Protocol: a memorandum of understanding between the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) and military officers from the Unita rebels, that moved the country one step away from officially ending the war.
More...
During Angola's twenty seven years of ravaging civil war, about six hundred thousands people died. The abnormal level of corruption in the country was downplayed despite the fact that government controlled MPLA used oil revenues to pay all sorts of frivolous bills, while UNITA led by warmonger Jonas Savimbi got a boost from Washington super lobbyist Jack Abramoff's Heritage Foundation, and Reagan's White House, smuggling diamonds to prosecute the war. However, after the killing of Jonas Savimbi by the government troops in 2002, there was a relative calm in Angola with the signing of what was called the Luena Protocol: a memorandum of understanding between the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) and military officers from the Unita rebels, that moved the country one step away from officially ending the war.
More...
‘Flight From Monticello’: Writing a Fresh Take on Thomas Jefferson’s Darkest Days
Books can spring from a single nugget of information. I was reading a revolutionary war history when I came across a brief reference to the traitor Benedict Arnold's invasion of Virginia while Thomas Jefferson was governor. Five years after writing the Declaration of Independence that helped set the revolutionary war in motion, Jefferson was forced to flee Richmond when it was occupied by Arnold and his men.
Eventually, after other British forces invaded the state, Jefferson took refuge in Charlottesville, only to have to take flight from Monticello. The wound inflicted during this period, Jefferson later wrote, would only be cured by the "all-healing grave."
More...
Eventually, after other British forces invaded the state, Jefferson took refuge in Charlottesville, only to have to take flight from Monticello. The wound inflicted during this period, Jefferson later wrote, would only be cured by the "all-healing grave."
More...
March 8, 2010
Size Doesn’t Matter: Missing The Point Of ISAF’s Failure In Marja
Gareth Porter has an excellent piece up on IPS, "Fiction of Marja as City Was U.S. Information War," in which he breaks down the media disinformation campaign on the size of Marja:
Marja is not a city or even a real town, but either a few clusters of farmers' homes or a large agricultural area covering much of the southern Helmand River Valley.
More...