Below are some quotes I found today that I liked. If you like any of them too, just click on the corresponding "Tweet this #QUOTE" link, and you will be able to tweet it. Enjoy!
Robert Strange McNamara, who served as the US Secretary of Defense under both Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, died today at the age of 93. He lived a long life, and did many things; but his legacy will be tainted forever by his role in prosecuting the Vietnam War. The lessons he learned and the perspective he gained from that experience are explored brilliantly in the documentary by Errol Morris, The Fog of War, as seen in this clip from the film:
On the occasion of his passing, I would like to share some of the things I learned, and perspective I gained, from working on a project about the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962. Had McNamara, and the administrations for which he served, been as thoughtful and careful when it came to Vietnam as they were in this crisis, their legacy would have been quite different than it is today.
President Kennedy and Secretary of Defense McNamara in an ExCom meeting.
Almost a decade ago, I was hired by New Line Cinema to produce the special features for a DVD of the film, Thirteen Days, which was about President Kennedy's response to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The film was based on the book by Ernest R. May Ph.D. and Philip D. Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis. One of the most fascinating aspects of the crisis was the decision-making process, as orchestrated by Kennedy, and the superlative crisis-management skills he demonstrated. When President Kennedy was informed that the Soviets were establishing a base of nuclear weapons in Cuba, he immediately assembled a diverse team of experts, the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExCom), including Secretary McNamara, to advise him as to his options in dealing with the situation. As the possibility of nuclear war loomed large, Kennedy held multiple, grueling sessions of ExCom. The book contains transcripts of many of these deliberations.
One of the features I made for the DVD was a documentary entitled, "Roots of the Cuban Missile Crisis," in which I explored the historical context of the crisis, and how it informed Kennedy's decisions. I conducted most of my interviews in the Fall of 2000, as Al Gore and George W. Bush were each campaigning to become the 41st President of the United States. None of us knew at the time how either would manage a crisis. What we now know, however, is that President Bush approaches crisis management very differently than Kennedy did.
The world stage and the human condition continue to increase infinitely in complexity, making many of our assumptions and responses to a given crisis obsolete each and every evolving moment. Certainly, it is true that our world has been forged by our past. Each war, each momentous event gives form to our thoughts, our understanding. But who we are, and what we do, is a new and unique entity that merely resembles the progenitors from whom we have inherited this earth. For this reason, we imperil ourselves, both physically and morally, if we try to define our leaders, villains and movements with historical analogies, which only serve as limited pieces of rhetoric, designed to win our respective arguments. (Case in point was the fact that from the onset of the Iraq War, EACH side likened the other to Hitler, in order to stigmatize opposing views.) In order to move forward wisely during any crisis, we must strive to understand, to the best of our abilities, the ways in which the unique circumstances of this place in time must be addressed.
Albert Einstein once said, reflecting this very sentiment at the dawn of the atomic age, "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking..." He knew that we must begin to comprehend the incomprehensible if we were ever going to survive in a world in which we were newly capable of the incomprehensible. Furthermore, he said this in the 1950s, when all the existing plans for the Vietnam situation included the use of nuclear weapons.
That said, of course, I agree that we can look to our past for a better understanding of our present. At 7PM, on Monday, October 22, 1962, President Kennedy appeared on television to inform Americans of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Some of this speech was included in Thirteen Days, as seen in this clip from one of the documentaries I made for the DVD:
In this speech, Kennedy reveals some of the internal struggle that guided his response to the crisis:
"The 1930's taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged ultimately leads to war. This nation is opposed to war. We are also true to our word. Our unswerving objective, therefore, must be to prevent the use of these missiles against this or any other country, and to secure their withdrawal or elimination from the Western Hemisphere."
Kennedy was not only a product of WWII, but furthermore; he felt personal shame from the fact that his father had been an active supporter of the early policy of appeasement toward Hitler in the 1930s. By the time he was faced with the Cuban Missile Crisis, it had become conventional wisdom that Hitler could have been stopped short and WWII avoided, had his aggression been checked years earlier. No one can know whether or not this is true, but Kennedy wisely saw that, whether or not it was true, the situation confronting him had unique aspects which called for a unique response. His belief in the absolute intolerability of a nuclear presence so near our boarders was countered by his fear of retaliation against the people of Berlin, should we act precipitously. There are many ways in which the Cuban Missile Crisis could have been resolved...but I believe that it was Kennedy's determination to fully understand the various nuances of the situation, in order to respond carefully and appropriately, that led to a resolution that did not include a nuclear holocaust.
In another part of that same speech by Kennedy, he speaks to concerns that many of us had about Iraq before the invasion:
"Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation's security to constitute maximum peril. Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace."
While the situation was different, these words explain why in 2002, most Americans considered Saddam's perceived determination to develop nuclear weapons to constitute a direct and deadly threat. While I agree with JFK's premise that the mere possession of weapons of mass destruction by a country like Iraq can constitute a clear and present danger, at the time, I was unconvinced that Iraq did have these weapons. One of the reasons for that doubt was my knowledge of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
While working on Thirteen Days, I had seen the U2 surveillance photos of 1962. In fact, the entire world saw them when Stevenson argued our position at the UN in 1962. In 2002, I found it difficult to believe that forty years later, our technology could not manage to supply us with comparable evidence. We now know that one answer to that question was that there wasn't any evidence. If we had insisted on more proof and less rhetoric, we may have had fewer Senators willing to cast a vote to authorize the war.
The threat of nuclear power in the hands of a perceived enemy is compelling. Fear can influence people to act against some of their most strongly held convictions. In fact, one of the ways our government got the scientists of the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb in the first place, was to convince them (many of them Jewish) that Hitler was hot on the trail of developing the same weapon...which, of course, turned out not to be true. Nonetheless, the fear was enough drive away any reservations any may have had. In 1946, Einstein said: "If I had known that the Germans would not succeed in constructing the atom bomb, I would never have lifted a finger."
None of this is to say that I don't I think we should defend ourselves. However, the question still remains: from whom and how? I think we need to respect the complexity of the situation and respond with a clear understanding of what is actually going on... something Kennedy made every attempt to do and which Bush clearly failed to do when he decided to invade Iraq.
If there is anything I want to learn from the past, it is that we cannot react to situations because our leaders say "just cuz." They told us that all communists were evil...so we blacklisted them, feared them and persecuted them. One of the byproducts of the 1950s red scares was that any person with history or understanding of Asia was branded a "pinko" or a "commie" and was "purged" from the "intelligence" community and government. This is one of the reasons that the government so terribly misjudged so much of what happened during the years we fought in Vietnam. Most of the people who could have knowledgeably advised the President had been weeded out of his pool of advisors.
Sadly, President Bush showed no apparent desire to seek the counsel of those who understood all the nuances of the situation in the middle-east. Yes, his advisors included people who had waged war there, but sorely missing were people who had spent the time to understand what it is to wage peace there. These were my concerns from the start.
No one really knows how Bush would have handled the Cuban missile crisis or how JFK would have handled the Iraq crisis, but we do know that Kennedy's process (calling multiple meetings of top advisors with a variety of perspectives) gave him a more complex understanding of his options and pitfalls than Bush's process did. When lives are at stake, I'll take the guy (or gal) who takes the time to understand the situation fully before committing American blood and treasure.
According to various accounts, Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunni and Shia Muslims for as long as a year after his "Axis of Evil" speech. In contrast, JFK was doodling the word "Berlin" on a piece of paper during the initial meetings about the Cuban Missile Crisis, an indication he was considering the various ramifications of any action he took. I guess my point is that JFK's approach to decision-making was much more thoughtful and; I'd argue that thoughtful leadership is better.
It remains to be seen what President Obama's legacy will be in the end. However, one of the reasons I have such faith in him as a leader, is that he has demonstrated just such an ability to consider the complexities of the world as he navigates the treacherous waters of foreign policy.
Following is an excerpt of his speech against going to war with Iraq from 2002:
I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.
I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.
Let us hope that as President Obama meets incoming challenges, both foreign and domestic, he continues to listen to draw on the strength of conviction and wisdom that led him to oppose the Iraq war in 2002. We know that Robert McNamara had a compass that served him well during the Cuban Missile Crisis...didn't mean he knew which way to go in Vietnam.
News Type: Event — Seeded on Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:45 PM PST Seeded by Noetical
Short-term measures do little to address the underlying economic difficulties that new veterans face, beginning with the job hunt. Veterans, particularly those in their 20s, have faced higher unemployment rates in recent years than those who never served in the military, though the gap has shrunk as the economy has worsened. (Veterans traditionally have lower unemployment rates than non-veterans.)
Recently discharged veterans, though, fared worst of all. A 2007 survey for the Veterans Affairs Department of 1,941 combat veterans who left the military mostly in 2005 showed nearly 18 percent were unemployed as of last year. The average national jobless rate in October was 6.5 percent.
One part of the story that is particularly disturbing to me is:
Active duty troops who switch installations also find themselves struggling. Many of those forced to sell their homes this year are finding a scarcity of buyers, or even renters, particularly in states hit hard by the mortgage crisis. Military spouses must choose between taking a loss on their homes or riding out the housing slowdown and facing another separation from their loved one.
Although the government offers safeguards for some federal employees in similar circumstances, it will not help service members make up the difference if they are forced to sell a home at a loss.
What is worse, foreclosure or excessive debt can damage a service member’s career by leading to discharge, the loss of security clearances or, in extreme cases, jail.
A 2007 California task force reported that in the Navy, the number of security clearances revoked because of debt increased to 1,999 in 2005, from 124 in 2000.
“It’s the crash in the market,” said Joe Gladden, managing partner of Veteran Realty Service America’s Military, who sees families in extremis out of Northern Virginia. “It’s not that they have made stupid decisions.”
Mr. Gladden said e-mail messages and phone calls to his office had become so routine that he encouraged military families to share their stories anonymously on his company Web site, vrsam.com.
“I am about sick over this situation,” one woman wrote. “Our two young boys have to go without seeing Daddy until we can sell our house. Not only that, but we face the possibility of Daddy deploying to Iraq again. Shouldn’t we be able to spend as much time together until that happens?”
…so we make them sell their homes at a loss when they are moved by the Military, and then we kick them out of their jobs or even jail them for having financial difficulties that were created by their service. Oh yeah…and if they want to try to avoid selling their homes at a loss…they have to live away from their families for even longer than their tours of duty kept them away.
YIKES!
Doesn’t sound like supporting the troops to me. Kerry’s foreclosure relief bill sounds like a good start…but we owe more than a good start to our veterans, as well as to their families.
I've gathered some quotes to share with you. Some are funny, some are odd and others are inspirational. All are interesting...at least to me. I hope they are to you as well. Enjoy!
“Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.” —Harry S. Truman
“It is a shame we can't go in and devastate Germany and cut off a few of the Dutch kids' hands and feet and scalp a few of their old men but I guess it will be better to make them work for France and Belgium for fifty years.” —Harry S. Truman (Written at age 34, on November 11, 1918, in a letter to his then fiancée, Bess Wallace. He wrote it from the trenches, near the Verdun front, in reference to the Armistice that ended World War I.)
“The 'C' students run the world.” —Harry S. Truman
“When even one American, who has done nothing wrong, is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril.” —Harry S. Truman
“Our conference in 1945 did much more than draft an international agreement among 50 nations. [We] set down on paper the only principles which will enable civilized human life to continue to survive on this globe.” —Harry S. Truman
“I've said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!” —Harry S. Truman
“Leadership is a word and a concept that has been more argued than almost any other I know. I am not one of the desk-pounding types that likes to stick out his jaw and look like he is bossing the show. I would far rather get behind and, recognizing the frailties and the requirements of human nature, would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.” —Dwight David Eisenhower
“When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.” —Dwight David Eisenhower
“We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.” —Dwight David Eisenhower
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” —Dwight David Eisenhower
“A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.” —Winston Churchill
“Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” —Hermann Goering
“There was never a good war or a bad peace.” —Benjamin Franklin
“Don't talk to me about atrocities in war; all war is an atrocity” —Lord Kitchener
“To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason” —Henry Louis Mencken
“I find war detestable but those who praise it without participating in it even more so” —Romain Rolland
“I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.” —Abbie Hoffman
“Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace” —Theodore Roosevelt
“Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.” —Theodore Roosevelt
“A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.” —Theodore Roosevelt
“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.” —Theodore Roosevelt
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion” —George Washington
“It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.” —George Washington
“Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth.” —George Washington
“A government is like fire, a handy servant, but a dangerous master.” —George Washington
“If I were two faced, would I be wearing this one?” —Abraham Lincoln
“The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force” —Voltaire
“The Declaration of Independence was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to govern others” —Robert Green Ingersoll
“Men say they love independence in a woman, but they don't waste a second demolishing it brick by brick.” —Candice Bergen
“Independence? That's middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.” —George Bernard Shaw
“In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.” —Howard Zinn
“The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.” —John Adams
“Those who won our independence... valued liberty as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.” —Louis D. Brandeis
“Every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable by being necessary.” —Nathan Hale
“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” —Edward Abbey
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” —Mark Twain
“A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers” —John Fitzgerald Kennedy
“The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live.” —Victor Hugo
“All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.” —Hermann Hesse
I'll never forget the day we finally won the Vietnam War. Now I'm not talking about March of 1973, when the last of the American combat soldiers left South Vietnam. I'm not referring to the 21st of January in 1977, when President Carter pardoned all the men who had 'dodged' the draft during the war either. No, the day I'm thinking of was one of the last days in February 1991, when the first President Bush declared a ceasefire in the first Gulf War. That was a mere one hundred hours after the ground campaign started, and not long before we began to move 540,000 American troops out of the Persian Gulf. I remember calling a bunch of friends and family back then, to tell them we had finally won the Vietnam War. It really felt like that at the time.
My father, unlike nearly three million Americans from his generation, never served in Vietnam. In fact, I was conceived in the mid-sixties specifically to keep my father from being drafted and, my birth at the end of 1966 managed to accomplish that goal. By the time 'fatherhood' was no longer a way to defer the draft, my father was old enough to have missed compulsory service in Vietnam. He was lucky and, so was I. Many children of my generation grew up with fathers haunted by their experiences fighting in that war. Moreover, the experience of coming home from the most unpopular war in US history compounded the difficulties that any soldier has when trying to return to civilian life.
The way Americans think of the Vietnam War is complex, varied, has evolved, and continues to. That said, like many of my generation, I grew up believing that it was the first war that America had ever lost. Since it was also the only full-blown war during my lifetime, while I was growing up, the military seemed to live under the dark cloud of its failure. So when Bush announced the end of the relatively brief and successful war in the Persian Gulf, suddenly people were acting as though this had been some kind of a mulligan...as though finally we had been granted the opportunity to redeem ourselves with a war that we not only had won, but had won handily, with hardly any casualties. We had finally won the Vietnam War!
A decade and a half ago, when the first President Bush and his advisors decided to go to war with Iraq, they knew it was a risky proposition politically. They knew it would need to be an unmitigated success. To this end, they limited their objectives, in order to maximize their chances of achieving them. In a speech on April 27, 1991, entitled, "The Gulf War: A First Assessment," then Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, explained the administration's thinking along these lines:
Should we, perhaps, have gone into Baghdad? Should we have gotten involved to a greater extent than we did? Did we leave the job in some respects unfinished? I think the answer is a resounding 'no.'
One of the reasons we were successful, from a military perspective, was because we had very clear-cut military objectives. The President gave us an assignment that could be achieved by the application of military force. He said, "Liberate Kuwait." He said, "Destroy Saddam Hussein's offensive capability," his capacity to threaten his neighbors—both definable military objectives. You give me that kind of an assignment, I can go put together, as the Chiefs, General Powell and General Schwarzkopf masterfully did, a battle plan to do exactly that. And as soon as we had achieved those objectives, we stopped hostilities, on the grounds that we had in fact fulfilled our objective.
Today I was reading an Op-Ed piece from the New York Times called, "Home Alone," by Danielle Trussoni, about her father's difficulties as a Vietnam Veteran. She mentions that, "It saddens him (her father) to watch a new generation of soldiers going off to fight what is becoming an increasingly unpopular war." So how did we get here from there?
For answers, we need look no further than to the architects of the first Gulf War. In the same speech from 1991, Cheney demonstrates an eerily portentous understanding of the pitfalls involved in removing Hussein from power. In the speech, he defends the first Bush administration's decision, during the first Gulf War, to withdraw troops before taking Baghdad:
I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad; we would have had to commit a lot of force, because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place.
What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?
I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times; that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq.
It's just too bad that Cheney didn't heed his own advice. I guess that's what you get when you elect flip-floppers.
The other day I was listening to an interview with John Crawford, author of The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq
on the Al Franken Show. When asked about dealing with the fear of getting blown up while on tour in Iraq, he explained that he couldn't really go around actively thinking about the danger he was in or he wouldn't have been able to function. Instead, he explained, it was more like walking around with that nagging feeling you get when you're driving too fast and you know it's dangerous.
Well, I certainly don't have the kind of daily danger in my life that a soldier in Iraq does. Nonetheless, this metaphor seems apt for the way I feel sometimes, in a world where I believe our leaders are at best idiotic, incompetent, negligent and obtuse and at worst, corrupt, opportunistic, malevolent, depraved and repressive. Each day a new issue riles, irritates or terrifies me. These feelings have become this generalized anxiety that I live with, like I'm in a car that's going a bit too fast...and unfortunately my idiotic tenth cousin once removed (yes, I'm really related to Bush, but I didn't vote for him) is the driver. That said, I am mostly sanguine about the world and its future.
I find that talking about the issues that bother me helps me to diffuse the anxiety, as it allows me to feel that I've made some active contribution to changing that which I fear or dislike. I know we don't usually think of discussion as being an act of change, but it really can be. Whenever I engage in public discourse, whether it's in someone's living room or here on this little slice of cyberspace, I think of myself as being a part of this giant forge in which we all heat, hammer and shape our thoughts. I believe in this process, even though most of the dents we each make in the communal metal are imperceptible.
In addition to reading the news each day in the New York Times, I also consume a variety of opinions each day from talk radio, the Times Op-ed section, various blogs, magazines and cable news shows. We live in an age where there are so many voices contributing to the public dialogue that it can sometimes seem like a meaningless cacophony. While this may be overwhelming sometimes, I consider this superfluity of opinion to be a quality problem that I'm happy to have. I don't agree with every opinion I read, but each helps me to see an issue from a new perspective and helps me to test or temper my own.
This is a reeeelllly long email that I wrote in October of 2002, in response to a bunch of impassioned emails that my family was writing to each other at the time, about whether or not we should go to war with Iraq (it was right after Bush's resolution, back when we still thought Iraq might have WMDs.)
The first part is my take on the pros and cons of going to war with Iraq at the time. The second part is the email my Aunt Jeanine wrote, which I've included with her permission. It includes snippets from some of the responses sent by various family members on the topic, which inspired/instigated my analysis of the situation. It is my hope that this will provide the necessary context. However, in order to respect and protect the privacy of some family members, I have not included all of the emails from my family's exchange. While my response does refer to some of the arguments made that do not appear here, I hope my minor edits to the original text provide the necessary continuity.
(FROM ALITA, WITH MINOR EDITS DUE TO PRIVACY CONCERNS:)
Dear All:
I will admit that my first thought when I saw all these emails was "oh no, this side of the family is just as dysfunctional as everyone else in my crazy extended family...somehow that had escaped my notice for 36 years. But as I began to really read, I came to realize that, while my initial realization did in fact hold some truth, I am grateful to be a part of a family whose members hold strong, impassioned values and beliefs...and have the intellect and will to express them.
On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry began his famous speech, which inspired Virginia to join in the American Revolution with words reflecting this tradition:
"No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope that it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve."
It is the very act of engaging in such a dialogue that distinguishes us from many other societies...not just because we are 'free' to (there are many over the course of the years since 1776 who could attest to the fact that their 'freely expressed' ideas led to their persecution, and sometimes even to their death)...but rather because we are a people who consider it a responsibility to stand up for our ideas and ideals.
I might not always feel proud of "America" as a government, world force or world leader...but I always feel proud to be an American. Nationalism, is a movement, sentiment I have come to distrust and even fear; as are most '-isms.' I think of nationalism as a curtain that governments draw, so that we cannot see what the 'wizard' is up to...as though we can not be trusted to understand or reason in the face of complex issues. I ask, not for the right to decide what to do about the situation in Iraq, but rather for the freedom to learn more about it, to discuss and to participate in a national debate without being labeled as 'Anti-American.'
There has been much talk of Hitler on both sides and; personally, I think that we should all learn more history...there must be other times, other monsters from mankind's recorded past, from which we can learn. Hitler was a manifestation of the particular circumstances that existed during that moment of our past. While there are many lessons to be learned from our interactions with Germany during that time, please remember that one of the most valuable lessons we have learned from our past mistakes is this: while history can help us to understand the present, it can never adequately define it.
The world stage and human condition continues to increase infinitely in complexity, making many of our assumptions and responses to a given crisis obsolete each and every evolving moment. We imperil ourselves, both physically and morally, if we try to define our leaders, villains and movements of today with analogies, which serve only as limited pieces of rhetoric, designed to win our respective arguments. This is made most evident by the fact that BOTH sides are using Hitler to quickly stigmatize each other. Yes, our world has been forged by our past. Each war, each momentous event, gives form to our thoughts, to our understanding. But who we are and what we do is a new and unique entity that merely resembles the progenitors from whom we have inherited this earth. In order to move forward wisely during this crisis, we must strive to understand, to the best of our abilities, the ways in which the unique circumstances of this place in time must be addressed.
Albert Einstein once said, reflecting this very sentiment at the dawn of the atomic age, "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking..." He knew that we must begin to comprehend the incomprehensible if we were ever going to survive in a world in which we were newly capable of the incomprehensible...this was back in the 1950s, when all the existing plans for the Vietnam situation included the use of nuclear weapons.
That said, I suggest we look to another part of our past for a better understanding of our present. At 7 p.m. on Monday, October 22, 1962, President Kennedy appeared on television to inform Americans of the Cuban missile crisis. In this speech, he revealed some of the internal struggle that guided his response to the crisis:
"The 1930's taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged ultimately leads to war. This nation is opposed to war. We are also true to our word. Our unswerving objective, therefore, must be to prevent the use of these missiles against this or any other country, and to secure their withdrawal or elimination from the Western Hemisphere."
Like others of his generation, Kennedy was a man profoundly shaped by lessons learned from WWII. In particular, he felt personal shame from the fact that his father had been an active supporter of the early policy of appeasement toward Hitler in the 1930s. By the time he was faced with the Cuban missile crisis, it had become conventional wisdom that Hitler could have been stopped short, and WWII avoided, had his aggression been checked years earlier. No one can know whether or not this is true. However, at the time, it remained a political reality, one that stigmatized the Kennedy name. Nonetheless, Kennedy wisely saw that, whether or not it was true, the situation confronting him had its own unique aspects, which called for a unique response. His belief in the absolute intolerability of a nuclear presence so near our boarders was countered by his fear of retaliation against the people of Berlin, should we act precipitously. There are many ways in which the Cuban missile crisis could have been resolved. I believe that it was Kennedy's determination to fully understand the various nuances of the situation, in order to respond carefully and appropriately, that led to a resolution that did not include a nuclear holocaust.
In another part of that same speech by Kennedy, he speaks to concerns that many of us have about Iraq today:
"Neither the United States of America, nor the world community of nations, can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation's security to constitute maximum peril. Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace."
I believe that, while the situation was different, these words reflect many of the concerns of those who consider Saddam's actions to similarly constitute a direct and deadly threat. While I agree that the mere possession of weapons of mass destruction by a country like Iraq constitutes a clear and present danger, I am not convinced that Iraq does have these weapons. One reason for this doubt is that I've seen the U2 surveillance photos of 1962, as did the entire world, when Adlai Stevenson argued our position at the UN. I find it difficult to believe that, forty years later, our technology cannot manage to supply us with comparable evidence...if in fact there is any. If it is indeed true that Iraq is a direct and active menace to our lives, where's the evidence? More proof, less rhetoric, please.
History is fraught with instances in which governments have alleged an unproven or exaggerated national hazard, in order to mobilize its citizens to do that which they would otherwise find unconscionable. For example, one of the ways our government got the scientists of the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb was to convince them (many of them Jewish) that Hitler was hot on the trail of developing the same weapon...which of course turned out not to be true. Regarding this, Einstein said in 1946:
"If I had known that the Germans would not succeed in constructing the atom bomb, I would never have lifted a finger."
Of course I think we should defend ourselves! But, from whom and how? I think we need to respect the complexity of the situation, and respond with a clear understanding of what is actually going on. Instead, all I hear is rhetoric that challenges my patriotism whenever I question the government. If there is anything I want to learn from the past, it is that we cannot react to situations because our leaders say "just cuz."
At the onset of the Cold War, our government told us that all communists were evil...so we blacklisted them, feared them and persecuted them. One of the byproducts of the 1950s red scares was that any person with history or understanding of Asia was branded a 'pinko' or a 'commie,' and was 'purged' from the 'intelligence' community and the government. This has been cited as one of the reasons that our government so terribly misjudged much of what happened during the years that we fought in Vietnam. Most of the people who could have knowledgeably advised the President had been weeded out of his pool of advisors. Do we really think that Bush is including men in his circle who understand all the nuances of the situation in the middle-east? Yes, he has people who have waged war there. But, does he have people who have spent the time to understand what it is to wage peace there? These are my concerns.
Ron Rosenbaum, in his New York Observer Article "Goodbye, All That: How Left Idiocies Drove Me to Flee," from October 13, 2002, he gets mad when people respond to Sept. 11th with the sentiment that, "maybe it's a wake-up call for us to recognize how bad we are, Why They Hate Us." But the truth is that we MUST wake up and endeavor to understand their legitimate grievances. Why? Because, there is no other way to begin to understand why they do what they do. How do we fight and win a war if we don't even understand what and whom we are fighting against? This desire to understand the enemy cannot lead anyone to conclude that I think the values of the terrorists are better than ours. To suggest that it does is disingenuous. I am in no way saying that theirs is a better way of life than ours...not even close. But my way of life has taught me to question, "Why?" I question because I have a belief that there is power in knowledge and danger in ignorance. If I am willing to support a war for anything it will be both of and for knowledge.
Some have quoted Aunt Jeanine as saying, "No wonder they all hate us," and have responded by saying, "what one wonders is, how much do the people who say that, HATE the USA themselves. Do you really think that Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and the rest of those people who hate us have a better form of government?" I argue that there is no point to reacting to Jeanine's effort to see the other side with a statement that you know to be false. Of course she doesn't think Iraq has a better form of government...and furthermore, I'm sure she doesn't think that anyone who died on Sept. 11th "deserved it" because of US foreign policy. But honestly, do you actually want to call off any real investigation into the complex dynamics of the situation by dismissing any questions as disloyal? That just doesn't sound like my family...and it certainly conflicts with many of the values you've managed to instill in me.
So anyway, let's have a trial...let's put Saddam on trial for crimes against our nation...and let's see what he's done, what he is planning. Did he participate in the conspiracy to blow up the World Trade Centers? Does he have nukes? Inquiring minds want to know! Pull back the curtain of nationalism and let's have it out like Americans...freely and openly, in pursuit of the truth and a better, safer world. If Bush can give us facts and evidence to march toward war...I'll get in line. But, I'm not willing to blindly and 'patriotically' accept that Bush knows what's best for me or my brothers. We're talking about asking our sons and even daughters to kill and die for something. To use your analogy...if we're going to send our children out to kill the guy who is threatening us...shouldn't we make sure that it isn't just a rumor...started by that guy up the street who never really liked him? Our constitution gave Congress the responsibility of declaring war, because war is a serious thing and; such a declaration from Congress involves a deliberative process that requires the participation of multiple points of view...a process which we have skipped in the past, with poor results.
I do believe that this is a struggle between good and evil...I just don't think that we can say that the US is absolutely good and Islam is absolutely evil...to me it is much more complicated. Furthermore, to the extent that any struggle against evil entails good...how can we "fight the good fight" without remaining mindful of what is good? Surely the sanctity of life, even Muslim life, is paramount. César Chávez once said of violent action that:
"...If you use violence, you have to sell part of yourself for that violence. Then you are no longer a master of your own struggle."
Don't let us loose what is good about America in our fervor to defend it. Chávez also said of violence that it:
"...just hurts those who are already hurt...Instead of exposing the brutality of the oppressor, it justifies it."
If we are really going to win a war against the 'Islamo-fascists' we must also win the war of minds. You can say to the guy in Baghdad that you're there to save him from the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein, but ultimately, it doesn't go over as well when you've just bombed his house and killed his wife and children.
All that said, I guess what I'm really saying in response to the family poll is that the jury is still out with me. I want to see more than just the opening and closing arguments of the prosecutor before I vote on the verdict. The whole thing scares me and; I hope we survive...sometimes I worry that we won't. Furthermore, the simplistic way in which the Bush Administration has handled this question thus far reminds me how lucky we were to have Kennedy at the switch in 1962.
In the end, perhaps no one and nothing can help the 'Islamo-fascists' and Americans to have a meeting of the minds. Voltaire said it well back in 1764:
"What can we say to a man who tells you that he would rather obey God than men, and that therefore he is sure to go to heaven for butchering you? Even the law is impotent against these attacks of rage; it is like reading a court decree to a raving maniac."
Indeed, what can one say to such a man? Nonetheless, the court of world opinion is populated by many who have yet to come to a verdict in regards to whether or not we should go to war with Iraq. All I'm saying is that the process is important...even if the maniacs don't get it. It isn't for them anyway, it's for us. Well, if you've gotten this far, you probably need a nap...I love you all and thanks for reading my rant.
Love, alita.
SO THAT WAS MY TAKE.
FOLLOWING ARE SOME OF THE THINGS MY FAMILY WROTE THAT LED TO MY RANT:
On 10/10/2002 4:00 PM, my Aunt Jeanine wrote the following email, which included some of the responses from other family members. Parenthetical notes are from Jeanine:
I'm taking a poll. A quick "YES" or "NO" will suffice...although a paragraph would be great, too. Thanks.
Q. Do you agree with the passage of the president's Iraq resolution?
Answers as of 10/11/02:
Alita's Grandmother:
"No. But I guess it is a done deed now. We'll just have to pray that he has sense enough to show a little restraint."
Alita's Uncle:
"No. I believe we need to take a strong position. However, we must build consensus and we should use the United Nations. We should do everything possible not to be viewed as an aggressor. I believe the benefit of taking out Iraq does not at this time overshadow the negative of world reaction and the possibility of setting off the entire Muslim nation against us. It will be a short-lived victory, solving little, unless we are reacting to outward aggression by Iraq. I fear that simple minded Bush either doesn't understand the risk, or is simply using this for political gain, trying to detract from other problems at home, such as the economy. Sorry this wasn't a short answer."
Alita's Cousin: (He is busy with school and admits he hasn't enough info to form an opinion, yet. I'll bias him!)
Alita's Other Cousin: (I don't have his email address. But I have reason to believe he would say "NO!!")
Alita: (No response yet.)
Alita's Brother Morgan:
"Nuke 'em, says I."
Alita's Sister In-law Julia:
"No. I do not agree. I don't believe we should wage war on Iraq without the support of the UN or the world community. . ."
Alita's Sister Mariah:
"No. I'd say more, but I don't want to convulse and foam at the mouth right before bed."
Alita's Sister Megan (taken a bit out of context):
"No. ...Our government is out of control. I think a riot is long overdue."
Alita's Aunt Jeanine:
"This resolution is more than the ok for Bush to bomb Iraq. It transfers the power vested in Congress (by the constitution) to the President (one man), giving him the right to declare war whenever and wherever HE sees fit—without discussion from we-the-people. It also sets an arrogant, outrageous precedent for other nations to violently aggress against their own enemies ("Well, the U.S. does it."). If this is not ok for other countries to do, why is it ok for us to do? Have we no shame? No wonder the world hates us!
Should we bomb Iraq right now? Absolutely not. Not without UN support. Not without proof that danger from Iraq is eminent. Not for votes. Not for oil. Not to distract us from the REAL risks to homeland security: an economy, education and healthcare system in shambles.
Can you tell which is the Terrorist Nation? Personally, I think the U.S. needs a regime change."
END OF FAMILY EMAIL SNIPPETS
OKAY, well...that's me and part of my family...at least when it comes to politics. By the way, in case you're worried, my brother Morgan's "Nuke 'em, says I" response was meant to be a joke...my family can sometimes display a dark sense of humor. At any rate, I hope you found this interesting.
, which was about President Kennedy's response to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The film was based on the book by Ernest R. May Ph.D. and Philip D. Zelikow, 
. One of the most fascinating aspects of the crisis was the decision-making process, as orchestrated by Kennedy, and the superlative crisis-management skills he demonstrated. When President Kennedy was informed that the Soviets were establishing a base of nuclear weapons in Cuba, he immediately assembled a diverse team of experts, the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExCom), including Secretary McNamara, to advise him as to his options in dealing with the situation. As the possibility of nuclear war loomed large, Kennedy held multiple, grueling sessions of ExCom. The book contains transcripts of many of these deliberations. 
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