leaving for vacation.
No internet access.
Little cell phone reception. It's not like I answer the thing anyway, I'm the King of the Screen. And if any of my friends take that personally they don't know me very well in the first place.
Reading List:
George Orwell Homage to Catalonia
Thomas Paine Rights of Man
John Perkins Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Michelle Goldberg Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism
They are all relatively small reads.
Start reading Mother Jones online while I'm gone.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Moving on...
Next week I'll be on vacation. Sweet desert air. Nothing but morning/evening walks, eating, sleeping, and READING.
I should have enough time 2 get through 2 or 3 books.
I'll be finished with The Assassins Gate in the next few days. I couldn't have asked for a better wholistic view of the Iraq War. Never did I plan on having this much knowledge of the situation. Though there is no clear answer on the steps we need 2 take the book has prepared me 2 recognize and promote the best pragmatic initiatives that arise.
I am thinking the first book 2 read on vacation will be Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins or A Game As Old As Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption edited by Stephen Hiatt.
This interest was spurred by some research I had been doing for an organization I volunteer with. Some documents I was reading through kept referencing the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). The more reading I did the more concern grew. Here is a statement straight from the State Departments website.
I also promised myself I would follow the mantra 'think globally, act locally' so I have printed off and copied a notebook worth of articles and reports concerning local issues.
I should have enough time 2 get through 2 or 3 books.
I'll be finished with The Assassins Gate in the next few days. I couldn't have asked for a better wholistic view of the Iraq War. Never did I plan on having this much knowledge of the situation. Though there is no clear answer on the steps we need 2 take the book has prepared me 2 recognize and promote the best pragmatic initiatives that arise.
I am thinking the first book 2 read on vacation will be Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins or A Game As Old As Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption edited by Stephen Hiatt.
This interest was spurred by some research I had been doing for an organization I volunteer with. Some documents I was reading through kept referencing the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). The more reading I did the more concern grew. Here is a statement straight from the State Departments website.
Three years after it was established, the U.S. Millennium ChallengeCorporation
(MCC) has evolved into a major factor in the developing world inmotivating
countries to adopt economic, political and social reforms, says theagency's
chief executive officer.
I also promised myself I would follow the mantra 'think globally, act locally' so I have printed off and copied a notebook worth of articles and reports concerning local issues.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Still enjoying Packer's book. In the third chapter, Special Plans, we start 2 see, on an institutional level, the failure of the administration 2 communicate and prepare for post-war Iraq. The civilian neo-conservative intellectuals he introduced in the first chapters refused 2 cooperate with military leaders, each other, or dissenting intellectuals. Any position or statistic that brought negative attention 2 the Iraq war was quickly dismissed. The most obvious example of this behavior, recently discussed during Robert Gates nomination as Sec. of Defense, is the manner in which Gen. Shinseki was treated after expressing reservations on Iraq. I decided 2 do some research and find out what Packer is writing today, a few years after publishing his book, given recent developments. I found this article from the New Yorker, that discusses a new strategy for handling the "war on terror". If you don't believe new ideas are out there here is an excerpt from the article:
Do these comments take into consideration that the monolithic response might be aimed at the American population to communicate the highest degree of fear and rally support for war efforts?
Kilcullen, an Australian military officer on loan to the U.S., is the subject of the article and appears 2 be the brains behind this new strategy.
Check out the article, Packer is an amazing journalist, he lets his subject(s) do the work for him.
By speaking of Saddam Hussein, the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, the Taliban, the
Iranian government, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda in terms of one big war,
Administration officials and ideologues have made Osama bin Laden's job much
easier. "You don't play to the enemy's global information strategy of making it
all one fight," Kilcullen said. He pointedly avoided describing this as the
Administration's approach. "You say, 'Actually, there are sixty different groups
in sixty different countries who all have different objectives…" In other words,
the global ambitions of the enemy don't automatically demand a monolithic
response.-- http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/061218fa_fact2
Do these comments take into consideration that the monolithic response might be aimed at the American population to communicate the highest degree of fear and rally support for war efforts?
Kilcullen, an Australian military officer on loan to the U.S., is the subject of the article and appears 2 be the brains behind this new strategy.
Check out the article, Packer is an amazing journalist, he lets his subject(s) do the work for him.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Rushed, Dishonest, Unforgivably Partisan, Devistating 2 Alliances
The book is near 500 pages so yes it will probably consume my entries for a while. Over 100 pages into the book Packer finally starts 2 show his views on the Iraq War. The most intense debates he has are with himself. I share this with Packer though my intense debates in isolation are more a result of not having someone 2 engage with in discourse, save my brother on occasion.
I am not a committed pacifist because I believe at times expressing your will through force may be justified. For instance if my 2 year old niece puts a bottle of poisonous chemicals in her mouth and I rip it out that is a sign of physical force to express my will, however I believe it is justified. Now the wider the scope, the more elements involved, the more difficult to justify. Packer looks back at Kosovo, Bosnia and Haiti, what he considers "just wars", and evaluates if an intervention in Iraq is justified. My background on Haiti is dismal but records show that NATO military intervention in Kosovo (lead by the U.S.) caused more deaths. The majority of crimes for which Milosevic was charged actually took place after NATO military strikes began, leading some scholars 2 believe NATO attacks spurred the crimes we were trying 2 prevent (much like we see in Iraq today). This obviously doesn't make these crimes excusable. The lesson is 2 take these "humanitarian interventions" of the 90's into consideration when calculating foreign policy decisions. Packer has yet 2 mention the failure in Somalia or ignoring Rwanda, neither of which would fit nicely with the pro-war liberalism he is framing for his reader in parts of the book.
It must be understood, in regard 2 everything summarized above, that Iraq falls outside any definition of "just war". Packer's cites four problems he had at the beginning of the war--rushed, dishonest, unforgivably partisan, and devastating 2 alliances. He goes on 2 point out that three different times in the past 20 years a military intervention in Iraq would have been justified under most "just war" theories: 1) in 1987-88 when Saddam was gassing the Kurds, 2) In 1991 when a popular uprising was taking place, and 3) in 1998 when Saddam refused any access to weapons inspectors. In 2002 as the Bush Administration was laying the ground work for an invasion of Iraq there were no mass killings taking place, there was no popular uprising and Saddam had allowed weapons inspectors back into the country (even if he was not giving inspectors full access the chief inspector agreed more time was needed 2 negotiate). Essentially 2002 was one time in the past 20 years when a "just war" case could not be made for Iraq.
One issue I hope Packer addresses, and I imagine he will since he falls in this category, is the labeling of people who change their views on the Iraq situation. You know what I am talking about, the old "well he voted for the war in '03 and now he changes his mind? That is a weak individual not 2 be trusted". This labeling is beyond me, its like mocking people who quite smoking.
I am not a committed pacifist because I believe at times expressing your will through force may be justified. For instance if my 2 year old niece puts a bottle of poisonous chemicals in her mouth and I rip it out that is a sign of physical force to express my will, however I believe it is justified. Now the wider the scope, the more elements involved, the more difficult to justify. Packer looks back at Kosovo, Bosnia and Haiti, what he considers "just wars", and evaluates if an intervention in Iraq is justified. My background on Haiti is dismal but records show that NATO military intervention in Kosovo (lead by the U.S.) caused more deaths. The majority of crimes for which Milosevic was charged actually took place after NATO military strikes began, leading some scholars 2 believe NATO attacks spurred the crimes we were trying 2 prevent (much like we see in Iraq today). This obviously doesn't make these crimes excusable. The lesson is 2 take these "humanitarian interventions" of the 90's into consideration when calculating foreign policy decisions. Packer has yet 2 mention the failure in Somalia or ignoring Rwanda, neither of which would fit nicely with the pro-war liberalism he is framing for his reader in parts of the book.
It must be understood, in regard 2 everything summarized above, that Iraq falls outside any definition of "just war". Packer's cites four problems he had at the beginning of the war--rushed, dishonest, unforgivably partisan, and devastating 2 alliances. He goes on 2 point out that three different times in the past 20 years a military intervention in Iraq would have been justified under most "just war" theories: 1) in 1987-88 when Saddam was gassing the Kurds, 2) In 1991 when a popular uprising was taking place, and 3) in 1998 when Saddam refused any access to weapons inspectors. In 2002 as the Bush Administration was laying the ground work for an invasion of Iraq there were no mass killings taking place, there was no popular uprising and Saddam had allowed weapons inspectors back into the country (even if he was not giving inspectors full access the chief inspector agreed more time was needed 2 negotiate). Essentially 2002 was one time in the past 20 years when a "just war" case could not be made for Iraq.
One issue I hope Packer addresses, and I imagine he will since he falls in this category, is the labeling of people who change their views on the Iraq situation. You know what I am talking about, the old "well he voted for the war in '03 and now he changes his mind? That is a weak individual not 2 be trusted". This labeling is beyond me, its like mocking people who quite smoking.
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