R.P. Barr

A Word about Honor

We often hear the word “honor” in connection with the military. To be sure honor can be used to describe the behavior of a great many service men and women. But, honor is not looking sharp in a uniform, and it doesn’t come from being shot at, or killing the enemy. Honor involves performing the mission with respect toward others, doing what needs to be done without betraying the ideals one is protecting--especially when it is hard to do. The honor of the U.S. Military as an institution was tarnished with the verdicts against the Marines who massacred 24 civilians in Haditha. A roadside bomb blew up a Humvee. Tragic. Did the bombers live in the nearby houses? There is no reason to believe that they did—or didn’t. It is unlikely that the bombers would try to drive past the Marines in a taxi in the aftermath. Perhaps passersby needed to be searched for weapons. That is prudent. Murder is not. Five students and the driver were summarily shot to death. This was not in the heat of battle, and it served no military purpose other than to inspire recruits for the other side. The Marines claim there was small arms fire from the neighborhood. No Marines were hit, so one wonders who the target was. The squad “cleared” the houses by throwing in grenades and spraying the rooms with machine gun fire. Many of the dead: old men, women and children, were shot in the chest and head. Wounds—from what I read--not likely to have been incurred by indiscriminate fire. There was no honor in those murders, even though we can all understand the feelings that motivated them. On the other hand, the cowardice of the reviewing officers who released the killers without charges is inexcusable.

The desecration of fallen enemies has a long, dishonorable history. Severed heads were once posted on pikes. Crucified bodies left where they died as warnings. Vlad the Impaler skewered an entire army on upright stakes and left them as symbols of his wrath. On a more personal level, fingers, ears, noses, tongues etc. have been cut from the dead. Recently, corpses have been dragged through the streets. Urinating on the dead is rather tame by comparison, but still dishonorable.

Men in combat have more in common with the people shooting at them than they do with their own families and neighbors back home. Respect for the enemy does not mean granting them leniency, it means acknowledging the hardship and grit and fear that are involved in battle. And, if you think of Afghanistan, consider that the Taliban and their friends do not have air cover, or med-evac capability or body armor. If you think that roadside bombs are sneaky and cowardly, weigh them against bombs that fall out of the sky. The Taliban regime was as evil and destructive of basic human rights as any in history, but their fighters walk miles over desolate terrane, hide in caves, and attack troops who have them out-numbered and out-gunned. —Well, they may have to be shot, but their bodies deserve a minimal level of respect. That’s honorable.

 

War in Peace

U.S. forces are out of Iraq.  We should never have been there, and it ain’t over yet.

After 9/11, I oversaw a retraining program for my agency to redirect them toward anti-terrorism.  In preparation, I read a few books about al-Qaeda and terrorism.  I don't claim expertise, only a little study.  But, I told people in the classes I taught that Iraq was not the enemy.  Saddam Hussein was a nasty dictator, but not suicidal.  He would not attack us.  He also knew that al-Qaeda’s top two concerns were 1) to get Western influence out of the Middle East, and 2) to overthrow secular leaders in Muslim countries and install theocracies like Iran.  Saddam would not give powerful weapons to al-Qaeda for fear that they would be used against him.  Many, if not most, of my colleagues believed President Bush’s accusations.  A West Point graduate even argued with me.  I told him that as the war stretched on and American casualties accumulated, the people would turn against the war.  He dismissed me a deluded liberal.  The war would be over in a few weeks.  I wonder if he recalls that conversation now.

 I just saw the movie, Fair Game which is about those early pre-war days, and how hard the Bush Administration fought against those who challenged their views.  The right learned nothing from Vietnam.

Saddam Hussein, like Muammar Gaddafi and the Iranian Ayatollahs, did sponsor terrorist activities here and there, but nothing big enough to prompt an invasion.  The world is a better place without him.  Whether getting rid of him was worth a half million Iraqi lives and 4,500 Americans is another question.

 Some commentators worry that Iraq will dissolve in civil war.  It might, but I don’t believe it will happen in the near future.  A few bombs, but no armed uprising.  The primary aftermath, as far as we are concerned, will be taking care of the men and women who served, those who returned with disabilities, and the widows and orphans of those who died.  For at least the next fifty years the government—you and I—will be paying for the wounds of that war just as we have for all of the others. 

 Did you see that the last combat veteran of the First World War died this past year?  I’m sure that there are still a handful of widows and maybe some dependent children who continue to receive benefits.  That’s how long a war takes.

 And, before we get involved in another—after Afghanistan—Congress needs to set aside a century’s amount of benefits.  That should be a requirement.  Budget for that before a single boot steps into combat.  Make the Administration that agitates for war pay for it up front.  Maybe then they will think twice.

 

Putting the Republic at Risk

The first coal in my stocking this Yule was the vote on granting the government power to detain anyone anywhere, including the U.S., on mere suspicion of aiding terrorists.  The first vote on this provision was overwhelmingly in favor.  This bill was the worst threat to the the United States since the British burned Washington in 1814.  It’s been watered down, but hasn’t been killed completely or universally denounced.  

 It is appalling that any Americans would think that our justice system is incapable of dealing with terrorists.  In 1862, the Sioux in Minnesota massacred some 800 settlers.  303 Sioux were arrested, tried and sentenced to hang.  Abraham Lincoln reviewed the sentences and commuted all but 39, which is still the largest mass execution in American history.  Southern sympathizers murdered Lincoln, but the system was trusted to try and condemn 8 conspirators.  In 1920 two men were murdered by anarchist bank robbers. Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were tried and executed.  When communists stole secrets of the atomic bomb, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested, tried, and executed.  I could go on.  Some of the cases are still controversial—and the rules of civilian trials were not always followed--but the point is that none of the suspected terrorists walked away free.  Our record of catching the bad guys is excellent.  We have more people in prison than any other country.  (The pros and cons of executions can be saved for another time.) We don’t need to broaden our detention rules.

 Besides that, we have a reputation (somewhat tarnished now), of being fair.  Our enemies tell their recruits that we are cruel and barbarous.  Reinforcing that prejudice is not helpful to our cause.    Americans like to think of ourselves as the good guys, and our men and women in uniform have proven that to be true in combat zones all over the planet.  The exceptions to that practice have been, in fact, exceptions.  We cannot allow a bunch of millionaire dilettantes in Congress to endanger our troops and diplomats by throwing out the Bill of Rights in an effort to appear tougher than the men and women who actually go into harm’s way.

 Of course it is really less about terrorism than it is an attempt to shut down debate and the free exchange of ideas.  If someone disagrees with a government policy, he is, by definition, an enemy of the state who is giving comfort to the foreign powers who hate us, and should be locked away.  That can be any one of us, depending on who is in office at the time.  And, detention without trial means that you or I don’t even have to disagree with the government.  If I object to the charges on my credit card statement and make a stink about it, the bank manager could make a call, and I disappear.  Take away the matter of credit cards, and that is how some detainees wound up in Guantanamo and spent years trying to fight evidence held in secret.  We must give our enemies benefit of our Constitution in order to protect ourselves.

 

The Israelis have a word for it

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress and was applauded, I assume, for his chutzpah.  Imagine if I picked your wallet from your pocket, and when you demanded it back, I accused you of threatening me.  “Calm down and we can negotiate.  To show my good faith, I will give you a photograph from the wallet.  Now, if you give me something I will give you your driver’s license.  Of course, you have to admit that the wallet is mine, and then I will think about giving you something more, maybe a credit card.”   That is the Israeli concept of negotiations.  Their idea of peace is stealing land without complaint from the rightful owners.

 The news kept repeating Netanyahu’s assertion that before 1967, Israel was only 9 miles wide, and that was not wide enough for security.  Someone should tell him that 900 miles is not wide enough if your neighbors hate you.

 He wants other Arab countries to absorb Palestinian refugees.  Arabs have strong tribal ties.  Making citizens of large blocks of outsiders would destabilize the balance of power in the neighboring countries.  Current events over there show what can happen without adding Palestinians to the mix.

Some people believe that there must be a Jewish state because for centuries the end of the Yom Kippur service and the Passover Seder was, “Next year in Jerusalem.”  I can appreciate that.  But,Jews need to understand that the other Semites, the Arabs, have memories that are just as long.

 There will be no piece until Jerusalem is divided along 1967 lines, until there is a right to return or reparations or some combination of the two, and no peace until the Palestinian state has contiguous territory.  Let the settlements remain, but turn them over to Palestinian control.

 Israel can be an engine for real progress in the new Middle East, but it has to take steps to resolve these conflicts.  They are not the final issues, they are the only issues.

 Meanwhile, the United States needs to stop enabling this paranoid penchant for self-destruction.  Take away—or at least begin with a serious threat to take away aid.  Friends don’t let friends drive delusional.

 

Reaping the Whirlwind

Osama bin Laden is dead.  Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.  There are plenty of other bloggers and people to talk about how long it took to catch him and whether the Pakistanis were protecting him.  I would just like to deplore the people who were celebrating in the streets.

To be sure, the man had earned a brutal end, and I think a bullet in the head was too good for him.  I would much have preferred seeing him humilated by capture and trial.  Yes, I said trial.  I am disgusted by those who seem to think that a fair trial is a free walk.  The justice system grinds down the spirit.  And, it works remarkably well.  Show me a terrorist who has ever walked free from a trial. 

How can someone call himself a patriot or a good American if he doesn’t have faith in our basic institutions?   Maybe someone who is trying to buy off and subvert those institutions.  Beware of the checkbook terrorists.  They walk among us.  Well, not exactly walk—they glide past in limosines with tinted windows.  And, they don’t even do that in my neighborhood—too downscale.  Anyway, they’ve done more damage to America than bin Laden ever dreamed of.

Back to the crowds waving the flags and chanting U-S-A.  Do you remember how we felt when we saw videos of people cheering the attacks on 9/11?  We should be better than that.  Do you remember anyone cheering when we dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?  No, the celebrations waited until the end of the war.

A man was killed.  We do not celebrate that.  Period.  The images of our bad mannered oafs will play in the Middle East for years to come inspiring a new generation of terrorists. 

 It’s good that he’s gone.  It would have been better if it had happened eight years ago, but Bush was distracted with trying to one up his father. 

 The death of Osama bin Laden brings closure of a sort to many who lost relatives to his violence, but no death should inspire cheering in the streets. 

 

Dispatches from the Class War

Yesterday, I took the Metro into D.C. to the GovSec exposition. It’s an annual trade show for the vendors of security and law enforcement stuff to show their wares. Unfortunately, the economy has hurt these companies, too, and the show was not as robust as it had been in past years. I still found some products to lobby for with my cash strapped employer, and picked up a lot of brochures, flyers and catalogues.

I was riding the Metro back into Northern Virginia when a twenty-something black man sat down next to me. Aside from his age, I was mildly put off by the dozen wispy hairs hanging out of his chin. But, he didn't smell bad or have a bottom that spread beyond his seat into mine, so I was content, and thankful for such small blessings..  I continued to flip the pages of a magazine I’d picked up about military and law enforcement small arms.

He said, “You like guns, huh?”

I shrugged, “Yeah, I guess so.”

He pursued, “Were you in the military?”

I nodded and tried to ignore him. After a little back and forth, he told me that he owned a Smith and Wesson .357. Well, we had that in common, and chatted about guns for a few minutes. He tried to impress me, and I tried not to give away any personal details to a stranger.

Then, he asked what I thought of the world situation. I assumed that he was talking about the Middle East, and said that we could expect more.

He said that he had heard the government was setting up detention camps, for when the unrest reached our shores. They weren’t going to take him without a fight. He was going to shoot his way out.

The middle-aged black woman seated in front of us glanced around at him with a raised eyebrow.

I told him that it wasn’t going to come to that. Not here. But, I conceded that conditions were more conducive to a rebellion than they had ever been. The gap between the rich and everyone else was growing wider, and the rich were controlling the politicians. The United States, I continued, has kept the lid on because most of the people believed that they had a voice in government. Once they lose that confidence, bad things will happen.

The young man was ready for that. He had his gun. Before getting off at his stop, he shook my hand.

That young man has caught the fever of the age. The internet and the imagination of romantic paranoia is being brought to life on the nightly news. My seat mate was no Tea Partier, but he is stimulated by their rhetoric. They are coming after him.

You might suspect that I am also a bit paranoid. Well, I have seen some of the numbers.

The average bonus for a Wall Street worker in 2010 was $128,530. That’s the bonus! Meanwhile, on Main Street, employee compensation in the United States relative to the gross national product is lower than it has been in 50 years. Half of all American workers make $25,000 a year or less. And, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, wages for manufacturing workers in the U.S. are 14th in the world. This may be the richest country in the world, but the wealth is stuck at the top.

The wealthiest 5% of American households account for about 37% of all consumer spending. Cadillac sales increased by 36% last year. Private jumbo jets are also a growth market. On the sidewalks, 6.4 million Americans have stopped looking for work, and in 2010, for the first time, a million American homes were lost to foreclosure.

The average CEO is now taking home approximately 185 times as much as the average American worker.

The young man with his .357 is mostly just talk. At least, I hope so for his sake. But, on the other side of the class war, they’re drawing blood without firing a shot.

Just Desert

Okay, I get it that the president has a lot on his plate. But, he really choked on Libya. This is not just any Middle Eastern country, Gaddafi has actually sponsored acts of terrorism against the United States. This is not Saudi Arabia or Bahrain where the totalitarian regimes have been pro-American. It’s not even Yemen or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. This is Muammar Gaddafi on whom Ronald Reagan felt compelled to drop bombs. And, I don’t remember any protests then. The other countries in the region know who he is.

Defense Secretary Gates said that we couldn’t make a no-fly zone without bombing the radar and anti-aircraft missile installations first. And, then, Gaddafi would likely use ground troops to crush the dissenters, so we would have to go to war, and we can’t afford another war. It’s like saying that you can’t order a hamburger because it will come with french fries and you can’t eat french fries without ketchup and you’re allergic to ketchup. Ronald Reagan bombed Gaddafi and there was no war.

If you see a boat sinking, do you call out to the people in the water that you are going to canvas your friends to see who will call the Coast Guard to rescue them?

Gaddafi was murdering people who had been protesting peacefully. In a hostage situation, the police will negotiate as long as it takes--or until the shooting starts. Once the bad guy starts shooting, talking takes a back seat to stopping the bastard.

I was so disappointed in Obama. Not surprised, but disappointed.

Now, of course, we are in it. And--unnecessarily dead protesters aside--the current plan is exactly the right one. We’ve shut down the Libyan Air Force and should stop the advance of the army. Gaddafi should go, too, but his departure should be organic. It should be a Libyan thing, not an American or a NATO thing. All the rebels deserve is something like a level playing field. Then, it’s up to them.

Dispatches from the Class War

Once again, Democrats are being defensive when confronted with a specious charge instead of attacking liars for lying.  In Wisconsin, for instance, how much money would be saved by the Governor’s cutting of public sector pay and pensions?  He says that it is essential, but it would only be about 10% of what he needs to close the deficit.  So, maybe he will need that 10%, but somebody should be challenging him on where he plans to get the other 90%.

I refer you to this link: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/23/133990022/the-nation-in-wisconsin-it-isnt-about-the-money

 John Nichols of The Nation, points out that the previous Democratic administration faced an even larger deficit ($5.94 billion vs the current $3.6 billion) and dealt with it successfully.  In fact, Wisconsin was looking at a $121.4 million surplus when Governor Walker came to office.  He then threw it away in $141 million corporate tax cuts for multinational companies that are going to take their profits out of the state.  Were these tax breaks in exchange for guarantees of new job creation in Wisconsin?  Of course not.

Now let’s go to http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/02/23/pm-how-to-fix-social-security/?refid=0

 Robert Reich explains that Social Security would not be in any trouble today if we had maintained the ratios set in 1983.  For those of us who have forgotten the Social Security overhaul in that year, Reich recalls that earlier age when it looked like Social Security was on the verge of bankruptcy.

 You are aware, of course, that Social Security has a payment cap.  This year the cap is $106,800.  If you make less than that, you pay a flat rate of 10.4% of income (I.e. 4.2% from employee, 6.2% from employer—10.4% from self-employed).  Once your income goes over $106,800, you pay 10.4 for the first $106,800, and nothing after that.  In other words, the prosperous pay proportionately less and less  the higher their income goes.

Back in ’83, after much political wrangling, Congress found a formula that put 90% of all incomes under the cap.  Problem solved, Social Security would go on forever.

 What Congress did not anticipate was that the gap between rich and middle incomes would grow so wide that now the cap only covers 84% of earners.  And, as more money goes to the top with the combination of tax give-aways and salary reductions the gap is only going to grow. 

 Reich suggests that Social Security could be fixed if the cap were raised to $180,000 which would once again cover 90% of earners.  He doesn’t hold out any hope for that to happen. There is no political will.

 I say to remove the cap altogether.  For people making over $180,000, paying the same 10.4% as everyone else is no hardship.  Politicians who depend on the generosity of wealthy contributors would run from that suggestion as if it were radioactive.

 As I said at the top, these are dispatches from the front in a war that affects all of us.  Once the unions are too weak to oppose changes to labor and safety laws, they will be whittled away.  The enemy is relentless and organized.  We had better be the same.

 

The Egyptian Front

There are some obvious lessons in the falls of Hosni Mubarek in Egypt and Tunisia’s Zine Abidine Ben Ali.  The first is that the allure of radical Islamists has lost its luster.  The aforementioned tyrants were overthrown by people who want secular democracies—or some approximation. The second lesson is that the Iraq war was unnecessary to overthrow Saddam Hussein.  Bush jumped the gun by a decade, and thousands died.  There is no army as strong as an idea whose time has come.

 Of course, it could be argued that the extremists’ reaction to Bush’s War was what soured the average Middle Easterer to their message.  All that Muslim on Muslim violence was off-putting.  I would respond that the march toward people's government was the direction that the Middle East was moving before the war, but in the aftermath of our invasion of Iraq, democracy became a dirty word in the Islamic world, and the process slowed.

Demonstrations have broken out across the Middle Eastern crescent: Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, Algeria, and even Persian Iran.  It is not because people are tired of autocrats and corruption, it is because the autocrats and corruption have sucked the hope of a better life from their societies.  Unemployment and underemployment are the drivers.  The contrast between the wealthy upper classes and the poverty of college-graduates-without-political-connections has finally become too much to bear. 

The New York Stock Exchange has just been bought up by a German company, proof, if any was needed, that the new empire of the 21st Century is not geographic, it is financial--a fungus without borders.  The money that Middle Eastern elites have stolen from the lower classes has not been reinvested in their countries, but shipped overseas to other economies that are already in gear.  It is class war waged by the privileged and powerful.

 Egypt and Tunisia are the first counter-attacks in our global class war.  It may not succeed, but it will spread.

 

 

Sex and soldiers

Proponents of allowing gays and lesbians to openly serve in the military have been saying that talk of leering in showers, etc. is fear mongering and will not happen.  That bothers me because when I was in the army, I was sexually harrassed by a gay noncom. 

Now, whatever you are imagining is more dramatic than what really happened.  And, on the scale of unpleasant things that happened to me in the service, this one incident is easily topped by several others. 

 There are only two reasons for mentioning it at all.  First, the military is a much more structured environment than civilian life with fewer options for the lower ranks.  I was a young soldier fresh out of training and he was an older sergeant.  He had all the power, and I was easily led—or misled as it turned out.  Later, I learned that this sergeant had been an officer, but had to resign his commission because of homosexual activities.  The army, out of the kindness often shown to disgraced officers, allowed him to finish out his career as an enlisted man.

 That other young men might be preyed upon by gays is not my greatest fear, however.  I had a friend who had been in the Marines.  One weekend on pass, he and two buddies had a few too many drinks and thought that it would be fun to go to a gay bar they had heard about and beat up the patrons.  So, they hung around outside the establishment until someone left and then they would slap him around and call him names.  They did this several times until the bouncer came outside.  This gay man announced that he had a blackbelt in karate and proceded to mop up the sidewalk with the three marines.  My friend said that he never bothered gays after that.  Live and let live was the lesson he took from it.

 If gays openly serve in the military, there will be experiences like mine, but there will be more cases of gays becoming victims of violence.  We might reflect on the experience of women in the military.

 My mother was a WAC during the war, and her experience was a positive one.  However, I recall a day when I was in the VA and had to interview a female vet in the locked psych ward of a VA hospital.  The locked ward is where they put psychiatric patients that they don’t want in the regular psychiatric ward.  This severely traumatized young woman had been gang raped by several of her fellow soldiers.  Unless you've been in the service, you can't imagine the level of betrayal that represents.  She is hardly the only woman to have been victimized like that.

 When I was in uniform, I met a sergeant who had recently returned from Vietnam.  Among the things he was trying to come to grips with was his encounter with a Red Cross worker.  He had been in combat, and now he was assigned to guard the camp perimeter. This young attactive woman would bring him coffee and a cheery smile while he was staring into the jungle and waiting for death.  He couldn’t handle that disparity.  Finally, he told the girl to stay away, that if he saw her again, he would rape her.  She came back the next day, and he kept his promise.  After that, she did not return.  He felt bad about what he had done, but in his mind, she shouldn’t have been there.

 The second reason I mentioned my own incident is because I did not report it, or even speak of it until now, more than 40 years later.  I had been naïve.  I was not about to confess to my own ignorance and open myself to the critical judgements of others.  “How could you not have known what he was up to?  Or maybe you wanted—whatever.”  And, that attitude by those who hear the complaints is what predators in the military count on.  Unless, of course, the victim takes matters into his own hands, and commits an action that will likely land him in prison.  As a draftee, I was in the Army to avoid prison in the first place, so I did nothing.

 The thing is that not all gays are predators any more than all straight soldiers are rapists.  I am not writing this to oppose gays serving in the military.  People who want to serve and are aware of the risks should be allowed to give it a shot.  Human nature calls for across the board rules so we can dismiss troubling issues and  get on about other business, but like nearly everything else involving human behavior, the more effective solution lies in the management of specific situations.  My point is that responsibility for the prevention of traumatic incidents is going to fall on commanding officers. 

In ROTC, I had an Army major/instructor who told me that when he was stationed in SE Asia, he was in an area where malaria was particularly virulent.  Men died within days of first displaying symptoms.  He ordered his medics to hand out anti-malaria tablets.  Then, he found that some of his men were  throwing away the pills instead of taking them.  So, this commanding officer had to stand next to the medic and inspect the mouths of his soldiers to ensure that they actually swallowed the pills that would save their lives.

 Officers have a lot of extra chores that go beyond their stated duties.  If they don’t take those extra steps, there are bad outcomes.  Regarding sexual matters, the military has a number of religious bigots already in the officer corps who no doubt have strong beliefs about homosexuality--in addition to the misogynists who have always found a home there.  I just don’t know how many of these officers are going to make a sustained effort to keep everyone in line.