Someone like Sean Hannity would wet himself that I am anti-American for what I am about to publish. I think Americans are very ego/ethno-centric and have no clue what is going on in the rest of the world. Nor do they care. Many would say, "Why should I care?" The answer seems obvious.
While I was in Baghdad I had opportunity to work in very close proximity to, in total, about 70 Iraqis. The Army had hired them to do repairs on the palace complex we were living in and operating out of. The conditions those guys had to deal with, even at that time in late 2003 (it has gotten much worse since then), were horrendous. They had to risk getting shot up as they stood at the gate of the complex waiting to get in for cavorting with the American infidels, they risked being kidnapped, murdered, etc. Just watch the news and you'll know what they were putting up with from day to day. They were all pretty good guys and I became good friends with some of them. Some were crooked and thieves (Ali Babba, as they said) but for the most part they were just family men trying to make a living for their families. They were mostly laborers to clean up bomb rubble but we hired some for their skills such as carpentry, plumbing, and electrical. We paid the laborers $3/day and the skilled workers $5/day. They were happy for the income, and if I believe what they told me, it was a very good income compared to what they had been accustomed to. One guy told me he made that much in a month under Saddam, doing the very same work.
Here is an email I sent to my family while I was in Baghdad:
"Mon, 8 Sep 2003 06:17:28 -0700 (PDT) Last week was a good one for language. I learned a lot and I'm finally able to get some elementary thoughts across. I think M. (our 2 year old) speaks better English than I speak Arabic. One of my guys, Thamr, told me last week that his dad was driving his car and four armed men came up while he was stopped and carjacked him. They shot him twice in the leg and robbed him of his car. The people here live in fear for their lives because there is no law, nor order. The same guy, Thamr, told me that he wants to marry a girl he has known since childhood. He is 22 and she is 20. He told me that she has to be 23 years old before she can wed and he has to pay her dad $300 to do it. That's difficult for him because he is supporting his parents and 4 brothers with his $3/day wage. Perhaps within the 3 years he can come up with the money.
"Another guy, Salaam, told me that he had worked on Saddam's palace, the same one where we live. He was doing some marble work. Saddam came through one day to inspect the work. All the workers at the palace had been told not to look up at him. Salaam inadvertently looked up as Saddam was walking through and caught Saddam's eye. Saddam called him over, pulled out a pistol, and shot him in the head...for looking at him. He was in a coma for several months. He showed me the bullet hole...actually he let me feel it because hair had grown over. It was weird to put my finger into a bullet hole in a man's scull.
"It is so saddening to see the conditions and poverty that these people live in. The anarchy they have to experience. They are, for the most part, such good people. Today a Major got angry with me because I wasn't being their overseer. Some of the army types here are so uptight about this stuff. They figure the hajis have to be driven like slaves. They just can't see them as people. Some Americans are so racist. There's a lot of arrogance in people's hearts over here.
"Well, I guess this email has gone on long enough. I am again scheduled to go to Qatar to help on a doc-ex project. I'm praying I'll be able to stay. Thanks for all your support and prayers."
I struggle to have hope in human nature. It seems that as soon as a person is given a little authority, or as he may so suppose, he'll immediately begin to abuse that authority. It seems so clear to me that people will become depraved and inhuman the moment they perceive they can get away with it. One can easily see it in our civic leaders, occasionally our police officers, military personnel, people who, when given a little authority over others, immediately begin to debase themselves by abusing and maltreating those over whom they have authority.
At the same time I have reason to hope because obviously the majority of people are decent well intentioned people. Most police officers are good people, a good many in the military (although I frequently disagree with their morals) are decent hearted folks. My struggle is with the direction it seems a few powerful people are taking this country. As I mentioned in my email, that Major was so concerned that I (the first line of inferior beings) was being too nice to the hajis (the second line of inferior beings). What was so wrong with giving those guys a break who worked in horrendous heat every day, 7 am to 5 pm doing hard manual labor so that joker didn't have to, for a pittance of $3-$5/day. This Major Joker couldn't figure that out. I always wonder what various people would do with power if they had it. I'm often skeptical in this regard.
As a side note, I was listening yesterday to NPR and there was a short news program about slums in poor countries, specifically not the United States. The conditions described were terrible and unimaginable. I remember one line that said, "a stream of sewage comes from the rich part of town. It flows into the slum and never flows out." People live in shacks of cardboard and tin, plastic bags, pretty much anything they can get a hold of. The specific slum being discussed was in Kenya and the speaker said it didn't have an official population because it wasn't even an official place, but it was estimated that the population was about that of San Francisco.
The reason I mention this is that the people said they were happy there, and there was a sense of community. People treated each other with dignity and respect and they looked out for one another. Perhaps that may have been an exception rather than the rule but the principle is certainly there. How can people be humane to one another while living in such destitute circumstances while people in the United States who have everything they could ever desire be so ruthless and inhumane? Clearly wealth doesn't make people good, nor does poverty make people bad. Clearly ethnic, national and racial lines don't define the quality of a person's character.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
The Fight Against Nuclear Arms Proliferation
In the past decade, numerous states have acquired nuclear weapons capability, most recently of course, North Korea, Pakistan and India. Others remain at the forefront of international attention for their efforts to obtain Nuclear Weapons. Iran, for example persistently defies international pressure to abandon its pursuit of Nuclear weapons, and indeed, provokes the west with bellicose talk of wiping Israel off the map and enveloping the western world in the veil of Islam.
Since the fall of the Soviet empire, nuclear proliferation has been a top priority of each successive U.S. presidential administration, as well as most other nations’ executives, the UN, NATO, etc. Nuclear proliferation is no new phenomenon to the world community. Clearly nothing short of military action can persuade a sovereign state to give up its right to possess nuclear weapons (Iraq), but even in Iraq, where Iraq was certainly prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons, the end goal was probably not sufficient justification for the hornet’s nest that followed (in all probability Iraq wasn’t even close to possessing nuclear weapons, or even biological or chemical weapons). Past U.S. administrations have negotiated with “rogue states” and done everything short of bending over to persuade these states to give up their nuclear ambitions. Pakistan and India were handed their nuclear weapons programs on a silver platter when, under the auspice of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, they were given the capability to develop their weapons programs by the means of seemingly benign nuclear power capability gifted to them from the west.
North Korea, as I am writing this short treatise, is demanding the nations involved in the six party talks (Russia, China, Japan, U.S., South Korea) provide NK with nuclear power as a contingency for its elimination of its weapons program. This approach is obviously not an option (Pakistan/India), nor is it an option for the other five to give in to the demands of a felon state like NK. The repercussions of NK’s pursuit and eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons would be felt globally. Even now, Japan is expanding its military capability at a rate unprecedented since the close of the Second World War. Indeed, Japan has in the last few days upgraded its relatively inconsequential defense agency to a full cabinet level ministry in reaction to the obvious threat perceived from across the Sea of Japan. The threat is clearly felt on the opposite side of the Pacific with talk of NK’s long range missile capability. South Korea is perhaps the most affected with its shared hundred mile long border. It is well known that the military force encamped along that border is merely a delaying tactic to slow the advancing forces should NK decide to invade the south. Ideally, the delay would last just long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
With NK and other rogue states in hot pursuit of nuclear weapons, what is to be done? We can’t invade, negotiation is folly, appeasement is even more costly in the long run, so what other options are there?
An economics professor I had while at BYU insisted that world trade is the safest route to assuring peace. Although I don’t entirely disagree with this notion, it seems to me that if it were the foolproof case, the First World War would have been averted since even until now the world hasn’t reached the level of international economic cooperation that it enjoyed prior to WWI. The Persian Gulf War would have been avoided since nearly every country in the world traded for oil with both Iraq and Kuwait. Trade and commerce is evidently a significant motivation by itself for two or more countries to go to war. From the big dog’s perspective, sure, there are no good reasons to go to war with your trading partners, but from the little dog’s perspective (as is the case with NK) belligerence and confrontation are rational means of securing one’s interests. Not to mention if a small country is led by a madman like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or Kim Jung Il. Who is to say to that madman what is rational and what is not?
Another professor I had at BYU insisted that Democracy is the means by which the world of the future will avoid war. His reason for so insisting was that if people are given the choice, they’ll always choose peace over war. This inference is based solely on the assumption that the people care enough to educate themselves about the issues and not be swayed by every wind of doctrine and propaganda put forth by evil designing power brokers. Clearly this inference doesn’t apply to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. George W. Bush used media campaigns and propaganda to influence the ignorant in the United States to favor the invasion and only several years later did we learn for certain that the evidence used and fed like candy to the Hollywood worshiping American public for an impetus for war, was mostly bogus and highly inflated, largely fabricated to provide the American public with the anti-Iraq fervor necessary to fuel a full scale ground war. The American public is so spellbound by the free-speech Hollywood propagandists that it no longer recognizes fact from fiction nor the implications of war other than that it is glorious and exciting. No, democracy is not the be all and end all answer to world peace.
Although only a mediocre president, John F. Kennedy once stated, “It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.” It is indeed a fact that America must, in conjunction with those other necessary aspects, i.e. economic cooperation and the peaceful spread of democracy, perpetually prepare for war to secure its own peace. Regimes with nuclear weapons capability will only increase in number and the more the U.S. and the UN fight against those regimes which actively seek nuclear technology, the more those regimes will fight tooth and nail to get it.
Perhaps the answer is a balanced attack on several fronts, diplomatic, military, economic, and by the means and use of information, to slow the process in order to insure America’s successful preparation for the inevitable eventual reality that hostile rogue states will obtain nuclear weapons. The U.S. comparative advantage is technology. We ought to be using the technology that we have to insure a secure future for our grandchildren and their grandchildren. Let NK, Cuba, Iran, and all the others remain in the stone age if they so choose, but let us make positive preparation for an eventual confrontation (and God willing our preparations will never prove necessary) by leaving those states with outdated and impotent weapons. Let us press into the future, striving for peace while preparing for war.
Since the fall of the Soviet empire, nuclear proliferation has been a top priority of each successive U.S. presidential administration, as well as most other nations’ executives, the UN, NATO, etc. Nuclear proliferation is no new phenomenon to the world community. Clearly nothing short of military action can persuade a sovereign state to give up its right to possess nuclear weapons (Iraq), but even in Iraq, where Iraq was certainly prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons, the end goal was probably not sufficient justification for the hornet’s nest that followed (in all probability Iraq wasn’t even close to possessing nuclear weapons, or even biological or chemical weapons). Past U.S. administrations have negotiated with “rogue states” and done everything short of bending over to persuade these states to give up their nuclear ambitions. Pakistan and India were handed their nuclear weapons programs on a silver platter when, under the auspice of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, they were given the capability to develop their weapons programs by the means of seemingly benign nuclear power capability gifted to them from the west.
North Korea, as I am writing this short treatise, is demanding the nations involved in the six party talks (Russia, China, Japan, U.S., South Korea) provide NK with nuclear power as a contingency for its elimination of its weapons program. This approach is obviously not an option (Pakistan/India), nor is it an option for the other five to give in to the demands of a felon state like NK. The repercussions of NK’s pursuit and eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons would be felt globally. Even now, Japan is expanding its military capability at a rate unprecedented since the close of the Second World War. Indeed, Japan has in the last few days upgraded its relatively inconsequential defense agency to a full cabinet level ministry in reaction to the obvious threat perceived from across the Sea of Japan. The threat is clearly felt on the opposite side of the Pacific with talk of NK’s long range missile capability. South Korea is perhaps the most affected with its shared hundred mile long border. It is well known that the military force encamped along that border is merely a delaying tactic to slow the advancing forces should NK decide to invade the south. Ideally, the delay would last just long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
With NK and other rogue states in hot pursuit of nuclear weapons, what is to be done? We can’t invade, negotiation is folly, appeasement is even more costly in the long run, so what other options are there?
An economics professor I had while at BYU insisted that world trade is the safest route to assuring peace. Although I don’t entirely disagree with this notion, it seems to me that if it were the foolproof case, the First World War would have been averted since even until now the world hasn’t reached the level of international economic cooperation that it enjoyed prior to WWI. The Persian Gulf War would have been avoided since nearly every country in the world traded for oil with both Iraq and Kuwait. Trade and commerce is evidently a significant motivation by itself for two or more countries to go to war. From the big dog’s perspective, sure, there are no good reasons to go to war with your trading partners, but from the little dog’s perspective (as is the case with NK) belligerence and confrontation are rational means of securing one’s interests. Not to mention if a small country is led by a madman like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or Kim Jung Il. Who is to say to that madman what is rational and what is not?
Another professor I had at BYU insisted that Democracy is the means by which the world of the future will avoid war. His reason for so insisting was that if people are given the choice, they’ll always choose peace over war. This inference is based solely on the assumption that the people care enough to educate themselves about the issues and not be swayed by every wind of doctrine and propaganda put forth by evil designing power brokers. Clearly this inference doesn’t apply to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. George W. Bush used media campaigns and propaganda to influence the ignorant in the United States to favor the invasion and only several years later did we learn for certain that the evidence used and fed like candy to the Hollywood worshiping American public for an impetus for war, was mostly bogus and highly inflated, largely fabricated to provide the American public with the anti-Iraq fervor necessary to fuel a full scale ground war. The American public is so spellbound by the free-speech Hollywood propagandists that it no longer recognizes fact from fiction nor the implications of war other than that it is glorious and exciting. No, democracy is not the be all and end all answer to world peace.
Although only a mediocre president, John F. Kennedy once stated, “It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.” It is indeed a fact that America must, in conjunction with those other necessary aspects, i.e. economic cooperation and the peaceful spread of democracy, perpetually prepare for war to secure its own peace. Regimes with nuclear weapons capability will only increase in number and the more the U.S. and the UN fight against those regimes which actively seek nuclear technology, the more those regimes will fight tooth and nail to get it.
Perhaps the answer is a balanced attack on several fronts, diplomatic, military, economic, and by the means and use of information, to slow the process in order to insure America’s successful preparation for the inevitable eventual reality that hostile rogue states will obtain nuclear weapons. The U.S. comparative advantage is technology. We ought to be using the technology that we have to insure a secure future for our grandchildren and their grandchildren. Let NK, Cuba, Iran, and all the others remain in the stone age if they so choose, but let us make positive preparation for an eventual confrontation (and God willing our preparations will never prove necessary) by leaving those states with outdated and impotent weapons. Let us press into the future, striving for peace while preparing for war.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Perpetuating Lies & Propaganda
Not long ago I received an email from a well intentioned brother which read something like this: “location of Babylon – Iraq; location of Ur (city of Abraham’s birth) – Iraq; Location of Nineveh – Iraq; location of Babylonian captivity – Iraq;” etc. for about 3 full pages. At the end of the propaganda there was a blurb something like this: “There is a verse in the Koran that says: The Lion (Saddam) will awaken the sleeping Eagle (America) and the Eagle will proceed to destroy the Lion along with all the Lion’s neighbors and bring balance to the force in the Middle East.” Of course it gave a “chapter and verse” so I, of course, took out my Koran and looked it up. Of course, there was no such verse, so I got online and looked up all the key words in the “verse” in several different online versions of the Koran. And of course, there was no such verse, nor anything like unto it. I wrote him, and all the people he had forwarded it to, explaining that the notion was bogus, that perhaps the places and other facts therein described were accurate, but the climax of the note was completely bogus. Later, I got a return email from my brother. He was thoroughly offended. Coincidently, I also got an email from my uncle who said he appreciated the fact check.
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