Seven Years After

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." 
(Sinclair Lewis, 1935)

Those in my age bracket have been made fun of for scrupulously remembering where we were and what we were doing the day John F. Kennedy was shot. But we have since been joined by succeeding generations who recall what they were doing the morning of September 11, 2001.

In my case I was at work when I heard about the impact of the first plane. At first it seemed remotely possible it was just an accident. After all, the skies around our largest city were crowded, and the towers were so tall. And at least in the first minutes, no one was taking credit for it.

With the second impact that delusion vanished, along with many others. But still the buildings were standing. It seemed only a matter of time before the fires would be put out and expensive renovations would begin. I remember I even joked that they would have to lower the rent for office space.

I watched the news reports from my desk on a tiny black and white portable TV/radio with a 5-inch screen. Reduced to this scale the giant towers were the size of magic markers scribbling smoke against the sky. I had no idea they were going to collapse until it happened. Nor, apparently, did the police and firefighters who were actively trying to evacuate the buildings. But I was watching when the first roof gave way and I followed it with open mouth all the way down, trying to imagine the calamity that this fuzzy remote image represented.

After that I knew it was only a matter of time until the second building would follow. Conspiracy theorists are having a lot of fun now spinning stories about how the jet fuel was not enough to account for the collapse, how bombs must have been on board, and so on. But according to one of the engineers who designed the structure, the failure was inevitable. There are limits to what even steel can do in the face of extreme heat and crushing weight. The miracle really is that the towers did as little damage to their surroundings as they did when they fell.

By this time my shock had given way to a grim resignation to what was sure to follow. I didn't know the exact form it would take, but I could foresee many years of turmoil and retribution. The peace that had followed the Cold War was over. Whatever cost had been exacted by the destruction of these twin buildings, eventually it would be dwarfed by the expense of what we were bound to inflict on ourselves.

I didn't have to wait very long or look very far to see the first results. Incredibly, some of the young men who worked at my company started bringing their guns to work with them and showing them off to each other, while engaging in bravado about how they would deal with any terrorists they found. They seemed to think we were surrounded, or at least infiltrated, on all sides. One of them told me that "all those people" should be sent back where they came from. When I pointed out that there were over seven million followers of Islam in the country, most of them evidently peaceable, the idea seemed to give him pause.

If I had been able to think faster on my feet I might have added something else. The young man was a Cuban-American, one of our many hyphenated citizens. I could have reminded him about the time when our own city of Miami was plagued with a rash of bombings and assassinations by members of Alpha 66, a militant group devoted to the overthrow of Castro. How would he have felt then if all the Hispanics in the whole country had been rounded up for deportation?

But such arguments have been falling mostly on deaf ears. Confronted by fear there appears to be no limit to our collective stupidity.

The argument could be made that the best reaction to this calamity would have been no reaction at all, or at least no more than paying greater attention to airline security. The number of deaths, fewer than 4,000 in all, was about the same as the number of us that drown each year in the US, and there is no retaliation for that.

By comparison, we kill ourselves or one another with firearms at the rate of 28,000 per year -- and 750 of those are accidental, like the incident that nearly involved Dick Cheney in manslaughter. On the highways we die at the rate of 43,000 per year, ten times the 9/11 figure, a number that dwarfs our military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

But of course it's not about the numbers. The terrorists understood clearly that they were engaged in a struggle that is mostly symbolic. And the administration in Washington reacted in kind. "9/11" was suddenly Pearl Harbor and "Remember the Maine" rolled into one. They immediately cast the incident into military terms. The event was an "attack," something a country or army would do, rather than a crime. It was not mere terrorism, it was "war." (George W. Bush's first reaction was, "that's the first war of the 21st century," sounding like he was pleased to be on deck for it.) And accordingly the military was soon attacking in return, first in Afghanistan, which made some sense, and then Iraq, which made very little sense. Bush claimed it was a slip when he called it, aptly enough, a "crusade."

The military victories were rapid, but the subsequent occupations have not gone so well. Imagine how we would have felt if by 1952, seven years after the end of World War II, our soldiers were still being shot and blown up in Japan, or certain German towns were still in the hands of Nazi holdouts. Such is the situation in both Iraq and Afghanistan, yet we are assured that things are going well. Meanwhile the staggering cost has exceeded even the wildest speculations of critics, and our domestic economy has gone into a tailspin.

Worse yet, we have collectively acquiesced to the dismantling of our civil rights on a scale never before imagined. Habeas corpus, one of the cornerstones of our freedom, has been suspended before, during the Civil War and World War II, but it was soon reinstated. This time it may be gone for good, at least in any case where the magic word "terrorist" has been uttered.

There is hope, of course, as there always is. A new administration, the result of our own "regime change," will have its work cut out trying to extricate itself from the Middle East tarbaby and to heal the many wounds at home and around the world. But the possibility of success is still there. Not this year, or next, but maybe before another seven years have gone by, we may be able to look back on what we learned. Let's just hope we can afford the price of the lesson.

Déjà Vu All Over Again

This is what the back of my minivan looks like – what you might have seen if you were tailgating me on I-95 over the holidays as I made my pilgrimage from Miami to the area south of Orlando to visit family. It's a drive I've been making at least once or twice a year for decades. But this time for some reason – maybe just because my A/C was broken and I had to roll down the windows – I found myself having a serious experience of déjà vu.

Back around 1970 I owned a similar though larger van. It was even the same color, white. In fact it was big enough that I lived in it, or out of it, for a couple of years. I built a pair of wooden bookcases into the sides and made myself a little desk of mahogany (which I still own). Some square cushions served as seats during the day, and at night, along with a sleeping bag, as a mattress. A propane stove allowed me to heat canned food and make tea.

In those days air-conditioning was still something of a luxury in a vehicle, like an automatic transmission. So naturally I had a three-speed stick shift and no air. Then, as now, the hot Florida wind rumbled in through the windows and blew my (then longer and less gray) hair. Then, as now, something about the van testified to my objection to war. And then, as now, the country was mired in a conflict that seemed to have no end.

Iraq is different from Vietnam, of course, as it is different from Afghanistan, and as Vietnam was different from Korea and World War II. But the disease of war is ever the same, a malady that afflicts the aggressor and defender alike, both the strong and the weak, the victors and the vanquished, and those who only stand innocently by.

Then, as now, I had reason to fear hostility from some of my countrymen for my opposition to war. Sad to say, it is still far from a universal view. The early 70's were still the era of “America, Love It or Leave It” and “Better Dead than Red.” My long hair and mustache were all it took to identify me as one who believed that love of country might manifest as hatred of its policies and a desire for change, and that “reds” might be interesting partners in a political discussion. Had I got caught in a backwater town full of John Birch Society members and cornered in a dark alley, my appearance alone would have been all that was necessary to insure I was beaten up and ridden out of town, maybe even murdered like the unfortunate bikers in Easy Rider.

But I was younger then, perhaps more threatening because of my refusal to serve in the military. Those were the days of the draft, and this is now the time of the “professional” army (something the Founding Fathers tried hard to avoid) that supplements itself with professional mercenaries. Now I'm of an age where I'm not expected to serve, only to cheer the troops along and to pay my share of the staggering cost--now estimated at some 400 million dollars a day.

I no longer look out of place in a crowd. My beliefs would be invisible were it not for those telltale stickers on the rear door of the van. Some drivers have actually complimented me on them, and once a woman even rolled down her window to ask where she could get some. One comes from FCNL, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker-funded political lobby. Another comes from a local group called Miami for Peace. And the old reliable peace sign was clipped off the end of a longer strip that originally contained the phrase “Back by Popular Demand.” (Speaking of déjà vu!) But all that was too involved to yell out to someone in traffic, so I answered with a single word, “Quakers!”--trusting that she could track them down online.

Not everyone is so sanguine toward these sentiments, however. Back when we still hoped the invasion of Iraq could be stopped, I attended a protest rally at Bayfront Park. Two young men of military age--not in uniform, but possibly already in the army to judge from the cut of their hair --approached the crowd with such obviously hostile intent that a police officer intervened to explain things to them and direct them to the far side of the street. Not to be easily deterred, the pair got in a taxi and cruised past us shouting, “WAR! WAR! GO TO WAR!” in voices suitable for a parade ground.

So the hostility is still there in some, and I still wonder how to confront it if challenged. After a protest in 1968 where everyone wore black armbands, I was accosted by a belligerent drunk who demanded to know, “What's that on your arm?” This was a purely rhetorical question, as he clearly knew what it meant, and only wanted me to admit outright that I was one of those commie-pinko-hippies threatening to destroy American life as he knew it. Tongue-tied by the futility of discussion, I simply said, “I'm in mourning,” and went on my way.

Could I do any better now? What would I say if my flagrant bumper stickers caused me to be challenged at a rest-stop by some irate neo-fascist who was upset that my opinions seemed to demean either his own military service or that of his friends and relatives, or simply to run counter to his rage at “those people” in far corners of the world?

I've thought about it, and I think I could say, “I believe that since the time of the Old Testament we have been commanded not to kill. And I believe that when Jesus told us to love one another, even our enemies, that it was a piece of advice we were supposed to follow.”

My imagined adversary might not be a religious person himself, but I can pretend that he grew up in a rural town surrounded by such people, and that long experience would have taught him to defer to the weight of their collective opinion whenever the name of Jesus was invoked. So I imagine him falling silent in the face of this simple statement of principle.

Would this be cowardly of me? Would I then be taking refuge behind this long gone but still powerful figure, like someone jumping behind a stronger friend in the face of a bully? Maybe. But I'd rather think I was following the example of a revolutionary, one whose fondest aim might have been to give us the courage of our convictions.

“If anyone questions you,” I can hear him say, like an older and wiser brother, “this is what you can tell him. And tell him I said so.”

Or, in the simple words of 1970, “Peace, man.”

Charlie Wilson and the Economics of War

Imagine for a moment that you consider yourself a pacifist, as I do. Then imagine that one day you find yourself inwardly cheering when you see a helicopter blown out of the sky by Islamic militants, and chuckling when the vanquished have the following toast proposed to them: "Here's to you, you mother****ers."

Such is the effect of the film, Charlie Wilson's War, in which the occupying Soviets are oh so evil, and in which the poor downtrodden Afghanis are oh so good and pathetic and heroic. Not to mention that a congressman and a CIA operative are somehow subversive radicals who manage to divert huge amounts of government funds into military aid without public notice. Yes, you even find yourself cheering for that.

The characters are so likable, and the story of protecting the weak from the strong is so compelling, that it is impossible not to go along for the ride. Never mind that the oddly reversed roles of the conflict made the Islamic radicals our allies in the Cold War, and that Osama Bin Laden (who is never mentioned) was among them.

There is an even more pointed moment, in case anyone hasn't got on board yet. After a scene in which Julia Roberts, as a wealthy Texan raising funds (and Cain) for Afghanistan, has to be asked to tone down the religious nature of her appeals, we jump to a montage of Soviet armor being destroyed to the soundtrack of "And He Shall Purify" from Handel's Messiah. Yikes! This makes "Onward Christian Soldiers" sound like a Boy Scout campfire song.

In a lot of ways the film only turns serious at the end. After the Soviet army has to admit defeat and leave, Wilson continues to push for aid to rebuild Afghanistan. But this task is not so easy as fighting a war, and he is unable even to get funding to construct some schools. The historic consequences are plain, and don't have to be spelled out.

There is a subtext, however, which I found interesting, whether it was intentional or not. In one of the planning sessions, the point is made that the hand-held anti-aircraft missiles that are being supplied to the Afghanis are a small fraction of the cost of the helicopters that they are bringing down. The ratio means that the "evil empire" can be vastly outspent, and for a bargain price.

Obviously the same math can work just as well when the shoe is on the other foot, as it is now in Iraq, as well as in Afghanistan. Every time another suicide bomber detonates himself, the casualty rate is bound to tilt in his favor. And every roadside bomb that goes off exchanges a few dollars worth of explosives for a vehicle costing tens or hundreds of thousands--not to mention the cost in lives and caring for the wounded. The implication is that the sheer expense of modern weaponry is now a disadvantage to the side that is better equipped. As long as some influx of low-cost weapons exists, the cost to the stronger side will be hugely greater.

This is not necessarily to say that the United States is losing the fight for control of Iraq and Afghanistan; but it insures that the price of success will be enormous, as we are finding out--as the Soviets found out, and as we should have remembered from our own experience in Vietnam. Eventually, if our foreign policy demands continued military interventions elsewhere, the expense may have such a crippling effect on our economy that we will be forced to change our behavior in order to survive.

In short, military domination may have become too costly to work in the modern world. A huge and expensive army may be what you need to destroy another huge and expensive army, but it is not the right tool for controlling a population, or creating real social change. This trend is likely to become more pronounced as new technologies continue to make the old ones more vulnerable at lower cost.

And maybe, in the long run, that really will be something to cheer about.

A Person of Conscience

Back in 2006 I had the opportunity of meeting Camilo Mejia, the US Army staff sergeant who famously refused to return to Iraq at the end of his leave on the grounds of conscience. He spoke to a small group of us at the Miami Friends Meeting, and once again I was greatly impressed by the quiet power of the truth when it is told.

As he talked, the story unfolded of how he was sent to Iraq after nearly completing an eight-year term of enlistment. So we noted that for eight years this dual citizen of Nicaragua and Costa Rica had voluntarily served his country of residence in a difficult and demanding role.

Suddenly, however, he and his unit were thrust into guard duty at a "detention camp" in Iraq. The first thing they were told was never to refer to their facility as a "prisoner of war camp." This, he later concluded, was because it didn't meet the international standards for such a camp. For example, there were no doctors at the facility, and few medical resources.

The second thing they learned was that the people in charge of the camp (whom they called "spooks") were not to be identified. These men were not in the military. They wore no insignias and had no names or titles. But they were in charge, and the army had to follow their orders. We can only speculate what shadowy agency of our government these people represented.

Mejia and the men under his command quickly discovered that their job in this facility amounted to torturing those interred -- at least those who had been identified as "armed combatants." (A classification, he explained, that might include a shepherd who kept a rifle to defend his flock.) Other inmates who were only "suspects" were merely kept captive, but those with the "armed combatant" designation were kept awake for days on end by being kept standing, by exposure to loud noises (imagine a heavy hammer hitting a concrete wall right next to your ear in a loud and echoing room), or by immersion in cold water.

Can you imagine being in cold water and not allowed to come out? Of course you can. Just think about lying in the bath until the hot water turns uncomfortably cold, how the skin shrivels up on the pads of your fingers. Or remember being in the swimming pool until it feels like time to get out and lie in the sun. Except you can't. How long could you stay there? How many hours? A day? Longer? What if you needed a bathroom during that time?

Our government is on record denying that it has used "torture" methods in its treatment of captives. I would suggest that anyone who believes that should try being subjected to the kind of conditions that prevailed in the camp where Mejia and his fellow soldiers were stationed. Then they should decide for themselves if those conditions amount to torture or not.

Of course, the prisoners were not the only victims of their treatment. Hundreds of young American soldiers were equally brutalized by being forced to commit actions that run counter to all standards of humane treatment and human decency. Mejia has said that he now feels that he let his men down by not working harder to oppose the situation they found themselves in.

Mejia did not immediately rebel against what he was ordered to do. While serving, he followed orders and did his best to insure that the men serving under him did likewise, while doing what he could to insure their well-being under exceedingly difficult circumstances.

His awakening of conscience was a gradual process that only began once he returned home on leave. He found himself failing to make travel arrangements to return to duty. A day went by ... another ... and then a day came when he realized he was not going back, that he had made a decision to object to what he was being asked to do.

Such an objection on moral grounds has long been recognized as a right of citizens in the United States, and is provided for by appealing for Conscientious Objector status, which is what Mejia did. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to a year in prison--which is, unfortunately, the lot of many others in our history who have claimed Conscientious Objector status only to be refused.

This moral judgment is no more or less than what the world thought the Nazis should have done instead of blindly obeying orders during World War II. And our professed ignorance of what is going on in Iraq (as in Guantanamo and elsewhere) is not unlike that of the German nationals who claimed "they did not know" what was being done to the Jews.

Well, after listening to Mejia's first-hand report, I have to admit that I do know. And now, having read this, so do you.








Want to know more? Look for his book, The Road from Ar Ramadi, or consult www.freecamilo.com.

Protesting the War in Iraq

What a way to begin this journal--back to the barricades in
protest over the war. Talk about 60's flashbacks ...

Our local Friends Meeting (Quakers) has been maintaining a
weekly peace vigil in front of the meeting house since before
the invasion of Iraq began, back when we still hoped it could be
averted. A small contingent, sometimes only two or three, have
stood by the road with their signs and waved patiently at
homeward bound motorists during the evening rush hour.
Having been present myself in this small gathering, it was
absolutely exhilarating to find ourselves suddenly joined by
close to a hundred fellow activists organized through MoveOn to
demonstrate in sympathy with Cindy Sheehan, still camped out in
Crawford, Texas.

Motorist response, as always, was overwhelmingly positive. For
every shout of "you [bleeping] idiots!" there were ten carloads of
honking horns, waves, peace signs, thumbs up, and other
expressions of glee and support. One young girl, of elementary
school age, interviewed people for a school project, with Dad
manning the videocam.

Channel 7 was on the scene, too, and taped scenes and interviews
for the late news. Typically, when we waited up to see
ourselves, the news led with a story about animal cruelty and
the usual litany of car accidents before delivering 15 seconds
of video (no sound) on the protest.

Well, if you have to watch the news to find out what's
happening, then you just need to get out more.