Category: Current Affairs

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Fallujah, a Year Later

It was a year ago this week that the Marines and Army went into Fallujah to kill off the insurgency there. Since the fighting ended, Fallujah has mostly disappeared from the news. There was some fitful coverage of the resettlement and rebuilding effort after the battle. Every once in a while, the city’s name shows up in a casualty report when an insurgent bomb goes off there.

One attention-getting episode of the Fallujah offensive involved journalist/blogger Kevin Sites. Shooting video for NBC, he got footage of a Marine killing an apparently helpless and perhaps already mortally wounded insurgent (Navy investigators later found the Marine acted in self-defense and within the rules of war when he shot the Iraqi). Many on the right denounced Sites as a traitor. He soon left Iraq.

Where is Sites today? Well, he’s got a fancy new blog site on Yahoo! called Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone. A tad on the Geraldo side, title-wise, maybe, but I always found Sites to be painstakingly honest in his attempt to balance his own personal reactions to what he sees against his duty to report what’s happening and letting his subjects — especially the U.S. troops he spends time with — say their piece.

This week, he’s back in Fallujah, taking stock of the city a year after the battle. Upon entering the city, the Marine unit he’s with is warned of a possible bomb nearby:

“The threat of a roadside bomb seems to reinforce the memories I have of the city, and so do the many shattered facades of buildings neither demolished nor rebuilt an entire year later.

“Yet while many signs of the battle’s ferocity remain, I also notice something else: the streets are filled with people.

“Shops are open, some operating out of buildings with just three walls or partial roofs. Cars and trucks travel the road alongside children coming from school. There is here a sense of normalcy as well.

“The Marines cannot provide precise figures on how many people returned to their homes in Fallujah after last year’s battle, but some estimates have it as high as two-thirds of the population.”

It’s a glimpse, anyway, of what the rebuilding of Iraq looks like.

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Still Life, with Guy

Kate left for a teachers’ conference at a very nice hotel near Portland. Thom’s in Eugene. Eamon’s in Japan. I’m home alone. With the cat.

So I came home after a part-day freelancing for a high-end home furnishings retailer that shall remain nameless. I let the cat in. I checked the mail. Our cellphone bill was stated as being triple what it actually was. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with the cellphone company, which vary graciously corrected the bill.

I polished off the end of a bag of tortilla chips. Had a beer. Then an ice cream bar. No one’s here to tell me not to.

Then I started semi-obsessively checking the election returns. The more conservative counties in Southern California reported first, and for the first couple of hours after the polls closed, two of Conan‘s four propositions — one that would require unions to get annual permission from members to spend their dues on political causes, one that would require public school teachers to serve five years to get tenure, instead of the current two — were leading. But none of the ultraliberal Bay Area counties was in yet. Neither was L.A.

I finally persuaded myself to stop hitting reload on the election returns page. I went out for a walk in the hills. Stopped at the store. Came back. Now all of Conan’s propositions are losing.

Can I get a yee-haw?

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Voting No

Conan
Conan the Governor forced an election on the state to give De Peepull of Kollyfawnya a chance to enact his "reform" agenda.  I’ve struggled with whether to give in to my utter dislike for Conan and simply vote against anything and everything he proposes — the "Whatever It Is, I’m Against It" approach — or to soberly weigh my responsibilities as a citizen and vote on the measures according to their merits.

I’d like to say I’m taking the high road. But I’m not. It’s mostly because I think that at best, Schwarzenegger has appropriated the language of latter-day populism to bully opponents; at worst, he’s a demagogue. There’s a fundamental dishonesty in his carping crusade against "politics as usual" and "special interests" — the catch-all term for anyone who opposes him, whether it’s Democrats, teachers, other working people, their unions, or union leaders — while he curries favor and raises funds from the state’s corporations and business interests. There’s a fundamental dishonesty in the way he calls for fixing the state’s finances while refusing to even discuss the tax side of the equation. There’s a fundamental dishonesty in his positioning himself as a moderate Republican who stands apart from the party’s conservatives; true, he’s pro-choice, and he straddles the fence on the gay marriage question. But just remember that during the last few days of last year’s presidential campaign, he went to Ohio to campaign for Bush. 

So, even having thought about some of the propositions and whether one or two  might deserve support (I’m thinking of Proposition 77, which would set up a less-partisan reapportionment scheme), I’m voting no on Conan’s whole list.

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The Cornwalls Come Calling

Edibleschoolyard

Once upon a time, King Middle School, the local junior high school, had an overgrown, scrubby patch of broken asphalt at the eastern edge of its roughly 16-acre campus. In the early ’90s, the widely renowned Berkeley chef and food philosopher Alice Waters approached King about clearing the lot and planting an organic garden there. The project happened, and became known as The Edible Schoolyard (pictured above). All the kids at school get a chance to work in the garden as part of King’s curriculum, and the program is a widely lauded public school success story.

But the The Edible Schoolyard has become something else, too: a magnet for Class B (or maybe B+) celebrities. Maria Shriver, mate of Conan, was there last year. Senator Barbara Boxer stopped by once. So did Fred (Mister) Rogers (OK — he’s on my A celebrity list).

Kate and I noticed while we were out walking this morning that the streets around the school are off-limits to parking between 6 a.m. and midnight on Monday. Aloud, I wondered why. Kate remembered that Prince Charles, who reportedly has a deep interest in organic gardening, is dropping by the school tomorrow along with his comrade in arms Camilla. The duke and duchess of Cornwall within spitting distance (just an expression) of Holly Street. I’ve never gone out of my way to see a royal before — neither the hereditary ruler kind nor the pop culturish kind — but since they’re dropping in, I’m tempted to go look the Cornwalls over.

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‘Anything I Need to Tweak?’

My brother John points out the latest chapter in the saga of former FEMA chief Michael “Superdome” Brown. A Louisiana congressman has released some of Brown’s emails (obtained from the Department of Homeland Security) written during the Hurricane Katrina crisis. Brown’s Bartlett’s-worthy response to a dispatch from a deputy in New Orleans who reported the situation was “past critical”:

“Anything specific I need to do or tweak?”

That could be the motto for the entire Bush administration, from 9/11 to Iraq to this thing. I remember talking to Dad before all this Katrina stuff happened about the pure incompetence of these people. They are simply bad at what they do. They are bumblers. Their behavior isn’t grounded in actions-consequences reality (think back to Ron Susskind’s New York Times Magazine piece from last fall and the unnamed administration guy who dismissed “the reality-based community”). They mistake the competence to accomplish discrete tasks — “the CIA can generate intelligence reports” or “the Marines can kick Saddam’s ass” — for a magic wand that will allow them to accomplish whatever they’ve dreamed up. All they need to do is think up a project — “Let’s build a new house!” — invoke some high-sounding principles — “I want it to look like the Taj Mahal!” — then sketch the thing on a napkin and tell the guys with the shovels, cement mixers and hammers to make it happen. What a big surprise that they wind up with a swampy hole in the ground and a half-built foundation with rebar sticking out at crazy angles.

But these folks are optimists: Everyone’s invited to the house warming. And they’re hard working. Just like the emails say: “Even the president has his sleeves rolled up, to just below the elbow.”

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Keywords Without a Post

California special election next week. No.

Alito, or Scalito, or whatever his name is, nominated to the court. Let’s go back to our understanding of the courts and the Constitution c. 1789.

Democrats demand answers on Iraq (yo — where were you three years ago?).

Iraq. Every day.

Libby, Rove, Cheney, special prosecutor. McClellan. Bush — a year ago today.

Bush, bird flu.

For whatever reason: All on my mind. All feel too big right now to get my arms around.

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Falling Back

I’m writing from Eugene. Kate and I are on a quick jaunt up to see Thom. We’ve got an extra hour of sleep tonight, thanks to the end of daylight saving time. And tomorrow, an hour less afternoon light on the trip home. That’s OK. I’ll take the extra hour of sleep.

Let it be noted that after next year, the appointed dates for falling back (and springing ahead) will be changed as part of the new energy law passed and signed earlier this year. Beginning in 2007, clocks will be turned forward the second Sunday of March (instead of the first Sunday of April) and turned back on the first Sunday of November (instead of the last Sunday of October).

Compulsively scrabbling for a little daylight-saving history, I note that 2007 will also be 100th anniversary of the publication of the pamphlet that eventually led to adoption of seasonal clock changing. A well-known London architect and builder named William Willett proposed the scheme in his cheerily titled “The Waste of Daylight.” Willett described the ill he wanted to cure:

“… For nearly half the year the sun shines upon the land for several hours each day while we are asleep, and is rapidly nearing the horizon, having already passed its western limit, when we reach home after the work of the day is over. Under the most favourable circumstances, there then remains only a brief spell of declining daylight in which to spend the short period of leisure at our disposal.

“Now, if some of the hours of wasted sunlight could be withdrawn from the beginning and added to the end of the day, how many advantages would be gained by all, and in particular by those who spend in the open air, when light permits them to do so, whatever time they have at their command after the duties of the day have been discharged.”

He conceded that simply turning the clock ahead an hour might be a bit abrupt, and he thought a change of 80 minutes (instead of the 60 we’ve wound up with) would be more beneficial to society. So he suggested that at 2 a.m. on four consecutive Sunday mornings in April, clocks be turned ahead 20 minutes. The clock would be turned back again over four Sundays in September.

Willett managed to attract the attention of a prominent member of Parliament who championed his idea, but bills to put it into effect went nowhere. Willett died in 1915. The following year, after noticing that its World War I opponent Germany had adopted a daylight-saving scheme of its own, Britain started using Willett’s system.

(The history is well summarized at a site called WebExhibits. And a recently published book, “Seize the Daylight,” appears to tell Willett’s story at length; amazingly (I’m amazed, anyway), another book on the history of daylight saving was published the very same week: “Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving“).

Now, with 2 hours and 28 minutes to go before the clock runs backward, I’m going off to enjoy my extra hour of fall-back sleep.

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Greek for Weather Watchers

First, Tropical Storm Alpha. Now Beta. Now that we’re into Greek letters for naming the remaining Atlantic tropical cyclones this year, a searing question poses itself: What follows beta in the Greek alphabet? The first two letters are easy enough, and I know what the last one is. And, thanks to the fraternities and sororities of the world, I can name many of the intervening letters. But I can’t put them in order.

To cut to the chase: Gamma follows beta. Then delta and epsilon. And if we get that far: zeta, eta, theta, iota, kappa, lambda, mu, nu, xi, omicron, pi, rho, sigma, tau, upsilon, phi, chi, psi, omega.

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Sox, Hurricanes: No Link Proven

I’m happy to report that, contrary to no reports of which I’m aware, there’s no established historical link between White Sox World Series victories and severe hurricane seasons. This non-finding is the product of minutes of meticulous research.

The White Sox won the World Series this year — last night, in fact, if reports are to be believed. At nearly the very same time as the Chisox went into their victory dance in Houston, the National Hurricane Center was reporting the emergence of the 23rd named tropical cyclone, Tropical Storm Beta, of the 2005 Atlantic tropical cyclone season. Could there be a correlation between the ecstasy on Chicago’s South Side and the agony throughout the Caribbean and Gulf basins?

To answer that question scientifically, I typed “1917 hurricane season” into my conveniently located Google search box, located in the upper right of my Web browser. The choice of 1917 was not random. Rather, it is the widely reported year that the White Sox won their last World Series. A severe storm season that year might suggest a Hose-hurricane convergence. While these cyclones can never be said to be “a picnic,” in the meteorological sense, evidence indicates that the season that year was as carefree as they come, with just three storms reported and just one that hit the United States.

I next searched for information on the 1906 hurricane season — which unfolded the year of the only other Sox triumph in the Series. The 1906 season was considered “average,” with 11 storms, six of which became hurricanes (and three of the hurricanes evolving into major, destructive storms).

To complete my investigation, I checked to see who won the World Series in 1933, which, with 21 storms, had held the record for the Atlantic’s most cyclonic year. The answer: The New York Giants. (Three of the other four years the Giants won — ’05, ’21 and ’22 — were mild hurricane years; the last Giants victory, in 1954, was average in terms of number of storms but produced Hurricane Hazel, which killed 1,000 or more people.)

Conclusion — are you still with me? — The White Sox played no part in this year’s overactive hurricane season. Future inquiries might look at the coincidence of Sox championships and major earthquakes.

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More Sacrifice

CBS News leads its 10 a.m. hourly radio news with Bush giving a speech to military wives. He’s got a comforting message for them: The road to “total victory” — his recently declared goal in Iraq — will be paved by “more sacrifice.” Let’s not dwell too long on who will make the sacrifice. The military wives already know.

The sacrifice talk — Bush sounded the same theme in his weekly radio talk last Saturday — is prompted by the U.S. military death toll in Operation Mission Accomplished reaching 2,000 (along with 15,220 wounded).

The other side to Bush’s talk about the need to stay the course, shed as much blood and spend as much money as it takes, is that each passing day shows the war in Iraq to be a more and more fabulous success.

If, like me, you’ve missed that story — OK, yes, Iraq did just have the best election our money could buy, and that’s sure a change from the reign of Saddam Hussein — here are a few examples:

Unseen Enemy Is at Its Fiercest in a Sunni City

New York Times, October 23, 2005

RAMADI, Iraq, Oct. 22 – The Bradley fighting vehicles moved slowly down this city’s main boulevard. Suddenly, a homemade bomb exploded, punching into one vehicle. Then another explosion hit, briefly lifting a second vehicle up onto its side before it dropped back down again.

Two American soldiers climbed out of a hatch, the first with his pant leg on fire, and the other completely in flames. The first rolled over to help the other man, but when they touched, the first man also burst into flames. Insurgent gunfire began to pop.

Several blocks away, Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Rosener, 20, from Minneapolis, watched the two men die from a lookout post at a Marine encampment. His heart reached out to them, but he could not. In Ramadi, Iraq’s most violent city, two blocks may as well be 10 miles.

“I couldn’t do anything,” he said of the incident, which he saw on Oct. 10. He spoke quietly, sitting in the post and looking straight ahead. “It’s bad down there. You hear all the rumors. We didn’t know it was going to be like this.” …

US troops fighting losing battle for Sunni triangle

London Telegraph, October 22, 2005

The mob grew more frenzied as the gunmen dragged the two surviving Americans from the cab of their bullet-ridden lorry and forced them to kneel on the street.

Killing one of the men with a rifle round fired into the back of his head, they doused the other with petrol and set him alight. Barefoot children, yelping in delight, piled straw on to the screaming man’s body to stoke the flames.

It had taken just one wrong turn for disaster to unfold. Less than a mile from the base it was heading to, the convoy turned left instead of right and lumbered down one of the most anti-American streets in Iraq, a narrow bottleneck in Duluiya town, on a peninsular jutting into the Tigris river named after the Jibouri tribe that lives there. …

… Within minutes, four American contractors, all employees of the Halliburton subsidiary Kellog, Brown & Root, were dead. The jubilant crowd dragged their corpses through the street, chanting anti-US slogans. An investigation has been launched into why the contractors were not better protected.

Perhaps fearful of public reaction in America, where support for the war is falling, US officials suppressed details of the Sept 20 attack, which bore a striking resemblance to the murder of four other contractors in Fallujah last year.

Secret MoD poll: Iraqis support attacks on British troops

London Telegraph, October 23, 2005

Millions of Iraqis believe that suicide attacks against British troops are justified, a secret military poll commissioned by senior officers has revealed. …

…The survey was conducted by an Iraqi university research team that, for security reasons, was not told the data it compiled would be used by coalition forces. It reveals:

• Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified – rising to 65 per cent in the British-controlled Maysan province;

• 82 per cent are “strongly opposed” to the presence of coalition troops;

• less than one per cent of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security;

• 67 per cent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation;

• 43 per cent of Iraqis believe conditions for peace and stability have worsened;

• 72 per cent do not have confidence in the multi-national forces.