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The War in Pictures

Checking around for recent blog entries on Kevin Sites the other night, I came across a reference to a month-old blog called “Fallujah in Pictures” (the title’s since been changed to “Iraq in Pictures”). It’s a roughly executed collection of news-service war pictures. I could do without some of the repetitive images and the heavy-handed attempts at anti-war irony (the power of the images is what they say themselves to each viewer, not the spin you try to put on them). The caveat for anyone who goes to the site is that much of what’s shown is quite graphic; not what we’re used to seeing on the news or in the paper. But that’s the main point and what makes the site valuable: To the extent we, the people care what’s happening over there, we’re getting a cleaned-up version of events. Occasionally, we’ve gotten some fine front-line reporting on our troops’ experience. Beyond that, we get precise casualty counts for our guys. We get a rough though probably unreliable accounting of the number of enemy fighters we’re killing. The press gives casualty tolls for the intensifying insurgent attacks across Iraq. We get foggy, inconclusive numbers for civilians killed in the continuing festivities. We get senior officials and military officers downplaying the extent and severity of the insurgency and pretty much refusing to talk about the impact on Iraqis unless it serves our purpose. The pictures have a way of cutting through that, and the site has a way of cutting through our news media’s reluctance to show the public the whole face of the war we’re engaged in.

The link: “Iraq in Pictures.”

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Our Iraq Mystery

A late night Iraq thought: One of the strangest things about the war is that we know virtually nothing about the people we’re fighting. Over the past couple of weeks, someone’s been slaughtering dozens of police officers, members of the Iraqi national guard, and other, near the city of Mosul. On Friday and Saturday, someone launched a wave of attacks that killed more than 50 and wounded scores more in Baghdad and Mosul. Someone attacked U.S. troops Friday and Saturday, too, killing at least half a dozen. Last month, we sent thousands of troops against someone we wanted out of Fallujah. Dozens of our troops died there along with hundreds of enemy fighters.

But just who’s carrying out all these attacks? How are they keeping this thing up after 20 months of fighting? Where do they get the fighters? The weapons? The money? Honestly, after reading the accounts of fighting for the past few months, it’s mostly a mystery. The labels attached to our enemies vary and have evolved: They used to be thugs, gunmen, and noncompliant elements; or sometimes Saddam loyalists or dead-enders. Now they are insurgents, rebels or anti-Iraqi forces (as well as the catch-all label, terrorists and murderers); sometimes guerrillas or even “resistors” as I saw on one web site. But those are all just labels. Some try to be neutral. Others are loaded with political or emotional spin. None really gets us to the nature of the people we’re trying to deal with.

Based on a story The New York Times ran the other day on intelligence our military says it gathered in Fallujah, here’s what we know about who’s responsible for all the above: Overwhelmingly, the fighters are Iraqis, with a sprinkling of foreigners mixed in. There are 8,000 to 12,000 “hard-core” insurgents, with another 8,000 closet insurgents rendering aid, for a total of 20,000. They are said to be a mix of ” former Baathists, radical Sunnis and Shiites, foreign fighters and criminals.” They get money from former Baathists and Saddam’s relatives; “Islamic charities” (the term the story uses) and donors in Saudi Arabia also move cash to the fighters through Syria. The story makes this unqualified and unattributed assertion: “The insurgency also has had no trouble recruiting new foot soldiers.” The article closes by saying that Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined to speculate on the size of the insurgency. He did say that former Iraqi army and Republican Guard officers (cashiered en masse by the U.S. authorities soon after “mission accomplished”) pose the biggest security threat in Iraq now.

Does all that add up when you look at the continuing or growing ferocity of the insurgent attacks? That a group of guys who show up to fight in masks and tennis shoes, like a street gang that likes to pray a lot, a group of guys about half the size of the New York Police Department, is thwarting the will of the World’s Only Superpower and spreading mayhem over thousands of square miles on a daily basis?

At this point, you stop expecting anyone in the president’s group to talk straight to the public about what’s going on in Iraq. But you also start to wonder whether they talk straight among themselves about it, or whether they have any better idea of what they’re up against than The New York Times does.

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Slice of Berkeley Bird Life

Parrot

A constant feature of Berkeley life since I arrived here in the mid-’70s: lost pet posters (and all sorts of other fliers) on our local telephone poles. This one’s a little eye-catching. "Lost Congo African Grey Parrot." So we’ve got lost birds here pretty often, too. In fact, there’s a flock of feral parrots that sometimes makes an appearance in these parts. Lots of loud squawking and flapping and ganglike avian activity when they’re around. What interested me about this poster is what was going on when he vanished last Friday: "When last seen, Hannibal [editor’s note: the bird’s name] was being attacked by a hawk."

Yes, there are some little falcon-like hawks around town that dine on some of less fierce feathered types. One evening when my brother John was out here, we were walking up the street and saw feathers floating to the ground. Atop a telephone poll, a Cooper’s hawk was pulling apart a morning dove it had just caught for dinner. Urban wildlife. You could probably pitch it as a subject for a community-access TV program.

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November in Iraq

Quotes:

“At some point in time, when Iraq is able to defend itself against the terrorists who are trying to destroy democracy, as I’ve said many times, our troops will come home with the honor they have earned.”

–President Bush, December 2, 2004

“There are some who feel like — that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring them on.”

–President Bush, July 2, 2003

Numbers:

The deadliest month for U.S. troops since the war began: 137 killed (compared to 135 killed in the second-deadliest month, April 2004, when both Shiite and Sunni fighters rose against U.S. forces. Another comparison: About 128 U.S. troops were killed in the first 30 days of the war, from March 19 through April 17, 2003. The total number of U.S. troops killed since the war started is 1,260).

Eighty of the 137 American Marines and soldiers who died last month were killed in the eight days from November 8 through November 15, when fighting was heaviest in Fallujah and areas where insurgents counterattacked.

The wounded in action in November: 1,265 or so. The Defense Department reports 654 of the wounded returned to duty within 72 hours, and 611 did not. The total wounded in action for the war so far is 9,552, including 5,049 wounded too seriously to immediately go back to their units. (The count of all troops evacuated from Iraq because of non-combat illnesses, injuries, and other medical reasons, such as psychological problems encountered on duty, is much higher. For instance, the Army alone reported 14,452 medical evacuations from Iraq through the end of September).

About one in nine U.S. military deaths in Iraq occurred in November. About one in eight of those wounded in action suffered their injuries during the month.

In November:

  • 125 U.S. troops died in action; 12 deaths are listed as “non-hostile,” mostly vehicle accidents.
  • By service: 72 Marines and 12 Marine reservists; 38 regular Army, 4 Army reservists, 10 members of the Army National Guard; one each from the Navy and Air Force.
  • By rank: One major, two captains, four lieutenants, 33 sergeants, one petty officer, 68 corporals and lance corporals (all Marines), 15 Army specialists, 15 privates (all Army).
  • By age: 73 of those killed were 19 to 22 years old; 34 were from 23 to 25; 19 were from 26 to 29; and 11 were from 31 to 45 years old (the oldest was an Army command master sergeant, Steven W. Faulkenberg).

Unknown:

How many enemy fighters or Iraqi civilians died during the month.

The Commander and the Troops:

“… If the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all ‘We died at such a place;’ some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.”

–“Henry V,” Act 4 Scene 1

[In the play, King Hal does what a modern leader would do and answers by saying that what a subject does is a subject’s responsibility, not the king’s: “Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience: and dying so, death is to him advantage.” So, if you’re ready to meet your maker, the king, or president, is doing you a favor by sending you to your death in battle.]

Sources:

Bush quotes: www.nytimes.com/2004/12/02/business/02text-bush.html and www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030702-3.html



November casualties: icasualties.org/oif/ and www.defenselink.mil/news/

Army medical evacuations: www.armymedicine.army.mil/news/medevacstats/200409/oif.htm

“Henry V”: www-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/henryv/

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Nineteen

Nineteen years ago today was a chilly, overcast Sunday, the close of Thanksgiving weekend. Kate and I had a date at 2 in the afternoon at Turning Two, the preschool in the Berkeley Hills where she taught. She had gone ahead to meet some people up there; I was running a little behind, cooking a couple of Russian macaroni casseroles out of the Moosewood Cookbook. When I finally got there, about 15 minutes late, it was just starting to rain.

Who was there? My mom and dad, on their first visit to Berkeley since I moved out here from Chicago’s south suburbs in 1976. My son Eamon, who was six at the time. And a small group of friends. Trapper Byrne and Judy Wong, whom we knew from our days at The Daily Californian (they’re married now, live in Lafayette, and have two kids, Elizabeth and Keenan). Robin Woods and Jim Tronoff, also close friends from Daily Cal days (they’re married now, too; Robin got her Ph.D. in English literature from UC-Berkeley and is now a professor at Ripon College, in the same Wisconsin town where the Republican Party got its start in 1854). Our great friends Larry Hickey and Ursula Stehle, whom I’d met shortly after Eamon was born in 1979; they came down to Berkeley for the day with their two sons, Dylan and Dominic (Ursula was about halfway through her pregnancy with their daughter, Megan). Bill Joyce, a friend we met through Larry and Ursula, a teacher, lover of literature, and prankster of note. George Paolini and Jane Paulsen, comrades from the Alameda Times-Star (slogan: “25 cents — worth more”). Vicki Carlton, who started and ran Turning Two, and her husband Ross and her daughter Cedar. And finally, Bruce Hilton, a Methodist minister, copy editor, and tuba player. I think that’s everybody.

It was our wedding day, in a preschool classroom looking out into the mist and rain and dusk spreading across the town below us.

Kate and I said the vows we’d written with Bruce’s help, including a bit from Yeats’s “The Two Trees,” Bruce married us over no objections from the onlookers. Then we ate our potluck dinner, the kids played in the schoolroom, and Bill and Larry led us in a couple of songs, “The Gypsy Rover” and a version of The Clancy Brothers’ “Haul Away Joe” refashioned for the occasion. After dark, the party broke up, and a few of us went down to the Albatross, our semi-regular bar on San Pablo Avenue. Bob Johnson, one of the two Icelandic-American North Dakota brothers who owned the place, brought out complimentary bottles of Cook’s champagne (OK, “champagne”) when he heard what we had been up to. Later, we went home to the “little yellow apartment,” my tiny studio-like hovel on Addison Street.

Nineteen years. Not so long, really. We look different, but I think we’re still the same two people, still learning about each other and about how life and marriage work. I’d gladly go back and do all the years again; but I think I’m happiest to trace them back, remember them, and go ahead from where we are on this December 1.

Thanks, darling Kate.

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Long, Winding, Four-Lane Road

I5

Just an odd online find: A page that includes a complete sequential listing, with the appropriate signs, for every exit, north- and southbound, off Interstate 5 through Oregon. Having driven the road just a couple of weeks ago, it’s fun to see the trip reproduced. The guy who put it together, who identifies himself as Mike Wiley of San Diego, has created a kind of alternate road atlas for the Beaver State’s main interstate.

And from a more geeky perspective, check out the source HTML for the page (I was curious, because none of the beautiful green signs on the page, including the ones for the town of Drain that I wanted to rip off to use for this post, are downloadable images). The guy coded all the highway signage in HTML (except for the highway number shields — those are actually .gifs) instead of creating individual images in Photoshop. Makes sense, I guess, because the hundreds of signs on the page might have added up to a monster download compared to the HTML.

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Karma on Wheels

By way of a bicycle-club mailing list I’m on, a good read in the Los Angeles Times (free registration required) on the Furnace Creek 508, an ultramarathon cycling race held in the Southern California desert every fall. The writer competed on a four-man relay team and gives a beautiful portrait of the race and his teammates:

“Only one thing remained constant: Ron’s speed. At the chilly 9 a.m. start in Santa Clarita, he bolted to the front of the team race. The 44-year-old corporate wellness coach from Lawrenceville, Ga., flung himself past the wind-bent juniper trees on the long, 2,500-foot climb out of town and onto the flat, Joshua tree-studded Mojave Desert with the same abandon he had in 1996. …

“By noon, riding strong tailwinds, Ron had blown through tough, windmill-covered hills and a vast airplane-repair graveyard, miles on his way into California City. He finished his 82-mile segment in an average speed of 24 mph, impressive, given the 5,000 feet of climbing, and miles ahead of everyone else. ‘He’s sending a chi statement,’ said Steve, who owns a Tarzana yoga studio. ‘There is no duality in his dharma. This is karma in action.’ ”

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Inherit This, You Godless Evolutionists

The San Francisco Chronicle has a story this morning about a school board near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that has directed biology teachers to poke holes in the theory of evolution and instruct their students in something called “intelligent design.” The people who promote this curriculum or superstition or whatever you want to call it soft-peddle the religious aspect of it. They call their idea “the science of design detection” and seek to explain “living things and other natural phenomena that exhibit function or purpose.” They say they’re seeking the scientific truth behind life and the universe without philosophical or religious assumptions. That’s all great. But they tip their hand when they state they have an end in mind: “constitutional neutrality”; meaning they need to come up with a creation story that’s got enough science in it to jam into classrooms without raising the church/state alarm. And what creation story might that be? Hindu? Navajo? Norse? Or that god got bored watching Monday night football and fashioned the world out of a Cheeto for halftime amusement?

If the promoters of intelligent design try to obscure their Bible-centric agenda, the folks in Pennsylvania sure understand what it’s about. The Chronicle quotes one of the board members as saying she doesn’t believe in evolution and disapproves of teaching that suggests “we come from chimpanzees and apes.” A kid from one of the district’s high schools says, “There’s only one creator, and it has to be God.” Asked about what she’s learned about evolution, she said, “Evolution — is that the Darwin theory? I don’t know just what he was thinking!”

The Chron accompanies its story with some findings from a Gallup poll taken earlier this month. Looking at the numbers sparked a “what’s going on in this country?” moment for me. The survey found that 83 percent of respondents think God — not the bored Cheeto god, but the very industrious Jewish-Christian one — had a hand in creating man (13 percent said they didn’t think God had a role). It makes you wonder how the Scopes Trial would come out if William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow went at it again today. “Inherit the Wind,” my ass.

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Brekke Weather

Just a note: It’s the coldest night of the season here so far. Usually that’s occasion for scoffing about Bay Area weather versus real weather (I’m one of the scoffers myself. But I note that the 9 p.m. temperature at Oakland airport was 39 degrees on the German-inspired Fahrenheit scale (our back-porch thermometer shows 40). The official temperature in Chicago at about the same time was 37. And in Central Park in New York City, another of the far-flung outposts of Brekke-dom, the mercury (or maybe it was alcohol) stood at 41.

The differences between here and those other cool places: They’ll get much, much colder in the weeks to come.. And most of our house is without heat as those east of the Berkeley Hills understand it.

Update: The thermometer shows 36 Tuesday morning on Holly Street (around the Bay Area, the lowest temperature I see for 7 a.m. was 28, about 35 miles southeast of here in Livermore), and sleeping in the unheated part of our house last night was more like camping out without a good down bag. The low at O’Hare this morning looks like it was 35. And in New York it was 39.