Two Worlds

I'd like to make another light-hearted posting about the silly goings on here. I would talk in detail about the horrible but hysterical things the female JAG officer said at lunch. Well, not in great detail, since this is a public site for families to read, but you get the idea.

But really I'm struck again by these incredible disconnects between the flowery words of our leadership over a whole host of issues and the real world.

It came out when I was on Gmail chat with a very close friend who will be working on the staff of what should be a key sub-committee in Congress. Rather than share the joy of a great new opportunity, I reacted rather cynically.

I do believe that the signature acheivement of that particular committee is an expensive boondoggle that will achieve all of its goals provided that the goals solely involve making the members feel good about themselves. I don't believe that that it will achieve much beyond the obvious "unintended consquences."

I guess anyone with a pet issue would and probably should be disappointed with our leadership. I can't help but use Iraq as a bit of a metric for how I measure the realism and seriousness of the public debate.

Today Iraqi Police and Iraqi Army units are operating throughout the country with their faces exposed to the public. In most places they really are trusted. They serve arrest warrants that must be approved by a judge. Evidence is collected so as to put those captured on trial for their crimes.

There are still terrorist attack. Recently there was a car bomb driven by an 11-year old boy. Really. And I am unashamed to say that I have a deep seated hatred for the particular brand of evil that will use a child to target innocent people. No, Mom, if we had only been nicer and offered the planners and bomb makers a better education they would not all be good citizens. Sorry. People were nice to Sayyid Qutb when he came to Colorado fifty years ago to get a degree... he used his education to start a movement. We began advanced SERE training in preparation for this trip by watching videos of what his movement's current members would do to us if captured (to know that beheadings occur is one thing, to see how it is done truly focuses the mind). Harsh, but it isn't discussed enough in polite company and I think this fear of honesty corrupts our own debates. Also, meat doesn't come from grocery stores.

Back on topic, there are many common criminals. There are many corrupt officials. And yet, I'm fairly optimistic that soon this will be a much better place to live than Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, etc. Yemen, sorry, Yemen is rough. The UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar have their issues, but it'll take Iraq a while to get there. But in many little ways Iraqis are making this country their own in ways that they never could before. For all it's imperfections, in the end, it is the Iraqis who are and have to do the work.

Last time one of the defining moments for me was when a group of Sons of Iraq arrived as a Quick Reaction Force in support of our soldiers. This time it is too early to tell. But already I'm wondering if June 30 will be an anti-climax. What will the elections bring? Will the Arab media continue to snub these elections even though they are more open and fair than any in their home countries? Or are the sectarian elements just biding their time? I think some may be but they've been overcome by events. I'll find out. Maybe some people back home will find out too since the big events are all scheduled during re-run season.

Now, a massive invasion and poorly planned follow-on is definitely not the best way to foster these advances. But neither is pretending it isn't happening and treating Iraq 2009 as is Iraq 2006 in the grand curative speech. The speech was not the place to celebrate the accomplishments of Americans in Iraq, but it was the time to force both regional governments and populations to acknowledge the accomplishments of the Iraqi people and to support them--especially if all people do have aspirations of a responsive and accountable form of government as President Obama claimed. I am disappointed that Iraq was treated soley as something to apologize for and wish didn't happen.

In the end, yesterday was just a speech. Although it wouldn't surprise me if they tried and sold one as such, a speech can't cure cancer and a speech won't actually reset anything. But a campaign promise was kept and Cairo street vendors got to make a buck selling unlicensed t-shirts.

The Muslim world was treated as a monolith. Despite the grand concept of one Ummah, it is no more a monomlith than the communist world was twenty years ago. A speech alone won't mark a break from the continued policies of that bygone era of supporting any autocrat any our side, and I'm pretty sure that the continued disconnect between the freedoms we preach and the dictators realpolitik compels us to support is a bigger source of continued frustration than the Israeli-Palesitinian conflict (true courage would have condemned poor treatment of Palestinians throughout the region rather than just within territory controlled by Israel... but this was editorial courage). So, we'll see.

I do think the current team has the potential to be much more competent than the last one in redoing our relationships with this region. But they are blinded by their own arrogances as well.

I apologize for the disjointed nature of this post. I don't really have time to go back and edit and reorganize it.