Dear citizens, I am going to reveal a darker side of my personality today. While many know me to be a decent person, I also harbor some disdain for, shall we say, average Americans. I would blame the Air Force—the institution spent twenty-four years enforcing discipline and instilling self-discipline in me. However, I know that I am to blame. I should be more able to tolerate a lack of self-discipline in my neighbors, but instead, I resent that lack. I have gone so far as to tell others repeatedly that the difference between an adult and a child is that children require an adult to control their behavior. I make the comment derisively as I point to a driver pulled over to the side of the road by a policeman. I call the driver a child and then I salute the cop.

We, most of us, too many of us, have too little or nearly no ability to control our behavior. We eat too much—not occasionally but all too often. We spend recklessly—immaturely—beyond our means, not for one month but for months at a time. We cannot drag ourselves to a voting booth once every two years. We cannot follow the news to learn what issues and what candidates threaten our interests. The examples go on and on and cover most aspects of our lives. However, perhaps no area more readily displays our lack of self-discipline, our lack of maturity, our childishness, than our behavior on and around roads.

I live in Shirlington, a portion of Arlington, Virginia, just a bit south of the Pentagon. In this wonderful little community, I am a bit of an oddity at times. Specifically, I stand out when I approach the main intersection and stop at the curb, waiting for a light to change before I cross the street. As I wait, I watch all manner of people walk past me, crossing against the light and often without regard to oncoming traffic. I have watched cars sit through the first thirty seconds of their green light while oblivious, undisciplined pedestrians cross in front of them. My eldest grandson—he is six—already knows things like patience, sharing, and waiting his turn. I hope his brother and sister will master the same. But, I see the lesson does not always stick. Young “adults” ignore the rules. Gray-haired couples refuse to yield the right-of-way. Parents, with children in tow, hustle across the traffic as cars bear down on them. Heaven forbid they should apply the lessons my grandson has learned and suffer a twenty- or thirty-second delay.

One block up the street is a bus station and a four-way stop. I have nearly been struck a number of times crossing here by drivers who run past the stop sign and stop line and come to a reluctant halt in the crosswalk. What they plan to do with the five seconds they might have spent following the law perplexes me. I have nearly hit pedestrians who ignore the crosswalk (twenty feet away) and dash across traffic. Shirlington has two exits on Interstate 395, and out there our lack of discipline becomes even more hazardous. Merging onto the road is challenging enough at the posted speed of fifty-five miles per hour. Few observe that limit, however. Sharing the road, indeed, doing anything that makes the travel safer for all, is inconceivable. Traffic on this road, the escape route for those fleeing work at the end of the day to Interstate 95 and points farther south, is not a commute as much as it is a battle—an effort to beat the others home without regard for laws or fellow travelers—without regard for patience or sharing or waiting one’s turn.

Dear citizens, we might wonder if gun laws are not appropriate for a population like ours—for a population that is so challenged to act as adults. Today, the Supreme Court ruled against the City of Chicago’s handgun ban. Good, some will say. The Court is protecting our right to bear arms. But, that is inaccurate—a bit off target, if you will. Chicago’s citizens have not prohibited themselves from owning arms. Rather, they have prohibited, in the interest of their safety—to protect themselves against the fully grown children in their midst—the ownership of a particular type of firearm. Likewise, the Court did not preserve or protect a right. Rather, the Court decided it likes handguns and ruled people should have them. It is not that the Supreme Court’s majority thinks you or I should have unrestricted access to any and all arms—they have not ruled that you can have a howitzer or I can drive an M1A1 Abrams battle tank up and down I-395. The court has merely expressed a preference for a particular weapon and insisted, as it did earlier in the case of the District of Columbia, that they—not the citizens of Chicago or DC—will decide which weapons will be tucked under beds or the front seats of cars. This, of course, is judicial activism. It is legislating from the bench as five Justices decide which guns the residents of Chicago and DC may possess. And it is worse. The Supreme Court ruling is an attack on the right to self-govern more than a preservation of a general right to bear arms.

Of course, deciding that handguns—rarely in use when the Second Amendment was drafted—were meant to be in the hands of Americans is not without consequences.

Dear citizens, I have before me two Washington Post stories that have waited beside my desk for a moment like this to make their appearance. The first is cited in the quote at the top of this essay. The second, appearing the next day, is headlined, “Trucker charged with attempted murder in I-95 case,” (March 26, 2010). I will let those stories describe the events by employing a few relevant snippets from both.

The Interstate 95 road-rage incident that left two Woodbridge men jailed and facing attempted murder charges began with jockeying at a merge lane, escalated to demolition-derby-style ramming and ended with gunshots.

Bringham was in a white 2007 Ford 550 dump truck. Poventud drove a silver 2004 Jaguar.

The exchange played out over four miles and 20 minutes starting near the merge area from Route 123, where Bringham entered I-95 southbound. Poventud already was traveling in those lanes.

Traffic in that area of I-95, with the Occoquan River to the north and the Marine Corps Base Quantico to the south, was moving at about 30 mph at the time, said Corinne Geller, spokeswoman for the state police.

In a complaint filed in court, a Virginia state trooper wrote that “both drivers stated that Mr. Bringham rammed Mr. Poventud’s car. Mr. Poventud then got out of his car and fired 13 rounds from a handgun at the other vehicle.”

“There were twelve bullet impacts to the truck. Four of them would have hit the cab if they had penetrated the dump bed,” the complaint stated.

Dear citizens, I used to hunt and I plan to hunt again with my son-in-law and my grandsons, who will be raised to learn self-discipline, raised to understand the value of patience and sharing and waiting their turn. I am not for the repeal of the Second Amendment. I am not for ignoring it. Nonetheless, I think the essence of a Democracy is that we may govern ourselves and protect ourselves from harm—that we may limit our Second Amendment rights just as we do those of our First. Just as we may protect ourselves by not allowing our neighbors to own a .50 caliber machinegun and may prohibit the same from being fired through the windows of our homes, we may enact sensible, reasonable prohibitions against handguns or at least some handguns. Supreme Court Justices, after all, have noted in the past that our Constitution is not a suicide pact. Many police agencies hope for a reinstatement of the “assault weapons ban” and would prefer that pistols, which allow their holders to fire thirteen or more rounds without a pause to reload or to think, be kept out of the hands of most people, limiting private ownership to revolvers, which fire six times only before they must be reloaded. Here is another quote from the Washington Post stories:

Virginia law requires permits for concealed weapons, but “you can carry one on each hip and two over your shoulders as long as it’s not concealed,” said Prince William Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul B. Ebert.

Had Mr. Poventud been limited to just one revolver, he would have been required to reload twice to get out the thirteen shots he fired—two chances to think again about what he was doing, two chances to limit the danger to himself and to others. He might have recongnized that by blazing away at his rival over who gets temporary ownership of a piece of asphalt he was overreacting. He might have realized that by pulling out his pistol he was inviting Mr. Bringham to return fire in his direction, possibly endangering others. Some would argue that had Mr. Bringham been armed, he could have “protected himself.” Of course, the quote above indicates that, had the two been more exuberant in their celebration of their Second Amendment rights, the spectacle might have been far grander and bloody. All this brings us to one last quote from this terribly interesting tale. Here is the opening paragraph of the March 25th story:

With his 2-year-old daughter in a car seat inside, Gabriel Poventud of Woodbridge threw open the door of his silver Jaguar on the shoulder of southbound Interstate 95 in Prince William County and fired 13 shots at a dump truck, terrifying Tuesday evening commuters, Virginia State Police said.

And that brings me to another potential area for sensible, reasonable laws tangentially related to gun control. If we cannot act like adults, if we are not willing to have patience, to share, and to wait our turn, if we lack self-discipline, and if the Supreme Court insists that—Constitution be damned—we may not govern ourselves where guns are concerned, states and municipalities at least might consider passing laws urging parents not to take their toddles to the gunfight. Of course, we will need an adult to enforce that.

- Alan Howe, June 2010

…

I had never before organized a counter-protest. But, a counter-protest was clearly required. A Baptist Church was threatening to exercise its First Amendment rights. It was threatening to despoil Arlington National Cemetery. And, I, retired from the Air Force and father-in-law to a Soldier, will have none of that—not from this Baptist Church—not from Westboro.

The counter-protest owes its genesis to a small newspaper story. The story reported a legal, if immoral, victory for the Westboro Baptist Church. Their appeal of an earlier case successfully reinstated their First Amendment rights. Their protests would be permitted to continue. We can expect more of them in the future. Reading the story moved me to look for the church’s presence on the Internet and to see if they were coming to my area anytime in the near future. A quick search found their web site. The site features a picket schedule that showed they were coming here to Arlington, Virginia, in less than two weeks. The schedule included the following announcement, copied here with all the attendant errors.

03/21/201011:00 AM - 11:45 AM, Arlington, VA.

Arlington National Cemetery Jefferson Davis Hwy & Memorial Drive Is there really ever a bad time/day for WBC to picket Arlington National? Rhetorical question, people! Jeremiah 16:5 For thus saith the LORD, Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament nor bemoan them: for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the LORD, even lovingkindness and mercies. God is not keeping the house of the america any longer, and this Army mutt signed up in the clear light of day, with us out on the bloody streets of DOOMED america telling him to flee the wrath of God and that God Is America’s #1 Enemy. Talk about walking eagerly into a dozen buzz saws! For those who insist on worshiping the dead carcass you need to be mourning for YOUR sins and being THANKFUL to God that this child did not live to see the days (shortly now) when Obama is going to pass a law that you must eat your little babies or you will die of starvation. AMEN!

Westboro, you see, had been the target of the lawsuit for protesting against the toleration of homosexuality in the United States. The Westboro “Christians” do this by taunting grieving military families. “God killed the fag enablers!” “That’s what you get for supporting the fag Army and the fag United States!” So “saith” the Westboro gang. A grieving military family won a case that would have protected other families from this harassment. That victory was overturned on appeal. Westboro marches on.

…

I had never before organized a counter-protest. I had no idea what to do. I posted notes on MySpace and Facebook and got limited responses—all encouraging but few in number. A cousin who lives hundreds of miles away, and who shares with me a history of service in the United States Air Force (enabling “fags,” I suppose), expressed regret that she could not be here. Others passed along word so that more would know the plan.

The plan—my plan—was ill-defined, however. I suggested that we (whomever “we” turned out to be) should form a “silent curtain” between the Westboro protestors and those who came to Arlington National Cemetery for more respectful pusposes. I had no idea where they would be, so I suggested a Sunday at Arlington is time well spent and suggested people remain alert for the presence of the Westboro protestors and move to their location when they arrived.

Social networking did not seem enough to me. I called the Iraq-Afghanistan Veterans Association to alert them. They were aware of the group and its vile protests, but had not known they were coming here to Arlington.

“How did you find out they were coming?” I was asked.

“I found their schedule on their web site. Would you like the address?”

“Yes, please.”

“God hates fags dot com.”

Pause

“Wow.”

“Yeah, they don’t hold back.”

The IAVA officer recommended that I notify Rolling Thunder and Gathering of Eagles, two groups he claimed had responded to IAVA calls to action. He also asked that I email two IAVA officers in New York City. I did all that. I got no response to the message I sent to the two officers at IAVA, and I did not have time to follow up. Communication is, of course, comprised of a sender, a message, a receiver, and feedback. I failed to communicate. Likewise, my effort to contact Gathering of Eagles fell short. I did get a response from Rolling Thunder’s national office, asking that I contact the local chapters. Of the many listed for Maryland and Virginia, I found two in the local area that had web sites and found email addresses on each. My messages to those addresses did not gain a response.

I did better at school. I attend George Mason University on a Post-9/11 GI Bill scholarship. I receive regular and helpful communication from the school and its veteran-associated groups and individuals. I sent a message to one, alerting them to the challenge and asking for help. The next newsletter from that group advertised a brunch for veterans on the Saturday before Westboro’s planned defamation of Arlington as well as a copy of my short note asking for help. I went to the brunch hoping to spread the word still further.

What a relief. As I chatted with some of the members, the leadership of the group began discussing upcoming events. One member stepped forward to describe the Westboro protest and the hoped-for counter protest, using my language of a “silent curtain” to screen the Westboro group from view. A question was raised, and I introduced myself and explained my goals for the next day. I learned before I left that a number of local veteran groups had been contacted and responded favorably, including the Patriot Riders who appear in YouTube videos providing a similar response. My spirits soared on the way home. Perhaps we would have a large enough turnout.

…

I drove my car onto Fort Myer, which wraps protectively around the cemetery, and parked near the gate closest to the cemetery’s northern entrance. Arlington opened at eight o’clock this morning. I walked up to the gate a minute early and soon saw a staff truck heading in my direction. The gate was opened at precisely eight. I smiled at the gentleman keying the lock and complimented him on the precision. He replied, “We try to do things right, here.” They do. Arlington is precision everywhere one looks. Utmost respect is paid to the sons and daughters of our nation in honor of their sacrifice. The cemetery has the best-behaved tourists of any site in the capital.

There are a couple ironies at work in my visit. I was here on March 20th a year earlier, the first day of the seventh year of our war in Iraq. I posted an essay on line the next day—a year ago, today—calling for more visits to Arlington. Now, I am trying to organize a counter-protest for people who are paying an unwelcome visit. Like those buried here, I spent time in uniform, all told, a twenty-four enlisted career with the Air Force, to protect the right of free speech. This morning, some may argue, I am fighting against a group that is merely exercising that right. Perhaps I should have been celebrating, instead. I felt rather like I was headed to a battle. There is free speech, and then there is decency.

…

Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder was twenty years old when he died from a “non-combat-related vehicle accident” on March 3rd, 2006. He was serving in the very deadly Anbar Province in western Iraq, according to the “Honor the Fallen” page on militarytimes.com. Corporal Snyder’s picture reveals a handsome and serious young man. The site notes: “Family members are still reeling from the news of his death.”

Four years and five days after Matthew’s death, the Supreme Court decided to hear a case regarding the Westboro Baptist Church’s right to protest at funerals like the one held for him in March 2006. At Matthew’s funeral, the Westboro protesters stood inside a space walled off with hip-high orange plastic and held up signs with messages that included “You’re Going to Hell” and “God Hates You” and “Thank God For Dead Soldiers.” They shouted obscenities and howled in glee that another member of our “fag Marine Corps” had died. Albert Snyder, Corporal Snyder’s father, won a $5 million judgment against Westboro for the trauma that resulted from their protest. However, an appeals court overturned the verdict on First Amendment grounds and ordered Mr. Snyder to pay Westboro’s legal bills. It was a report of that ruling that attracted my attention. Mr. Snyder, in turn, has appealed to the Supreme Court and vowed not to pay Westboro’s costs.

…

I arrived too early to worry about Westboro showing up. I stopped briefly at the visitor’s center and decided no one else was milling about waiting to join me. Then, I headed off toward Section 60 to pay a visit. Arlington inters the victims of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan here. Arriving tourists, however, head toward buses that take them to other noteworthy areas or strike off on foot toward the Kennedy family graves and the Tomb of the Unknown. By the time I got to Section 60, I was nearly alone. One woman walked past me carrying a holder with flowers and something else I could not make out. The recent graves here are often adorned with photos and other items that link the visitor to the interred—tenuous and fragile links to a person and a past that are no longer within reach. The woman gingerly walked down one row, crossed to another, and then crossed back again. Generally, if one knows the date a loved one died, finding their grave is straightforward. The progression of graves here closely follows the calendar. With only occasional interruptions, the headstones are a chronological record of shattered dreams and families.

There were two other people there. One, a man, was about my age. The other appeared to be his mother. He was standing back a bit, perhaps the uncle of a soldier. “Grandma,” as I have imagined the woman to be, was standing closer, with her head bowed. It occurred to me how cruel this must be for her. I imagined her taking a younger grandson or granddaughter to see the sites in DC and then, when they were old enough to conduct themselves properly and to solemnly understand the sacrifice row upon row of white headstones denotes, bringing them here to appreciate the contributions others have made to their security and to their freedom. I imagined the pride Grandma felt when little Billy or Jane, all grown up now but still her little darling, put on that first uniform. I imagined the sorrow created by encouraging a noble patriotism. Was she punishing herself? Into this agony, into this personal grief, slithers the Westboro clan.

…

“Pussies!” “Pussies!” “You’re all a bunch of PUSSIES!” Westboro’s leading shouter, an obscene, vile, and unsightly woman, is in full throat. She is wearing a t-shirt and sneakers and a pair of black spandex leggings that reveal a disdain for exercise, good diet, and conventional standards of modesty and good taste. “Megaphone” is standing inside a waist-high parade railing that encloses a space about twenty-four feet by twelve. She shares the space with a grown man, another woman, a boy perhaps twelve and a girl younger. She expertly holds two signs in each hand and leads the group in singing traditional military songs with childish and foul new lyrics about anal sex and male-on-male oral sex and dying at the hands of God. I suspect the little girl does not quite get all that unless the Westboro elders have provided pictures or demonstrations. “Oh! I heard something I didn’t like and it hurt my ears!” Megaphone shouts at her opponents.

Across the four-lane boulevard that leads into Arlington, a group of people, a larger group, is showing their support for the troops in opposition to Westboro. There are perhaps ten people inside a railing perfectly matching the one enclosing Westboro. I have spoken to two of them. They had been milling around like me, so I approached them and noticed the Patriot Rider bandana on the head of one. I introduced myself and determined they were here for the same reason, but the Patriot Rider had bad news for me: “Oh, we’re not coming. I don’t think Westboro will show up.” In front of the patriot riders and local veterans, exchanging taunts with Westboro’s human megaphone, is a line of a dozen Marines and a couple other current and former members of the military. I cross over and try to explain my objective. The Marines are unwilling to budge. One gestures to the two cops standing nearby and says they “would prefer that we stay on this side.” Good Marines respect authority and the sacrifice of their fallen comrades. I know they are torn. My pleas are not satisfied.

I cross back to the Westboro side and take up a position by their fence with my back turned to them. They do not speak to me once. Indeed, I think they are mildly disturbed by my presence and uncertain how to respond. They have an easier time with four young apparently homosexual men, who periodically ask them questions and exchange taunts. I call one of the young men over and point across the street at the obscured signs of the pro-troop protesters. The problem is clear to him, so at my request, he crosses with his three friends to explain that a line of standing Marines would be better employed blocking views of Westboro’s fouls placards that scream “God hates Fags!” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” To my astonishment, the Marines sit down. That lasts for only a short while before they stand again. The four homosexuals remain on that side, further blocking views of the support for troops and their families.

A woman chaperoning a half-dozen junior high school girls passes, all of them wearing red t-shirts and jeans. She stops near me and looks and listens in astonishment at the spectacle. “You’re joking, right? They’re joking, right? This is some kind of television stunt.” I begin to tell her that no, they are not joking when the point is made for me by the Westboro Megaphone as she starts shouting at the woman and her charges that they are all “sluts” and “whores.” One of the young girls tries to engage the Westboro protesters in a discussion, but her chaperone, mercifully, leads them away. And then, a maroon van pulls up and the Westboro filthy cacophony is over. The loudest is the first to escape, pausing to face the Marines and to simulate wiping her ass with an American flag she has been desecrating for the past forty minutes. The van pulls away from the curb to take the Westboro clan, kids and all, on to their next profane picket. And, I start the long walk back to my car.

…

I remain convinced that a silent curtain of people standing with their backs to the Westboro Baptist Church congregation, blocking them from view and absorbing their shouts, will prove to be the best response. I am certain it will frustrate and perhaps discourage Megaphone and her children when they cannot see the targets of their venom. Two or three or more deep, a cordon of people silently rejecting them will steal the attention and confrontation they crave. The right to Free Speech guarantees the Westboro purveyors of hate admission to the public debate, to the conflict between opposing ideas. It does not guarantee them a forfeit by the other side. I think of the old woman standing over a grave and of the other families that have been victimized by the Westboro protests, and I hope that others will do what they can, lawfully, compassionately, to guard families against the disrespect and hate the Westboro anti-Christians hurl their way. I know they have hurt people. I know they will hurt more. The New York Times, in a March 8th, 2010, story, records the pain felt by Albert Snyder: “For the rest of my life, I will remember what they did to me, and it has tarnished the memory of my son’s last hour on earth.”

- Alan Howe, May 2010

“ … “

- We Americans on the plight of Iraq’s displaced, today

Dear citizens, a few years ago, as I was working to get our military forces out of Iraq, I asked a very dear and very brilliant friend to review an essay I had just written.  She kindly applauded my efforts at describing the imperative of withdrawal before chiding me mildly for ignoring the Iraqi people and all humanitarian concerns. As you can easily see, neither I nor anyone else here succeeded in getting US forces out of Iraq.  It was the Iraqi government that forced President Bush to agree to a withdrawal deadline in 2008.  However, working on the Iraq Transitional Assistance Group proposal did provide me a chance to speak to several classes at American University about the plan and the war in Iraq.  And, these talks provided a chance to answer the very correct criticism of my friend.  I suggested to my audiences that they could do a lot of good for Iraqis and Americans by studying the “right of return” for Iraqis displaced from their homes by the violence that consumed Iraq.  I do not know how many students took me up on my challenge, but I am now joining any who did.

Over the next two years and perhaps longer, I will be spending most of my time studying the plight of displaced Iraqis, those still in Iraq but driven from their homes and those who have sought refuge in other countries.  Together, they total nearly 4.8 million.  For those of you wanting a comparison, the permanent population of Washington, DC is about 600,000.  So, imagine our nation’s capital displaced eight times.  Perhaps more relevant, the US Census Bureau lists the 2000 (pre-Katrina) population of New Orleans as a bit over 484,000—about ten percent of the displaced Iraq population.  Regular readers will find essays published here periodically focusing on this issue as it is of great importance to us as well as to the Iraqis and to those nations hosting Iraqis who have fled the violence that we brought forth.  I hope that I can uncover solutions and bring them to your attention.  First, however, I wish to call to your attention the displaced Iraqis and give you some sense of why you should care.

Consider the interactions between the United States and the people of Iraq over the past two decades.  This interaction comes in three dominant phases: sanctions, invasion, and occupation.  Following our efforts to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in 1991 and the aborted rebellion by Shi’a in Iraq inspired by the US President, we insisted on sanctions to constrain the regime of Saddam Hussein while United Nations weapons inspectors searched for, uncovered, and destroyed thousands of tons of prohibited weapons.  Sanctions helped—some—to persuade Saddam to cooperate in dismantling the weapons of mass destruction programs that threatened his neighbors and others.  However, sanctions did not do all we hoped.  The inspections were the key in keeping Saddam’s weapons programs in check.  The sanctions also did not stop the dictator from spending money on himself.  While the Iraqi middle class dwindled into near nothingness, more and more Iraqis suffered from lack of medical care, and most were forced to accept food directly from Saddam through a manipulated “oil-for-food” program, Saddam built grand palaces.  The damage done to Iraqis by our sanctions and Saddam’s malfeasance was so widespread and so severe that Osama bin Laden found it an effective recruitment tool, basing his fatwa calling on Muslims to kill Americans on the Iraqi suffering he blamed on us.

The Associated Press conducted a careful survey of civilian fatalities following the “shock and awe” bombing campaign and the US-led invasion of Iraq.  Excluding counts from hospitals that did not distinguish between civilian and military fatalities, the AP found that at least 3,200 Iraqis died (http://globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/167/35338.html).  The Iraqi government recently released its official count of the civilians who died from occupation-related violence from the beginning of 2004 through October 31, 2008 (a partial count in that this excludes 2003 and 2009 fatalities along with two months from 2008).  The total is 85,694 (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2009-10-14-iraq-report_N.htm).  We should find little to be surprised at when we hear often that bin Laden and his al Qaeda affiliates have had great success in recruiting Muslims to attack the United States by citing our invasion and occupation.

Dear citizens, I take it on faith that 2 million Iraqis forced out of the country and temporarily settled under tough and often dire conditions in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and other neighbors are a potential destabilizing element.  I further imagine that nearly 2.8 million Iraqis inside Iraq but not in their homes may be a looming danger.  Whether inside or outside Iraq, the displaced are witnessing their personal finances disappear.  Rents—if they have a place to rent—are increasingly unaffordable.  Most refugees are not permitted to work.  Many in Iraq and in the neighboring countries cannot find work.  Too many families cannot afford school for their children.  Some require their children to work to help pay for shelter and food.  Joseph Sassoon notes in The Iraqi Refugees that 26 percent of the 400-500,000 Iraqis seeking refuge in Jordan are less than 15 years old.  There are perhaps 1.2 million or even 1.5 million Iraqis in Syria.  Sassoon cites an estimate that 10 percent of the Iraqi children in Syria are working to help support their families.  A generation of Iraqis is in danger of missing out on the education necessary to secure a successful future.  They may be easy recruits for groups wishing to harm Iraqis or wishing to harm us.  Relatively fortunate Americans criticize the Obama administration for not doing enough to reduce unemployment.  Imagine just for a moment that you are in the situation experienced by these Iraqis.

Dedicating a sincere, effective effort to repatriate and resettle Iraq’s displaced is a chance for us to do something to balance the past two decades that have seen our actions visit grave harm on innocent Iraqis.  Certainly, we have done a great deal of reconstruction in Iraq and have contributed to dealing with the displaced, but certainly much, much more must be done.  The United Nations is working with many organizations to resolve this humanitarian crisis.  If they succeed, then we may miss an opportunity to contribute to the welfare of Iraqis in a manner that can be starkly different from our interactions over the past twenty years.  If the United Nations is unsuccessful, then we can expect further chaos in Iraq as people take it upon themselves to force a solution.  The displacement and internal resettlement in Baghdad changed the demographics of most neighborhoods and of the entire city.  The ratio of Shi’a to Sunni went from two-to-one in early 2006 to three-to-one by late 2007.  A returning mass of Sunni homeowners could easily lead to a renewed sectarian conflict.  We would be blamed.  We would be targeted.

This is not something about which we can safely remain silent.  It is very much in our national interest that we stay engaged in rebuilding homes and communities and lives in Iraq—that we be seen doing something for Iraqis after doing so much to Iraqis.  At the end of 2011, in compliance with the agreement signed by our last President, the last of our military forces will be going home.  The image for the Iraqi people must not be a view of our backs as we are leaving Iraq.  Rather, they must see an extended friendly hand that will not withdraw until they too are going home.  You must call out loudly for that result, or it will not happen.

- Alan Howe, January 2010

- Washington Post editorial “An enemy within: Combating the spread of homegrown extremism” (December 16, 2009)

Dear citizens, The Washington Post editorial cited above begins with a list of four incidents of people with Muslim names or associated with people with Muslim names who were arrested for allegedly plotting to attack the United States or to otherwise engage in terrorist acts.  Of course, we recoil from this, especially today (December 26) the day after a Nigerian college student from London allegedly attempted to blow up a plane on final approach into Detroit.  In none of these incidents were Americans harmed.  In yesterday’s attempt, the outcome seems to have been third-degree burns to the leg and perhaps groin of the would-be martyr.  Absent fatalities, the damage from these events is rather more to those “unjustly lumped in with the radicals.” 

Why do we (and The Post editors) recognize that the first sentence in the quote at the top clearly applies to us (“law-abiding, upstanding citizens”), yet the second, we feel certain, does not pertain to us at all?  The answer, of course, is that we manufacture the identities we use to define the miscreants, carefully drawing lines that ensure we are outside the dangerous and immoral group.  If we are Muslim, we note that these are the fanatics who do not represent the faith.  (True.)  Among those of other faiths or no faith, this is a much broader threat.  (False.)  Some implicitly and others explicitly condemn the whole of Islam.  Note the comment from Pat Robertson below, for example.  This effort does little to protect us from actual harm.  It merely provides an illusory space where we can pretend we are blameless and bear no responsibility.  It is a Fantasyland where we are solely victims, distinct and pure of all evil.  It is self-defeating. 

Why do we draw the lines around or through a faith and not a geography?  Note, for example, that people who have resided or spent time in northern Virginia have shot up in the past several years: Fort Hood, a campus in Woodbridge, Virginia, the campus at Virginia Tech, and, as noted in the beginning of the editorial cited above, have traveled to Pakistan hoping to shoot American soldiers.  What is wrong with northern Virginia?  Should northern Virginians be taking the same actions and feeling the same anxiety and remorse that the “moderate Muslims” among them are expected to take and to feel?  Will Pat Robertson condemn us?  This violence is a shared problem that we must all work at together. 

Consider, for example, the challenge a “moderate Muslim” has in dissuading a young man bent on revenge after the mistreatment of prisoners in our custody at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo or after we have mistakenly killed civilians in an air-strike in Iraq or Afghanistan.  A “moderate Muslim’s” task in this case is all but hopeless if we refuse to cooperate.  Terrorist recruiters misrepresent our actions and our intent, but our actions aid their efforts.  We are not powerless here, and we are not without a role.  We can do much more to counter their efforts.  In Afghanistan, a new focus on reducing civilian casualties will avoid supporting al Qaeda efforts.  Governmental and non-governmental aid efforts help.  We must support more, like doing something meaningful for the 4.8 million Iraqis displaced by the war we launched in 2003. 

We can help here, too.  Rather than applauding the way Muslims are treated here in America—as opposed to how we perceive they are being treated in, say, Europe—we can work much harder at treating them simply as “Americans”—not “Muslim-Americans” and not “moderate Muslim-Americans,” terms that depict them as “good” but still not us.  Non-Muslims can work at developing a better understanding of the faith and at treating its adherents in the same manner as they respond to the other variations of the Abrahamic faiths.  That would end a distinction—erase a line—that pushes Muslims out of our community and makes the task that we assigned to the moderates more difficult than it need be.  We could redraw the lines to include all those who reject violence in one welcoming body on one side and those few who embrace violence on the other.  It could include all northern Virginians in a common effort to reduce violence.  It could include all Americans. 

The essay below, written for a school assignment, notes that angry and emotionally disturbed men with guns are much more of a danger to us than Muslim extremists.  The faith of these men is often ignored if they are not Muslims.  Their faith is immaterial.  What matters is that they needed help and that that help was not available in time or sufficient amount.  And so, these men, the group who will kill you, began blasting away lethally at people who have everything or something or nothing to do with the demons who haunted them.  The line between them and us is far more important than the line between my faith and yours or the faith of anyone else.  We must act within that reality. 

- Alan Howe, December 2009

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The Group That Will Kill You

            On April 3rd, 2009, hours after Jiverly Voong walked into an immigration assistance center in Binghamton, New York, and began shooting, killing thirteen and wounding four, the Syracuse Post-Standard provided a “glance at some of the worst U.S. mass shootings in recent years:”

            • March 29, 2009: Robert Stewart, 45, shot and killed eight people at Pinelake Health and Rehab in Carthage, N.C. before a police officer shot him and ended the rampage.

• March 29, 2009: Devan Kalathat, 42, shot and killed his two children and three other relatives, then killed himself in an upscale neighborhood of Santa Clara, Calif. Kalathat’s wife was critically injured.

• March 10, 2009: Michael McLendon, 28, killed 10 people including his mother, four other relatives, and the wife and child of a local sheriff’s deputy across two rural Alabama counties. He then killed himself.

• Feb. 14, 2008: Former student Steven Kazmierczak, 27, opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, fatally shooting five students and wounding 18 others before committing suicide.

• Dec. 5, 2007: Robert A. Hawkins, 19, opened fire with a rifle at a Von Maur store in an Omaha, Neb., mall, killing eight people before taking his own life. Five more people were wounded, two critically.

• April 16, 2007: Seung-Hui Cho, 23, fatally shot 32 people in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, then killed himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

• Oct. 2, 2006: Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, shot to death five girls at West Nickel Mines Amish School in Pennsylvania, then killed himself.

• March 21, 2005: Student Jeffrey Weise, 16, killed nine people, including his grandfather and his grandfather’s companion at home. Also included were five fellow students, a teacher and a security guard at Red Lake High School in Red Lake, Minn. He then killed himself. Seven students were wounded.

• March 12, 2005: Terry Ratzmann, 44, gunned down members of his congregation as they worshipped at the Brookfield Sheraton in Brookfield, Wisconsin, slaying seven and wounding four before killing himself.

• March 5, 2001: Charles “Andy” Williams, 15, killed two fellow students and wounded 13 others at Santana High School in Santee, Calif.

• Nov. 2, 1999: Copier repairman Byran Uyesugi, 40, fatally shoots seven people at Xerox Corp. in Honolulu. He is convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

• July 29, 1999: Former day trader Mark Barton, 44, killed nine people in shootings at two Atlanta brokerage offices, then killed himself.

• April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 26 others before killing themselves in the school’s library.

• May 21, 1998: Two teenagers were killed and more than 20 people hurt when Kip Kinkel, 17, opened fire at a high school in Springfield, Ore., after killing his parents.

• March 24, 1998: Andrew Golden, 11, and Mitchell Johnson, 13, killed four girls and a teacher at a Jonesboro, Ark., middle school. Ten others were wounded in the shooting.

• Oct. 16, 1991: A deadly shooting rampage took place in Killeen, Texas, as George Hennard opened fire at a Luby’s Cafeteria, killing 23 people before taking his own life. 20 others were wounded in the attack (Carlic).

In all, that is 151 fatalities and at least 124 wounded, not counting the killers.  Nineteen men committed these acts, angry and often emotionally disturbed men with guns.  (I have left off several of the earlier mass killings on the Post-Standard list, ending, purposefully, with the killing at Killeen, Texas, which had been, for a time, the most lethal in modern U.S. history.)

            The Bureau of Justice reports that over ninety-three percent of the state and federal prison population is male.  They commit the bulk of the murders in the United States.  The FBI reports that of the 15,935 murders committed in 2004, men committed at least 10,262.  (The FBI lists 1,130 murders committed by women and 4,543 committed by “unknown.”)  Terrorism is more than merely murder, but it is the fear of death at the hands of terrorists, not a terrorist’s political motives, that most affects people.  Given the rather large gulf between the annual murder totals and the relatively rare occurrence of terrorism in the United States, Americans would do well to more carefully consider where the threats to their lives lie. 

            On November 5th, 2009, U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, walked into a deployment readiness center at Fort Hood, outside Killeen, Texas, and opened fire on his fellow soldiers, killing twelve and wounding thirty-one.  His victims wore the same uniforms as Hasan, many preparing to accompany him on his projected tour in Afghanistan where, ironically, he would be helping soldiers cope with the stress of war.  Like the men above, it seems Hasan was also in need of help.  He did not get it.

            The comments below track the reporting of this event in The Washington Post from November 6th to November 14^th, a total of twenty-five stories and two editorials.  November 15th was the first day the paper carried no reporting or editorials on the attack.  The stories go generally through four phases.  First, the stories focus on the shooting and, to a lesser extent, on the alleged shooter.  Reporting then shifts to more stories placing the attack in context, including background stories about Hasan, stress on soldiers, Muslims in the Army, and the connection to Virginia Tech, where Hasan graduated in 1995.  Then reporting shifted to covering “finger pointing” aimed at blaming law enforcement and intelligence organizations for failing to detect and disrupt the attack.  Finally, the stories focus on the legal proceedings related to Hasan’s trial. 

            Encouragingly, The Post refrained from the familiar and fear-inspiring discourse of militant jihadists attacking our freedoms that might be anticipated in this case.  Besides the legal cover The Post reporters and editors habitually adopt by describing the perpetrators of crimes as “the suspect” or “the accused” or “the alleged,” The Post describes the shooter in this case as “Major Hasan” or by his occupation, “Army psychiatrist,” significantly more often than any other appellation.  Hasan is fairly frequently described as a “devout Muslim” but without clear allusions to so-called militant Islam or jihad.  He is rendered as a decent person in several instances, making his acts all the more incomprehensible and seemingly irrational. 

            Coverage on the 6th includes four stories: a description of the attack, a short background on what was then known about Hasan, a story noting that Hasan worshipped at a mosque in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland, and a story about the strain on troops at Fort Hood caused by repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.  The stories note that Hasan,  a “devout Muslim,” had, according to his aunt, “endured name-calling and harassment about his Muslim faith for years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks” (Flaherty).    The stories note that Hasan thought the United States should not be in Iraq or Afghanistan while he apparently also urged the US to support the security forces in both countries (Slevin).  The stories also note that over 500 Fort Hood soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and at home, noting “[v]iolent outbursts such as shootings by soldiers at Army bases have occurred in recent years, including at Fort Hood, where several killings were reported over the past two years” (Tyson).  None, of course, gained notice like this attack.  It is, perhaps, this reality—that other military members have engaged in largely ignored fratricide—that steers Washington Post reporting toward a more nuanced and more understanding depiction of Major Hasan’s mass murder. 

            Major Hasan was a troubled man in a troubled service, recently reassigned from one troubled area to another.  At Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where Hasan worked for most of his time as an Army psychiatrist, doctors and staff deal with shortages in a system that is “undermanned” and “overworked” trying to deal with “a soaring suicide rate” and “[s]ome 34,000 soldiers [that] have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder since 2003” (Hull).  At Fort Hood, Hasan had an altercation with a fellow soldier at his apartment complex that demonstrates how these stresses manifest in daily life. 

John Van de Walker scraped a key along the full length of the passenger’s side of Hasan’s car.  Then he removed and destroyed a bumper sticker that read, “Allah is Love,” according to several residents…Van de Walker had recently returned from service in Iraq and was distraught that his neighbor was a Muslim (Rucker).

An anonymous source described the response to Hasan to Philip Rucker, who claims to have verified the account with other neighbors in the apartment complex.

“Everyone else just sat down there and drunk their beer and looked at him and giggled at him,” the woman said, starting to cry.  “They just would laugh at him when he walked down with his Muslim clothes…He was mistreated.  He didn’t have nobody.  He was all alone.  He went to his apartment there and was all alone.”

This was a continuation of Hasan’s experiences at Walter Reed treating soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Post’s Greg Jaffe led a team of reporters who describe the stresses on Hasan during his tour there: “Hasan had begun complaining that soldiers he was treating were biased against him.  ‘They would complain that he was Muslim and they were coming from Iraq’” (Jaffe).

            In the search for motivation for Major Hasan’s attack, the case that he was under extreme stress seems well made.  There is also a search to determine if his faith or his association with “radical” members of his faith spurred him to act.  Besides the mosque in Silver Spring, Hasan attended the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, at a time when it was led by “Anwar al-Aulaqi, a figure who crossed paths with al-Qaeda associates, including two Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers” (Hsu).  And—presto!—the discourse immediately turns into another assault on Islam and Muslims without regard to variations within the faith or modest levels of civility.  The Post presents the views of evangelist Pat Robertson who, according to the Post, claims “the military overlooked Hasan’s troubles because of a politically correct refusal to see Islam for what it is.” 

“Islam is a violent – I was going to say religion – but it’s not a religion.  It’s a political system.  It’s a violent political system bent on the overthrow of governments of the world and world domination” (Boorstein).

            The association of Hasan and al-Aulaqi is apparently rather more benign.  Alerted to a possible threat, United Sates intelligence agencies late last year and early this year “intercepted 10 to 20 e-mails from Hasan to Anwar al-Aulaqi” and, in information attributed to Representative Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the Post indicates “Aulaqi responded to Hasan at least twice.”  Rep. Hoekstra admitted that the “responses from Aulaqi were maybe pretty innocent” (Rucker, “Hasan”).  US agencies declined to investigate further the association and are being criticized for perhaps failing to unearth a jihadist plot. 

            Throughout the reporting and editorials, the Post takes an approach that is at least even-handed toward Hasan and Islam.  Stories repeatedly note that others saw Hasan as gentle and non-violent and not the type of person anyone suspected to act out in this manner.  Representatives of the two area mosques are quoted at length and allowed to explain that their faith abhors this conduct.  Even on the question of Hasan’s association with al-Aulaqi, who referred to Hasan’s attack as “a heroic act,” Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center members were quoted denouncing al-Aulaqi’s statement and allowed to separate themselves from his actions: 

“This was a really disgraceful statement from a blog of our former short-lived Imam Aulaqi,” the mosque’s outreach director, Johari Abdul-Malik, said Monday.  “Aulaqi wasn’t angry like that when he was here with us.  He changed after he left, after 9/11.  He became a different imam (Rucker, “Hasan’s”).

            Indeed, direct, rational religious motivation likely had little to do with Major Hasan’s angry attack against the soldiers he had dedicated the last several years of his life supporting.  Recently transferred to Fort Hood, Hasan cannot have known that the population he was shooting at did not include Muslims.  Indeed, he could not know that there was not an equally conflicted Muslim directly in the path of one of his bullets.  Moreover, U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan can be said to be defending Muslims against other Muslims, especially in Afghanistan where Hasan was expected to deploy. 

            Hasan’s act was irrational as he was not attacking the source of his conflict.  Soldiers do not choose which wars to fight.  They are ordered into combat by civilian leaders, responding to the wishes, or lax supervision, of the American electorate.  Hasan knows the soldiers are victims of these decisions; that is what angered him about his personal circumstance.  He was not allowed to opt out of the decision to fight two wars.  The people he shot were not those responsible for the decisions.  They were, like him, those bearing the cost of the decisions, truly his brothers and sisters in arms.  Killing them cannot advance Hasan’s cause. 

            The easiest and perhaps most affective and effective approach for would-be terrorists longing to attack within the United States would be to use our culture against us: to visit a gun show, load up, and blast away in a church or school or mall.  The Post’s rather even-handed reporting notwithstanding, the hyping of this tragedy in some cases, the intense focus in most, and the insistence on declaring that this attack was, above and beyond all other considerations, an attack by a Muslim who betrayed his brothers-in-arms, shows that fear—the terrorist’s principle weapon—is launched even without the participation of terrorists.  Will another Muslim in uniform attack us?  Will another Muslim next attack innocent civilians?  And yet, this fear does little to address the larger and more likely threat—that men with guns will kill us.  Representative Pete King (R-NY) has repeatedly introduced legislation to keep guns out of the hands of terrorist suspects.  Even this seemingly reasonable goal is thwarted by gun-rights advocates who see a slippery slope attached to even the most reasonable restrictions. The fear associated with Major Hasan’s attack does not seem destined to overcome this resistance.  Meanwhile, mental health support for men, including men in uniform, remains inadequate.  And so, not radical Muslims, but rather, angry and emotionally disturbed men with guns remains the group that will kill you. 

—————————-

Works Cited

Boorstien, Michelle. “Muslims in military seek a bridge between worlds.” Washington Post

            11 Nov. 2009 A7.

Carlic, Steve. “A glance at US mass shootings in recent years.” Syracuse Post-Standard 3 Apr.             2009, 20 Nov. 2009 <http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/

            a_glance_at_us_mass_shootings.html>

“Crime in the United States, 2004,” Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation.               http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/murder.html

Flaherty, Mary Pat, William Wan, and Christian Davenport. “Suspect, devout Muslim from Va.,             wanted Army discharge, aunt said.” Washington Post 6 Nov. 2009, A1+.

Hsu, Spencer, and Carrie Johnson. “Authorities scrutinize links between Fort Hood suspect,             imam said to back al-Qaeda.” Washington Post 9 Nov. 2009 A1+.

Hull, Anne, and Dana Priest. “At Walter Reed, a palpable strain on mental-health system.”             Washington Post 7 Nov. 2009 A1+.

Prison Inmates at Mid-Year 2008: Statistical Tables, Heather C. West, PhD., and William J,             Sabol, PhD., Bureau of Justice Statistics, March 2009, Revised April 8, 2009. 

Rucker, Philip, Carrie Johnson, and Ellen Nakashima. “Hasan e-mails to cleric didn’t result in             inquiry.” Washington Post 10 Nov. 2009 A1+.

Rucker, Philip. “The Lonely Life of ‘Number Nine.’” Washington Post 8 Nov. 2009, A1+.

Slevin, Peter. “Rampage kills 12, wounds 31.” Washington Post 6 Nov. 2009, A1+.

Tyson, Ann Scott. “Fort Hood has felt the strain of repeated deployments.” Washington Post 6             Nov. 2009 A8.

I think I should start by pointing out that this day began as a celebration of peace, or at least that is to my mind its purpose.  Five years ago, I visited a friend stationed with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.  (“SHAPE” it is called in another of our efforts to make every organization fit into “acronymonia.”)  My friend and I toured battlefields from World War One.  You remember; it was “the war to end all wars.”  We visited Verdun, his first trip, and my third.  Verdun is the site of the longest battle humankind has waged.  Hundreds of thousands of men on both sides died there in 1916 as a plot of land covering only several square miles changed hands repeatedly, until the battle-lines returned to nearly their original orientation and the engaged and bloodied nations turned to burying their dead and killing each other at other locales.  If that seems senseless, understand that this was the point of the Battle of Verdun.  The German plan was to “bleed the French white.”  The only unforeseen and unwanted result was the near equal destruction visited upon the attacking Germans. 

My friend and I also visited the grounds around Ypres, Belgium.  There, on “Flanders Fields” where “the poppies blow, Between the crosses row on row,” thousands more died from bombs and from shells and from bullets and from disease and from the first use of chemical weapons and from sinking below the water and mud that covered a stinking sea of death and destruction.  We were there to commemorate, with thousands from around Europe and beyond, Armistice Day, or more specifically, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.  Veterans Day is not merely a day to remember the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform; it is a day to rue that they have been called upon to fight and die and a day to celebrate the end of war.  In a nation with a military led by civilian leaders answerable only to you, it is a day to reflect upon your role.

Dear citizens, in June of 1993, I arrived at Aviano Air Base in northern Italy.  As a newly minted Senior Non-Commissioned Officer, I was taking on new roles and responsibilities for the care and feeding of the sons and daughters you send into the Air Force.  At Aviano, we had a unique opportunity to do good.  Like you, we watched in horror as mothers, trying to reach the market in Sarajevo to get food for their hungry families, were cut down by snipers.  We were appalled by wanton and inhuman acts of violence that covered Bosnia.  Those women and tens of thousands of others died while we waited in Italy.  Finally, you decided—collectively, either by advocating for or against or by sitting on your hands and allowing others to decide for you—that we should act to stop the killing.  Over a period of almost exactly two weeks, we bombed Serbian forces while Croatian troops simultaneously drove Serbs from their territory, ending the killing.  Sixteen years later, that effort still holds.  We were so successful that we reprised our role in Kosovo in 1999 and wondered why we had not acted in Rwanda and wonder now why we are not acting in places like Darfur or east Congo.  These are your decisions. 

On Thanksgiving Day in 2002, I arrived in Doha, Qatar, to play a tiny role in planning and executing the start of the war in Iraq, putting at grave risk the sons and daughters you had sent me at that point and hundreds of thousands of others who have served since then.  Frankly, I do not know what you were thinking.  But, we have a civilian-led military that our government uses to do those things that you demand and to do those things that you allow.  While Bosnia was the zenith of my time in uniform—who gets to say they participated in actions that perhaps saved tens or hundreds of thousands of people?—the role you assigned me in Iraq was the nadir.  Perhaps you are already familiar with the costs: as of today 4,362 dead American troops, 31,557 wounded.  (Iraqi loses have been frightfully worse: over 85,000 killed and nearly 4.8 million displaced.)  All this has occurred while we continue a fight in Afghanistan (918 killed, 4,434 wounded) that until very recently seemed to have dropped completely from the minds of most Americans.  (Not from yours, of course.)

So, dear citizens, what role have you played?  Are you advocating for or against the use of military force in these or other conflicts?  Are you doing nothing?  Are you participating in debates and decisions that may place your sons and daughters or your neighbors’ sons and daughters in harm’s way?  Are you mindful enough and concerned enough on this Veterans Day to actively play your role in our civilian-led military?  For the record, in case you are new to this page, I am for staying in Afghanistan and for leaving Iraq.  And you?  And who knows your opinion?  We have this odd idea that discussing politics is impolite (except when we hide behind pseudonyms online and purposefully act impolite).  Rubbish!  Self-defeating and exceptionally dangerous rubbish!  We are a Democracy, a nation of people who govern themselves.  We are not to debate the decisions that are vital to our nation and ourselves?  We are not to inform ourselves on the issues that matter and to discuss them amongst ourselves, to advise our elected representatives on how to represent us, to VOTE?!  Which are you—active or passive?  It is Veterans Day; time to honor the sacrifices of our military members.  It is time to commit to our role in determining their use.  And it is time, perhaps, for some to apologize for not participating.  After all, dear citizens, whether we participate or not, we decide to make veterans—this day and every day.  What will you do? 

- Alan Howe, November 11, 2009

- Bryan Whitman, Pentagon spokesman (“Pentagon: Some Gitmo detainees rejoin fight,” Associated Press on MSNBC.com, May 26, 2009)

Dear citizens, you are perhaps familiar with a fundamentally different NIMBY—NOT in my backyard!  We face, collectively, myriad challenges that require sacrifice on the part of some of our citizens.  And, we all agree that we should not be those citizens called upon to sacrifice.  “More nuclear power to resolve our energy challenges and avert the effects of global warming?”  “Sure!”  “Where shall we put the waste?”  “Somewhere else!”  “This city needs another waste water treatment plant.”  “Over there, please.”  “More taxes are required to balance the budget.”  “Get them from the… (insert “obscenely wealthy” or “lazy poor”).  I am taxed too much already!”  The impulse is understandable. Perhaps no one has an over-riding need for a close-by nuclear waste dump or a compelling interest in living within olfactory range of not-yet-reclaimed water.  None of us requires that our wallets be lightened.  However, that impulse, NIMBY, should not be allowed full rein when doing so subverts our interests.  There are times when our reflexes are wrong—times when a counter-intuitive action better serves us.  Take, for instance, the very real and pressing need we have to welcome former Guantanamo prisoners, especially those who may be terrorists, into our backyards.

The reasons for welcoming former Guantanamo prisoners into our towns and cities are more numerous than you may think.  Fidelity to our Constitution and our founding principles comes immediately to mind.  The Rule of Law separates us from less secure nations, and that same rule of law now is threatened by injustice.  As Dr. King put it so well “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”   A litany of arguments, external criticisms, and domestic court rulings all cast doubt on the legality and call attention to the injustice of our actions in Guantanamo.  Our actions threaten our reputation and leadership internationally and our freedoms and security at home.

There is also, of course, the humanitarian concern.  We are holding people, whom we now know to be innocent of wrong doing, merely because we cannot return them to their homes and cannot find a third country to accept them.  The tragic case of seventeen Uighurs figures prominently here.  Whatever the final outcome for these men, we have done them wrong and, worse still, delayed treating them justly, because we refuse to allow them into welcoming communities here in the United States.  We are incarcerating these innocent men only because we fear to treat them as Justice demands we treat innocent men.  The United States Supreme Court will look at this case soon if our government will not take action first (“The clock is ticking,” Washington Post, October 21, 2009).  The prospects for our government in a review by the Supreme Court are dim.  However, while ordering the release of these prisoners helps them and our democratic values, the orders—to the dismay of Justice and innocent prisoners—are not often effective.

Of the 38 habeas corpus cases adjudicated to date, detainees have prevailed in 30.  Yet 20 men who’ve been ordered released by federal judges remain behind Guantanamo’s wire because the United States has been unable to find suitable homes for them (“The Meaning of Freedom,” Washington Post, September 29, 2009).

There also is, as the quote above hints, a practical reason for bringing Guantanamo detainees to the United States.  While some countries have agreed to take limited numbers of our detainees to ease the effects of our mistakes or to see Justice served, many are unwilling to do so or are unwilling to accept more.  Why, they wonder, should they accept the former prisoners we dare not accept ourselves?  Why, they wonder, should they help shoulder a burden we unnecessarily accumulated?  Were we to bring some of these detainees into the United States, we may find that our allies and friends across the globe are more willing to lend a hand.  In certain cases, this may place innocent men closer to their families and to familiar cultures even if they dare not venture home. 

Dear citizens, we have a couple reasons—more selfish than those already listed—that also argue for bringing detainees here.  First, there is respect for the maxim “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”  And, closely related to this, there is the usefulness of these prisoners in protecting us from terrorist attacks if we settle them here. 

The Associated Press article mentioned at the top of this essay relates to a Pentagon study of the actions of detainees freed from “Gitmo.”  According to this reporting, the Pentagon believes that “five percent of Guantanamo Bay detainees have participated in terrorist activities since their release” and that “an additional 9 percent are believed to have joined—or rejoined—the fight against the U.S. and its allies.”  We can read this as a worst-case scenario, but we should also read these numbers in reverse.  That is, we should note how many of the detainees who were released are not thought to have fought or resumed fighting against us—somewhere around five hundred of the 543 released. The story gives us a range of numbers to consider.

As of April 7, the latest data available, 74 of approximately 540 detainees that have been released have since taken up the fight, or are at least suspected of doing so.  The Pentagon says it has fingerprints, DNA, photos or reliable intelligence to link 27 detainees to the war [on terror] since their release. 

We can conclude, then, that most of the detainees released in the United States will be uninterested in doing harm to us.  But, we must examine this just a bit further with a hypothetical situation regarding those who might wish to harm us.  Imagine a Pashtun (or Tajik or Uighur or Saudi or Yemeni) released in, say, Afghanistan.  He is surrounded by people who speak his language or has access to protected communities who do.  He has ready access to a plethora of weapons—not rifles or shotguns, mind you, but AK-47’s and rocket-propelled grenades with launchers, mortars, and many, many things that will go “boom” under a passing military patrol or convoy.  That is, someone bent on committing a violent act against our allies or us or another target will find the means and support to do so.  Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock provides a recent report that shows this is more than mere speculation.

In August, Pakistani officials arrested a group of 12 foreigners headed to North Waziristan, a tribal region near the Afghan border where many of the [Taliban and al Qaeda] camps are located.  Among those arrested were four Swedes, including Mehdi Ghezali, a former inmate of the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (“Flow of terrorist recruits increasing,” Washington Post October 19, 2009). 

From the more alarmist of our two perspectives, Ghezali is merely one of many treading the same path to committing violence against the United States.  Among the five percent of former detainees the Pentagon is fairly certain have engaged in “terrorist” activities since their release (all of whom were released overseas), some involvement is rather more serious.

Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, formerly Guantanamo prisoner No. 008, was among 13 Afghan prisoners released to the Afghan government in December 2007.  Rasoul is now known as Mullah Abdullah Zakir, a nom de guerre that Pentagon and intelligence officials say is used by a Taliban leader who is in charge of operations against U.S. and Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan (“Officials: New Taliban chief once at Gitmo.” MSNBC.com, March 10, 2009).

Now, imagine that Rasoul had been released to a small apartment in a neighborhood in, say, Arlington, Virginia—my backyard.  There are, to be sure, at least a few people who speak his language and understand his culture.  (I occasionally eat at a nearby Afghan restaurant, for example.)  In other parts of the country there are perhaps none.  But, even if that person (our hypothetical Rasoul) had evil intent and found people who understood him and might cooperate with him, the means are far, far harder to gather.  I will grant that a reprise of the Holocaust Museum attack—a tragic event even at that scale—could perhaps be conducted if a weapon could be acquired through legal or illegal means.  But to do more, say, to repeat Timothy McVeigh’s attack, or, as seems to have happened in Rasoul’s actual case, to become a warlord killing American troops, would be very, very difficult.  That small portion of Guantanamo Bay detainees who have joined or returned to the fight have, to their advantage, residence outside the United States.  Besides the help in their immediate vicinity, their physical separation makes it harder for us to track their whereabouts and their activities.  Their physical separation makes them more lethal to others and to us. 

A former detainee would have a much harder time attacking us from inside the United States because we would be watching that person much more closely.  Indeed, it is hard to imagine a court would refuse to allow surveillance of a person initially picked up, and later long held, because of suspicion that the individual was a threat to us.  A close connection to law enforcement could also be argued as a necessity for the former prisoner.  Simply put, that person’s life is in danger here in the United States.  For his own protection, he must remain within a modest radius, so that a “freedom-loving American” with the right to bear arms does not take it upon himself to eliminate the perceived threat.  This close and cooperative surveillance, part of a program that might combine elements of our witness protection and material witness programs, provides the second selfish benefit to us.

Dear citizens, I wager that you were alarmed to learn that a terrorism suspect, Najibullah Zazi, was recently arrested while allegedly planning to carry backpacks full of explosives onto commuter trains (“U.S. Officials Say Zazi Had Links To Bin Laden’s Afghan Lieutenant,” Brett Blackledge, Washington Post, October 15, 2009).  Anyone who remembers the attacks in London on July 7, 2005, surely shuddered at the idea.  Take comfort.  The person was arrested because he was found out.  The as yet less well-developed story surrounding the arrest of Tarek Mehanna shows that the Zazi arrest was not a fluke (“Massachusetts man arrested on terror charges,” Spencer Hsu, Washington Post, October 22, 2009).  Travel to al Qaeda training camps almost invariably raises suspicion, we should imagine.  Still, we must allow that since this plot was hatched here, others may exist outside our knowledge.  How do we find them?  Well, we could bait a trap.  That is, we could place about 160 former detainees—people al Qaeda elements or sympathizers in this country may see as kindred spirits or possible collaborators—here, where those criminal elements will have access to them.  Al Qaeda’s leaders are likely to order their followers to seek out former detainees—detainees we will be watching.  Every former prisoner released here should be told that the FBI will conduct “sting” operations repeatedly to try to draw them into conspiracies to attack the United States.  And, those sting operations must be conducted.  Should a former detainee join in, then we at last have legal grounds for a trial and lawful incarceration.  More likely, this will dissuade them from acting against our interests and will make them eager to turn in anyone who solicits their help in planning a terrorist attack lest they both end up in prison.  The presence of these former prisoners may protect us against internal threats. 

Among the 226 prisoners at Guantanamo, a sub-set of perhaps one hundred to 160 would require close supervision.  A smaller group, that includes the Uighurs, would require somewhat lesser supervision.  The remainder would be held in our court system until conviction or acquittal.  Those convicted would go to prison, of course, while those acquitted should join the closely watched group.  Of this potentially dangerous group (too dangerous to be release, we are told), the largest and apparently most troubling subset consists of Yemenis we would like to pass off to Saudi Arabia.  The Saudis doubt that is a good idea despite the success they have had in returning former Saudi detainees to peaceful and productive lives (“U.S. Sees Saudi Program As an Option for Detainees,” Sudarsan Raghavan and Peter Finn, Washington Post, October 14, 2009).  In the United States, the Yemenis would join a population of Yemeni-Americans that is a subset of seven percent of “other Arabs” from a larger Arab-American population that comprises 3.5 percent of the US population—a total that is something less, perhaps well less, than 760,000 (according to US Census data posted on the Arab American Institute web site).  That is to say, if this group of former detainees has potential allies who would aid them in doing harm to the United States, those allies are likely few in number.  I have no reason to suspect that Yemini-Americans or legal Yemeni immigrants are in any way less loyal to the United States than others, and I doubt that they are.  That there may be people in this country—from whatever background—who are so inclined, however, argues for the release of closely watched former detainees to lure threats out of hiding. 

But, not everyone is taking a calm, rational view of this challenge.  Even the trial and incarceration of convicted detainees is resisted.  In an August 21, 2009, Washington Post article, Kary Lydersen reports on the effects of a conversation between a tavern owner, Dave Munson, and United States Representative Peter Hoekstra (R-MI).  Lydersen quotes Munson’s response, “He told me about soft targets and safe zones, that if they came to this country they would have rights, visitors and friends would come who could be jihadists.”  Of course, we want “jihadists” to visit their allies in jail and to engage them in recorded conversations about terror plots.  But, are we unable to safely and effectively hold prisoners?  According to the U.S. Department of Justice, we had a national prison population of over 2.3 million inmates as of June 30, 2008.  Of the 2005 population, fully fifty-three percent were considered “violent.”  Holding violent people, who are lawfully convicted for threatening the safety and security of Americans, is what our prisons do.  To suggest that they cannot do that calls into question the legitimacy of our widely admired Justice system.  If the whole of the remaining population at Guantanamo Bay, all 226 or so, were to be tried and lawfully convicted by a court of law, it seems fairly certain that they could be absorbed by a system with the capacity to hold nearly 10,000 times as many inmates.  Munson, according to Lydersen, organized a town hall meeting on the subject.  The intention is clear, to cry loudly “Not in my backyard!”  This battle cry only preserves an untenable situation.  Happily, our Senate seems at last to have resisted the urge and has passed a bill to allow trials here (“Senate OKs transfer of Gitmo prisoners for trials,” MSNBC.Com, October 20, 2009).

Dear citizens, we have then three or perhaps four broad options for dealing with detainees in Guantanamo Bay prisons whose incarceration there every day diminishes our reputation as a nation that stands for Liberty and the Rule of Law.  We can continue to release to other countries those who cannot be convicted of crimes and hope for the best, all the while knowing that some will kill Americans overseas and attempt to launch external attacks against us here.  Perhaps some detainees can be allowed this option.  Other detainees, those for whom we have charges and evidence, must be brought here to stand trial.  Those lawfully convicted will be incarcerated.  Those acquitted must be closely watched and protected.  Joining them should be that troubling category of detainees that two successive administrations have claimed are “too dangerous” to release but for whom we lack evidence of actual crimes.  Holding them violates the most basic founding principles in American Democracy.  If these people truly wish to do us harm, make them try here, where the challenges are greater and where the chances of detection, arrest, trail, conviction, and incarceration are greatest.  And finally, we have detainees who even we believe are no threat and who are not suspected of committing any crimes.  They must be released into communities that will welcome, support, and watch them.  For them, and especially for us, we must demand that the release of these last two groups, and the trials of the first, occur necessarily in our backyards. 

- Alan Howe, October 2009

 “President Obama must be supported by Congress and the American people because, as the imminent anniversary of the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, reminds us, success in Afghanistan serves American’s own national security interests.”

- M. Ashraf Haidari, Political Counselor, Embassy of Afghanistan  (“Assessing Afghanistan’s Present and Future,” Washington Post, September 7, 2009.)

Dear citizens, it has been, as you are unnecessarily reminded, eight years.  I suspect you are all well aware of the anniversary and recall with painful clarity the horrific attacks all those long years ago.  How could you forget?  How could anyone forget?  Yet, it appears some have.  It is not that most Americans have forgotten the name Osama bin Laden or agree with the sentiment “I truly am not that concerned about him” expressed just six months after the 9/11 attacks.¹  However, as this eighth anniversary arrives, we read repeatedly that American support for the war in Afghanistan, even among those who supported the war in Iraq, is slipping.²  This we must not allow because a loss of support for this war can lead to the loss of our best chance to defeat al Qaeda and to satisfy the demand for Justice that should still sound like a shrill and incessant siren in the ears of each of us.

We have lost most of these eight years.  For over six years, our focus has been on Iraq, a nation that despite the success of the last administration in convincing a large majority of Americans was involved in the 9/11 attacks, actually had no role.  No one should have believed that Iraq was involved.³  During this period that our focus was diverted, the establishment of a democratic Afghan government has moved only hesitantly forward on the efforts of many Afghan patriots.  They had inadequate support.  Across the border, the dictator Pervez Musharraf was helped to the bitter end by the Bush administration and protected with protestations that our dictator was “doing all that he can” to help us against al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.  It is often impossible to gauge whether one is doing all they can to support us and not merely what they must to placate us.  What we do know is that a Pakistan Taliban emerged as a threat to Pakistan and the United States while Musharraf was in power.  And we know that the performance of the democratic government in Pakistan is dramatically more effective and helpful than anything dictatorship provided to the Pakistanis and us. 

Dear citizens, while others are pessimistic about the situation on both sides of the Durand Line, I am more optimistic than ever.  We have an advantage now; we can ally ourselves with two democratic governments engaged in civil war against an enemy we all share.  We can, for the first time, ally ourselves with the Afghanistan and Pakistan peoples to achieve a shared aim.  And in this effort, we stand our very best chance of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and the rest of our al Qaeda enemies.  We have never had it so good.

Let me start by stomping down some of the pessimism.  Yes, as noted, we are eight years into this with less to show than we would like.  Again, that comes from want of focus, so we should expect that if we try harder, we may accomplish more.  But that concedes too much to those who argue things in northwestern Pakistan and (all around but primarily) southeastern Afghanistan are hopeless.  We must look afresh at the images we are presented and interpret them more accurately.  We know that in Swat valley and in parts of Afghanistan the Taliban have been attacking little girls on their way to or from school.  It is hard to imagine a more repulsive act, especially if one includes the specifics of the attacks.⁴  We also recoil in disgust to learn that Taliban nihilists have responded to the recent election in Afghanistan by amputating fingers.⁵  We succumb too soon, however, if we stop there.  The attacks on schoolgirls happen because Afghan and Pakistan families (read, fathers) have decided and, importantly, continue to decide that their daughters must have an education no matter the threats from modernity’s enemies.  Afghan voters lost fingers, and perhaps more according to some press reports, because Afghans determined that their future should be decided by them in a Democracy, not decided for them by gun-wielding thugs.  That is, the picture is not just of thugs and their violence.  These are the minority that attacks a majority they find they cannot control.  Schools and voting booths exist despite the Taliban’s and al Qaeda’s best efforts.  The criminals are losing.  It would be great if we were defeating them.  It is even better that Afghans are Pakistanis are. 

I am marveling over an image that I expected did exist but for which you and I had no proof.  Now it is here.  While we are accustomed (read, conditioned or trained) to picture Afghanistan as brick or mud-walled buildings all an invariable dusty brown, now we see pictures of Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission counting votes.  They are doing this in a carpeted room with rows of desks covered in computers under fluorescent lighting.⁶  It is an image of modernity.  And, who can argue that the Afghans are not doing a better job of handling their election and its attendant fraud accusations with more success than the Iranians who have more experience with the process?  We see and perpetuate a story of a country, Afghanistan, that cannot help itself, that is hopeless without us.  Our help is important.  But the vital effort—that of the local citizens—is hardly as absent as we might perceive.  We are not alone in this fight. 

Some months ago, we were alarmed that the Pakistan Taliban had conquered the Swat Valley, secured their hold there in an agreement with the Pakistan government, and were pressing into Buner District, a mere seventy miles from Islamabad.  Control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could not be far away.  We were not the only ones alarmed.  The democratic government of Pakistan, supported by its military and its citizens have responded forcefully.  The reversals dealt to the Taliban are severe.  Some worry the Taliban will return, but the Pakistan government is not merely pushing them back; it is killing them, pressing its advantage of artillery, tanks, helicopters, and fighter planes, to destroy a group that the citizens of Pakistan now widely view as an enemy to their state and their security.⁷  The Pakistan government is destroying al Qaeda’s safe refuge and threatening to push them back over the border into Afghanistan, where we are today. 

Dear citizens, some are arguing that we must not send additional troops to Afghanistan or arguing we must leave.  When George Will, Chuck Hagel, Carl Levin, and Russ Feingold all seem to be saying very similar things, we would be quite foolish not to listen up whether we agree or disagree with their position.  It is likely that adding more US and western troops is counter-productive.  The recently added 21,000 may even be an error.  However, it is a problem that is recognized.  US General Stanley McChrystal is planning to enlarge the Afghan Army of 40,000 today (a number that points to our lack of focus and effort) past the 134,000 that had been planned and on to 240,000.  Senator Levin will boost his effort.⁸  This is very important because it provides a necessary Afghan face to an effort that is too foreign now.  It allows western forces to move to the back.  (It provides an additional potential benefit that will be described later.)  But, getting to 240,000 will take time even with a renewed focus.  We cannot allow the Taliban to advance in the meantime.  If stopping the Taliban requires more US troops now (and it does), then we must provide those troops.  Failing to stop the Taliban is not a safe or reasonable option for us, and it is not a fate we should allow the region.

When I graduated from high school in a very small town (not a single traffic light even today) in the center of upstate New York, I had very few prospects in life.  So, when an Air Force recruiter called that summer, I reluctantly agreed to sign up.  My mother was rather unhappy, but at least I would learn a skill that would improve those poor prospects I had been dragging along.  Indeed, besides providing me with sorely lacking discipline and a reinvigorated love of country, I was taught a valuable skill.  In fact, I was taught dozens of skills over the twenty-four years I eventually served.  I was hardly unique.  During my career, the Air Force and I have done the same for hundreds of thousands of Americans who are eagerly hired by companies that desire those qualities time in uniform imparts.  Afghanistan should be so lucky.

We are fighting a battle for hearts and minds, we are often reminded.  That is true, but the Afghans (and the Pakistanis) need not love us.  They need only love their nation—their Afghanistan.  That is, Afghanistan needs Afghan patriots—citizens who put their nation’s success ahead of themselves and ahead of parochial interests.  These patriots can form the core of a democratic Afghanistan that admits a vibrant, spirited debate of ideas and that blocks and eventually destroys the efforts to dominate the political sphere with guns and bombs.  Moreover, as my training in telecommunications and the training of others in medical fields and plumbing and electrical power generation and myriad civil engineering fields, in accounting and personnel management, and on and on, increased the pool of professionals, Afghan professionals graduating from military careers will push ahead the nation building which we find unappealing but absolutely necessary.  The Afghan Army, then, needs the same type of professional and technical training schools that have benefited our nation.  It has often been asserted that where the roads in Afghanistan end, the Taliban begin.  As the Afghan Army pushes forward across the country, they should have the skills to bring with them roads and wells and electricity and communications and mosques and schools.  The Afghan Army, not ours, should contract for this construction to the limits of the local economy, and it should encourage its members who have served their tours to start their own companies to provide these services or to join already established companies. 

Dear citizens, as the Afghanistan Army and roads and electricity and schools move forward across the country, they must take with them something that you enjoy every day—a national rule of law.  The Taliban is not a monolith.  Each member is not a cloned copy of some original “perfect Taliban.”  The regional leaders competed and argued when they controlled much of Afghanistan.  They stand, like all of us, in a continuum between their most violent and their most peaceful.  Afghans and Pakistanis need a means to allow the more peaceful of the Taliban to “opt out” of the fight against their country, their countrymen, and their neighbors.  I suggest that, as the Pakistan government moves forward and as the Afghan government takes over duties at the front from American and coalition forces, they implement laws that enable peace.  First and foremost, no foreigner who is not part of a fighting force allied with and sanctioned by the central government should be allowed within the immediate vicinity of any weapon.  Second, no citizen should be allowed to travel with a weapon.  That is, all weapons must be kept at home.  Some will quickly note that weapons are needed for protection while traveling.  But, that is true only where the rule of law is weak or nonexistent.  Once an adequate force is in place to protect the population, an adequate force is in place to enforce the prohibition on the movement of weapons.  In fact, the two are complementary. 

Behind this effort must be an adequate but subdued US military presence and a robust and unyielding financial backstop.  But we need not go it alone in Afghanistan or Pakistan.  Nations around the world face a threat from al Qaeda hiding amongst the Taliban.  This criminal gang has a goal that is little more than to disrupt and destroy groups and nations that are more comfortable than they.  There seems to be no barrier to being placed on their list of enemies.  Western nations must contribute, of course, but Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which recognized the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, must now commit to financing and delivering the defeat of the Taliban-allied al Qaeda on both sides of the border.  This should be a simple decision for both.  Saudi Arabia was al Qaeda’s first target.  Pakistan is its latest.  The Afghan and Pakistan Taliban provided, provide, and plan to continue providing a sanctuary for their al Qaeda allies.  This sanctuary must disappear.  This menace must be destroyed. 

The war in Afghanistan has gone on for too long.  But we have ourselves to blame for that.  It is just as inappropriate that we walk away from this essential task as it is to forget the events of eight years ago that brought about our incursion.  We must not waiver, and we must not fail.  Our goal should be not merely to make this al Qaeda’s and Osama bin Laden’s Waterloo.  This must be their Carthage.  Vibrant, self-sustaining Democracy in Afghanistan and Pakistan will be a full and lasting revenge that will serve as dramatic justice for the victims of 9/11.  We will need many years to reach this goal, but we must settle for nothing less. 

- Alan Howe, September 11, 2009

1.  “Media provides false ‘context’ for Bush quote on bin Laden,”

http://mediamatters.org/research/200410140007

2. George F. Will, “Time to Get Out of Afghanistan,” Washington Post, September 1, 2009

3. “Cheney Link of Iraq, 9/11 Challenged,”

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/09/16/cheney_link_of_iraq_911_challenged/

4. “Afghan Girls, Scarred by Acid, Defy Terror, Embracing School,”            

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/world/asia/14kandahar.html

5. “Taliban ‘cut off fingers of two Afghan voters,’”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/22/afghanistan-election-taliban-fingers

6. “Karzai Maintains Lead in Afghan Vote Count,”            

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/26/afghanistan.election/

7. “Poll: Pakistanis oppose Taliban, still revile US,”            

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090814/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan_unpopular_taliban

8. “Levin presses for training, not troops,”

http://www.thehill.com/homenews/senate/58339-levin-presses-for-training-not-troops

“And now we can see the value of the device of the Committee of the Whole.  If this had been the final vote on proportional representation, many if not most of the small-state delegates would have walked out of the Convention.  They did not because the Convention was still sitting as the Committee of the Whole, and the motions favoring proportional representation in both houses of Congress, which had just passed, were only ‘recommendations’ and would have to be debated and voted on again when the Convention cast off the fiction of the Committee.” 

- Christopher and James Lincoln Collier, Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787. 

Dear citizens, our great system of government, which we have loved and supported for over 220 years, is the evolutionary product of thousands of years of history and the product of giving ourselves more than one chance to succeed.  The Constitutional Convention that met in Philadelphia in May 1787 owes its success to the great minds, to those who gathered their experiences and knowledge of mankind’s history of governments and Democracy into one hall.  However, differing opinions on the lessons to be learned from experience and history, as well as competing concerns between large and small states first and then between northern and southern states later, threatened at all times the collapse of the convention.  Success, then, also owes a lot to the organization of the convention.  The Colliers credit the Committee of the Whole for preserving the required unity.

A second wise decision made in the early days of the Convention was the adoption of a procedure under which questions that had been voted on could nonetheless be brought up again.  Without this rule the Convention would have collapsed in the first week.  Blocs of delegates who saw issues crucial to their states go against them, and who might otherwise have decided to walk out, could sit tight, in the knowledge that they could bring the matter up again when they thought they had a better chance.  As a consequence, throughout the Convention, Matters were undecided almost as frequently as they were decided.  Central issues were voted on again and again.

The Committee of the Whole would consider and debate these issues until they were worked out individually and until they fit together into the complicated mosaic that provided an adequately powerful government that could not infringe on individual liberties—to create a quilt that protected the interests of each from all while providing the unity necessary to protect all from factions and outside threats.  When the Committee had worked through this challenge it issued a report to the Convention, and the Convention then could meet as itself and approve the final version. 

Time and time again, proposals would be passed only to see later defeat.  Time and time again, elements of the Constitution that we employ to control our government and our elected representatives—elements we find unremarkable like proportional representation or somewhat odd like the electoral college—went down to defeat, only to rise, sometimes repeatedly, until they became hallmarks of the final document.  We citizens vote for our President—as opposed to a selection made by the Congress—because James Wilson tried repeatedly to put together a popular vote proposal that would pass muster.  After several defeats, he finally won. 

The Collier’s history has a unique organization as a result of this repeated visiting and revisiting of critical issues.  A purely chronological accounting would have been so convoluted and confusing that the history of important features of the Constitution would have been hopelessly obscured.  Instead, the authors divided the book by themes and traced the development of each, repeatedly covering the same dates and men and events to show the alternations of advances and retreats. We see that an advance or defeat in one area leads to advances or defeats elsewhere. This often caused the delegates to revisit and repair or refine or abandon previous agreements.  It is as if they are building a house without a blueprint.  As each room is built, say a dining room is agreed to and constructed, other rooms require adjustment.  The kitchen, for example, proves too small to feed the crowd that the dining room can accommodate.  Adding floor space to the kitchen may require reducing the living room.  Constructing, dismantling, and rebuilding agreements leads to the required compromises that produce a house that everyone can live in, a system of government that everyone can live under.   

The Committee of the Whole and the agreement to allow issues to be raised and debated over and over combined to create a crucial effect.  No one risked a serious loss.  Knowing that something surrendered for a moment could be demanded back later, allowed for compromise and experiment. This allowed for a long summer of experimentation necessary to settle an issue that had perplexed mankind for all its history—how people can govern themselves.  The result of just several months’ effort has been a 222-year-long success that is unique in human history.  The lesson may be that when risk is set aside and men (and women) are allowed to be daring they can achieve unimaginably worthwhile results.  It is an experience that I argue can and should be repeated. 

(This was not the first use of a Committee of the Whole.  It is our best example and one that yielded an unparalleled result—a Constitution that trumps all that have come before or since.)

Dear citizens, imagine being given the opportunity to star in a circus trapeze act.  No thanks?  Rather few people have the courage to defy the risk.  Suppose then, that I offer to “turn down” the gravity for the duration of your practice and your performance.  Still, I imagine your ascendance of the long ladder to the perilous platform above will be hesitant.  Once at the top, you may restrain your efforts to short swings out and quickly back to the platform to ensure you can regain your feet.  Finally, you might progress to swinging out and relinquishing your grasp of the trapeze in hand in favor for the trapeze swung toward you by your partner on the opposing platform.  You may stop at this level of risk despite repeated success until you finally fail to grasp the presented trapeze.  Panic will ensue.  Fear will consume you.  But, you will overcome this normal and understandable fright when the reduced gravity allows you to gently descend to land squarely and securely on your feet.  Now, you may race up the ladder, mindless of the risk—it has been removed, after all—and immediately swing forward to try new acrobatics that neither you nor anyone has attempted before.  Is it impossible to attempt an eight-and-a-half somersault, catching the incoming trapeze with your feet?  Why not try and see?  If you fail, you will settle on your feet once again, and you can try a different combination.  Perhaps someone hanging from the other trapeze can make the maneuver a success by grabbing your feet on the last rotation.  Perhaps if you both reach out as far as you can…  What other feats of derring-do might you attempt if risk was suspended? 

The long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is grounded by a number of weighty issues.  The “gravity” of the situation halts real progress.  Every movement, any concession, could be the last—could be a fatal, permanent mistake.  Exploration and experimentation are often considered too hazardous to attempt.  Steps forward are hesitant and small and quickly reversed.  We have a roadmap that is all but un-trod.  Meanwhile, innocents on both sides suffer.  We can do better.  We can do more.  We can turn down the gravity. 

I propose that a “Committee of the Outside” be formed to negotiate an agreement—a report in the Constitutional Convention model—for a permanent peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians.  By “Outside” I mean former officials, academics, cultural leaders, and citizens from all walks of life who are outside of, and willing to remain unconnected to, their governments.  These two groups, one Israeli, one Palestinian, should self-elect their members, permitting anyone willing to engage in the process for the entire duration, say, up to three years, to add their name to a list of candidates.  Each candidate could then be offered three votes to cast for candidates other than themselves.  The top twenty-five candidates from each list would join the Committee.  These members would take an oath to remain removed from the political proceedings of their governments, would commit themselves to working solely within the proceedings of the Committee, and would swear to keep the proceedings secret until a final report is approved and released.

To permit the Committee to do its work, it will require an executive and a meeting place.  Would that we had George Washington to reprise his role.  In his absence, I suggest the United Nations Security Council or Secretary General carefully select six to ten candidates for this role.  These candidates should be respected world leaders who, like the members of the Committee, have no formal attachment to their governments.  Nobel Prize winners would be proper candidates as would former heads of states and senior retired diplomats.  The two candidate lists should each be given two votes to cast for the executive.  Each executive candidate receiving votes, two to four in all, will serve as the executive.  This council will then perform a number of roles.  It will schedule meetings, including calling for recess when tempers become heated.  It will, with great care and reluctance, remove Committee members who subvert the process or negotiate in bad faith.  The Executive will also solicit funds and other necessary resources from the international community to facilitate the operation of the Committee.  It will do whatever else it deems necessary to allow the Committee to move forward. 

A university in, for example, Turkey, Norway, or the United States, could serve as host to the Committee.  If multiple offers to host the proceedings are made, the Committee should vote to select the location.  The Executive will require a staff to assist its efforts.  A university of reasonable size and reputation should be able to attract or provide from its faculty sufficient support to the effort.  As with everyone involved with the Committee, these staff members should also be sworn to secrecy regarding the proceedings and subject to removal by the Executive. 

This Committee of the Outside should work for as long as it takes to construct a comprehensive solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine.  It should be an agreement that the populations of the two sides can merely vote up or down although, as in the case of the Constitutional Convention, the governments representing the Palestinians and the Israelis should be allowed to debate and modify the agreement.  They should do this with the understanding that it is a complete agreement and that tampering with it poses real risks to real peace.  There is also the hazard that while this effort is underway the elected leaders of the Israelis and Palestinians will conclude a peace deal.  However, that risk seems remote.  If it was realized, we would celebrate.  There is a risk that the Committee of the Outside will fail to reach an agreement.  However, that risk is our reality each and every day.  It will be too bad if tomorrow is like today, but it will hardly be a new danger.

The third risk is that some portion of the Palestinian and Israeli societies will resist the process and try to subvert or destroy it.  They may fear an agreement will be reached that is too compelling to defeat.  They may adopt the role of the anti-Federalists—passionate but ineffective opponents to a constitutional agreement favored widely.  Like the anti-Federalists, they may dislike a process and a result that seems to intrude on the sovereignty of their nations.  They may dislike being pressured by other nations, organizations, and the will of humanity to accept an agreement they did not author.  But, their opposition must be overcome.  The World is entitled to insist upon peace.  A Committee of the Outside perhaps will be able to find that peace, a peace that will benefit all. 

- Alan Howe, August 2009

“I am going to drink their blood.” 
- Khalil Ibrahim al-Sammarai describing his plans for his son’s killers (“A Quiet Filled With Wariness,” Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, February 26, 2009)

Four thousand, three hundred and twenty-one.  Please, dear citizens, count them all.  The numbers—4, 3, 2, 1—count down as if heralding our departure, an exit from an occupation that should never have happened, an exit that came far later than it should have.  These are the lives that committed themselves to protecting us and that were instead sacrificed to a useless war and to protect worthless egos.  Michael Gerson, former speech-writer for George Bush and stalwart defender of the 2007 “surge” in Iraq writes in the Washington Post, “If America had retreated then, it would have been a failure of our will and a failure of our military” (“Stepping Down to Success,” July 3, 2009).  Gerson, one of the many Bush administration members who never donned a uniform, played a very active role in ensuring those who would subordinate their safety for that of our nation had a chance to sacrifice everything, including their lives, in Iraq.  Gerson was the genius behind the “axis of evil” lie that made American voters perceive a threat from Iraq where none existed.  He perpetrated a fraud that cost us 4,321 Americans—all better than he.  His suggestion that the military, “our military,” might have failed in Iraq is self-serving and shameless.  He deserves all the criticism you can throw at him.  The failures in Iraq belong to him and the Bush administration, never to our military.

Dear citizens, decades ago, when I was younger and a great deal more foolish, I joined a group of my friends—all young enlisted members in the Air Force—on a weekend camping trip.  We set up camp on a beach about one-hundred-and-fifty miles south of Tokyo and did what college-age kids do when far from home and supervision.  On one evening, a few friends had enough drink in them to engage in a small brawl.  The fight consisted almost in equal measure those engaged in earnest fighting and those of us engaged in restoring peace.  Telling one from another at any given moment was difficult.  I latched on to a friend, Randy, and held him back.  He was determined to throw a punch and struggled to get away.  Eventually, I had to wrestle him to the ground to keep him from hurting others and to prevent him from being hurt.  I did nothing to deflate his anger.  While I held him, he fought to break free and land a punch.  Had I released him, he would have swung freely.  Only when the principles in the fight had made peace, signaled with a handshake and—always bewildering—a warm embrace that only two men with bloody noses can share, could I release Randy.  Luckily for me, his desire to fight did not outlast my ability to hold him down.

I learned two things from this experience.  I can, if I apply enough physical and mental pressure, prevent or deter some violence.  As long as I pushed down on my friend hard and long enough, he would not be fighting.  I also learned that physical force did nothing to change his attitude.  Randy was still willing to swing away.  Only the outbreak of peace—hardly a matter of my control with my arms around a struggling belligerent—had dissuaded Randy from clocking someone.  The surge of combat troops in Iraq has taught us exactly the same lesson and no more.  We can, if we exert enough force, greatly reduce opponents’ ability to engage in violence even as they struggle to break free of our control.  We cannot end violence this way.  We cannot, despite our best efforts, achieve a lasting peace by this method alone. General Odierno’s efforts to “spill blood” have not ended Mr. al-Sammarai’s desire to taste the blood of revenge.  The General does not have the means to end this.  He does not have the tools to eliminate the sources of these conflicts—the Sunni-Shi’a theological disagreement, for example—only the tools to restrain some manifestations of them.  As I have argued previously, military force is a poor hammer for building a peaceful future.  Again, this is a failure of Gerson and Bush and their administration, not a failure of our military.

In Iraq, [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike] Mullen acknowledged that violence has increased significantly in recent weeks, but he said that was unlikely to affect the U.S. plan to withdraw all combat troops from that country by August 2010.  (“Afghan Effort Is Mullen’s Top Focus,” Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, May 5, 2009.)

There is another consideration that bears inspection.  The received wisdom in the United States, especially among proponents of the surge, is that our presence has placed a ceiling on the violence—ignoring that the precipitous drop in “enemy-initiated attacks” took place immediately after the anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his forces to lay down their arms.  This, more obviously than the surge, seems to have been the largest factor in the lower number of deaths among Americans and may have contributed to the more gradual reduction among Iraqis.  We must allow, as I have asserted previously, that the presence of U.S. troops also may be placing a floor under the violence in Iraq, that violence occurs because we are there.  That contribution, that very negative contribution, may be more significant than any ceiling we hope to provide.

“The American military presence brought nothing to our streets but destruction and chaos,” said Omar al-Dulaimi, 57, a government employee who lives near the Um al Khoura mosque, one of the largest Sunni places of worship in the capital.  “We had nothing from them but tension and confusion.  It’s much better for us and for them if they stay in their bases now,” (“Pointing to a new era, U.S. pulls back as Iraqis vote,” Alissa J. Rubin, International Herald Tribune, February 1, 2009.)

We are not becoming aware of this just now, and I am not asserting a strange new idea.

Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of “occupying forces” as the key to national reconciliation, according to focus groups conducted for the U.S. military last month.  (“All Iraqi Groups Blame U.S. Invasion for Discord, Study Shows,” Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, December 19, 2007.)

Everything we hear from the only elected branch of Iraq’s government—the Council of Representatives—tells us that Iraqi’s sense of sovereignty and grievances against Western domination in the past century will make the long-term U.S. presence a source of violence, not stability.  In fact, members of the Iraqi parliament who testified before Congress last month told us that if there was a clear timetable for withdrawal, the warring factions would lose much of their rationale, and public support, for attacking each other and U.S. forces.  (“The Wrong Partnership for Iraq,” Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-MA, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-CT, Washington Post, July 8, 2008.)

The attitudes of Iraqi citizens naturally affect the acts of their leaders.

“The Iraqi government has no intention to accept the presence of any foreign troops or bases after 2011,” said [Dr.] Ali al-Dabbagh, a government spokesman.  (“12,000 U.S. Troops to Leave Iraq,” Anthony Shadid, Washington Post, March 9, 2009.)

Dear citizens, the most peaceful year for our troops in Iraq took place over the past twelve months.  This period began when the Iraqi government, angered by the positions of the Bush administration during negotiations over the current security pact, began demanding openly a U.S. exit.  In the end, President Bush agreed to the removal of U.S. forces from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, an event the Iraqis held us to, and to the removal of all our forces from Iraq by the end of 2011.  With modest adjustments, this is now the Obama plan for dealing with Iraq.  However, there may be one last modification of this pact.  The agreement requires that Iraqis approve its terms in a national referendum due this July 30th.  If the Iraqi citizens reject the agreement, we must be out within a year.  Iraqi political leaders are not speaking out in favor of the agreement.

“Most Iraqis know very well they need the Americans, but nobody wants to say ‘yes, we want the security agreement,’” said Ghassan al-Attiya, director of Iraq Foundation for Democracy and Development in London.

“This is an election year for Iraq; no one wants to appear that he is appeasing the Americans,” he said.  “Anti-Americanism is popular now in Iraq.”  (“Iraq Moves Ahead With Vote on U.S. Security Pact,” Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, June 10, 2009.)

Dear citizens, as I sit at my computer typing this, some of you are putting matches to fuses and firing off rockets to celebrate our brave Declaration of Independence from British rule.  Earlier this week, on June 30, 2009, Iraqis celebrated their independence with no less relish—independence from us.  We must note that on June 28, 2004, two days ahead of schedule, Paul Bremmer, our viceroy in Iraq, handed over “sovereignty” to the Iraqis.  That event was a cruel joke celebrated only by Bremmer flying over Baghdad in a helicopter on his flight from the country.  We were told, quite incorrectly it turned out, that the Iraqis would welcome us into Iraq as liberators, that they would throw flowers at our feet.  Now, they are celebrating liberation as our boots are marching outward.  They are delighted with our departure.  That truth is difficult to accept, but it is the truth nonetheless.  Iraqis want and need us out.  Sovereignty, as the Iraqis understand very well, means Iraqis ruling Iraq.  It means city streets cleared of armed and armored foreign troops.  It means a reduction, as Mr. al-Dulaimi put it, in our “tension and confusion.”

The Washington Post quotes Vice President Biden on his current trip to Baghdad explaining a new American attitude.  In the United States, Biden claims, there “wasn’t any appetite to put Humpty Dumpty back together again if, by the actions of people in Iraq, it fell apart” (“Biden Warns of Ending Commitment,” July 4, 2009).  Except, of course, the Iraqis did not engage each other with guns and bombs and blood on their own.  The fights between insurgents and collaborators, between Iraqis and al Qaeda, between Sunni and Shi’a, Sunni and Sunni, Shi’a and Shi’a, these all came after and as a result of the U.S. invasion.  Each Iraqi is responsible for his or her own violence, but the environment that makes them feel compelled to engage in violence—the chaos in Iraq—that was delivered to the country by American military power wielded by an immoral White House, by a war of choice, a war of aggression.  We have a responsibility to end this.  Ending it requires two steps: our departure, already in progress, and our advocacy for more involvement by Iraq’s neighbors.

But, I wonder if we can get to step two.  I have advocated since late 2006 for an Iraq Transitional Assistance Group to bring Iraq’s neighbors into a cooperative effort to stabilize the country and to build confidence.  Although the Iraqi government is linking with its neighbors on security and economic issues, the need for confidence-building measures remains unmet.  Corinne Reilly, writing for the Merced Sun-Star, describes the plight of Iraqi refugees trying to return to their homes.  She notes the worry of Muthhir Mohammad, returning from Syria.  “As a Sunni Muslim, he said, he doesn’t trust Iraq’s government and security forces, which are mostly Shiite Muslim,” (“Iraqi refugees return but life is still a struggle,” May 25, 2009).  My desk is covered in newspaper clippings and printings of on-line stories depicting the myriad challenges like this that remain: the arrests of Sunni Awakening leaders that threaten to push Sunnis back into an alliance with al Qaeda, the divisions in and fights over Mosul and Kirkuk, and even a fight over reparations between Kuwait and Iraq, the former demanding the rest of the payments for the 1990 invasion, a member of the parliament in the latter demanding four trillion dollars for Kuwait’s role in facilitating our invasion.  Arbiters who understand Iraq and Iraqis should play a role in easing along a lengthy reconciliation process.  That necessary role is one we cannot fill.  We have never had the language and cultural fluency in adequate amounts to aid the Iraqis.  Our reputation in Iraq is tainted by sanctions and invasion and occupation.  And the Iraqis seem no longer interested in our assistance, perhaps in any assistance.

“We made it clear that national reconciliation is an Iraqi issue and involvement of a non-Iraqi party won’t make it more successful,” said government spokesman [Dr.] Ali al-Dabbagh.  (“Iraq declines offer of U.S. help with reconciliation,” Andrew Quinn, Reuters.com, July 4, 2009.)

Of course, in the end, Iraq will be peaceful only if Iraqis make it so.  And, clearly, we have been unable to resolve the underlying issues that lead to bloodshed in Iraq’s streets.  From the start, there has been only one fight we can end—the resistance to our occupation.  That we must do, without fail, by continuing our march out of Iraq.  Four thousand, three hundred and twenty-one lost lives deserve that we get at least that right.

- Alan Howe, July 4, 2009