Bad People Doing Things Badly

My current homework is "Fiasco," by Thomas Ricks. I've had to cancel beach and pedicure appointments (though not extended sessions on extension ladder painting house) in hopes I can actually finish this one before the library sends out their bots. The subtitle is "The American Military Adventure in Iraq." Tongue in cheek? I wonder. It's earthy and well-done stuff, tough to whistle through. I'm rapt in reading so far but have not noted as many pages-to-be-copied (and typically then to be forgotten given the ebb-and-flow of life) as with some recent current-events tomes. But I made my first note last night on the page where it was revealed that MS Powerpoint files came to play a big role in the DoD in the stumble-down to the Iraq Crusade of supposedly telling the underlings what to do.

I can relate to that personally. Recently assured by co-worker that a subcontractor had done some good work in debunking some marginal research that was thwarting a client, I was eager to see the outcome. It was, oh yes, a set of Powerpoint slides, just as disconnected and uninformative as the ones you may have experienced. Meaningful actionable conclusions are totally absent. It's like cocktail-party chatter but with ever-so-numbing "exhibits." Babble, babble, and repeat. No specific conclusions or action items. Is there a chance these folks will ever get it? Playing with software and making cool graphs and images can be mighty fun I admit, but it may not mean squat when it comes to communicating with others.

Or in terms of getting things done. Like, say, planning for the aftermath of Hussein being removed from office. Pretty images are a sorry substitute for actual planning for something like that. Of course when the advice of informed folks included underlined and highlighted emphasis on sustaining the existing Iraq army as one of the most obvious symbols of shared community and maintaining security in the aftermath of the invasion, and both concepts were utterly rejected, it suggests that more than the admittedly sick Powerpoint-addiction is to blame.

Jane Hamsher shares some new insights on the pitiful approach Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld used in staffing up for the Iraq Crusade. It's absolutely breathtaking for those of us constantly suppressing our cynical genes.

I’ve written before of the wingnut husband of Kate O’Beirne who was responsible for oversight of so much of the reconstruction in Iraq, but not much has appeared in print about him up until now. As we eagerly await the release of Robert Greenwald’s film Iraq for Sale a very telling article about Mr. Ole 60 Grit has finally appeared in the Washington Post, courtesy of Rajiv Chandrasekaran from his book Imperial Life in the Emerald City. It shows quite clearly why you, me, and every American — nay everyone who has had their lives touched by this disastrous war — should be outraged and calling for Congressional oversight:

After the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans — restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O’Beirne’s office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O’Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn’t need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

O’Beirne’s staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade.

Yes, because that really will determine whether you can build a bridge or restore clean water to blighted cities. No wonder things are going so swimmingly.

Many of those chosen by O’Beirne’s office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq’s government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance — but had applied for a White House job — was sent to reopen Baghdad’s stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq’s $13 billion budget, even though they didn’t have a background in accounting.

Okay, sit down and think about this for a minute. Breathe. We’re stuck in a disastrous Bush/Lieberman war we can’t extricate ourselves from, and the reconstruction that just might have led Iraq into self-sufficiency was turned over to a bunch of 24 year-olds whose only qualifications were their anti-abortion sentiments.

Are you outraged yet? Because I know I am.

The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration’s gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation that sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort.

Keep breathing. That’s good. Don’t hyperventilate.

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Update: It's highly disturbing and hard on ego to find I originally used the words "Bin Laden being removed from office," but darkly amusing in its own way of course. Re-post hopefully gets closer to actual historical events.

Without Ideals or Violence

I didn't have any real camera-ready remembrance-moment for the 9/11 anniversary. I don't know about you. I suppose under the right circs I could have gotten maudlin (or irate, focused either internationally or internally). But knowing that there were those who were going to play it as a big political thing (both media and politicians - to the extent they are even different in these days of the republican-owned media monopolies) and try to stir up emotion, I resisted tendency to wallow.

Now that the prezident has had his chance to try to milk the moment (and imo been quite effectively neutered by Olbermann et al), I am ready to try for an alternate observance of 9/11. This is not without risk - I have no intention here of addressing the 9/11 events themselves directly, other than to acknowledge that it was one of the more horrific blows to my country and people and devastating to thousands and thousands of folks who had immediate relatives or friends who died. My thoughts, sympathy, and good will are definitely with all of those impacted by 9/11. Sadly though, bush et al have more or less co-opted that episode into a cartoon via bullhorns, EPA and Giuliani assurances that lung-cancer was the American way, and a totally toothless investigation and report that the president had to be bullied into allowing in the first place. The complicity of bush and his playmates must be obvious to all.

So, moving on, Bob Dylan happened to release an album on September 11, 2001, entitled Love and Theft. It nails so many things. You've listened to it at least a dozen times, no? If not, why not? I'd argue that this is the minimum listens needed for one of this non-pareil artist's premier works, and this is one of them. If you are not a Dylan fan, I guess you can sign off here. For this post I mean. I'm an unapologetic tolerant rabid eclectic music fan. While always disappointed to learn of and be berated as a result of the rabid dislikes of others (Neil Young! Tori Amos! Yes! country music! Glen Campbell! Chicago! Dean Martin! John Mellancamp! Tommy! Mary Chapin Carpenter! BST! etc., etc.), I'm not prone to grudges. But if you have any interest in contemporary music you are obviously going to be dealing with the incredibly long-careered Bob Z. And I do urge therapy for those of you with serious phobias (boy bands, herbal girls, and the like excepted).

I've used up my word quota here just getting through the intros (or whatever that was)!

I'm quoting from Keys to the Rain, a great Dylan encyclopedia I stumbled over at Powell's over Labor Day. Great store, great Dylan book resource, I'm just on a promotional junket here I guess.

Love and Theft may not end up being as legendary as the magical Blonde on Blonde, but it is no less provocative, steeped with enough allusion and style to keep both suburban teenagers and college professors up all night entranced by a gumbo [sic!] that mixes the Bible, the blues, Shakespeare, parlor ballads, Virgil, nursery rhymes, Charles Darwin, traditional folk songs, F. Scott Fitzgerald, piano scroll music, Ernest Hemingway, rockabilly, Mark Twain, country and western, cocktail-lounge corn, Groucho Marx, rock 'n' roll, Robert Johnson, rhythm & blues, Charley Patton, jazz, Sonny Boy Williamson, Appalachia, Big Joe Turner, supper-club music, and at least one Japanese pop novel.

There may be no "hits" on Love and Theft, but unlike the generally dark Time out of Mind, the overall effect left by the collection is uplifting, as it slides from one musical style to another in a stroll through classic American music in all its burlesque splendor, every song an evocative period piece.

Drilling in briefly on 'Lonesome Day Blues' from Love and Theft, courtesy Keys to the Rain:

Growling like a bear that hasn't eaten in years, Dylan is still straining even after all these years to decipher the wind's whispers on this tough-as-nails Blonde on Blonde style blues stomp, which includes a nice five-note bridge between choruses.

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Lyrically, it's packed with devastating zingers, from the sinister premise 'I'm gonna teach peace to the conquered/I'm gonna tame the proud,' to the damning broadside, 'Well, my captain he's decorated, he's well schooled and he's skilled/He's not sentimental, don't bother him at all how many of his pals that he kills.'

Please, in the interests of your mental health, get this disk, put it on repeat play if you have not already done so - presuming you are not subject to above-noted prissy musical taste disfunctions.

Unfixed Hole (apol. Lennon & McCartney)

OK. The salient lyric for those like my office-mate, permanently averse to Sgt. P thanks to the Bee-Gees, goes something like this:

I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go
I'm filling the cracks that ran through the door
And kept my mind from wandering
Where it will go
And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong
I'm right
Where I belong I'm right
Where I belong
See the people standing there who disagree and never win
And wonder why they don't get in my door.

It's almost exhilarating what high-quality inspirational progressive writing can be triggered these days by events that in the recent past would have been allowed to stand as bush-stapo rallying cries and evidence of progressive disarray. I'm especially intent on sharing this as morning-after medicine for any who may have foolishly attended to recent admin speeches, or, horrors, naively partaken of the water from the Disney/ABC well dispensed over the last couple nights in hopes of exploiting yet again the sentiments wrapped up in 9/11/2001. Keith Olbermann has center stage here. I quote at some length, but strongly urge you to check out the link for clipped center section of post. Excellent stuff there too, even if you are too young to know who Rod Serling is!

Who Has Left This Hole in the Ground?

And lastly tonight a Special Comment on why we are here. Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space.

And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.

And all the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and — as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul — two more in the Towers.

And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.

I belabor this to emphasize that, for me… this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.

And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft", or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here — is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante — and at worst, an idiot — whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

However. Of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast — of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds… none of us could have predicted… this.

Five years later this space… is still empty.

Five years later there is no Memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

Five years later this country’s wound is still open.

Five years… later this country’s mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later… this is still… just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful.
—
At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial — barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field, Mr. Lincoln said "we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.

Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground." So we won’t.

Instead they bicker and buck-pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they’re doing — instead of doing any job at all.

Five years later, Mr. Bush… we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir — on these 16 empty acres, the terrorists… are clearly, still winning.

And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.

And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation.

There is, its symbolism — of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.

The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it… was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.

Those who did not belong to his party — tabled that.

Those who doubted the mechanics of his election — ignored that.

Those who wondered of his qualifications — forgot that.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government, by its critics.

It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation’s wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President — and those around him — did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused; as appeasers; as those who, in the Vice President’s words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken… a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated Al-Qaeda as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had ’something to do’ with 9/11, is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase, is "impeachable offense."

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When those who dissent are told time and time again — as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus — that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American.

When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"… look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:

Who has left this hole in the ground?

We have not forgotten, Mr. President.

You have.

May this country forgive you.