The Virginia Tech Incident Is About Mental Health

Less than seventy-two hours have passed and we now know that thirty people are dead because a mentally ill person, diagnosed and returned to society repeatedly, was able to plan, document and execute a nightmare conceived in his damaged brain.

This is not about guns.

This is not about evil.

This is not about politics.

This is not about religion.

This is not about immigration.

This is not about the media.

And most of all, it is not about comparing the magnitude of tragedies. (Fred Clark has an excellent, link-filled commentary worth reading and drilling into. Go there when you finish here.)

What we are witnessing, not only with this high-profile event but every day of our lives, is the consequence of a trend set in motion about fifty years ago to change the manner by which we as a society handle (or not handle) those of us who are mentally ill. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Some of the darkest stories of history are about mental hospitals as places of torment and neglect, repositories of human wreckage that also doubled as places to hide political prisoners, abused family members of all ages and connections, and just about anyone without the social skills, political connections, family prestige or financial resources to defend himself.

Mental hospitals were not just hospitals. They also doubled as jails, poor houses, work houses, and closets for those whose public appearance, harmless though it might be, might embarrass or make others uncomfortable. The stories about them are truly horrible (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest comes to mind) as well as the manner in which patient were treated. The words patient and treatment took on twisted meanings that seem inappropriate now. My post a few weeks ago about one man's experience with having been lobotomized in his younger years is a case in point.

One of my closest friends from high school went crazy at the time and had to be institutionalized, but thanks to the trend to releasing such people, however well-intended it may have been, he was left to wander the streets in a mad state, disoriented by what was clearly a mental disorder, having been subjected to ECT more than once, probably medicated and unrealistically expected to self-medicate, drifting from one friend to another in what proved to be a fruitless search for help. His family was not in any position to help him because his father, already a stroke victim, was going to die soon, and his mother had already died. There were no siblings and part of his problem, aside from drug usage and a stint in a monastery from which he was expelled (it was the Sixties, you know), was learning after his mother's death that he had been an adopted child and would never be able to find out who his biological parents were.

But his was only one case. The larger picture was that large repositories of mentally ill people, whatever the reasons, were being dismantled. Cases judged to be worse than his were taking up space in a shrinking pool of available facilities. As I said, this was all done with the best of good intentions, but you know what they say about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions.

Wikipedia has stimulating reading about Psychiatric Hospitals, with an even more provocative link to another article entitled "Anti-Psychiatry."

This morning I have no solutions to the problems we now face with the management and treatment of people with mental disorders. All I know is that when I was a student in college about forty-five years ago I went on a field-trip with a group of other students pursuing courses in Music Therapy. I was studying music ed. at the time , now MT, but I was along for the experience. We spent a day at Georgia's Central State Hospital, once known (together with another one in New York) as one of the world's biggest and worst of its kind.

We were told that thanks to the efforts of a former first lady (it may have been the wife of Governor Vandiver) a large fund had been raised for the renovation and upgrading of the hospital. We saw two large facilities that looked more like hotels than hospitals, new, comfortable-looking, with amenities that even included a place that resembled a lounge or bar, but without the alcohol. It was the first time I had seen an atrium-styled large building with an overhead roof with skylights several stories overhead. It was very impressive.

We were also told that there were places in the hospital where visitors were not permitted to go because conditions were so bad, not only the barbed-wire enclosure pointed out as the place for the criminally insane, but other places that were systematically being renovated and reviewed for updating. I recall an interesting statistic: the "inpatient daily census" (the taxonomy sounded so clinical) was said to be in the thirty-thousand range. That number was larger than the number of students I knew were attending the university where I was studying and it struck me as unbelievable. The facility covered hundred of acres, including a farm where food was grown that was also being used to feed patients. Patients worked on the farm as well. Chickens and eggs from the farm were used in the food facilities.

Sometime between then and now, everything changed. When I checked the website yesterday, that same hospital is now reduced to about five hundred inpatients. Sometime over the last forty years a rolling number in the vicinity of some thirty-thousands have been released to care for themselves or rely on the resources of others. I'm sure some of them did not need to be there. I am personally aware of one woman who worked for me put there as a child because she was judged to be mentally retarded and was not released until a re-evaluation in her twenties revealed that she was entirely "normal" (whatever that means). She was later "released." I don't know the details, but "put out" would probably be a better term. She may be better off because her teeth, which had turned brown from years of over-medication, had to be replaced by dentures. As a middle-aged woman with no education, poor social development and little to serve her by way of personality or looks, the best she could find to support herself was a job in a cafeteria serving line.

As I said, I don't have the solution, but I do know this: Something in the way we handle deranged people has gone badly wrong and the incident at Virginia Tech should be a wake-up call. Finger-pointing is out of order. So, too, is all this yelling about politics, gun-control and other issues that are nothing but distractions from the main problem. My own instinct is that Big Pharma and Big Insurance have a lot to do with this trend. I have known for years that both of these mammoth interests have powerful friends in high places and they quietly keep those friends happy with obscene amounts of money euphemistically called "lobbying" which in reality are nothing more than bribes.

But that's just an old guy bitching this morning. My most heartfelt appeal is not to the politicians but to everyday people who need to back away from events of the last three days and try to see a bigger picture. That picture is one of homeless people and poor people whose numbers are swollen beyond what should be the case if they are expected to contribute to the gross national product. Too many people cannot and will not make any meaningful contribution unless and until they are either appropriately treated or taken off the streets. The real challenge is how best to accomplish that goal.

Barack Obama's Uphill Fight

As I have said elsewhere, I think Obama's run for president is premature. He will be a stronger candidate two or three cycles later, with a decade or more of Washington manure experience in his portfolio. In the meantime his learning curve is getting bent by a storm of myths and urban legends deriving from his name, family history and ethnic origins. My lonely little weeklyvote here at the Pajamas Media widget is a symbolic gesture, cast with the hope that if he fails to get the nomination, someone else will who can take the country beyond the two dynasties that have polarized the nation during the last four terms.

It is noteworthy that those who purport to be the most patriotic are the wellspring of some the most scurrilous claims of the lot. Obama's website keeps busy swatting these poisonous little insects, wasting valuable resources that might better be used to address more substantive issues.

I follow his campaign vicariously by default because the post that I put together last year regarding Barack Obama's religion continues to send me visitors. On any given time that post may represent from twenty-five to fifty percent of all hits to this blog, thanks to the search engines, mostly Google, who seem to list that post at or near the top of the first page of returns, depending on how the search terms were entered. In actual numbers that's about fifty to a hundred a day. Not big numbers by internet standards, but still that many individuals seeking information about the topic for one reason or another, including a few hits from sports or sex sites where people also argue politics. The first time I got a hit from a bondage site I was surprised, but later realized it was the same dynamic as people discussing a variety of topics at their neighborhood bar. Sports, fashion, current events, gossip, whatever...Let's face it. Those people also vote.

This morning I drilled back into one referral and noted a paid ad at the top (different ads seem to pop up with each page load, so this particular ad may not appear) from Human Events linking to yet another suggestive and defamatory anti-Obama piece of propaganda. As I looked at the way that even his pictures were clipped and airbrushed to make him appear as sinister as possible (not easy for someone as telegenic as Obama) I could see that the same fungus of John Birch Society "super-patriotism" that I first learned about forty-five years ago is alive and well, still spewing oily, slimy, bigoted hate in the guise of historical analysis or academic scrutiny. The language is rhetorically more polished after nearly half a century of practice dodging legal defenses against libel, but like botulism in delicious foods, their tainted message still gets through.

It is a sad day in American politics when Snopes has to furnish a lengthy article debunking one email-fed urban myth after another, all of them fired into the cesspool eddies of cyberspace with one aim: to defame, discredit and malign the name and reputation of a United States Senator running for president.

Sarrafiya Bridge Comments Summary

Having just received a heartbreaking email from the one Iraqi friend that this terrible war has produced, one of my first reactions to yesterday's tragedy at Virginia Tech was to remember Iraq. As the minutes and hours passed news of the massacre echoed across the country until the full light of media scrutiny was shining on that horrible scene. As the day wore on I kept hearing in the background the same thought...This kind of thing happens in Iraq with regularity...at least weekly and sometimes daily for several days in a stretch.

I cannot imagine what the effect must be on everyday people. If no one we know personally is involved and our hearts can be broken by the untimely death of strangers, how much more gut-wrenching it must be to have friends and family members fall victim to such losses. The details of the Virginia Tech tragedy have not been revealed, but in the end it makes little difference to the victims, their families and acquaintances. Grief is bigger than reason in the same way that paper covers rock.

And grief knows no boundaries. It's not always triggered by human death. We grieve all kinds of losses. When children get married we grieve for their lost childhood. When pets die we grieve their absence. We watch helplessly as age takes a corrosive toll on those who live into their nineties and beyond, taking physical, mental and emotional health a little at a time...

And sometimes the loss of a landmark (recall the World Trade Center...not just the thousands who died but the image it represented) hits us particularly hard. I know. It's too soon to start looking for symbols. At this writing the the next of kin are still being notified. But if I don't make a note of my thoughts at this moment, I will lose track. Please excuse my jumping ahead.

http://come-getsome.blogspot.com/2007/04/boom-boom.html

http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/04/a_bridge_too_near.php

http://oocradio.blogspot.com/2007/04/bridge-of-sarrafiya.html

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/04/attacks_in_baghdad_undermining.php

http://mixmode.blogspot.com/2007/04/truck-bomb-on-al-sarrafiyah-bridge.html

http://iraqthelastinglove.blogspot.com/2007/04/al-sarrafiya-bridge.html

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/04/17/landing-at-the-iraqi-blogodrome-30/

The destruction of the Sarrafiya Bridge took place on the same day that another explosion killed several members of the Iraqi parliament. In dramatic symbolic contrast the loss of the bridge seems to have grieved Iraqis far more deeply than the loss of a few politicians. Several said as much. The same sentiment is reflected in the email I received...

I have been particularly ‘under the weather’ these past couple of days. Bombing that Sarrafiya bridge somehow touched a raw nerve. I loved that old thing. I must have crossed it many thousands of times in my days. It is even mentioned in a couple of old songs you know! I couldn’t bring myself to think about the incident which took place in Parliament on the same day. I just kept feeling sad about that bridge. Wicked of me, I know… but there you are!!! By the way, do you know if that bridge is Sunni or Shiite?

Well, actually I didn't know. And the distinction was immaterial to the many people in Baghdad who simply loved and used the bridge. (According to my reading, the bridge was built by the British a hundred years ago.) The point was simple. That bridge was trans-sectarian. Asking if it were Sunni or Shiite is like asking if the lady we call the Statue of Liberty was a Democrat or a Republican.

May the grief we feel today rekindle in us the capacity to grieve with people everywhere whose losses also bring them to tears. This is not a time for reason. Grief is bigger than reason. Today is a time to feel.

Best Friends Video -- Pug and Toddler

Remember Jake from a year and a half ago?
He's a pug, one of the most appealing of all the little dogs, and he still lives with us.
(Molly lives here, too, but this post is about Jake. She won't be jealous because they're good friends.)
He won the contest, thanks in part to readers of this blog.
Here's a six-minute visit with another pug and a friend.
It took two years to make these pictures and they will last forever, getting more precious, like good wine, as the years go by.


I looked up Israel Kamakawiwo, the singer you hear in the background, and was inspired to put together another post to him.
Here is the link.

Virginia Tech Killings -- a Minority View

With the grace of the Amish students as they faced their killer in Paradise, Pennsylvania last October, a courageous young Mennonite writer blogs a powerful message inspired by this morning's tragedy in Virginia.
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America worships the gun. Today, 33 more were sacrificed on the altar of our devotion to the gun. Specifically to semi automatic handguns. There are already dozens of articles from disciples arguing that the massacre today at Virginia tech could have been avoided if some of the students had been carrying guns so they could shoot the killer before he killed them. We trust the gun more than we trust God.


The brutal reality of our gun fetish is that selling guns and ammo is highly profitable. But it is not simply the fact that the market values short term earnings from gun sales more than the social, cultural, political and long term economic damage that gun violence does to our society. More importantly, the gun industry long ago learned to effectively invest their short term earnings into the social, political and cultural sphere. Their investments in the NRA, especially since 1977 years have returned 10 fold and the results are a culture in which gun ownership is intimately connected with the values of self-sufficiency, responsibility and security that so many Americans identify with. We’ll call these frontier values.

As much as we’d like to wish that the new Democratic congress would seize on this moment to pass some common sense gun laws, the reality is that many of the new members of Congress were partly by actively courting those with frontier values. Unless their constituency shows signs of disconnecting handguns from frontier values, any vote for limiting the sales of hand guns will be doomed.

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There follows a reasonable incremental plan to make guns as disagreeable to our culture as smoking, following much the same step-by-step process.

It takes character and courage at a moment like this to speak out for a principle which is certain to be unpopular. I know. I've been there before and I am there once again, in agreement with an unpopular point of view.

Information about the shooter is still not released. Preliminary reports suggest that it was a deranged man, clearly with a character disorder, whose criminal behavior may have been triggered by a relationship gone wrong. One eye-witness of the first killing (of a student and a dormitory resident assistant who intervened) said he was in possession of two handguns. We will have to wait to know more details.

I am reminded of the news report last year that took a look at Intermittent Explosive Disorder. What we call "road rage" or "going postal" are examples. It is an accident of acronyms that Improvised Explosive Device is also called "IED."
Or maybe not.

April 18 addition...

While we're at it, this post is a good place to point out that the tragedy at Virginia Tech is not the most deadly school tragedy in US history. That kind of hype may sell more papers, but it's not accurate.

In 1927 a terrible event in Michigan was by all accounts far worse, not only because it killed more students and left more surviving casualties, but because the perpetrator was a member of the school board and probably spent up to a year preparing his evil scheme. No need for me to go into the detail here, but Wikipedia has a fascinating article worth reading.

As the days go by I think my last link above is also worth a closer look. It seems the perpetrator at VT was a student whose behavior and writing carried warning signs that were not fully appreciated. I'm looking forward to learn if he fits a PTSD profile. We'll see.

Also, illustrating how small our world is, half a dozen people where I work are well-acquainted with Virginia Tech and that area of the state. At this point none is aware of knowing any victims. At least one blogroll contact is also connected by acquaintance and is relieved to know his friend is not among the victims.

Bahrain is Smoking

I don't know much about Bahrain, but these pictures look dramatic to me.
I linked to her some time ago.
She seems to be full of piss and vinegar, or as she says "ditzy, demure yet defiant."
My guess is that she's pretty sharp. She quit blogging for a while, but she's back with a camera. I hope she resumes writing more. But this line says a lot.

Click click click...run run run.

Don Imus as Canary

Most of the time it's just a cigar. But this time it's something else. An outpouring of disgust indicates that the national level of righteous indignation is ticking up a bit, making Don Imus a canary in the mine. I hope the trend continues. Free speech is a sacred principle, but so is the freedom to be left alone. At some point racism crosses the line, becoming the verbal equivalent of molestation. It's no longer about the First Amendment. It's finally about civility. There is a distinction between civil rights and civil behavior. Legal rights are protected, but decency, like beauty, is a judgement call. Thankfully, a critical mass is choosing to raise the bar.

Others more articulate than I are making their voices known. Some are out for blood, but the best among them are simply saying that shapers of public opinion, whose words reach a larger audience than a sports bar or club, should be held to a higher standard than others.

This morning I was amused by the Huffington Post in which one writer complained about the coarsening of our culture as another headline included the word "Fucked." (That kind of envelope-pushing, not far from the manners of Don Imus and his peers, is why Huffpo downloads into my spam folder. I rarely read it closely, but the headlines tell me as much as I need to know about where that end of the political spectrum is going.) Raking through the muck, I did come up with this...

The most important thing to know about Don Imus is that he's a cash cow for Viacom and General Electric. Or was, until his advertisers began peeling away. The only reason that shock jocks are on the air in the first place is that people pay attention to them. They - we - lend our ears and eyeballs to Imus and his ilk because their outrageousness amuses us.
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The same could be said of the envelope-pushing by Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and the dozens of other circus acts in the infotainment freak show. Their effect may be to debase discourse, inflame prejudice, sow ignorance, exculpate criminality, incite rancor, ruin reputations, and stoke the right-wing base - but their effect is not their job. Their job is to make money for the corporations that employ them. We may revile them for being Rove's toadies, but we're chumps if we ignore how relentlessly the companies that employ them monetize their noxious shtick.

He's right, of course. It's more about money than content. Not much has changed since Mencken said "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people." That is part of the reason that otherwise decent people allow themselves to associate with characters like Imus an his ilk, telling themselves that their more noble ends justify the means of mud-wrestling with a pig.

Sarah Robinson at David Neiwert's blog says it well. Her analysis of the flap is worth reading in full.

For 25 years, the dominant radio format in America has consisted of rich white conservative boys filling the national atmosphere with their putrid bloviations about people who were not rich, white, conservative, or boys. What started out as outrageous bad-boy shock-jock shtick in the 80s curdled into self-righteous rebellion against "political correctness" in the 90s, as a growing number of trash talkers and professional potty mouths joined a national race to the rhetorical bottom. Radio stardom was easy. Forget rock'n'roll -- all you had to do was be willing to spew a little more hate against minorities, foreigners, women, the poor, and liberals than the guy on the next band over, and you could have a mansion in Palm Beach, too.

Addendum, April 16

As the dust settles on this tawdry affair, I'm coming across a reassuring number of places where the message is being repeated: Enough is enough. It's too soon to know, but it's possible that we may be seeing more than empty righteous indignation this time. I hope that is the case.

The local Imus clone in Atlanta was quick to come to his defense with yet another let-the-marketplace-decide toss-offs, carefully avoiding saying anything nice about the man while leaving the impression that his conduct was no big deal as long as he's not hurting anybody. When the chips are down, there is a crowd of faux-political types who wave the First Amendment flag as vigorously as the faux-religious crowd quotes the Bible. When the axe finally fell, he took the occasion to make ad hominem attacks on Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, deflecting attention from the substance and content of the incident, ugly language and the reaction it got. I guess when the marketplace made the wrong call, it was time to talk about something else.

Fred Clark points to an excellent analysis of the Imus affair by movie director John Rogers. I know it's good because there is so much squirming in the comments thread by righteous people (like our local talk-show host) who still want to overlook uncalled-for verbal assault.

For all these years, Imus stayed, barely, on the right side of the power equation. Always gone after public figures, or his bosses ...

... but then he screwed up. He didn't steal power, he used it. Used it to say just shitty things about people who, in our minds, just didn't deserve it. He broke the power equation. And when he did, we balked, even if we don't quite understand why this one got under our skin. The wiring goes both ways. It's actually heartening, because it confirms one of the admirable things about American society at large:

America loves a rebel.

America loves a bad boy.

But America hates a fucking bully.
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Read the whole thing.
Outstanding.
Thanks, Fred.

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)

Quickie from Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut at 83

You have a lot on your plate? You don't have a clue.

Remember Amanda Baggs? If not go learn about her first, then continue reading.

This is a woman with a lot on her plate. She opens her post with a single, simple line:

There’s a number of things I haven’t done.

Apparently her appearance on CNN has dumped an avalanche of demands on her and she is trying to respond to it all as best she can despite her limitations. She's not looking for sympathy but patience on the part of others who are waiting. He own measure of patience seems to be supernaturally endless. Autism is just the beginning...

I am not just autistic. I also have a number of other things going on, which I’ll just give the medicalistic labels for here. I have migraines severe and constant enough that in themselves they’d be considered severely disabling. I have wrist tendonitis (and I type to communicate, so that’s more a big deal than it sounds), a jaw that wants to dislocate and causes pain, and some sort of undefined knee problem (the right one pops out of place a lot and hurts when it does that), as well as general joint pain (all of which may or may not be associated with hypermobility syndrome, which I was told I have a few weeks ago). I have some kind of neuropathic or central pain. I have stamina problems (currently classified as chronic fatigue syndrome, but possibly associated with some of the other stuff I have going on). I have asthma. I probably have undiagnosed Tourette’s and OCD (I have tics, obsessions and compulsions, but I’ve never had it diagnosed as anything). I have stomach and bowel problems. I have PTSD. I have movement stuff that has been classified as catatonia. I have complex-partial seizures, although they’re really well controlled and only happen a couple times a year by now. I probably have brain damage from neuroleptics making the movement stuff more obvious. And a partridge in a pear tree.

If you've been too long on the pity pot, either crap or get out of the way. There's at least one person out there with more challenges than you can imagine. Take a deep breath and go read her post.

Supporting the troops

This is how the debate should be framed.

...in his latest plan of escalation, in which he committed 20,000 extra troops to Iraq (including giving orders that 4,000 troops deploy to the Anbar province), was irresponsible.

He committed and deployed troops to Iraq without knowing if he had the funding for them to be there and work out their mission.

As such, the president intentionally put the lives of our brothers and sisters in greater risk by not having the funding they needed. Funding for escalation doesn’t simply mean for bombs and what have you, it means even the money to sustain the troops that are there. I fear the effects of having troops there without the things they need to be even marginally secure.

You Tube is the Fifth Estate

There have been a number of clever spins on the term but this one will stick. It will stick because each of the "estates" derives from a common purpose. Let's review...

Historically, the first three estates were the state, the clergy and the common people. Each of these had different and often conflicting interests, so that taxonomy was easy to grasp. In modern times the distinction between the original three has dimmed with the advent of global economics, fragmented and conflicted ideas of faith and religion, a large and growing number of institutions both public and private and the notion of a First, Second and Third World. But the idea of a "Fourth Estate" endures.

The "Fourth Estate" is what we call the press, printed and broadcast media, whose mission is to keep tabs on the other three. The press presumably has no hidden agenda other than truth-seeking, uncovering manipulative or subversive activities on the part of the other three groups that might stink in the court of public opinion. The press has for years been the guardian of freedom, the bright light of truth shining in the dark corners of big institutions to reveal whether their inner workings correspond with their public images.

In our lifetime we have seen the fourth estate evolve into just another institution which merits watching and criticizing. Gone are the days when old-fashioned muckraking and hell-raising were the order of the day. Now, thanks to the emergence of a few global giants in what can correctly be called the news industry, what passes for "news" has become a commodity, very much like crude oil, soy beans or orange juice. Unlike other commodities sold by the pound, ton or barrel, news is a wasting asset for which time is not only "of the essence" it is the only essence. Nothing is as worthless as "yesterday's news."

Because it takes money, and lots of it, to send reporters and crews around the world to harvest, package and market ever-more sophisticated stories, the organizations that manage the news have become just another corporate echo of the industrial giants they once kept an eye on. In the same way that agri-business is eating up family-owned small farms, and state capitalism in China is eating up a global marketplace put together by private capitalism's efforts over the last fifty or one hundred years, the news industry is producing a slick, quick, heat-and-eat, homogenized product that resembles the truth about as much as Velveeta Cheese resembles English farmhouse cheddar.

That is why I say that You Tube and its cousins are becoming a real Fifth Estate, a flock of little watchbirds watching the big watchbirds if you will. I won't follow the metaphor any further. Readers are smart enough to work out the rest for themselves. Instead I offer two examples of what I mean.

The Emerging Church

When we talk about church these days it's important to get the names and categories straight. Those of us who look for denominational clues to tell us what was really meant by the sign out front have a hard time discovering what is really going on inside the building. My personal experience is that even when you get inside the building, the crowd inside is no more informed than you were as a newcomer, so varied is the mixture.

This is a good trend, by the way. I am encouraged when I see all sorts and conditions of men, women and children doing church together. The first time I saw sneakers peeking out from under the vestments of an acolyte I knew I was in the right place. Same with the young family with two beautiful, well-behaved children. Mom in a comfortable casual dress, with clean, shining long hair hanging naturally with no hint of a vanity cut. Dad in a short-sleeved shirt with both arms so covered with tattoos he appeared at a glance to be wearing long sleeves.

Readers who have never seen anything like this in their home church need to get out more. There's a lot of stuff happening out there that will make you feel old before your time if you're not careful.

Scot McKnight's article in Christianity Today will help you get up to speed. He elaborates on five points that are characteristic of the emerging church.

►Prophetic (or at least provocative)
►Postmodern
►Praxis-oriented
►Post-evangelical
►Political

Aside from alliteration, these five topics are all hot-button issues for serious Christian conversation. Any one of them is apt to spark an argument, which is why the writer has done such a workmanlike job of handling them. With the skill of a snake-handler he says just enough about each of these subjects to de-mystify their various toxic side-effects. (The second one pushes my button, but I have to admit that my own view of the topic tends to be two-dimensional.) That word praxis might have been practice and still fit with the list, but I think the implications of the thirty-dollar word are more nuanced than the vernacular.

The article is recommended reading, but let the reader be aware of the distinction between "emerging" and "emergent." This is the latter-day echo of the old antidisestablismentarianism debate. So don't let yourself get distracted...
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To prevent confusion, a distinction needs to be made between "emerging" and "Emergent." Emerging is the wider, informal, global, ecclesial (church-centered) focus of the movement, while Emergent is an official organization in the U.S. and the U.K. Emergent Village, the organization, isdirected by Tony Jones, a Ph.D. student at Princeton Theological Seminary and a world traveler on behalf of all things both Emergent and emerging.
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Enough of that. Go to the article, which opens with this delightful paragraph.
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It is said that emerging Christians confess their faith like mainliners—meaning they say things publicly they don't really believe. They drink like Southern Baptists—meaning, to adapt some words from Mark Twain, they are teetotalers when it is judicious. They talk like Catholics—meaning they cuss and use naughty words. They evangelize and theologize like the Reformed—meaning they rarely evangelize, yet theologize all the time. They worship like charismatics—meaning with their whole bodies, some parts tattooed. They vote like Episcopalians—meaning they eat, drink, and sleep on their left side. And, they deny the truth—meaning they've got a latte-soaked copy of Derrida in their smoke- and beer-stained backpacks.
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Thanks to Sarah Robinson, of all people, for the pointer. See, she's not an infidel after all. I think.

Babak Rahimi on Iragi Shiite Leadership Dynamics

This scholarly analysis of Iraq's balance of power between the two principle Shiite alliances and how it has shifted during the last four years is the most informative reading I have found about what's happening with Iraqi leadership. No way will I try to summarize this paper. Too much information, too well organized to skip over any part. Dry reading but vitally important. And not pushing any particular agenda. Sorry, but this is must-read stuff for anyone who wants to keep informed.

Babak Rahimi received a PhD from the European University Institute, Florence, Italy. Rahimi has also studied at the University of Nottingham and London School of Economics and Political Science. He was a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace from 2005-06, where he conducted research on Ayatollah Ali Sistani and Shi'ite politics in post-Ba'athist Iraq. He is currently an assistant professor at the department of literature, program for the study of religion, University of California, San Diego.

Here are the ending paragraphs. What precedes is needed to grasp their full meaning. Scan and imagine you can "catch the drift" at your own peril. And know, too, that these issues are not -- repeat NOT -- under the control of US foreign or military policy. The future of Iran and how it relates with its neighbors is absolutely in the hands of the leadership discussed in this paper.
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Therefore, what are the implications of a Muqtada-Sistani partnership? First, the US should be aware of the unpredictable politics of the Shi'ite community. The swing of alliances merits serious attention, despite the fact that sectarian identity will play a central role in intra-Shi'ite relations in years to come.

Second, the US should also recognize the enduring authority of the Najaf Hawza and its sphere of influence in Shi'ite Iraq. This influence is so significant that even the defiant Muqtada failed to challenge the establishment, let alone muster enough support to lead the Shi'ite community among the poor and the youth for his anti-occupation and nationalist image.

It was the common consensus in the academic and policy communities that after the Samarra bombing last year, Sistani had become a marginal figure. Despite his brief diminishing influence as a result of the rise of sectarian tensions, Sistani now appears to be back with even greater authority. He is supported by centuries of traditional authority and backed by an extensive financial and religious network that reaches beyond Iraq and Iran.

Both Tehran and Muqtada know that Sistani should not be ignored. The US should certainly do the same.

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Here is a provocative quote from the opening page. Note the foundational differences between the two main players, Sistani and Muqtada. The article traces the development from this point to the "Muqtada-Sistani partnership" referred to above.
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Much of the "heterodoxy" of the Sadrist movement lies in its early (2003-04) rejection of clerical monopoly, led by some young clerical students and followers of Muqtada who accused Sistani of transforming the shrine city of Najaf into a "sleeping house of learning". The heretical tendencies of the Sadrist movement entailed rejecting the religious authority of a living, high-ranking cleric in favor of the rulings of a deceased marja (religious scholar), a blasphemous idea according to the orthodox thinking that Sistani and his Hawza represent.

Yet there is also the factor of Arab nationalism. Ideologically, the Sadrists are Arab nationalists and resent the presence of any non-Arab cleric in Iraq, especially those of Iranian descent, such as Sistani, who have been residing in the shrine-cities for decades.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

That's the quote. No one is sure exactly who said it, but it has a nice ring.
I thought of it while reading Jill Fallon's blog pointing out the space between hype and reality that seems to grow wider with every news story. They say If it bleeds, it leads. We are way past the "man bites dog" stage of news reporting. All we need now is one deranged man doing anything strange to a dog and by the time it makes the news it has become an unsettling trend.

She points to a solid little piece by John Stossel who "calls the media part of the Fear Industrial Complex, because they profit from scaring us to death. Of course, they feature abducted children, shark attacks, nightmare scenarios about global warming because they are good stories and ratings soar. Reporters and writers were likely English majors, not math majors and they are clueless when it comes to statistics assessing risk. He calls them 'statistically illiterate.'"

Here are some real facts to contemplate...

►Ordinary flu kills 36,000 people a year in the USA Bird flu has killed 0.

►Swimming pools are more dangerous to children than guns. A child is 100 times more likely to die in a swimming pool than in a gun accident.

►Cars are the most dangerous things around. About 36,500 were killed in car accidents last year, about 100/day. (Casualties of the four-year war in Iraq are still under four thousand.)

And from a link in the previous post...

The Zimmer Facts:

►In 2000, there were 600 million people aged 60 and over; there will be 1.2 billion by 2025 and 2 billion by 2050.

►Today, about two thirds of all older people are living in the developing world; by 2025, it will be 75%.

►In the developed world, the very old (age 80+) is the fastest growing population group. A few weeks ago I blogged about part of the reason for this trend.

►Women outlive men in virtually all societies; consequently in very old age, the ratio of women/men is 2:1

Pretty boring, huh?
Sorry 'bout that.
It might have been more interesting, but lots of stats provoke arguments...

I was afraid to go into the stats about undocumented aliens and what might happen to the American economy if several millions of workers actually vanished as many patriotic, well-meaning people advocate.

Or how the war on drugs is a wholesale waste of time and resources, getting nowhere.

Or how people with Downs syndrome are vanishing from the population thanks to amniocentesis followed by abortions.

You get the idea.

The Zimmers "My Generation" via geriatric 1927

Our man Peter, aka geriatric 1937, announced Friday the release of a CD. This will be top-quality musical material with a view of showcasing the talents of a select group of energetic old people. Here is a video tickler.

Here is a link to the MySpace site promoting The Zimmers Band.
The following is copied from there.

INTRODUCING......THE ZIMMERS


FIRST SINGLE "MY GENERATION" RELEASED ON 14TH MAY:

Ever thought that Take That were too old to still be called a Boyband? Do you think the Rolling Stones should retire? Well if you answered Yes to both of these questions then you are gonna LOVE this...welcome to the wonderful world of THE ZIMMERS!

Formed in early 2007, The Zimmers are not only the oldest gigging band in the world (with an average age of 78), they are also the most celebrated, having recorded their debut album at the famous Abbey Road Studios, under the watchful eye of Acclaimed Producer Mike Hedges.

Oh and by the way, don't tell them you think this is funny, with more aggression than Nirvana and more talent than The Beatles, these OAP's are here to stay. Their first single 'My Generation' is released on May 14th. Expect it to climb faster than a Stenna Stair Lift!

Other songs in THE ZIMMERS repertoire include 'Firestarter' by The Prodigy, 'When I'm (one hundred and)64' by The Beatles and the live favorite (Jermain Stewarts worldwide hit) 'We Don't have to take our clothes off (to have a good time)'.


MEET THE BAND

Winifred Warburton (99)
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Eric Whitty (69)
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Tim O'Donovan (81)
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Joan Bennett (it's rude to ask a ladies age!)
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Alf Carretta (90 years old – Zimmers lead singer) and Bingo friends Ivy Lock, Rose Dickens, Dolores Murray, Rita, Sylvia Beaton, Sally Page.
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Gillian (Deddie) Davies (69 years old - Actor)
...
Peter Oakley (Coming up for 80)

Otherwise known as “Geriatric 1927” to regular You Tubers, Peter has become the internet Grandad through his video blogs with his reflections on life. People love the fact that he’s just himself – utterly genuine – as well as being someone who challenges many of the stereotypes of elderly people. In the build up to the Abbey Road session Peter was looking forward to meeting others face to face for a change, and he watched videos of The Who performing My Generation live in preparation for our recording.
...
Buster Martin (100)
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John & Bubbles Tree (big jazz fans – used to listen to Chris Walker's jazz show on Radio Solent), Rob Fulford (Used to enjoy Dennis Skillicorn’s sailing programme on Radio Solent), Dennis Skillicorn (Former presenter on Radio Solent)
...
Grace Cook (83)

Why is '08 starting so soon?

Deborah White tells it like it is. "Pundits openly lament, and ponder the effects of, the premature start to the 2008 presidential race." The NY Times says "The scale and swiftness of the action has the potential to upset the traditional timetables and conventions of presidential campaigning." The question is why?

The WHY is easy to understand: It's a form of hope for relief from the seemingly endless exaggerations, myopic hypocrisies and outright fabrications of the Bush administration.
It's respite from the constant barrage of Bushian "arrogance, incompetence, cynicism," to quote Time magazine columnist Joe Klein this week.

It's a way to glimpse light at the end of a long, painful political tunnel constructed by George Bush, and gleefully enabled by FOX News, the sadly deteriorated Wall Street Journal, the Drudge Report and the latest addition to the rightwing smear-and-fear press, The Politico.

What America Is Supposed to Be

I hate it that we can't believe one word emanating from the Bush 43 White House. America isn't supposed to be like this.

Our great democracy is supposed to be a noble enterprise which exists to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." (Source: Preamble to the U.S. Constitution)

Justice, tranquility, general welfare and blessings of liberty are apparently not goals... or even concerns... of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales and their cronies and minions. It's no wonder that April 2007 polls report that 59% of ALL Americans disapprove of President Bush's job performance.

...and she's just warming up. Go read the rest.
What's that they say now? You go, girl!
She's not prissy about the word Liberal, either. Check out the column heading.
Progressive may be okay for newcomers and those sensitive to political correctness, but those of us who have roots in the good old days have no problem with the word Liberal.

Sly Semantic Moves

The post title is lifted directly from an clever little snapshot from Investor's Business Daily. Here is the lede.

In a sly semantic move, a Democrat House Committee secretly ordered the removal of all references to the "Global War On Terror," nonchalantly claiming it wasn't political.

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Driving home the point, here are three examples of "junk myths"as follows...

This time it arises from three junk myths, outlined by Vice President Dick Cheney Monday in a Birmingham, Ala., speech:
• That the war on Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11.
• That it's possible to support troops without supporting victory.
• That cutting and running from Iraq will put the U.S. in a better position to fight terrorists elsewhere.

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Let's see now.

Just this week I heard a radio talk show host complaining about a rhetorical trick of those who would destroy the president, betray the troops and gladden the hearts of terrorists was the phrase "everybody knows." Opening an argument by saying "everybody knows" is a clever tactic designed to frame the debate in a way that can be best won by those who use the phrase.

He's right, of course. But then he is one of the most gifted pracitioners of the art of rhetoric. He should know. It takes one to know one. "Everybody knows" is a variety of "junk myth," an illegitimate rhetorical trick to win an argument by deceit rather than scoring logical points.

Comes now IBD to illustrate. Here are the fleshed-out premises of the first line.

The war on Iraq (not IN Iraq, mind you) is all about 9/11, even though the perpetrators were all from Saudi Arabia (not Iraq), the home country of OBL, a Sunni extremist (religious) whose principle link with Saddam (secular) was a shared impulse to keep Shiites under control (Saddam) or better yet, wipe them out altogether (OBL).

See how that works? If there is a shred of commonality, then a link is established, no matter how thin. And so the war DOES, after all have "something to do with" with 9/11. Isn't that neat?

Notice how a silent argument is applied here. The silence is a way of refuting this junk myth with another one just as compelling....everybody knows. In this case, of course, Everybody knows the war is connected with 9/11 or else this junk myth would not have found currency, would it? That's what I call fighting rhetorical fire with the same rhetorical fire.

Using a similar argument, one could argue that fly swatters are (of course) the best weapon to use against flies on a summer day. No one in his right mind would argue against fly swatters on a picnic. But what about a crazy notion like, say, the protection of a screen? Better yet, what about cleaning up a pile of manure or landfill that may be upwind of the house? Might that not yield a more realistic and longer-lasting solution to an infestation of flies? Puh-lease. Gimme a break.

The other two points do not employ the same -- excuse the expression -- sly semantic moves, but something very close and just as effective.

When you bring up the notion of "victory" without bothering to clarify what may be meant by that term, only a fool would argue for defeat. This primitive argument is an echo of the old winning in Vietnam arguments. It was never clear at the time what the word meant, but it was tossed around all the time as though it had meaning. That was the same conflict that gave us that delightful line that In order to save the village it was necessary to destroy it.

Finally, cutting and running is the obverse of cheering for defeat. Not too much to be said about that.

This Sly Semantic Moves game seems to be lots of fun for the chattering classes. It's being played by both sides of the argument. To me it is about as interesting (and enlightening) as tic-tac-toe.

Today's New Word: Ijtihad

I tried to think of a post title that would capture the imagination and that's the best I could come up with. This post points to a debate within Islam, an internal discussion (argument, split, revolt, whatever...) with echoes in non-Muslim discussions (arguments, splits, revolts, whatever) aimed at making sense of an irrational scene.

Is that opening confusing enough?
Get ready.
This is weekend reading. To get the full benefit it will be necessary to set aside a little while to stop surfing the internets and just read and learn. I'm assuming, of course, that the reader, like me, is new to the term ijtihad.

It comes at the end of an insightful essay by Johann Hari about several books, which is more commentary than book review. This post by Pieter Dorsman will serve as a jumping off point. He describes briefly a debate within Islam which puts to lie the popular notion that all Muslims are alike, they are all out to destroy everything we hold sacred and the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim. Or, as he says in a more civil tone, "Perfectly well reasoned criticism of fundamentalism has in many cases mutated into a sort of hateful bile that no longer offers solutions, but only bitter confrontation."


Fortunately because I have lived and worked in a more cosmopolitan world than most of America, my views of Islam and its followers has been quite different from what is being advertised by many non-Muslim voices with political agendas running past their ability to reason or engage in reasoned discussions. Radio talk show hosts come to mind, although print and cyber sources are just as polluted by ignorant, broad-brush rants as their big-mouthed broadcast brethren. 'Scuse me while I cool off a bit...

As I was saying, I have met, worked and interacted with a number of Muslim people over the last ten years or so, and the reality of what I know stands in sharp contrast to the image being portrayed by the popular media. When pressed, of course, we always hear that old "Some of my best friends are..." reply, followed by the inevitable "...but," leading to an ignorant tirade based more on prejudice than knowledge.

The fact is that within the faith -- Islam -- there is an old discussion with deep historic roots about how its laws, faith and traditions are to be practiced and interpreted. Even within the faith there are mean and ignorant denials of that discussion, and no one needs to be reminded how that camp is apt to respond. Nevertheless, a ferment is still taking place, and in the minds of many observers the location is in Europe, not the Middle East.

One of the wedges is coming from women, who have found in European society a space in which they can stretch and breath more deeply. Hari points to a book by a young Muslim woman.

Fadela Amara’s raw, vivid book, Breaking the Silence, is the story of how an ordinary Muslim girl from the banlieues—the concrete blocks of Muslim poverty that ring France’s cities—started a movement to reform Islam.

[...]
As she grew up, she realized it was not enough to challenge jihadists in her own home. In 2002 an eighteen-year-old girl from the banlieues named Sohane Benziane was burned to death by fundamentalists for being “loose.” Amara knew she had to act—in the name of Islam. With her friends, she launched a group called Ni Putains, Ni Soumises (Neither Whores Nor Doormats). They began to articulate a feminist Islam compatible with Enlightenment values. Within five months, they had thirty thousand people marching with them in the streets of Paris.
[...]
Amara and the tens of thousands of Muslim women who support her loathe the fundamentalist vision of a “fascist-like society that has nothing to do with democracy”—and unlike many “Clash of Civilizations” blowhards, she and her friends fight against it on the ground, every day. Some of their fights are small everyday acts of defiance: “Make-up has become war paint, a sign of resistance.” But many are larger: they reject the head scarf as “nothing more than a means of oppression emanating from a patriarchal society.” Travel on the tube as it leaves the Muslim East End, and you will see girls peeling off their hijabs and applying makeup with heart-pounding pleasure.
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Back to the new word, ijthad. And no, I don't know how to pronounce it.

A Google search returns an impressive string of hits. This is not an obscure term representative of some lunatic fringe.

This is a solid and well-developed alternative to the extremist picture of Islam so avidly advanced by loud voices (mainly male, incidentally) within the faith, Sunni and Shiite alike, and matched with glee by angry non-Muslim ideologues (demagogues?) seeking military confrontation rather than reasoned discussions.

That's enough for now. Anyone still reading has found enough to prick the imagination and read further. The rest have left the discussion already, very likely with minds already made up, having determined that this post is an apologetic for Islam (which it is not) not worth pursuing.

http://www.ijtihad.org/ (The web address is self-explanatory)

Ijtihad: Its Meaning, Sources, Beginnings and the Practice of Ra'y (No, I haven't read it. It seems to be an on-line book by a Muslim scholar. Check the sidebar for chapter headings.)

Pieter Dorsman points out Irshad Manji whose life seems dedicated to the liberation of the Muslim mind. Her writing, speaking and principle activities in life are living testimonies to the power of ijtihad. Those looking for Muslim voices denouncing terrorism and its root causes in a meaningful way need go no further.

◄◄◄§§§§§►►►

I had ended my post and was getting ready to go to work when this wonderful sketch by Greg Djerejian popped up. It illustrates vividly how shrill the sound level has become in the media. He looks at the recent British reaction to Iran's capture/return of British sailors and compares it with what a similar scenario would have looked like had they been US Navy personnel instead.

No snips here. None could do it justice.
It's not long. Go read it.

Seeing is not always believing...

I simply don't believe this.
Pictures are not enough.
I need testimonials from credible witnesses.
I wanna see a You Tube video.

Don't Misunderestimate President Ahmadinejad Either

He may be crazy, but he's not stupid.
This is from a Persian blog...

No matter what you think about this whole crisis over the British sailors, Iran took great advantage of the situation and got much of what it was looking for, while leaving a way out for the Brits to get their sailors back. Now everybody’s happy, except perhaps G. W. Bush (this guy almost never gets to be happy, because he can’t think!).

My instinct is that this more or less "official" initiative, capturing and holding foreigners for whatever alleged reason, is a variation of kidnappings. I haven't come across any stats, but it looks to me like a trend. Whether by a government or some outlaw gang the dynamic is the same: hostage-taking with a view to achieve some political, tactical or public relations goal.

Some time ago I recall a chilling line from Abu Khaleel, my cyber-friend in Iraq: Will it surprise you to know that, in today’s lawless liberated Iraq, you can get someone killed for as little as $50?

Consider this story from Iraq Slogger:

At least 43 people have been taken in two mass kidnappings in different areas of Iraq. In one kidnapping operation, in Diyala Province, gunmen donned garb resembling Iraqi security forces uniforms to sieze their victims.

Voices of Iraq reports that Iraqi police forces started a combing operation to search for 22 herdsmen who disappeared Wednesday morning west of Karbala, 108 km southwest of Baghdad, a source in the Karbala police department said.

“Iraqi police forces launched a wide-scale search operation in desert areas in western Karbala for the 22 herdsmen who were kidnapped by a group of gunmen this morning,” media spokesman for the Karbala police department, Rahman Mashawi, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

“Armed clashes flared up between the forces and gunmen on the borders of Ramadi city but no trace of the herdsmen was found,” he added.

A group of gunmen wearing military uniform on Wednesday morning kidnapped 22 herdsmen west of Karbala, a security source from Karbala city had said earlier.

“A group of armed men wearing military uniform kidnapped 22 herdsmen in al-Rafee region, west of Karbala,” the source, who asked not to be named, told VOI.

“The attackers were traveling in three cars and headed to Ameriya Falluja region in Ramadi,” he added.

Meanwhile, a source in the Karbala police department dismissed the allegation that the attackers were police from the Karbala department.

I'm just a simple-minded old guy blogging, but I'm having a hard time grasping how an increased number of troops on the ground will have any meaningful effect on reducing the frequency or spread of these tactics. Swarms of mosquitos or flies cannot be wiped out by swatting.

Take a look at ONE DAY'S REPORTING from Today in Iraq.

We are not on the right track. Clearly there are many Iraqis who cherish and support our mission in Iraq. How could they not? They are the beneficiaries of body guards. But I cannot see how a continuing US military presence in Iraq is making the situation better. The overall picture is that of a civil war which will ultimately be concluded by Iraqis, not by outside forces. And no, I don't believe Iran or Syria would be any more successful than the US manipulating Iraq's internal dynamics. If anything, they would be even less effective than we. This is a conflict that will play out in generations, not years.

Public Demonstrations for Hire

This is in the FWIW file. A young woman from Jerusalem wants to get out of town for a change of scenery but trips over an ulterior motive on the part of a trip organizer. Cute but revealing.

A few weeks ago, I got an exciting email, which read like this:

“A one-day bus tour to the Golan will be held on Thursday, second day of Chol Hamoed Pesach, April 5th. We will visit major sites in the Golan, and finish the day with a central event, including a guest performer. suitable for the whole family. Up to age 6 free.” Reading down the line, the ad said “sponsored by World Likud” the right-wing political party. I thought, what the hell, if they’re subsidizing this, this is great for me.

The price was incredibly cheap - all inclusive including a meat lunch - for $10. I was the first person to sign up. There were going to be around four buses going from my community. Besides I was off work during our entire Passover holiday and this sounded like a perfect trip out of Jerusalem.

But yesterday, I read in the newspaper the following:

“Demo in Golan to protest Saudi plan - hundreds of protesters are expected on Thursday at a demonstration in the Golan Heights against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s adoption of the Saudi plan….”

Oh shit. I had just signed up 3 of us for a demonstration and the ad said NOTHING about a demonstration. It just said “central event” to take place. And because I don’t do demonstrations - neither for left or right-wing causes - I had to cancel this trip.

Perhaps a day trip to Tel Aviv will be more soothing to the soul.

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It's not just in Israel. My guess is that whenever and where ever there is a need for crowds, money can grease the way. I just got a spam email from the Jerusalem Post with a link to this.

Sabre-rattling with Iran, Part II

Talk of a US attack of Iran continues. Last week details were articulated and game plans discussed by otherwise rational people. Isn't that how it always happens? Smart people begin to buy into the notion of war and little by little the idea takes on a bandwagon effect. At the same time diplomatic alternatives are marginalized with every passing week.

Paleoconservative Bill Lind gives the idea a nod.

John Robb, respected expert on 4GW and terrorism with a newly-minted book, took note.

Younghusband at Coming Anarchy (I love that blog name) put it together.

He pointed to Dan, whose summary of possible outcomes makes for stimulating reading.

If you're looking for another military adventure, these readings will make your heart soar. All seem to be written with an undercurrent of testosterone-induced excitement, not too different from what is found at auto races, boxing matches, football games and cockfights. Cultural conservatism, indeed. It seems to me that paleoconservatism is retrograde neoconservatism with religious extremism and prophetic eschatology tossed in for good measure. These are the people who cause me to cling to the word "liberal" like a drowning man clutches a piece of driftwood.

KSA Working to Win "Hearts and Minds"

This story is so boring and unsensational it will never make it to television. But like the content of the History Channel, C-CPAN or Discovery, the story of how Saudi Arabia is handling some of its extremists is as important as the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, another poorly reported and little-known contemporary expression of non-violent conflict resolution.

Again John Burgess points to how the Saudis work to educate and work with its subjects identified with extremism, some of whom have been returned by the US, having spent a few years confined at Guantanamo.
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Two thousand men had been through the programme, with 700 released and a negligible rate of re-offending, said General Mansour al-Turki, the government security spokesman.

Officials in Riyadh say they have seen an 80-90% success rate in a "counter-radicalisation" campaign designed to wean extremists detained by the security forces off the "takfiri" ideology that permits the killing of fellow Muslims and motivates Saudis involved in jihad in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some 140 members of al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula have died in clashes with security forces since attacks began in May 2003.

Two thousand men had been through the programme, with 700 released and a negligible rate of re-offending, said General Mansour al-Turki, the government security spokesman.

Abu Suleiman, 33, has seen the error of his ways. "I got involved in jihad when I was 20," he explained in the American-accented English picked up during four years spent in Guantánamo Bay after his capture at Tora Bora in late 2001. "Bin Laden is a quiet guy but he can work magic with people when he talks," said the holy warrior-turned financial analyst. "Being in jail gives you a lot of time to think. I had good intentions. I wanted to help Muslims round the world, but I felt I was being used for other purposes. This programme is working for a lot of people."
Prisoners undergo social and psychological profiling, take part in 10-week courses and are helped to find jobs and even wives as part of intensive after-care support that includes cash handouts for their families. Some refuse to participate. "But we don't force them," Gen Turki said.
[...]
The softly-softly approach contrasts sharply with reports of the torture of security detainees as documented by Human Rights Watch. The official Saudi account of the programme cannot be independently verified but many details are confirmed by western diplomats, with the US and Britain keen to point to its successes.

Another "graduate", Abu Khaled, 25, works in civil defence after recanting during a two-year jail term served on returning from Afghanistan. "I recognised that I made a mistake," he says. "I feel guilt and remorse for what I did."

Dr Abdul-Rahman al-Hadlaq, a ministerial adviser, argues that although al-Qaida has been beaten in Saudi Arabia, "military action" cannot be the only means. The "war of ideas" is being fought on websites based in Europe that glorify jihad and violence against "unbelievers".

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This is not the first time this story has been reported. Because it lacks the excitement that makes for thrills and arguments, few people will know about it. There is nothing visually interesting to make a You Tube clip. And it's not cute, so it will also never make the email forwarded viral messages circuit. If I allow myself to reflect on how embedded ignorance can become it makes me want to think of something else.

Burgess also points to an excellent piece from Korea Times that describes the Saudi program in some detail.

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The 9/11 attacks on the U.S. were a great source of embarrassment for the Saudi leaders, but terrorist attacks inside the kingdom in 2003 made it clear that the kingdom had a serious problem as an incubator for terrorists.

The quest to find the roots of Islamist militancy led the Saudis to undergo a healthy process of critical self-evaluation. The end result was a comprehensive and multidimensional campaign that is both a security operation and a publicawareness program. Much more than winning a conventional war, the Saudis realized that they can prevail only by presenting a more hopeful vision for the future of Saudi youth, one in stark contrast to the apocalyptic and foreboding scenario offered by militants. Using religious principles and nationalist ethos, the government has embarked on what it describes as an unprecedented campaign with the inescapable message that Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance and mercy.

Shortly following the 2003 attacks, authorities began to address the political, social and economic conditions that had allowed Islamist radicalism and by extension, militancy, to flourish in the kingdom. Although some Saudis refuse to acknowledge the prevalence of extremism among their youth, convinced instead that the problem is not homegrown, rather fueled by groups based outside the kingdom, the extensive initiatives indicate that the government has no illusions about the pervasiveness of the problem.

Given the vital role Islamic clerics and Imams play in Saudi society, the government took measures to curb the extremist rhetoric coming from some religious authorities. Hundreds of radical imams and clerics were dismissed, others were “retrained,” and those who supported terrorism were imprisoned. Three prominent clerics were arrested for their support of terrorism and then recanted their views on Saudi television for millions to see.

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Notice this: Here is a story about an important official effort on the part of one of America's most important allies in the Middle East, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the story is being reported in another part of the world, Korea, where Americans have been part of their history for half a century. American blood has been poured out defending both places. A case can be made that the war in Iraq is protecting the interests of Saudi Arabia as well as those of the US.

And yet this story is not being reported in America. I'm not surprised that millions of patriots are unaware whose concept of loyalty is shaped by a myth of redemptive violence. Such a story would challenge a fundamental pillar of their temple. But there are plenty of clear-thinking statesmen and journalists who can understand and not be threatened by this "thinking out of the box" approach. My guess is that those who "catch on" are so intimidated by the expectation of mass rejection they are fearful of speaking out.

Get a Tissue

Returning from a tour of duty in Iraq, Daddy surprises his son at school.
H/T Sullivan

Iraq Refugees

One out of eight Iraqis is a refugee. This represents the largest population of displaced persons in the Middle East in half a century.

The UNHCR today estimates that there are 1.9 million Iraqis who have been forcibly displaced inside Iraq. The number of exiles is estimated at 2 million people, a massive exodus which can be added to the many departures confirmed during the decade of international embargo that followed the First Gulf War in 1991. The majority of these Iraqis are settled in Arab countries: Syria (more than a million), Jordan (750,000) and Egypt (more than 150,000) and at least 40,000 in Lebanon.High Commissioner Antonio Guterres believes that the phenomenon constitutes the largest population displacement in the Near and Middle East since that of Palestinian refugees in 1948. It touches one Iraqi out of eight.

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Excerpted from Le Monde, translated by Nur, who has more details at the link.

Prince Saud to Ahmadinejad: “You’re interfering in Arab affairs”

Most Americans haven't a clue, but Iran is not made up of Arabs. This reality is very important in that part of the world, but the average man on the street in America is as ignorant about the Middle East as the rest of the world. I was talking with a young woman yesterday who had no idea that Egypt was in Africa! An old saw about the US says the reason we go to war is in order to learn something about geography. The term ethnicity might be added to that. One would think that after all the years of living in history's most advertised "melting pots" we would be further along. Obviously not. Two oceans seem to have hindered our understanding of the rest of the world.

So make a note of this: when the king of Saudi Arabia accuses his political counterpart in Iran, he may be speaking peer to peer, even faith to faith. But he is not speaking Arab to Arab. He is speaking as an Arab (very candidly) to a NON-Arab.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah told Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during their talks in Riyadh on March 4 that he should not underestimate the US military threat to Iran, according to Newsweek.

The magazine quoted Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal as saying in an interview that the king said Tehran should take the threat of a possible US military strike on Iran over its nuclear enrichment program seriously.

In the interview, Prince Saud quoted the king as saying: “Why do you want to take a chance on that and harm your country? What is the rush? Why do you have to do it (enrich uranium) this year and not next year or the year after? Or five years from now? What is the real rush in it?”

The king “speaks to everybody frankly,” Saud said, adding that Abdullah told Ahmadinejad: “You’re interfering in Arab affairs,” a reference to Iran’s alleged interference in the affairs of other Middle East countries.

This piece from Arab News was picked up by John Burgess who makes the following comments.
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This story, linked here to Arab News is appearing on the various wire services. It's pretty clear that Saudi Arabia wants to make its concerns about Iran public, perhaps as a counterpoint to its perceived slight of the US through calling the US presence in Iraq 'illegal foreign occupation'. It's also clear, though, that the Kingdom is not best pleased with Iran's conduct, calling its actions over the British sailors and marines a 'catastrophe'.

It's been my experience in the Middle East that Saudi Arabia is the country most likely to say exactly what it means, forgoing the misdirection and beating around the bush that typifies the foreign relations of certain other countries. Sometimes the Saudis can be opaque, or simply not answer a question. But when they answer, they usually say just what they mean. This may be one of the factors that made relations between the Saudis (well, Nejdis) and the Texans and Oklahomans who were the first real American contacts with the Saudis, due to the oil business, so easy.

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"Nejdis" refers to the people of Riyadh and the surrounding area as distinct from the whole of Saudi Arabia. It is interesting that the Wikipedia article starts with a banner that says "This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources." I cannot speak for the king, but I imagine that when a king is speaking he is not interested in establishing his authority or credibility. Likewise, when a contributor to Wikipedia conveys an idea, the idea comes before supporting data. In this case nit-pickers might be advised to ignore the idea at their peril.

Military Conscription is Coming...

The writing is on the wall.

Here is yet another informed source who says the "army is broken." Phillip Carter is not arguing for a draft, but the thrust of his article in Slate makes the prospect clear. You don't have to get off the tracks immediately just because a train is coming, but if you don't get out of the way when it gets here, your ass will get creamed. By the same thinking, we don't need a draft....right this minute. But it is clear that one will be required in the foreseeable future.
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So who is Phillip Carter?

Prior to joining McKenna Long & Aldridge, Phillip served as an officer in the United States Army, including nine years of active and reserve service with military police and civil affairs units. While on active duty before law school, Phillip played a key role in the fielding, testing and evaluation of the Army's digital battle command systems. In 2005-06, he took a leave of absence from the firm to serve in Iraq with the Army's 101st Airborne Division as an adviser to the Iraqi police.
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Phillip contributes articles on law and national security to Slate, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Monthly, among other publications. He has been featured as an expert in many newspapers and magazines, and has also appeared as an expert discussing legal or military affairs on CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and PBS' Jim Lehrer NewsHour.
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He knows whereof he speaks.

Today's Army is stretched past its breaking point by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The sounds of its collapse may be faint enough for policymakers in Washington to ignore, but they are there. An exodus of junior and midlevel personnel illustrates the crisis. Their exit has forced the Army to apply tourniquets like "stop loss" to halt the hemorrhaging, and it has also dropped its standards for recruiting and retention.
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Of all the signs of breakage, perhaps the most acute is the decision to redeploy Army brigades to Iraq sooner and for longer tours in combat. The entire active-duty force is either deployed, set to deploy soon, or within one year of coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan. Short of conscripting millions of Americans to rapidly build a larger military, contracting out for a larger force, or mobilizing the entire reserves at once, military leaders say they have no other choice—to surge in Iraq, they must reduce the time soldiers spend at home between deployments and lengthen their combat tours from 12 to 16 or 18 months. But sending troops to Iraq after such a short time to reorganize, refit, and retrain is a recipe for disaster.
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More links in the complete article.

Again, a 3Quarks catch.

Now is the time for young people to start contemplating how they will respond to a draft. The last time conscription was used was afout forty years ago. That's about as distant from the minds of young people as ancient history. The era of an "all-volunteer military" has led a whole generation to a false sense of safety and no personal responsibility for national security. The country is in a state of denial and when the time comes today's hawks a gonna look pretty foolish. It will be a bleeding shame, to coin a phrase, that an old conscientious objector's voice was among the few who saw it coming and said so.

John Murtha, the whipping boy for respectable patriots, is speaking out. I'm listening for others to say bad stuff about him, but all I get is a deafening silence. At some level, smart people know he's right, but no one wants to say so out loud.

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The mechanisms are already in place.
REPEAT:
THE. MECHANISMS. ARE. ALREADY. IN. PLACE.

The Selective Service System is an independent federal agency operating with permanent authorization under the Military Selective Service Act (50 U.S.C. App. 451 et seq.). It is not part of the Department of Defense; however, it exists to serve the emergency manpower needs of the Military by conscripting untrained manpower, or personnel with professional health care skills, if directed by Congress and the President in a national crisis. Its statutory missions also include being ready to administer an alternative service program, in lieu of military service for men classified as conscientious objectors.

Today, the Selective Service System continues to satisfy its statutory obligations while providing the only time-tested mechanism to backup the all-volunteer military when needed.

Got that?
Not "if" needed, but "when" needed.
Not only that, but the opportunity for undocumented aliens to be considered for citizenship is mentioned in writing.

If you are a man ages 18 through 25 and living in the U.S., then you must register with Selective Service. It’s the law. You can register at any U.S. Post Office and do not need a social security number. When you do obtain a social security number, let Selective Service know. Provide a copy of your new social security number card; include your complete name, date of birth, Selective Service registration number, and current mailing address; and mail to the Selective Service System, P.O. Box 94636, Palatine, IL 60094-4636.

Be sure to register before your 26th birthday. After that, it’s too late!

Selective Service does not collect any information which would indicate whether or not you are undocumented. You want to protect yourself for future U.S. citizenship and other government benefits and programs by registering with Selective Service. Do it today.

That's right.
You can be drafted even if you are not documented. At least that's what it looks like to me.

How many young people know about this?
My guess is very few.