Category Archives: War

Watching the Olympics and thinking about New Stories

Evolution, Games, War

Afghan women

The other night, some friends came over for dinner and part of the conversation revolved around how our myths or stories no longer fit a new reality. Mankind – well, the USA and Russia for sure, and probably Britain, France, and China – have the ability to detonate enough nuclear weaponry to destroy mankind and yet we continue to act as if that were not the case..

I remember reading an article about two traditional Afghan villages getting in a Hatfield-McCoy fight sometime after the Afghans drove the, then, Soviets out of Afghanistan. The feud had been going on for many years in a cold war sort of way. To patch things up, the daughter of one family – let's say Delbar (meaning sweetheart) Durani – was married to the son of the other family – let's say Fariad (meaning outspoken) Mamadzai. 

A couple of months later, Delbar did something that pissed Fariad off and he beat her. Now Delbar, who had perhaps been too coddled as a child, did not like being beat up. The second time Fariad beat her, she snuck away and returned to her village. This put the Duranis in a bind, they either had to take Delbar in or return her. If they returned her, she would probably continue to be beat up; if they took her in, then the Mamadzais would be dissed.

They took her in and the feud was renewed. But this time, both families had AK47s and rocket grenade launchers. This time, the fight was short and lethal. The majority of the men of both villages were simply wiped out. The rules hadn't changed, the stories they built their lives around hadn't changed but the equipment had. The old ways no longer fit the new reality.

AFGHN-10083NF8

So, I sit here watching the Olympics and thinking about how every contest is a zero sum game. This high ideal – this lofty gathering is for somebody to win – for some nation to win. And that means somebody – some other nation – has to lose. And I thought how much that reflected almost everything in our modern world. 

Everything is about winning. I read recently that most people would prefer to make $100,000/year if everybody else was making $80,000/year compared to making $150,000/year with everybody else making $200,000/year. Think about it: we would prefer to make less – be able to buy less – if it was more than the next guy. 

And that led me to thinking about how much different it would be if the Olympics were about cooperation rather than conflict. What if cooperation were the ideal. What if everybody doing better were the ideal.

How about a bobsled contest in which a gold medal would only be awarded if the average time of all the competitors were were no more than 2% higher than the fastest competitor. In other words, to win a gold medal, the fastest guys would have to make sure the slowest guys went faster. How would that change our story of what a winner is?  

 

Watching the Olympics and thinking about the Fall of Rome

Television, War

During some some history of the West class, probably sometime in highschool, we studied Rome. One thing I remember is how Rome’s constant wars bankrupt the state and left the populous too poor to buy bread. To keep the people from rioting, the government gave out free food and held games to keep them distracted.

I remember wondering Why do they have all those foreign wars? and how does it bankrupt the state? At the time, I understood that looting was making some people rich – like Caesar and his fellow Centurions. And it was also making them powerful. Later – much later, like last week – I began to realize that there were other people making money by making roads that went to Gaul or Hispania, armaments, and war support equipment.

Money that could have been spent to make Rome stronger, making Rome a better place to live, was actually spent to make Rome only look stronger. Money that could have been spent on schools or aqueducts, was being spent on the greatest army the world had ever seen and a wall in England.

So I sit here, watching the Olympics, thinking about all the money we spent on Iraq and Afghanistan. All the money we will spend on Iraq and Afghanistan this year and next year and into the foreseeable future. I have heard the arguments for being in Iraq and Afghanistan and they are alway presented in an vacuum. Nobody ever says Should we spend the money on drones for Afghanistan or schools for Los Angeles? Should we build more F22s or start rebuilding our infrastructure?

 

President Obama has signed legislation lifting the cap on
government borrowing to $14.3 trillion except for Medicaid, Social Security and food stamps; and I am beginning to wonder how this is different from the Roman Senate handing out bread and putting on games in the Coliseum?

General U. S. Grant, Mathew Brady, and the new American Hero

Americana, General U.S. Grant, Politics, War, What's a man?

 

Lee

 

In case you weren’t paying attention during your Civil War history class, the picture above in not Grant, it is Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It was take in 1863 and was pretty typical of a portrait of a Civil War general. He stands tall in his battle uniform, with resolute eyes, beautiful shinny boots (you can be sure he didn’t shine them), and a sword. Every inch the patrician. He was the son of Major General Henry Lee III “light Horse Harry” who later became the governor of Virgina.       

Grant, like Lincoln, was a mid-westerner. A common man. At West Point, Lee was Captain of Cadets  while Grant muddled along near the bottom of his class. Grant was quiet, shy, self-effacing. When Grant met Lee during the Mexican-American War, he was thrilled; Lee later said he didn’t remember the meeting. The next time they met was at Appomattox – after Grant’s army had pounded the shit out of Lee. Lee was still resplendent in his beautiful uniform, Grant was wearing a muddy privates uniform with his three stars pined on the shoulders.

Grant had come to do a job and he did it. The picture below shows just that.

Ulysses-grant

 

It is a new kind of portrait. It was probably taken during the Overland Campaign just after the battle of Cold Harbor. Grant is not the patrician hero: he looks tired, his eyes are sad, his boots are muddy. Unlike Lee, war is not a great adventure for Grant. It is a dirty job to be done.

Grant was the new American hero. The quiet man just doing his job. John Wayne. Gary Cooper in High Noon.  No braggadocio flourishes, just quietly getting the job done.

 

This is probably Mathew Bradley’s most famous photo. Not only because of it’s informality, but because it is so penetrating. I have read that a good portrait is a artifact of a relationship. This is a portrait of a man, the picture of Lee, in contrast, is generic. The pictures, together, are emblematic of the Civil War. Up until then, portraits were formal affairs but this portrait was informal.  Lee is shown as the patrician, and by extension, the south as feudal. They are formal portraits reflecting a formal society: ridged, stratified, looking back. This portrait of Grant, the dynamic new kind of American from the West, and by extension, the new and dynamic North: the new America.

An America that is open to the common man. Open to change, at ease with its new frenzy and energy and looking forward. In about a hundred years, from 1800 to 1900, we went from being the equivalent of a third world country to being the world’s industrial powerhouse. And the cleavage point was the Civil War: before it, we were mostly an agrarian society; after it we (the North, at least) were an industrial, urban society.

” The people of Afghanistan represent many things in this conflict – an audience, an actor, and a source of leverage – but above all, they are the objective.” Ctd.

War

I am increasingly wondering  why we are in Afghanistan. I want us to be in Afghanistan winning the good war: part of it is wanting us to kick somebody’s ass over 9-11, but then I wonder, why Afghanistan?

Last week, on the Bill Maher show, there was an amazing round of conversation about what makes a terrorist.Bill Maher started off by saying that a young man who was just arrested as a terrorist was living an American life. “He doesn’t hate America, he loves America and feels guilty.” By day the terrorists love all the taboo parts of America, getting a beer, going to a titty bar, and then out of guilt, they plot to blow something up.

Janeane Garofalo said that it was more than just about sex and guilt, it was about our foreign policy decisions.

Richard Dawkins said it is about religion. That Islam promotes going after non-believers. Then Thomas Friedman said that it was about the disparity between what they thought Islam was and the reality of their life. The terrorists thought of Islam as religion 3.0 – Christianity was religion 2.0, Judaism 1.0 and Hinduism 0.0 – but life under Islam didn’t measure up. Their religion was better but their life was worse and they hate their own governments for it.

Finally Ohio Representative Marcy Kaptur, who represents a huge Muslim population, after saying that her constituents were good citizens and many were in the military protecting America, said that it was disenfranchised individuals who were alienated from society.

It seems to me that each of them is right and all of them are right. Terrorists are increasingly home grown and we are not going to solve the problem by being in Afghanistan.