Then the sun showed up too.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Crude - The Movie
We saw the movie Crude: The Real Price of Petroleum last night at the Bear Tooth Theater Pub. It starts out with the woman in the picture singing a song of the death that oil meant to her Equadorian environment - death to people in her family, to the river, to their way of life.
There is a problem inherent in commenting on a documentary film. While a film reviewer should first be reviewing the quality of the film as film, you can't help but be drawn into subject of the film as well.
The dilemma for me was this. Part of me is outraged. I know that this is not an isolated situation. Anyone who was in Alaska in 1989 when the Exxon Valdez fouled Prince William Sound and stayed around to see how Exxon has dragged this case out for 20 years until a number of the plaintiffs have died, can't help but recognize Chevron's tactics in Ecuador. And I've read enough to know that multi-national corporations ultimately are about making money, and while there may be people who consider themselves moral who work for these companies, that morality is compartmentalized so they can justify their continued work there, and ultimately, collectively, the corporations are totally amoral if not immoral. Confessions of an Economic Hitman spells this all out. The author even writes about going into the jungles of the Amazon to convince the indigenous peoples that the oil company would do them good. So my basic reaction is to believe that - despite gaps in the arguments - ultimately this movie tells us what is basically the 'right' interpretation of events.
But as I blog, I recognize that people who have different world views from mine, may read this. Since I don't have knowledge beyond the film about this particular situation (though I do in general) I feel a need to be able to justify however I come down on the film. And there were parts of the film that made me groan.
The duck lying on its back, its feet quivering in what look like death throes, as the narrator talks about the water killing the villagers' animals just looked way too staged. The point was probably true and they may well have seen this duck, but it was over the top for me. And the kid holding the two dead chickens by the feet and then taking them into the brush and tossing them because they were contaminated - well in my mind I could hear the director creating the scene and telling the kid, "OK, that's far enough, now toss them." Yes, you use these kinds of visuals to make your points, but these just looked too staged for me. (Hey, maybe they weren't staged at all, but they looked like it.)
The director as an advocate rather than an objective observer isn't bad. As an advocate, the film makers did offer the voices of 'the other side' as well as the voices they were supporting. And I'd note that the short oil industry produced videos featured within the film were far more one sided than Crude.
I was particularly struck by one Chevron scientist in Houston who, in her very nice green dress, kept telling us there was no evidence that linked the illnesses to Texaco oil, that Texaco had cleaned up its sites before turning things over to the Ecuadorian petroleum company, and that if there had been any evidence of wrong doing, she would have let her bosses know immediately because she had the phone number of one of the key vice presidents. In terms of scientific data, the film makers never disputed what she said. But in terms of visuals and testimonials of villagers, one couldn't imagine that this scientist was anything but a shill for Chevron. They never - in the film - asked her if she had ever been to the villages. She didn't look like she had. Did they cut out the parts where she talked about visiting the villages and seeing the leftover oil damage?
The film raises important questions about how a party 'proves' damage. As one Chevron spokesperson said, there's no tool for dating whether this oil is from the time of Texaco or from the time of the Ecuadorian oil consortium. What happens when there is no scientifically definitive way to prove something? On the other hand, the film offers a great deal of anecdotal data to connect Texaco to the damage. But the almost total lack of numbers supporting the villagers' case raises questions about whether these numbers exist. Did they feel the numbers were too complicated to present in a film? Do the numbers simply not exist? (For example, they say the rate of cancer has increased greatly since the oil. Chevron disputes this and says, in any case it's not the oil that's causing it. Probably in this remote region there wasn't much data on the incidence of cancer, certainly not before oil. But nobody says even this.)
Winning in court isn't necessarily about justice. It's about how good your lawyers are. It's about how provable your side of the case is. It's about the political environment. For many years, government officials could be manipulated (and still can be) by multinational corporations backed by the World Bank's criteria for granting loans, and ultimately, by the CIA. (Read Economic Hitman.) Raising the hopes of the plaintiffs was the election of President Rafael Correa, who became the first president of Ecuador to visit the oil disaster area.
So my evaluation of the film really does hinge on how convincingly Berlinger made the argument. He definitely made the case that damage had been done and that the indigenous villagers individual lives and probably way of life had been destroyed. But the question is not totally convincing - to the skeptical viewer - that Texaco (and thus current owner Chevron) is the responsible party.
The film focused on the plaintiff's attorneys, a New Yorker and a local Ecuadorian, as they worked to build their case, raise money, and get publicity, including a spread in Vanity Fair and enlisting Sting and his wife Trudie Styler - who visited the villages - to raise money and awareness for them.
Perhaps the lack of Hollywood slickness in the film redeems its faults. After all, this was clearly made in passionate belief in the cause, much in contrast to the cold, calculating style of the attorneys and other spokespersons for Chevron. Chevron focuses on legal and scientific technicalities. Berlinger presents personal local witnesses along with the visual evidence of the damage done. You know, as you watch, that each Chevron spokesperson's annual income is more than all the villagers have made in their lifetimes and that they spend enough on one or two nights' hotel bills to pay the $500 cancer treatments a mother and daughter in the film get after an 18 hour bus ride each way to the clinic.
You can get a sense of what I'm talking about in the official trailer:
So, I've been mulling this around. I didn't feel satisfied at the end of the movie. This wasn't a high budget Hollywood movie. Even Michael Moore surely had far more money for his latest few movies. You can't compare this movie to one that cost 10 or 20 times as much. But I haven't been able to find any mention of the cost of the movie.
Most reviews online seem to be uncritically supportive of the cause. The most 'establishment' comments I could find were in an interview of the director Joe Berlinger in Foreign Policy, a journal that doesn't normally review movies. He said he originally didn't notify Chevron because he was working in a very lawless area near the Columbian border, and while he didn't think Chevron would hire a hit man, there were other locals with an interest in their Chevron salaries who might.
[Since I contacted Chevron,] our relationship has been interesting. Initially, they did not believe [I was trying] to do a fair and balanced film.He goes on to say that when he did the interviews, a Chevron film crew showed up to film him doing the interviews. Another quote from the Foreign Policy interview caught my eye:
I tried to get them to let me do other things like sit in on their meetings. I said, "Hey, take me on the toxi-tour" -- everyone calls it the toxi-tour, including Chevron -- "from the Chevron perspective and I would love to be on the ground with you at these sites, and you explain to me whose responsibility this is and how this happened." They denied that. Literally up until the [eleventh] hour they were friendly but not granting any interviews.
[The Sundance Film Festival deadline] motivated them, and [Chevron] agreed to do interviews. It was their idea to provide me with Ricardo Raez Vega, the legal architect of this case, and provide me with Sarah MacMillan [Chevron's chief environmental scientist].(brackets in the original)
The filmmaker saw a chance to tell a story he thinks addresses a "moral responsibility" that transcends even the best legal argument.
That was, actually the sense I had. And I kept on looking for other things to help me out here. One could say that if I need to get all this background information, the movie itself didn't work on its own. As a piece of film I think it had its share of imperfections, but as a piece of advocacy, it imprinted memorable images in people's minds that will stick and will reshape what they think when they see the Chevron logo.
But what ultimately convinced me was hearing Joe Berlinger talk about the film on the Alex Jones show. (There are four YouTube videos. I took short clips for the audio from 2/4 and 3/4.) You can hear in his voice that this project was one he felt compelled to do because of a great injustice he saw. And he acknowledges that he doesn't know for sure all the legal technicalities, but says this is such an enormous moral issue, that the story had to be publicized. I really think the film would have been stronger had he inserted himself into either the beginning or the end of the film and said what he says on this clip. (Click on the yellow button with the black arrow.)
I'm not smart enough to figure out whether Chevron should win or lose the trial, you know, as you'll see in the film they've wrapped themselves up in enough legal arguments that who knows if the justice system can prevail, but from a moral standpoint it's just astounding that they would go into the backyard of these people and foul the place up. And you walk around these indigenous villages and it breaks your heart. [At this point he gets interrupted for a station break. The theme gets picked up later in the interview and I've added that after the break but didn't transcribe it.]
For me this helps explain what I saw as holes in the movie. He wasn't arguing this legally, that would happen in the courts. What he's doing is making the moral case that what Texaco/Chevron did is wrong and that they need to make amends, even if their lawyers were able to get Ecuadorian officials to sign off on their future liability.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Blind Spot in the Progressive Vision in Afghanistan
In a post last Friday about the resignation letter of an American State Department employee in Afghanistan, I listed helping Afghan women as one of the goals of our presence in Afghanistan.
In a piece in Countercurrents, Cage Wagenvoort looks at American policy in Afghanistan and challenges that reason for being there. He argues that we in the West have regularly gone into other cultures under the banner of noble ideals. Unfortunately, he writes,
How is it that Americans feel outraged when non-Americans tell us what to do (remember how French fries and toast were banned after 9/11?), or tell us what is right and wrong, yet we can't understand why other cultures respond the same way when we tell them how to live?
In a piece in Countercurrents, Cage Wagenvoort looks at American policy in Afghanistan and challenges that reason for being there. He argues that we in the West have regularly gone into other cultures under the banner of noble ideals. Unfortunately, he writes,
Ideals have the habit of coalescing into absolutes, and absolutes have a habit of shedding blood when one nation attempts to impose them on another. . .
You can read the whole piece here. (The "blind spot in the progressive vision" in the title of this post comes from the last sentence of Wagenvoord's piece.)We now see this same missionary zeal at work in Afghanistan where we are told that ours is an effort to liberate Afghan women from the yoke of oppression that has been placed on their shoulders by a misogynist regime. It has appeal because in truth, women in that country are treated as if they’re chattel.
The paradox, here, is that women’s rights will never ride into Afghanistan astride a drone. In Vietnam we destroyed villages to save them; in Afghanistan, we destroy wedding parties to free them.
How is it that Americans feel outraged when non-Americans tell us what to do (remember how French fries and toast were banned after 9/11?), or tell us what is right and wrong, yet we can't understand why other cultures respond the same way when we tell them how to live?
Selling Memberships to the Municipality of Anchorage
The Mayor says we're in a bind financially and he has to make difficult choices. Maybe he just needs to be more creative in finding ways to fund the government services we take for granted.
Both public and private organizations offer memberships. You can be a member of the Anchorage Museum - at several levels. At each level of payment, you get an increasing number of benefits. For example:
If you spend $125 you can be a sustaining member and add more benefits.
The Alaska Club has Basic, Silver, Gold, and Platinum memberships.
Why not revise our Municipal Property tax into a multi-level Property Tax/Municipal Membership? It might look something like this:
Basic level:
Members at the basic level have free access to the following services:
Travel on the streets, sidewalks, trail systems (does not include busiest intersections during peak traffic hours)
Children may attend school free, but must pay for books
Free entry into libraries (but may not check out items or use the internet)
Two free police or fire calls per year
Silver level has all the benefits of Basic level plus:
Free access to choice of five busiest intersections during rush hours
10% discount on first traffic ticket and parking ticket
Three family passes to visit a park in Anchorage
Library card
Free books for children at school, free after school activity (ie sports, etc.) for one child per semester
Five free police or fire calls per year.
20% discount on Municipal Utilities bills
Gold level has all the benefits of Silver level plus:
Total free access on all streets at all times
25 hours of free parking in downtown parking lots
50% discount on first traffic or parking ticket
Free access to all parks, including special park availability for Gold level and above members
Unlimited police or fire calls
Unlimited after school activities for kids in school
50% discount on Municipal Utilities
Free basic Museum membership
Platinum level has all the benefits of Gold level plus:
Priority snow plowing for neighborhoods that are >80% Platinum level members
Free parking downtown
70% discount on all Municipal fees or charges
10% discounts at events in MOA facilities
This is just a first quick draft, but I think it could work. You'd have to set the normal property tax at a reasonable level, and then let people pay for premium levels. Like paying for ski trail grooming, and museum membership; it would be about pride in your city with some extra privileges over people who pay the minimum. It would also help to highlight what people all get from Municipal government and take for granted.
The only real problem is that much of government is a public good. It's something where everyone benefits and excluding non-payers is hard - like city streets, using parks, clean air, etc.
That's why you'd still have to have a minimum charge everyone pays. Cars could have stickers that show what level they pay. And with new technology used in other cities, you could track who use the busy intersections at what times of the day.
You'd have to go through all the city services and see which ones could have premium levels or discounts. You'd also have to calculate what to charge for each level so that enough revenue would come in. And work out something for renters. Since they already pay property tax through their rent, perhaps they could just pay extra for the premium levels. And what about people who don't live in Anchorage but work in town? They could buy guest memberships. Lots of possibilities here.
Maybe there'd have to be a cafeteria plan, where you could pick a few from a list of possible benefits. The higher your level, the more you could pick. It would also allow people who don't think they use city services to just pay the minimum (but would they quit complaining about the things they don't pay for?)
Of course, there's no telling how many people would choose which level, but with the right mix of incentives, it could work.
Both public and private organizations offer memberships. You can be a member of the Anchorage Museum - at several levels. At each level of payment, you get an increasing number of benefits. For example:
Individual $50
(One individual and children or grandchildren 17 and younger)
- Unlimited general admission for one year
- 10% Discount at the Anchorage Museum Shop and Café and the Science Store at the Imaginarium
- Discounts on classes, films, lectures, and admission tickets to special exhibits as well as birthday parties and camp programs at the Imaginarium
- Free admission to more than 400 science and technology museums around the world
- Invitation to Members-only exhibition previews and special events
- Annual subscription to Museum Today, award-winning newsletter
- One year admission to family programs and activities, gallery talks and tours
- 100% of membership is tax-deductible
If you spend $125 you can be a sustaining member and add more benefits.
The Alaska Club has Basic, Silver, Gold, and Platinum memberships.
Why not revise our Municipal Property tax into a multi-level Property Tax/Municipal Membership? It might look something like this:
Basic level:
Members at the basic level have free access to the following services:
Travel on the streets, sidewalks, trail systems (does not include busiest intersections during peak traffic hours)
Children may attend school free, but must pay for books
Free entry into libraries (but may not check out items or use the internet)
Two free police or fire calls per year
Silver level has all the benefits of Basic level plus:
Free access to choice of five busiest intersections during rush hours
10% discount on first traffic ticket and parking ticket
Three family passes to visit a park in Anchorage
Library card
Free books for children at school, free after school activity (ie sports, etc.) for one child per semester
Five free police or fire calls per year.
20% discount on Municipal Utilities bills
Gold level has all the benefits of Silver level plus:
Total free access on all streets at all times
25 hours of free parking in downtown parking lots
50% discount on first traffic or parking ticket
Free access to all parks, including special park availability for Gold level and above members
Unlimited police or fire calls
Unlimited after school activities for kids in school
50% discount on Municipal Utilities
Free basic Museum membership
Platinum level has all the benefits of Gold level plus:
Priority snow plowing for neighborhoods that are >80% Platinum level members
Free parking downtown
70% discount on all Municipal fees or charges
10% discounts at events in MOA facilities
This is just a first quick draft, but I think it could work. You'd have to set the normal property tax at a reasonable level, and then let people pay for premium levels. Like paying for ski trail grooming, and museum membership; it would be about pride in your city with some extra privileges over people who pay the minimum. It would also help to highlight what people all get from Municipal government and take for granted.
The only real problem is that much of government is a public good. It's something where everyone benefits and excluding non-payers is hard - like city streets, using parks, clean air, etc.
That's why you'd still have to have a minimum charge everyone pays. Cars could have stickers that show what level they pay. And with new technology used in other cities, you could track who use the busy intersections at what times of the day.
You'd have to go through all the city services and see which ones could have premium levels or discounts. You'd also have to calculate what to charge for each level so that enough revenue would come in. And work out something for renters. Since they already pay property tax through their rent, perhaps they could just pay extra for the premium levels. And what about people who don't live in Anchorage but work in town? They could buy guest memberships. Lots of possibilities here.
Maybe there'd have to be a cafeteria plan, where you could pick a few from a list of possible benefits. The higher your level, the more you could pick. It would also allow people who don't think they use city services to just pay the minimum (but would they quit complaining about the things they don't pay for?)
Of course, there's no telling how many people would choose which level, but with the right mix of incentives, it could work.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
First Snow
Anchorage Diwali Celebration 2009
The word दीपावली(Dipavali) literally translates as a row of lamps in Sanskrit[1]. It is traditional for adherents of Diwali-celebrating faiths to light small clay lamps (or Deep in Sanskrit: दीप) filled with oil to signify the triumph of good over evil within an individual. During Diwali, many wear new clothes and share sweets/snacks with each other. Some Indian business communities start their financial year by opening new account books on the first day of Diwali for good luck the following year.
In Hinduism, Diwali marks the return of Lord Raama to his kingdom Ayodhya after defeating Ravana (the Demon Kin, and also the demons KING) - the ruler of Lanka in the epic story of Ramayana. It also celebrates the slaying of the demon king Narakasura by Lord Krishna. Both signifying the victory of good over evil. In Jainism, Diwali marks the attainment of moksa by Mahavira in 527 BC.[2][3] . In Sikhism, Diwali commemorates the return of Guru Har Gobind Ji to Amritsar after freeing 52 other Hindu kings imprisoned in Fort Gwalior by Emperor Jahangir. He was welcomed by the people who lit candles and divas to celebrate his return. Which is why Sikhs also refer to Diwali also as Bandi Chhorh Divas meaning "the day of release of detainees".
Diwali is considered to be a national festival in India and Nepal. The aesthetic aspect of the festival is enjoyed around the world regardless of faith. (From Wikipedia, where you can get a lot more about Diwali.)
The video gives a little sense of the liveliness of the evening.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Unemployment Coverage Proves Conservative Bias of the Media
An AP story that runs in today's Anchorage Daily News says, in part:
None of the Conservatives want to acknowledge that Obama has bested their hero by over a year, despite the fact that he had to turn around the legacy of eight prior years of Republicans. Before Reagan, the Democrats only had four years to mess with the economy leaving Reagan with far less to undo. In fact Conservatives are even criticizing Obama for repeating Reagan's achievement.
Clearly, the mention of 1983 without mentioning the fact that Reagan was president at the time, shows how much influence the Conservatives have over the news. They did not want to draw attention to Obama's ability to reach double digit unemployment over a year faster than Reagan. They did not want their hero to be shown to be so soundly beaten by Obama on achieving this milestone. Strangely, it was the purportedly liberal New York Times that pointed out the 1983 level (though they didn't mention Reagan) was actually 10.8%, significantly higher than Obama's 10.2%. But OBama has time to get the unemployment higher than Reagan got it.
This is another example of shameless Conservative manipulation of the news to forward their ideological, and not objective, news standards.
[Original title was "Unemployment - Facts - Context - Ideology." I guess irony should have been in there too.]
The jobless rate rocketed to 10.2 percent in October, the highest since early 1983, dealing a psychological blow to Americans as they prepare holiday shopping lists.This story and others on this topic that I've read all point to a media conspiracy clearly orchestrated by Conservatives. None of the stories I've seen have mentioned that in 1983 Ronald Reagan was into his third year as president. None of these stories has highlighted the fact that the US reached double digit unemployment in only 10 months after Obama was sworn into office while it took Conservative hero Reagan two full years to reach that level.
None of the Conservatives want to acknowledge that Obama has bested their hero by over a year, despite the fact that he had to turn around the legacy of eight prior years of Republicans. Before Reagan, the Democrats only had four years to mess with the economy leaving Reagan with far less to undo. In fact Conservatives are even criticizing Obama for repeating Reagan's achievement.
Clearly, the mention of 1983 without mentioning the fact that Reagan was president at the time, shows how much influence the Conservatives have over the news. They did not want to draw attention to Obama's ability to reach double digit unemployment over a year faster than Reagan. They did not want their hero to be shown to be so soundly beaten by Obama on achieving this milestone. Strangely, it was the purportedly liberal New York Times that pointed out the 1983 level (though they didn't mention Reagan) was actually 10.8%, significantly higher than Obama's 10.2%. But OBama has time to get the unemployment higher than Reagan got it.
This is another example of shameless Conservative manipulation of the news to forward their ideological, and not objective, news standards.
[Original title was "Unemployment - Facts - Context - Ideology." I guess irony should have been in there too.]
Would You Give $50 to Restore Someone's Eyesight?
The Seva Foundation catalogue arrived the other day. For a donation of $50 you pay for
How do you know that $50 will really go to that operation? Well, you can't be certain. It would be hard to trace your check to a clinic in Nepal and I'd bet it all gets mixed up with everyone else's checks. Probably $50 is what it costs them to do that sort of operation and this is just clever marketing. But you can check how a charitable organization is rated.
Charity Navigator is one of the online ways to check out a charity before you give. I checked out SEVA and they only got 3 stars out of four. Their administrative costs are a little higher than other agencies is part of the reason. Their administrator gets paid $160,000 a year. That seems a bit steep for a charity that raises only $4 million a year.
But as you can see, Charity Navigator compares SEVA to other charities with similar missions. There are three that have four stars and higher efficiency ratings. I liked Physicians for Peace.
In any case, as you start thinking about holiday gifts, especially for people who have everything, think about giving a gift of service such as a cataract operation in someone's name. It seems to me that for Christians, this would fit right into the message that Christ spread. It's easy, it's affordable, it doesn't clutter up the giftee's house, and it can change a person's life.
Think if you were living on a meager income who needed a prosthetic or polio inoculations for your children and you knew there were rich people in another country who spent more money to watch a movie and go to dinner than you needed to save the life of your child?
Most of the people who read this probably can do the dinner and movie AND make a donation without noticing it. And you can use Charity Navigator to find an organization which uses the donations efficiently and effectively.
"one cataract surgery with a vision-correcting lens implant, post-operative care and medications."You can buy another sweater or a ticket to the opera or a dinner out or you can buy someone their eyesight. People claim they would help the poor around the world, but they just don't know how. But there are many charities that will help you do those good deeds.
How do you know that $50 will really go to that operation? Well, you can't be certain. It would be hard to trace your check to a clinic in Nepal and I'd bet it all gets mixed up with everyone else's checks. Probably $50 is what it costs them to do that sort of operation and this is just clever marketing. But you can check how a charitable organization is rated.
But as you can see, Charity Navigator compares SEVA to other charities with similar missions. There are three that have four stars and higher efficiency ratings. I liked Physicians for Peace.
In any case, as you start thinking about holiday gifts, especially for people who have everything, think about giving a gift of service such as a cataract operation in someone's name. It seems to me that for Christians, this would fit right into the message that Christ spread. It's easy, it's affordable, it doesn't clutter up the giftee's house, and it can change a person's life.
Think if you were living on a meager income who needed a prosthetic or polio inoculations for your children and you knew there were rich people in another country who spent more money to watch a movie and go to dinner than you needed to save the life of your child?
Most of the people who read this probably can do the dinner and movie AND make a donation without noticing it. And you can use Charity Navigator to find an organization which uses the donations efficiently and effectively.
Friday, November 06, 2009
"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan" - Asking the Basic Policy Questions
Policies, say like what the US should do in Afghanistan, can be looked at from many different perspectives. But it seems to me there are two basic questions we need to answer.
If someone is drowning and your purpose is to save him, should you still jump in when you have a 90% probability of drowning too? If the person in the water is a mass murderer, most people may feel saving him doesn't serve an important enough purpose unless the rescuer had 100% chance of surviving. If the person drowning is you ten year old son, you may jump in even if you have only a 1% chance of surviving. But most likely, you aren't even considering these probabilities, you are acting on instinct and emotion. But if you die too, leaving two other kids without a mother, how good was that decision? Even if the intent was noble?
But when we are making foreign policy, we generally do have time to think these decisions out and calculate our likelihood of success. Even if we can't do it with certainty, the exercise puts our assumptions out on the table, exposed to analysis and debate.
But if the US can't achieve those goals, is it worth it to make a noble, symbolic effort? At what cost to other projects such as better education and health care, or infrastructure, or assisting people in other parts of the world where we can succeed?
This is the dilemma that our President faces. Plus he has political consequences to weigh as well. If we pull out of Afghanistan and the Taliban retake the nation and things go back to where they were pre-invasion, there is no question that Obama will be blamed for various kinds of diplomatic cowardice. Even though it was GW Bush who took us into Afghanistan and then diverted our efforts there by invading Iraq, Obama will get the blame (or credit) for what happens now.
And if we stay and Afghanistan proves to be another quagmire that just sucks in American lives and resources with no visible gain, Obama will get blamed for that as well.
Into this discussion we now get to see the resignation letter of a US State Department employee who has been working in Afghanistan.
Matthew Hoh first US official to resign over Afghan War
The letter appears to be genuine. He seems to be saying the goals might be good, but there's no chance of success. According the the Washington Post (Oct. 26, 2009) the US Ambassador in Afghanistan took Hoh's letter seriously:
Perhaps this guy is just overly idealistic and when things didn't turn around in the five months he was in Afghanistan, he was ready to throw in the towel. But the letter reveals a thoughtfulness that belies that sort of conclusion.
Anyway, this is more fodder for this discussion. During the Vietnam war there were voices like this slowly adding up and they were dismissed by the Pro-War folks as 'peacenik pot-smoking hippies' (so maybe Hoh was trying to pre-empt such a dismissal). Eventually, a majority of Americans agreed we should be out of Vietnam. While some still argue "We could have won if we hadn't held back the firepower" the real point is that Vietnam's "fall to Communism" didn't signal that all the dominoes of South East Asia would fall to Communism. Vietnam was not a threat to the US and much of Southeast Asia prospered. All those stories of why we needed to be there, proved unfounded.
But that said, we have to choose carefully which lessons from Vietnam are appropriate to apply in Afghanistan. Nothing is simple. But I'm guessing that in the long run, getting out as soon as we can is the best for most everyone.
- What purposes can we serve by being there?
There seem to be quite a few we could list - Stop Al Qaeda
- Change a government that makes women subservient to men
- Stop the cultivation of poppies and drugs
(You can debate the extent that such goals are reasonable or reflect an accurate understanding of Afghanistan. A key question ultimately is how important are these goals in relation to other goals we want to achieve. Will resources spent on Afghanistan mean we don't have resources for other goals? Which, ultimately, are the most important? If fighting in Afghanistan meant, really, that we prevent Al Qaeda from destroying the US, then we'd certainly decide to stay there. If.)
- Can we achieve the purposes?
No matter how noble and worthy our goal, if we have no chance of achieving it, one has to question our pursuing it. Of course, few things are so absolute. In any situation it isn't either/or, rather it is a range form 0% chance to 100% chance.
Decision theory gives us a number of 'rational' models for calculating level of risk and potential outcomes. In some cases, it is relatively easy to plug data into the boxes and get a clear outcome. But in complex policy decisions, not only is filling in the boxes difficult, but the emotional power of people's ideological stories of how the world works, causes people to interpret the same data totally differently.
If someone is drowning and your purpose is to save him, should you still jump in when you have a 90% probability of drowning too? If the person in the water is a mass murderer, most people may feel saving him doesn't serve an important enough purpose unless the rescuer had 100% chance of surviving. If the person drowning is you ten year old son, you may jump in even if you have only a 1% chance of surviving. But most likely, you aren't even considering these probabilities, you are acting on instinct and emotion. But if you die too, leaving two other kids without a mother, how good was that decision? Even if the intent was noble?
But when we are making foreign policy, we generally do have time to think these decisions out and calculate our likelihood of success. Even if we can't do it with certainty, the exercise puts our assumptions out on the table, exposed to analysis and debate.
- I think it would be good for the world if terrorist groups who regularly blow people up are stopped.
- I think that Afghan women should be free to choose how they want to dress and if they want to go to school, etc.
But if the US can't achieve those goals, is it worth it to make a noble, symbolic effort? At what cost to other projects such as better education and health care, or infrastructure, or assisting people in other parts of the world where we can succeed?
This is the dilemma that our President faces. Plus he has political consequences to weigh as well. If we pull out of Afghanistan and the Taliban retake the nation and things go back to where they were pre-invasion, there is no question that Obama will be blamed for various kinds of diplomatic cowardice. Even though it was GW Bush who took us into Afghanistan and then diverted our efforts there by invading Iraq, Obama will get the blame (or credit) for what happens now.
And if we stay and Afghanistan proves to be another quagmire that just sucks in American lives and resources with no visible gain, Obama will get blamed for that as well.
Into this discussion we now get to see the resignation letter of a US State Department employee who has been working in Afghanistan.
Matthew Hoh first US official to resign over Afghan War
The letter appears to be genuine. He seems to be saying the goals might be good, but there's no chance of success. According the the Washington Post (Oct. 26, 2009) the US Ambassador in Afghanistan took Hoh's letter seriously:
U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry brought him to Kabul and offered him a job on his senior embassy staff. Hoh declined. From there, he was flown home for a face-to-face meeting with Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.And as Hoh himself is quoted in the article:
"We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer," Holbrooke said in an interview. "We all thought that given how serious his letter was, how much commitment there was, and his prior track record, we should pay close attention to him."
"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," Hoh said. Although he said his time in Zabul was the "second-best job I've ever had," his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.(Ouch, so if you're for getting out of Afghanistan you must be a peacenick, pot-loving hippie? Do these negative stereotype labels never die?)
"There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."
Perhaps this guy is just overly idealistic and when things didn't turn around in the five months he was in Afghanistan, he was ready to throw in the towel. But the letter reveals a thoughtfulness that belies that sort of conclusion.
Anyway, this is more fodder for this discussion. During the Vietnam war there were voices like this slowly adding up and they were dismissed by the Pro-War folks as 'peacenik pot-smoking hippies' (so maybe Hoh was trying to pre-empt such a dismissal). Eventually, a majority of Americans agreed we should be out of Vietnam. While some still argue "We could have won if we hadn't held back the firepower" the real point is that Vietnam's "fall to Communism" didn't signal that all the dominoes of South East Asia would fall to Communism. Vietnam was not a threat to the US and much of Southeast Asia prospered. All those stories of why we needed to be there, proved unfounded.
But that said, we have to choose carefully which lessons from Vietnam are appropriate to apply in Afghanistan. Nothing is simple. But I'm guessing that in the long run, getting out as soon as we can is the best for most everyone.
"...located on a busy street in the heart of downtown."
Which of the following would you call a 'busy street?'
A.
B.
Or C (from Google Maps Street Level)?
Why do I ask? Well, there's a lot discussion about the flood of Sarah Palin books. I followed links today which got me to this quote from Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe’s new book, “Sarah from Alaska: The Sudden Rise and Brutal Education of a New Conservative Superstar,” on the HastingReport:
The hedge in pictures C above belongs to the Governor's Mansion in Juneau.
For people who have never been to Juneau, the picture on the left is the northeast section of downtown Juneau.(The red section on the map below.)
The street in the picture below runs along the Baranof Hotel in the business district of Juneau.
While the Governor's Mansion (yellow circle) is technically in downtown Juneau. There are business sections and residential sections and the mansion is on a tiny residential street. (Actually, there are several tiny streets that surround it.) Is it just me, biased because I live in the metropolis of Anchorage, who doesn't think of any streets in downtown Juneau as particularly busy? You can walk from the lower right of the map to the high school in 15 or 20 minutes. And sure, thirty cars all leaving the Capitol at once could cause a bit of a jam, but this is much more accurately described as a tiny, quaint, and picturesque town.
The picture below is of a house across the street from the Governor's mansion. My subjects are standing in the "busy street" described in the book.
I raise this issue because it makes me wonder if they were even at the Governor's mansion if they describe the street it's on as "busy." The only way it might have been busy is if there was a tour bus or two on the street at the time they saw it. Or maybe there were a hundred out-of-state journalists driving around the house at the time.
But for most Americans who have never been to Juneau, hearing 'busy street' certainly has to conjure up an image closer to pictures A and B than C above.
So, what's my point? This may be a poor description, but it hardly is important in terms of what they are writing. Well, if they call this street busy, what else in the book is misleading, distorted, or just plain wrong? I don't know. Maybe nothing. I'll just put this out here for the record. Maybe this is the only error. It certainly struck me when I read the passage. Perhaps other readers will find other errors. Certainly the rush to publish around the same date that Palin's book is coming out may have caused there to be a number of such problems. Maybe not.
A.
B.
Or C (from Google Maps Street Level)?
Why do I ask? Well, there's a lot discussion about the flood of Sarah Palin books. I followed links today which got me to this quote from Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe’s new book, “Sarah from Alaska: The Sudden Rise and Brutal Education of a New Conservative Superstar,” on the HastingReport:
One afternoon, while conducting interviews in Juneau, we decided to take a short walk to catch a glimpse of the governor’s mansion, which is located on a busy street in the heart of downtown. On our way back, we crossed paths with Piper Palin and two of her friends, who were evidently returning from school. We had known Piper as a frequent guest in the back of the plane during campaign flights between the cities. Her energy and humor made her a favorite among the ever-exhausted members of the traveling press corps, and she seemed excited to chat briefly with us about her return to Alaska…[emphasis added]
The hedge in pictures C above belongs to the Governor's Mansion in Juneau.
For people who have never been to Juneau, the picture on the left is the northeast section of downtown Juneau.(The red section on the map below.)
The street in the picture below runs along the Baranof Hotel in the business district of Juneau.
The picture below is of a house across the street from the Governor's mansion. My subjects are standing in the "busy street" described in the book.
But for most Americans who have never been to Juneau, hearing 'busy street' certainly has to conjure up an image closer to pictures A and B than C above.
So, what's my point? This may be a poor description, but it hardly is important in terms of what they are writing. Well, if they call this street busy, what else in the book is misleading, distorted, or just plain wrong? I don't know. Maybe nothing. I'll just put this out here for the record. Maybe this is the only error. It certainly struck me when I read the passage. Perhaps other readers will find other errors. Certainly the rush to publish around the same date that Palin's book is coming out may have caused there to be a number of such problems. Maybe not.
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