Before the military coup in 1969 that established Muammar al-Gaddafi as leader of Libya, he had risen the rank of Colonel in the army, not generalisimo or field marshall or even commander of the elephants. Now he shoots his own citizens, who have watched their neighbors in Tunis and Egypt successfully overthow tyrants. Gaddafi is not the first thug in Tripoli.
In the early days of the United States, as the country sought commerce with Europe and elsewhere, the Barbary states of Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco ruled the Mediterranean. Their pirates captured U.S. shipping, crews, and cargo, held for ransom.
It fell to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, U.S. Ambassadors to Great Britain and France, respectively, to attempt diplomacy between the United States and the Barbary States.
Ambassador Adams wrote to Ambassador Jefferson Feb. 17, 1786:
I was sometime in doubt, whether any notice should be taken of the Tripoline Ambassador (Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja); but receiving information that he made enquiries about me, and expressed a surprise that when the other foreign ministers had visited him, the American had not, and finding that he was a universal and perpetual ambassador, it was thought best to call upon him. Last evening, in making a tour of other visits, I stopped at his door, intending only to leave a card, but the ambassador was announced at home and ready to receive me. I was in a state.
Two great chairs before the fire, one of which was destined for me, the other for His Excellency. Two secretaries of legation, men of no small consequence, standing upright in the middle of the room, without daring to sit, during the whole time I was there, and whether they are not yet upright upon their legs I know not.
“We make tobacco in Tripoli,” said His Excellency, “but it is too strong. Your American tobacco is better.” By this time, one of his secretaries or “upper servants” brought two pipes ready filled and lighted. The longest was offered to me; the other to His Excellency. It is long since I took a pipe but as it would be unpardonable to be wanting in politeness in so ceremonious an interview, I took the pipe with great complacency, placed the bowl upon the carpet, for the stem was fit for a walking cane, and I believe more than two yards in length, and smoked in awful pomp, reciprocating whiff for whiff, with His Excellency, until coffee was brought in. His Excellency took a cup, after I had taken one, and alternately sipped at his coffee and whiffed at his tobacco, and I wished he would take a pinch in turn from his snuff box for variety; and I followed the example with such exactness and solemnity that the two secretaries appeared in raptures and the superior of them who speaks a few words of French cried out in ecstasy, “Monsieur, vous etes un Turk.”
The necessary civilities being thus completed, His Excellency began upon business; asked many questions about America: The soil climate heat cold, etc., and said it was a very great country. But “Tripoli is at war with it.” I was “Sorry to hear that." “Had not heard of any war with Tripoli.” “America had done no injury to Tripoli, committed no hostility; nor had Tripoli done America any injury or committed any hostility against her, that I had heard of.” True said His Excellency “but there must be a treaty of peace. There could be no peace without a treaty. The Turks and Africans were the sovereigns of the Mediterranean, and there could be no navigation there nor peace without treaties of peace.”
The King (of England) told one of the foreign ministers... that the Tripoline ambassador refused to treat with his ministers and insisted upon an audience. But that all he had to say was that Tripoli was at peace with England and desired to continue so. The King added all he wants is a present, and his expenses born to Vienna or Denmark.
The relation of my visit is to be sure inconsistent with the dignity of your character and mine, but the ridicule of it was real and the drollery inevitable. How can we preserve our dignity in negotiating with such nations? And who but a petit maitre would think of gravity upon such an occasion?
Jefferson was not long amused. Adams succeeded George Washington as President of the United States. President Adams championed creation of the U.S. Navy. Jefferson succeeded Adams. President Jefferson dispatched the U.S. Navy , along with U.S. Marines, to the shores of Tripoli, as sung proudly still in the Marine Corps Hymn.
Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Streets of Cairo
I arrived at the American Embassy in Cairo the same month Jimmy Carter was sworn in as President of the United States. I got off on the wrong foot with Cairo and never found a better one. “Tomorrow is Friday, but you’ll have jet-lag,” my new boss said. “I’ll send a duty driver for you on Monday.” However, stomach cramps, diarrhea, and fever hallucinations, Pharaoh’s revenge, immediately overtook the jet-lag, and I was unable to report for work until another week later. Then came the Baladi Bread and Butagas Riots.
Egypt borrowed money from the World Bank, where heckuva job Bob McNamara, of Vietnam fame, was president, and the brightest and best there recommended Egypt abolish price controls on baladi bread, flour, rice, cooking oil, and butagas. From Alexandria to Aswan, rioters took to the streets, hundreds killed, more injured. Along the main road from Cairo to the Pyramids, Islamists attacked the gaudy nightclub venues of alcohol drinking, casino gambling, and belly dancing. President Sadat declared martial law. Rioters shouted, “Where is our breakfast?" and "Nasser, Nasser." After the riots, the Egyptian government took it all back and reinstated the price controls.
On the first morning of the protests, I had gone to the Embassy without noticing any difference from every other day of chaos on the streets of Cairo. By 10 a.m., my boss dragged an army green footlocker from the secured vault into the office and unpacked its contents in front of his four-man staff of teletype operators. He spread across a desk an olive-drab webbed-belt, a leather holster embossed “U.S.,” and a .45 caliber semi-automatic M1911A sidearm. He hooked the holster to the belt and sheathed the pistol. A metal ammo box contained incendiary grenades, in case of emergency destruction of classified documents. The boss opened the main filing cabinet. “Pull the pin, toss it in, and run like hell.” To me, he said, “You’re riding with me.”
My boss drove a 1973 Plymouth Fury, still in its prime as a huge hunk of steel and V-8 horsepower. We rode out the front gate of the Embassy, past the Shepheards Hotel, and down the Corniche El Nil. At the first bridge, a crowd gathered. My boss stopped the car in the middle of the street a block away and shifted the transmission into Neutral. “Roll up your window and lock the doors,” he told me. The crowd advanced towards the Plymouth. Some carried rocks in their hands and lengths of iron pipes. “Hold on to your ass,” my boss said. Angry faces began to come into focus. My boss stomped on the accelerator with the engine still in Neutral. When the RPM needle pointed to 12 O’Clock High, he dropped the gear shift into Drive, screeching tires and raising a trail of blue smoke and the smell of rubber. He aimed the Plymouth Fury steel and horsepower at the middle of the mob. The accelerator pedal was still flat on the floor at 60 MPH, when the crowd parted like the Red Sea. At my front door, the boss said, “You just stay home until I send for you.” There was no telephone service. The next time the duty driver came for me, I had been in Cairo three weeks and had worked one full day and part of another.
Sadat’s government survived the bread riots, with a lot of help from his friends, until the assassins got him in 1981. Mubarak was his vice president. Mubarak has ruled Egypt for 30 years without a vice president but now has decided he needs one and has chosen his not-so-secret police chief, a trusted torturer. Meanwhile, Mohamed ElBaradei a United Nations bureaucrat living in Europe, got a sudden urge to participate in Cairo street riots, and American television immediately elected him “the opposition leader.” Remember Benazir Bhutto, educated in Cambridge, Mass., and Oxford, England, twice Prime Minister of Pakistan and twice run out of Islamabad on a rail, suddenly homesick for Pakistan again when it looked like regime change was in bloom? There must be some special travel agency offering special packages at special rates for special expatriate patriots.
Egypt borrowed money from the World Bank, where heckuva job Bob McNamara, of Vietnam fame, was president, and the brightest and best there recommended Egypt abolish price controls on baladi bread, flour, rice, cooking oil, and butagas. From Alexandria to Aswan, rioters took to the streets, hundreds killed, more injured. Along the main road from Cairo to the Pyramids, Islamists attacked the gaudy nightclub venues of alcohol drinking, casino gambling, and belly dancing. President Sadat declared martial law. Rioters shouted, “Where is our breakfast?" and "Nasser, Nasser." After the riots, the Egyptian government took it all back and reinstated the price controls.
On the first morning of the protests, I had gone to the Embassy without noticing any difference from every other day of chaos on the streets of Cairo. By 10 a.m., my boss dragged an army green footlocker from the secured vault into the office and unpacked its contents in front of his four-man staff of teletype operators. He spread across a desk an olive-drab webbed-belt, a leather holster embossed “U.S.,” and a .45 caliber semi-automatic M1911A sidearm. He hooked the holster to the belt and sheathed the pistol. A metal ammo box contained incendiary grenades, in case of emergency destruction of classified documents. The boss opened the main filing cabinet. “Pull the pin, toss it in, and run like hell.” To me, he said, “You’re riding with me.”
My boss drove a 1973 Plymouth Fury, still in its prime as a huge hunk of steel and V-8 horsepower. We rode out the front gate of the Embassy, past the Shepheards Hotel, and down the Corniche El Nil. At the first bridge, a crowd gathered. My boss stopped the car in the middle of the street a block away and shifted the transmission into Neutral. “Roll up your window and lock the doors,” he told me. The crowd advanced towards the Plymouth. Some carried rocks in their hands and lengths of iron pipes. “Hold on to your ass,” my boss said. Angry faces began to come into focus. My boss stomped on the accelerator with the engine still in Neutral. When the RPM needle pointed to 12 O’Clock High, he dropped the gear shift into Drive, screeching tires and raising a trail of blue smoke and the smell of rubber. He aimed the Plymouth Fury steel and horsepower at the middle of the mob. The accelerator pedal was still flat on the floor at 60 MPH, when the crowd parted like the Red Sea. At my front door, the boss said, “You just stay home until I send for you.” There was no telephone service. The next time the duty driver came for me, I had been in Cairo three weeks and had worked one full day and part of another.
Sadat’s government survived the bread riots, with a lot of help from his friends, until the assassins got him in 1981. Mubarak was his vice president. Mubarak has ruled Egypt for 30 years without a vice president but now has decided he needs one and has chosen his not-so-secret police chief, a trusted torturer. Meanwhile, Mohamed ElBaradei a United Nations bureaucrat living in Europe, got a sudden urge to participate in Cairo street riots, and American television immediately elected him “the opposition leader.” Remember Benazir Bhutto, educated in Cambridge, Mass., and Oxford, England, twice Prime Minister of Pakistan and twice run out of Islamabad on a rail, suddenly homesick for Pakistan again when it looked like regime change was in bloom? There must be some special travel agency offering special packages at special rates for special expatriate patriots.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Pirates of the Arabian
Pirates off the coast of Africa have attacked a cargo ship flying the U.S. flag and taken its captain hostage. The vessel, named the Alabama, is owned by Maersk Line Ltd., of Denmark. This was the sixth attempted seizure at sea in a week by pirates in the area where the rhinoceros horn of Africa tries to bump the bulge of Arabia. The attack on the Alabama was the second in two days. Captain Richard Phillips of Vermont ordered his crew of 20 to lock themselves in a room, but he permitted himself to be taken hostage in order to save the ship, which was reportedly carrying humanitarian food aid to Africa. Capt. Phillips tried to escape from his captors in view of the USS Bainbridge, only a few hundred yards away with rescue helicopters. He jumped off a lifeboat and began swimming, but the pirates opened fire with automatic weapons, and he returned to the lifeboat. FBI hostage negotiators are on board the Bainbridge.
Somali pirates have extorted tens of millions of dollars in ransoms on this busy highway for Asian manufactured consumer goods and Arab oil shipped from the Indian Ocean to the Arabian Sea to the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean. Often as few as four to eight armed pirates are all it takes to seize control of massive commercial vessels. Low-paid and under-trained merchant sailors have been told by ship owners to offer no resistance to avoid loss of life. Crews are unarmed by choice of ocean shipping businesses and insurance companies willing to pay ransoms rather than liability judgments in court.
I can hear the Marine Corps Hymn from my Daddy’s grave. He was a WWII Marine in the Pacific. “From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.” Even before Libya’s Muammar al-Gaddafi, there was trouble along the Barbary Coast. Thomas Jefferson, while serving as U.S. Ambassador to France, had been involved in negotiations with Barbary Pirates, operatives of North African states in the Ottoman Empire. Upon Jefferson's inauguration as President in 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli, demanded $225,000 to guarantee safe passage of U.S. ships. Jefferson refused. Two Barbary Wars followed, establishing the U.S. Navy as a military force to be reckoned with.
Today’s Pirates of the Arabian Sea are not part of anybody’s empire, except maybe the devil’s. Poverty, perpetual civil war, and the absence of any functioning governments have turned the waters around the Horn of Africa into a crime-infested malestrom. Somali pirates chase ships by speedboats and scale the ships' hulls using grappling hooks. They have typically anchored vessels off the coast and negotiated ransoms. These are not swishbuckling Johnny Depps. They are failed fishermen in beggars rags, fodder of Somali warlords, and criminal gangs that flourish in corrupt and disintegrated states like Somalia.
Copyright 2009 by William C. Cotter
Somali pirates have extorted tens of millions of dollars in ransoms on this busy highway for Asian manufactured consumer goods and Arab oil shipped from the Indian Ocean to the Arabian Sea to the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean. Often as few as four to eight armed pirates are all it takes to seize control of massive commercial vessels. Low-paid and under-trained merchant sailors have been told by ship owners to offer no resistance to avoid loss of life. Crews are unarmed by choice of ocean shipping businesses and insurance companies willing to pay ransoms rather than liability judgments in court.
I can hear the Marine Corps Hymn from my Daddy’s grave. He was a WWII Marine in the Pacific. “From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.” Even before Libya’s Muammar al-Gaddafi, there was trouble along the Barbary Coast. Thomas Jefferson, while serving as U.S. Ambassador to France, had been involved in negotiations with Barbary Pirates, operatives of North African states in the Ottoman Empire. Upon Jefferson's inauguration as President in 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli, demanded $225,000 to guarantee safe passage of U.S. ships. Jefferson refused. Two Barbary Wars followed, establishing the U.S. Navy as a military force to be reckoned with.
Today’s Pirates of the Arabian Sea are not part of anybody’s empire, except maybe the devil’s. Poverty, perpetual civil war, and the absence of any functioning governments have turned the waters around the Horn of Africa into a crime-infested malestrom. Somali pirates chase ships by speedboats and scale the ships' hulls using grappling hooks. They have typically anchored vessels off the coast and negotiated ransoms. These are not swishbuckling Johnny Depps. They are failed fishermen in beggars rags, fodder of Somali warlords, and criminal gangs that flourish in corrupt and disintegrated states like Somalia.
Copyright 2009 by William C. Cotter
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Din! Din! Din!
I just finished "The Snow Leopard," the Zen adventure classic by Peter Matthiessen. I saw the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" only recently. Inevitably, depictions of life outside North America and Europe remind me of Cairo. "The Snow Leopard," particulary its closing homage to the author's favorite porter, brings to mind my friend Sheroni, whose full name was Mohammed Ibrahim Hussein Sheroni, a black African. Egypt is very multi-racial, Africans, Arabs, a small minority who likely can trace their ancestry to Alexander the Great. Sheroni always dressed in starched and bleached, white galabeya robes, dashing against his blackness, and a white cap with no brim. He worked as a domestic in the households of foreigners, the British before the Americans. His English was excellent, and he had a great sense of humor, as we discussed Egypt, Americans, his pilgrimage to Mecca (the pigeons do not shit in the courtyard of the mosque, he informed me with reverence in his voice and a twinkle in his eye). He was an almost daily visitor in my home, an apartment compound, shared by several American Embassy families.
One day Sheroni knocked on my door in great distress. He had been accused of stealing a bicycle from the compound. He wanted me to go with him to the police station. When I got there, an open-court investigation had already been convened by a young officer with a college education and caution of Americans. Sheroni's accuser was the caretaker of the apartment compound, well-known to me as Brahim. Many caretakers, domestics, and neighborhood street people suplemented their incomes through odd-jobs and some not so odd for the police and other government security agencies. I explained to the polite police officer that Mr. Sheroni was a good man, and Mr. Brahim was a good man, but there had been a misunderstanding. Mr. Sheroni visited me regularly and was always welcome. Simply sighting him on the premises at the time something went missing did not make him a thief. In the end, everyone smiled, bowed many times, and went home free. I have no idea if Sheroni had stolen the bicycle or not. Thievery was fairly common in Egypt and not always easy to define or assign guilt.
When I was scheduled to leave Cairo (my wife and children had already taken the first airline departure the day after school let out), Sheroni invited me to his home for a farewell dinner, the only invitation into an Egyptian home I ever received or frankly heard of any American receiving outside of Embassy officialdom. Sheroni did not live in a luxurious part of town, but he had built his house with his own hands from Nile mud and bricks, and it had three levels, including the usual flat rooftop open to the sun and stars. Sheroni, who was a cook by trade, had prepared a chicken himself, although it and the accompaniments were served by his wife Bedoea, famous for her homemade bread (like Pita), with which Sheroni had kept us supplied throughout our stay in Cairo. Sheroni and I ate sitting on the floor. His eldest son, age 12, was allowed to join us, but Sheroni's wife and the rest of his many children watched us eat and served us, presumably taking their meal from what was left of the bountiful feast. After the meal, my stomach was upset, but no worse than I had become accustomed to in that land of "Pharoah's Revenge." My last morning, the embassy driver picked me up at 4 a.m. to ride to the airport. Sheroni stood by the front gate to say goodbye. We hugged and cried. I emptied my pockets of all my remaining Egyptian money and gave it to Sheroni. He refused it again and again, but in the end accepted it. I don't know. There may have been some American money in there also. It was a long time ago. I hope there was, anyway.
Copyright 2009 by William C. Cotter
One day Sheroni knocked on my door in great distress. He had been accused of stealing a bicycle from the compound. He wanted me to go with him to the police station. When I got there, an open-court investigation had already been convened by a young officer with a college education and caution of Americans. Sheroni's accuser was the caretaker of the apartment compound, well-known to me as Brahim. Many caretakers, domestics, and neighborhood street people suplemented their incomes through odd-jobs and some not so odd for the police and other government security agencies. I explained to the polite police officer that Mr. Sheroni was a good man, and Mr. Brahim was a good man, but there had been a misunderstanding. Mr. Sheroni visited me regularly and was always welcome. Simply sighting him on the premises at the time something went missing did not make him a thief. In the end, everyone smiled, bowed many times, and went home free. I have no idea if Sheroni had stolen the bicycle or not. Thievery was fairly common in Egypt and not always easy to define or assign guilt.
When I was scheduled to leave Cairo (my wife and children had already taken the first airline departure the day after school let out), Sheroni invited me to his home for a farewell dinner, the only invitation into an Egyptian home I ever received or frankly heard of any American receiving outside of Embassy officialdom. Sheroni did not live in a luxurious part of town, but he had built his house with his own hands from Nile mud and bricks, and it had three levels, including the usual flat rooftop open to the sun and stars. Sheroni, who was a cook by trade, had prepared a chicken himself, although it and the accompaniments were served by his wife Bedoea, famous for her homemade bread (like Pita), with which Sheroni had kept us supplied throughout our stay in Cairo. Sheroni and I ate sitting on the floor. His eldest son, age 12, was allowed to join us, but Sheroni's wife and the rest of his many children watched us eat and served us, presumably taking their meal from what was left of the bountiful feast. After the meal, my stomach was upset, but no worse than I had become accustomed to in that land of "Pharoah's Revenge." My last morning, the embassy driver picked me up at 4 a.m. to ride to the airport. Sheroni stood by the front gate to say goodbye. We hugged and cried. I emptied my pockets of all my remaining Egyptian money and gave it to Sheroni. He refused it again and again, but in the end accepted it. I don't know. There may have been some American money in there also. It was a long time ago. I hope there was, anyway.
Copyright 2009 by William C. Cotter
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Jump Out the Back, Jack
I had just finished the fourth grade on Friday before the Monday first thing in the morning bright and early when my Mother left my Daddy. That Friday had also been payday, and my Daddy had cashed his check and dutifully brought home the housekeeping and grocery money, such as it was. My Mother put me and my sisters on the bus with a transfer to make at Five Points in downtown Atlanta, as the moving van pulled away from the house where my Daddy would return after work to learn the empty truth.
Maybe that’s why I say it is ok with me to leave Iraq while nobody is looking. The dead of night. Or lunch time on the next to last dizzy day of the month of Ramadan self-denial and fasting. Just leave. Think of the traffic jam. I-285 and Spaghetti Junction, only no 8-lane super-highway modeled after the German Autobahn by General Eisenhower when he became President Eisenhower, just an old two-lane in the desert with sign posts pointing this way to Turkey, that way to Kuwait, the other way to Jordan. Of course, there will have to be a cease fire. Everybody freeze. Don’t anybody move. Not even an eyelash. Who is going to cover the back of the last American on the helicopter?
But on Day One, the new President did not ask me. Instead the Commander-In-Chief summoned his generals and ordered them to submit plans for ending the War in Iraq. Now he has announced withdrawal of all but 50,000 American troops by August 2010. Eighteen months. Not the 16 months he promised in the campaign. Why quibble and castigate? It is the end to the war we have but do not want by the duly elected government we have in the only world we have.
American power does not travel light, and not all of the $12 billion per month sent to Iraq has disappeared into thin air. Do the math. Six years, times 12 months per year, times $12 billion. I get $864 Billion. The kind of money being thrown around to Bail Out the current U.S. economic messes. In addition to uniformed American troops in Iraq, there are 100,000 contractors, 40,000 aircraft and vehicles, and 80,000 containers disbursed across more than 280 installations, according to Wired Blog Network.
U.S. Army Photo
The Baltimore Sun quotes one general as saying, "one Army office at one base is tracking 1.2 million items of property worth $14 billion, a partial list of materiel that includes objects such as dentist's chairs, chapel pews, swimming pool filtration systems and surveillance blimps. Separately, the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, which operates military supermarkets and shops across Iraq, holds an inventory that includes 2.7 million candy bars, 15,000 strips of beef jerky, 1.6 million cans of soda and 330,696 CDs and DVDs."
Copyright 2009 by William C. Cotter
Maybe that’s why I say it is ok with me to leave Iraq while nobody is looking. The dead of night. Or lunch time on the next to last dizzy day of the month of Ramadan self-denial and fasting. Just leave. Think of the traffic jam. I-285 and Spaghetti Junction, only no 8-lane super-highway modeled after the German Autobahn by General Eisenhower when he became President Eisenhower, just an old two-lane in the desert with sign posts pointing this way to Turkey, that way to Kuwait, the other way to Jordan. Of course, there will have to be a cease fire. Everybody freeze. Don’t anybody move. Not even an eyelash. Who is going to cover the back of the last American on the helicopter?
But on Day One, the new President did not ask me. Instead the Commander-In-Chief summoned his generals and ordered them to submit plans for ending the War in Iraq. Now he has announced withdrawal of all but 50,000 American troops by August 2010. Eighteen months. Not the 16 months he promised in the campaign. Why quibble and castigate? It is the end to the war we have but do not want by the duly elected government we have in the only world we have.
American power does not travel light, and not all of the $12 billion per month sent to Iraq has disappeared into thin air. Do the math. Six years, times 12 months per year, times $12 billion. I get $864 Billion. The kind of money being thrown around to Bail Out the current U.S. economic messes. In addition to uniformed American troops in Iraq, there are 100,000 contractors, 40,000 aircraft and vehicles, and 80,000 containers disbursed across more than 280 installations, according to Wired Blog Network.
U.S. Army Photo
The Baltimore Sun quotes one general as saying, "one Army office at one base is tracking 1.2 million items of property worth $14 billion, a partial list of materiel that includes objects such as dentist's chairs, chapel pews, swimming pool filtration systems and surveillance blimps. Separately, the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, which operates military supermarkets and shops across Iraq, holds an inventory that includes 2.7 million candy bars, 15,000 strips of beef jerky, 1.6 million cans of soda and 330,696 CDs and DVDs."
Copyright 2009 by William C. Cotter
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Shiite from Shinola
I am trying real hard to see if I can follow this. We invaded Iraq because of the threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction, but we did not find any. Nonetheless, it served as a convenient opportunity to hang Saddam Hussein. Somebody needed to pay for terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., even though 9/11 was directed by Al Qaeda headquarters in the mountains of Afghanistan. Now, in Iraq, Al Qaeda sympathizers, Shiites trained and equipped by Iran, kill U.S. Soldiers. But Al Qaeda is Sunni, and Iran is Shiite. And Sunni and Shiite fight insurgent civil war against one another, with or without U.S. military targets. Didn’t we put the Shiites in charge of Iraq when we overthrew the Sunni government, disbanded the Iraqi military and police and ran them off to join the back alley militia of their choice?
So, now that I am totally confused, here comes John McCain, who does not seem to be able to keep all this straight either but says we should stay in Iraq for 50 or 100 years or until we win, whichever comes first. I am old enough, like President Bush less than a decade younger than McCain, to not want to cast the first stone about "senior moments.
I have put together the table below as an aid to the geopolitically impaired. It should be read like the menu at a Chinese restaurant back in the days when Chinese restaurants were not serve yourself All-U-Can-Eat. Pick two from column A, one from column B, and one from column C. Mix and match. Caution and thoughtfulness might be a good idea. Some combinations can be absolutely deadly, guaranteed to start a war with no end in sight.
Column A---------Column B--------Column C
Hezbollah----------Iran------------------Bush
Al Qaeda-----------Iraq----------------Cheney
Islamists----------Lebanon------------McCain
Sunni--------------Afghanistan---------Putin
Shiite-------------Syria-----------Musharraf
Shinola------------Pakistan---Sonny Perdue
Swiss Guards-------Turkey-------Mubarak
Refugees-----------Georgia----King Abdulla
US Military--------Chechnya------Rumsfeld
CIA----------------Palestine--------Limbaugh
Contractors--------Egypt-------Saddam Hussein
Taliban-------------Saudi Arabia----Bin Laden
I ran this by my beer buddy Luther. He suggested I turn it into a board game, like Clue. Professor Plum did it in the Conservatory with a Pipe Wrench. Make three stacks of cards, with the entries from each list. Cards from column A can be called Trouble, from column B Troublespots. The cards from column C we could name Potentates and Not-So-Potent-Tetes. Draw two Trouble cards. One from each of the others. Luther says call the board game Clueless. The first Not-So-Potent-Tete to draw cards for Shiite and Shinola and who does not know the difference will be hopelessly unable to define exactly what constitutes winning. If you draw George, let the next guy handle it, Bush in combination with Iran and any U.S. military, intelligence agency, or private security contractor, you get to launch an October Surprise and bomb a suspected nuclear facility two weeks before the general election. Draw the Dick Cheney card, you can look straight in the eyes of the 80 percent of America who opposes the War in Iraq and just say, “So?”
Copyright 2008 by William C. Cotter
So, now that I am totally confused, here comes John McCain, who does not seem to be able to keep all this straight either but says we should stay in Iraq for 50 or 100 years or until we win, whichever comes first. I am old enough, like President Bush less than a decade younger than McCain, to not want to cast the first stone about "senior moments.
I have put together the table below as an aid to the geopolitically impaired. It should be read like the menu at a Chinese restaurant back in the days when Chinese restaurants were not serve yourself All-U-Can-Eat. Pick two from column A, one from column B, and one from column C. Mix and match. Caution and thoughtfulness might be a good idea. Some combinations can be absolutely deadly, guaranteed to start a war with no end in sight.
Column A---------Column B--------Column C
Hezbollah----------Iran------------------Bush
Al Qaeda-----------Iraq----------------Cheney
Islamists----------Lebanon------------McCain
Sunni--------------Afghanistan---------Putin
Shiite-------------Syria-----------Musharraf
Shinola------------Pakistan---Sonny Perdue
Swiss Guards-------Turkey-------Mubarak
Refugees-----------Georgia----King Abdulla
US Military--------Chechnya------Rumsfeld
CIA----------------Palestine--------Limbaugh
Contractors--------Egypt-------Saddam Hussein
Taliban-------------Saudi Arabia----Bin Laden
I ran this by my beer buddy Luther. He suggested I turn it into a board game, like Clue. Professor Plum did it in the Conservatory with a Pipe Wrench. Make three stacks of cards, with the entries from each list. Cards from column A can be called Trouble, from column B Troublespots. The cards from column C we could name Potentates and Not-So-Potent-Tetes. Draw two Trouble cards. One from each of the others. Luther says call the board game Clueless. The first Not-So-Potent-Tete to draw cards for Shiite and Shinola and who does not know the difference will be hopelessly unable to define exactly what constitutes winning. If you draw George, let the next guy handle it, Bush in combination with Iran and any U.S. military, intelligence agency, or private security contractor, you get to launch an October Surprise and bomb a suspected nuclear facility two weeks before the general election. Draw the Dick Cheney card, you can look straight in the eyes of the 80 percent of America who opposes the War in Iraq and just say, “So?”
Copyright 2008 by William C. Cotter
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Regime Change
I do not believe President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and all the Bush-Cheney horses and all the Bush-Cheney men somehow engineered blowing up the World Trade Center. I do not believe they conspired with Israel to hire some Islamic suicide squads, nor did skilled media manipulators on Madison Avenue computer generate images of airplanes crashing into the Twin Towers for broadcast on network television. I do not believe that the world is ruled by a bloodline of “reptilian” descendants begot according to some peculiar passage in The Bible otherwise deservedly ignored.
However, I do believe that the more-or-less constitutionally-elected Presidency of George W. Bush has misused the ruthless and tragic historic events of 9/11 to selfish, misguided and nefarious purposes, the results of which are well on their way to ruining the United States beyond recovery in my lifetime. Take your pick of ruin: economy, military, diplomacy, and world leadership. Your enemies do not have to defeat you in armed battle if you will organize for them a circular firing squad. It is not just that the War in Iraq has gone on longer than WWII with no end in sight. In the Pottery Barn metaphor of Colin Powell, we broke it, we bought it. “Mission accomplished,” reported George Bush early on but not lately. What on earth could he have had in mind? Maybe the simple matter of Saddam Hussein and Regime Change?
No matter how bad the regime, regime change is bad policy. It was bad policy in Iraq. It was bad policy in South Vietnam in 1963 when John F. Kennedy used it to replace Ngo Dinh Diem. Kennedy did not live long enough to regret the Diem coup, arrest, and assassination in the same month as his own assassination motorcade in Dallas. Regime Change in 1963 did not prevent more than a decade of war in Vietnam, nor keep 58,195 names off the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C.
Now comes the regime in Pakistan of General Pervez Musharraf, who has not been a dependable ally in the War in Afghanistan, poppy capital of the world, Pakistan’s next-door neighbor, and hideout for Osama Bin Laden, the hunt for whom is the Mother of All Regime Change. Musharraf is having a hard time keeping events under control in Pakistan, thus far the Moslem world’s only nuclear power. He has declared a state of emergency in the face of opposition among the nation’s judiciary and cancelled scheduled elections upon the return of Benazir Bhutto from exile. The photogenic Ms. Bhutto, twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan and twice removed from office on corruption charges, has been under house arrest in Lahore. She is a Harvard graduate.
So President George W. Bush sends John Negroponte to Pakistan on a special mission. Negroponte has been an important player in the Bush foreign policy and is currently number two at the State Department. He was formerly Bush’s Ambassador to the United Nations, then to Iraq, and became the first Director of National Intelligence. A career diplomat favored by Republicans, Negroponte was Ambassador to Honduras under Ronald Reagan. When George W. Bush nominated Negroponte as Ambassador to the U.N., some human rights groups charged Negroponte had been too cozy with the military dictatorship in Honduras and Nicaraguan death squads during Iran-Contra. The purpose of the current visit to Pakistan is “to work with the government and people of Pakistan and the political actors in Pakistan to put the political process back on track as soon as possible," Negroponte says.
Valerie Plame, legally blonde once-upon-a-time hostess of Embassy parties in Iraq, was not available due to having been outed as a CIA secret operative by the Bush Administration following political differences with her husband Joseph Wilson, formerly Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.
Copyright 2007 by William C. Cotter
However, I do believe that the more-or-less constitutionally-elected Presidency of George W. Bush has misused the ruthless and tragic historic events of 9/11 to selfish, misguided and nefarious purposes, the results of which are well on their way to ruining the United States beyond recovery in my lifetime. Take your pick of ruin: economy, military, diplomacy, and world leadership. Your enemies do not have to defeat you in armed battle if you will organize for them a circular firing squad. It is not just that the War in Iraq has gone on longer than WWII with no end in sight. In the Pottery Barn metaphor of Colin Powell, we broke it, we bought it. “Mission accomplished,” reported George Bush early on but not lately. What on earth could he have had in mind? Maybe the simple matter of Saddam Hussein and Regime Change?
No matter how bad the regime, regime change is bad policy. It was bad policy in Iraq. It was bad policy in South Vietnam in 1963 when John F. Kennedy used it to replace Ngo Dinh Diem. Kennedy did not live long enough to regret the Diem coup, arrest, and assassination in the same month as his own assassination motorcade in Dallas. Regime Change in 1963 did not prevent more than a decade of war in Vietnam, nor keep 58,195 names off the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C.
Now comes the regime in Pakistan of General Pervez Musharraf, who has not been a dependable ally in the War in Afghanistan, poppy capital of the world, Pakistan’s next-door neighbor, and hideout for Osama Bin Laden, the hunt for whom is the Mother of All Regime Change. Musharraf is having a hard time keeping events under control in Pakistan, thus far the Moslem world’s only nuclear power. He has declared a state of emergency in the face of opposition among the nation’s judiciary and cancelled scheduled elections upon the return of Benazir Bhutto from exile. The photogenic Ms. Bhutto, twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan and twice removed from office on corruption charges, has been under house arrest in Lahore. She is a Harvard graduate.
So President George W. Bush sends John Negroponte to Pakistan on a special mission. Negroponte has been an important player in the Bush foreign policy and is currently number two at the State Department. He was formerly Bush’s Ambassador to the United Nations, then to Iraq, and became the first Director of National Intelligence. A career diplomat favored by Republicans, Negroponte was Ambassador to Honduras under Ronald Reagan. When George W. Bush nominated Negroponte as Ambassador to the U.N., some human rights groups charged Negroponte had been too cozy with the military dictatorship in Honduras and Nicaraguan death squads during Iran-Contra. The purpose of the current visit to Pakistan is “to work with the government and people of Pakistan and the political actors in Pakistan to put the political process back on track as soon as possible," Negroponte says.
Valerie Plame, legally blonde once-upon-a-time hostess of Embassy parties in Iraq, was not available due to having been outed as a CIA secret operative by the Bush Administration following political differences with her husband Joseph Wilson, formerly Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.
Copyright 2007 by William C. Cotter
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Follow the Money to Iraq
I have watched the movie ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN many, many times. The thing I like the best about it is that I know how it is going to turn out. Probably the most famous line in the movie is “Follow the money.” It doesn’t take a clandestine meeting in a dark parking garage to know the truth of this traditional and often ignored axiom.
The new American Embassy under construction in Iraq has already cost over $600 Million and is not finished yet, and there is no end in sight, like the war itself. Last year Congress appropriated some $1.3 Billion for the project. Plans call for the new embassy to have all the luxuries and necessities of the modern self-contained fortress, its own water, utilities, and sewage treatment, swimming pool, gym, and food court. It will be ten times the size of any other embassy. Anywhere. Ever. Although many details are classified, most of the construction work is being done by a contractor with close ties to Halliburton, the company, well you know which company Halliburton is. Edward Peck, a former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq told NPR recently he thinks the project is out of hand and inappropriate. He has the novel idea that American Embassies should be for diplomacy, reporting to the U.S. government frankly and without agenda what is going on in the host country and telling the government of the host country what is going on in the United States. Ed Peck and I were neighbors in Cairo, Egypt, when we both served at the American Embassy there during the Carter administration. We did not work directly together and certainly were not pals, but he was disliked and disrespected by most of the people I did work with directly, and that was enough for me to hold him in high regard and trust.
The price tag for the War in Iraq runs about $12-Billion per month. I guess I could try to calculate how much this comes to per day, but I’m not sure how many zeroes there are in a billion. You, too? I know that pretty soon this will “add up to some real money,” as Ev Dirksen, the late U.S. Senator from Illinois used to say in a unique and lovely voice. He was a Republican but a very charming one. The War in Iraq is not about money. But what is about? Supporting the troops? Avenging America for a fiendish attack at its busy heart by a ubiquitous enemy. Oil? Middle East security and stability? Certainly not about money. My beer buddy Luther says, when people say it’s not about money, it’s usually about the money.
In the early days of the War in Iraq, the Americans in charge lost $9 Billion. Misplaced it. Vanished. Poof. Into thin air. Now you see it, now you don’t. Nobody knows exactly what happened. Maybe it was bad bookkeeping. Some of it was loaded on an airplane and shipped to Baghdad in duffle bags crammed with freshly printed $100 bills bundled and wrapped in heat-shrink plastic. Maybe it fell out of the airplane or off the truck when it was unloaded. Why worry or make a big deal out of this? It was not even our money anyway. No harm to the U.S. taxpayer. It was money about Iraqi oil, “Oil for Food Program” money. That was a humanitarian program that allowed Iraq, despite an oil embargo, to sell some oil in order to keep the Iraqi people from going hungry. If the money got lost, did the food part go missing, too?
(Originally posted 9-19-07)
Copyright 2007 by William C. Cotter
The new American Embassy under construction in Iraq has already cost over $600 Million and is not finished yet, and there is no end in sight, like the war itself. Last year Congress appropriated some $1.3 Billion for the project. Plans call for the new embassy to have all the luxuries and necessities of the modern self-contained fortress, its own water, utilities, and sewage treatment, swimming pool, gym, and food court. It will be ten times the size of any other embassy. Anywhere. Ever. Although many details are classified, most of the construction work is being done by a contractor with close ties to Halliburton, the company, well you know which company Halliburton is. Edward Peck, a former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq told NPR recently he thinks the project is out of hand and inappropriate. He has the novel idea that American Embassies should be for diplomacy, reporting to the U.S. government frankly and without agenda what is going on in the host country and telling the government of the host country what is going on in the United States. Ed Peck and I were neighbors in Cairo, Egypt, when we both served at the American Embassy there during the Carter administration. We did not work directly together and certainly were not pals, but he was disliked and disrespected by most of the people I did work with directly, and that was enough for me to hold him in high regard and trust.
The price tag for the War in Iraq runs about $12-Billion per month. I guess I could try to calculate how much this comes to per day, but I’m not sure how many zeroes there are in a billion. You, too? I know that pretty soon this will “add up to some real money,” as Ev Dirksen, the late U.S. Senator from Illinois used to say in a unique and lovely voice. He was a Republican but a very charming one. The War in Iraq is not about money. But what is about? Supporting the troops? Avenging America for a fiendish attack at its busy heart by a ubiquitous enemy. Oil? Middle East security and stability? Certainly not about money. My beer buddy Luther says, when people say it’s not about money, it’s usually about the money.
In the early days of the War in Iraq, the Americans in charge lost $9 Billion. Misplaced it. Vanished. Poof. Into thin air. Now you see it, now you don’t. Nobody knows exactly what happened. Maybe it was bad bookkeeping. Some of it was loaded on an airplane and shipped to Baghdad in duffle bags crammed with freshly printed $100 bills bundled and wrapped in heat-shrink plastic. Maybe it fell out of the airplane or off the truck when it was unloaded. Why worry or make a big deal out of this? It was not even our money anyway. No harm to the U.S. taxpayer. It was money about Iraqi oil, “Oil for Food Program” money. That was a humanitarian program that allowed Iraq, despite an oil embargo, to sell some oil in order to keep the Iraqi people from going hungry. If the money got lost, did the food part go missing, too?
(Originally posted 9-19-07)
Copyright 2007 by William C. Cotter
Ahmadinejad at Columbia
I missed the speech by the President of Iran at Columbia University. I did not miss all the rock throwing in advance of it. Would you invite Hitler to speak? In the name of free speech? Academic freedom and inquiry? Anyway, I was not invited. Transcripts are available on the internet, cornucopia of free speech. Who’s going to bother to look it up? And then, for crying out loud, read through the stuff.
Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger introduced the speech thus: “It should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas we deplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas or our naivete about the very real dangers inherent in such ideas. It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices.” “This event has nothing whatsoever to do with any ‘rights’ of the speaker but only with our rights to listen and speak. We do it for ourselves.” “It is consistent with the idea that one should know thine enemies.” Why, he asked the President of Iran to his face, did “over 300 public intellectuals, writers and Nobel Laureates express such grave concern that your inflamed dispute with the West is distracting the world’s attention from the intolerable conditions your regime has created in Iran?” Also, in Dec. 2005, you described the Holocaust as a “fabricated” “legend” and later held a two-day conference of Holocaust deniers. In Oct. 2005 you said Israel should be “wiped off the map.” The President of Columbia University concluded his welcoming remarks, “Today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express revulsion at what you stand for.”
To which, President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded, “My dear friends, all the words and messages of the divine prophets from Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, to David and Solomon and Moses, to Jesus and Mohammad delivered humans from ignorance, negligence, superstitions, unethical behavior, and corrupted ways of thinking….. So, in today’s world, bullying powers are misusing many scholars and scientists in different fields with the purpose of stripping nations of their wealth. They, in fact, wish to justify their own wrongdoings. By creating nonexistent enemies, for example, and an insecure atmosphere, they try to control all in the name of combating insecurity and terrorism”
The President of Iran, who identifies himself by profession as a teacher, insists his interest in the Holocaust is one of academic freedom: “Given that the Holocaust is a present reality of our time, a history that occurred, why is there not sufficient research that can approach the topic from different perspectives. I believe the Holocaust, from what we’ve read, happened during WWII. Right now, there are a number of European academics who have been sent to prison because they attempted to write about the Holocaust or research it from a different perspective, questioning certain aspects of it. Why shouldn’t there be more research about the root causes?”
“And my second question, well, given this historical event, if it is a reality, we need to still question whether the Palestinian people should be paying for it or not. After all, it happened in Europe. So why is it that the Palestinian people are paying the price of an event they had nothing to do with? But why is it that the Palestinians should pay a price, innocent Palestinians, for 5 million people to remain displaced or refugees abroad for 60 years. Is this not a crime? Is asking about these crimes a crime itself?” During the question and answer period following his speech, Ahmadinejad further said, “What we say is that to solve this 60-year old problem, we must allow the Palestinian people to decide about its future for itself. We must allow Jewish Palestinians, Muslim Palestinians and Christian Palestinians to determine their own fate themselves through a free referendum” “I am not saying that it (the Holocaust) didn’t happen at all. I said…granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people?”
Question from the audience: Mr. President, Iranian women are now denied basic human rights and your government has imposed draconian punishments, including execution on Iranian citizens who are homosexuals. Why are you doing those things?
Answer: “We have two deputy—two vice presidents that are female. In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals, like in your country.” (Audience laughter.) “We don’t have that in our country.” (Audience booing.) “In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you that we have it.” (More laughter.)
(Originally posted 10-3-07)
Copyright 2007 by William C. Cotter
Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger introduced the speech thus: “It should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas we deplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas or our naivete about the very real dangers inherent in such ideas. It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices.” “This event has nothing whatsoever to do with any ‘rights’ of the speaker but only with our rights to listen and speak. We do it for ourselves.” “It is consistent with the idea that one should know thine enemies.” Why, he asked the President of Iran to his face, did “over 300 public intellectuals, writers and Nobel Laureates express such grave concern that your inflamed dispute with the West is distracting the world’s attention from the intolerable conditions your regime has created in Iran?” Also, in Dec. 2005, you described the Holocaust as a “fabricated” “legend” and later held a two-day conference of Holocaust deniers. In Oct. 2005 you said Israel should be “wiped off the map.” The President of Columbia University concluded his welcoming remarks, “Today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express revulsion at what you stand for.”
To which, President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded, “My dear friends, all the words and messages of the divine prophets from Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, to David and Solomon and Moses, to Jesus and Mohammad delivered humans from ignorance, negligence, superstitions, unethical behavior, and corrupted ways of thinking….. So, in today’s world, bullying powers are misusing many scholars and scientists in different fields with the purpose of stripping nations of their wealth. They, in fact, wish to justify their own wrongdoings. By creating nonexistent enemies, for example, and an insecure atmosphere, they try to control all in the name of combating insecurity and terrorism”
The President of Iran, who identifies himself by profession as a teacher, insists his interest in the Holocaust is one of academic freedom: “Given that the Holocaust is a present reality of our time, a history that occurred, why is there not sufficient research that can approach the topic from different perspectives. I believe the Holocaust, from what we’ve read, happened during WWII. Right now, there are a number of European academics who have been sent to prison because they attempted to write about the Holocaust or research it from a different perspective, questioning certain aspects of it. Why shouldn’t there be more research about the root causes?”
“And my second question, well, given this historical event, if it is a reality, we need to still question whether the Palestinian people should be paying for it or not. After all, it happened in Europe. So why is it that the Palestinian people are paying the price of an event they had nothing to do with? But why is it that the Palestinians should pay a price, innocent Palestinians, for 5 million people to remain displaced or refugees abroad for 60 years. Is this not a crime? Is asking about these crimes a crime itself?” During the question and answer period following his speech, Ahmadinejad further said, “What we say is that to solve this 60-year old problem, we must allow the Palestinian people to decide about its future for itself. We must allow Jewish Palestinians, Muslim Palestinians and Christian Palestinians to determine their own fate themselves through a free referendum” “I am not saying that it (the Holocaust) didn’t happen at all. I said…granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people?”
Question from the audience: Mr. President, Iranian women are now denied basic human rights and your government has imposed draconian punishments, including execution on Iranian citizens who are homosexuals. Why are you doing those things?
Answer: “We have two deputy—two vice presidents that are female. In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals, like in your country.” (Audience laughter.) “We don’t have that in our country.” (Audience booing.) “In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you that we have it.” (More laughter.)
(Originally posted 10-3-07)
Copyright 2007 by William C. Cotter
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