While I Wasn't Blogging: Essays and Eses

I'm going to spend the next few days trying to get back into the swing of things after having abandoned my blog to go frolicking in Fort Collins and Phoenix (the latter of which is actually a fairly non-frolic-friendly locale during the month of June, can I just say).

Today's "While I Was Living My Life Somewhere Other than in My Armchair" entry will focus on some of the folks I met while scoring AP World History essays for the College Board. No, not the charming Texan gentleman I sat next to on the shuttle or the lovely Alabaman professor with three sons and two dogs or the fellow Californian vegetarian. That would be far too upbeat. Rather, I'd like to share with you my fond remembrances of the guy who made me want to shove my empty wine glass down his throat in hopes that it would dislodge the silver spoon that was undoubtedly planted firmly in his gullet.

Some of you may be familiar with the Absolut Vodka ad that sent Loofah O'Reilly and his ilk into a tizzy:



How unamerican! How incendiary! How... historically accurate!

I was in the midst of deciding exactly how much tequila one ought to consume before having to get up at six in the morning when lo and behold, one of my AP-reading happy hour companions — who ought to by his very station as a history teacher know better — began a most craptastic instructive monologue regarding how all of this "hubbub" about how the southwest used to be part of Mexico is "crap" because (and I'm not making this up) "they weren't using it anyway."

Indeed! The crux of his argument was that hardly any Mexicans lived in what was at that time northern Mexico — part of an undisputed sovereign nation — and so they had no business getting upset when the United States began annexing it in bits and ill-used pieces.

Fascinating argument, really. Just one problem.



I fully expect this gentlemen to chortle in amusement and take another sip from his deeply dirty martini when Russia annexes the northern half of Canada since, you know, they're not using it anyway.

Furthermore, I find it interesting that someone as undoubtedly devoted to the capitalist ideology as this fellow must be defines ownership solely on the basis of usage. Perhaps he'd endorse a sliding scale for theft-related prison sentences based on the extent to which the original "owner" actually utilized the possession. You know, seven years if you steal his liver, seven months if you steal his brain.

We can call it the the "I'm Taking Your Ball and I'm Going Home Act."

Clinton and the Cold War

Twice now in the past week Hillary Clinton has suggested that the United States President should use the threat of nuclear attack to cow Iran into submission. Twice now in the past week she has failed spectacularly to distinguish herself from the militaristic Machiavellis who dragged our nation into a foolish and tragically costly war which has placed Americans in greater peril than we were in prior to its commencement.

The two instances to which I refer are last week's farce of a debate and Clinton's appearance on Countdown this evening in which she stated unequivocally that the United States must threaten to respond to Iran's currently non-existent nuclear weaponry with "massive retaliation." Piercing my feelings of horror and dismay, I feel that a particular element of Clinton's newly emerging foreign policy position needs to be thoroughly and immediately explored: her decision to model the United States' treatment of Iran and the Middle East after the Cold War foreign policy of the post-war world.

In her conversation with Keith Olbermann today, Hillary Clinton made the following chilling statement:

"Well what we were talking about was the potential for a nuclear attack by Iran, if Iran does achieve what appears to be its continuing goal of obtaining nuclear weapons, and I think deterrence has not been effectively used in recent times. We used it very well during the Cold War when we had a bipolar world, and what I think the President should do and what our policy should be is to make it very clear to the Iranians that they would be risking massive retaliation were they to launch a nuclear attack on Israel."

There are two fundamental problems with Clinton's unfortunate decision to use the lens of the Cold War to frame our current relationship with Iran and nations in the Middle East. The first is philosophical in nature and the second is strategic; both are disturbing and to use Obama's terminology, "wrongheaded."

I'll begin with my philosophical objection. The Cold War was one of ideology, pitting the capitalist West against the communist East (oversimplified for the sake of a larger point). The goal of each contender was not to achieve some sort of conciliatory understanding or peaceful coexistence; the explicit goal was to crush the other ideology and its faithful adherents.

In framing the growing tensions between the United States and Iran through this "with us or wiped from the face of the Earth" lens, Clinton affirms the worst suspicions of U.S. foreign policy — that we not only view Western ideology (Christianity) as superior to Eastern ideology (Islam), but that we understand the goals of each "side" to be the utter destruction of the "enemy ideology." Clinton's A-bomb rattling is precisely the sort of language that incites the spread of violent extremism, and is very, very dangerous.

There are also two strategic issues that arise from modeling U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East after the Cold War.

First and foremost, the Cold War consisted of a stand-off between two nations that already had nuclear weaponry. In an attempt to assure that neither party deployed that weaponry, both sides engaged in a mad and costly arms race. The goal was not to prevent the other side from developing nuclear weapons; the goal was simply to have bigger, better, faster, more weapons ourselves.

This is a very bad model to use in our dealings with Iran for the obvious reason that the objective is very different: currently, it is in our best interest to convince Iran that they do not need nuclear weapons at all. Threatening to use our already existing nuclear arsenal against them is likely to accomplish the opposite. Granted, Clinton claims that "what we were talking about was the potential for a nuclear attack by Iran." But how is it wise to base our current foreign policy and choose our current words towards Iran on the assumption that they will already do the thing we are hoping they will not do? Is it not wiser to adopt an approach, a message, that will entice Iran into believing that we do not want to bomb the bejeezus out of (or perhaps into) them?

There is a second strategic problem with using the Cold War as a template in approaching the Middle East. While it was a conflict of ideology, the Cold War was fought on two physical fronts — the military and the economic. Not only did the proxy military confrontations between the United States and the so-called Evil Empire(s) result in wasted lives and resources, they were ultimately ineffectual in ending the Cold War. It was the economic front that resulted in the West ostensibly winning. The Cold War worked as a war of attrition; through effective use of embargo the United States was able to, for all intents and purposes, starve the Soviets into submission. They had nothing we wanted (well, needed), and we were more than able to thrive economically absent the USSR as a partner in trade.

It seems to me there is a rather massively glaring difference between that situation and our present economic position vis a vis the Middle East today. I'm more than supportive of a decrease in our dependence on foreign oil (or oil in general, for that matter), but I think it is foolish to assume that our Middle Eastern rivals (if we insist on constructing them as such) will spend 30 years glaring at us from afar and them implode.

And again, the underlying philosophical assumption if we adopt this Cold War model would be that upon the imploding of our "Islamo-fascist" enemy, our "winning" would result in replacing their problematic ideology with our superior version. There is no scenario in which a Cold War strategy of "deterrence" as thusly described results in a peaceful, long-term relationship between the United States and Iran.

Today Hillary Clinton has succeeded in validating every worst suspicion of United States foreign policy and the Middle East. God help us if she wins — and I don't care which one.

Practice Violent Acts of Random

This morning on the way to work I had the delightful experience of getting stuck behind a gigantic tree-trimming truck. When I finally found a hole in the traffic to my left and pulled around the guy, I was struck by the message stenciled onto the side of the vehicle: "Jesus won't cut you down."

I understand that perhaps in the 1400's "won't chop you to bits" may indeed have played well as a selling point for proselytizers, but I suspect that most modernites want a little more from their lord and savior these days than a promise to abstain from dismemberment.

Pro Patria Mori

In a recent introduction at a Hillary Clinton rally, Tom Buffenbarger, President of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, had the following to say about Barack Obama's supporters:

"Give me a break! I've got news for all the latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies crowding in to hear him speak! This guy won't last a round against the Republican attack machine. He's a poet, not a fighter."

Putting aside the fact that my husband possesses neither Prius nor Birkenstock and may possibly not be entirely clear on exactly what a trust fund is**, I take particular offense to the last line — "Hes a poet, not a fighter." This is not because I am a great lover of poetry (in fact, I prefer a good commie joke), but rather because the mascot of my alma mater is The Poet.

There are better reasons to find Buffenbarger's assertion offensive, though, not the least of which is the fact that "poet" and "fighter" are hardly mutually exclusive terms. As Exhibit A, I offer World War One soldier and honorary latte-drinker Wilfred Owen, a.k.a. the guy who wrote one of the handful of poems in the world that I truly love. I suspect Mr. Tom "I Build Weapons for Other People to Use" Buffenbarger would find it edifying:

"Dulce Et Decorum Est"

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

** Disclaimer: Yes, my husband knows what a trust fund is. I think he's trying to set one up for the dog.

Accuracy Schmaccuracy

Today I learned a fun fact from John Kerry: Thomas Jefferson was only 33 years old when he "penned those words, we hold these truths to be self evident, into the Constitution." Now, I take his point — if I've written something that quotable by the time I'm 33, I'll feel like I have a laurel or two to fluff up my pillow. But as a history teacher, I feel duty-bound to point out that Jefferson didn't so much "pen those words into the Constitution" as pen them into the Declaration of Independence.

It's okay, Senator Kerry. Bill O'Reilly made the exact same mistake just a couple of months back. The only difference is that he got called on it on his own show by an elementary school student.

This is why I get my news from the BBC**.

** And now your Moment of Zen: According to a recent study, more than half of British teens believe that Sherlock Holmes actually existed. Moreover, roughly a quarter believe that Winston Churchill was fictional.

Maybe they thought they were being asked if he was fissional? Like, with the atomic — yeah, no.