Umm 'Skandar: One mother's global interests

Iraq = Blacksburg x2 every day!

2007-04-17T09:47:00.000-05:00

Juan Cole says it best. All I can do today is try to amplify his comments. (Please note, everything below is a quote from Juan Cole, Blogger and my computer do not mesh and I have lost the ability to shape posts! No block quotes, italics or bolding, sigh. Another reason that this blog is due for an overhaul.)

Juan Cole: Informed Comment, 4/17/07)

"I keep hearing from US politicians and the US mass media that the "situation is improving" in Iraq. The profound sorrow and alarm produced in the American public by the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech should give us a baseline for what the Iraqis are actually living through. They have two Virginia Tech-style attacks every single day. Virginia Tech will be gone from the headlines and the air waves by next week this time in the US, though the families of the victims will grieve for a lifetime. But next Tuesday I will come out here and report to you that 64 Iraqis have been killed in political violence. And those will mainly be the ones killed by bombs and mortars. They are only 13% of the total; most Iraqis killed violently, perhaps 500 a day throughout the country if you count criminal and tribal violence, are just shot down. Shot down, like the college students and professors at Blacksburg. We Americans can so easily, with a shudder, imagine the college student trying to barricade himself behind a door against the armed madman without. But can we put ourselves in the place of Iraqi students?"

"I wrote on February 26,

' A suicide bomber with a bomb belt got into the lobby of the School of Administration and Economy of Mustansiriya University in Baghdad and managed to set it off despite being spotted at the last minute by university security guards. The blast killed 41 and wounded a similar number according to late reports, with body parts everywhere and big pools of blood in the foyer as students were shredded by the high explosives. '

That isn't "slow progress" or just "progress," the way the weasels in Washington keep proclaiming. It is the most massive manmade human tragedy of the young century."

Riverbend

2007-02-20T10:49:00.000-06:00

Funny, that Riverbend should put up a new post. I spoke at a seminar for older adults in a kind of elderhostel program yesterday and I was surprised when a older gentleman came up after my talk (on Sunni, Shia, and Sufi strands of Islam) and told me that he reads the Iraqi blogger Riverbend. We both noted that she hadn't posted since December 31. I recommended Treasure of Baghdad to him.

Today I went to check Helena Cobban's Just World News and heard that Riverbend had posted again. Her topic? An Iraqi woman had come forward to claim that she had been gang-raped by US-trained security forces on al-Jazeera. On Al-Jazeera!! That is a dramatic and powerful act. Nearly unthinkable. I can only imagine the conversations going on in living rooms and kitchens across the Arabic speaking world today. Rape is not a crime that is easily discussed or prosecuted in the Middle East. In a subsequent post Riverbend notes:

No Iraqi woman under the circumstances- under any circumstances- would publicly, falsely claim she was raped. There are just too many risks. There is the risk of being shunned socially. There is the risk of beginning an endless chain of retaliations and revenge killings between tribes. There is the shame of coming out publicly and talking about a subject so taboo, she and her husband are not only risking their reputations by telling this story, they are risking their lives.

Nuri al-Maliki's response was not just to denouce this woman but to reward the men accused of the crime. Ugh! You can read Maliki's statement on her blog as well.

Both blog entries are essential reading. More, perhaps on this later. Sick children and an important lunch meeting mean that there is little time for blogging today.

Arab Media & popular culture

2007-02-05T12:31:00.000-06:00

I encountered two music clips today from the Middle East. The first is Baladna (Our Country) by the Iraqi singer Haithem Yosef. It is beautiful and sad and reflects the grief of those who have had to flee, it speaks to the nostalgic and romantic unity of Iraq that will always exist in the heart of exiles whether or not it remains a reality on the ground in Iraq. Sad, sweet, and bitter. Thank you Treasure of Baghdad for bringing it to my attention.

The second comes from Cairo via the Kuwaiti singer, Shams. I think that it is instructive that it takes that kind of distance to produce a ruthless satire. The Iraqis are caught in chaos and grief that is unimaginable. The rest of the Arab world has enough safety to be bitter and very, very funny. Both Juan Cole and Helena Cobban take note of this video. Two very heavy hitters. Professor Cole notes,

She says, "Hi! How are you?" as a cardboard Bush smiles and raises his shoulders idiotically. "No one is like you," she adds, "and there certainly aren't two of you." She shakes her head in front of a White House stage prop.

She sings in front of a sign that says "Democracy." She chases away confused US troops. She mugs for the camera and does a little belly dance. She appears as the statue of liberty lady. She lies down on the word "Guantanamo," referring to the allegations of the use of torture there, a counterpoint to the block letters "Democracy" earlier.

It is the oddest thing, but certainly a "resistance" video of a sort.

What is most striking of all is the tone of familiarity and intimacy along with the contempt. Bush has become an Arab leader, like Mubarak or Asad, and is subject to all the same parodying and jokes that they are in the Arab street.

Helena also explains the video this way:

She sings a well-known Egyptian popular song of romantic repudiation. "Hi! How are you... You think you're so great? I never want to see you again!" while hamming it up with a dizzying array of props representing aspects of Bush's policy in the Middle East. And yes, that includes Washington's "information" policies, too, with repeated visual references to newspaper stories and to round-table type TV talk-shows...

The ending is key, Shams sits on a graph (that most seem to think reflects rising oil prices) in a black cowbay hat, in a mock duel with President Bush, he falls off and lands on his back, hard in the sand, as she pushes what soon becomes the letter E in liberty onto him, the word liberty pummels the President into dust and behind prison bars while a fortune teller reveals the future, Shams walks off into the sunset wearing a wedding dress and holding the hand of the groom Handala (the iconic Palestinian child and symbol of resistance, read more here). Wow! Powerful ending. Are all Arabs now dispossesed like the Palestinians? Alienated, yet joyful in their resistance?

My favorite part is the talking heads in the situation room, I'd like to cut some of those strings too! Watch it!

Baladna, however, is the sad song that will linger when the laughter from Shams is gone.

Bullies

2007-01-31T13:39:00.000-06:00

The kind in grade school this time not the ones in Washington DC!

For nearly a decade I have been part of a forum for mothers who all had children in the same month. Collectively, those women are the "smartest woman I know" because among us all we have an amazing span of experience. Yesterday, I was called upon to repost my list of links to resources on bullying. Little 'Skandar had a few run-ins with bigger boys back when he was in pre-K. My eternal graduate student self took over (nothing I love more than researching a new topic) and in one morning I had complied a set of on-line resources to deal with this painful topic. Many of the women on the forum have used it repeatedly over the years. I have now updated it and thought I'd add it to the blog as well.

Large site devoted to the issue of bullies http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/parents/life/health_happiness/problems/bullying.shtml
A british organization devoted to ending bullying
http://www.bullying.co.uk/
A British guide to dealing with bullies in school
http://www.ace-ed.org.uk/advice/booklets/Bullying.html
Bullying, how to stop it
http://www.ianr.unl.edu/pubs/family/nf309.htm
An entire site for dealing with bullies, refers to out-of-print articles, lots of great stuff here!http://www.scre.ac.uk/bully/index.html
A more academic article:
http://www.ericdigests.org/1997-4/bullying.htm
A new site with lots of info:
http://www.stopbullyingnow.com/
Lots of good links here and recent information:
http://www.education.unisa.edu.au/bullying/

One new approach that is taught to my children in school is the idea of "the courageous bystander." This notion recognizes that it is typically difficult if not impossible for the victim to disrupt the bullying dynamic but often all it take is a "courageous bystander" who intervenes with a "knock it off" or a joke or any remark that lets the bully know that his actions are seen by the broader community and that they are not acceptable.

Bumper Sticker

2007-01-29T10:29:00.000-06:00

Bumper sticker seen on the back of a Honda this morning in my neighborhood:

FRODO FAILED: Bush has the Ring!

white looters = amusing, black looters = criminals

2007-01-24T10:54:00.000-06:00

Last night we had ABC World News on while getting dinner ready. The last story of the night was about "scavengers on the beach picking up a windfall from a sinking cargo ship." I immediately turned to my husband and said, "you mean stealing?" The piece was plugged before the commercial break as an amusing final story, Charlie Gibson's tone was one of lighthearted amusement and that was exactly how the piece played. Two hundred people on a beach carting off loot that had washed ashore, big stuff like BMW motorcycles, and useless stuff like a man carrying a steering wheel (not to mention bottles and cases of wine). We were told that things from the wreck were beginning to show up on ebay, we were shown helpless police encouraging people to register the items with the police but there were no arrests. The story went on to say that scavenging from shipwreaks in this area was a tradition that went back four generations! Locals used to lure ships to run aground on the rocks offshore by setting up deceptive lights to shine out to sea.

Again, its hard to put into the words the tone of the piece (and the video isn't available from ABC on their website) but it was one of goodnatured amusement at human nature; people just can't resist free stuff that appears like magic on the beach. Certainly there was no hint that these people were engaged in a criminal act (technically, you can take and store salvage from the sea while the original owners make recovery plans but it all remains the property of the original owners and you certainly can't legally sell it), or presented a threat to basic law and order, or a sign of a local culure run amok.

Did I mention that these folks were all white? British in fact.

White folk speaking English carting off goods (and liquor) for profit and amusement in southern England is not stealing or looting; it is comedic. While black folk facing floods, abandonment, complete lack of services, and all elements of life turned upside down during Katrina who broke into convenience stores to take water, diapers, food, (and liquor) were described as looters!! Horrible, criminal looters demonstrating not the government's failure to provide safety and basic welfare both before and after the storm but somehow spun to illustrate the degenerate nature of black people in New Orleans (and quietly implying that their fate was their own fault).

Four generations of luring ships to run aground to profit from the washed up cargo!! Yet no mention of culture of criminality or depravity or laziness or inability to think of other ways to make a living.

Imagine that story wasn't about England but about somewhere in Africa where a container ship has floundered and the cargo is washing up on shore, imagine an African place where the tradition is to encourage ships to crash to enrich the local population with the ship's cargo. Imagine pictures of black folk rolling motorcycles and car parts and crates of wine off the beach, imagine the crowded beach scenes and helpless police. Now, would that story be the final amusing human interest story? Would the anchor have good-natured amusement in his voice? Would the story be spun as an example of all-too-human foibles or would it be an entirely different story altogether?

Here is the wire story dated yesterday January 23 from ABC. Note, this is not the story that was broadcast (I'll have to hunt for a transcript for that) but it is the basis for the broadcast report. It lacks the tonal nuances and the bit about four generations of this practice but again, if this was set in Somolia say, or even South Africa, would it have such a neutral tone?

You can see another take on the story with pictures from al-Jazeera and Reuters. Note the difference in tone in the al-Jazeera story.

Sewer lines

2007-01-23T13:11:00.000-06:00

As if any of us needed more confirmation that you can learn about ANYTHING on the internet, check out the following: sewerhistory.org. Yes, thanks to a recent discussion on my neighborhood list serv about replacing sewerlines and orangebury pipe, I was led to sewerhistory.org! Absolutely amazing amount of information.

And speaking of keeping up with infrastructure. I have begun the process of transferring the blog to the new blogger and making some format changes. To my horror, I discovered that I had enabled comment moderation without realizing it! So, comments, blessed little currency of the blogging world, were going unposted, unread, and unrealized!! Ack!

Comments should be enabled now. Thank you all, especially Eric, for sticking with me and continuing to post comments even when they disappeared into the ether!

War is Hell

2007-01-19T13:06:00.000-06:00

War is hell. For what it does to "them" and for what it does to "us."

Marine Corporal Pleads Guilty in Killing of Unarmed Iraqi
Camp Pendeleton, Calif., Jan. 18 (AP) -- A Marine corporal pleaded guilty Thursday to kidnapping and murdering an unarmed Iraqi civilian last year, saying he and other servicemen went after him because they were “sick and tired of getting bombed.”

The marine, Cpl. Trent D. Thomas, 25, is the first of seven marines and a Navy medic accused in the case to plead guilty to murder. Four others have pleaded guilty to reduced charges in exchange for their testimony.

Prosecutors said the eight-man squad had kidnapped 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad in Hamdania, a Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad, taken him to a roadside hole and shot him to death, placing an AK-47 and shovel by his body to make it look as if he were an insurgent caught planting a bomb.

Corporal Thomas, a native of the St. Louis area on his second tour in Iraq when the man was killed on April 26, testified about the slaying as part of his plea deal. The group planned to go after a known insurgent, he said, but that plan was thwarted and they went to a neighboring house instead. The judge, Lt. Col. Tracy A. Daly, asked why the group had proceeded with the plan.

“We would get someone else to make a statement that marines, we were sick and tired of getting bombed,” Corporal Thomas said.

Corporal Thomas said he and another marine seized Mr. Awad from a house by entering through an unlocked door. He said they used a combination of hand signals and Arabic commands to lure Mr. Awad away. Mr. Awad spoke little English, Corporal Thomas said, but he pleaded with the group of four marines.

“He started asking, ‘Why, mister, why?’ ” Corporal Thomas said. “We didn’t say anything.”

The four took Mr. Awad to the roadside hole, where they rejoined the rest of the squad, Corporal Thomas said. Mr. Awad was struggling to break free, Corporal Thomas said, so he and others bound his hands and feet. Corporal Thomas said Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington tried to force Mr. Awad to lose consciousness by choking him.

The squad leader, Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, then reported over the radio that the group had spotted a man digging a hole, Corporal Thomas said. Someone fired a shot, he said, then he and others in the squad opened fire. Petty Officer Third Class Melson J. Bacos, he said, shot the AK-47 away from the group to make it appear as though a gunfight had occurred.

After the firing stopped, Corporal Thomas said, Sergeant Hutchins made sure Mr. Awad was dead by shooting a three-round burst of gunfire into his head.

Sergeant Hutchins, of Plymouth, Mass., is awaiting trial on murder charges and others. Corporal Pennington, of Mukilteo, Wash., is also awaiting trial and claims his rights were violated when investigators interviewed him.

Petty Officer Bacos, of Franklin, Wis., pleaded guilty to lesser charges and was sentenced to one year in prison. Another marine, Cpl. Marshall L. Magincalda, 23, of Manteca, Calif., has pleaded not guilty to murder charges and others.

Corporal Thomas faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole, though he is likely to receive a more lenient sentence under his plea agreement.

via the New York Times

Today: laugh instead of cry!

2007-01-17T14:06:00.000-06:00

I found this via Treasure of Baghdad. I sometimes avoid Treasure of Baghdad because it can be so intense (TB is a young Iraqi who worked as a journalist in Baghdad during much of the war but who is now a student in Philadelphia). But this made me laugh. You Tube titles this "George Bush & America role-play."

Read and Weep

2007-01-16T14:05:00.000-06:00

Not long after 9/11 I had a momentary shock as I was mindlessly driving on the freeway. I suddenly saw that this was how America ended, how our nation declined and lost our way: expense wars in far-off places, billions spent while our country was hollowed out at home. It wasn't the fact of fighting that spooked me but the incompetence of our administration. I live in Texas, I had already experienced the "leadership" of Bush and company.

It was a visceral moment. I nearly crashed the car. I hoped and prayed that I was wrong.

I thought of that moment almost six years ago today when I read this essay by Bernard Chazelle of Princeton. Read it and weep.

Thanks to Helena Cobban's Just World News for bringing it to my attention.

Voices in the Wilderness

2007-01-11T10:25:00.000-06:00

Yes, I should be blogging about Iraq and the President's speech. . . but my instant analysis is that Bush is offering just more of the same. Half a million troops in May 2003 or fall 2004 might have made a difference but once the mosque in Samarra was bombed(February 22, 2006) the game was up. See the always wise Juan Cole if you want more.

And it is the fifth anniversary of the detentions at Guantamo Bay, Cuba. Helena Cobban brings us more on that. It is worth noting the legal basis for the treatment of the detainees was set by the first President Bush when he used the base to detain Haitian refugees, who, at the time were universally suspected of being HIV positive. See chapter two of Paul Farmer's Pathologies of Power, entitled Pestilence and Restraint: Guantanamo, AIDS, and the Logic of Quarentine,"page 57:

Since Guantanamo is not technically on U.S. soil, the Bush administration lawyers developed a torturous rationale: (now quoting from Ingrid Arneson of the Nation) "While conceding that the Haitians are treated differently from other national groups who seek asylum in the US, the Government claimed that the US Constitution and other sources of US and international law do not apply to Guantanamo -- this despite the fact that the US military base at Guantanamo is under the exclusive jurisdiction and control of the US Government." Guantanamo thus became a place where non-US nationals could be stowed away in a sort of lawless limbo, out of reach of US or international law. Officials charged with upholding US law could intercept refugees, take them to a US military base, and openly declare any actions taken there above the law. Neither the hypocrisy nor the irony was lost on the Haitians.

Although the Pathologies of Power book came out in 2003, Farmer originally wrote the piece on Guantanamo in 1994! Few would or could stand up for poor Haitians possibly ill with AIDs (clearly the "least of these" in the 1990s) and thus was laid the legal basis for detention that now threatens the rights of us all. From Farmer's account it appears that the Haitian refugees faced physical and social conditions quite similar to the current detainees.

Treating the military base at Guantanamo like it exists outside of the bounds of the US Constitution yet firmly inside our control is nonsensical. It led to cruel and unusual punishment for Haitians fleeing vicious repression and it continues to blot our moral standing in the world today. As Helena Cobban says:

The detainees against whom there is solid evidence should be tried, and if found guilty , incarcerated. Let's see and fully examine all the evidence. The rest should be released and given help for their rehabilitation after their years of dehumanizing detention.

After five years the world's sole superpower can't determine who are the bad guys they've detained and who are unluckly Afghan farmers?! Come on! Read Helena's piece in the Christian Science Monitor.

We can do better.

You won't find quoting Christian scripture very often but remember Matthew 25:31-46. In language that reminds me so much of the Quran, it evokes Judgement Day with Jesus separating the sheep from the goats and the righteous are told "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of my brethen, ye have done it unto me."

Google led me this sermon from the Reverend Barbara Green based on the words in Matthew and grappling with the very issues of torture, detention, and Guantanamo. She concludes her sermon from October 26, 2006 in Houston, Texas with these words:

As I was preparing this sermon, I admitted to my college-student daughter that I had some
trepidation about bringing this issue into worship. She said, “Cut it out, Mom! This isn’t some partisan debate on some obscure budget amendment. This is torture!” That directness is what I would bring to you this morning. Torture is a military issue, and a hard-nosed political issue. But it is also a profoundly moral and spiritual issue. It is wrong. When it is perpetrated in our name “unto one of the least of these, my brethren,” it is the responsibility of all of us.

Standstill

2006-12-08T11:28:00.000-06:00

Things may seem to be at a standstill here but like a duck who's serene on the surface, there's some frantic paddling going on beneath the surface.

I'm occupied with writing final exams, grading, and the academic details that I will be leaving behind once the semester is over. Its holiday time and the baking and decorating is just barely underway; school activities for the kids are running full tilt.

I've decided to take my idea for a new section of a contemporary world issues course focusing on Iraq on-line! Why not teach it over the blogosphere for free? I get paid so little to teach it to 30 undergrads anyway and this way there's no grading!!

Check back in January for that as well as for a re-launch of the blog, possibly in a new format.

Happy Holidays!

VOTE!

2006-11-07T14:13:00.000-06:00

Vote!!

I've been waiting for this day since election day 2004 (remember how horrible that felt?)

VOTE!

Why? Well, one place to start would be this Frontline account of the missteps in the first year of our occupation of Iraq Lost Year in Iraq.

Everyday people in Iraq

2006-10-16T11:34:00.000-05:00

During the months and years that I lived in the Middle East, I became friends with many of the merchants that I encountered on a daily basis. I would discuss Quran with the owner of the little grocery store near my apartment as I made photocopies letters and lessons. I talked about the Archbishop with the Christian bakers who made pizza. I talked about Sufism with folks at one bookstore; the educational system with the staff of another book store. A dear and true friend was from a merchant family who had a presence in the big souk for centuries. I knew his wife, children and siblings. He knew my husband and had met my parents. From him I met many other merchants and small manufacturers. Another man who over the decade I knew him became like a surrogate father to me is part of an extended family that started with just a single candy shop in a small provincial town, now they are wholesalers; trucking sweets all over the rural provinces to supply small shops. So it is with a sense of great poignacy that I read about the slow destruction of the small shop owners in Iraq.

First to go was the pastry shop next door. That was early last spring. Since then, Alaa al Janabi, 46, has watched as Baghdad's epidemic of violence drained the life from his street, one store at a time.

Not long ago, about a dozen shops lined the one-block stretch of road in southwest Baghdad's Saidia neighborhood. Now only Janabi's computer-game arcade and the barbershop one door down remain, and the barber sneaks in for only a couple of hours each day, at a time whispered like a password to longtime customers.

Along a nearby section of a bit more than a mile, where 140 shops once stood only 23 remain. So many merchants in the area have been killed - or fled in fear that they would be - that the result of staying seems obvious, especially for a Shiite Muslim in a neighborhood that's being methodically cleansed by Sunni Muslims, who dominate the area.

"I am here waiting to die," Janabi said.

Jay Price and Mohammed al Dulaimy
McClatchy Newspapers

Small shopkeepers are a key component of the middle class in Iraq. Insurgents target them because in doing so you target a whole family, a whole network of small supplies, an entire social and economic ecosystem. What will happen? Look at Afghanistan. The war with the Soviets damaged and crippled the country but it was what came after, the endless civil war, the battles between warlords that drove away first the professionals, the doctors, engineers, lawyers, and professors who could find work abroad; then the big merchants, those with access to capital left; then the small merchants; eventually anyone with any type of skill left Afghanistan to escape the civil war, the plumbers, the machinists, the mechanics, the tailors, the barbers, the butchers. Only farmers on their land, the very poor, and the most radical were left. They welcome the Taliban as a force that might restore order and morality to a devestated and abandoned country (Please go read Ahmed Rashid's book The Taliban). But that lies in the future (God willing, Iraq will escape that horrible fate altogether). Today the loss of each shop, each merchant, makes the calculus of daily survival more difficult and inevitably more people -- the very people who are our best hope of rebuilding the country will leave.

In Baghdad, the loss of neighborhood stores is more than an inconvenience. With electricity only a sometime thing, refrigeration is impossible, so many people must buy food daily. Traveling even a few extra blocks can mean running a gantlet of death squads, illegal sectarian checkpoints, common bandits, kidnappers and random bombs. Showing up in a strange neighborhood, even just to buy tomatoes, can draw the wrong kind of attention.

Iraqi and U.S. officials here are painfully aware of the problem. Restoring normalcy to troubled neighborhoods is a goal of their current district-by-district military sweep through Baghdad.

It's unclear yet whether it's working; it hasn't reached Saidia yet.

I don't know what the model is for restoring normalcy, how it can be done without either massive increases in troop levels (along with language and cultural training for the US army on a mass scale) or a complete withdrawal. But I weep for each merchant, for each family that the shop supports, for each neighborhood, and each city in Iraq. Ya Iraq! How has it come to this?

Thanks to Iraqnam for bringing the San Jose Mercury article to my attention. The author of Iraqnam also has a piece up at Daily Kos on "The week that was" detailing the events of the last week, October 8-14, for each year 2001-2006. I'd blog about it but it is almost too painful just reading it. Every year it is the same except that every year it gets a bit worse; how long is this war going to go on?

Murtha & "Defeatocrats"

2006-10-15T19:03:00.000-05:00

Juan Cole has brought my attention to Rep. John Murtha's piece in the Washington Post today taking on Karl Rove's latest creation,"the Defeatocrats."

Murtha explains:

The Republicans are running scared. In the White House, on Capitol Hill and on the campaign trail, they're worried about losing control of Congress. And so the administration and the GOP have launched a desperate assault on Democrats and our position on the war in Iraq. Defeatists, they call us, and appeasers and -- oh so cleverly -- "Defeatocrats."

Rove & Company can be so clever! (I must admit, however, that my secret dream job would be to come up with such turns of phrase for the Democrats; I love being push-polled by a Republican candidate and turning every crafted phrase back on them). But unfortuately, this is serious business, and deserves not clever phrases but real analysis and hard decisions; two things Republicans can't seem to do. Murtha continues:

When U.S. forces first entered Baghdad, the Iraqi people cheered as the statue of Saddam Hussein was torn from its pedestal. Forty-two months and $400 billion later, we are caught in a civil war in which 61 percent of Iraqis think killing Americans is justified and the Iraqi people butcher one another at an alarming rate. We are considered occupiers. The longer we stay, the harder it becomes for the Iraqis to find their own destiny.

The administration's "stay-the-course" strategy is not a plan for victory. It's not even a plan. All we have is a new military blueprint to keep 140,000 troops in Iraq through 2010.

Murtha's piece deserves to read in full and his ideas taken seriously. Here is a true patriot, a man who served 37 years in the Marine Corps, thirty-seven years! The chicken-hawks don't deserve to hold his coat much less challenge his patriotism.

The Replacements

2006-10-13T11:49:00.000-05:00

Time taken to find a replacement to teach the courses I just declined?

About 48 hours!! I'm sure that the Dean could have done it even faster if she had tried.

But it was definitely the right thing to do. Grand Aspirations University spends money lavishly on landscaping, new buildings, marketing materials etc but relies on adjuncts to do the lion's share of the teaching. Over time the discrepancies wear you down (particularly as it is a Catholic school that goes and on about its mission and ethics). I always swore that I would get out before I became a bitter adjunct and the time is now.

Do I sound bitter? Then, you have never met a truly bitter adjunct, it can be fearful to behold.

Once again, the Dean held out the possibility of full-time employment some time in the future, but I've heard the same song and dance again and again. Adjuncting for another semester won't help my chances of getting a full-time post with them and it might even hurt. Two years ago I realized that getting a full time position at this school wasn't my dream but possibly my nightmare. A 4-4 teaching load, plus committee, advising, and service responsibilties with brutal and infinitely petty politics (I've already pissed off enough people to make a full-time offer unlikely.)

Just nine more weeks, and then I am out for good! Yee-haw!

The Good Girl in the Happy Fog

2006-10-10T14:11:00.000-05:00

Dean Dad over at Confessions of a Community College Dean has talked recently about the Happy Fog, the self-delusional certainty that the regular rules don't apply to you. Dean Dad wants to talk about Happy Fog in relationship to workplace management issues but he notes:

Is there a more textbook case of happy fog than the hordes of eager young grad students rushing into doctoral programs, each convinced that s/he will buck the adjunct trend? If not for their exploitable hopes and dreams, colleges would have to hire more full-time faculty, and would be even more expensive than they already are!

So sad and so true. My independent study student this semester can't wait to go to grad school and pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy and religion. I immediately asked him, "do you expect to support yourself with this?" Since I can't dissuade him I can only advise him to marry well. I came out of the Happy Fog surrounding academia two years ago thanks to the bracing posts and comments of Invisible Adjunct.

I've written about the impact of Invisible Adjunct before. Go and read the entire blog and comments (its inactive but remains as an archive, a valuable public service) before entering grad school. Thomas Hart Benton in the famous "So you want to go to grad school article" also identifies the magical thinking that creates the happy fog:

The Modern Language Association's own data -- very conservative and upbeat in my opinion -- indicate that only about one in five newly-admitted graduate students in English will eventually become tenure-track professors.

"Are you the one in five?" Really? Well, that's what the other four think too. Take my advice (I secretly care about you as a person): Don't go.

If you speak this way, four out of five students will think you're a crank and find a more flattering adviser: "Of course, my little genius, you can be anything you want to be."

But even after I had stopped drinking the Kool-aid and could see precisely what my true position was an adjunct in the academy, I couldn't quite give it up. Teaching is seductive; you get to stand before a class and make pronouncements, shape history, see bright young faces nodding at your words. But then Dean Dad once again came to the rescue and helped me clarify my position: I was stuck being the good girl. Dean Dad explains,

It's a kind of modesty, worn as a badge of honor. (The contradiction in proudly displaying one's modesty is rarely addressed.) Leave such vulgar pursuits to lesser folk -- I'm too busy nobly and selflessly pursuing truth (and tenure, and status, and travel money . . .

I don't think it's a coincidence that most of the more interesting and insightful academic bloggers are female. The tension between self-effacement and self-promotion that pervades academic culture is structurally similar to the tension in the definition of the 'good girl' - be sexy but not sexual, get attention without looking like you're trying to get attention, etc. Women academics have seen the contradictions twice, so they seem (generally) better able to articulate them. "I could never do that" is a classic good-girl sentiment. Seek approbation through self-effacement --yeah, that should work . . .

As the classic tenure-track faculty line evaporates into budgetary purgatory, I think many academics would be well-advised to retire their modesty. The existing rules have set up an entire generation to fail. It's time to write some new rules.

Yes, indeed. Adjuncting has worked for me. It allowed me to gain classroom and course development experience, it has allowed me to keep my hand in the field while having children. But the process has turned against me now. It sucks up my time and energy and pays me less than minumun wage when divided by all the unpaid hours of class prep, grading, meeting with students etc. Teaching the same courses over and over wears me out and has started to sap my creative energies. When the request to order next semester's textbooks came in, I was filled with dread. I knew it was time. I finally took the plunge and declined my sections for next semester.

Its time to start the next phase.

Popular Wisdom

2006-09-30T16:53:00.000-05:00

David Brooks' NY Times column on 9/28 is one of the things that irritated me enough to drive me back to blogging. [The link above will only take you so far if you are not a NYT subscriber. Now, I firmly believe that everyone should read a paper newspaper everyday and the NYT is an excellent choice but I remain bewildered by their insistence on keeping so much on-line content behind subcriber firewalls.]

Saturday, five smart, intelligent letters to the editor in response to Brooks' column were published. My favorite comes from Utah.

To the Editor:
David Brooks acknowledges that modern nations mark their greatness by economic wealth and that "Islamic extremists will continue to compete and grow until mainstream Islamic moderates can establish a more civilized set of criteria for prestige and greatness."

Why, then, does Mr. Brooks continue to support the violence of war as a means of ending the violence of terrorism? Given his reasoning, wouldn't it be far wiser to divert the billions of dollars we are spending on the Iraqi disaster into the economic development of Palestine?

Wouldn't viable ports, secure water sources, healthy agribusiness and manufacturing plants be more productive in the fight against Islamic extremists then military action?
Janet Ellington
Salt Lake City, Sept. 28, 2006

Yes, I can think of nothing that would reverse al-Qaeda's appeal than a strong economy with high levels of employment for young men. In the Arab world, young men without jobs face a future without marriage in a society where marriage and fatherhood are still crucial signs of maculinity and adulthood.

To the Editor:
If, as Mr. Brooks avers, Islamic extremism is not a result of "short-term historical circumstances, but of consciousness and culture," why did the Bush administration and Mr. Brooks believe that 150,000 Western troops, even with billions of dollars, chould change than in jig time?

Grand delusion, indeed.
William W. Goetz
Bedminster, NJ, Sept. 28, 2007

I would only add the political litmus tests that kept many smart, experienced, Arabic-speaking Americans from government positions in the occupation government destroyed any chance that we ever had of moving the consciousness and culture of Iraq in any particular direction.

To the Editor:
David Brooks says countries in the Arab world do not define their national glory economically. In fact, their arrogance stems directly from the money they receive from the West for their oil.
Without the petrodollars flowing into these regimes, they would find themselves quickly at odds with their people, who anger would be pointed at their leaders, resulting in the overthrow of these totalitarian regimes.
The "grand delusion" is that we can maintain our present level of oil consumption, attacke regimes that were contained (Iraq) and talk about attacking other countries (Iran) when we do not have enough troops to maintain order in a country previously defeated (Afghanistan).
President Bush siad he was the "decider"; I see him as the "delusioner."
Brian Gallagher
White Plains, Sept. 28, 2006

Mr. Gallagher does not mention that fact that most of the arrogant, petro-fueled regimes, encourage their populations to see "attacks on Islam" coming from the West as a way to divert their energies away from home-grown political change. Everytime, the western media, commentators, authors, playwrights, etc. carelessly criticize Islam, they play right into this dynamic.

All in all, these letters indicate to me that Americans deserve so very much better from the currrent administration.

Call to Arms

2006-09-29T10:54:00.000-05:00

The Bush/Cheney administration mishandling of the war in Iraq and the (mis-named) War on Terrorism makes me physically ill. The administration is pouring oil on a burning fire and doesn't seem to understand why the flames won't go out. I have been immobilized lately and not blogging. But I can feel my internal gears starting to shift. Because this is something I know about, I know about the Middle East, I know about Islam, I know Arabic, I know about the daily struggles of ordinary people in the region, AND I know about America, I know about party politics, and "framing issues" and, dammit, I have a sleeping baby in my lap. I have skin in this game. I want a different, better future for my family, for America, for Syria, for Iraq, for Afghanistan.

Time to write the Senators again, my own, and Chuck Hegal, and John Warner, and John McCain, and Patrick Leahy. Time to write David Brooks, and Keith Olbermann, and my local paper. It is time to say (as if it had to be said) that America should not use torture, it is an ineffective technique to again information, it hardens the resolve and desperation of the enemy and it is morally corrosive to the torturer and the society that condones it.

And time to starting blogging again.

Susan G at Daily Kos is fired up too. Billmon has a new post up even after declaring he was taking a break. The Islamic Society of North America has a new President, Ingrid Mattson. It is Ramadan, it is the middle of Jewish High Holidays, and today is the Feast of St. Michael and All the Angels. Election Day is 39 days away. Time to get back to work.

Satire

2006-09-18T12:30:00.000-05:00

Ooh, Billmon! I'm either laughing or crying, not sure which!

Please read.

Islam 101

2006-09-18T10:14:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend I got an email from a college friend asking about book recommendations on Islam. I teach courses on Islam in the contemporary world and have been meaning to post some recommendations for quite a while. Thanks Tony for the push.

First of all, there is no single perfect book on Islam. Islam is a major world religion with 1427+ years of history. It is a big, diverse ocean of belief, practice, experience, and history as are all the major religious traditions. You can study it for a lifetime and never exhaust the subject. I've been reading, studying, and living among Muslims for nearly 18 years!

But everyone has to start somewhere. I start my students with Emery Bogle's book Islam: Origins and Beliefs. It is a bit dry in places but I like it because it integrates Shi'a Islam into its history. It is a short yet comprehensive look at the development of Islam and Islamic history. Your average "intro to Islam" book is from a Sunni perspective. Indeed, Sunnis are the vast majority of Muslims, but Iran is nearly 100% Shia and Iraq around 60%. With this administration's call for democracy in the Middle East and its implementation in Iraq, Shi'a Muslims are empowered in ways that they have not been in the modern era. We will see the implications of this shift for decades to come.

An amazing resource for getting a sense of what the scriptures and textual traditions of Islam are like is John Alden William's book, The Word of Islam.

This semester I am also having my students read Anthony Shadid's Night Draws Near. I'd like to stand on street corners and hand this book out to passers-by. Shadid speaks Arabic and spent the months before and during the invasion among Iraqi civilians. It is an important book and it is now available in paperback.

Blogs and web sites are also an important resource. Look over at my sidebar. There's a reason Juan Cole's Informed Comment is on top. My advice: read it and read it daily. A year from now you will have gained a much better perspective on the Middle East, Islam, and contemporary politics.

A wonderful way to get a sense of the perspective of ordinary, moderate, modern Muslims is the web site Islamicity. Browse around. They have many articles on the history, texts, and practices of Islam. Here is a recent piece disputing the link many people make between Islam and violence. It is a valuable place to get a sense (in English) of how Muslims debate and frame these topics themselves.

More books and web sites tomorrow.

Peaches

2006-09-11T09:46:00.000-05:00

Honestly, I'm trying to avoid a lot of the 9/11 remembrance stuff going on today. I shy away from blogs with posts remembering 9/11. But baby Butter is asleep in my arms so I'm stuck in front of my keyboard . . . so I thought I'd take a moment to remember.

Peaches. My memories of September 11, 2001 are tied to peaches. Like so much of the country, it was a beautiful day here. We had the windows open and exchanged the sliding glass door to the deck for the screen door. 'Skandar was three and R was just a baby herself, 8 months old. I was home with them all day. We were building a new house and were scheduled to have a storage unit dropped off in preparation for putting our current house on the market. One of the last things DH said to me before he left for work was "if you are going to use these peaches for babyfood, you need to make it today." Overripe peaches. I was happy to add poaching and blending peaches to my to-do-list for the day.

Life seemed so full and so good. I got the kids breakfast. The house was still full of cool morning air. Blues Clues was on TV and I was on my knees chasing my crawling daughter when the phone rang. I don't remember whether it was DH or my mother who called first. "A plane hit the Trade Center?" Ominous, but interesting.

I changed the TV to CNN. I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing. I couldn't get up to speed. They were re-playing footage from a local NY station of a young green reporter standing outside with a view of the towers behind him. He had been sent to report on the first plane that no one had really seen. The one that might have been a little single engine plane. As he was trying to explain to viewers what had happened the second plane appeared over his shoulder, the reporter at first thought it was an example of the regular flight paths across NYC and pointed it out to viewers. Then when it hit, disappearing into the second tower, he lost his composure and said, "Oh my God, what am I seeing?" In the passing years, I have never seen that footage again but I remember it so well because it summed up my own feelings in those first minutes of learning of the disaster. What am I seeing? I was frustrated with the cable coverage and finally realized that the networks would be covering it was well. When I turned to ABC and saw Peter Jennings, I was relieved. Peter could make it make sense to me. And he did. We kept the TV on ABC for the rest of the day and into the early morning.

By the time I got up to speed, the first tower had fallen. I called my husband at work in disbelief. (He had been on a business trip the week before, we were so gratful he was not travelling). how could the tower have come down? Then on live TV, as I was watching, still on my knees, crying aloud for the lives being lost before me, the second tower fell.

Three-year old 'Skandar complained about where Blue's Clues had gone. Trying not to cry, I told him that it was important that mommy watch the news instead. He called "mama's fire show" and went outside to play with his trains. I talked to my sister living in DC, my friend Martha, my friend Linda, my mom again. Right on time, the man with the drop-off storage unit appeared with his truck. We talked about the attack a bit outside as he unloaded the unit, the sky so blue and so clear. Then I asked him in as I filled out the paperwork and we sat together on the couch, two total strangers and watched the TV.

At some point that afternoon, I went into the kitchen and there were the peaches. Still soft and ripe, still waiting to be pureed into babyfood. It was painful to look at something so everyday and ordinary and so unchanged when it seemed that everything around us was different. I thought of all the couples whose exchanges that morning had been filled with such ordinary talk and who would never be able to talk to one another again. Babies who wouldn't know their fathers, mothers gone from their children.

Late in the afternoon of September 11, 2001 I sliced peaches and put them in the blender. I carefully poured the puree into an icecube tray and froze it. Tears slid down my face, in sorrow for everything that was different and for everything that was unchanged.

Steve Irwin

2006-09-04T12:12:00.000-05:00

After a break from blogging I alway wonder what will motivate me to start posting again. Last week Egyptian novelist and Nobel laureate, Naguib Mahfouz, died. Had I been blogging daily, a post would have surely been dedicated to him. My father would have had his 70th birthday tomorrow. There might have been a post about my own sense of loss and grief. But somehow I could put those things off, mediate on them alone rather than rev up blogger.

I'm surprised and saddened that what has spurred me back to blogging is the news of Steve Irwin's sudden death. Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. His end came not from a crocodile but from a stingray in a freak accident while filming a show for Animal Planet. (Apparently the show was to be called "Ocean's Deadliest.")

I first discovered the Crocodile Hunter in 1997. I was just back from 15 months in the Middle East. Most of that time I had been living with a local family that spoke no English. They had a black-and-white tv but no sattelite dish and the parents frowned on videos (aside from a few ancient movies like Antar wa Shaddad). I had a hard time readjusting to America and an even harder time handling American popular culture. The two bedroom, two-bath apparent I shared with my husband and two cats was bigger than the house I had just been living in with as many as thirteen other people. I was lonely and adrift. And in this period, I was drawn to Steve Irwin. I have a weakness for real people doing dangerous things that they love. But those early shows with Steve and Terri and their dog in canoes at night looking for and capturing live crocodiles were magnetic. The risks they took were unbelievable, the connection between them was papable. Later that year, pregnant for the first time, I remembering telling DH that "this baby can grow up and be anything it want, anything but the crocodile hunter."

A few years later Steve and Teri had their own child Bindi (named after a crocodile). As my kids grew up, Animal Planet and Steve's shows, particularly Croc Diaries with behind-the-scenes views of Australia zoo, were a favorite destination. We even talked about some day visiting Queensland Australia to see the zoo. Zoos, animals, and animal facts and trivia are a common preoccupation among my children in no small part thanks to Steve Irwin.

And now, at age 44 with two young children, his parents, and Teri left behind, he is gone.

For a time, my brother produced celebrity profiles that were syndicated to foreign markets. He has interviewed everyone. I always affected a studied nonchalance, refusing to get excited about any celebrity, Marlon Brando, ho-hum, Bono, Paul McCartney, vaguely interesting. Only once did I get truly excited, when I learned he had interviewed Steve and Teri Irwin (as part of the media tour with the release of the Croc Hunter movie). "Steve and Teri Irwin?! You interviewed the Croc Hunter, OMG! Did you get a picture, what were they like?" My brother said that TV toned down Steve. That in real life he was ten times as enthusiastic. Talking about animal conservation, he would gesture so broadly and bounce in his seat that he kept hitting the boom mike and once even accidently knocked into Teri.

I've known a few larger-than-life personalities like Steve Irwin in real-life. They are forces of nature, trailing ideas, plans, projects in their wake. Full of passion and enthusiasm for their life's work. The world is a little poorer place when they are gone.

Steve Irwin, you will be missed. Godspeed.

Class Prep

2006-08-24T16:22:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the blogging break, Abu 'Skandar is out of town for an extended period so I have all the childcare, plus the cooking, and its time to do the prep for the new semester.

Although I'm teaching a course on contemporary world issues in the Muslim world for the nineth time, its always a lot of prep because things in the Middle East are changing so fast. It's a draining class because the students come in knowing so little and they have so much to learn. Every semester feels like a new mountain to climb, and thanks to the politics of the current administration, the journey just keeps getting steeper and steeper.

I plan on having the class listen to Terry Gross' interview with Ahmed Rashid next week. It aired on Fresh Air today.

The class will try not only to make sense of Pakistani politics, jihadist groups, al-Qaeda, Afghanistan and the resurgent Taliban, they will also have to understand the war in Iraq and Israel/Palestine, Syria/Lebanon/Hizbollah, and oh yeah, there's Iran too! But hey, if George Bush can do it, so can an undergrad . . . oh wait . . . oh, nevermind.

I should be back to blogging regularly next week.

More Peace Poems from Gush Shalom

2006-08-17T12:42:00.000-05:00

Although the cease-fire seems to be holding, I wanted to share a few more of the peace/protest poems published in Haaretz by Gush Shalom, the Israeli Peace Bloc. I find the condensed language of poetry very moving and strangely appropriate for the confused world we live in.

From Monday:

The politicians will
Blame each other.
The generals will
Blame each other.
The politicians will
Accuse the generals.
The generals will accuse
The politicians.

Nothing of this
Will help
The dead.

Ad published in Haaretz, August 14, 2006

Of all the Gush Shalom peace poems, that one (above) is the most timeless with a rhythm and cadence (in English anyway) that I find very moving.

On Tuesday, they returned to the more immediate theme of a need for a political settlement:

The last victim
Of this war
Has not yet
Been buried -
and the chief of
Army Intelligence
Already announces
That he expects
Another war
in Lebanon.

Could there be
A more striking
Confirmation of the fact
That there is
No military solution?

Ad published in Haaretz, August 15, 2006

As the Lebanon crisis turns from bombs back to speeches and politics, I think that it is important to remember the dead from both sides. Juan Cole posted a letter from Todd Hasak-Lowy on the death of David Grossman's son, Uri, a solider in the conflict. Please go read the whole letter to learn more about writer and peace activist David Grossman here. But I want to highlight this passage from Hasak-Lowry that lingers in my mind even days later much like the poems of Gush Shalom:

But maybe now's the time to stop, to really stop and think about how each death on every side draws a ring around itself to include another dozen or so people, family members and life-long friends, who never fully recover from their mourning. Maybe now's the time to realize, if you're willing to do the horribly simple math, that for some time now every Palestinian and every Israeli has likely found him or herself, and in many cases more than once, drawn reluctantly into someone's now obliterated circle, leaving a conflict between two nations of mourners.

Works for Me Wednesday: Corelle

2006-08-15T14:16:00.000-05:00

Its Wednesday and once again I want to join Shannon at Rocks in the Dryer for "Works for Me Wednesday." I know it might feel jarring to have household tips adjacent to discussions of war or politics but that's how life is. I love grappling with big ideas and current events but there's always the laundry to do and the thousand and one ordinary necessities of life.

Today, I want to talk dishes! I know that many people love stoneware for daily use but I find it heavy and awkward. I love Corelle! Thin, lightweight, durable. Here's how they do it:

Corelle glass dinnerware is made through a hub lamination process that thermally bonds three layers of glass: core glass in the middle, with top and bottom layers of very clear skin or glaze glass. The process creates a lightweight, durable, multi-layered product. In addition, the unique enamels used during the decorating process actually become part of the glass, so the patterns last as long as the plate.

Corelle was first introduced in 1970 and my family must have been among the first to buy it. One of my earliest memories is going to Sears with my father to buy a set. When we got back my little sister got hold of a bowl from her highchair and promptly threw it to the ground. As promised, the Corelle did not break! It made quite an impression on me; its one of my few memories from before my brother was born in 1971.

On my own after college, one of my first purchases was a set of sleek white Corelle dishes. I still use them today and my mom still has most of the pieces from that 1970s set (now a vintage pattern, good old snowflake blue.)

In addition to its durability, I think that my favorite feature is that I can reach into the dishwasher with one hand and pick up five plates simultaneously! Whoo-hoo! Anything that helps empty the dishwasher more quickly.

Now, Corelle comes in some amazing new patterns and even a thicker style and a stoneware version too! Not to mention funky square plates! But I still love the original Livingware. Although I am tempted to add a new pattern to mix in with my white plates.

Lightweight, durable, pretty and I've forgotten to mention, affordable! Works for me!

Back to School

2006-08-15T10:35:00.000-05:00

Well, the cease-fire seems to be holding. Although a comprehensive peace does not seem to be in the works, a cease-fire is an improvement over bombardment. So, today I am going to turn back to a more immediate interest: back-to-school.

Yesterday, my older two went back to school. I am happy for them but it is a little bittersweet. As I wrote a friend,

"I'm excited for them, we all love school and the new activities it brings, but yes, it reveals the passage of time for them and for me. The years are going by . . . I think that never will I be more loved, seen as more powerful, imagined more wise, felt more strong, than I am in these years of intensive, hands-on parenting. The kids still belong to me more than they belong to themselves and I mourn that ending. My mom did too. Of course, it is a tremendous blessing to have healthy strong kids who will start to pull away and become wonderful adults . . . but there's a loss too and the beginning of the school year is when I feel it a little, can see that shape of it in the future, sigh.

Its hard and often exhausting to be at the center of your children's world. But in the end, its such a short amount of time and it goes by so quickly. The oldest, the eponymous 'Skandar, is in third grade now and although it hasn't happened yet, I know that soon the struggle to individuate oneself and pull away from family will begin.

The real challenge is to not to short-circuit that process by pulling away first. Some wise person, perhaps, Mary at Owlhaven, had a post about this months ago. About the need for parents to be there, and stay there, as children enter the tweens and teen years. To let them pull away as they are ready rather than jump-start the process for them. I'm not quite ready to read this book yet, but it has to go on the reading list in a year or two. Our Last Best Shot: Guiding Our Children Through Early Adolescence by Laura Stepp. The Amazon description includes this quote:

"Early adolescence is partly about loss," writes author Laura Sessions Stepp. "Parents lose their children's unquestioning adoration; kids lose their innocence, and sometimes their faith in adults."

That is the challenge that lies ahead, the vague outlines are just barely visible on the horizon as school starts again.

Edited to add: It was Mary but at her Ethiopian adoption blog! She has some very wise words and a book to recommend.

Women on Iran & Terror

2006-08-14T11:25:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling sleepy today, must be the extra early morning to get everyone off to the first day of school. So, I've been reading lots of blogs with the baby sleeping in my lap this morning but I have little inclination to write much.

Lots of smart people are blogging about Seymour Hersh's latest piece in the New Yorker about Lebanon as a Bush adminstration dress rehersal for an attack on Iran. Juan Cole, Joshua Landis, and Billmon all weigh in but for my money this morning the best analysis comes from Helena Cobban at Just World News. She writes:

Hersh's piece reveals a number of significant things about strategic decision-making inside both Israel and the Bush administration.

First, and most evident, is that the Israeli "plan" for taking down Hizbullah was one that relied almost totally on the use of airpower and other forms of stand-off weaponry (ship-launched missiles, drones, etc). This would clearly be the most plannable way in which the Bushites might be planning to attack Ira, since the US, like Israel, harbors an intense wariness to getting bogged down in a ground war.

But of course the "airpower plan" developed and used by IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz failed miserably at taking down Hizbullah's military capacity-- even while it had the entirely predictable political effect of uniting the Lebanese population more firmly around Hizbullah than it had been for the past three or four years.

Interesting results for the "field-test" of tactics that might be used against Iran, huh?

She notes that most Iranian exiles, commentators, and ordinary citizens say that the quickest way to derail the Iranian opposition and unite all elements of Iranian society would be for the US to attack it. As she puts it so clearly:

Honestly, though, I don't think anyone needed a "field test" of the use of widespread anti-infrastructure bombing tactics to be able to reach the conclusion that they would be (a) politically extremely counter-productive, as well as (b) of limited operational value against a well-prepared opponent. My parents stayed in London for much of the Blitz: Bush and Cheney had only to talk to members of the older generation of Londoners (or indeed, of Dresdeners) to find out that air bombardment by foreigners causes a population to rally ever closer round the national flag, not to seek that particular moment in history to rally for deepseated political change.

Why do politicos not get this? Why would massive bombings and the complete disruption of society make people suddenly more willing to engage in political experiments? Intuitively, I would think that most people would fall back on what they know and greatly distrust anything coming from the folks who are bombing you!

Bitch Ph.D must also be busy or sleepy today, no update. If you need a kick from a smart sassy women, then check out the piece on living with terror in today's Daily Kos from SusanG. Very funny.

Terror Threats & Police Work

2006-08-11T11:22:00.000-05:00

Please read the always wise and informed Juan Cole on the links to Pakistan in the current "liquid bomb plot."

Highlights include his speculation that the US may have been kept in the dark:

US authorities were only told about some details two weeks ago, apparently. It may be that the British counter-terrorism community learned its lesson from the loose lips of the Bushies in summer of 2004. I argued then that from what we could tell from open sources, it seemed likely that the Bush administration played politics with information about a double agent in Pakistan who was helping monitor a London al-Qaeda cell. It seems likely that the election-year leak allowed budding terrorists like Mohammad Sadique Khan to escape closer scrutiny, and so permitted the 7/7/05 London subway bombings to go forward.

This time, the MI5 and MI6 and the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) may not have told Washington everything.

So pathetically sad if this is true. Once again, the administration that sells itself as "tough on terror" turns out to be attuned to nothing but its own political advantage. Must stop this line of thought now as its too depressing to continue. If you want more try Billmon.

Juan Cole points out that this plot was uncovered through old-fashioned police work, the "knife" that is required to excise terrorists from the surrounding society without injurying innocents whose deaths creates new recruits to the very cause we need to undermine.

If this operation is as advertised, then it underlines again the importance of plain old fashioned counter-terrorism and police work. An army of 136,000 men in the field can't stop bombs from going off in Iraq every day. What stopped the liquid bomb plot was something superior, a tool fitted to the task.

Juan Cole also directs us to another wise man, John Tirman, with six important insights to be drawn from the current plot. Where are the wise women you might ask? Well, that would be Helena Cobban but she's travelling and has yet to weigh in on the latest news. Her peice on Lebanon is well-worth reading. For amused outrage, try Susie at Suburban Guerrilla.

Peace Poems from Gush Shalom

2006-08-04T16:26:00.000-05:00

Since July 21, 2006, Gush Shalom, the Peace Party in Israel, has been placing ads protesting the war in the newspaper Haaretz. Translated into English the text of the ads sound like little poems. Not sure if they have the same effect in Hebrew but I find them remarkable. Here is the one for today, August 4, 2006:

This war has
Only one aim left:

To save the prestige of
Olmert,
Peretz
And Halutz.

All the other aims
Have gone up in smoke.

There is no military solution.

----------------------------------------------------
Tomorrow, Saturday, 6 pm, in Tel-Aviv, we shall take part in a march of all the peace organizations against the war.
Starting from Ben-Zion Boulevard corner King George, we shall march to Magen David Square. JOIN!
------------------------------------------------------

Ad published in Haaretz, August 4, 2006

No need to wonder just how the American media will cover the peace protest, I would guess that there will be no coverage of it at all.

Here is another:

After the war,
The situation will be
As it was before.

A hundred speeches
Of Olmert
Will not change that.

There is no military solution.
Only a political settlement.

Ad published in Haaretz, August 4, 2006

I'm captivated by their haiku-like quality but I would guess that they probably rhyme in Hebrew. Would any American organization ever protest through poetry? Here is their ad after Qana:

"We warned them
And called on them
To escape!"

That is disgusting
Hypocrisy.

Because we have:
Bombed the roads.
Destroyed the bridges.
Cut off the supply of gasoline.
Killed whole families on the way.

There is only one way
Of preventing more such disasters,
Which turn us into monsters:
T O S T O P!

There is no military solution!

Ad published in Haaretz, August 1, 2006

Read them all and find more information about the peace movement in Israel on their website.

Lincoln Group Loses PR Contract

2006-08-03T23:14:00.000-05:00

In case you missed it, Free Press brings us news of our old friends the Lincoln Group from the Washington Post, July 19, 2006:

The U.S. military has removed two firms from a psychological operations contract aimed at influencing international public opinion, including one District-based company that ran into controversy last year for planting pro-U.S. articles in Iraqi newspapers.

The firms, plus a third company that will retain the contract, spent the past year developing prototypes for radio and television spots intended for use in Iraq and in other nations where the United States is combating terrorism. Unlike the reports that the District-based Lincoln Group distributed to the Iraqi press which looked to be written by independent Iraqi journalists the commander in charge of the new spots said yesterday that he wants their origins made clear.

"Certainly we would intend to accept attribution for the spots," said Col. Jack Summe, commander of the Tampa-based Joint Psychological Operations Support Element. "We will not place things under someone else's name, trying to fool people into thinking it's a true news item."

So that job for social scientists in Iraq . . . probably a no go now.

The TV and radio contract, originally worth up to $300 million over five years, had been held by three firms since last year: the Lincoln Group; San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp.; and Arlington-based SYColeman, a subsidiary of New York-based L-3 Communications Corp.

But officials with the military's Special Operations Command decided this spring that they would be better off with just one contractor. They exercised their option to continue SYColeman's contract but not the other two. Military officials say the decision had nothing to do with last year's controversy over the Lincoln Group.

See, look how well the military can do spin and damage control all on their own without those Lincoln Group PR pros!

"We learned that working with three companies increases expenditures in both time and money and does not provide best value to the government," said Lt. Col. David Farlow, spokesman for the military's psychological operations unit.

To get a sense of what many in the military really thought of Lincoln Group and their efforts in Iraq look at the May/June issue of the Columbia Journalism Review and an article titled "Mind Games" by Daniel Schulman.

Before the Lincoln Group's covert campaign began sometime in early 2005, the firm (then operating as Iraqex) had been chosen to carry out a p.r. contract, worth more than $5 million, that was overseen by the coalition's public affairs staff in Baghdad. An army officer, who was involved in selecting the Lincoln Group for the contract and who worked extensively with its employees when they arrived in Iraq in November 2004, told me it had initially been hired to provide basic communications support, such as polling and media analysis, not for the clandestine placement of news stories or paying off the Iraqi press.

"In terms of their proposal, they were head and shoulders above everybody," the officer said. "The problem was they couldn't do a third of what they said they were going to do." He continued, "They were my little Frankensteins. They were sending guys over there that had absolutely no knowledge of Iraqis whatsoever. It was like the Young Republican fucking group, some guy who was working for the governor-elect in Michigan, a guy from the Beltway who was part of some Republicans for Democracy group, not a fucking clue. It was a scheme written up on a cocktail napkin in D.C. They were just completely inept." The public affairs staff became increasingly frustrated with the contractor. Some officers, including two brigadier generals, refused even to work with them. "That's when they moved under IO," the officer said. Eventually, the Lincoln Group was responsible for planting hundreds of stories in Iraqi newspapers.

I recommend reading the entire article. In it the Lincoln Group emerges not just as a bunch of inept hacks but part of a broader effort spearheaded by Donald Rumsfeld and others in the administration to muddy the longstanding military divide between psychological warfare (waged on the enemy, not the citizens at home) and the public affairs office. So contractor-created proproganda enters our news as well as the Iraqus. And democracy is sabatoged on all fronts!

In the CJR Shulman quotes a senior Public Affairs Officer recently returned from Iraq:

"Perhaps Iraq is a unique situation, but I think some of our IO efforts may have hurt our overall efforts at supporting an elected government and democratic, free institutions. Saddam fed the people propaganda for decades, should we continue to feed them propaganda and expect them to support us and/or their elected officials?"

Schulman also touches on the deeper question, what good is our proproganda when our policies and the truth on ground those policies create inflame out enemies? Abu Ghraib, Haditha, prisons without a hearing in Guantanamo Bay. Now, there's something worth pondering, something worth getting worked up over.

Please go read the whole article.

Still can't get enough of the Lincoln Group? Try these!

US urged to stop paying Iraqi Reporters - International Herald-Tribune

Iraqi clerics on Lincoln payroll, clerics a key target for proproganda efforts - International Herald-Tribune

And just for laughs try Wonkette on the Lincoln Group

Baghdad's Qana: Amiriya Shelter 1991

2006-08-02T19:38:00.000-05:00

I've written about the disaster in Qana 2006 and my experience of the first Qana massacre in 1996. People around the world are remembering Qana and their own Qana's; places where civilians seeking shelter from war died in large numbers yet where the world seemed to forget or to never even know of the crime in the first place.

Treasure of Baghdad is one of the very best Iraqi bloggers. The deaths in Qana make him remember Baghdad's Qana, the Amiriya Shelter 1991:

The crime's TV footage and pictures posted on the internet reminded Iraqis with a similar crime happened in 1991 when the U.S. decided to punish Saddam for his invasion to Kuwait by killing his country's civilians. Amiriya Shelter crime was never forgotten. On February 13, 1991 at 4 in the morning it was hit by two American bombs, which incinerated the building, including all but ten of the 400 women and children seeking refuge inside of it. Despite severe looting to the shelter after the U.S.-led invasion, pictures of many of the victims remain, which includes several entire families who died in the slaughter. Shadows of women who died have been burned into the walls, similar to the infamous shadow of a man flash-imprinted into concrete as he was vaporized by the atomic bomb of Hiroshima.

I was 10 years-old when the crime happened. I still remember the footage of the men and women who were weeping for their families and relatives at the metal fence of the shelter. Their eyes were red as if they were crying blood instead of tears. Twenty-five years passed and I still see the same footage but this time in Lebanon. Lebanese civilians were crying blood for the loss of their relatives and friends in Qana.

Treasure of Baghdad, July 31, 2006

Americans were at fault then. Apparently, the intelligence was wrong; it wasn't a military site but a shelter of civilians. I want to believe that the military didn't target it knowingly. "We're human, we goofed!" is what I wanted to say at the time. How inadequate is that response. But its is barely mentioned in our histories of the war, America has never had to account for it morally or in any other fashion. I will admit that I had completely forgotten it and even after reading Treasure of Baghdad could recall only vague memories from 1991 of hearing it briefly on the news.

We say it was first a shelter for high-ranking officials. They say it was opened to the general public. We say there are no innocents, everyone is implicated. (Didn't they know Saddam was a bad guy? Vaporized into shadow-prints? that's what happens to people who associate with Saddam -- Can't you almost hear Cheney saying that?).

Over and over, I hear this. The children in Qana should have known Hezbollah was launching missiles nearby (Don't they know they are bad guys?). Somehow, people want want to believe that the unjustly dead were not truly innocent. Because then what? We owe compensation and need to accept guilt and possibly punishment. But if they were implicated, in on the violence, the attack, the threat in some way, well, then, it is all part of war.

In Amiriya, they should have known we would target government sites, they are not truly innocent. Even Bin Laden invokes it about the Trade Center, they should have known what the government has done in their name. They are not truly innocent.

Is anyone ever innocent anymore? Is any war death a simple tragedy? Is compensation ever offered? Prosecution for war crimes ever made? Decades of painstaking work in establishing the Geneva Conventions, the Internation Criminal Court, establishing rules for the conduct of war and the protection of civilians and we all throw it away. I don't want to die for my blue passport some day. I don't want anyone to die for their lack of innocence, for the coincidences of life, and identity, and circumstance, that put them in the range of either madmen or the madly rational governments who try to take them out. Enough!

Another memory of mine now: pictures of the civilians killed (including small children) when President Reagan bombed Libya posted in permanent display cases in front of the Libyan embassy in Damascus. I walked past those pictures of limp, bloody toddlers and felt a pang, a pang of guilt and implication every time. But really, those pictures weren't for me, weren't meant to shame the few Americans in Damascus. They were meant for the Syrians, for fellow Arabs, to demonstrate their current powerlessness and rouse them to further action.

My students have a hard time grasping this, why people would cling to a moment of defeat, of humiliation, of loss, why would they would stubbornly remember? Until I say two words: Remember the Alamo! The nascent Republic of Texas lost at the Alamo, lost completely. But they fought valiantly (or so we are told). And that loss became the rallying cry that led more men to fight. No one remembers the Battle of San Jacinto, the overwhelming victory that led to Texas' independence from "the tyrant Mexico." Had the defeat at the Alamo been less total perhaps there would have been less urgency to sign up and fight. Hell, a tactical victory at the Alamo might have doomed the whole Republic of Texas project!

Remember Qana, someone is saying somewhere. Remember Amiriya!

Somewhere else someone is saying, Remember the Marines in Beirut 1983! Remember the Trade Center!

And on and on. I say, remember when children and women and old men were innocents, remember when we all signed treaties and defined war crimes and pledged to uphold human rights?

Because right now, my toddler is sleeping. And somewhere in Pakistan a toddler is awakening. And in Kashmir, and Iraq, and Lebanon, and Israel, and Chechneya, and Darfur, and Somalia, and Congo, and Libya, and Guatemala and New York City, there are toddlers. And they are all innocent tonight.

Works for Me Wednesday: Story Tapes

2006-08-01T20:42:00.000-05:00

Its Wednesday and even though the balance here between mommy blog and political blog has been leaning strongly towards politics these days I want to join Rocks in the Dryer for Works for me Wednesday! In part, because it is the everyday mundane activities of motherhood that keep me grounded and sane enough to contemplate world affairs and in part because each week I've gotten several good tips from the WFMW folks that make my life easier.

One thing that works for our family is story tapes at bedtime. I nurse my babies to sleep, then with toddlers nurse and read books at bedtime, eventually, we just snuggle and read aloud. But its often hard making that transition at age 4 or so to falling asleep on one's own. Story tapes fill that gap. We still read aloud at bedtime (and my husband is a master of made-up tales) but story tapes (or CDs) after our reading is done give us more time in the evening and still let the bigger kids drift off peacefully.

Chinaberry is a great place to get wonderful story tapes. A Cricket in Times Square has to be my kids' all time favorite. They will listen to it night after night. Jim Weiss is another treasure. He is a storyteller who has a whole series of tales and peaceful images designed to help kids fall asleep. They work on adults too (the winter cabin with the hot chocolate and the sleighbells makes me nod right off).

Peaceful bedtime, works for me!

First-person: Qana 1996

2006-08-01T18:37:00.000-05:00

In the spring of 1996 I was living in Damascus, conducting research for my dissertation, when a UN post filled with women and children who were seeking refugee from the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah was hit with an Israeli missile.

The date was April 18, 1996. 106 civilians were killed and 116 injured. Most of the dead were women and children. The pictures on television were horrifying. I can still see the images in my mind: white headscarves stained with blood, the limp bodies of toddlers, the torn blue and white banners of the UN. Over and over again, the images were broadcast: dead children, crying women, outraged men, pools of blood amid sacks of flour stamped with the UN emblem.

The atmosphere in Damascus was, how to describe it? People were frozen with disbelief and horror. In the days after 9/11, in those immediate, horrible days, when conversations were hushed, and dread and sorrow filled everyone's eyes, I felt a vague sense of familiarity. Where had I been where the atmosphere was the same? I finally remembered. It felt like Damascus after the attack in Qana.

The horror and shame were particularly acute because the dead had been killed while seeking the protection of the UN but not even the status of the United Nations could protect them or even lead to international outrage. The US accepted the Israeli government contention that it was an accident and with that the world let it go.

Syrians, like Arabs elsewhere, felt that the massacre reinforced what they already knew, that the world did not value their lives, the lives of their children as it did others. How many times did I hear people say that if it had been reversed, if a Hezbollah missile had hit an Israeli shelter and killed 106 people, over half of them children, would the world accept it was an accident? "Israel would kill us all," said one friend gesturing to the city around him.

I did not know what to say. I knew that the attack barely registered for most Americans and I felt ashamed to admit it to my friends and neighbors who were hurting so badly. I will never forget how deeply and profoundly the violent deaths in Qana affected ordinary Syrians.

Qana

2006-07-31T17:16:00.000-05:00

More pictures of the destruction of Qana from the BBC

Qana
Originally uploaded by LibertÃ©&IgalitÃ©.

Qana was hit at least 80 times. Eventually, inevitably a shelter full of civilians was hit.
You would think that the Israelis (the Israelis!) would understand the moral danger of assigning collective guilt and issuing collective punishment.

Listen to a wise man, Juan Cole, on the difference between Hezbollah and al-Qaeda:

Western and Israeli pundits keep comparing Hizbullah to al-Qaeda. It is a huge conceptual error. There is a crucial difference between an international terrorist network like al-Qaeda, which can be disrupted by good old policing techniques (such as inserting an agent in the Western Union office in Karachi), and a sub-nationalist movement.

Al-Qaeda is some 5,000 multinational volunteers organized in tiny cells.

Hizbullah is a mass expression of subnationalism that has the loyalty of some 1.3 million highly connected and politically mobilized peasants and slum dwellers. Over a relatively compact area.

Remember, Hezbollah has the support of about 40% of the Lebanese population, like our allies in Iraq, they are a political party with seats iparliamentnt as well as a military wing. Again, Dr. Cole:

The main factor in causing these peasant sharecroppers to become politically aware and mobilized was the Arab Israeli conflict. The Israelis stole some of their land in 1948 and expelled 100,000 Palestinians north into south Lebanon, where they competed for resources with local Lebanese Shiites. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the Palestinians became politically and militarily organized by the PLO. The Shiites' conflict with the PLO in the southern camps in the 1970s was probably a key beginning, but from 1982 it was primarily their conflict with the Israeli Occupation army that spurred them on.

He is speaking here of Shia Lebanese peasants. Rural folk who practice a different form of Islam from the orthodox Sunni variety (I'm not going to define it further here, some 60% of Iraqi are Shia; if the general readership after three+ years of war doesn't grasp the difference, God help us.) He continues,

Where subnationalisms are organized by party-militias willing to use carbombings and other asymmetrical forms of warfare, they are extremely difficult, if not impossible to defeat militarily. It would take a World War II style crushing military defeat of these populations, with the willingness of the conqueror to suffer tens of thousands dead in troop casualties. Israel is not even in a position to risk such a thing, given its small population.

Hizbullah is not like al-Qaeda in any way, sociologically speaking, and making such an analogy is a sure way for a general or politician to trick himself into entering the fires of hell.

What the Israelis set out to do, if they intended to "destroy" or even substantially attrite Hizbullah, was completely impractical. What they have done is to convince even Lebanese formerly on the fence about the issue that Hizbullah's leaders were correct in predicting that Lebanon would again be attacked in the most brutal and horrible way by the Israelis and that an even more powerful deterrent is needed. I.e more silkworms, not fewer. . The days when the Israelis could lord it over disconnected unmobilized Arab peasant villagers with their high tech army are coming to a close. The Arabs are still very weak, but are throwing up powerful asymmetrical challenges (e.g. party-militias with silkworm missiles!). Israeli alarm about the new connectedness of their foe explains the orgy of destruction aimed at bridges, roads, television and radio facilities and internet servers. But it is too late to disconnect the south Lebanese, who can easily and quickly rebuild all those connectors.

One hope the Israeli hawks appear to entertain is that they can permanently depopulate strips Lebanon south of the Litani river. Since most Shiites vote Hizbullah and offer political support and cover to it, fewer people means fewer assets for the party-militia. This project would require the total destruction of large numbers of villages and the permanent displacement of their inhabitants north to Beirut.

That is why the massacre at Qana occurred.

Don't Look Away! Pictures from the Lebanon Crisis

2006-07-29T14:25:00.000-05:00

It is real; it is happening today. It is so easy for Americans to look away (to look away from Darfur, to look away from Uganda, from Congo, from Iraq, from Afghanistan) but our foreign policy (or 6 years of neglect of our foreign policy) and our tax dollars are deeply implicated in the current crisis in Lebanon.

Pictures of the crisis from the BBC.

Everyday, it becomes clearer that the best course of action for everyone would have a call for an immediate cease-fire on day 2 or day 3 of this crisis! There is no military solution for either Israel or Hezbollah, short of genocide.

Blackwater

2006-07-28T10:26:00.000-05:00

Well, the conflict continues to rage at the listserv about the Lincoln Group, sigh. Reflecting on it, its fueled by the impatience and anger of the person who first posted the job. If she would just let people say their piece, the flames would die down. More on that later. [Please note that the first link is to Lincoln Group's corporate site, very illuminating for what they don't say.]

But it does highlight an on-going problem with the war and the administration's overall efforts: an over-reliance on private contractors who are inept, corrupt, unethical and/or incompetent. In some ways the Lincoln Group is simply inept and unethical. With little experience and few actual media or PR contacts they managed to receive (by way their connections to Republican fundraisers) high dollar contracts for work in Iraq. And then those political connections led them to plant false news stories in Iraqi newspapers not to shape the situation on the ground but to influence the political landscape back home.

Blackwater, a "security contractor" (which has never made sense to me, okay, you have to contract out for language and culture experts, but isn't security -- beefy guys with guns -- pretty much the core mission for the military?) with lots of high-dollar contracts seems to have played a key part in the failure of the Iraqi war.

Juan Cole led me to this story today.

On March 31, 2004, an American convoy was ambushed by insurgents in Fallujah, a hotbed of Iraqi rage over the U.S. presence. The four men escorting the convoy in two Mitsubishi SUVs were killed in a fusillade of small-arms fire. A furious mob set the vehicles ablaze, dragged the bodies out and partly dismembered them. Two were strung up from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

The entire episode was captured on film and aired worldwide.

The four dead Americans were not soldiers. They were civilians working for North Carolina-based Blackwater USA. The nation learned with a horrifying jolt that there was something new going on here: Modern warfare was being privatized.

[. . .]
In Iraq, it irrevocably altered the course of the war. U.S. Military commanders, who had no advance knowledge of the convoys presence in Fallujah, were ordered by Washington to change tactics and pound the city into submission, inflaming the Iraqi insurgency to new heights.

Yes, the military had no idea that Blackwater was coming and the contractors actually circumvented a Marine checkpoint outside the city. The families of the men (along with men killed on a flight operated by Blackwater in Afghanistan) are suing the company. The company however is arguing that it has become an integral part of the military, part of the President's powers, and deserves the same battlefield immunity from prosecution as the military.

Blackwater is arguing that although it is a private company, it has become an essential and indistinguishable cog in the military machine and, like the military, should be immune from liability for casualties in a war zone.

At stake, Blackwater says, is nothing less than the authority of the president, as commander in chief of the armed forces, to wage war as he sees fit.

The plaintiffs say it is all about corporate greed, unaccountability and a private army run amok.

The story (in the Virginia Pilot) deserves to be read in full.

On the second page you can vote in a poll with the question: Is it a good idea to deploy combat-ready private soldiers in a war zone? Right now, readers are split, 50% say yes, 46% no, the rest undecided. I wonder how the Marines who had responsibilityty for Fullujah and who had approached the Sunni stronghold in 2004 with a motto of "patient, persistent presence" would vote in the poll?

Lincoln Group

2006-07-26T17:45:00.000-05:00

Update: The military announced that The Lincoln Group has lost their funding for this PR project! Read all about here.

STRATEGIC CONSULTANTS

Lincoln Group has an opening for a number of strategic consultants to support Coalition efforts in Iraq. Strategic Consultants will provide advice to senior military and government decision makers and their staff. Consultants will provide advice on Iraqi political, economic and cultural issues; the development of Information Operations programs; as well as other non-kinetic operations designed to reduce the power and influence of insurgents and other adversaries in Iraq. Consultants must be able to analyze and provide advice on such issues as political legitimacy, nationalism, public confidence in the emerging government, and other strategic issues. Consultants will be expected to provide advice on countering the propaganda and messages deployed by insurgents, Anti-Iraqi Forces, Anti-Coalition Forces and other adversary elements. Strategic consultants should have a strong background in one or more of the following disciplines:

Social Sciences - ideally with a focus on the study of Iraq and the Middle East. This assignment will include the collection and analysis of social science data on the political, economic, cultural, social, security and information environments in Iraq. It will also include developing recommendations for military planners, flag rank officers and others.

Advertising, Marketing, and/or Public Relations. This assignment would include the provision of advice on the development and execution of strategic communications, public outreach and awareness campaigns and the measurement of the effectiveness thereof.
Information Operations and Psychological Warfare/Strategic Communication. This assignment would include the provision of advice on all aspects of the planning, execution and evaluation of information operations in Iraq and elsewhere.

Minimum Educational Requirements:

Social Scientists -Masters Degree in Political Science, Anthropology, International Relations, Middle Eastern Studies, Sociology, Strategic Studies or related field.

Advertising/Marketing/Public Relations – Bachelor’s degree and/or extensive industry experience in strategic communications planning and effectiveness measuring, with proven success in international markets.

Information Operations/PSYOP/Strategic Communication – Extensive real world and exercise experience as an IO/PSYOP/ SC/ planner. The qualified candidate must be familiar with staff battle rhythm and military planning so as to seamlessly integrate analytical and creative products with Coalition operations.

Required Skills:

Strong basis in social science analytical methodologies.

Ø Extensive skills in the development of strategic communications campaigns or elements thereof to include marketing, advertising, public relations

Ø Understanding of quantitative research methodologies

Ø Ability to use analysis to provide strategic recommendations to military planners and leaders.

Ø Ability to work in a fast paced, stressful environment.

Desired Skills:

Ø Military experience and/or experience working in post-conflict reconstruction environments

Ø Arabic language skills.

Ø An understanding of stability operations, counterinsurgency and the process of constructing a state in the wake of a conflict

Ø Ability to conduct detailed interviews with people from other cultures in order to collect information on politics, economics, society and culture.

Ø Strong computer skills. Ability to quickly learn statistical programs, text string searches and other packages that would assist in quantitative and qualitative research.

Ø Project/Program Management Skills.

Location:

All positions will be based inside a secure US military facility in Iraq.

Security Clearance required: clearable to Secret, ideally up to Top Secret SCI. Must be US Citizen.

Salary Range & Benefits:

§ $150-$180k (commensurate with experience)

§ Corporate benefits including health insurance, 401k match, educational assistance and bonus programs

Someone offered to share a parody of this ad, I should have taken them up on the offer!

But the Lincoln Group reference still bothered me. So, I googled and dug a bit. Ho-ho! Yes, the Lincoln Group with (surprise, surprise weak media connection but strong links to Republican fundraisers) who got part of $300 million grant in 2003 for "media work" that ended up as part of the whole "planting fake news" scandel! Remember that, remember when we were worried about fake news and proproganda?! Yes, the good old days.

Here's a single comprehensive place to look at claims about Lincoln Group: SourceWatch a project of The Center for Media and Democracy.

And here's what our new best friend Billmon (who is this guy, anyway?) had to say about them way back in November 2005, and (clever man) in June 2005.

Works for Me Wednesday: Cast Iron

2006-07-26T10:12:00.000-05:00

Once again, I'm joining Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer for "Works for Me Wednesday."
Today, my tip is simple: cast-iron pans!

I'm always amazed that more people do not use cast-iron pans. They heat fast and evenly, are naturally non-stick, and they add iron to the food cooked in them. I always had excellent iron levels during my pregnancies. Something I attribute to the cast-iron pans as much as the pre-natal vitimins. Two of our pans (a 9-inch and 12-inch skillet) are over fifty years old and still going strong. We also have a 17-inch skillet that's truly huge and a new grill pan.

I'm not sure who made the older pans. There used to be more manufacturers but today most cast iron pans are made by Lodge. Even better, Lodge has developed a way to "cure" the pan for you, so they are ready to use without curing (done by repeatedly heating oil in the pan until it develops the proper non-stick patina). Our new grill pan was pre-cured by Lodge and it works just as well as the older pans.

So avoid the flaking teflon of non-stick pans and try cast-iron. Works for me!

Syria and Egypt

2006-07-25T09:36:00.000-05:00

Well, blogging is quite therapeutic, I have to say that. After getting out my frustrations here. I was able to compose a response to our local playwright who was surprised to hear that other countries besides Syria have secret police.

Umm . . . Yes, pretty much every state in the Middle East has secret police or "internal security forces" that includes Egypt, Jordan, Saudi, all the Gulf states. Egypt has operated under special "emergency measures" for nearly thirty years, laws that give the state security apparatus sweeping powers and restrict the rights of citizens to assemble, organize, and speak their mind (truly the US Bill of Rights is a rare and wonderful thing!)

See here for more:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0502/p10s01-wome.html

I'm not surprised that you have heard little about Syria and moderate Islam. One reason to locate the play in Egypt is that there has been much, much more research done by scholars, historians, etc there that has been published in English. Egypt is a long-time American ally which means that scholars have been able to get grants to work there for decades. [Plus, British scholars have been there since 1918.]Syria was part of the Soviet bloc for most of the Cold war and it was difficult for scholars to work there (everyone was in Egypt or Iran or Iraq); [those who did were French]. That is changing but very slowly.

Since 1970 and the ascendancy of President Hafez al-Assad, Syria has been ruled by the Alawi sect, an off-shoot of Shia Islam and very distinct from Sunni Islam and mainstream 12er Shia Islam as well. The Syrian state must maintain an official version of Islam that is big enough to include Alawis as Muslims since the Syrian Constitution requires that the President be a Muslim. Any construction of Islam that encompassing Alawis has plenty of room for Sufis, and Sufi's "live and let live" philosophy fits in well. The Grand Mufti of Syria promotes moderate Islam. Here's the website of the recently deceased Mufti.
http://www.kuftaro.org/
Here's a story about the new Mufti condemming suicide attacks.
In Syria as in Egypt, Jordan and other countries the mosques are largely state-controlled with the sermons monitored and even produced by the state. Wahabbi Saudi Arabia despises Sufi Islam and its preachers often speak against it. Al-Qaeda views Shia, Alawis, and Sufis asapostatess to Islam and would be happy to eliminate them.

Here's what the CIA had to say on the matter in the late 1980s
http://countrystudies.us/syria/30.htm
Here's a more recent summary, please note the second to last paragraph.
http://jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2369768

I still think Egypt would better [for the play], more class tension, more outspoken people, more reseach and sources available, lots of tension of the role of Islam, Islam in daily life etc but all Muslims are Sunni so you avoid the complications of Shiism, Alawis, etc that you will have to account for in Syria and you guys have quite a lot on your plate already. Plus, you don't have worry about Egypt as a "state-sponsor of terrorism" etc.

No response yet from the playwright.

Laugh or Cry?

2006-07-23T12:20:00.000-05:00

Laugh, cry, or maybe just go in the corner and throw up?

And I'm not even talking about the situation in the Middle East!! There the news is grim, grim, grim. Juan Cole today writes and cites sources that Israel had been planning this war in conjunction with Donald Rumsfeld and the Department of Defense for nearly a year. But apparently did not share this information with the President who seems to be operating under the idea that Syria set it all in motion. If you can stand it go read Billmon for more. If you want more news about Lebanon, try the website of the Lebanon's daily paper, The Daily Star. And Iraq, don't forget Iraq, although it might not be a unified country much longer. Death squads are roaming the streets and civilians are dying in greater and greater numbers.

In light of all that, this little tidbit deserves only a thonk! of disbelief. The small, private university where I teach as an underpaid adjunct, let's call it, Grand Aspirations University has had big plans for a co-ordinated curriculum program on Islam. Fine and dandy. But this school lacks an Islamic studies program, a comparative religion program, a Middle Eastern studies program or even an anthropology program. So, local expertise on the topic is lacking (although big, Tier I university with all of the above is right down the street, they won't ask them for help). I have done my best to help out but as an adjunct I'm not part of any committees and I don't have any pull at this place. They have failed to get funding for most of their ideas which is probably for the best but one component, a play about Islam, is still going forward. The local playwright is not Muslim or Arab and has little experience in the Middle East. Here is part of a recent email exchange:

American playwright: The play is in Syria rather than Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, or someplace more stable and less fraught than Syria because I felt that the characters needed something to push up against. Though in many ways life in Damascus is like life anywhere -- eating, sleeping, seeing friends, praying, arguing with the children, etc -- in other ways it's full of complication -- contending with the secret police, contending with censorship, living under a saber-rattling regime whose foreign policy may not reflect your views (sounds familiar), and now wondering whether the Israelis will start mortaring the city from the Golan Heights.
Umm Skandar: Okay but your answer made me laugh a little. Secret police: Jordan -check, Egypt - check, Turkey -check, Foreign policy not representative of public views: Jordan - check, Egypt - check, Turkey - check; no democractic process or institutions, Jordan - check, Egypt - check, Turkey - blank (for the last decade). In fact, Syrian foreign policy is probably more closely aligned with public opinion than anywhere else (it just doesn't align with American views!!) There's much more struggle about the role of Islam in public life in Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey than there is in Syria. There's much more freedom of religion in Syria and the regime works hard to support moderate, Sufi-inflected forms of Islam.
American playwright: Thanks for this. It helps clarify a lot of my thinking actually. First of all, I didn't know that Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey had all of that going on as well; my mind boggles a little to think about it. Does *everybody* have secret police??

Ugh! Yeah, pretty much everywhere in the Middle East has secret police. Egypt for god's sake has been under "emergency measures" that preclude much of civil society for the last thirty years!!!

thonk!

This play will have about as much useful information about Islam as would a play written about Christianity in America by Saudi students based on the information found in their Arabic-language books at their university library in Jedda!

What words cannot say

2006-07-21T10:35:00.000-05:00

This is where I got my first kiss
Originally uploaded by reutC.

Words cannot say

How beautiful Lebanon is . . .

How beautiful the people are . . .

Lebanese refugee
Originally uploaded by masser.

How horrible the loss . . .

senza parole
Originally uploaded by budiulik.

A shout to the heavens!

2006-07-20T13:23:00.000-05:00

Worth reading. From the Embassy of Lebanon.

Address to the Diplomatic Corps
By the Prime Minister
H.E. Mr. Fouad Siniora
Grand Serail, Beirut, July 19, 2006

I have convened the diplomatic corps in Lebanon today to launch an urgent appeal to the international community for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and assistance to my war ravaged country. You are all aware that seven continuous days of an escalating Israeli onslaught on Lebanon have resulted in immeasurable loss: the toll in terms of human life has reached tragic proportions: over 1000 injured and 300 killed so far; over half a million people have been displaced; in some areas, the hospitals have been crippled and are unable to cope with the casualties; there are shortages of food and medical supplies; homes, factories and warehouses have been completely destroyed; UN facilities in Maroun El Ras and Naqoura have just been shelled, so have been army barracks and posts of Joint Security Forces; a civil defense unit has been wiped out and foreigners are being evacuated.. As I speak, the trauma, the desperation, the grief and the daily massacres and destruction go on and on. The country has been torn to shreds.

Is the value of human life in Lebanon less than that of the citizens of other countries?

Can the international community stand by while such callous retribution by the State of Israel is inflicted on us?

Will you allow innocent civilians, churches, mosques, orphanages, medical supplies escorted by the Red Cross, people seeking shelter or fleeing their homes and villages to be the casualties of this ugly war?

Is this what the international community calls self defense? Is this the price we pay for aspiring to build our democratic institutions? Is this the message to send to the country of diversity, freedom and tolerance?

Only last year, the Lebanese filled the streets with hope and with red, green and white banners shouting out:

Lebanon deserves life!

What kind of life is being offered to us now?

I will tell you what kind: a life of destruction, despair, displacement, dispossession, and death.

What kind of future can stem from the rubble?

A future of fear, frustration, financial ruin, and fanaticism.

Let me assure you that we shall spare no avenue to make Israel compensate the Lebanese people for the barbaric destruction it has inflicted and continues to inflict upon us, knowing full well that human life is irreplaceable.

You want to support the government of Lebanon? Let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, no government can survive on the ruins of a nation.

On behalf of the people of Lebanon, from Beirut, Baalbeck, and Byblos, to Tyre Sidon and Qana, to each and every one of the 21 villages at the southern border, declared a no-go zone by Israel, to Tripoli and Zahle, I call upon you all to respond immediately without reservation or hesitation to this appeal for an immediate cease-fire and lifting the siege, and provide urgent international humanitarian assistance to our war-stricken country. I would also like to thank the international organizations and the friendly countries that have already extended their valued help and thank as well those who are preparing to do so.

Excellencies

We the Lebanese want life.

We have chosen life.

We refuse to die.

Our choice is clear.

We have survived wars and destruction over the ages.

We shall do so again.

I hope you will not let us down.

God help them! I don't see much aid coming from the US any time soon.

Juan Cole over at Informed Comment has many moving voices from ordinary people in Lebanon; Syria Comment is finally up and running again after nearly a week without any posts (what a time for a vacation!), and Billmon sends us to military analyst William Lind for an interesting perspective on what he calls "the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war." Why does that old REM song "its the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine" keep running through my head?

Dread

2006-07-20T10:35:00.000-05:00

Dread. I have a terrible, overwhelming feeling of dread. I dread that the world is going to sit by and let Lebanon be destroyed.

This feeling started on Tuesday when I sat at my computer to send emails to both my Senators, my congressman, and the White House. The first jolt was when I realized that you had to pick from a pre-set list of subject lines, you can't write your own, and "Lebanon crisis" was not an option. "Israel/Palestine" was not a subject you can write your representatives about either! Nor was "mess in the Middle East"! For one Senator I finally picked "Iraq" as the subject line since that at least got us in the neighborhood and close to the topic of violence and civilian deaths and overwhelming force. At the other Senator's site, I went with the pre-set subject line "terrorism;" for my Congressman the closest I could come was "foreign affairs."

I went ahead and sent each one a message urging them to call for an immediate cease fire. I pointed out that while Israel has the right to defend itself, its attack was disproportional with 10 times the number of Lebanese killed than Israeli and no evidence that Hezbollah was being degraded. I noted that there was no military solution to this crisis, only a political one.

But I wanted to put my head in my hands and just cry. How would my words even make it past the filters of subjects lines and the pre-set thinking that was behind them that said already that this was not a problem that Congress wanted to address? Even if an American can get beyond the dismal lack of education in basic geography and world history, the distortions of the American press, when you reach out to communicate with power your words are turned to chaff and blown away as meaningless almost before you can say them!

Sigh. Class, note the demonstration of "hegemonic power." Off to re-read Foucault.

Works for Me: Bath Bowl

2006-07-18T16:32:00.000-05:00

This week more than others, my heart and mind are on the Middle East. So even when thinking about a post for Shannon's Works for Me Wednesday, my mind turned to a small item from the Middle East that really does work for me. It is a traditional bath bowl. Mine is lightweight tin. I bought it from a peddler in Hasake in northeastern Syria in either 1992 or 1994. It was a common household item among the settled bedouin who we worked with on the archaeological excavation. It has probably been a common household item in the region for a thousand years (in a clay version, not tin).

A bath bowl is what you use to scoop water from a basin, first mixing hot and cold water to the proper temparature and then to tip the water over yourself to bathe. It is largely disappearing from the urban Middle East now as water heaters and western-type showers become more common. Rural people without running water who bathe in basins or in a river or stream still use them. In 1996, during my dissertation fieldwork I lived with family in urban Damascus who kept a traditional-style house complete with a hamman or bathroom. They were lower middle-class but avoided too much modernity as a sign of their religious faith, a bit Mennonite in that regard. (Toilets are in a separate area, the hamman is for bathing). On bath day, an enormous pail of water would be kept piping hot over an open gas flame. When it was my turn to bathe (once a week), I would stand on a wooden pallet and first dip water out of the pail on the burner (I was terrified of tipping the enormous kettle and scalding myself) to mix with cold water in a five-gallon pail. Once I had the water the right temperature, I would dip and pour the water over myself with a bath bowl. The rhythm of dipping and pouring was soothing and somehow it felt luxurious too. The pace of wetting the skin, scrubbing the skin, and then rinsing with the bowl felt, I don't know, peaceful and very human somehow. (I'm not one for the collective unconscious but maybe there's an echo there connected to the bath bowl and what has to be a very early piece of human technology).

I brought my bath bowl home with me. I recognized an American version in the plastic bowl that the hospital provided along with a scrub brush to take home with each of my newborns. "A bath bowl!" Of course, there's nothing better to rinse a baby with. I have also used mine to bathe cats, clean the tub, soak hands, and wash my kids' hair.

Today, showers come in an amazing variety but I don't think that any sort of multi-jet, massage setting, or whirlpool beats the rhythm of dip and pour, dip and pour, that a bath bowl provides.

Works for me!

thonk!

2006-07-18T08:59:00.000-05:00

thonk!

That's the sound that my TV remote makes when I smack it against my forehead in frustration and utter disbelief.

I missed the BBC news last night but did catch McNeil/Leher or whatever they call it now on PBS, and then surfed the cable networks most of the evening. I'm not sure who said it or where but I was shocked to hear that the US doesn't have an ambassador in Syria. When I was a Fulbright Fellow, the State department folks where quick to tell us that the Syrian Embassy was the 17th most important embassy in the world for the US. With a US-led war going on right next door, I can only imagine that its importance has risen. But we have no voice there, no one to be the face of the administration and talk directly to the Syrian government and give feedback to the administration about how things are on the ground. The Bush administration, ever eager to look tough, as opposed to being tough, pulled the ambassador as part of the "get tough on Syria" drumbeats way back when it looked like remaking the Middle East might just be a neo-con cakewalk. Now, when real diplomacy and behind the scenes maneuvering might just save lives and end the current conflict who does the world's remaining superpower have to talk to in the government that they see pulling levers . . . No one.

thonk!

Earlier in the day, Juan Cole, had brought my attention to the "off-the-mike" conversation between Bush and Blair at the G8 conference. Like Cole and Billmon, I was horrified by the simplistic, black-and-white attitude of President Bush to a situation that reflects 60 years of history and conflict. I'm paraphrasing (now the audio and video has been seen around the world), Bush say to Blair: "The irony is that Kofi needs to call [Bashar Assad, President of Syria] and tell him to have Hezbollah cut this shit out!"

The horror of the statement is how it ignores the history of this conflict as well as the general history of guerilla movements, militias, and paramilitary movements. It would be like 50 years ago, calling the racist governor of Alabama to stop the KKK from operating there. Sure, there's a connection and influence between Syria and Hezbollah but its a far cry from direct command-and-control authority. But, that's not what led to the thonk. No, that came when watching Nightline or Brian Williams, some standard American news fare. What angle were they taking on this frank exchange that had been beamed around the world? A sophisticated analysis of real politik, an examination of the links (real and imagined between Syria and Hezbollah), an assessment of the failed peace process that has led us to this moment? No, in the American media, it would be spun as (cue music and deep authoritative voice) "and when we come back, the President speaking off-the-mike and with casual bluntness, did his language go too far?" His language? His language?! The least of our concerns should be the use of the word shit for pity's sake!! The media really is making us stupid!

thonk!

Save Lebanon!

2006-07-17T10:57:00.000-05:00

Israel Rains Bombs Down on Lebanon
Originally uploaded by panafnewswire.

A friend and colleague from work is stuck in Lebanon with her two children. A friend and neighbor's 16 year old daughter is in Israel. On both sides, civilians are dying and getting hurt. I do not understand why the US is not calling for an immediate cease-fire!

Israel has the right to defend itself, yes. But why is it not targeting Hizbollah's stash of rockets instead of Lebanon's civilian infrastructure? Why does it think that Lebanon's army (with a weak and divided government behind it) can somehow destroy Hizbollah when the Israelis tried for decades and couldn't do it? Juan Cole this morning tells us:

Israel struck at large numbers of targets on Sunday, and early Monday morning, that had nothing to do with Hezbollah. The far north of Lebanon is Sunni, as is the port of Tripoli, where the Israelis killed a Catholic Lebanese soldier. They also hit factories in north Beirut, not a Shiite area. They bombed a village near Zahle, a notorious center of Greek Orthodox, killing 3 civilians. The Israelis are either not very good shots, since they have murdered 140 civilians since Wednesday and only managed to kill about 17 Lebanese military personnel. Or they just don't give a damn.

Ordinary Israelis do care about the deaths of civilians in Lebanon. At the very end of an article in the New York Times, we are told that 2000 people are demonstrating in the streets of Tel Aviv for an end to the attack on Lebanon. Why doesn't this get more coverage? Helena Cobban noted that within hours of the very first attack 200 people were protesting in front of the Israeli ministry of defense. Gush Shalom, Peace Now party, in Israel reports on on-going protests against the war in Israel(despite high levels of support for the conflict in Israel.) Leaders on both sides seemed gripped by megalomania and grim dreams of destruction. Olmert, stop the collective punishment of the Lebanese people. Nasrallah, stop the (barely guided) rocket attacks. Again, Juan Cole:

Hizbullah's attacks on Israeli civilians are war crimes. The killing of the civilians in Haifa at the train station was a war crime. And threatening to release chemicals from factories on civilian populations is probably a war crime in itself, much less the doing of it.

And the circle continues. We have to attack civilians X because they attacked our civilians Y, and so on and so on. On this I will stand with the Vatican:

"As in the past, the Holy See condemns both the terrorist attacks on the one side and the military reprisals on the other." It stated that Israel's right to self-defense "does not exempt it from respecting the norms of international law, especially as regards the protection of civilian populations."

"In particular, the Holy See deplores the attack on Lebanon, a free and sovereign nation."

Let's hope the prayers of the Pope are powerful because I do not have much faith in the diplomatic ability of President Bush or his administration to guide the world through this tight spot.

Hardliners

2006-07-14T16:39:00.000-05:00

I think that a sub-heading in the New York Times said it best this morning. Overnight, a Boost for Hard-Liners. Hard-liners everywhere from Israel, Lebanon, Gaza, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Iran have their credibility boosted while moderate voices are silenced by despair, muffled by on-going events that seem to prove to everyone the inhumanity of everyone else!

Wisdom from Juan

2006-07-13T10:06:00.000-05:00

Although I have tried to take a break from war-watching, recent events in Middle East cannot be ignored. The sectarian killings and cycle of reprisals continue in Iraq and now the Israel-Palestinian conflict is beginning to spill over into what could become a regional war. ya rab! ya rabi! What is happening here? Just when you think things cannot possibly get worse, new unimaginable events take matters into an even deeper downward spiral. Here's what Professor Juan Cole has to say today.

All hell broke loose on Wednesday in the Mideast, with a Hizbullah attack on the Israeli army and Israeli reprisals, and the Israeli dropping of a 500 pound bomb on Gaza. I roundly condemn Hizbullah's criminal and stupid attack on Israel and escalation of a crisis that is already harming ordinary Palestinians on a massive scale.

Likewise, the Beirut airport is not in south Lebanon and for the Israelis to bomb it and neighborhoods in south Beirut is a disproportionate use of force. The Israelis are actually talking about causing "pain to the Lebanese." That is despicable.

One thing is clear. This crisis will not leave the fabric of Lebanese politics untouched, and the danger of an unraveling is acute. And, it is clear that the withdrawal of Syria from Lebanon has given an opening to Israeli hawks to invade Lebanese territory again. It will not be good for Israelis if Lebanon collapses into a failed state again.

Rejectionists on both sides are to blame. The Oslo Peace Process could have forestalled all this violence, as Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin understood. But on the Israeli side, the then Likud Party of Bibi Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert derailed it. On the Palestinian side, Hamas rejected it. Had there been a peace process, prisoners would have been released in return for a cessation of hostilities, and there would have been no motivation to capture Israeli soldiers.

The lesson is that if you refuse to negotiate a peace, then you are likely to have to go on fighting a war.

And war means death, and modern warfare seems to involve mainly the death of civilians, children, parents, and other non-combatants. Helena Cobbana over at Just World Newsnotes,

If Haaretz's often well informed Amos Harel is to be believed, then his sources in at least the Israeli military (but let's hope not their political commanders?) are talking about inflicting damage on Lebanon that will force the country's "civilian infrastructures [to] regress 20, or even 50 years."

Well, at one level, we could say to that: no big deal. The Lebanese people in general-- and Hizbullah's associated "jihad al-bina'" construction companies in particular-- are really quite good at rebuilding civilian infrastructures. The Israeli military gave them plenty of practice doing that in the decades before 2000. At anothert level, though, we all know well today that when roads and bridges are cut, power generating plants and water and sewage plants incapacitated, then real people suffer and die-- and usually the sick, the old, the disabled, and the weak.

I have few words of wisdom of my own, just pray for peace.

"Works for Me" Garage Towels

2006-07-12T12:17:00.000-05:00

Today I'm joining Rocks in the Dryer Dryer for Works for Me Wednesday. I've always enjoyed what Mary at Owlhaven has on Works for me Wednesday, so I thought I'd join in.

Garage towels. Okay, this is my mom's term. I don't actually have a garage. I keep my garage towels in the laundry room which is just off the kitchen. I have an open loft-like floor plan with kitchen, dining room, living room and family room all in an open 29 x 40 sq. foot space. It fits in well with our kid-centric, attachment parenting lifestyle. Lots of activities can be done within view of one another but it wouldn't work without those towels!

The towels themselves are nothing special, just old, frayed, stained bath towels. They are kept folded on low shelf. Garage towels enable everyone to mop up spills quickly. They make tea parties, pretend cooking, toddlers who play in pet water bowls possible. They allow kids to serve themselves milk and lemonade. And they are priceless during the switch from diapers to underwear. Its amazing how much liquid a bath towel can absorb whether on hardwoods or carpet. (Note: when handing big spills on carpet, teach the kids to "do a dance" on top of the towel to encourage absorption.) The little ones learn not to cry over spills but to clean it up! I do my share of mop-up with these towels too and its amazing how a quick clean up can defuse irritation and let me see how important it is to focus on the kids and not the mess. Works for me!

Feeling blocked

2006-07-10T16:59:00.000-05:00

I've been out of town for a week and completely off the internet. A nice release yet I was surprised how often that my mind wandered while driving and I found myself thinking about various blogs that I read regularly and wondering what was new. Although I came up with a few ideas for posts of my own -- I find the empty highways of eastern Oklahoma very conducive to deep thoughts -- now that I'm home, I feel a resistance to writing here.

Much of it is grief. I'm experiencing the major and profound loss of my dad, the very different yet not insubstantial loss of a career in academia, and the on-going sense of loss and disconnection from the Middle East. I am numb to the war, the politics, the atrocities; I am numb to teaching and departmental petty battles; I am numb to much of American culture, the TV, the racism of society (my local paper just started a series on forgotten parts of the US where whites forced out minorities from 1876 until, well, until today). A violent urges to retch is the only reaction I have. An honest reaction, yes, but not very conducive to blogging.

My interests are less global these days and more . . . more . . . I don't know, unfocused? Wildly varied?

My new interest in eastern Africa continues although I'm cooling towards international adoption; community supported agriculture continues to sustain me as does attachment parenting.

For the first time in a long, long, time I am interested in reading again. A decade plus in graduate can really diminish the urge to read. I read two newspapers daily and the New Yorker and The Economist weekly but I feel ready to move on to actual books. This is a new and hopeful feeling. I'm resisting the desire to go to Amazon and one-click away. I want to join the local library and read for free (without the emotional or financial pain that all that graduate school reading provided).

Perhaps, while my subconscious processes the losses and changes of this spring, I will blog about books.

Walk the Talk

2006-06-28T13:14:00.000-05:00

Well, no comments on the earlier post but as a good Libra and a good teacher, I try to see other sides to an argument.

It is interesting to me that the US where so many feel that the culture is not supportive of children (based on the unhelpful and downright rude comments that so many families, large or small, built through biology or adoption, religious or secular, uni-racial, or trans-racial/transcultural recieve -- and if you don't believe me just read mommy blogs for a while), there is actually an amazing infrastructure of schools, agencies, social workers, and laws devoted to children's welfare. Whereas, so many countries where the prevailing "talk" of the culture is very pro-child (entire buses try to soothe a crying child, children are always greeted with a smile, and the conventional wisdom is that children are a blessing from God), the actual infrastructure devoted to children's welfare is very weak.

Is it that the poorer countries are mired in too much poverty to accommodate children's needs? Yet, so much can be done with so little: promotion of breastfeeding, vaccination, mosquito netting, free compulsory education, etc. And in so many poorer countries, the corrupt elites siphon off so much money into their own pockets. . . and in many countries, adoption of orphans isn't even an option for locals or foreigners. What keeps them from walking their talk about the blessing of children?

And in the US, where we do do so much for children at the individual, community, and societal level, why is the "talk" about kids so negative?

And, just to make it interesting, why is it that countries that do even more for kids, lengthy maternity leaves, universal health care, subsidized schooling, stipends for child, have much lower birthrates?

Immediate Interests

2006-06-26T14:00:00.000-05:00

The subtitle of this blog, "one mother's global interests" was an impulsive choice; one that I am still not sure of. It sounds a bit pretentious but it does try to capture something about how living in the developing world spurred me to become a mother, and then how motherhood deepened my interest in global issues such as poverty, development, war and peace.

Today, however, I want to write about one of my immediate interests, my baby Butter. (Much could be written on how people chose pseudonyms for themselves and their children in the blogosphere!). Butter is a 15 month-old baby boy. Sometimes we call him, "Mr. Intensity." He was our most difficult infant. A big crier who responded best not to more nursing (my default solution) but to tight swaddling and long walks outdoors. Many people who know me in real life have commented on how skinny I am. I tell them that Butter is a baby who came with his own built-in exercise program.

Butter prefers to nap in my arms which is how I came to blogging. Since daytime TV is a complete wasteland, I soon swapped my computer chair with the rocker. Checking emails and message boards, however, can only fill up so much time. As Butter's naps got longer, I started to read blogs to fill the time. First just my friends' blogs, Heather and Kim, then as a member of the Middle Eastern Studies Association, I thought I should read the blog of our president, Juan Cole. One blog led to another and soon I had my own personal blogroll to read each morning, starting with the political blogs, then the academic ones, then the mommy blogs. So, its only appropriate that Butter is the first of my three children to earn a post of his own.

Butter was an early walker and is now a tremendous climber. Its a miracle that he hasn't had a trip to the ER yet. He's fearless. He loves water. My husband starting taking him in the shower when Butter was just six weeks old. He never cried in the shower, so we knew he must like it. (Butter is not a baby who hesitates to show his displeasure). Now, he will stand or sit in the bottom of the shower and play happily while an adult showers. Its not unheard of for him to have two showers and a bath a day. He is amazing in the pool. He jumps right in and instinctively blows bubbles when his head goes under water. He does not get his love of water from me. I'm more catlike. Its all I can do to take a shower every two or three days!

Although Butter cried more, he also laughs more than any baby we have had. He has a beautiful smile complete with dimples! And he has learned how to use them to his best advantage.

He loves anything electronic. He has already mastered the TV, answering machine, and both my printers. If I sit down to nurse him in the rocker in front of the computer and the screen is dark, he reaches out to hit the keyboard and bring the computer to life before settling down to nurse. (Yes, we are still nursing at 15 months. I can't imagine how to mother a toddler without nursing! Don't worry sometime before he heads off to college we'll stop.)

Butter is a much wanted third child. I have been stunned by the number of people who have asked me, "so, what's it like having three?" And when I respond with "oh, its wonderful, lots of fun, much easier than just having one." They have come back with jaw-dropping statements like "oh, I just wondered, I was the third child and always thought that might have led to my parents' divorce." Or, "I was the third child and only girl and my brothers always told me that I ruined their lives." Then the "Lives" column of the New York Times Magazine this week is all about a woman's two unwanted pregnancies, one that ended in abortion, one in an unexpected third child. The author describes a secret society of women who approach her with their own stories of unwanted third children. Again, my jaw drops.

In Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, and from immigrants in the US from Thailand, Mexico, Turkey, and Bangladesh, and thankfully, from my own mother, I have heard again and again that all babies are blessings, a sign of joy in the universe, and a gift not to be refused. Baby Butter didn't disrupt my "perfect family" of one boy and one girl, as some people have implied. We consider him the exclamation point in our lives, the spicy jalapeno on the family sandwich, the cherry on top!

Mountain Voices

2006-06-22T11:26:00.000-05:00

I just discovered this site courtesy of a fellow professor who teaches comtemporary world issues (I teach a section of the course too). The site is Mountain Voices. It contains a wealth of summary information from ten regions (mountainous regions) of the world as well as transcripts of interviews with a wide variety of local people from each region. Ethiopia is one of the regions covered. Since I have recently discovered . . . um, okay, become obsessed with the world of ethiopia adoption on-line, I was particularly fascinated with the section on the Ethiopian Highlands. Mountain Voices does a good job of illustrating the complexities of life in rural areas that are experiencing environmental and social stresses without either over-romanticizing "traditional" culture or dismissing its value. They are able to do this by relying on the voices of ordinary people in the region.

This project is part of Panos' Oral Testimony Programme, which aims to amplify the voices of those at the heart of development: people who are disadvantaged by poverty, gender, lack of education and other inequalities. Collecting and disseminating oral testimonies allows the least vocal and least powerful members of society to speak for themselves, rather than through outsiders or "experts".

And these "ordinary" voices are powerful!

Although international adoption is not mentioned, the detailed information about daily life, cultural change, marriage, agriculture, poverty and disease gave me some insight into the conditions that might lead children into orphanages and eventually international adoption.

I have not conducted research in any of the areas of the world covered by Mountain Voices but the voices they highlight "rang true" with my own experiences working with villagers in a marginal agricultural zones within a developing country. Mountain Voices is a great resource for students and anyone else eager for a glimpse of the dynamics and challenges of everyday life in distant regions of the world.

Royalty Check!

2006-06-21T09:55:00.000-05:00

Talk about a pick-me up! Just a received a royalty check in the mail from proquest, the good folks in Michigan who distribute dissertations. Now, its a very small check to be sure but the thought that fourteen people paid money last year to get a copy of my dissertation is very energizing!

Its almost enough to get me working on my original goal for this summer which was to get an agent to help me package the dissertation for trade publication!

Would you pay money to read about an young American anthropologist who lives with a Sufi sheikh and his family and learns about gender, community, ritual, family, and the power of stories?

True Romance

2006-06-18T15:17:00.000-05:00

Mary from Owlhaven has a new post up at Larger Families titled Watermelon, Coffee and Waikiki and its about the little things that spouses do for each other and how that, more than grand gestures and expensive get-aways, nurture the relationship. In that same vein, I have to relate the sexiest thing that my husband said to me last night. As he got into bed at 1:30 (I had fallen asleep with the baby around 10:30), he said, "I stayed up and finished up all the laundry, I cleaned the cat box, and swept up the mess the baby made with the cat food."

Oh my, words to set the pulse racing. Talk about a turn on! At one point, just a bit later, I almost said to him, "tell me again about the laundry and the cat box . . ."

Look before you leap:Invisible Adjunct

2006-06-15T16:09:00.001-05:00

This post is for my neighbor Lance and my former student Luke and any one else who is brave enough (foolhardy enough?) to be working towards a career in the academy.

I am a proud recipent of a Ph.D. in anthropology. I worked hard for it. I always thought that I approached graduate school and the academic workplace with clear eyes but there were a series of hard realizations along the way. First, it was watching the way that hiring committees work -- the very arbitrary way that hiring decisions happen (mainly in response to departmental politics). Then it was learning that only one-third of those who get tenure-track positions actually get tenure. Then it was watching a professor in our department who was unanimously approved for tenure by the department get axed by the Dean.

I learned an immense amount in graduate school and worked with amazing professors. I was fortuate enough to have an advisor who was a true mentor. I had TAships, a private research assistantship, scholarships, and grants. But grad school took a long time. I watched older friends who had put off children during graduate school and early in their academic career struggle with infertility. Then I had children. Then I started teaching as an adjunct. I enjoyed it and I was good at it (I have teaching awards to prove it). But the pay was very low. I had an opportunity to have a position tailored for me at the small, rural liberal arts college I attend. I declined. I realized that I was now "place-bound" a fancy term for academics who can't or don't want to do a national job search and take a job where ever one appears. But I finished my dissertation and continued to teach as an adjunct, hoping that the low pay and poor treatment might some day be transformed into a real teaching position.

Then I discovered Invisible Adjunct. Its an inactive blog. But over a three week period I read every post and every comment and explored every link. Finally, I realized what a dead-end academia is for so many people (and me as well). Please pay attention to the "Academic Job Market section. Here is a brief selection from the first post in that section:

"Still, I have a mournful affection for students who remain confident of their ability to beat the odds. The young feel invincible and full of potential. And many universities view their naiveté and energy as an exploitable resource. The majority of graduate students exist to provide cheap labor for undesirable undergraduate courses and students for high-prestige graduate programs taught by tenured professors. It seems like the undergraduates are the only ones who don't know this, and they get angry when you tell them.
-- Thomas H. Benton, If You Must Go to Grad School...

In his "So You Want to Go to Grad School?" column (which I [Invisible Adjunct] blogged about here), Thomas H. Benton made a compelling case against graduate school in the humanities. He now offers words of wisdom for those who insist on following this very risky pursuit. It's important to note that Benton is not encouraging and endorsing the graduate school option. "I believe that most would not choose to go," he writes, "if they were properly informed about the risks (the most notable of which is a strong probability of never landing a tenure-track job)."
I agree. Though aspiring graduate students will readily acknowledge that they
realize the job market is "tight," many have no idea of just how grim is the situation in many fields in the humanities.

Yes, its a bit like wanting to go to Hollywood and write screenplays, maybe even more risky and less likely, and certainly less well-paid. My advice? Go to Invisible Adjunct, read the Academic Job Market section, follow the links to every Thomas H. Benton article in the Chronicle of Higher Education and then chart your future.

A dollar for community

2006-06-06T09:36:00.000-05:00

Need a lift? A kick in the butt? Umm . . . not going to find it here. I'm still not quite up for that. But go read Chris at The Big Yellow House. Life is like baseball, got to keep swinging! I should be ready to step up to the plate again soon. But not today.

I caught most of Nightline last night on ABC. Songs for the Children about the devestation of AIDs in Africa and the way that antiretroviral drugs can keep children alive and more importantly, parents with HIV alive to raise their children. The piece featured Alicia Keyes and the charity Keep A Child Alive. One dollar a day is enough to pay for a daily dose of antiretroviral drugs, the drugs that turn AIDs from a killer into a chronic, managable condition. I can do a dollar a day and I bet that so can you!

Grief is numbing but I'm finding small ways to re-engage with the world. My father's death is saddening but it was not a tragedy. The way that AIDs destroys communities by killing those in their twenties and thirties and forties, those who are raising children and aiding parents, those who teach and nurse and farm and work and produce; that is what sets the AIDs epidemic apart from other epidemics (whose vicitims are generally drawn from the margins of the very young and very old) and makes it a threat not just to individuals but to whole communities. Being at home and witnessing the outpouring of dinners, flowers, cards, calls, and visits around my father's death reinforced my belief in the power of community. I'm grateful now to have a small way to support communities in Africa who are facing such a dire threat as the hollowing out of society that AIDs can inflict.

When Time Stood Still

2006-05-22T18:11:00.000-05:00

On the evening of May 13, 2006 my father died unexpectedly at home. Although more than a week has now passed, it feels as if time has stood still.

My email is out of reach, I have not checked a blog, even newspapers go unread. The rhythms of daily life have been upended. My own family has relocated to my parents' home hundreds of miles away. My siblings and children bring consolation and joy. Legions of friends and family have offered support through gestures big and small. But there is an enormous hole in our hearts that time has only slowly begun to heal.

I will continue to update this blog and hope to resume daily blogging later this summer. For now however my focus is outside the blogosphere.

Breakfast, savory or sweet?

2006-05-13T14:31:00.000-05:00

I'm working on a longer post about some of the backstory to my numerous Middle Eastern adventures but I spent all morning working at the CSA garden and I need a nap.

A friend asked me friday about breakfast in the Middle East. She has been asked to breakfast by an Iranian friend and was surprised by the breakfast items: bread, cheese, tomatos, cucumbers. "No olives?" I asked her. Breakfast in the Middle East is usually savory not sweet. Oh, there might be jam or preserved fruit on the table but those sorts of sweet items are usually reserved for the children. In fact, I've noticed how Americans who insist on sweet things for breakfast earn indulgent smiles from their hosts. Its another small way that so many Americans appear infantilized, like little children who need their sweets.

There's really nothing better for breakfast than fresh flatbread, torn into small pieces and wrapped around salty cheese or olives or dipped into olive oil and then zatar (a spice blend that varies from region to region and house to house). Cucumber and tomatos balance it out. And of course, hot sweet tea.

I remember how during a vacation with my husband on the Mediterranean coast we won over the waiters at the fancy hotel by always selecting the cucumbers, cheese, olives, yogurt, and flat break from the breakfast buffet instead of the "western" choices (pastries, corn flakes, or eggs). They also looked at us approvingly when we drank lemonade or orange juice with every meal instead of alcohol.

Paying attention to little habits and working to blend in rather than stand out with my choices was always a conscious effort when I was living in the Middle East but over the years such things became second nature and began to reshape my subconscious nature in ways that continue to surprise me.

I do serve my children traditional American items for breakfast and generally eat cearal myself. But if it is offered, I will go for the cheese, olives, and cucumbers every time! And maqdous! Someday, there will have to be an entire post about the joys of eating preserved eggplant stuffed with walnuts for breakfast!

New chick!

2006-05-12T10:55:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am now part of "Blogging Chicks!," a collection of blogs written by women. Please take a look at the Blogging Chicks blogroll that will now be a part of my sidebar. Thanks to Michelle for organizing it and Owlhaven for bringing it to my attention. If you are a women who blogs consider signing up!

I plan to spend some time exploring the other "Blogging Chicks" and I'll highlight my favorites in another post!

Arabic Proficiency

2006-05-11T09:29:00.000-05:00

A packet came in the mail yesterday from San Diego State University with information about their "distinguished level Arabic and Persian program" for the summer. Unlike the flurry of expansion in basic Arabic and Persian programs over the past few years, this one concentrates on taking advanced/superior proficient learners of Arabic (or Persian) and through intensive study in small groups with master teachers moving them to "distinguished level" the level required to use Arabic competently in professional capacities.

In fifteen years of graduate school and teaching in Middle Eastern Studies this is the first program of this nature that I have seen. Looks like we are finally getting serious about producing Americans with deep proficiency in Middle Eastern languages! Where was this program September 12, 2001? Or November 5, 1979?

Arabic is a difficult language to learn (although I found it easier than Chinese). But the biggest problem is that it is a diglossic language like Spanish. It has a universal "high" written form that no one but newsreaders speak (and government officials giving formal speeches) and then regional dialects that have multiple forms depending on the education and background of the speaker. You can be fluent in fusha, Modern Standard Arabic, but that won't get you very far with an Iraqi peasant. You can be conversant with Iraqi dialect in the Anbar province but that won't help you speak to a peasant in Morocco or a schoolteacher in Cairo. And that's as much true of native speakers as language learners. I like to compare Arabic to a martial art, there's always anther belt level to master. Can you imagine a single Spanish speaker who can speak with the same fluency in a university in Madrid and one in Argentina? Now send them to a subway in Mexico City, then East LA. It would be hard going. Arabic works the same way. A difficult fact that has taken our military, FBI, CIA, and police too long to grasp (although I think that the NYPD figured it out first).

Ahmed Hashim of the Navel War College has said in the Air Force Times
"We have a civil war right now, a low-level civil war,” he said. “Our understanding of Iraq has advanced at a very glacial pace, and the only policy we really have in our hand right now...is to leave.” The counterinsurgency strategies the U.S. has been implementing so far may not be effective tools for dealing with a civil war or organized crime, he added.
“To stay in Iraq and to affect the situation in Iraq will require a kind of understanding at a level far deeper than we have,” he said.

The program at SDSU is probably too little, too late to help the US deal with the civil war in Iraq, but since America will be neck-deep in the region for the next 30 years, I suppose it is better late than never.

Deadliest Catch

2006-05-10T10:20:00.000-05:00

Why am I so obssessed with the show Deadliest Catch? I can watch episode after episode, glued to the couch.

I was taken from the first moment I saw the very first show back in the summer of 2004. I was pregnant and miserable. The only thing makes me feel better during the miseries of the first trimester is to watch people who are more miserable than me. Suddenly, the ocean of nausea and gloom I was caught in seemed like nothing compared to the icy Bering sea as men swung an endless number of 700-pound crab pots aboard rocking crab boats. Suddenly, I was aware of all the comforts around me: my soft couch, a cat to pet, air-conditioning. I started planning my evenings around seeing the show whenever it was on.

I am also drawn in by watching people work together as a team to do a hard job. (I think its also the draw of medical and legal shows). Deadliest Catch is riveting because the dangers are immediate and real (death is nearly instanteous if you fall into the Bering Sea during the winter). The interactions between the deckhands and captains, and the captains with each other are absorbing. It feels "real" in ways that staged "reality shows" do not. Of course, the genius of the whole thing lies in the editing and post-production shaping of the shows, not to mention the understated voice-over. And where the show be without the Bon Jovi "Dead or Alive" theme song?

Its also riveting to watch a complete world that is at once vital and virtually unknown. I have that anthropologist's love of encountering a new world with a new history, and culture, and language to learn. They are out there crabbing and fishing while the rest of us are obssessed with the college football season or the NFL or the latest scandel de jour on cable news. All to bring us (and primarily the Japanese consumer, I believe) crab. After watching the whole first season, I once came upon a live King Crab in a tank at the supermarket. I gasped out loud at the sight. "You" I told it, "you are reason all those men work so hard and risk so much." I had a new understanding of the very real cost in time, effort, and lives, it took to bring that crab from the Bering Sea to my Texas store.

Its strangely restorative in a manner similar to working in the garden. I could watch all day.

Gratitude

2006-05-09T14:15:00.000-05:00

Well, it seems that the universe has been conspiring to make sure that I finish all my grading for the courses I taught this semester. First, my own internet access was out all day yesterday and then this morning blogger was acting up and I couldn't post. So I filled my days with grading papers and exams. I'm grateful that the baby spent much of this napping.

As I mentioned in an earlier post teaching the course on contemporary world issues focusing on Islam really took it out of me this semester. Keeping up with the news out of Iraq and Afghanistan and Washington takes a toll and I was too often angry and impatient about it all. In April, however, I found an unexpected source of solace. My family has begun volunteering at a CSA garden. CSA stands for community supported agriculture. There are many in our area but only one that gives you an opportunity to work on the farm itself. Each weekend that we work on the farm (two adults and two kids for about 4 hours) we earn a BIG box of vegetables harvested right from the garden.

The farm is amazing. Twelve acres on the banks of a small creek. Despite the presence of five rowdy dogs it is a deeply peaceful place. Working in the soil is immediately soothing and feels very "rooted." I think about the gardens of my German grandmother and the gardens of my Iowa in-laws.

Although the farm is organic and uses little machinery, it is not a safe place for a toddler. I wear the baby in a front carrier the entire time and I feel connected to the women I've watched in rural Syria who cultivate cotton with babies on their hips and the women in so many African cultures where gardening is "women's work" and done with baby in tow. The baby also seems to find the physical rhythms of gardening soothing. He sleeps most of the time.

It is wonderful to see the older kids moving confidently through such a large space. They help us most of the time but also take breaks under two large trees. Although they remain in our sight, it is a much further distance away from us than we would ever allow in our daily urban existence. They are learning about how food is grown, how much work it takes, and the cycles of planting and harvesting.

I feel restored after working there. It fills a need for quiet, for physical labor, and for scale. There is something about working the soil with fields and sky around you. I feel the restored to the right size. Cyberspace draws you in, magnifies your connection (here I am darting to Informed Comment, then the Iraqi blogs, then to Washington) yet somehow makes you feel smaller too. Working in the garden with my family around me, the sky above me, I feel right-sized again. The nervous energy of web-surfing is replaced with a deep calm. And I come back with a week's worth of veggies and the composure to research and learn and teach about the "big issues" again.

Its all a conspiracy!

2006-05-07T10:50:00.000-05:00

Found an interesting piece from Robert Fisk today on ChamPress. Its an illustration of the type of paranoia and conspiracy thinking all too common in the Middle East today. His Syrian "security source" relates stories gleaned from Iraqi Shia pilgrims to Damascus who tell of Iraqi policemen trained by American forces who are instructed to drive a car into crowded, public areas then park and walk away. When they call their American bosses and report the position of the car, the car explodes.

Two things come to mind when reading this story. The first is how the Bush adminstration's desire for secrecy and disdain of treaties, codes of ethics, and rule of law makes these stories harder to refute. Their enthusiasm for outsourcing and privatizing what were once core military functions puts these stories into the realm of the distantly possible. Very, very distantly. But no longer absolutely unthinkable. (Would some black-clothed security forces from an unregulated American security company operating outside the military chain of command and outside the American military's code of conduct do such a thing? . . . um . . . maybe. I would hate to believe so but here's the thing, they could and how would we know? How would anyone ever hold them accountable?) Listen to what National Guard Lt. and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Paul Rieckhoff said about such security forces on Fresh Air this past Thursday.

The second thing is that such stories show just how hard it is for ordinary pious Muslims to believe that other Muslims could attack civilians with car bombs and suicide attacks. Violence directed against civilians is clearly outside of the bounds of lawful warfare as proscribed by the Quran. Both suicide and violence against fellow Muslims are unthinkable in traditional Islam. It is easier to think that such attacks must be directed by the occupying forces than to realize how Sunni insurgent extremists are distorting Islam and Iraqi society.

With the downing of a British heliocopter in Basra and growing unrest in the formerly quiet south of Iraq, the occupation looks increasingly untenable both on the ground in Iraq and politically in the US and Britain. (And yes, I think occupation is the most accurate term for it, there have been elections but a functioning Iraqi government has yet to be formed.) Blair and Bush both in big trouble is how Helena Cobban puts it.

Epiphany

2006-05-06T09:47:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking about blogging for quite a while, a year at least. So why did I start this week? One reason was a sudden insight that I got about myself on Tuesday. I was driving home from administering the final exam in my contemporary world issues class, I was listening to public radio, the song was something about America, elegic, and it made me think about about my desire to take my children back to the Middle East, back to the rural desert settlements in the Jazeera. And then I was suddenly conscious that so much of how I raise my children, particularly Alexander, Iskandar, who was conceived just weeks after I returned from completely my dissertation fieldwork, is subtly affected by the need to prepare them for that trip.

We do not own any hand-held electronic games for example. I am suddenly conscious that I have excluded them not only because of a general desire to possess less but to meet a specific need. I can't take a gameboy focused kid to the desert. We eat potato chips and corn chips; but I avoid like the plague trendy processesd food. No blue applesauce, no pop tarts, no cool ranch doritos. There are all kinds of health reasons for this but in the car on Tuesday I was flooded with the sudden realization that my underlying motivation for so many of these parenting decisions is to have children who I can take to the Middle East, to Africa, to the developing world. Children who will not be obnoxious Americans anxious for familiar food (I once saw a whole planeful of band kids from a small texas town swarm the snack bar in the international lounge in Dallas for "real Cokes" sweetened with corn syrup. They felt terribly deprived to have drank only Coke with beet sugar during their two weeks in Germany. )

It has been years since I have been in the Middle East. We have intended to take the whole family each year since 2004 but each year the political situation seems to get worse and worse. Its now clear that it won't get better perhaps for a generation. I am not sure when I will get to show my children the places that have meant so much to me. When they will be able to meet the people whose voices I still hear in my head. It is in response to those voices that I turn my kids away from Disneyworld, from gameboys, from DVD players in the car. Somehow, this week I realized that in ways that I hadn't consciously understood before. And I thought to myself, I need to blog about this.

And here we are.

Hope and Despair

2006-05-05T09:52:00.000-05:00

Ugh! I suppose that I should first 'fess up in response to Kim's comment about having 'deep thoughts.' I think about the war and Darfur and global warming and all the rest in part because I do think of myself as a global citizen and a mother (hence deeply and profoundly invested in the future) but also because ocassionally I'm paid to do so as a college instructor.

I'm just an lowly adjunct (see the archives of Invisible Adjunct if you want to know more about the pain of adjuncting) but I have taught classes with titles like "Intro to global issues" and "Contemporary World Issues: Islam" and it becomes a habit to try to keep up the world. This semester I found myself disengaged from my Contemporary Issues: Islam class. I felt vaguely angry towards the class all the time. It took me a while to realize that I wasn't angry at the students. I'm angry about this administration, about the war, the timing, the preparation, the occupation, the neglect, the loss of life and limb. The utter destruction of America's reputation as a beacon of hope, human rights, civility, and justice.

I feel constrained to say such things before the class, no matter how well I could document them. Adjuncts have no tenure, no security, no long-term contracts. One disgruntled students complains to the Dean and you're out the door. So instead, I displaced my anger onto the class and taught with a more distant, impatient manner than I ever have. Now that I'm aware of it I hope that it will affect me less next term but its clearly time for me to start the transformation away from academia.

On to the source of today's despair! I start my day at the keyboard with Juan Cole's Informed Comment every morning. Here, I keep up on the war and explore other links. Today, he led me to this piece about the Bush war plan to advance corporate freedom over the more familiar types of freedom like FDR's four freedoms, including 'freedom from want, freedom from fear.' I still feel nauseous from reading the piece. I despise conspiracy theories and the type of negative paranoia that surrounds so much Bush bashing but, smacking the table with my open palm, this administration is so cynical, so filled with a lust for power and profit . . . vomiting seems like the only sane response.

The only solution is to fight them on every front. So here's a bit of good news from Helena Cobban, the US Senate has declared that the US should not establish permanent military bases in Iraq. Let's hope that they have the gumption to make this stick! Fear of a permanent US military prescence in Iraq fuels the insurgency. Ordinary Iraqis won't rat out the insurgents in their midst if they feel that the US military is there to fulfil some secret plan to set up permanent bases.

Another solution: learn more about Iraq! One place to start is Anthony Shadid's powerful book, Night Draws Near. It comes out in paperback this summer. I plan to send copies to all my family and friends.

Another great source, and completely free, are Iraqi blogs! Yes, there are even Iraqis blogging in English. One of the best is Treasure of Baghdad. I have put others in my link list. Want to hear the voice of a middle-aged, educated, powerful, Iraqi woman? A voice in the blogosphere that resonates with all the other strong, middle-class Arab women I know? (Yes, strong, articulate, passionate Arab women. Yes. They exist. They are practically the only kind of Arab women you can find!) Read Faiza's blog. Some of it is in Arabic but it is well worth it to scroll down and search for the English posts. And here I find my hope. I don't subscribe to rose-tinted nostalgic views on some sort of universal motherhood. But motherhood is powerful, parenting is powerful. And as I type, with my 14-month old, asleep in my arms, I know that it one of the things that draws me out into the world and forces me to have a voice.

Motherhood is also my solace. As I run through my blogs in the morning from the political blogs to the mommy blogs, I always end with Owlhaven. It restores my equilibrium to visit this multi-cultural family. Both American and global, traditional and contemporary, ordinary and extraordinary. Then I can begin the rest of my day.

Learning Curve

2006-05-04T09:11:00.000-05:00

The first step is to figure out just what it is I am doing! Posting is very, very easy. But I'm struggling a bit to figure out blogger, navigating the dashboard etc.

I've discovered that I can take a free workshop on HTML at the university where I teach on Monday. I'll have to pay for babysitting but hopefully I can learn a few things.

Let's try linking in a post. Yes, very basic blogging stuff I know. Are you reading Juan Cole's Informed Comment ? If not, fellow citizens of the world, start now.

Haphazard Start

2006-05-03T22:51:00.000-05:00

Okay, despite lots of thought about starting a blog, I probably shouldn't have started it up on a whim while nursing the baby, fifteen mintutes before having to leave to pick the other kids up at school. I had thought about blogging under the name Um 'Skandar or Mother of Alexander for a while but the phrase one mother's global interests came to me while I was in the middle of setting up the account AND changing a poopy diaper simultaneously, probably not the wisest thing. We'll leave the phrase in for now. Because I do spend my days nursing a baby and changing diapers AND thinking about the war in Iraq, and AIDs in Africa, and public education in the US, and the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Democratic Party in Texas. And the one thing that unites all the disparate threads in my life is my role as a mother. And I wouldn't be the mother that I am without all those years spent in the Middle East where I would now be known by my kunya, Um 'Skandar.

And then there's the thought that perhaps I should have used two ms in Umm, I suppose there's a shahada there in the original Arabic . . .

But hey, this is a blog. Not a doctoral dissertation, and we've already done one of those. Imperfections are part of blogging!

so here we go . . .