Forum '79: Private Manning, everybody's mirror

NOTE WAY AFTER THE FACT (12th June 2017): this letter was written at the nadir of the Obama Admin.'s credibility, at least in my eyes. In retrospect, I over-reacted. Most of the 'grave matters' at hand were resolved justly. As these situations unfolded, I believe the President acted in a way that documented the high content of his character on the NSA-programs and on (now) Chelsea Manning. In fact, President Obama did the right and noble deed by commuting Ms Manning's sentence after seven years so she can lead a full life as she is only thirty now. Bravò to President Obama for his innate sense of justice.


This month, with its news stories, has been overwhelming. So many runs, hits and errors are spinning the scoreboard so silly that President Obama does not have the time to call down to the bull-pen to get a ‘quicker-picker-upper’ warming up. Now is an easy time to judge the President, especially for a fellow like me who came of age during Watergate and the depressing fall of South Viet Nam. So, for baby boomers, we have to remember what Watergate was like.

Yes, many of these behaviors, exhibited repeatedly by this Administration and even by the President, get me thinking, “That is like ‘xyz’ that occurred under President Nixon.” Yet, we have to wait until the full body of information is revealed before conclusions will make sense. It is all too easy to fall prey to the seductive cynicism of imputing the worst. Since there are, as yet, too few dots to connect, I can take those dangling in front of me and make them stick figures or Jackson Pollack.

The currently incomplete information may seem like a political Rorschach test with my interpretation saying far more about me than about the President, at least at this time. Nevertheless, the current array of scandals – or near-scandals taken that way – is troubling. Though I have spent much of my free time watching the hearings around these events, this essay is not intended to review each event. 

We all have our opinions, most quite well informed. Honest and concerned citizens can, do and will differ on each event. The one scandal that I see that could rise to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor under the Constitution, as elaborated in the Federalist Papers, would be the tragedy of Benghazi. My personal odyssey of the migration of my feeling to that belief is neither interesting to you nor within the scope of this essay. 

In any case, I should say that my concern about Benghazi has nothing to do with the manipulated narrative of the “talking points”. As a member of party that invented the ‘spin’ doctor, I have no room to judge. The truly ominous dimension, created by an ambiguous time-line and a lack of its clarification by spokesmen of the Administration, involves the President’s conduct, attentiveness and decisions during the hours of the murder of a gifted diplomat and other high-value U.S. public servants.

These and other questions will be answered. Time and hearings will wrest out into the public discourse the transparency thus far lacking from this Administration. The big difference I have in perspective between now and forty years ago is that I have lived through calumny aimed at me behind my back where I have faced the dilemma of belying nasty things said (and lending credence to the discussion) or moving on and hoping the manure melts away.  

That everyday bane can embitter people and make them defensive, resorting to actions they might not otherwise take. Imagine this happening every day? Imagine this happening every day in an atmosphere of relative isolation yet never being alone in the company of yes-minions? Imagine this happening every day and knowing that, no matter what you say, it will be twisted by some self-interested commentator to make you look sleazy, kind of rotten at the core? I know one thing: I could never hack it. 

As sensational as these news events are, the one big story to me is the trial of Bradley Manning. In short, it is the moral dilemma of our time. President Obama may remain under siege, may be impeached and removed from office or, hopefully, will be vindicated. Representative Issa may be a snake oil salesman with French cuffs, though I do not see it in the hearings. Anti-intellectual con-men like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity may continue to impede my long awaited and cherished conservative renaissance. 

Those babbling bauble-heads of the beltway will sort these things out over time. The issue of Bradley Manning is one that is not Presidential, not military, not legal. It is moral: it squarely rests on each of us as members of a democratic citizenry. My sympathy for Private Manning started the day he was identified as the mother-lode of Wiki-Leaks, when I read in the New York Times a portrait of then Corporal Manning as a deranged homosexual.  That immediately reminded me of President ‘Dick’ Nixon (before he names you) and the smear campaign of Daniel Ellsberg.

As a thoughtless early teen, l took Dr Ellsberg to be some sort of nutty egg-head who was a pussy and went to a psychiatrist. Only later, did I realize that Dr Ellsberg risked a generation in prison to expose a monstrous network of lies that made my America a monster in Viêt Nam, Cambodia and Laos; he kept me out of Hell and I am grateful, becuse I would have served in Viêt Nam.  So, likewise, the good Corporal was caricatured in a manner that is technically against the law.

True to form, I have watched now-Private Manning, far from perfect, act responsibly in the sense that he has never tried to cop a plea or tried to make an excuse but has stood up and stated flatly what he did and why he did it. If nothing else, I now know that a young man’s sexual preference is independent of his manliness and moral courage. We have also come to learn that Private Manning negotiated carefully with Wiki-Leaks to avoid endangering people. 

My next letter, out in the next day or two, will go into the specifics of my defense of Private Manning. That may be tedious and so I would like to keep the more general discussion apart from that more specific, though separating the two runs the risk of killing both Siamese twins; each comes from the same essence and each challenges us as a people with the same daunting moral choices around what to do about information in an information-sensitive (and saturated) but insecure age.

In concluding these thoughts, I would like to touch briefly on Messrs Assange and Snowden. Basically, I see their cases as almost tautological (i.e., of course they are innocent) in view the moral manliness already displayed by Private Manning. Julian Assange is a journalist and Wiki-Leaks is a mass-media outlet dedicated to transparency. This view of Mr Assange and Wiki-Leaks is a value-call; I see this type of transparency as the sure foundation of accountability, the life-blood of representative – not to mention Madisonian – democracy.

The allegations against Mr Assange in Sweden are serious, though I suspect they are bogus. All interests can be served if the Sweden authorities bring the accusers, if they consent, to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and confront Mr Assange with evidence underlying the charges. If there is enough evidence to warrant a full trial, either:

• re-flag sufficient space in the Ecuadorian Embassy under Swedish sovereignty to conduct a trial and, if convicted, extradite Mr Assange to Ecuador or Sweden, at his choice, for sentencing; or,
• simply extradite Mr Assange to Ecuador for trial with the permission of Swedish authorities to participate in the prosecution.

My gut says that any charges will disappear behind excuses like the evidence is not as clear as previously thought, those making the accusations fear that Mr Assange will be acquitted and seek revenge, etc. 

Edward Snowden is as evident in his innocence, with respect to the Espionage or any other ‘Act’ for two reasons. It is not certain that he disclosed anything that has not been in the public domain. Arguably, studying these meta-data is, as a friend of mine astutely observes, a use information generated by a public utility (i.e., cell phones), if privately owned. There ought not be a presumption of privacy with information already in the public domain. That cuts both ways; it is hard to cry treason for someone revealing the private use of information in the public domain. 

More importantly, Mr Snowden has done Private Manning an enormous favor by being (or appearing on a first look), well, ‘normal’. Yes, we are already hearing about how Mr Snowden inflated his salary (though it is, I suspect, likely reconciled by overtime and bonus income). We will, undoubtedly, hear a lot more about Mr Snowden in an effort to slime his singular courage. It will not stick as easily as it did with then Corporal Manning who was alone in the glare of all the news that is fit to print...

In essence, Mr Snowden takes the poison out of the baseless slur that Private Manning is some deranged, attention-seeking, troubled, magically thinking, neurotic, etc. homosexual desperately seeking meaning. Mr Snowden’s relatively uncomplicated life, thus far (before the smear gears begin spinning), points to Bradley Manning’s heroism and underlines our duty to rise above this scandal in which we are all guilty by eating up this hypocritical baloney from the first slice.

Letter #78: more against drone strikes

Introduction:  this is a comment that follows an interesting and thoughtful analysis in the Small Wars Journal by MAJ Charles Kels, detailing his legal criticisms of the "White Paper" leaked to NBC news on which I wrote a previous letter (#75-two months ago).  

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/justice-department-memo-evidences-confusion 

The previous letter argued against this policy from a moral and constitutional perspective.  This letter argues the political folly of this policy; the hypothetical example below should resonate with anyone knowledgeable of the American Revolution. Second link written in 05feb23 was added above on 05jan24.

================Comment in S.W.J.=============

MoveForward,

You make a valid observation on the fact that U.S. authorities would cooperate with their British counterparts. To clarify my perspective, let’s take this discussion one step further. There are four Irish men, suspected by the U.K. of being I.R.A. terror-killers but with no police records, who come to Boston and stay with relatives or friends of their families in four different homes.

Scotland Yard notifies the U.S. authorities that these people are suspected of terrorism and may be in Boston to raise funds to buy arms from Libya with which to kill troops of her Majesty’s Army and innocents nearby the blast site. The U.K. police officials further state that they believe that such fund-raising will be a likely prelude to subsequent violence, though they really do not know exactly when that mass murder would occur.

What goes unstated is that the British government sees that subsequent probability as an “imminent attack”. This assertion may or may not be shared by the U.S. counterparts. Additionally, there may open a perception gap between a British perception of these four men as “high level operatives of a terrorist organization at war with the U.K.” while their counterparts in Boston see them as suspected criminals or gang-members.

Of course and appropriately, the U.S. government immediately pledges to cooperate and does so by monitoring movements of the four people designated by the U.K. So, over the course of the next week, local police and federal agents monitor the movements of these suspects. The U.S. authorities report back that there has been no evidence of a crime or one imminently to be committed.

They have been at group activities but these have involved outings like going to Fenway to catch the Redsox against the Yankees. One activity that had been interesting had been a meeting of an Irish solidarity group, one of many, in a local Church but that turned out to be hosted by the parish priest for raising funds for Irish children to go to parochial schools.

With no evidence, the U.S. authorities state that, regrettably, they can not detain these people and extradite them to Britain. The British authorities press their U.S. counterparts, saying that the fund-raising was a front for getting money to buy arms. The U.S. law enforcement authorities state that they are unprepared to suspend habeas corpus but pledge to continue monitoring these people for the next two weeks, at which point, the four men head back to Belfast.

Scotland Yard realizes that, under current extradition treaties, it can not send in the Royal Marines or detectives to abduct these suspicious people in Boston with no legal charges pending in either country. So now we have, from the British view, a sense of imminent attack (and consistent under the white paper); an unwillingness displayed by the U.S. government; and, infeasibility of capture.

The British believe that if these men with these funds return to Ireland, that mass murder will likely, but not certainly, ensue sometime over succeeding months when they have purchased weapons from Libya. So, the U.K. government launches surveillance drones and they buzz around South Boston for two weeks, engendering (incidentally) fear among local residents.

The only time that these four suspects are in one place long enough to launch a strike and when they are not at venues – like baseball games, Sunday masses, Pops concerts, etc. – with high concentrations of innocents is when they are asleep in those four townhouses. To prevent an attack on the homeland, these authorities authorize a night-time strike, to minimize civilian casualties, and the rest of the example ensues.

Now all of this discussion on my part in no way implies that the United Kingdom would ever do something like this action nor does it indicate any sympathy with these men if, in fact, they are opportunistic gangsters. The point is to create a scenario in terms more familiar to us that would envision these circumstances to place us in the position in which the Pakistanis find themselves.

In this scenario, the United States would likely have means to disable these drones, as you observe. So, that part of the hypothetical does not correspond well with the likely reality. Nevertheless, citing that fact does not really address the underlying question put to the reader: ¿how would Americans react were such an act to occurr on their shores at the mortal expense of many innocents who were fellow citizens?

Additionally, the Bay State and the Pakistani tribal regions are two very different places. It might be conceivable (if I had the technical knowledge to argue it) that the topography and remoteness of the tribal regions, the number of fighter aircraft available and the ability to sustain them could preclude such a defensive option by Pakistan, even if it wanted to capture or kill these militants.

Again, MoveForward, many thanks for your thoughts.

Very truly yours,
Ned McDonnell.
Peace Corps-México.

Letter-77: nested autonomy for greater Kurdistan; next steps for Syria

Introduction: this is a response in a dialogue debating a proposed counter-insurgency program in the area of Village Stability Operations in the Small Wars Journal. This idea of nested autonomy (a region shared by four nations inside of which Kurdish people would move freely as dual citizens of 'Kurdistan' and the country in which their part of Kurdistan currently lies) has been floating inside my ahead for years. Developments in Syria may make the time of experimentation propitious.  

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/irregular-warfare-network-warfare-and-the-venture-capital-green-beret
On Syria, the time for some type of intervention may be approaching; but in Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq to train local policing for future use in Syria.  Any extension into Syria would be for facilitation of the delivery of humanitarian supplies and the imminent entrance of peace-keeper from other Muslim nations outside of the region.  

============REMARKS=============

Guys,

Come on.  I was answering a straight-forward question on how I would assess this possible downside and unexpected consequences as well as envision ‘how’ such a program for entrepreneurial development would manifest in current hot spots.  Imputing arrogance and ignorance to me expands the scope of the discussion far beyond the answer of a straight-forward question on application only, not appropriateness; I think you two know better than to shift the discussion to a platform for emotionalism.  In a sense, in any discussion of the appropriate use or projection of power into sinuously sensitive situations to the U.S. national interest, I would be one person among many expressing what the government should do.  Needless to say, my opinions on what to do would likely be quite different from what I answered to LTC Martin.  But, I think you know that. 

Dayuhan, I take specific difference with the issues of Kurdistan and Syria. First Syria, since Kurdish nested autonomy is largely irrelevant to this article, to the discussion and to my previous preliminary answers to LTC Martin’s legitimate hypothetical questions.  Syria may well be a location for an SOF intervention.  As one person among many, I would propose that, if we consider the application of military (specifically SOF) power, arguments should focus on the swelling refugee communities in neighbouring countries with a view toward protecting our ally in Jordan as well as two more fragile and tentative democracies of Iraq and Lebanon.  The skills learned by the SOF in current police training in Afghanistan, as mentioned by ADM McRaven, could prove to be transferable and helpful.

That program could not only seek to stem the intimidation that often works with radicalization of communities (to muzzle the moderates), but also to train the core of a civilian force to re-enter Syria and assume the policing function.  Additionally, I would argue for a limited intervention into Syria itself, with explicit timelines and force levels, to assure delivery of humanitarian supplies and to facilitate a longer-term intervention of peace-keeping troops from disinterested nations with substantial Muslim populations, preferably outside of the region (Malaysia, Indonesia, Tanzania, Morocco, etc.).  In each case, the conditions would have to be propitious; there would have to be a desire for peace across all parties (including the U.S.), and a willingness to honour the intervention as a short-term, impartial facilitation only.

Now onto nested autonomy.  The Kurdish region of Iraq thrived, despite limitations of isolation, etc., during the years of the no-fly-zone and after its “liberation” (their words, not mine) by President Bush.  Apparently, a cultural autonomy is emerging among the Kurds in Kurdish regions in Syria.  The Iraqi region could become a vanguard for the rest of the country, or it may lapse into a civil war with with the Arabs, predominantly the Sunnis.  Part of the problem lies in the fact the Coalition Provisional Authority’s Transitional Administrative Law (53A), issued via fiat by AMB Bremer nine years ago, planted those seeds of contested territory (e.g., definitely Kirkuk, probably Mosul) and remain in force under the current Constitution (138). 

For various reasons, the four nations directly involved in the Kurdish question do not want to see an independent Kurdistan, something that would be consistent with self-determination.  So the world is facing the frustration of one of the underpinnings of the nation-state model, itself only about three or four centuries old.  The dilemma could be (not is) that if one country grants independence to its Kurdish population, it will become a staging area for the forced rebellion, secession and civil war of the other three.  The history of Turkish and Arab oppression (in Turkey and Iraq) is well documented.  The lot of Kurds in Syria may now be one of cultural autonomy but it is hardly enviable.  Iran?  Know little about that. 

This autonomy seeks to balance the national security and resource interests of the dominant host countries with a sense of Kurdish identity.  Such a tentative peace may be arising now in Turkey.  It would take some time to negotiate and such taxing efforts could easily fail. Nevertheless, with the erosion of the nation-state paradigm in viewing many of the conflicts taking place around the world, something that balances the interests of all eight parties (four nations, four Kurdish communities) may avert future bloodshed and, in the example of Iraq, permit the prosperity of three million barrels a day of crude pumped out of the Kurdish region for that lovely region, really one of the most beautiful I have ever seen, and convey benefits to the rest of Iraq, as stipulated by under the country’s Constitution (108), a document which the Kurds themselves approved. 

In negotiating this peace, the U.S. could play a role in aiding the implementation, if the country were invited and chose to so.  The parameters of such an intervention, beyond my imagination at this moment, would have to be negotiated and acceptable to at least to the nine key parties (eight previously mentioned plus the U.S.).  Other stakeholders would likely have a say.  Hard to do?  For sure.  Impossible? No.  Implausible? To be determined after exploratory discussions.

Ned.

Letter / Class of '76: there are tears tucked inside those years.

There are few sensations more sublime, at least to me, than reflecting over losses incurred-but- not reported, loves lost or, more frequently, loved ones lost.  These interludes happen infrequently and they are not to be indulged lest one be trapped in the past, locked away from the future.  But they do stand the test of time; indeed, they are the test of time.

For me, it requires a moment when I am tired and not really thinking.  Surprising as it may seem to you all, my mind, if anything, is too active, buzzing from one thought to next, like a puppy chasing four bouncing balls at once.  No, this is not creativity but its mere precursor.  Creativity takes discipline, the willingness to cut away that which does not belong; not an easy thing to do.

That explains the small number of truly creative people I know or have ever known; less than ten out of thousands.  Yes, I really should be better at harnessing these careening and chaotic thoughts; but I dare you to try to discipline a tadpole.  Once in a while, when that momentary repose does settle in, the right confluence of other sensations occurs.  Almost always involves music.

The music involved can be the Grateful Dead, Gustav Mahler, Glenn Miller or the top-forty.  It has to have its own trace of melancholia; the lyrics often do not really matter, but they often do.  Yet the voice is everything.  That subtle under-tow of sadness, as part of the daily fabric usually expressed as small-talk or other kinship in code, is the bait; the moment of repose is the hook.

This sublime set-aside in time, about three minutes long, occurred today, not more than ten minutes ago (that is to say: before the rough-and-jumble draft of this letter).   The song was some Mexican popular love ballad.  Sad-sack songs are a national obsession down here, often by men who lost the loves of their lives (after likely cheating repeatedly on them).

All irony aside, the rhythm of regret and a sonorous but somber voice transported me into one of those breaks from reality into the deeper meaning of time; one of those breaks from the dreadfully limited and normal person that I have become or turned out to be.  That statement is not meant to sound quite as depressing as it does.  But life-long unmarried or long-time divorced people often go through this stuff.

There is just too much time on our hands not to. Like it or not, travelled or provincial, well read or pushing our way up the next mountain, we are simply not completely engaged in the world.  That is not a terrible thing but it has its moments of repose.  Caught in the moment of one of these songs or in the midst of an emotionally evocative film (e.g., Letters from Iwo Jima), the melancholy is released.

Its dominion is short in time, deep in remembrance.  As I listened to that top-40 ballad this afternoon, I gave in and closed my eyes.  I thought of my only ‘blood-brother’ in grade school, struck by a car and killed just after I went away to school, unleashing a melancholia that took two decades to overcome.  I thought of a cherished schoolmate and another childhood bud -- good friends and (young) men, both – who took their own lives leaving us to wrestle with the living koäns of deaths without context.

Then came my college sweetheart; the one whom I “knew” did not love me in return; and she almost certainly did not.  When a drunken teen hit her car head-on and ripped her beautiful form -- her visage chiselled by God himself -- to shreds in less than a second, just a week out of college for me, I felt much like Saint Peter (Matthew 26:75, “And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.”). 

I never had the courage to tell her I loved her.  Love unexpressed (not unrequited) is the heart's worst treason.  Then came in the images of my beloved parents, each in their prime, happy with themselves and with their life’s creation: a son and a daughter….and a grand-daughter or two.  In each case, I felt as if, just for a moment – the song lasts only three minutes – that each was not only present before me but present in my flesh. 

Just for a moment, now; I had felt this sensation before; mournful of the loss, mindful of their needed presence, even today, years later.  The last one was a surprise.  But there he was; I felt a little shakey with this one.  This reference had no direct root in memory and little, even, in fantasy.  Yet my high cheekbones felt a little itchy, as did the jaw-bone; just slightly, hardly noticeable anymore.

The rocking chair felt comforting to my lanky frame; these old bones are weary.  Wait, I am only in my mid-fifties.  She was still there, in my mind’s eye, Ann was.  How I still remembered her on those cloudy  and solitary days, walking alone through garden or near the calm, wise, forever river.  Somehow that artery of the Republic was my connection, 

Yes, the last connection to the ever-beautiful, forever young Ann, as she ran, constantly stumbling forward in the encircling, white dress, laughing to see me, her bonnet half undone, her cinnamon hair showing, flowing.  Her modesty untouched as she laughed without thought and looked up at me, a kiss in her smile -- felicity across her eyes.

¡Guess I am glad she can’t see me now!

This quiet song from a land from which slave-owners and others prone to empire had defrauded a half of its territory and this rocking chair – they felt right, just right.  The strain and the eternal sadness of my soul ripped asunder more-so than even my prostrate country with the blood, our blood, six inches deep – North and South, East and West, man and woman, parent and child, negro and white…

Ah, to have this blessed rest for a moment, for this ballad, on this rocking chair.  Only now do I realize how stooped I have become, what with the yoke of leadership – ten pounds too heavy – always, always on my shoulders, without reprieve, with abating resilience.  I looked over the big yard in front of me, onto the river.  This river is a little river; perhaps fitting as I can only think about the little one lost to typhoid running down the hall upstairs, his light footfalls almost tapping out "Daddy!" in Morse code.  I smile with warmth.

The song ended. I opened my eyes and jotted down these thoughts.  Time to go back to work.

Letter #75: The D.o.J. White Paper for Black Deeds

Introduction

On a libertarian lark, I thought I would read the ‘White Paper’ obtained by NBC news that justifies the killing overseas of U.S. citizens by drone strikes on the following grounds:

• imminent threat of attack;
• lack of feasibility in capturing the individual on time and at low risk; as well as,
• execution of the non-judicial execution in alignment with the four concepts underlying laws of war (i.e., “necessity, distinction, proportionality and humanity”).

These criteria are applied in the context of the nation’s right to self-defense against an enemy with which we are at war.

Summary

The paper is a well-reasoned argument in favor of the current assassination campaign in which President Obama graduated President Bush’s limited but accelerating use of drone strikes into full-blown drone strike warfare.  By reference, President Bush’s policy was limited to highest-ranking operatives who had evaded capture repeatedly and were conducted in the field of battle or in Pakistan, with the prior consent of that government. 

This White Paper's argument tries to lay out a legal justification for the policy as directed toward American citizens who have joined al-Qaida, the Taliban or unspecified “co-belligerents” (together ‘al-Qaida et al.’) and who are “senior operational leaders” continually planning attacks.  For the evident efforts that this paper undertakes to weigh the moral ambiguities attendant to this policy, the Administration deserves credit.

Nevertheless, this White Paper, apparently a readable summary of a legal argument of some fifty pages, reads like a product of someone who knows already what his conclusion is and then reverse-engineers a legal and scholarly argument to permit a policy of extra-judicial execution of identified individuals as acts of self-defense committed during war rather than as assassinations.  The subtlety employed overlooks the fact that drones do not make America’s policy and actions righteous; decency does. 

Disclaimer

Now, obviously, I may be very wrong in my conclusions as I am not trained in the law and have two certain limitations: a possible inability to detect references or understand special (and universally agreed) meanings of various terms as they relate to the law.  Combining these limitations with more detailed explanations and discussions in the parent-treatise may undermine the logic of the arguments that I present.  Nevertheless, my reservations with the thesis argued in this White Paper include the following:

• vagueness of definitions or in applications of key terms;
• assumptions made about the centrality of decision-making power; and,
• the uncircumscribed nature of the powers enumerated.

Critique of the Legal Framework

Three statements basically underlie the thesis of this paper.  Thoughtfully vague and devoid of clarification of key terms, these statements permit a broad assumption of powers (including the delivery of due-process) by one or more individuals, thus far not vetted by the Senate, uniquely or each presumed to be an “informed, high-level official of the U.S. government" (pp. 1, 6, 7-8, 9, 14, 16). These statements argue that there is:

• no minimum standard specified on what allows a strike to be ordered (pp. 1 & 16);
• little to no legal or judicial precedent (p. 4); as well as,
• no judicial “forum” (or standing) in the making and carrying out of wartime decisions and activities (pp. 7 & 10).

Integrating these “predicates” into the framework outlined above is a peculiar reliance on state laws, criminal statutes and judicial decisions relating largely to domestic crime (all of which are subject to due-process and judicial review) to justify “wartime” actions of national self-defense (as opposed to assassination) that apparently preempt that same judicial accountability (inter alia pp. 9-13).  These sweeping powers are then vested in one individual, perhaps more, who (or each of whom) can decide alone the targets of lethal actions, primarily drone strikes, without reference to:

• what and how much evidence warrants the killing of an American citizen (or, perhaps, his assassination, in contravention of Executive Order 12333);
• how “core” a member of al-Qaida et al. is and how actively engaged this targeted citizen is;
• exactly what defines membership in, or being a co-belligerent of, al-Qaida et al.;
• what constitutes a host country’s inability or unwillingness to suppress an “imminent” threat or attack against American citizens; as well as,
• what standard of probability and immediacy meets the level of “imminence” of attack (to be discussed in more detail).

Furthermore, I find no definition of just how high a level of authority this decision-maker has – or who might be eligible – to qualify as an informed, high-level official of the U.S. government.  Additionally, the White Paper appears not to cite any precedent of such an official assuming and discharging these extraordinary and extra-judicial powers on a routine basis.  Nor are there references to precedents of such an official exercising these powers without the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate on his fitness to discharge these responsibilities. 

Finally, this individual is a specifically deputized human being, vested with a license to order the extra-judicial execution of American citizens without a trial or formal outside review; that is, the informed, high level official is not a mythic being used to establish a standard of conduct, like the ‘prudent’ man or ‘reasonable’ man.

While the logic of the argument really is internally consistent and puts my reasoning powers to shame, the whole rationale strikes me as so much constitutional casuistry, as if natural law were some type of bonsai tree fit to be bent and twisted to suit the aesthetic conveniences of the day.  On the other hand, as is familiar to us all, “make no mistake”: we face serious and perhaps mortal threats to our security.

Reality of the Threat

The Constitution probably never contemplated anything like the threat of gangsters like these suicidal sociopaths in the modern world.  Yet, the great national contract was less than twenty years old when it was applied to crush the Barbary Pirates in the 1800s in a remarkably similar threat though quite different in its degree of lethality.  It is my conviction that, as cumbersome as the Constitution and its requirements can be, we should think very deeply before dispensing with these deliberative constraints.  Here’s why.

Casuistry and Consequences

The insidious part of this monument to reason without conscience is the failure to define key terms; a peculiar reliance on Congressional intent but not on Congress itself; and, a preclusion of judicial involvement in these matters “of war”, notwithstanding the involvement of American citizens.  That is to say, a few people in the White House make these decisions with little transparency and no accountability. 

Additionally, if the argument in this White Paper holds, it will require but a baby-step to start assassinating American citizens inside the United States.  Why? Surely, if someone poses an imminent threat as an enemy in some remote mud-hut village, how much more urgent would this identified gangster’s threat be, were he traipsing around Tribeca, Texarkana or Tacoma. The White Paper fails to define three key terms – nor does the larger parent treatise, I suspect – implicitly to delegate an unacceptable amount of latitude to unaccountable civilians.

Analysis of Key Terms

“Imminent”.  For understandable reasons, the White Paper relaxes this definition from immediate and certain to likely and probable, if given the chance.  The problem is how imminent is imminent? The paper argues that imminence entails ‘continual planning’ of attacks against the U.S. by a senior operative leader of al Qaida et al., though, in reality, many drone strikes are targeting mid-to-low level thugs. 

Now what does ‘continual planning’ or ‘operations leader’ really mean in a noticeably flat organization like al-Qaida and its franchisees in murder as they remain open to new targets of opportunity?  Beats the livin’ scheiße out of me.  So who determines that an American citizen is hatching these murderous schemes?  (They are being planned, without doubt.)  How often is “continual”?  Every day? Every week? Once in a full moon?

“Informed High-level Official of the United States Government”.  This is probably the individual who determines subjectively, likely not adhering to any minimum or codified standard, the level of planning to be ‘continual’ enough for the threat of attack to qualify as imminent.  It may be that only one person makes the decision, by selecting the weekly targets for the in-camera trial with its show-and-tell “due process”, that:

• a particular American citizen is part of the enemy;
• that designated citizen is a senior operational official; and,
• the President should order the drone-flown elimination without meeting a publicly accountable burden-of-proof. 

Now there are well documented reports that there is an actual committee in the White House that convenes weekly, which implies some flexibility in the timing required to make and implement decisions.  Also open to question is the presumption of innocence since the targeted citizen has a made the "cast of killers" for the week.  The ambiguity is disconcerting.  Now, one asks: ¿how high an official is this well-informed, high-level official?

Oliver North was not a very high official.  Remember the actions he basically instigated unilaterally?  Some were great.  Others went too far, nearly discrediting the Administration of President Reagan.  With more than one person making the decision, the unilateralism of LTC North and its fall-out might well have been avoided. 

Is there a standard for ‘informed’?  This argues to the standard of information needed to justify the killing, with some implicit burden-of-proof.  But what is it?  Who is designated as 'informed'?  I do not mean to be splitting hairs and sounding petty, which, of course, I am doing; but people’s lives, not to mention our exceptionally American social contract, are riding on these annoyances.

“Infeasibility of Capture”.  This ambiguity should be evident to anyone who felt that the shooting of an unarmed Osama bin Laden, in violation of a third nation’s sovereignty, was questionable from the perspective of the rule of law.  The White Paper takes pains to spell out infeasibility.  It states that, under the use-of-force authorization from Congress in 2001 and international law of war, temporary intrusions into neutral nations are permissible if necessary to pursue and contest the enemy.

Still, the vagueness invites future license and relaxation of ad-hoc, perhaps unwritten, standards of infeasibility established over coffee, donuts and baseball cards.   How many U.S. soldiers have to be endangered justify a drone strike instead? One, two, ten?  How unwilling or unable does the neutral government have to be?  Who decides another government is unwilling or unable to mitigate the threat in time? 

What is the collateral damage historically of Special Forces operations to capture or (if necessary) shoot a terrorist as opposed to a drone strike?  What is collateral damage?  President Obama conveniently defines away over half of the potential collateral damage by defining a contested area broadly and combatants even more so (i.e., all military age males).  Well that makes killing easy, doesn’t it?

Other Elements of Concern

Two other elements disturb me.  First, the White Paper conscientiously documents Congressional intent on a wide array of statutes.  Instead of consulting and interpreting previous Congressional intent to permit future non-judicial executions, why not go to Congress today and find out what it thinks before yanking the joy-stick? 

Now the Congress has to face up to its complicity in this current policy in its allowing the President to hide behind a ten year old authorization to use force, which has gradually evolved into a cross-border imposition of martial law. Perhaps, it is time to re-visit that out-of-date Congressional authorization since many people believe its execution has not been handled well in the past decade; during that re-visit, perhaps, Congress could muster up the courage to insert itself back into the war-making process. 

Doing so would not be that difficult, as I will propose in a moment. Arguably, assassinations are different than conventional warfare where uniformed soldier (sadly) shoots uniformed soldier. And therein lies the other disturbing element of this White Paper.   By framing a non-judicial execution of a potential mass-murderer – and definite traitor – as part of a war, the treatise justifies the exclusion of formal due process and judicial review altogether. 

Everyone understands that time is not permitting to have a full court trial, with no defendant likely to be present in any case. Nevertheless, to exclude another set of constitutionally impartial eyes (within the limitations of individual personalities) seems extreme and not in accordance with what the Philadelphia Convention was seeking to achieve with the Constitution it drafted.

That Damnable Reality of Terrorism

So, while these criticisms in this essay may sound good to some people, we need to remember that some very nasty people do want to kill as many of us as they can; unfortunately some of those gangsters (often suicidal sociopaths) are Americans.  We cannot dither over fine points of the law and risk another 9-11. 

Nevertheless, the over-reaction, possibly embodied in this policy of targeted killings, where drone strikes kill something like four or eight people for every alleged terrorist, may, in actuality, be elevating the likelihood of, or at least the hateful desire for, just such a day of ignominy as was 9-11. 

Suggested Re-Balance between Self-Defense and Rule of Law

Among many things, we learned from Benghazi that, short of withdrawing from the world, we cannot protect every target all the time.  So what to do?  Here is what I propose.  Admittedly, this proposed idea ‘adapts’ (i.e., bends) the Constitution.  Hopefully this proposed procedure remains consistent with its deliberative spirit.

1. The weekly ‘baseball card’ meetings continue as they do now, keeping in mind that that this current schedule implies that everything is not hanging on a moment’s notice.
2. If there is an imminent threat that the Administration believes to be real, it orders the Joint Chiefs to draft a plan of capture.
3. If the military commanders deem such a capture as not realizable, the Chief of Staff of the Army, Marines or Air Force clarifies in writing why the capture is  not  feasible as precisely as it can, as concisely as possible.  
4. If the military leader is not willing to say this in writing, then a mission to capture the terrorist is developed by his second-in-command.
5. Upon receipt of the plan of capture, the President orders preliminary preparations to executed, pending a live mission.
6. Upon receipt of a signed military plan or opinion-of-infeasibility, the President then immediately takes that document to, and consults with, the two ranking Congressmen on the Intelligence Committees and The Foreign Affairs Committees (eight people in total).
7. If five of these Congressmen or duly appointed deputies say yes to proceed, then the Administration liaises with the Supreme Court for a warrant for the arrest of the American citizen for treason and / or probable cause in a conspiracy to commit mass-murder.
8. Upon consent by the Supreme Court Justice that the evidence is credible for such charges to be tried in a civilian court, the Administration then contacts the host government, where the mass-murderer is hiding to notify it that the U.S. government will imminently make a public announcement concerning the arrest of a certain American citizen on that country’s soil.
9. Immediately after contact, the arrangements are set up to monitor the movement of the targeted individual and to target him.
10. As those arrangements are made, the U.S. publicly announces that the following person is (or people, if approved, are) wanted for treason and conspiracy to commit mass-murder of innocent U.S. citizens.
11. The person or group has twenty-four hours to surrender unarmed to a host government agency; thirty-six to surrender unarmed to the U.S. Embassy or consulate.
12. In that announcement, the United States government will also advise people living in areas near to the targeted person(s) either to persuade them to surrender; turn them over to authorities (if feasible); or, to distance themselves to minimize accidental injury or death should the U.S. exercise its asserted right to eliminate this citizen.
13. The U.S. government clarifies that, after that 24-36 hour waiting period with no surrender and based on the evidence documenting the warrant, the targeted individual(s) will be judged guilty and will be 'removed' from civil society 'dead or alive'.
14. The waiting time permits people in the target zone to act in a manner best protecting themselves.  In the mean-time, drone-flights would fly to monitor the whereabouts of the targeted terrorist.
15. If the person surrenders or the people surrender, they are transported to the United States to face a criminal trial, through the criminal courts for civilians.
16. If no one shows up, the capture operation or the drone strike is carried out, as documented previously, in a manner consistent with the four principles underlying the laws of war.

Closing Thoughts

In closing, I would prefer to see this revised standard apply to Americans and foreign nationals alike.  In all honesty, I would rather find a better way of neutralizing this threat.  The procedure described above would take less than a day to complete (from picking the possible target through the public announcement and initiation of the mission). 

The benefit of this idea is giving the other branches of the U.S. government the ability to consent to the use of lethal force outside of the country (at least for now).  Additionally, the burden of having to present a case to the other two branches would likely deter many of the proposed executions from ever going forward.

As we have seen, the frequency of these drone-flown assassinations has increased in tempo, indicating a possibility that, as people become used to ordering the execution of others, their inhibitions decrease, freeing a propensity to do another ‘surgical’ strike all over again, but even sooner the next time around.  Despite the obvious and incontestable decency of President Obama, the reluctance to order non-judicial executions is apt to decline over time as he gets used to ordering them.

Letter to Friends & Familiares #74: World View

by Ned McDonnell III | January 11, 2013 - 4:54pm

• reply

To everyone, what a great array of criticisms. They represent opportunities for improvement through reconfiguring ideas or creating new ones, the totality of which will – in that damnably ideal world – lead to a better approach to some basic problems.

Thanks to Ken White for kicking off the discussion with specific ideas and alternatives tied to specific points in the essay. That stimulated the thinking of many others.

Unfortunately, answering each thought will take too much space. Perhaps, it would be better for me to lay bare those implicit assumptions that I have made; they really derive from my world-view, as limited as it is. Before I do that, however, there are some assertions made that deserve acknowledgement.

These points follow in no particular order and my responses are vague since I am bunching most ideas into summary thoughts animating these answers.

1st, the primary idea I have tried to raise, and perhaps had not thought through clearly enough, is one of enforceability within the civilian chain of command. The affiliation of civilian agencies to the Chief-of-Party in the Embassy, especially involving people stationed away from that Embassy, has appeared to be nominal to me.

2nd, everyone has, to some extent, mentioned the necessity of choosing interventions carefully. That is right on target. Militarily led interventions are costly and, too often, end up being a string of one-off efforts the only coherence of which is the failure of civilian leadership to own up to failed initiatives.

3rd, the time horizon for the kinetic activity may well be six months or less; I would defer to your sentiments. The point made is a good one for all to remember: the mission must be self-contained, attainable and very, very compelling.

4th, the idea of this framework being “state and societal westernization” (i.e., colonialism) shocked me. Not because it was so wrong but because it may be on-the-money. The idea of leaving spaces ungoverned is troubling but not new. Governance in these vexing cases (e.g., Pakistan and Afghanistan) may need to be started from the bottom, not led from the top.

5th, expectations need to be kept low, making it clear that the locals have to reclaim their lives torn by conflict. Ultimately it is they who define the community policing mission and lead it. I made a typographical error, and a key one, in the article. The sentence should read: “Special Forces officers or sympathetic civilians, no matter how high-minded, can NOT take that frightening first step for these moderates.” My apologies for that.

6th, many of the insurgencies and other quandaries we face are truly “Born” or “Made” in the U.S.A. For instance, I still wonder why the great majority of Americans, whom I encounter and who understand the paradigmatic relevance of our own country’s revolution, seem to be in the military.

Well, those are the immediate reactions. Please be assured that each thought you made lurks within and behind one or more of these responses. As far as clarifying the unsaid assumptions (i.e., defining my world view), I will tuck those in a second comment for those of you really interested in them.

Thank you again for making the writing of this article in Small wars Journal a rewarding experience for me.

Ned
Edward J. McDonnell III
U.S. Peace Corps
Querétaro, México.

by Ned McDonnell III | January 11, 2013 - 8:09pm

• reply

INTRODUCTION
These comments clarify, with brutal honesty, the unspoken and later exposed assumptions underlying my admittedly idealistic ‘thought’ experiment. The problem with my essays lies in the necessity to make them intelligible and brief. That means streamlining reference conditions into an ideal state devoid of those damned details.

The essay I wrote was requested indirectly by an SOF officer whose thinking, as reflected by his refreshingly creative idea of a Venture Capital Green Beret, resonated with me since so much of what we do in other countries depends on the everyday tasks executed by people at the bottom of the chain; in this case, in Afghan villages.

WORLD VIEW
We live in a time of uncertainty. The nation-state political model and market-based capitalism are imposing their limits every day. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, et al. may not be countries, after all. At least in the first two cases, I can conjure up some history to support that. (For example, Afghanistan is defined not by a singularly ethnic people but by the arbitrary borders of three defunct empires).

My thinking may be colonialist. One of the great challenges under which we labor is the fact that, as observed by CPT Gilmore (via "Lieutenant Zuckerberg") in his excellent case for open-innovation in the military through social media, we live in a world of instant knowledge, if not wisdom. That is, we can no longer forget about the bottom billion.

These wretched of the earth now know they are the bottom billion and what they are missing. To them, capitalism may seem more like an excuse to keep them down than a way for them to pull themselves, and others, out of misery. Communications has made poverty a structural violence apt to breed lethal violence against more affluent innocents.

This lamentable state perversely reflects my deepest prejudice: that most people simply want their lives and, more importantly, the lives of their children to be more comfortable and fulfilling (i.e., assuming their properly ordained stature in the eyes of God, however conceived). This requires liberty to act, to choose, to risk.

Added to this problem of self-aware poverty and models that may no longer apply so neatly, America confronts an imbalance of power and resources skewed toward procurements of newer weapons systems that may be creating tools in search of a solution in search of a problem. The military shares some culpability here, to be sure.

Nevertheless, this structural problem in our society manifests the failure of elected leadership to do its job: to lead. Thus the traditionally last resort option of military intervention has become a plan-B that puts our finest citizens – you – in harm’s way because some political leader lacks creativity, resourcefulness or sturdy ego to look ‘soft’ in the eyes of an electorate (s)he fails to understand or influence.

The reliance on militarily initiated interventions has also grown out of a chronic shortage of qualified civilians truly committed to stepping up and assuming the same risks as their uniformed colleagues; thus, embedding in village patrols is seen a s reckless. Training to make these citizens’ competences concurrent with their characters is lacking due to the time required (which defies Plan-B impulses).

CONCLUSION
If we are brushing up against the limits of nation-statism and Western economics, not to mention fiscal insolvency – and that limit is turning out to be the edge of a cliff – such uncertainty begs the question of how or if we should respond. That perplexity shrouds an opportunity to restore American exceptionalism in a fluid world after the American Century.

It is your personal example, and not American money or firepower, that will prevail over time. Think of Viet Nam now versus 1975; we won the hearts and minds of the rising generation. Without hesitation, I believe we can respond, but from the ground, up.

We may not build a state but we can enable people to start making something out of nothing, which really is the framework behind seed investing and venture capitalism. Many of these efforts will fail, as do some investments in a portfolio. Over time, the net effect should be worthwhile (and a lot cheaper).

Letter #73: An evening of ordinary magic in an extraordinary culture

México is, perhaps, the most exotic place in which I have ever lived, though that is not too many places.  Funny thing about México, she borders the great melting pot and yet may well be more diverse than the United States.  This letter should have come out a week or more ago but I was too busy (i.e., lazy) to get around to doing this.

Two days before I left for Maryland to have a splendid time with the Purnells, a colleague at the science center, where I serve the Peace Corps over easy, approached me and said he needed to speak with me about something.  We had been meaning to meet over the preceding two days, something I instantly forgot because this urgency emerged on a Friday afternoon.

My heart sank. Hmmm.  Mystified yet pessimistic, I braced myself into my professional stoicism.  My colleague asked me straight-away whether or not I was busy on Saturday.  Still mystified yet a little less pessimistic, I said, “No, not really – nothing I cannot change…” (Of course, I did not want to admit that my big event the Saturday before Christmas was packing for the trip the next day.)

“Good!” said he, handing me a little vase – the clear type with a long Audrey Hepburn neck for one rose – with a scroll tucked inside it.  Completely confused, I knew I was being invited to something, something Mexican, which means time consuming and inconvenient because I had just re-engaged in a new reading spurt. 

Truthfully, I desired nothing more than to get back to my book on Henry Flashman, a sexually maniacal and acutely yellow British captain who had lived through the slaughter of Her Majesty´s army in Afghanistan under the gored Lord Elphinstone in 1842.  So, out of service to my country as I serve fearlessly in the Peace Corps, I would sacrifice another Saturday in solitude in order to witness some event filled with music I do not enjoy and chatter I can better live without in English, let alone Spanish.

Gazing dumbly away as these thoughts cascaded through my wretched little mind, my joyful colleague snapped me back to the here and now by saying with a smile showing his genuine kindness, “Mi novia (girlfriend or, in México, fiancée) y yo are finally getting married…”  I exploded with joy.  I was not getting chastised; this fine guy – whose abilities one inevitably respects – was not terribly upset or even criticizing me. 

More important, my compañero and his better half have been simpático for a good long time.  In fact, his fiancée has always been very gracious to me.  The vase had the invitation.  Before I knew how to extract the message in the bottle, other colleagues rallied around the desk to set the time and place to pick me up for a ride to the wedding “a little way's” out of town.

As I went for my Friday night run, I worried about how I would manage at a wedding in México, with my ‘fawlty’ Spanish.  Yet I was excited.  Most other volunteers had gone to such big-ticket events far earlier in their tours.  To be sure, I had attended my share of festivities for Christmas, the Epiphany (a big deal in México), Independence Day, Easter, countless birthdays and the rest.  But never a wedding.  And yet that spiritual blight inside of me that makes even unanticipated high-points dully anti-climactic was already weaseling its way into my heart. 

It was three o´clock on a warm Saturday afternoon – hitting around eighty degrees (about twenty-seven celsius) at its peak – and I had clocked my long run for the week (of five miles).  Slightly dehydrated and hunger allayed by a ‘pan dulce’ (a sugary biscuit), I got to the bus stop right on time to get the ride with other colleagues from the office.  Of course, I had the Flashman follies tucked under my arm, thinking I would read it during the ride and, maybe, at the wedding if I got bored and was trapped “a little way’s out of town”.

Equally of course, the book soon became an appendage and then a thorn in the flesh.  No Flashman frolicking amongst the Pashtuns this twenty-second day of December 2012, indeed.  I sat in the very back seat of the S.U.V. across from a compañero of whom I am fond because, like me, he was once a banker, apparently relishing the field as much as I had.  This gentleman, and he really is one in his patrician manner, talked about what we always talked about: the Free Masons. 

Undeterred by utter ignorance, I tend to speak from the view of how important the Masons were in liberalizing Europe and founding the American republic.  My colleague spoke about how the Masons have evolved into some new world order; he is convinced that this clique conspired to assassinate President Kennedy.  As always, I said (sincerely, for once) what I believe: that Lee Harvey Oswald most likely acted alone and that the many theories floating around arise from people’s unwillingness to accept the chaotic possibility that a schmeau can murder the leader of the Free World.

As the ride progressed more than “a little way’s out of town”, however, we migrated beyond the usual small-talk about global cabals, conspiracies and coups d’état.  My colleague told me about his background, and what an interesting family he came from.  In México, one has two surnames.  The first is the one inherited from the father in a patrilocal society tottering in an uneasy truce with a matrilineal culture, which is reflected in the second surname: the maiden name of the mother.

This colleague’s disparate appellations have, for the first, a traditional Mexican name (for Tower) followed by his mother´s Polish maiden name (because it ends with an “i”).  Apparently, his father was an engineer in a day when México produced far fewer and when even fewer Mexicans went to college.  Nowadays, México likely produces more engineering graduates relative to its population than even China.  So, my friend’s father came from “nice people”; respectable, not rich, and emphasizing education.  While his father was somewhat like my own, his mother’s story was interesting.

We got around to that lineage through the hidden rope ladder up a Polish family tree.  We started talking about Pope John Paul II, a fabulously popular pontiff across México – perhaps more so in death than he had been in life.  The ongoing veneration of Juan Pablo II reminds me of the same worship Jordanians still reserve for King Hussein after twelve years in the Gardens of Eden where sweet waters flow and veiled virgins with almond eyes serve fresh pomegranates and figs.

My banking buddy told me about his mother’s family.  As a little one, she might well have been a contemporary of the young, earnest Wojtila, without knowing the path in store for Karol.  The family was prosperous, part of the intellectual bourgeoisie.  Though likely infected to some extent by the anti-semitism afflicting most Catholics in Europe at the time, this family hated the Nazis and fled, as the Wehrmacht butchered their homeland, eventually setting in México. 

If I remember the pageant correctly, the parents came together through the crudest artifice of fate: the blind date.  Like my own mother, coming of age as a Catholic teen a little later, my friend´s mother detested Pope Pius XII for selling out the Jews and not doing what a good Christian ought to do: standing up to naked evil preying upon the vulnerable.  Yes, we readily agreed that Pius XII should not be a saint, despite Rome’s current and preliminary efforts to make him one. 

This accord led to opinions about the current bishop of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI, himself a German and an erstwhile (if short-lived) member of the Hitler youth roadies.  After I pointed out the tolerance toward Jews and Muslims shown in the new catechism of Juan Pablo II and edited by then Cardinal Ratzinger as head of the Inquisition, my colleague agreed that Benedicto may be a stern-looking S.O.B. but is fundamentally a decent, if be-jeweled, man.  Such exotic stories are not too uncommon in México.

After this heady talk and languishing in the barren but beautiful landscape of dusty hills, scrub-brush and ever-resilient nopales (a cactus that looks like a cross between a bonsai tree and a Calderesque mobile of martian hush-puppy ears), we arrived some eighty minutes later at an old hacienda (i.e., the Spanish-moorish version of an ante-bellum plantation house) modernized into a hotel and events center.  The place was beautiful; elegant in a colorful yet subtly melancholic way. 

The main building was basically a square, two storey box with large widows sealed by drawn drapes of a rich, heavy velvet (I think).  The walls in the ante room, an indoor porch without a screen, were dark blue tiles with Moorish patterns resembling brilliantly precise yet small mandalas.  At the end of the outdoorsy alcove was a suit of armor that looked more like that worn in medieval France than the stuff of conquistadors.  The outer wall was a milk-chocolate brown set in a soft-edge but very rough stucco. 

The building was so big that a blind man reading braille could have read Don Quixote simply by running his fingers along the wall.  Those images hit that long-ago activated perception that Mexican culture really has much in common with that of the Middle East.  While many Mexicans have their mestizo past clearly etched in their faces and frames, a goodly number of women do not and, with their darker complexions, coal-fired eyes and wavy black hair, they more resemble those several desert darlings who have made me swoon in that blazing Arabian sun…

…until I got indoors with the modern assurance of air conditioning and cold sparkling water.  We had arrived three minutes late and I was nervous…unique I was, in being so, inside the car.  Nevertheless, I had my apologies and excuses ready for deployment.  We were the first to arrive.  And so I started another tutorial on the calming effect of mañana.  Not even the two colleagues getting married seemed to be around.  In truth, they were inside exchanging their vows quietly and privately.  Our presence was needed at the reception.  The wedding was different than others I have attended in the United States.

Aside from not witnessing the sacrament, there were appetizers aplenty, while the ceremony took place.  As people began arriving, many from the science center where I work, we basically loafed in a richly lawned yard punctuated by Spanish oaks, looking onto a traditional cactus garden and the fiesta tent with tables appointed and ready to go.  The magic of late autumn in Querétaro is that, as the sun goes down (as it did that day), so do the temps by a good fifteen degrees (eight celsius). 

In that chilly twilight, I finally relaxed enough to take in the fantastic beauty of the scene.  The sky was a darkening blue, and thanks to the relative absence of catalytic converters in México, the clouds – looking like incomplete canopies – crawled from a quiet white to dusky rust, settling finally into a curdled red.  Relaxing there, I remarked to my colleagues that this setting on this day for this event was so breathlessly perfect that one would not forget it.  I hope I never do.

Finally, I saw the married couple.  My compañero’s novia has always impressed me as handsome in a matronly way, as she has been a single mother for many years, fetching after two very well bred teens.  Though this was a civil ceremony because she was divorced, this lady was in a slightly mauve wedding dress – a new image for me – that was as beautiful in its cuts and folds as its material was costly.  She was, in a word, elegant.  Beautifully elegant.  Seeing her frequently in office clothes without the make-up delicately applied had obscured that obvious fact from me.

Knowing full well that I had been included at the last minute as some other invitee declined, I marched straight over to the couple. My colleague was wearing a formal dinner suit and looked pretty gentlemanly himself.  It is safe to say that I was the only guest wearing a blazer with a Peace Corps patch on the breast pocket.  As I approached them, I tried quickly to rehearse a clever compliment, not an easy thing to do in a tongue beyond my limited reach.  In the end, I stammered something sincere. 

Looking into her blue eyes, I told the bride just what I told you – that I had never realized just what a beauty she really is.  Mexican women are like that: an intoxicatingly feminine fierceness; I cursed myself for frittering away my twenties in Pittsburgh.  In the deepest pocket of my heart, I really hope México does not lose this sense of traditional gender differentiation as she modernizes.  Manners will always have a special place in my universe if no longer in my country. 

Warming up to my compliment to his wife, my compañero laughed and suggested that I get a new pair of glasses.  Of course, I thanked them for squeezing me in because this would be a day like none other for me in México, not only because of the splendid elegance of the people and party but because of my happiness at seeing a perfect match perfect that match.  After two minutes or so, I did not want to tie the couple up too long since I was not high on the guest list pecking order. 

Thus I parted artfully by saying to my compañero, a fellow bachelor (though many years younger), “Alix, soy único en poder decirle, ‘¡mejor tarde que nunca!’” (Alex, I am uniquely qualified in saying, “Better late than never!”).  We all laughed and I sauntered back to the others, growing to a group of eight or ten now near the bar and fetched my drink with a fistful of ‘Japanese nuts’ which are peanuts coated in some type of synthetic, flavorful shell.  I justified such nutritional oversight by claiming that I enjoy international cuisine and doling out the penny-food like some forgotten delicacy. 

The thirty minutes left before dinner were devoted to introducing myself to co-workers´ spouses and children as well as making goofy remarks, which I could now get away with doing since most people were well into the evening’s trajectory.  One thing my parents trained me very well to do – and for which I remain indebted to them to this day – is the art of small talk, though the tipsiness of others makes that a good deal easier.  Widely condemned by most people I know (i.e., earnestly open-minded baby boomers), I am a contrarian about such ‘vacuous verbiage’. 

In actuality, this much damned chitter-chatter is kinship in code.  Many years and drinks ago, I learned that, except in moments of extraordinary intimacy (perhaps ten times in the course of a lifetime, if one is lucky), authenticity usually collapses quickly into garbled garbage, waiting to rot into extinction after an ill-advised sally into solipsism.  After all, who does not know that most lives are not perfect most of the time?  Humoring the drudgery of daily life not only makes for a cheap laugh but for some unexpected meaning.  This surprising energy is measured in giggle-whats.

At dinner, I was seated with one of my counterparts and the head of the Department where we work and his family.  Again, I put to work a lesson taught me by my mother when we were in Sydney over four decades ago.  When my family first arrived in Australia, my father was asked to many cocktail parties with various Australian and ex-pat businessmen and some government types, too.  Now came my father’s turn to fortify the network with a cocktail party of his own.  Dad was worried that, being relatively junior and new to town, most people would not show up.  My mother assured him that she had the answer to calm his fears.

In the Australia, and the America, of the 1960s, most women were married with children and contented themselves with, or resigned themselves to, being home-makers.  Things were just beginning to change as divorce became more of an option and women were willing to brave the risks of striking out on careers.  In the international business community, the eventuality of duel earners was still a worst-case scenario.  In Sydney, husbands and wives in the middle class often led very separate lives; that is, wives were not invited to business functions, though men partied with the abandon of little boys while their better halves watched the “Monkees” with their little darlings.

So, ingeniously, my mother invited the wives and the invitation basically nudged beyond simple encouragement into polite coercion.  BING! Perfect attendance.  Well that adventure in ancient history has come in handy in México.  In many ways, Mexican men still have ‘traditional’ proclivities toward monopolizing air-time.  It is a bit like Afghanistan.  The Pashtuns may run around yelling and screaming, brandishing guns and other substitutes.  Yet behind those mud-walls of family villages, when the gloves and burkhas come off, we know who is really calling the shots.

So, I did the logical thing: not only defy hierarchy by talking to the jefe but blow past that convention to striking up conversations with the quiet wife and diffident daughter.  All of this was not crass manipulation.  Often, I find new people – once I wiggle beyond that damn shyness – to be interesting. Additionally, I got a chance to see what makes the jefe tick.  He is a very good man; like most finance types, he sees himself as a guardian and is quiet, unspontaneous and a better front-line blocker than any in the N.F.L.  So seeing the reflection of him, inferred through the lens of his family was something I would not pass up.

Besides both women were pretty and, after the second sentence, quite obviously educated and thoughtful. The dinner was great fun.  The daughter is in ninth grade and wants to be a dentist – we had fun trying to figure out how an accountant and an engineering major produced a dentist.  Then came the typical antics with having fun with people’s names.  The wife, Carolina by name, was a lovely woman. One thing I find so interesting here in México is that some of the mostly worldly people I meet have never left the country, often never transgressed more than a few hundred miles from the epicenter of their lives.  So, I had Carolina lined up as a Charleston belle while Diana enjoyed being the goddess of the hunt.

Finally, the jefe loosened up and I heard him laugh heartily for the first time ever.  The family told me all about growing up in an adjoining state in Central Mexico, while I double-dared them to meet and neck in the Alley-of-Amor in the cultural center of their home state.  Diana enjoyed being treated with respect like an adult.  I must say I marvel at how well behaved most Mexican youngsters are.  To be sure: they raise a different kind of hell than their Yankee counterparts; but when it counts, they know how to act.  Mexico truly has a culture that exalts good upbringing (at least in the upper half of the society).

Apparently, a number of people never found the hacienda and so the bride and groom had the waiters dish out seconds.  Well-cooked Mexican fare is a treat, especially for a Peace Corps volunteer living on a decent but not lavish stipend.  This evening was a big treat.  Previously, I had actually shed a kilo or two in México; but I did my best to reinstall it that night.  México has this spicy sausage called chorizo; a lot of it was left over and I went to town. 

Just call me high German nobility: Baron von Blimpoman.  Finally, as things started getting a bit tedious (i.e., beyond my pathetic attention span), the lights dimmed.  I thought, well this is it: I will be home by ten o’clock.  Cool.  I can read.  False alarm.  We were treated to a biographical slide show.  My compañero is a real picarro and is handsome to boot…so the photos of a cute little monster were no surprise. The pictures of his new wife were surprising for reasons I know not.  She looked the same but younger and she had been a darling.  Her facial expressions reminded me of something.

During this slide show, she was standing and so I looked at her, thinking it was bizarre for her to be wearing a wedding gown on her second marriage.  Then, by the grace of God or the heart-burn of that chorizo, I suspended judgement of other human beings for a second – just long enough to realize how utterly lovely she was in that gown.  Why?  Because she looked great?  True, but not that.  Because she wanted a real wedding since the first had not worked? No, not that, either.  So my simple mind got to thinking why.  And those childhood pictures, now flashed into time-progressing snaps of a couple of ten years’ happiness, solved the riddle.  Ana Maria was not wearing that expensive gown for her, but for him.  Of course, el Señor Dagwood Dolt, this is Alix’s first marriage.  Ana Maria wanted the day to be special for him.  What a party!

With this slide presentation, exceeded in mirth only by genuine affection, the dancing began and I was looking to dance.  The week before, when I finally condescended to show up at the office Christmas party after slinking out on the first two in 2010 and 2011, I finally had gotten the nerve to dance with a dazzlingly beautiful Mexican gal, young enough to be my daughter.  Truth be told: I do not like most Mexican music – except for one two songs with live Mariachi or older, more classical strains.  Unapologetically, I find it discordant, loud, repetitive and generally grating to my ever thinner inner ear. 

At that Christmas party, I had been joking that I would love to dance with several of the two dozen ladies I know there.  Well one young lady called me out, not out of any appeal I have but, more likely, to shut me up.  Now this lady is truly young enough to be my daughter and she yanked me onto the dance floor – the plaza in the middle of the research campus, draped with a tent that evening – in full view of her two sisters, a brother in law and, oy-vey, her mother.  No escape.  Glad I did not.  When we got to the floor, I just did an impromptu jitterbug to Mexican music, a recipe for certain cross border complications.  Except that Leticia had a supple sense of rhythm as limber as a lynx. 

Truthfully, Leticia did not improve my dancing as much as made it less apparently bad.  After about five minutes, I started feeling like I ought to get off the dance floor and allow some of the younger engineers to dance with Leticia.  Leticia is really beautiful; she could be a runway model – no joke.  Nevertheless, her ambition is to put her mind to work and, from what I gather, she is an excellent engineer doing great work in a complex joint venture with an international aerospace firm.  Yet, Leticia refused my repeated entreaties to beat a hastily honorable exit.  She kept on dancing, and I kept on gimping  

Finally, my knee gave out and we had to call it quits .  After walking her back to her family, I gallantly put Leticia’s shawl on her shoulders because it was chilly and announced to her family that “Leticia me impulsaba hacia la tumba. Sin embargo, ¡qué bonita manera para salir!” (Letty was driving me to my grave but what a way to go!)  Leticia taught me a valuable lesson about her culture, which I intended to put to good use at this wedding reception since I knew a number of women: in México, it is not about whether one can dance, play golf or anything else. 

South of the border, it comes down to having fun and making sure your partner is having as much fun as you are.  Who thought that up?  So the dancing at this wedding, filled with well-wishers who had known and cared for these people for many years (plus one goof running around with a Peace Corps patch on his blazer), fired up very quickly easing into overdrive with little notice.  I was psyched and then slammed into the big difference between the Mexico of today and the America of my parents: people do not dance with each other’s spouses.  Mexican men will not permit it.  There were only two unmarried (or unengaged) people there: me and the company beauty.

This lady radiates the kind of innocent sexiness that snared me on day-1.  Only problem is she is paired off with one of the young engineers.  In our management meetings, I have seen her look at him in a way that only two women have ever looked at me – and they truly loved me.  I remember one time in B-School, a lovely class-mate came up to me while I was buying coffee from a sweet elderly black woman who was my caffeine buddy.  Anyways, this class-mate came and asked me how I did on some accounting test or some such thing.  I made some dumb-ass answer as I always did to avoid a bad habit of being competitive. 

As my class-mate walked away chuckling at my alleged humor, my off-line coffee mentor said, “What are you waiting for, Neddy?”  That startled me and I asked her why she said that.  This woman was wise and she did not miss a beat, “That girl has love in her eyes…”  I said, “But, Clara, she is married…”  Clara seemed to think that was a mere annoyance.  Of course, I never pursued it because I am selfish – I do not want to feel like a piece of dung.  That is the way the company beauty has looked at that engineer, not at me.  Besides, that engineer is a good friend of mine and a damnably decent fellow.  Why mess everything up for something that would not work and would be all wrong? 

So I contented myself with making broken witticisms in my sort-of second language and did not dance.  Damn shame.  By eleven, with the day eight hours old and me getting ready to head north the next day, I lobbied hard for us to leave.  But Alix told us to wait a few more minutes for the end times, Mayan no-shows notwithstanding.  They were worth the wait.  Alix and Ana Maria led us all out back and treated all hundred and fifty of us to some colorful and sustained fireworks.  What a great night and what a great idea. 

As my fellow car-pool members beckoned me to the car, I took the newly-weds aside and said that I had good news and bad news.  They looked at me somewhat concerned and I started with the good news: the fireworks were a spectacular end to spectacular wedding.  Then I hesitated in the cool December breeze.  Ana Maria asked me pointedly what the bad news was.  I leaned forward and whispered “No quiero decirlo pero la Independencia es en septiembre…” (I hate to say this but the Mexican Independence Day is in September).  I caught up to my compañeros, launched by the hearty laughs of people in love and loving it.