Letter #103 to Friends and Familiares: opportunities lost afterward

Esta carta se presenta en ambos español e inglés; ya que mis amigos mexicanos hablan inglés mejor que pudo hablar español y a causa de mi no ser capaz de traducir las sutilezas de mi lengua primordial, les sugeriría que se refieren al párrafo inglés, cuando mi frase español no se entienda bien.

Hay razones porqué no debo escribir esta carta. Sin embargo, sigue habiendo una razón primordial porqué tengo que hacerlo. No quiero preocupar a mi familia ni dejar un miedo en sus corazones. Al contrario, dicho catalizador es el sentimiento de ironía, provocada por oportunidades perdidas, en nuestras almas (es decir, la mía).		There are reasons not to write this letter and there remains one which compels me to do so. The reasons why not revolve mainly around my not wanting to engender fear or cause any worry in the hearts of my loved ones. But the reason that will not ease over time is the sense of irony that missed opportunities evoke in one’s (read: my) soul.
El jueves pasado, el siete de agosto, dos mil catorce, un día que no va a vivir en infamia (pero será “barrido en el gran basurero de la historia”), recibí un correo electrónico de dos compañeros de CIDESI, dónde había servido en el Peace Corps en Querétaro, la magnífica ciudad tan lejos en mi memoria como el Bajío está desde Baja California.		Last Thursday, the seventh of August, two thousand and fourteen, a day that will live not in infamy but in the miscellaneous file, I received an e-mail from two colleagues of my Centro in which I served the Peace Corps: CIDESI in the sublime city of Querétaro, now far away in the mountainous midlands of México.
Estaban en Tijuana y dijeron que querrían verme si fuera posible. Ya que tenían un viaje temprano la mañana siguiente a Mexicali (225 kilómetros de TJ), tendría que ir a su hotel a las ocho. Sin pensar mucho, despedí la molestia de ser el único de nosotros sin coche que iría a ellos que tenían un coche.		They were in town and said they would like to see me. Due to scheduling problems (i.e., a trip early next morning to Mexicali, about 135 miles away), I would have to go to their hotel at 8:00. Quickly, I swept aside the slight annoyance at being the one without a car going to see those with a car.
Miré un mapa generado por GOOGLE que indicaba que el hotel estará varios nudillos a través de la pantalla, más o menos 1,8 kilómetros desde mi oficina; veinte minutos a pie. ¡Bien! Además, yo necesitaba el ejercicio de una caminata enérgica. La molestia se convirtió en la felicidad porque estaría pasando tiempo con un buen amigo.		Then I looked at the GOOGLE map and saw that hotel was, by measuring the scale by knuckles, 1.8 kliks away; a bit more than a mile and a quarter; twenty minutes, tops. Since I needed the exercise of a brisk walk, the annoyance quickly dissipated and I was merrily on my way to meet one of my best friends at CIDESI.
El aspecto más emocionante para mí fue el hecho que este caballero había recibido una promoción hasta el  gerente de la transferencia de tecnología. Con discreción, de verdad, había pasado mucho tiempo dentro de CIDESI apoyando esta idea con líderes del Centro. Mientras que mis esfuerzos me hacían sentir bien, sospecho que mi influencia estaba sólo en mi mente.		What was most exciting was that my colleague had been promoted, finally, to the head of tech transfer there. This was great news and ample cause to celebrate. After all, I had spent a lot of time in CIDESI quietly lobbying the senior management of that science center for this to happen. While my efforts made me feel good, they were almost certainly not decisive.
A la hora de mi salida, estaba luchando en completar una propuesta. Les envié a mis compañeros un mensaje de texto para alertarles que sería quince minutos tarde. Privadamente pensaba que sería cinco o diez minutos, pero quise manejar expectativas y evitar ser avergonzado a pagar para la cena. Sin embargo, cosas no parecían en los lugares especificados por el mapa.		At the time to leave, I was struggling to get a proposal out to a possible --no, in this case, quite impossible – client. And I texted ahead that I would be fifteen minutes late, figuring that I would beat that timing and so exceed expectations and not get interrogated into paying for dinner.  Then I noticed that landmarks and intersections were not quite where they were supposed to be.
El Señor Todopoderoso GOOGLE lo había sido muy lejos de la realidad esta vez, ¡unos ocho kilómetros en error! Además, era casi noche ahora y me encontraba en la parte industrial, de las maquiladoras, una parte difícil de la ciudad. Caminando lento, estaba pensando en mis opciones.		This time, GOOGLE´s algorithmic hiccup threw me off by five or six miles. Besides it was almost dark and this part of town was down by the maquiladoras (factories that make cheap televisions), a pretty nitty-gritty place. Walking very slowly, I paused for moment to consider my options.
Entonces, había un empujón desde atrás por un adolescente quien dijo “Ándale” o algo otro para permitirle para pasarme. Pues, él se ralentizaba. Ahora, fui motivado sólo por mi estrés. Era evidente que el gigante GOOGLE no me podría guiar por una sola milla. ¡Qué monopolio! Ahora, yo sería muy tarde. Entonces, fui enojado.		Then a shove from behind by a sixteen year old who said “Ándale,” or some such term and I let him pass. Then he slowed down. By now I was pretty edgy. It was obvious that GOOGLE had screwed up the whole map thing and I was going to be very late. You think a monopoly that wires our brains could at least get the map right.
Ahora, este tonto se está desacelerando, probablemente para empezar hacer el 'texting' mientras de caminar. Sin embargo, él no me parecía el tipo; era delgado y de altura. No tenía la manera de un data-dink, tampoco. Estábamos todavía casi un kilómetro de la esquina donde yo podría tomar un taxi.		Now this idiot was slowing down, probably getting ready to text while he walked. Funny, he did not look the type; he was tall and thin. He really had nothing of the air of circuit-slug or data dink. We were several hundred yards away from the main intersection where it seemed highly likely that I would have to hail a taxi.
Así, decidí emitir un fuerte gruñido, como un oso mexicano, para moverme por delante este joven desaliñado. Luego, me lo sentí. Una mordida aguda, de un grande insecto, entre dos costillas en mi lado derecho. Un gran insecto, por supuesto. Búsqueda rápida, ningunos resultados. Bien. No era un insecto.		So, I decided to emit a Klingon Worff-grunt and edge ahead of the scruffy looking fellow. Then I felt it. A sharp bite from a big bug, on my side. Right there, in between two of the ribs on my right side. Must be a pretty big bug; quick blood-check. Nothing; good. It was not a bug.
Su cuchillo tuvo una hoja curvilínea, tal vez como un machete. La hoja se extendía por diez centímetros, tal vez un poquito más. Esto me enfocó. Un niño de menos de diecisiete años, me dijo, “tu dinero…Your Munnnnnyyyyy” Eso fue todo: la estresa de ser cada vez más tarde para mis amigos me hizo enojado.		His knife was curled, perhaps like a machete. The blade was four inches long, maybe a smidge longer. That focussed my attention. The young man, no more than sixteen, said, “tu dinero…your moneyyyy.” This was the last straw as I was already stressed because I was running later and later.
Este Tijuana telenovela se había vuelto en una molestia sin fin. En fijar mis ojos a los suyos, le miré directamente y, con una voz elevada, le sugerí que haga algo sexual a sí mismo bien imposible para hacer. Sí, mis términos fueron 'un poco' más transparentes, con palabras antiguas sajonas que son bien conocidas en México.		This wild GOOGLE chase was not only frustrating but becoming a downright nuisance. Bringing my eyes over to his, I looked at him directly and, with a raised voice but not yelling, I suggested that he perform some physically impossible act of auto-fornication, albeit in terms a bit more – ¿how shall we say this politely? -- prosaic.
El joven fue tan asombrado por mi respuesta, impulsada por mi frustración de ser tarde para cena, que sólo se quedaba allí, su boca abierta con sorpresa. En la ausencia de otros peatonales, caminé rápido al mediano del tránsito en un carretera llena de coches.		The bewildered chap was so taken aback by my response – charged as it was from the stress of running late and being lost – that he just stood there his mouth gaping open in surprise.  With no other pedestrians around, I quickly strode out to the middle of an adjacent freeway teeming with speeding cars.
Entonces, haberme demostrado ser un ‘loco-yank’, el adolescente se alejó con su cuchillo. En todo eso, me sentí ningún momento de miedo. Había pensado rápido y sabido exactamente lo que hacer. Situaciones como ésta no son pruebas de carácter. Sin embargo, pueden darnos un indicador de quien realmente somos.		Well, that finished things for the ‘old sport’ and off he went. Through it all not one ounce of fear. I thought quickly and knew just what to do. Situations like these that arise in life are not big tests of character – most fail character tests at some time or other – but can indicate something about who we are; how we think.
Sin embargo, la historia no está terminando aquí. Todo ése se trataba de pequeñas cosas. La verdadera historia empieza aquí. Por supuesto, jactaba toda esa noche y, especialmente, con la mujeres bonitas de mi oficina el próximo día.  Después de tomar un taxi y llegar treinta minutos tarde, tuve la excusa perfecta, “fui asaltado pero con mi mente legendaria manejó de evitar ser robado.”		Yet the story does not end here. It begins here.  Sure I spent the rest of the evening bragging to my buds from CIDESI. After finally tracking down a “rip-shaw” (i.e., an overpriced cab) and arriving a half hour late, I had the perfect excuse, in halting Spanish, “My apologies – getting mugged and then un-mugged took up more time than one would otherwise normally expect.”
Por supuesto, capturé la audiencia para describir mis proezas valientes en detalles deliciosos, aunque en términos no tan neutros como aquellos por arriba. Sin embargo, decidí mentir por decir que me había sentido miedo un poco después (que había sido verdad de algunas previas molestias), a menos que yo parezca como un ‘estadostúpidense’.		Of course that gave me the floor to go into details – a bit more floridly stated than my bloodless rendition above – while pompously announcing that I felt no fear during the event. However, I did lie and say I felt fear afterwards (as I sometimes do after other such inconveniences). The last thing I need is to be viewed as some loco-yank.
Sin embargo, la historia verdadera comienza ahora. Es corto y difícil para recontar, a causa de la exposición inevitable de una deficiencia personal (es decir, ick). Después de la elaboración de mis mitos convenientes, un aspecto inquietante de los ojos del atacador frustrado regresaba a mi mente; sus ojos mestizos y tristes, llenos de prematuro cansancio del mundo.		After all, I have a business to run (into the ground at this point). The story really begins now. It is short and it is difficult for me.  After all the bragging, especially to attractive women, the haunting look on that boy’s face came back to me.  His eyes, definitely of that mestizo, faintly Asiatic, slant seemed almost lachrymal in their creaminess; the silent cry of weariness.
La postura de este niño me siguió como una fantasma de culpabilidad, mi culpabilidad, todavía no percibida. Su postura era ésa de un anciano; pero tenía no más de dieciséis años y fue más alto que yo por cinco centímetros al menos. Había otra indicación en la manera con que estaba blandiendo su cuchillo; pude ver el brillo de la hoja.		The boy’s posture – and I am no one to judge – haunted me, too. He was taller than I by at least two inches; yet he was slumped over at sixteen years old. Not deformed but weighed down and worn out. Something showed even in the way he held the knife, the glint of the blade of which I could see twinkling under the light of a distant street lamp.
Una hoja aguda, ésta era. Este adolescente estaba agarrando el cuchillo tan tentativamente; como si quiso minimizar su contacto físico con su arma. En retrospectiva, la señal era clara: este joven, no más de un niño, de veras, no deseó estar allí. Además, no le gustaba amenazar a alguien por su dinero con un cuchillo capaz de matar. No, no: todo esto no era propicio para él.		One sharp blade. That teen was holding the knife so tentatively, as if there were some deadly virus on it and he was trying hard to minimize the contact of his flesh to it.  These cues were clear: this young man, a mere boy, really did not want to be there.  And he really did not want to be there sticking a knife at someone, threatening that person for his money.
Caminaba lejos de mí, sobre una colina cercana, porque no querría perseguirse por un coche si uno de detuviera para mí. (Ninguno detuvo.) Pues, le miré subir esa colina y él me parecía, de veras, un poco desgraciado. En recordar mis años adolescentes, había caminado a menudo de misma manera con los mismos sentimientos.		He walked away, up a nearby hill, for he did not want to be pursued by cars should one stop for me. Anyways, I watched him for a minute or two as he walked up that hill and he seemed, well, kind of sad. Recalling my mid-teens, I had walked and likely felt much the same way.
Aunque no me encontraba feliz muchas veces hace cuarenta años, nunca había pensado en atacar a otros tampoco. Pero me había nacido en una familia afluente en Pittsburgh en los años sesenta y setenta, un ensueño listo para durar siempre. Mis papas nos habían alimentado bien y educado aún mejor. ¡Qué fortuna para mi hermana y mí!		Of course, blue as I often was back then, I had never thought of going after people with knives. Then again, I was born into an affluent, lovely family in the Pittsburgh of the 1960s and early 1970s, a dreamtime ready to go on forever. My parents were not poor. They had fed us well and educated us (i.e., my sister and me) even better.
La sola presión de compañeros que sentí era el dilema, sí o no, de fumar lo que sea. Este joven probablemente nunca había sabido ningunas de estas circunstancias. Era más de probable que tenía un papa abusivo. La violencia familiar entre los pobres – en ambos la ciudad y el campo – sigue siendo lamentablemente generalizada.		The only peer pressure I felt was whether or not to cough over a bong.  This young man probably had never been remotely close to any of these circumstances.  Chances are he had at least one abusive parent. Domestic violence among the rural and urban poor remains lamentably high in México.
Al cabo, es fácil para olvidar que la pobreza es su propia forma de violencia estructural. Además, este joven probablemente enfrentaba a la presión constante de un familiar mayor – un hermano o primo, tal vez – para unirse en una pandilla. Hay una posibilidad fuerte que una tal pandilla sería su sola opción para protegerse en su mundo, al menos fuera de la casa.		After all, it is easy for me and almost anybody I know to forget that poverty truly is structural violence. It is likely that this teen was under a lot of pressure from some older relative of his generation, be that a brother or a cousin, to join a gang. There is a strong possibility that being in a gang was his only way to assure his safety, at least outside the home.
Así, mi contra-atraco no ocurrió gracias a lo que había hecho. Al contrario, mi 'gran escape' reflejaba la personalidad del ladrón prospectivo; al fin, no quiso hacerlo. Su ritual de iniciación en la pandilla, que había estado soportando, no estaba teniendo éxito. Y, en su corazón, ya escondido del mundo, esto estaba sólo bien con él.		So, the unmugging took place, not because I did or said anything particularly brave. (Allow me to assure you that I am a most practiced coward.) The unmugging was about the mugger; he really did not want to do it.  This initiation ritual he was likely enduring was not going well. Nor did he want it to, really.
Dentro de sí mismo, este joven encarnaba mucho más que una vida de un ‘punk’ de las calles. En este momento, perdí mi oportunidad. ¿Qué habría pasado, si yo hubiera tenido un enfoque diferente, basado en algo diferente de la agresividad, y le hubiera mirado en el ojo, sin escupiéndole mi lenguaje ofensivo? ¿Qué habría ocurrido si yo hubiera dicho, “Tu vida no tiene que seguir este camino; eres más grande que esto…”?		This young man had far more inside him than a life as a street punk. At this point, I missed my opportunity.  What if I had had the presence of mind to stop; take a breath; and, look him in the eye, this time not flinging saxon words his way? What if I had simply said, in halting Spanish, “You know, your life does not have go this way…You are bigger than this…”?
¿Habría yo cambiado su vida? Probablemente, no; al menos en el corto plazo. Pero, en algunos años, este hombre de futuro podría haber dicho a sí mismo, “Ese tonto gringo, con su español tan torpes, tenía razón. En verdad, no tengo que seguir a mi hermano, primo, amigo o quienquiera…” Es posible que he revisado ese escenario para alinearlo con mis necesidades pequeñas. Ya que yo me haya conocido desde hace muchos años, un tal robo de contexto es bien posible.		Would I have changed his life? Probably not, at least in the short term. But down the road, this future man may have said to himself, “that idiot gringo with his retarded Spanish was right. I do not have to live like my brother, classmate, cousin, neighbor, whatever…” Or did I re-write the script of that moment to fit my own parochial ends? Knowing me for fifty-plus years now, I have to confess that such a soul-swipe is entirely possible.
Verdaderamente, puedo perderme en este agujero de oscurecimiento sin saber cómo obtener la repuesta; de veras, es un kaón vivo. Sin embargo, una cosa, que sabré siempre, es el hecho que, en esta noche, tenía una oportunidad para alcanzar más allá de mi hostilidad (sólo otra cara de miedo) y comunicar auténticamente con otro ser humano, quizás encontrarse en una encrucijada en su propia vida.		Truthfully, I can go down this darkening trail all I want and will never really have answer. But one thing I do know: that evening, I had the opportunity possibly to make an important difference by reaching out through my hostility (morphed fear, surely) and communicate authentically with another human being, possibly at a cross-roads in his life.
Al fin, no tomé este riesgo esa noche; ni aprovecharme de esta oportunidad; lo esquivé. Sí, elegí el camino más viajado. ¿Por qué? Porque estaba ya preparándome para poner en marcha la fanfarronería para mi compañeros en su hotel y para las bellezas en mi oficina el próximo día. Sospecho que tenga que presentar algunas explicaciones al momento de mi partida eventual.		Yet, I did not take that risk or follow that opportunity; I merely skipped it. So, yes, I took the road more travelled. Why? Because I was already preparing the braggadocio for my colleagues that evening and any number of beauties the next day.  When my time is up, I may have some explaining to do.

Letter 102 to Friends and Familiares: more thoughts on Iraq

By necessity this letter will – ¡hallelujah! – be very brief.  Ahora, I am in the process of packing my carpet-bag – this time for Tijuana.  Nice climate, great economy, wonderful opportunity and friends in LOW places; life is good.  But certain articles and sound-blights about Iraq showing up in cyber-space have truly stuck in my craw.  So these ‘blurt-outs’ have their reasonings behind them – trust me (…suckahhhh).

 

First, I supported the invasion in Iraq and I was wrong.  At the time, I argued persuasively that Iraq was a just war for many reasons.  The justice of violence, however, lies in its consequences, making bloodshed rarely open to justice. The aftermath over eleven years has eroded the justification of the war, notwithstanding the true heroism of 75% of the field troops, 50% of the officers’ corps and 25% of the civilians who cared.  To be sure, President Bush deserves credit for realizing this fact of strife and undertaking an unpopular and counter-intuitive surge to preserve Iraq for the Iraqis.

 

Second, the current chaos in Iraq is of Prime Minister al-Maliki’s making by a tyranny grab after the U.S. departed and in the election of 2010.  The difference between a secular and religious tyranny is that the former has the dubious virtue of keeping most of its depredations in-house. 

 

Third, President Obama is pursuing the right course, here. If the U.S. (read: neo-conservatives looking for a vindication of a grossly failed policy they initiated) were to bail out P.M. al-Maliki now, President Obama would simply be kicking this crisis down the road for the next President. Such temporizing does not serve us well. Yes, I argue that President Obama‘s inaction in Syria and Ukraine are disappointing and I have bored people with my reasons why. Suffice it to say, that Iraq, Syria and Ukraine are fundamentally different.  Syria is a regional proxy war with a terrain that makes ‘muscular’ humanitarianism an option.  Ukraine involves external aggression by the Putinista. Iraq is a civil war; more of a crime wave.  The government has to set itself right for its own subjects to defend it.

Fourth, Iran’s help – and ours to Iran – is appropriate. This development may be the only welcome aspect of this sadness in my belovèd Iraq.  Fact is: the American  and Iranian peoples share more in common than with any other people in that region, save Israel and, perhaps, Turkey. The status Iran holds of the largest state-sponsor of terrorism resembles a glass half full of cherry juice. Some say this and some say that; too many drink the U.S. government’s kool-aid.  In the meantime: first things first – stop these blood-drunk  I.S.I.S. bastards from slaughtering innocents in Iraq.

Fourth, making Iran a straw bogeyman makes little sense to me.  Iran does sponsor Hizbolah, winning it the exulted status of being a terrorist state, conferred by Foggy Bottom. While my support for Israel remains strong, if not unconditional, Hizbolah can rightly be seen as a resistance force (whether I agree with it or like it is of no relevance) and vehicle of social services for a largely disenfranchised people stuck in refugee camps (http://nedmcdletters.blogspot.com/2010/06/letter-9-to-friends-and-family.html). Outside of some border skirmishes (swift-boating the Brits in 2009; nobody killed), Iran has not started a major war.  Our proxy, Saddam Hussein, murdered many more people than Hizbolah ever has. It is time to readmit Iran to the community of nations and foster good relations. We all hate the humiliation of 1979; but Iran did not murder those fifty-two hostages. How long would they have lasted alive in Riyadh, Kandahar or Karachi? In fact the most stabilizing powers – with arguably two great civilizations – in the Middle East may well be Israel and Iran.  With a re-democratized Iraq, the “I”s would have it.

 

Fifth, the specter of a nuclear Iran is just that: illusory.  Yes, of course, Iran is striving to manufacture nuclear weapons. Why wouldn’t Iran do that?  Israel has them.  The U.S. has used them. But that is not the motivator, here. Look it: Iran is flanked by a country that killed half a million of her young people and two radical Sunni states spawning the virulent violence, primarily against shi´ites, we see today: Saudi Arabia with the wahabis and Pakistan with the pashtuns / taliban. The only thing worse than decadent infidels to these very few but very lethal extremists are ‘apostates’ (read: shi’ites). We have seen with horror the massacre of Iraqi soldiers who surrendered.  So you tell me: ¿Just who is the bigger worry for Iran?  A nuclear Israel and the United States or Saudi Arabia and a nuclear Pakistan?

Addendum to Letter-100: police reform plan drafted in 2005

Detailed TIME-Line for Police Identification Cards & Salary Reform

Salary Reform will challenge the Ministry of Interior’s (Ministry’s) resourcefulness by requiring the use of the following assets:

• 100 employees deployed temporarily to combine information from a paper data base compiled by the Qualifying Committee’s (QC’s) data-collectors, a computer file of employee information and finger prints and, possibly, governorate-level employee rosters available to the Ministry in Baghdad;
•  several hundred security personnel for at least the first two pay-days under the reform; and,
• 25-50 personal computers to consolidate information.

Should the Ministry find itself in a position to implement pay-parity with the military in conjunction with payroll reform, the Ministry could apply a unified salary plan to assign a certain level of pay with each rank.  Each pay-level would then correspond to a military pay-scale on a basis of 100% equality between the Defence and Interior Ministries.

In the various time-lines presented below, one of two distribution channels will be used for payment of salaries:  the current system of station commanders distributing payments or designated branches of the state-owned banks, Al-Rafidain and Al-Rashid.  If the Ministry is forced to continue with the traditional distribution system that has promoted corruption, it could alleviate potential payroll abuse by station commanders with the installation of telephone hot-lines.  Please recall that, under this reform, the Ministry of Finance will release only the amount of money properly payable to those employees registered with the QC.

The telephone hot-line option will entail the establishment of controls to protect tough-minded station-chiefs from false accusations by angry employees.  This control over the hot-lines is just one example of the many details the Deputy Ministers will decide during the salary reform.  Please note that this time-line is not comprehensive; details have been omitted while the QC will still have to submit a report outlining the criteria for retention or letting go of employees.  The benefits of accelerated salary reform will be:

1. human resource and payroll records centralized at the Ministry in Baghdad;
2. centralized accountability for station commanders through the hot-lines or removal of control over funds from them;
3. convincing evidence for the Ministry of Finance of the Ministry’s rigor and professionalism to argue for pay-parity; and,
4. consolidation of internal controls away from the governorates and the Minister in favor of the Deputy Ministers.

In sum, this initiative will aid you in exerting centralized control and accountability while permitting local police forces to use their discretion in reacting to crimes and other local matters.  The time-lines will abide by the following ‘key’; or, color-coding: 



Letter to Friends and Familiares #100: Arabian Agony

Iraq, stated concisely, may be in her death-throes. The Sunni-based Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (I.S.I.S., anything but a fertile goddess misplaced in the fertile crescent) is sweeping across the Sunni-dominated north and west of Iraq.  The U.S. experiment, initiated by President Bush, appears to be failing.  The politicoes are lobbing blame every which way.  Iraq continues to collapse.

The enormity of the challenge facing the U.S. et al. makes focussing on something or anything not only preferable but, in the eyes of a discredited President, politically imperative. Ten years ago, when I first worked in Baghdad, a wealthy Iraqi construction magnate, a Sunni, warned me of the infiltration into the Ministry of Interior by Shi’ite death squads.

Though AMB Bremer’s reign had only recently ended, his tenure was already proving to be a ‘DefCon-1’ disaster with the wrong analogy (i.e., post-war Germany) applied to the wrong culture (one with little tradition of western-style democracy) at the wrong time (after a devastating three decades). At that point, this friend told me only one insurgent leader was worth a damn: Muqtada al-Sadr.

Al-Sadr? The crazy cleric that many of the ‘cool set’ had long deemed as slightly retarded? The bad-boy of U.S. reconstruction efforts? What my colleague told me was that, as stupid and stubborn as Muqtada al-Sadr was, he was a “crazy kid nationalist”. Religious, yes; a anti-Sunni Shi´ite sectarian, not really.  Obviously, I rejected this insight out of hand. And so did the most Americans, to our subsequent peril.

Ten years later, I have argued until my face is blue against a number of dimensions of delusional thinking overtaking much of American policy. President Bush, at least and at last in 2007, broke the denial and surged troop strength to try to stem the slide toward total civil war. With General David Petraeus in field-command and partnering with Ambassador Ryan Crocker, one of the finest diplomats since General George Marshall, that gutsy surge carried the day.

Unfortunately, American victory in the field has proven not to be permanent. A very senior diplomat and Middle East trouble shooter, who had dealt with Prime Minister al-Maliki quite a bit, warned me in 2008, during his participation in the negotiation of the agreement between the Bush Administration and the duly elected Iraqi government of al-Maliki, that the then relatively new and always scruffy leader was looking to be a dictator.

To my eternal regret, I did not believe him; he was right. Trying to blame someone singularly is not a productive exercise. As far as President Obama’s strategy is concerned, it is time to end the riveting but irrelevant debate with its successive waves of recriminations and alibis. The President has confused detachment with appeasement; his policy has manifestly failed. 

Okay. 

As I have ranted many times, the President failed to act in 2010, when Prime Minister al-Maliki showed his true dictatorial ‘alpha-male fido’ by not handing the reins of government over to the duly elected Ayad Allawi, a secular Shi´ite and former Saddam official who had fallen out of favor with that tyrant for political and not sectarian reasons.

Democrats and liberal apologists need to accept this fact of President Obama’s strategy to date lest the current problems be neither addressed nor solved over time. As a quick aside: the U.S. invasion will eventually succeed in implanting a democratic governance – albeit quite different from the type we are used to – over the next ten to twenty years; think Viêt Nam in the late 1990s. The root causes of the startling advances, in recent days, of this newest crop of blood-drunk radicals in I.S.I.S. calls for nothing other than decisive moves including, but not limited to, the following:

• no aid or action until P.M. al-Maliki resigns while new elections and a new constitutional convention are scheduled;
• integration of the largest tribes into that new convention, the subsequent constitution and the eventual government;
• immediate integration into the security forces of the former Sons of Iraq (the Sunnis disaffected with Al Qaeda in 2007 who sided with the Americans to win the war);
• limited dispatch of Special Forces to usher in U.N. peace-keepers, preferably from non Arab Muslim countries like Indonesia, Senegal and Malaysia;
• limited airstrikes, only if necessary, to slow the I.S.I.S. advance while the honest members of the security forces – guessing roughly a 25-35% core – institute crime-watches and other neighbourhood policing tactics;
• provision of safe-havens for Muqtada al-Sadr and Ayatollah Sistani to avoid a deepening dependence upon Iran as well as high profile sectarian murders; as well as,
• an international police-training effort to clean the Shi´ite death squads out of the security forces.

These suggestions can be implemented rapidly to stanch the bleeding and permit the great majority of moderate Kurds, Sunnis and Shi´ites to take their country back from the current crime wave. I.S.I.S. may have high-sounding rhetoric – and may even believe its own P.R. copy – but it remains, first and foremost, a criminal gang. This insurgency is simply another crime-wave traipsing around in the garb of a galloping caliphate.  The trouble-makers on both sides are sectarian; their even-tempered and far more numerous compatriots may be religious but they are tolerant. All are Arabs or Kurds or both in the end.

President Bush won the war in 2007 by not abandoning the Iraqis to a fate almost as grim as the one implied by this currently dire situation.  President Obama did not fail us by not negotiating a Status of Forces Agreement in 2011. The Iraqis wanted us out. Where President Obama failed us was by not threatening to pull the 50-75,000 American troops still in-country when al-Maliki subverted an American-modeled electoral process based upon a flawed constitution with its civil war time-bomb of ceding vast swathes of territory from Arabs to Kurds. 

That threat of immediate redeployment in 2010 would have pressured Prime Minister al-Maliki  at least to come to the table and, perhaps, to acquiesce in the democratic transfer of power. There are many moving parts in this labyrinth of the two rivers; Ariadne's thread may well have been snipped by now.  There are too many issues for me to be able to perceive and capture as well as far too many to describe here.  The priority now is not to panic and bail out al-Maliki. Instead, cooler minds, Muslim minds, must empower moderate and religiously tolerant Iraqis to squeeze this vanguard of the caliphate out of everyone’s misery. 

What we can not accept right now is the same old reasoning of President Obama that, since Americans are rightly fed-up with war, his administration need not do anything and wait for the problem simply to drift away.  That hasn’t worked in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. The largely muted responses in these three cases have added up to a tendency toward appeasement, exciting bullies – Putinistas or blood-drunkards – to seize what they can, when they can, until 2017 (i.e., three years).

Letter 99: Max, would you believe....

Dear everyone,

Of course, there is nothing significant about my top twenty favorite songs over my life-time. We all have our own tastes and mine tend to feed off the preferences of those close to me in my life. For example, I thought the Dead Heads were cult-like and I said so, mainly out of my not being the center of attention among Dead Heads; yet the gal at the center of that teapot trifle did introduce me to my favorite all-time song.

Another example is the classic blues solo by Miles Davis, introduced to me by a far-more cultivated school-mate when I was in my forties. So there is little of intrinsic value here, with the exception of me seizing the opportunity to show off. But then my father’s sage words of years ago come homes to roost, “Neddy, never try to make an impression because you never know what impression you are making.”

People’s Exhibit-1 of pre-medicated ‘boge’, I offer the evidence that, until my Peace Corps tour, I thought mariachi music was the singing of some big-sky, big-eyed beauty from Italy.  So why, after debunking the content of ‘the f*ck-it list’, do I post these songs? Mainly so I can reach to one location for some of my favorite tunes; kind of like a mini iPod. What made this exercise interesting was the challenge of whittling the list down to just twenty names.

That need to weigh which songs go in and which stay out is admittedly petty. What I found to be interesting was how the criteria for inclusion evolved over the several hours during which I indulged this silliness. Truthfully, I have a new-found sympathy for school admissions committees. There are twenty favorites that I have today – more than twenty – that omit many more from the past which played significant parts when they were preferred.

Twenty songs is not many and so it almost needs to be a collection of ambassadors, representing the various types of music – from top-forty to jazz to classical and even to religious – to reflect the wide diversity of my taste. Underlying that diversity is the wide array of needs. Different musical modes meet different needs, profane and sacred, rooted in the past; spicing the present; and, heralding the future. 

Try this little exercise and you will find it to be interesting. Many questions will cross your mind, including the tension between what appeals to your personality and why versus what you want others to know of you. Since twenty tunes is necessarily the tip of the proverbial iceberg inside your head, what criteria do you apply in letting those select melodies through to the list? That list vaguely outlines of the wider body of music embodied in you.

Please let me know what your all-time faves are; I am still malleable after all these years. And so doth proceed my scruffy-pod.

20. Pennies from Heaven; Jimmy Beaumont & the Skyliners (dunno)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4-vaG-hWto

Just a great fifties tune, though this one (I think) originated in the forties; there are so many. Sometimes complacency with a rhythm is just what the shaman of jitterbug ordered. The Beach Boys took this happy-music into the 1960s.

19. You Are Here; John & Yoko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BslpXO4oha4

Incredible love song in which absence can make the heart grow longer. For an angry guy, John Lennon really had depth that I see in few speed-ragers...How lucky those who get to be married; their union reconciles the godliness and needfulness of humanity.

18. Day by Day; Godspell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWQEUzOACm4

Cannot think a song that better evokes to simple joy of Xians with peace and humility. Privately, I have envied the evangelicals for their simplicity and enduring happiness. Fundamentalists are a different breed altogether, a type of virus everyone can live quite easily without.

17. Semper Fideles; United States Marines Corps (John Philip Sousa)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgABUZ4i9co

Puts one in that Kicking-A with the U.S.A. frame of mind, every time. While I sometimes cringe at what my country does, I do love America so. 

16. Guadalajara; ELVIS (¿quién sabe?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__xpWYelT64

The newest addition to the list, after going to Mexico; this version selected out of deference to Elvis Presley (and, indirectly, Buddy Holly, early American rock icons)

15. Anarchy in the U.K.; Sex Pistols

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbmWs6Jf5dc

Best teeth-grinding, flame-spitting rock and roll still out there; Neil Young’s “Hey-hey, My-my” is quite the companion piece…

14. Naima; John Coltrane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OuD9VqpgNc

A love song that captures the bittersweet utopia of the rapture; where one senses the infinite in a finite, frail being…Like many other white people, when I try to explain 'soul' verbally, the description is truly pathetic.  Nevertheless, a durable definition of soul whispers through it.

13. Leningrad; Dallas Symphony Orchestra (Symphony #7 of Dmitri Shostakovich)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuCUdGyUrr0

This long symphony sings of resilience, not with words but brassy grit. Comrade Shostakovich apparently composed this work in the basement of the Leningrad Conservatory of Music during the Nazi bombardment of 'Petrograd' in which the living indeed envied the dead; when a communist city came to resemble the island of the gods darkly imagined by Stephen Vincent Benét just a few years before.

12. I’d have You Anytime; George Harrison

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPrHaB8KCIk

Always feel like I am floating in the clouds with this song; great match with “Good Night” by the Beatles from the 'White Album' and also something of the beneficent twin of "I Am the Walrus". Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl" also fits this music of thoughtful passion.

11. Grazin’ in the Grass; Friends of Distinction (Hugh Masekela)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c81ANIBbYSc

As the 1960s flic says, “What’s so Bad about Feeling Good?”; this is the tip of the iceberg (sic) of really hot dance songs like “Louie, Louie” or “Aint No Woman Like the One I got”; the original by Hugh Masekela pulls at the heart during ‘Bobby’.

10. Abraham, Martin and John; Dion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5hFMy4pTrs

First ‘45’ I ever bought in early 1969; still makes me choke up at the losses of the 1960s. While Watergate certainly helped make much of the 1970s bleak, those years in many ways were the fall-out of possibilities denied ten years earlier (including the murders of Malcolm X, et al.).

9. Clair de Lune; Claude Debussy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvFH_6DNRCY

Piano études, composed and played rightly, can stir the soul at the darkest hour. Clair de Lune helped me wend my way through some unavoidable challenges. Each has his or her own way through to the other side, much the same but reverential to life itself.

8. Let it Rain; Eric Clapton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNSYnBFLAcM

Still gets my heart beating hard all these years later; Clapton had soul.  So many other songs by Eric Clapton -- even 'Cocaine' -- draw from something very deep within; something predisposed toward tragedy yet undefiled by adversity.

7. Opus #1; Tommy Dorsey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N2aEmcEbyg

To me, this song expresses the quiet grandeur of Nick Carraway in the Great Gatsby -- the typical Yank who does not know a whole lot but knows how to be decent; who may not get around as much as he knows his away around.

6. Kashmir; Led Zeppelin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQH3LtNePgI 

Led Zep had the guitars of their era, often tapping the mysticism of the ages.  Bands like Led Zeppelin, the Police and the Beatles (all British) made the counter-culture more than just a rebellion against empty consumerism, not the good fortune of comfort.

5. American Patrol; Glenn Miller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niYPjvd7y-Y

Love to dance to this song, too; makes patriotism fun instead of ponderous. Ironically, the lindy-hop tends to make me more jingoistic than the kulturkampf of my fellow conservatives trying to 'save' America.  Other Miller greats -- "ln the Mood" or "Perfidia", for example -- cut the rug. 

4. So What; Miles Davis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEC8nqT6Rrk

The King of Cool brings the senses to us; better synesthesia than Baudelaire…like looking inward while lunging on a patio chair on a spring Saturday afternoon, after running a few miles; gratitude in the everyday takes some introspection.

3. Sophisticated Lady; Billie Holiday (Duke Ellington)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r4jLwjj_Ik

Okay, I have always had a crush on Billie Holiday; plan to raise some Hell with her in Heaven. Of the five or ten truly beautiful women I have met over the years, almost every one has some trace of the melancholy inherent in the incomplete. 

2. Begin the Beguine; Artie Shaw (Cole Porter)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCXVxE_YeP4

Brings a tear to my eye every time; more for mourning what’s lost that cannot be understood but only felt. The tightness of the snapping rhythm is somehow stoic and has been somehow lost. 

1.Eyes of the World; the DEAD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCy9k_RWlvA

American mysticism; Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter understood the infinity within by which even recent memories are wind-swept into the inscrutable solitude of a horizon just a few paces behind; sort-of like rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's and rendering to God what is godly.