Laurie Essig

Wherever the Marines go in Afghanistan, ' goodness will follow ' ?

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Apparently the Marines already have their orders and are getting ready for 9000 of them so show up in the Helmand province as part of President Obama's 30,000 troop escalation of the eight-year war there. No surprise there.  But listen to the Marine's top officer, Gen. James T. Conway, who said:

Where we have gone, goodness follows," Conway said. "But the fact is that we are not as expansive as we would like to be, and those probable additional number of Marines are going to help us to get there."

Up to 9,000 Marines set to start deployment to Afghanistan - washingtonpost.com. Which sounded a bit like Psalm 23, 6:

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

It also just sounds crazy. According to www.unknownnews.net:

At least 753,399 people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since the U.S. and coalition attacks, based on lowest credible estimates. About 251 times as many people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq than in the ghastly attacks of September 11, 2001. More than 108 times as many people have been killed in these wars and occupations than in all terrorist attacks in the world from 1993-2004. The 2004 report showed terrorism at an all-time high, and after numerous experts suggested that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were fueling the increase, subsequent reports have remained classified.

And who is Conway to believe that death is goodness?  A bit of mucking around reveals a "hero" who has Thanksgiving with "his troops."  But it also reveals that Conway wants to keep gays out of the military (after all, you can't do God's work if you're gay) and a man who was a true believer in the Iraq invasion to find the imaginary Weapons of Mass Destruction. Just as crazy as a Marine general who believed in WMDs and who believes the Marines bring "goodness" to Afghanistan by killing and maiming is the administration's belief that more war will bring more goodness.  At this point, it seems that Obama wants to add about 30,000 more troops and withdraw by 2018. War till at least 2018? If we continue the wars for that long then millions of people, millions of innocent civilians--children, old people, people who want nothing to do with war and death-- will be dead and many times that number so wounded or so psychologically scarred from the war that they will never be fully able to function again.  In other words, they'll be the living dead.  As will all those Marines coming back to the US in coffins or in pieces. Goodness?  Godly?  Good gods.  At this point, the disconnect between reality and policy is so great, the continuation of Dubbya's religious war so clear, that it is impossible to assume President Obama is anything but the most cynical of men.  Because unlike Dubbya, who actually believed crazy Christian talk about bringing "goodness/godliness" by killing, Obama is far too smart to believe such stupid things.  And so he is only operating out of a misguided sense that somehow increasing war abroad will lead to re-election at home. But goodness and love will not follow Obama's war in Afghanistan.  Instead, more anger against the US, more terrorism at home and in Afghanistan and Iraq, and none of us will even dwell in the House of Reality, let alone the House of the Lord.

If only Obama talked to the ' bravest woman in Afghanistan '

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In yesterday's press here in Montreal were two interesting items about Afghanistan.  One, President Obama vowed to "finish the job" and thereby signaled his plan to send something like 30,000 (maybe more) American soldiers to a war that is not ever going to be finished. This depressing headline was right next to a notice that Malalai Joya, the "bravest woman in Afghanistan," was in town to promote her new book, A Woman Among Warlords. Joya was the youngest person elected to the Afghan parliament, but her outspoken criticism of corruption, including in the Karzai government, got her thrown out.  Since then she has had to live a life on the run, under constant death threats, never sleeping in the same place; never showing her face publicly. Joya is quite clear that "finishing the job" in Afghanistan does not involve more war.  She believes that:

As long as foreign troops are in the country we will be fighting two enemies instead of one. Liberation was just a big lie... night raids, torture and aerial bombardment (that killed hundreds of Afghan civilians while the Taliban made steady gains).

Instead of more violence, Joya wants humanitarian aid, education, and support for democratic movements. Obama talks to generals and they tell him "More war."  That's what generals do.  Their entire existence is based on the belief that war is "necessary" and "good policy." Obama talks with Congressional leaders, nearly all of whom rely on the military industrial complex for contributions and "good jobs" at home. But why doesn't Obama talk to Joya? If only Obama had taken the time to meet with people who are not invested in war, but peace.  If only he were spending Thanksgiving with Joya, seeking council from someone who neither makes war nor relies on the profits of war.  Then perhaps Tuesday's inevitable announcement of more troops and more war would not be looming over the holidays like an ax over the turkey's neck. 'Liberation was just a big lie' - thestar.com.

If only Obama talked to the ' bravest woman in Afghanistan '

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="243" caption="Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife"][/caption]

In yesterday's press here in Montreal were two interesting items about Afghanistan.  One, President Obama vowed to "finish the job" and thereby signaled his plan to send something like 30,000 (maybe more) American soldiers to a war that is not ever going to be finished. This depressing headline was right next to a notice that Malalai Joya, the "bravest woman in Afghanistan," was in town to promote her new book, A Woman Among Warlords. Joya was the youngest person elected to the Afghan parliament, but her outspoken criticism of corruption, including in the Karzai government, got her thrown out.  Since then she has had to live a life on the run, under constant death threats, never sleeping in the same place; never showing her face publicly. Joya is quite clear that "finishing the job" in Afghanistan does not involve more war.  She believes that:

As long as foreign troops are in the country we will be fighting two enemies instead of one. Liberation was just a big lie... night raids, torture and aerial bombardment (that killed hundreds of Afghan civilians while the Taliban made steady gains).

Instead of more violence, Joya wants humanitarian aid, education, and support for democratic movements. Obama talks to generals and they tell him "More war."  That's what generals do.  Their entire existence is based on the belief that war is "necessary" and "good policy." Obama talks with Congressional leaders, nearly all of whom rely on the military industrial complex for contributions and "good jobs" at home. But why doesn't Obama talk to Joya? If only Obama had taken the time to meet with people who are not invested in war, but peace.  If only he were spending Thanksgiving with Joya, seeking council from someone who neither makes war nor relies on the profits of war.  Then perhaps Tuesday's inevitable announcement of more troops and more war would not be looming over the holidays like an ax over the turkey's neck. 'Liberation was just a big lie' - thestar.com.

US official uses the " S " word and the " C " word about Afghanistan

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Former US diplomat to Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh, appeared on NBC yesterday and uttered both the S word and the C word about Afghanistan. That's right.  He mentioned the Soviets and the decades-old Afghan Civil War. For some reason, these are two words that are not used very often in US news coverage of Afghanistan, not the mainstream sort anyway.  The fact that Afghanistan has been engaged in a civil war since before the Soviet invasion (1979) and that this civil war continues and that the US is on the same side of the civil war as the Soviets were is, I suppose, too obvious to report on.  And I guess the fact that the Soviets had their butts kicked and the war in Afghanistan so thoroughly drained the Communist state of resources and credibility that many observers saw that war as the beginning of the end of the Soviet Empire has been so thoroughly ignored by the mainstream media because it's just so widely known by the American voters that it doesn't merit a mention. So when a former diplomat actually utters the "S" and the "C" words about Afghanistan, it's as shocking as if he just dropped the F bomb (futile, f*#ked, etc.). Ex-diplomat says Afghanistan in ‘civil war,’ calls for US withdrawal | Raw Story. Writing in the Huffington Post last week, documentary film makers Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald pointed out that the US media has never been good about actually reporting on Afghanistan.  Even when it was clear that the US was purposefully luring the Soviets in by supporting the mujahadeen, even when it became clear that millions of Afghans would be left dead and even more would become refugees as a direct result of the US's "covert" support of the mujahadeen, the American press continued to pretend as if Afghanistan were a black and white melodrama.  Good vs. bad.  Evil Empire vs. Freedom Fighters.  Somehow the press imagined Afghanistan as if it really was a Rambo film.  Even when the freedom fighters morphed into the Taliban, there was almost no "reporting" on the consequences of US foreign policy for ordinary Afghans, especially women. After the Soviets left in 1989, it wasn't until 9/11 that the American press even really noticed Afghanistan again.  And they noticed it as "the good war" or some way to stop al Qaeda.

• Elizabeth Gould: Afghanistan: A history of failed press coverage (huffingtonpost.com)

But what happens if the US press starts noticing that this is the SAME war the Soviets fought, that it was exactly this war that drained them of any resources at home, and left them nearly powerless on the world stage?  Maybe the "C," "S," and "F" words will no longer be enough and the "B" word (bring the troops home) will be bandied about.

US official uses the " S " word and the " C " word about Afghanistan

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption]

Former US diplomat to Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh, appeared on NBC yesterday and uttered both the S word and the C word about Afghanistan. That's right.  He mentioned the Soviets and the decades-old Afghan Civil War. For some reason, these are two words that are not used very often in US news coverage of Afghanistan, not the mainstream sort anyway.  The fact that Afghanistan has been engaged in a civil war since before the Soviet invasion (1979) and that this civil war continues and that the US is on the same side of the civil war as the Soviets were is, I suppose, too obvious to report on.  And I guess the fact that the Soviets had their butts kicked and the war in Afghanistan so thoroughly drained the Communist state of resources and credibility that many observers saw that war as the beginning of the end of the Soviet Empire has been so thoroughly ignored by the mainstream media because it's just so widely known by the American voters that it doesn't merit a mention. So when a former diplomat actually utters the "S" and the "C" words about Afghanistan, it's as shocking as if he just dropped the F bomb (futile, f*#ked, etc.). Ex-diplomat says Afghanistan in ‘civil war,’ calls for US withdrawal | Raw Story. Writing in the Huffington Post last week, documentary film makers Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald pointed out that the US media has never been good about actually reporting on Afghanistan.  Even when it was clear that the US was purposefully luring the Soviets in by supporting the mujahadeen, even when it became clear that millions of Afghans would be left dead and even more would become refugees as a direct result of the US's "covert" support of the mujahadeen, the American press continued to pretend as if Afghanistan were a black and white melodrama.  Good vs. bad.  Evil Empire vs. Freedom Fighters.  Somehow the press imagined Afghanistan as if it really was a Rambo film.  Even when the freedom fighters morphed into the Taliban, there was almost no "reporting" on the consequences of US foreign policy for ordinary Afghans, especially women. After the Soviets left in 1989, it wasn't until 9/11 that the American press even really noticed Afghanistan again.  And they noticed it as "the good war" or some way to stop al Qaeda.

• Elizabeth Gould: Afghanistan: A history of failed press coverage (huffingtonpost.com)

But what happens if the US press starts noticing that this is the SAME war the Soviets fought, that it was exactly this war that drained them of any resources at home, and left them nearly powerless on the world stage?  Maybe the "C," "S," and "F" words will no longer be enough and the "B" word (bring the troops home) will be bandied about.

Wars, record number of hungry, more bonuses for AIG. A map of the world.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Image by Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the BPL via Flickr"][/caption]

In our world, it is difficult to construct a unilinear narrative.  There are so many competing stories and images to grab our attention that anything like "meaning" is quickly lost.  This is particularly true in the "news" industry where there is almost never any larger story about why people are killing other people in Afghanistan, in high schools, in their own homes, why there's no world reaction to melting ice caps, record salaries and bonuses on Wall Street, starving children. Sometimes I like to play a game called stream-of-consciousness mapping.   I pick two or three stories and ask "How are these related?"  It makes the news both more interesting, but also more meaningful. Two stories in today's paper are a case in point: a record 1 billion plus human beings are hungry and General McCrystal will request 60,000 more troops in Afghanistan. CBC News - World - Undernourished surpass 1 billion: UN. So let's see.  According to a UN report,

The ranks of the world's hungry has surpassed one billion, and declining aid and investment in agriculture are expected to steadily increase the number of undernourished people for more than a decade.

And the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which according to costofwar.com is already over $920,000,000,000, might go ahead and get bigger and costlier.  I am not, you'll notice, even mentioning the human costs (since today's game only involves two stories). Certain among you will say "America's safety is on the line" but isn't our safety undermined by people who are hungry and desperate?  Isn't one of the major reasons people join the Taliban or al Qaeda or any other militant group because they're desperate and it seems like a such a group will allow a more secure future (even if that future is in the afterlife)? This stream-of consciousness question asking is part of the game.  Right now these questions pop into my mind: And why isn't a record number of hungry people  an issue of national security? And why isn't  the cost of war a threat to our national security? And as unethical as the Taliban might be or Al Qaeda, how unethical is it to spend money on war instead of investment in agriculture so people can eat? Oh, but wait, here's another story to add to the stream-of consciousness mapping: the Feds are trying to stop AIG from paying out another $198 million in bonuses to the very employees who helped create the global economic meltdown that helped inflate food and fuel prices, forcing desperately poor people to sell their meager belongings and be even less able to farm AND lessened agricultural aid given by wealthier nations. Why are AIG employees not making the connections that are so obvious between their greed and a record number of people hungry in the world? When I explained this game to a colleague who writes about the mentally ill, he told me it wasn't stream-of-consciousness mapping, but schizophrenic.  Apparently, as a mental illness, schizophrenia tends to create connections where none are there. Perhaps he's right.  Perhaps these lines can't be drawn. Perhaps there is no relationship between AIG, the wars, and a record number of hungry people. Or perhaps only by drawing them ourselves and not relying on the news industry, which "for some reason" (what is it, I wonder, and is it related to profit or a national culture of attention deficit disorder?) can we construct a map of the world and a more sane way of getting from here to there.

Wars, record number of hungry, more bonuses for AIG. A map of the world.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Image by Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the BPL via Flickr"][/caption]

In our world, it is difficult to construct a unilinear narrative.  There are so many competing stories and images to grab our attention that anything like "meaning" is quickly lost.  This is particularly true in the "news" industry where there is almost never any larger story about why people are killing other people in Afghanistan, in high schools, in their own homes, why there's no world reaction to melting ice caps, record salaries and bonuses on Wall Street, starving children. Sometimes I like to play a game called stream-of-consciousness mapping.   I pick two or three stories and ask "How are these related?"  It makes the news both more interesting, but also more meaningful. Two stories in today's paper are a case in point: a record 1 billion plus human beings are hungry and General McCrystal will request 60,000 more troops in Afghanistan. CBC News - World - Undernourished surpass 1 billion: UN. So let's see.  According to a UN report,

The ranks of the world's hungry has surpassed one billion, and declining aid and investment in agriculture are expected to steadily increase the number of undernourished people for more than a decade.

And the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which according to costofwar.com is already over $920,000,000,000, might go ahead and get bigger and costlier.  I am not, you'll notice, even mentioning the human costs (since today's game only involves two stories). Certain among you will say "America's safety is on the line" but isn't our safety undermined by people who are hungry and desperate?  Isn't one of the major reasons people join the Taliban or al Qaeda or any other militant group because they're desperate and it seems like a such a group will allow a more secure future (even if that future is in the afterlife)? This stream-of consciousness question asking is part of the game.  Right now these questions pop into my mind: And why isn't a record number of hungry people  an issue of national security? And why isn't  the cost of war a threat to our national security? And as unethical as the Taliban might be or Al Qaeda, how unethical is it to spend money on war instead of investment in agriculture so people can eat? Oh, but wait, here's another story to add to the stream-of consciousness mapping: the Feds are trying to stop AIG from paying out another $198 million in bonuses to the very employees who helped create the global economic meltdown that helped inflate food and fuel prices, forcing desperately poor people to sell their meager belongings and be even less able to farm AND lessened agricultural aid given by wealthier nations. Why are AIG employees not making the connections that are so obvious between their greed and a record number of people hungry in the world? When I explained this game to a colleague who writes about the mentally ill, he told me it wasn't stream-of-consciousness mapping, but schizophrenic.  Apparently, as a mental illness, schizophrenia tends to create connections where none are there. Perhaps he's right.  Perhaps these lines can't be drawn. Perhaps there is no relationship between AIG, the wars, and a record number of hungry people. Or perhaps only by drawing them ourselves and not relying on the news industry, which "for some reason" (what is it, I wonder, and is it related to profit or a national culture of attention deficit disorder?) can we construct a map of the world and a more sane way of getting from here to there.

Culture clash: bringing up teenage girls in Montreal

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Image by Dude Crush via Flickr"][/caption]

My daughters and I recently moved to Montreal.  I am on sabbatical from my job as a professor in Vermont and I wanted them to experience everything that city life has to offer (not to mention learn French).  One of the things I miss most when I live in Vermont is the excess collective energy of so many different sorts of people jammed into such a relatively small space.  Cities have a sort of excess of difference that forces us to be more aware and sometimes even more tolerant. So I was very happy yesterday as we traversed the streets of our neighborhood to have a "teachable moment" as we discussed why, on a blazing hot day, so many women were wearing hijab.  My girls actually attend school in Burlington, VT with a fair number of Muslim girls, but somehow the sheer number of women covered from head to toe in the blazing sun caught their eye. "I don't understand the point of coming to Canada if you're going to continue such sexist traditions," my oldest opined. "Why should anyone give up their culture just because they've moved to Canada?" "It's just oppressive to women," she continued. "But aren't bikinis as oppressive?  If you're not thin and young and have big breasts and willing to display them, you're considered undesirable in our culture," I respond, feeling good that I can point out that the difference between hijab and bikinis is not about oppression of women, but culturally different forms of oppression of women. So imagine the complicated feelings this morning when I read the local news. Family charged in possible honour killings of Montreal women in Kingston. An Afghani family is charged with killing their three teenage daughters in an honor killing.  The girls were apparently exhibiting Canada-appropriate behavior to such an extent that their mother, father, and older brother killed them, put their bodies in a car, and sunk them in a canal in Kingston.  In an odd and yes patriarchal twist, the father's other wife (he had two) was also killed with them (she was both unable to have children and refusing to return to Afghanistan). Okay, so much for the whole "our culture is similarly oppressive to women as theirs" speech.  It's not that I'm unaware of Afghani patriarchy.  Long before George Dubbya cared about the plight of Afghan women, I was part of a network of academics and activists trying to bring the plight of women under the Taliban to the attention of Western policy makers.  And the family, the murderous father, mother, and brother, were not exactly assimilated into Montreal life.  Despite apparent economic success here (they were building a $900,000 home and drove a Lexus SUV), the parents speak neither English nor French and are probably fairly confused about what they did wrong since honor killings are right in much of Afghanistan. But the clash of cultures — theirs and ours — is a teachable moment for me.  No matter how complex our awareness of  gender, race, and national identity is, the killing of women for being disobedient is always wrong.  And no matter how much we might allow that many women under consumer capitalism choose to wear bikinis and many Muslim women choose to wear hijab, there are severe limits to notions of choice within conditions of structural inequities. In other words, part of the argument of "diversity" is accepting the rather liberal notion that we are free agents making free choices of our own free will.  But of course none of this is free. In Montreal, if teenage girls  don't wear bikinis and display themselves, then they will have to pay social and economic costs.  In Montreal, if teenage girls don't cover themselves from head to toe and display a willingness to obey the orders of the men in their families,  then they might have to pay with their lives.  Being a woman is never without costs, but death is surely too high a cost for any of us to tolerate.

Culture clash: bringing up teenage girls in Montreal

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Image by Dude Crush via Flickr"][/caption]

My daughters and I recently moved to Montreal.  I am on sabbatical from my job as a professor in Vermont and I wanted them to experience everything that city life has to offer (not to mention learn French).  One of the things I miss most when I live in Vermont is the excess collective energy of so many different sorts of people jammed into such a relatively small space.  Cities have a sort of excess of difference that forces us to be more aware and sometimes even more tolerant. So I was very happy yesterday as we traversed the streets of our neighborhood to have a "teachable moment" as we discussed why, on a blazing hot day, so many women were wearing hijab.  My girls actually attend school in Burlington, VT with a fair number of Muslim girls, but somehow the sheer number of women covered from head to toe in the blazing sun caught their eye. "I don't understand the point of coming to Canada if you're going to continue such sexist traditions," my oldest opined. "Why should anyone give up their culture just because they've moved to Canada?" "It's just oppressive to women," she continued. "But aren't bikinis as oppressive?  If you're not thin and young and have big breasts and willing to display them, you're considered undesirable in our culture," I respond, feeling good that I can point out that the difference between hijab and bikinis is not about oppression of women, but culturally different forms of oppression of women. So imagine the complicated feelings this morning when I read the local news. Family charged in possible honour killings of Montreal women in Kingston. An Afghani family is charged with killing their three teenage daughters in an honor killing.  The girls were apparently exhibiting Canada-appropriate behavior to such an extent that their mother, father, and older brother killed them, put their bodies in a car, and sunk them in a canal in Kingston.  In an odd and yes patriarchal twist, the father's other wife (he had two) was also killed with them (she was both unable to have children and refusing to return to Afghanistan). Okay, so much for the whole "our culture is similarly oppressive to women as theirs" speech.  It's not that I'm unaware of Afghani patriarchy.  Long before George Dubbya cared about the plight of Afghan women, I was part of a network of academics and activists trying to bring the plight of women under the Taliban to the attention of Western policy makers.  And the family, the murderous father, mother, and brother, were not exactly assimilated into Montreal life.  Despite apparent economic success here (they were building a $900,000 home and drove a Lexus SUV), the parents speak neither English nor French and are probably fairly confused about what they did wrong since honor killings are right in much of Afghanistan. But the clash of cultures — theirs and ours — is a teachable moment for me.  No matter how complex our awareness of  gender, race, and national identity is, the killing of women for being disobedient is always wrong.  And no matter how much we might allow that many women under consumer capitalism choose to wear bikinis and many Muslim women choose to wear hijab, there are severe limits to notions of choice within conditions of structural inequities. In other words, part of the argument of "diversity" is accepting the rather liberal notion that we are free agents making free choices of our own free will.  But of course none of this is free. In Montreal, if teenage girls  don't wear bikinis and display themselves, then they will have to pay social and economic costs.  In Montreal, if teenage girls don't cover themselves from head to toe and display a willingness to obey the orders of the men in their families,  then they might have to pay with their lives.  Being a woman is never without costs, but death is surely too high a cost for any of us to tolerate.