B.B. King

Janis and I went to see B.B. King the other night. He's on tour for about the gazillionth time. It's always a treat to see a living legend, and BB's one of the best. He's 81, as he told us several times, with a body that doesn't work at all like it used to. Still, he could belt out some hard-ass blues with a voice that's as rich and strong as it ever was. His guitar playing is phenomenal - it seems so effortless, but that's what comes from 70 years of practice. Combine the voice and guitar, and you have music that is incredibly rich and deep.

BB is obviously having the time of his life. What a kind and gracious man, very gentle, but still with the fire in his belly .... just not as wild a fire as it once was.

Go see him if you can. While you can.

Studio News

This past weekend I had a long road trip. I drove down to the Durham/Chapel Hill/Raleigh area on Friday. On Saturday, I checked out the art galleries to see if any might be interested in carrying my work. Then it was on to Fayetteville for the opening of their juried art show, which has one of my paintings. Finally, it was another long trip home on Sunday.

As it turned out, the weekend was a big success. On Saturday I went to four galleries and found one that wants to work with me. It's Bill Hester Fine Art, located on the main drag in downtown Chapel Hill, right by the university. Bill's an interesting guy, with some very definite ideas about art which he isn't the least bit shy about sharing with you. But he's also a very straightforward businessman, which counts for a lot in my book, especially after some of the gallery owners I've dealt with over the years. Anyway, I'm very excited about working with him. Bill wants to start with six of my paintings, three from the "Meditation on War" series and three from the "Old Times" series. He'll get 'em at the end of the month.

After visiting with Bill, I headed down to Fayetteville. The Museum's show is a big event in the NC art world. They had nearly 300 entries, selected 46, and my painting "Lament" was awarded Second Place in the show.

So all in all, the weekend was a success. Now it's Wednesday and I'm almost back to a normal schedule. I'm getting the six paintings ready to go to Chapel Hill, and meanwhile have two more on the easel. Too much to do, of course, but hey, I'm pretty happy!

Spring Has Sprung

The title line comes from a poem that I saw when I was a kid:

Spring has sprung,
the grass has riz.
I wonder where
the flowers is?

Well, it certainly has sprung. The weather has been warm. Tonight I saw a couple of frogs hopping across the road. The weeds in my yard are starting to sprout. Fruit trees are starting to bloom, birds are pooping on my truck, and hundreds of jihadi bugs are suicide-bombing my windshield.

I love it!

I'm not a fan of cold weather. Haven't been since I was in the third or fourth grade. Cold weather is like death. But spring, ahh, spring is great! The earth starts stirring again. Things that looked dead are suddenly alive. It's warm enough for me to break out the shorts and sandals again. My dogs (finally) want to go outside again and maybe chase the cows through the forest. (My dogs are two 13-pound Shih Tzu's ... the site of them chasing a herd of 2000-pound cows through the woods is quite startling).

Okay, so it's gonna be a bit colder for the next couple of days. Big deal, spring is just about here, and I'm happy!

At least until I have to start mowing the lawn again ...

Alberto Gonzales Should Be Fired

There's a lot of news coming out of the Justice Department over the past few days and none of it is good. For starters, there are the eight federal attorneys who were fired last fall. The reasons are still a bit murky at this point, but it's clear that this was a political move. That is actually legal, since the attorneys serve "at the pleasure of the President". But legal isn't always right, and some of the moves were clearly payback for doing their jobs too zealously. An example is the attorney who successfully prosecuted Republican representative "Duke" Cunningham, who was convicted of bribery last year. The eight firings got the attention of Congress, and Tuesday all eight testified before a Senate committee. Then the Justice Department, which had threatened retaliation if the eight testified, made good on their threat, and publicly embarrassed each of the attorneys with personal details as the ostensible reasons for their firing.

And if that wasn't bad enough, today comes news that the FBI has grossly abused their snooping powers under the Patriot Act. They've collected far more personal information than they've previously admitted, they routinely collect information without any oversight whatsoever, and more than half of their snoops have been against American citizens. These are the very things that Gonzales assured Congress (during the Patriot Act hearings last year) weren't being done.

So now we have an Attorney General who uses his office for partisan political maneuvers, intimidates federal attorneys, abuses the authority granted by Congress, and lies about what he and his people are doing. Am I surprised? Actually, I've just been waiting for this to happen. When Bush & Co. were brow-beating Congress into giving them extraordinary powers, it was clearly just a matter of time before the public found out what was really going on. Every time an administration thinks it's above the law, they prove that they should never be. As Nixon found out, for example. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

Gonzales has blown what little credibility he had as an Attorney General. He should be fired. Immediately.

The Walter Reed Scandal

Today, every news channel is covering the ongoing Walter Reed scandal 24/7. This is the one in which wounded soldiers were stuffed away in decrepit housing and forced to find their own way through the bureaucratic maze. Two generals and the Army Chief of Staff have been fired, and rightfully so. They were in charge, it happened on their watch, and they bear responsibility. Congress is falling all over itself to see how many investigations it can launch.

But Congress bears some responsibility, too. The reason: Base Realingment and Closure Commission, or BRAC. Congress created BRAC to do what it wasn't capable of doing: making decisions about which bases to close. A few years ago, BRAC decided that Walter Reed should be closed and its functions merged into Bethesda Naval Hospital. That made sense except for an ugly little thing called "war", which left Walter Reed struggling along on crutches. The hospital was unable to keep up with the workload and unable to get resources from the Army and Congress. Since it was slated to close, the brass and Congress reasoned, why spend money on infrastructure upkeep? So our wounded vets were told to tough it out in dank mold-ridden buildings. Donald Rumsfeld would probably have approved.

So the Army, the Bush administration, and Congress bear responsibility for the squalid conditions.

But it's the Army that's responsible for the deplorable bureaucratic jungle they created. Having worked in bureaucracies, I know it's easy for them to spin out of control and take on lives of their own, where "procedures" trump "people". But it doesn't have to happen. A number of years ago, the military was awash in something called "total quality", or TQ for short. TQ focused on procedure to determine better ways of doing business. I thought the way the military implemented it was a pain in the keister, but it had a lot of value.

Apparently, the Army doesn't care about quality any more. Nor its people.

You don't like it? Fill out this complaint form in triplicate, email it to the Lost Cause Department, and somebody will get back to you. Maybe.

Ann Coulter

Ann's at it again. Now she has called John Edwards a "faggot". The woman is the worst kind of leech: she makes her fame and fortune by saying the nastiest things about other people. There are lots of terms for people like her. Bloodsucker. Blonde trash. That unidentified slimy shit left on your shoe when you walk on all those worms washed up after a rainstorm. Yeah, that's her. A couple of years ago, after she called veterans like me "traitors" for opposing the war (ummm, Ann, exactly how much time did you spend in the service of your country? Oh, right: none.), I painted a picture about her entitled "Ann's Slander". It's just as appropriate today. And it'll probably be just as appropriate in ten years.

The Web Has A Life Of Its Own

Just about all of us have had an experience with something going out in email, or being posted on the web, and having it take on a life of its own. (If you haven't, you will ... or maybe you just don't know about it yet!) I just had it reinforced.

A week ago, I sent out an email that announced some news from my art studio. It was pretty benign: I'm going to have paintings in three juried shows over the next two months, plus two solo shows this fall. So I wrote up a nice little blurb and sent it out to people on my email list. And promptly forgot about it.

So just a few minutes ago, I googled myself to see what, if anything, was new in my world. I found out that the local newspaper (Asheville Citizen-Times) ran my email as a news article almost verbatim. Pretty cool! And then I found that there were at least twelve other sites (count 'em, 12) that had the Citizen-Times article on their pages as well! Some of them seemed to make sense: they're local news sites or something. Others, I can't figure out what the hell they are. And some look downright strange. It was a strange experience to read my own newsgram on somebody else's really weird site. (By "weird", I don't mean goth or anything like that. I just mean that there doesn't seem to be any rationale behind the site at all. Just a collection of random bits of information and links.)

I also found several recent notices that a show of my prints is going on at a local business. What's really interesting is that the show never happened. When I went to install it, I found out that the company had gone out of business. So I took my prints and went home, considering myself extremely fortunate to have found out before the works were hung. A notice of the show's cancellation went out to local newspapers, but it doesn't seem to matter to these web sites. According to them, my prints are still hanging there, months after the place closed up.

So be careful what you post - it just might come back to haunt you!

The Cult of Celebrity

I was watching CBS's Sunday Morning today. It's a wonderful show, slow-paced, that takes a deeper look at things than is typical of television. Since tonight is the Academy Awards, the show focused on the theme of the Oscars.

One selection in particular got me to thinking. It was about how celebrity is being packaged and marketed. A new fragrance, for example, would have a difficult future on its own, but if a Big Name lends his/her name to it, it'll probably be an instant success. Puff Daddy or P Diddley or whatever the hell his name is this week was cited as an example.

Yes, celebrities have always been used to market stuff, but now it seems they're taking over the whole process. Instead of hawking somebody else's wares, they're making and hawking the stuff themselves. And getting insanely rich in the process.

Which gets me to the core issue. Why do we think something that's marketed by a famous personality is better than something marketed by somebody else? Just because a guy is pretty good at acting in movies doesn't mean he knows squat about designing jeans. Or anything else. But we accept the idea that this guy is cool and stylish and we want to be like him and so we buy stuff with his name on it, even if the other brand is made better and fits better. Still, it's no big deal, right?

Well, yes, it is. It's much the same, really, as Wal-Mart and Target and K-Mart crowding out the mom-and-pop stores across the country (ooops, I mean, across the world). It's Big Corporations elbowing out the little guys, even if the little guys have better products. I think people just go with the Big Name because it makes their decision-making much easier. Instead of trying on several different brands of jeans to see which ones fit best and are made best, they'll buy the ones that have the Famous Person's name. Instant cachet and much simpler, too.

This has been going on for years in the retail and corporate worlds, and I can't say it's all a bad thing. For example, I like books, and a typical Borders has a much better selection than a typical mom & pop bookstore. But that's a qualitative difference. Marketing based on just celebrity names is what irks me.

Celebrity marketing extends beyond retail into art. Remember when John Lennon's drawings were exhibited, celebrated, and sold several years ago? His music was great, but his drawings were only marginal. Great talent in one area doesn't necessarily translate to great talent in another. Still, these works took in a lot of money simply because of the Lennon name. And a lot of that money might have gone to living artists who are, in fact, much better visual artists than Lennon ever was.

That, to me, is the problem: People buying Big Names just because of the name, while ignoring the Little Names who may, in fact, be more capable and deserving.

My examples so far have been of Big Names moving into areas outside their expertise. Actually, it happens within their areas of expertise as well. Last time I went to New York, for example, I went to a lot of galleries. I saw some work by some of the current hot artists, work that was selling way way way into the six digits or more. And almost every bit of it left me cold, even work by artists I'd admired in the magazines. In person, these works seemed sloppy, or calculated, or didn't have anything to say, or whatever. One famous artist's work was rather obviously painted from projected photographs.

On the flip side, I saw work by artists that I'd never heard of that just knocked me out. Whether in subject matter, or technique, or composition, whatever the case, it was the work by the no-names that bowled me over.

So my point is this: why all this fuss over the Big Names when there are so many good Little Names around? Especially when the Little Names are often even better? Is a major league baseball game really that much better than a minor league one? Is Britney Spears really a better singer than someone in your local bar? Is an Oscar-nominated actor really better than a guy in an off-Broadway production?

I think there's no doubt that for somebody to get to be a Big Name in their profession, they're almost always pretty good. But that recognition shouldn't transfer to other areas unless they prove their abilities there, too. In the meantime, there are a lot of Little Names out there who are just as good, if not better, than the Big Names.

And I think that a lot of the Big Names know it.

Nixon vs. Bush

I just watched a History Channel show about Richard Nixon. It brought back a lot of memories that I'd completely forgotten. I guess time will do that to you. The first time I could vote in a presidential election was in 1972, and having been raised in a Republican household, I voted for Nixon. I remember wondering what all the fuss was about something called "Watergate". I remember learning that the President really was a crook. And I remember watching Nixon's resignation speech on TV as if it was yesterday.

I see a lot of bumper stickers these days that say things like "Bush: Worst President Ever". Umm, no. Nixon was. George is pretty bad, but he's not in Nixon's league. Nixon was both brilliant and sick, driven and insecure, incredibly accomplished and an incredible failure. Bush is just a sloppy failure.

PlameGate

The news from "Scooter" Libby's trial is disgusting. As of today, it's been confirmed that Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and Richard Armitage, plus as-yet-unidentified others, were spreading the word in 2003 that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent. Since she was an undercover agent, that makes Cheney, Rove, Libby, and Armitage, plus the others, criminals. Where is the outrage?

The Fox-news-fans of the right try to excuse the action, saying that since she was not in a covert position at the time, she wasn't undercover. That's bull. Once undercover, ALWAYS undercover. Once her identity was in the press, it's known that governments who had anything to do with her, in any role, at any time, took a look at that time period and reviewed what she did, where she did it, and (most importantly), who she dealt with. The CIA won't comment on how many contacts have been rounded up, but I bet there were quite a few. And how many of those contacts lost their lives because of it?

So these a**holes in the highest level of the Bush administration deliberately compromised CIA assets, and probably got people killed, all in a vindictive effort to get back at somebody who was telling the truth.

Yeah, boy, that's some mighty fine leadership we have in the White House.

IG Report

Heard the news today about the Pentagon's Inspector General report on pre-war intelligence. They slammed an office run by a guy named David Feith, who was then the Pentagon's policy director, saying that he "took 'inappropriate' actions in advancing conclusions on al Qaeda connections not backed up by the nation's intelligence agencies" (quote from CNN). In other words, he distorted intelligence reports to make 'em say things they were never meant to say. Like that there was a link between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government.

I've been saying since day one that there was no link. I was a Navy cryptologic officer until late 1999, and I read the intel boards every day. And it was clear even then that there was no love lost between Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Bin Laden was (is) a religious zealot intent on destroying everything that conflicts with his version of reality. And Hussein was just a thug, a Tony Soprano in charge of a whole country. Aside from the fact that they both lived in the same general area of the world, and they both were in conflict with us, there wasn't anything - any thing - to bring 'em together.

So it was clear to me that Bush and his cronies were either listening only to the neocon wackos like Feith, or they were neocon wackos themselves, and in either case, the truth about Iraq was getting trashed in order to rush this nation to war. The Republican-led Congress couldn't beat the drums loudly enough and the right wing in general couldn't call dissenters "traitors" fast enough. And when it was clear that the whole Iraq war was a sham built on shams, they sat on their asses and did nothing but cover it up. And cover up their own culpability.

Thank God that's changing. We need more investigations into how this great nation was royally screwed by Bush & Co. Those who were responsible for key screwups need to be held accountable. Like Scooter Libby, who's about to get prison time for his role in covering up his role in outing an undercover CIA officer. There are a lot of others who should be in line right behind him.

The point isn't vengeance. The point is to remind those in power, and those who put them there, that with power comes the responsibility to use it WISELY, not in pursuit of a radical ideology. It's this blind pursuit of the radical neocon pipe dream that has killed so many of our soldiers, spent so much of our capital, and split our nation.

Keep it in perspective ...

This is typically depressing time of year. It's icy cold outside, and I have to spend many days out of the studio and in front of this computer working on my taxes. Tedious work and it's always a downer to see that cash in doesn't match cash out. So down in the dumps I go.

Then I see a report on CNN about an astronaut who just wrecked her life and the lives of many people around her. She tossed a promising career into the trash can in a big, big, nationally embarrassing way. And suddenly my problems are tiny by comparison.

Taxes? Hmph! I can handle that!

"Victory" in Iraq?

It really gets my goat when I hear somebody on TV talking about "victory" in Iraq. Inevitably it's some Republican or other right-winger arguing a case for increased military activity. It's clear to me that they don't know what the hell they're talking about.

Let's take a look at what "victory" means. My American Heritage Dictionary defines it as "final and complete defeat of the enemy in a military engagement." Now how does that apply to Iraq? Well, we achieved "victory" in 2003! We completely defeated Saddam's forces. Then we went from a military operation into something else. The problem was, we kept looking to our military to do all the things that somebody else should've been doing, like building a new Iraqi government, providing security, rebuilding infrastructure. They didn't do it, our military CAN'T do it, and Iraq is a hell-hole because of it.

"Victory" implies an organized, identifiable enemy. The people tearing Iraq apart are not a cohesive, organized group, and even Iraqis can't tell who's on what side. So who the hell are we fighting? And how the hell are we going to achieve "victory"? And just what IS "victory", anyway?

No, we can't achieve "victory" in Iraq. Maybe we can help quiet things down in Baghdad long enough for the insanely corrupt pig-headed criminals and warlords (otherwise known as the "Iraqi government") to get a hold on things. Maybe. It's a long shot. I still think that we need to try this one last time. If the Iraqi's fail, then it's time to cut our losses and leave.

But "victory"? That term can not apply here.

The Creative Process

This is the second try for this post ... I was almost done with it the first time, went to "preview", then hit the wrong button to back out and lost 20 minutes of thought ... I haaaate it when that happens!

Anyway, here goes. I've had several unrelated conversations lately with other artists about our creative processes. Funny how the same subject crops up repeatedly in a short period of time, isn't it? We were comparing notes about how we create our artworks. And we all do it in very different ways.

This is one of my newest paintings, Pleasantville. I was looking through an old family photo album some months ago and came across a picture of my family taken in 1964. For some reason it resonated with me ... didn't know why then nor now, but it did. A few days later, I had a vision of a painting based on that photo, only everybody would be wearing flak jackets and holding M16's. The painting developed over a period of several months, but the end result is essentially the same vision I had back at the very beginning. (So in case you're wondering: yes, that geeky kid on the left is me).

This is a classic example of how my paintings develop. I usually work on a series of related paintings; for the past two years I've been working on a series of political satire paintings, and for the past year I've also been working on one about war. This series gives my subconscious a framework to play with. Then I dump a lot of stuff into the framework: old photos, advertisements, news reports, conversations, "old master" artworks, you name it. And something magic happens. Somehow, all this stuff gets churned around and percolated or whatever metaphor you want to use, and then suddenly I have an image of a painting. It may take a short period of time or it may take weeks or months, but my subconcious always comes through. It's then up to my conscious mind to develop it into a full-blown painting.

I never really thought much about my subconscious before I became an artist. I would "trust my gut" on occasion, but didn't really put a lot of value on it. It was only later that I began to really appreciate what was going on in that vast black cavern. The art curriculum at UNC Asheville got me started on journaling, which has proven to be one of my most valuable tools. I don't use it as a diary; rather, I use it as a tool to get my conscious mind the hell out of the way, so I can have a direct dialog with that black cavern. When working on a painting, for example, I'll sit in front of it and stare, and let my pen record what's going on in my head. I can't direct my pen, I treat it like a tape recorder or something: just record what's there, don't interpret. This lets my subconscious (my "gut") do the talking. It'll tell me what needs to be fixed, what's working, where my attention needs to go next, and so forth. It's really amazing how well it works.

A friend of mine does some beautiful abstract paintings. Her method is entirely different. She starts a painting with almost random strokes: a little of this here, some of that there, maybe a slash going that way. Then she works with it to bring some things out, push others back, add, eliminate, move, until something tells her it's done. It's very intuitive. I can't work that way. I've tried, and it just isn't me. I'm a much more linear kind of guy and need a fairly specific idea to work with. By the same token, no way in hell could she do the kind of paintings I do.

One thing we both have experienced, though, relates to something Jackson Pollock once said about his process. "When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well." This applies to me, too, even though my work is far removed from his. Paintings are like children: you can only control them for a while, but sooner or later they begin to assert themselves and tell you what it is they want. Sometimes you have an easy give and take with them, sometimes you fight 'em to the bitter end, but you damn well better listen, or you'll wind up with a mess.

Chavez and Venezuela

In the past couple of days, the Venezuelan government granted Hugo Chavez the power to rule by decree. I (almost) can't believe that this is happening. The only other government that I'm aware of that voluntarily gave a man the power to rule by decree was Germany in the late '30's. How in the world can a group of elected leaders say to their people "We're so stupid and so incompetent that we're just going to give away YOUR power to a raving lunatic. Have a nice day!" Jeez, you'd think they'd have some bigger cojones than that. Even the guys who lost out to Hussein, Castro, and Kim Il-Jung did so at the point of a gun. But no, these losers in Venezuela just gave it away.

I see a trend here: the more oil a country has, the more wacko its leaders are ... unfortunately, that means that the people of the oil-rich country are usually abysmally poor because their wacko leaders are busily siphoning off all the riches. Chavez included.

Have a nice day, Venezuela.

Observation

Am I the only one to note that the Defense Department is now headed by a former top CIA guy, and the CIA is about to be headed by a former top military guy? And both were key figures in the regime of George Senior.

Actually, to go on record, I think the nomination of ADM McConnell to head the CIA is a good choice. I was at NSA during McConnell's tenure as Director and he was very good. He had a clear vision of where NSA needed to go, he communicated well with people at every level of the organization, and he wasn't afraid to knock heads when necessary. He's not a political animal, although he certainly understands how to use politics when necessary. He's stepping into one of the hardest jobs in government right now, but I think he'll do well. We ALL need him to do well.

Bush's Iraq Strategy

I've been speaking as loudly as I can for the past three years about the stupidity of George Bush and his neocon friends. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was one of the dumbest things that any President has ever done. Bush lied about his reasons for going to war and the Republican party has goose-stepped in unison behind him. But it has finally become clear to all, even Bush, that the strategy of "stay the course" is a complete failure. So this past week, he unveiled his new strategy for Iraq. And it comes as a huge suprise to all that know me - hell, even to ME - that I actually support the plan.

The reason is that, finally, Bush has articulated a clear and possibly achievable goal: calming down Baghdad long enough for the Iraqi leaders to get their acts together and start acting like a real government. And he's committed an increased number of troops to the mission. It's not the numbers that the experts have called for, but they're at least concentrated on one area and mission, not just thrown into the same old quagmire.

I don't think this plan has even a 50-50 chance of succeeding. It depends on too many things that can go seriously wrong:
- The Iraqi government starting to do its job.
- A reduction in the corruption that's siphoned off billions of OUR dollars.
- The Iraqi military and (especially) the police becoming at least marginally effective.
- The Sunni and Shi'ite militias stepping back from their levels of violence.
- Iran and Syria not stirring the pot too much.
- No more American scandals like Abu Ghraib or Haditha.
- George Bush staying focused on the problem.

All that being said, I think this plan does have a small chance of moving the country forward, which is something that neither Bush's previous strategy nor the Iraq Study Group's plan featured.

Bush talks about this being a long-term commitment. I don't think so. We'll know in six months whether progress is really being made. If Baghdad's quieter by late June, and if the Iraqi government is making progress towards a real solution, then we might see light at the end of the tunnel. If not, then it's time to call a failed nation a failed nation and to do what's necessary to protect our own soldiers, people, and interests.

As it is, my patience is about gone. I've had it with the whole thing. I say give Bush and Maliki one last chance to pull something together. If they screw it up again, then get our troops the hell out of the way.

Thoughts on Iraq

Sometime in the next few days, George Bush is going to lay out his “new direction” for Iraq. He got the recommendations from the Iraq Study Group a month ago and has been considering his options since then. I want to get my thoughts out on record before George does.

First, some background. Back in ’02, when talk of attacking Iraq first surfaced, I gave Bush the benefit of the doubt. I retired from the Navy as a cryptologist in ’99, and at that time I knew that Saddam was pretty much contained. He was a pain in the ass, but he wasn’t hurting anybody outside Iraq, and he certainly wasn’t a threat to us. Bush kept talking about the “threat” Hussein posed, and with such experienced advisors as Cheney and Rumsfeld, I figured that something new in Iraq must have come up since my retirement. As time went on, however, it became clear that there wasn’t anything new: it was the same old stuff, just repackaged with a few exclamation points thrown in to make it sound urgent. So I came down hard against the war in Iraq.

One other thing: I believed Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. Bush cited that as the “grave danger” that Hussein posed; I viewed it as a “so what”. As long as we stayed out of Iraq, our soldiers wouldn’t have to deal with them. There are lots of bad guys around the world that have bad weapons and it’s not our responsibility to go around invading them because of it. So I was angry that Bush was going to throw our troops into a chem/bio war for no reason.

Fortunately, there weren’t chem/bio/nuke weapons of any sort. Instead, there was something that was worse: strong Iraqi sectarian animosities that were contained under Hussein’s brutal rule, and absolutely no American plan for what would happen after Hussein’s overthrow. This combination has led to steadily increasing levels of violence and to the current state of low-level civil war. For three years, Bush has pretended that the situation in Iraq has been going well … maybe okay … so it’s really going well except for the damn media … umm, it’s making progress … except that progress is slower than expected … until nobody believes him anymore.

Now the situation is this:
- Iraq has a government that is essentially useless, powerless, corrupt, and incompetent.
- Various sectarian forces have stepped into the power vacuum and are escalating the “ethnic cleansing”.
- Our military is playing a game of “whack-a-mole” and is not making any real progress.
- Our military is the only real US player in the country. There’s almost no State Department representation, little/no economic or political or any other kind of help. It’s just boots on the ground.
- Our military is way overstretched, with some troops currently on their third tour in as many years. Our senior generals are saying that they’re nearly at the breaking point.
- The blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group has noted that the situation in Iraq can only be solved by Iraqis, not forced by the US.
- The Iraq Study Group recommended gradual disengagement of US military forces and increased negotiation with Syria and Iran, who are stirring the pot in Iraq.

It appears that George didn’t like the ISG’s report. So he started talking to others. And from press reports, it appears that the only people he’s listening to are the neoconservatives, who are arguing for a buildup of forces. To me, the neoconservatives have less than zero credibility: they’re a bunch of liars who got us into this mess in the first place. But neocons like to talk about “victory”, and George likes “victory”, even if he doesn’t know what it is nor how to achieve it.

Now for my viewpoint. I have been looking for a rational plan from SOMEbody in power for over three years now. I believe that we have an obligation to the world to bring stability to Iraq. It’s the old Pottery Barn rule: we broke it, we should fix it. But nobody has offered a plausible way to do that. George has one last chance this week to present one.

Everybody has been focused on troop strength. That should actually be a fallout of a rational plan. In other words, a good plan should come first, then you decide on how many people you need to implement it. I’ve seen one or two good plans, but they require far more people (50-100K) than the numbers coming out of the White House (20K).

I’m afraid that George is going to screw it up again. I think he’s looking for something he can call a “plan” that will need 20K more troops. He wants a troop increase for political reasons, so it looks like he’s doing something. He won’t draw down the troops because that’s an admission he failed. And he won’t commit the numbers that are really needed.

In my view, if he chooses not to commit sufficient resources, he chooses to let Iraq sink. If he chooses to let Iraq sink and keep the troop strength the same or bigger, then he not only fails Iraq, he fails the country by wrecking our already-overstretched Army and Marines. If he chooses to let Iraq sink and pull our troops out, at least we can start rebuilding our forces.

So the choice is to between implementing a realistic plan with sufficient resources, or pulling our troops out. Both are tough but we can live with them. Anything less than either of these choices is complete and utter failure, both now and for the long term.

Happy Hanukah?

A lady I know was telling me today that her young daughter was invited to a Hanukah party by one of her classmates. The girl had invited pretty much her whole elementary school class. The lady took her daughter over there a bit early and was the first to arrive. When she went back to pick her up later, it appeared that she was also the last to go.

As it turned out, nobody else had come.

The girls are young and don't seem to really understand what happened. They just had a great time playing together. The mother was appalled. As am I. Why would all those parents keep their young children from experiencing a Hanukah party?

Well, DUHH: it's because racism and anti-Semitism is alive and well in the South. But they won't tell you that. And they may not even think they're racist or anti-Semites. They all think they're proper Christians, raising their children the right way. (I know this because they've said it to this lady on different occasions). The problem, of course, is that Jesus was a Jew and would have celebrated Hanukah himself. So by keeping themselves and their children away from Jewish practices, they're missing an opportunity to understand a side of Jesus that's not taught in Christian churches. What are they afraid of: that their children are going to be forcibly converted to Judaism? Give me a break!

Every time I think this country's making progress, something like this happens to throw a wet blanket on my illusions.

And to my Jewish friends: Happy Hanukah, and I'll come to your party.

Merry Christmas to ALL in the military

Today is Christmas and I'm fortunate to be home with my own family. But there was a time when I was in the Navy and deployed to somewhere far from home during the holidays. Those days are over, but somebody else has taken my place on the deck watch, or the operations floor, or the thousand and one other places where military people must spend their time to keep our forces ready for anything.

So today I'm sending these Christmas greetings to all those who wear an American military uniform, wherever you may be. Thank you for taking up the challenge to serve this great country.

And have yourself a great Christmas!