I'm not into First Lieutenant Ehren Watada, or his refusal to serve in Iraq. Many on the left view him as a hero, even Sean Penn has appeared in his corner, reminding us all on "This Week" that Thomas Jefferson once said "dissent is the highest form of patriotism." I have a hard time believing George Washington felt that way as men deserted him at Valley Forge.
The story of Ehren Watada goes like this: He was a young man who signed up for the Army after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Maybe he was like me, and other officers I knew, in that he just didn't have much else going on and wanted to help out in the military and gain a little life focus. He graduated from Officer Candidate School, a competitive military commissioning school which many career enlisted officers dream to be accepted to. Watada then served one year in South Korea and then re-assigned to Fort Lewis, Washington. There, he learned his unit would deploy to Iraq and Watada began to have second thoughts about his commitment. He refused to go to Iraq and now faces a court martial.
Here's what his civilian attorney had to say:
Well, we expected him to be charged with missing movement or violating an order to get on a bus to accompany his unit to Iraq. We did not really anticipate that they would charge him with additional offenses based upon the comments and the remarks that he's made. And that opens up a whole new chapter in this proceeding, because what the Army has clearly tried to do by the nature of these charges is send out a message to people in the military, that if you criticize the war and if you criticize the decisions that were made to bring the United States into this war, that you, too, could be charged with disloyalty, contemptuous remarks and disrespect for higher officers, and in this case, specifically in this charge, the President.
Honesty, I'm amazed his attorney sounds so surprised. No, you can't openly criticize a war when you're in the military and the reasons for this are so obvious I wont even waste space to mention them. The military sends out that message from day one. That's how it goes. You volunteer to serve, you sign the agreement saying you'll give your time and freedom and the government will pay you, train you, and give you tax breaks, you take the government's money, time, training; you get to be lauded, but you may have to die for your country. What you don't get to do is have the good without the loss of freedom or the increase in risk. Such is life. Lt. Watada started reading about Iraq once he learned his unit might get deployed. What can I make of this? He's such a bright, thoughtful person he wanted to learn all about the area he was going to deploy to? If that's so you'd think someone like this would have been much more concerned about Iraq before he signed his life away in the army. Maybe he was like many I knew who thought "Oh, I'll never get sent to Iraq" but had he read a few articles before signing up maybe he would have realized how shady the whole thing was. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out, even back in 2003, that Iraq was a misguided, illegal war. I was in the Air Force at the time, I signed up before Iraq, and as our country went to war there I wondered whether or not I would be deployed. But, obviously, I had considered deployment into a combat zone before I signed up. Who wouldn't think about that? I can't believe anyone signs up for the army and hasn't considered deployment to a combat zone or being asked to do something disagreeable.
Had I been asked to go to Iraq I would have gone, even if I disagreed with the war, because, simply, that was what I agreed to. The Air Force gave me free training, decent pay, tax exemptions, tuition assistance, free housing, a rate reduction on my debts, and career assistance. And that's just the beginning. Their end of the deal was upheld, the least I could do was uphold mine. Honestly, I'm a better person for having known what I wanted out of the military, giving them my time, and giving them what they wanted out of me.
To his credit Lt. Watada tried to resign his commission before going to Iraq. The Army obviously refused. They want to get a return on their expensive investment. They want their end of the deal. Can everyone just resign from the military once they get an unpopular assignment? It is, after all, one of the few jobs where you may be called to give up your life for a cause. Something like that requires not only foresight, but honor to uphold.
I have little patience for people who suddenly become enlightened and objective the moment they find out they will be deployed. The time for such philosophical thinking, perhaps, was before taking the oath, and someone else's place at OCS, and before parading around as a hero. Anyone who puts their lives in the government's hands, and says they are willing to sacrifice themselves for what is deemed the greater good, should be held in reverence. But to have that honor you must submit and serve.
News of Anna Nicole Smith's death is barely 24 hours and I am already weary of the articles about how much we cared for her. Such dribble is both a lie and a shameless attempt to make us feel better about the way we treated her life. She was a metaphorical blow up doll for our sick pleasures.
Let's be honest, Anna Nichole was our own freak show. She probably thought we were giving her the one thing she wanted most in the world, love, when we were really just ogling her body or giggling about her life as a train wreck. It's sad that self-respect is in such short supply that most people can't even tell the difference between attention and compassion. If we had cared about her we would have stopped rewarding such superficial and damaging behavior. Her death is our own.
Honestly, I never paid her much attention, and I generally am unsympathetic about bad decisions. I don't know anything about her mom but I it must be hard watching your child's self-destruction get fueled by society. And now, we eulogize her with trite, the ultimate disrespect. Her premature death has given us a chance at self-reflection, which is being used the way we always used her.
My prior post was a commentary on how ridiculous and confused her life was. It stands as an alarming symptom. I hope her next life treats her better. I hope she finds a little peace. But for the living, the only question now is: who is next?
Bernie Taupin seemed to get it right when he wrote "Candle in the Wind."
Hollywood created a superstar And pain was the price you paid Even when you died the press still hounded you All the papers had to say Was that Marylin was found in the nude Goodbye, Norma Jean
She was nothing more than sexual, and then an oddity to all of us. Nothing more than our Anna Nichole.
Lisa Maria Nowak drove 900 miles in a diaper, which, alone, would be worthy of a story. But Captain Nowak is not just any woman, she's an astronaut, a woman who has passed an exhaustive series of psychological exams and mental tests, which would make her, according to experts, the most normal woman NASA could find.
She drove from Texas to Orlando in a diaper to avoid taking bathroom breaks, sort of like a trip to the moon or something. She drove 900 miles in a diaper, skipping bathroom breaks, to confront a woman who was involved with a male astronaut she had some kind of crush on. And, oh yeah, Captain Nowak is married.
When she was arrested early this morning she was wearing a trench coat, a wig, and police found a BB gun, a mallet, a buck knife and latex gloves in her car.
This afternoon, the police filed the new charges against her, saying they had evidence that Captain Nowak intended ”to do serious bodily injury or death” to Colleen Shipman, a captain in the Air Force, because she considered Captain Shipman to be a rival in her romance with a fellow NASA astronaut, Cmdr. Bill Oefelein.
Obviously the whole story will make a wonderful television movie and book deal. Just as interest in the Runaway Bride was waning another deranged woman rises to take her place. It could be looked at as a step backwards for women, but I submit these women are liberators, kicking down the doors of behavior once reserved only for men.
Guys do crazy things like this every single day of the week. We do it at work and at sporting events; consider the "trucker bomb" or the "Stadium Pal." We'd drive all night with a loaded gun in the car just to shoot down a woodland creature or hang at a night club. At least what Nowak did she did for love, damnit! The world of excrements and weaponry might still belong to men but she has taken one small step for women, one giant leap for woman-kind.
Ted Haggard, the Christian minister who had an ongoing affair with a male prostitute is, um, not gay, I guess. Haggard has emerged from intense counseling to announce that he is "completely heterosexual" and that his prior affair was limited to only one person.
Haggard revealed his finding in an e-mail to The Rev. Tim Ralph. "He is completely heterosexual," Ralph said. "That is something he discovered. It was the acting- out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing." Um, "acting out"? I could see, perhaps, towel snapping a dude's ass in the locker room after a church basketball game, but, you know, you're not "completely heterosexual" to sleep with a guy, and then do it over and over again. That sounds pretty gay to me, or, at least, bisexual. But what do I know? I don't even care, I just wish he could admit it. I would think honesty with yourself would be a prerequisite for a relationship with God. Haggard has no immediate plans to return to the ministry. The church has advised him to pursue another career path due to his sexual behavior and have given their blessing to his new endeavor, which is, of course, a master's degree in counseling.
Mark Levin, the man who "nominated" Rush Limbaugh for the Nobel Peace Prize, was named the worst person in the world by Keith Olbermann. Levin struck back, saying Keith "Overbite" is "hung like a thumbtack." He goes on to speculate for about 15 minutes on Olbermann's junk, and the quality of his love life, and then repeatedly refers to him a "pervert mental patient." Then he takes calls. He also addressed the now famous Limbaugh nomination, briefly, which he acknowledges will not be accepted. "That's not the point," he says.
No one expects Limbaugh's nomination will be accepted. The nomination was made as an obvious conservative retort to Al Gore's nomination. And, along those lines, it has been extremely effective. It's an attempt to make a joke out of the whole process, which Levin refers to as "The Nobel Democrat Prize." That's all. Tucker Carlson had this to say:
GUEST: (music) Rush Limbaugh may not be the first person who comes to mind when you think of the Nobel Peace Prize. But to the people at the conservative public interest law firm Landmark Legal Foundation, Rush is a regular Nelson Mandela. Landmark was -- has nominated Limbaugh for the 2007 Nobel Prize, saying, quote, "Rush Limbaugh is the foremost advocate for freedom and democracy in the world today," wow. End quote. This news, of course, sets up a Nobel smackdown for the ages, between Limbaugh and Al Gore, whose nomination by a pair of Norwegian parliamentarians was announced yesterday. Wow! Look at that. Nose to nose. Tucker, Rush has the weight advantage; Al has the reach. Who do you think takes that smackdown?
TUCKER: Actually, I think Gore has the weight advantage these days.
GUEST: So, you would take Gore over Limbaugh, or are you just still deciding?
TUCKER: That would make Gore even more pompous and ubiquitous.
GUEST: (Laughing.)
TUCKER: So no, probably not. I think I'd go Limbaugh.
A lot of people have dismissed the "nomination" because it was unsolicited. And, of course, that's true, but as Levin himself said "that's not the point." It's been picked up as "legit" by the news and that is the intended consequence. The point is Al Gore, after all his work pushing for awareness of global warming, has to be paired with Limbaugh where he can be chided. It's like working your ass off only to find out some slacker is up for the same job. It doesn't matter if he has no shot, it's still an insult.
There is no reverence for truth. Evangelicals decry cultural relativism, but it is already all around us, from the far left to the far right. This is how we treat people who, inconveniently, are correct, and whose efforts at awareness infringe on our own right to be ignorant. How many listeners does someone like Mr. Levin have? He isn't concerned with discerning what is true, but defaming those who don't say what he wants to hear.
Even George Will, someone I would consider an intellectual conservative, someone usually governed more by reason than principle, just can't bring himself to accept the world-wide scientific consensus on global warming. Instead, he chooses to get hung up on the word "very-likely" which means 90%. He cares less about truth than feeling good about himself. People who claim to fight for truth but selectively discard facts are not worth your attention. We all owe people who were behind global warming awareness on a debt of gratitude, but, instead, we allow them to be defamed. It turns out they were right all along, and no amount of cognitive dissonance is going to change our culpability. Far too many see Al Gore and global warming as an a joke. To those people a 10% chance to go on living without any personal responsibility is a well-spring.
I honestly thought this was a joke the first time I read it but no, it's true: Rush Limbaugh has been nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Landmark Legal Foundation, the leading conservative public interest law firm in the country, put him up for the honor. I'm not sure what is involved in the nomination process but this affirms my theory that adult life is just one, long, insulting extension of high school. In this case merit and substance being shit on by a beying jackass.
In his letter to the Nobel Committee, Levin writes, "Rush Limbaugh is the foremost advocate for freedom and democracy in the world today. Everyday he gives voice to the values of democratic governance, individual opportunity and the just, equal application of the rule of law - and it is fitting that the Nobel Committee recognize the power of these ideals to build a truly peaceful world for future generations."
How's Al Gore taking this one? First, a soul crushing presidential defeat to an impared failure who became the worst president in our history and, just for good measure, losing after first WINNING the popular vote. And now a miscreant hypocrite is nominated for the same Peace Prize? This completely negates whatever honor nomination might have been and even if Gore wins the whole thing is tainted.
Touche. Once again, conservatives played it perfectly.
I mean, sure, Al Gore helped bring awareness about global warming to the forefront of the dim American consciousness. This is an issue he has stressed for years and years and now, in a consensus report from top scientists, it turns out he was right all along. All of it...validated. The most destructive force humans have ever unleashed, and Al Gore was right about it before most of us knew what the hell a "greenhouse gas" was. And he's in the same category as Rush Limbaugh?
Limbaugh, the guy who had his housekeeper illegally supply him with drugs, meanwhile raling against drugs on the radio. The guy who mocks Parkinsons Disease sufferers. The guy who, on top of every other breach, admitted he had been simply "carrying water" for conservatives, essentially depraving his listeners of the very truth he claims to dispense. THAT GUY?? Really?
What will Al Gore do? Will he throw himself down an oil refinery tower? Will he perch himself on the edge of Antartica and erode into the ocean? Will the added concentration of humiliation cause him to slowly heat up and explode? We'll never hear the end of it. I have to throw my TV out and cancel my internet now. I have to move to some island in the middle of Polynesia. I...the injustice...it's....I can't....for the love of.....thank God it's Friday.
Writer William Arkin is taking a lot of heat about an article he wrote questioning soldiers' frustration to the growing opposition to the Iraq war. The article, which appeared in the Washington Post, has generated an impressive outcry, most of which borders on the fanatical and it's not hard to see why. Calling soldiers "mercenaries" and insinuating selfish motives probably isn't the way to have this debate. And so, unfortunately, it has become microcosm of the debate itself and how often reasoned arguments receive little attention.
But the overall point of his article is that we should press on with the Iraq war debate, regardless of how it affects the soldiers. This is, obviously, a hard position, but one that I agree with. Further, I think it is in everyone's best interest, including the soldiers, that we have this debate.
After 9/11 I quit my job and joined the Air Force. I viewed the terrorist attacks as nothing less than a modern day Pearl Harbor and I wanted to do what ever my government needed me to do. I did not sign up to be a hero. I did not sign up to win any popularity contests. Even today I rarely openly talk about my service because I didn't do it for recognition, I did it to help. It was the least I could do for everything my country has done for me.
Military personnel are entitled to their opinion, but only to a point. You can't actively protest or become involved with one particular movement or another, because you are essentially a public servant. You are paid by the taxpayers to do what you signed up to do--defend the Constitution. And so, along those lines, I believe Mr. Arkin makes a valid point in that men and women of the military are in service. That comes before being served.
I fully understand the frustrations they express. Being in the military is a special honor. It is an organization I am extremely proud to have served in. Everyone I served with I regard as a brother or a sister. There is a certain bond that is formed from surviving boot camp, to being part of the military machine. And, honestly, it seems a little insulting when someone wants to question your service.
But very few people are questioning the military. If I had to guess I would say opinion of the military is probably higher than ever. It is the leadership, the Bush administration, many people are taking exception with. And they should take exception with it. Their conduct in this war has been dismal, unlike anything we have ever seen before. It is tyranical to suggest that Americans keep their mouths shut simply because we have soldiers in the field. Wouldn't that then become an automatic trump card for any President? Or, perhaps, has it not already?
If there was more vocal opposition to the use of troops, maybe we wouldn't use them so indiscriminately. But that is how great their service is: they just want to serve. They don't ask how or why, theirs is to do or die, literally. Such sacrifice is both breathtaking and sobering. It demands proper oversight and proper debate.
What if Barak Obama met the Beatles? I just happened to stumble upon this over at Basil's blog. It's "A Hard Day's Night" with Obama in place of Paul's "clean" grandfather.
"A Hard Day's Night" is one of the greatest movies ever (more on that in a second) and this manages to capture everyone's curiosity about Obama: who is he? Where did he come from? And Joe Biden's own: how did he get so clean?
When I ask (beg?) people to watch this movie their looks range from surprise to utter bewilderment, not unlike had I just asked them to play a nice game of tag. I have a hard time explaining this movie's subtle brilliance but nothing showcases it better than the scene where George Harrison wanders into a marketing executive's office. It manages to sum up, in about three minutes, all of the stupid, inane crap we have long since surrendered to.
