Barack Obama: US force size in Iraq to be "entirely conditions-based"

Reuters report: Obama says conditions to dictate final Iraq force
Newsweek interview, source of statement: Obama's Sober Mood

Richard Wolffe, Newsweek: You've been talking about those limited missions for a long time. Having gone there and talked to both diplomatic and military folks, do you have a clearer idea of how big a force you'd need to leave behind to fulfill all those functions?

Barack Obama: I do think that's entirely conditions-based. It's hard to anticipate where we may be six months from now, or a year from now, or a year and a half from now.

Senator Obama's latest statement that US military forces in Iraq should be drawn down based on conditions brings him very close to President Bush's and Senator McCain's position on Iraq (more on this later). The Newsweek interview effectively shows that when faced with the serious decisions of the office, the next President's choices, whether he's Obama or McCain, will not look much different than those of the current President. Senator Obama (finally!) shows a fair grasp of the great foreign policy challenges President Bush has wrestled with for seven and a half years, and as it turns out, Obama's perspective on those challenges tracks nearly identical to that of the current President. It appears the only remaining difference is Obama's semantic word play of "combat" troops versus, I suppose, some other kind of troops. It reminds me of the time I overheard a journalism student ask Columbia Professor Warner Schilling whether an M-16 was an offensive or defensive weapon. Whether or not the American and multi-national soldiers deployed in Iraq are considered "combat" soldiers, they'll be the same American and multi-national soldiers.

Obama supporters have hailed the American President's and Iraqi Prime Minister's agreement on a "horizon" for US forces withdrawal, together with McCain's acknowledgement of the 16 month withdrawal timeline as feasible, as amounting to a consensus endorsement of Obama's position on Iraq. That's disingenuous. In fact, the key difference between the presidential candidates regarding our Iraq mission had been McCain's conditions-based drawdown versus Obama's deadline-based complete withdrawal. Obama's latest statement that our drawdown in Iraq should be "entirely conditions-based" is a dramatic shift by Obama to McCain's position on Iraq. The shared view by President Bush, PM al Maliki and Senator McCain has been that our exit from Iraq should be conditions-based, not deadline-based, whether those conditions became realized at 16 weeks, 16 months, or 16 years. At present, it just so happens that if the current trajectory of improving conditions in Iraq maintains its course, a 16-month timetable does appear feasible. In effect, the 16 months for Bush, al Maliki, and McCain were not the same as Obama's 16 months, as much as Obama partisans claimed otherwise. With Obama's switch to a conditions-based view of the Iraq mission, Obama has joined Bush and McCain. Now, they are the same 16 months.

Here's an LA Times opinion column by political science giant Walter Russell Mead describing Obama's foreign policy convergence with President Bush. Obama's movement toward Bush relieves me, but doesn't surprise me, since Obama is a liberal (and fellow Columbia poli sci / IR grad), I'm a liberal, and I've known that Bush's post-9/11 foreign policy choices have been definitively liberal. The proper successor of Bush's foreign policy is a dynamic, charismatic liberal like Obama, and it appears Obama is moving very close to accepting President Bush's mantle in the War on Terror.

I am very heartened by the change in Obama's position. I hope it's a firm, sincere change. At least, he's taken a major step in the right direction. It appears Obama's "sober" trip to the war bore fruit after all.

Eric

More Chinese American-ness to check out

The emerging Chinese-American male perspective in popular culture is a welcome relief from the Chinese-American female perspective that has dominated the market. Yesterday, I watched 2006 movie The Motel (based on Ed Lin's novel Waylaid, which I have not read yet) at the Asian American / Asian Research Institute. The movie captures how hard it is to be a 13-year-old male, in particular an adolescent Chinese-American male, and through Ernest's Korean-American mentor, Sam, an Asian-American man in general. The movie emphasizes its subject matter by doing away with the usual softening layer of a materially cushioned, if still alienated, Asian-American middle-class setting. Instead, the protagonist exists in an extraordinarily miserable and cruel, exposed, and isolated environment, even losing his one outlet for relief by the end of the movie. The Motel is short - I think too short - with a 76 minute running time, but it successfully makes its point about Chinese-American male life.

Endogenous wondering: I wonder what, if anything, will come of Ernest's relationship with Jess, the bullied younger (white) sister of teen motel resident Roy? Assuming, of course, her family continues to stay at the motel. Jess protests when Ernest is bullied by their shared tormenter, her brother. She seems affection-starved and alienated like Ernest, and kind. Whereas the white world seems off-limits to Chinese-Americans in the rest of the movie, Jess lives in Ernest's world. Surrounded by negative family male role models, Ernest may stand out as a neither cruel nor irresponsible alternative. Jess stands out as non-prejudiced in a world where other white characters - with the possible exception of Christine's (white) love interest Toby - are overtly racist against Asians. Most of all, she seems willing, with some adolescent protest, when Ernest chooses to kiss her in response to Roy's ultimatum to either kiss his sister or fight him. She even bends toward Ernest for the second kiss, with tongue, and doesn't seem too upset at his physical reaction to kissing her. After Christine's rejection to his clumsy overture, with Ernest's budding sexuality and growing need to assert himself, the shared alienation and proximity of the two, and the shared kiss, Jess seems like a potential first love.

Add to cart - my to-read, to-see Chinese-American male themed list:

2002 book Waylaid by Ed Lin

2002 movie Better Luck Tomorrow

Eric

Army LT Caleb Campbell returning to military duty

The policy allowing Caleb Campbell to play pro football in lieu of traditional military duties for a new second lieutenant has been rescinded, and LT Campbell now has to leave the Detroit Lions and return to the uniform.

A young Army officer ought to be leading soldiers, allowing a West Point graduate special treatment in order to play pro sports was the wrong policy in the first place, and LT Campbell can still start his pro sports career in 2010, but fixing the problem this way is a PR mess.

Eric

Movie: The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight. Go see it. Great movie, an accomplishment. I cried over the story of heroic sacrifice. Director Christopher Nolan, though his Batman history deviates from Frank Miller's Batman history, succeeds in nailing down Frank Miller's nuanced "dark knight". The movie serves as an effective metaphor for the War on Terror. More, it agrees with my worldview that morality is not absolute nor given, but won and enforced through struggle, beginning with the choice of the harder right instead of the easier wrong. Like Frank Miller's stories, the movie resonates with my ideas of the nature of humanity, duty, sacrifice, and the price of heroism and the greater good.

These quotes, two of my favorites, will help you understand the moral perspective of The Dark Knight:

"... war is undertaken at the risk of the national soul. The moral certainty that makes war possible is certain only to unleash moral havoc, and moral havoc becomes something the nation has to rise above. We can neither win a war nor save the national soul if all we seek is to remain unsullied—pristine. Anyway, we are well beyond that now. The question is not, and has never been, whether we can fight a war without perpetrating outrages of our own. The question is whether the rightness of the American cause is sufficient not only to justify war but to withstand war's inevitable outrages. The question is whether—if the cause is right—we are strong enough to make it remain right in the foggy moral battleground of war."
- Tom Junod

"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters."

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others."
- Frederick Douglass

Update: Read Bruce Chang's review of The Dark Knight.

Add: Youtube link to the movie ending.

30AUG12 Add: Josh Xiong's archived reactions that praise TDK through a neocon prism. (Click on 'Impatient?')

Eric (. . . fyi, this is my 300th post!)

Youtube video: Obama's positions on Iraq

Credit to Gaypatriot.

Granted, this is a partisan compilation from the McCain campaign, but it's consistent with the negative image Obama has developed as a "politician" (quote in Jeremiah Wright's voice) who blows with the wind. It also reminds me of the chief fault I found with John Kerry in 2004, who would literally in the space of seconds sound like a leftist radical against the war in Iraq and then sound like a Kennedy liberal claiming he was the best choice for Commander in Chief to win the war.

But, the hope endures. What if Senator Obama actually learns something on his current trip to Iraq? I hope he does. This can be an important decision point for the election.

Eric

When - and how - is it right for us to leave Iraq?

"The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq."
- President Bush (aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq, May 1, 2003)

I don't have a problem with the 16 month timetable for drawing down US troops in Iraq proposed by Barack Obama. It's reasonable and probably necessary for drawing down US forces in Iraq. I'm a big fan of COIN and our recent success in Iraq has validated my belief in it. Even so, when the 'surge' began, my expectation was that succeed or fail, the troop increase had to end by 2010. Lo and behold, January 2009 plus 16 months equals May 2010.

The key is how the drawdown is done and to what purpose. Obama is holding out the carrot to his anti-war fans that the drawdown over 16 months will be total and absolute, regardless of conditions. I disagree with that. I hope, instead, the inevitable drawdown will be thoughful and in pace with conditions, with the possibility that it could be a total withdrawal - under the right conditions.

The current Iraqi government's support for setting a timetable for US withdrawal strikes me as less an anti-American stance by Iraq than like a parent-teen disagreement over independence. The recent Iraqi campaign against the Sadrists, without US guidance, shows an Iraq government eager to strike out on its own. We, as the parent in this metaphor, are cautious. Entering OIF, we held the illusion that the new Iraq would have a relatively easy transition (or childhood), and we would be able to nation-build and plant liberal seeds at a relatively cheap cost. Subsequently, we were disillusioned and have since invested great resources (blood and treasure), emotion, and energy during post-Saddam Iraq's difficult growing pains. For the last 5 years, we have imperfectly, but with sincere commitment, done our best to nurture, educate, and protect the new Iraq. Now, a young adult Iraq feels ready for independence. As the wisened parent, though, we are reluctant to re-adopt the naive belief that Iraq would easily transition to a liberal nation. It's tempting to wonder, can it be that our initial concept of a relatively simple transition for Iraq actually wasn't too far off the mark and may have been achieveable if we had made better decisions? A year-plus of Petraeus-led COIN in Iraq, no matter how dramatically successful, just seems too soon to change our minds. For now, we are reluctant to give up parental oversight, not because we want Iraq to stay forever dependent on us, but because we care so deeply about Iraq's success. Held back by the recent painful memories of the many long scary nights we nursed an Iraq teetering between life and death, we worry whether the young adult Iraq is indeed ready to enter into a predatory world fraught with dangerous influences. Like any loving parent, it's deeply ingrained in us to protect and not allow Iraq to fail. I also wonder how much we actually trust the current Iraqi government to maintain progress without us.

Over Obama's 16 months, I believe President McCain would accept loosening American control and drawing down US forces in Iraq in a measured fashion, but he'd be reluctant to remove our protection altogether and hand over the level of freedom our eager young charge demands. Would President Obama be an equally cautious parent, or would he let go?

Eric

My Beast roommate

I was very fortunate to be given my roommate, and battle buddy, during Beast Barracks. He was the heart and I was the soul of our squad. Our room was even situated in the middle of the Ike Barracks hall housing our squad. Our squad mates, even our 1st cycle squad leader, would come to our room to hang out, which is to say, polish brass and shine boots. My roommate impressed me as a natural leader, solid, sure, and competent, yet humble. A good man. He was meant to be an Army Infantry officer, and I thought even then that, if there was justice at West Point, he should make First Captain. Though we were assigned to the same company (G-1, party with the gods) for plebe year, our friendship unfortunately didn't last past Beast and ended very soon after I left West Point. That's how it is for me.

He's doing as well in the Army as I expected. I don't know if he'll make General, but he will at least make Colonel. I found this on-line - here's how my roommate and battle buddy in Beast is doing, as of mid-2007:

CPT ******* **** DELTA COMPANY 2ND of the 29TH INFANTRY REGIMENT

Captain ******* **** is a native of Waltham, Massachusetts, and is a 2003 graduate of the United States Military Academy.

After graduating from the Infantry Officer’s Basic Course, CPT **** was assigned to Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion of the 187th Infantry Regiment, 3d Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (AASLT) where he served as Rifle Platoon Leader for 13 months. In the summer of 2005 his BN was re-flagged as 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment and CPT **** deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom IV as the Bravo Company Executive Officer.

CPT **** supported combat operations in Baghdad and Samarra, Iraq from September 2005 to September 2006. Upon returning from OIF IV he served as a Battalion Assistant Operations Officer.

In April 2007, CPT **** arrived at 2nd Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment where he served as the Battalion Operations Officer. Captain **** took command of Delta Company 2nd of the 29th Infantry Regiment on 12 June 2007 where he serves today.

Captain **** is a graduate of the Infantry Officer’s Basic Course, Ranger School, Airborne School, and Air Assault School. His awards and decorations include the Bronze Star Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Iraqi Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon, Combat Infantryman’s Badge, Expert Infantryman’s Badge, Parachutist Badge, Air Assault Badge and the Ranger Tab.

Eric

Brigadier General H.R. McMaster

The always excellent Small Wars Journal passes on the report from Stars and Stripes that Army Colonel H.R. McMaster will be promoted to Brigadier General. When COL McMaster was passed over for promotion last year, it seemed like a discouraging message to young dynamic officers. His promotion seems like a step in the right direction.

Congratulations, sir, and charlie mike.

Eric

American Born Chinese

Earlier this week, I walked home from work, stopped in a Barnes & Noble, and perused the graphic novel section. I happened upon the 2006 Gene Yang graphic novel American Born Chinese. The title caught my attention and the subject matter hit close to home. Many of us Chinese (ethnically speaking) Americans, especially those of us who grow up outside of Chinese communities, struggle with identity.

I'll add to this post later.

Update: I may add, contemplate, and return to this post over time. As yet, I don't feel up to writing a finished post. Some subjects don't carry deeper emotional resonance and it's easier to write what I think about them in one sitting. Other subjects are more personal and for them, a quick post would be glib; they need time and care to sort through. For now, I'll just jot down some thoughts.

Development. A child undergoes sensitive formative stages as he grows up. The vulnerabilities at different ages are different. Especially when a child is in the process of defining self in terms of social identity, interpersonal interactions and community surroundings become main ingredients. Question: is it better for an Asian American child to grow up different in a non-Asian American environment, even if it is a liberalized diverse environment? Or, is it healthier for the child's psycho-emotional development to grow up in an ethnically and culturally like community? If I become a father, would it be healthier for my child if I moved my family to somewhere like Hawaii to be immersed within an Asian-American community? All else being equal, I suspect it's better for a child's identity to form in an ethnically and culturally like community. Once his sense of identity is securely encoded, then he'll be secure in himself and better equipped to navigate the sundry world. Of course, I grew up mostly in a non-Taiwanese American setting.

HAPA. HAPAs are ethnically part-Asian Americans. I'm attracted to HAPAs because they physically embody how I perceive myself: part Asian, part American.

Loaded question . . . what would Gene Yang's graphic novel look like from a Chinese-American woman's perspective?

The older I get, there is more yearning to connect to my Chinese-Taiwanese roots, at least to acquire fluency in the language. I've been too lazy to do anything about it, though.

Chinese-ethnic Americans in non-Asian settings do seem to be more stand-offish with each other and don't seem to bond as naturally as people from other ethnic groups seem to. Do we feel guilty about our assimilation? Is it lack of confidence? Are we made uncomfortable by the mirror image of someone similar? Do we fear that being perceived in tandem with another Chinese-ethnic American would mark and diminish us as outsiders? Gene Yang addresses this subject in his graphic novel.

Army experience. Some may view joining the U.S. Army as an extreme act of assimilation. In terms of civic identity, it is, insofar that being a soldier is a substantive statement of loyalty to the country and pays a personal price for a citizenship that many consider cheap. In terms of culture and community, though, becoming a soldier is not a perfect act of assimilation because the military culture and community are unique unto themselves and not the American mainstream. Entering the Army, I was already conflicted about identity and sensitive to racial prejudice, but at home, I could escape to where I didn't have to think about it. My military experience pulled me out of my comfort zone. I was one of very few ethnically Chinese soldiers in a stressful, constantly intimate social environment that was alien to me in many respects. I was exposed to human interactions, both ugly and impressive. I experienced racism in some instances, but also had experiences that confounded expectations of racism. My most effective experience centered on my name: I was called by my Chinese family name rather than "Eric", which clearly identified me by my ethnicity every time I was addressed or referred to. Just reconciling my name in that environment forced me to confront what it means to be ethnically Chinese and American. I was proud to be a citizen-soldier of the United States Army. I came to view the act as essential patriotism that defined me as an American, yet my soldier name was my Chinese family name, not my Western first name. The takeaway influence of my Army service is my belief that the better way for Asian Americans is to take ownership of multiple identities, as opposed to a conflict between identities. I am American and accept the Anglo, Afro, Latino, and other non-Asian influences that dominate my American identity. I am Taiwanese and accept my ethnic and family heritage. I am a member of more than one tribe. Still, I wonder how long it will be, if ever, before I can belong to a proud extroverted tribe of Taiwanese Americans. Interestingly, despite my early expectations to the contrary, serving in Korea didn't make much difference in my deliberation of Asian American identity. There isn't a global pan-Asian identity.

Eric

Memorable movie quote: Don't let them bury me . . . I'm not dead!

"Don't let them bury me . . . I'm not dead!" is from the 1988 Wes Craven movie, The Serpent and the Rainbow. The memory plays tricks. All these years, I've recalled the line as "Don't bury me . . . I'm not dead!" and I've used it as a roguish riposte to myself whenever I've emerged unhurt from a doubtful situation. I haven't actually watched the movie from beginning to end, but I remember the line, possibly from the movie trailer (it's said at the end):



Eric

Thoughts of the day

The period of Rumspringa for the Amish, the subject of television documentary Devil's Playground, is an intriguing Tao-like adaptation for an insular community with distinct customs that, at the same time, exists within modern American society. The Amish teens are old enough to be educated in the Amish ways, but like most teens their age, are at their most rebellious and desirous to forge their own relationship with the world. Rather than fight nature, the Amish are confident enough in their culture to allow their children to find their own way back. The key is that eighty to ninety percent of the young adult Amish do return to the community. The rite of passage seems to effectively serve the dual purposes of satisfying individual desires for the outside world while also filtering out the members whose dissatisfaction could have become destabilizing.

Jon & Kate plus 8 is my current TV addiction. The father, Jon Gosselin, is a year younger than I am and his wife, Kate, is a year older. There are several themes in the show that fascinate me. Plus, it's easy to fall in love with the family. Here's an interesting negative blog about the show.

Added musing, 3/15/09: The Jon & Kate plus 8 How We Got Here episode reinforces a fear of single men considering marriage: you surrender your freedom and commit your life to a woman who turns into someone else after marriage and kids. At the start of the episode, we're shown videos of the couple during courtship through early marriage. In them, we see a soft, girlish, pretty and carefree Kate and it's easy to understand how Jon fell in love with her. There are only hints of the shrewish demanding harder Kate we see in the show.

One of the take-aways from my Columbia political science education is the failure of post-Civil War Reconstruction, the enduring effect of that failure on American society, and the cautionary tale it provides for our current Reconstruction-type efforts in the War on Terror. There can be a long-term costly price to pay for succumbing to short-term political incentives.

Event cascade, also called chain of events, is a recurring theme on the National Geographic Seconds from Disaster series. It starts with a relatively minor breakdown, which can be human error, mechanical failure, or a procedural or structural fault, that causes another breakdown, which leads to another and another failure in a growing combination until disaster happens. The breakdown may have happened many times before without consequence. A good example. If you find yourself in an event cascade, how do you break out of the pattern before it's too late? Or, constrained by limited choices dictated by the situation, are you already too late when the event cascade begins?

A website about shoelaces.

Eric

Happy Independence Day 2008: "Why I Joined" by Army LT Mark Daily

Ever since I served, I've believed that Independence Day is best celebrated not with fireworks, parades, barbecues, and festive, red, white, and blue bunting. The occasion is better celebrated in the mud, desert, jungle, or claustrophobic streets, intimate with grime, sweat, and blood, and clothed in patriotic colors like khaki, olive drab, woodland camouflage, or now, digital patterns.

Cassandra of Villainous Company meditates upon Independence Day by recalling Army lieutenant Mark Daily, who was killed in action in Iraq in January 2007.

LT Daily explained why he volunteered to go to war on his Myspace page:

Why I Joined: This question has been asked of me so many times in so many different contexts that I thought it would be best if I wrote my reasons for joining the Army on my page for all to see. First, the more accurate question is why I volunteered to go to Iraq. After all, I joined the Army a week after we declared war on Saddam's government with the intention of going to Iraq. Now, after years of training and preparation, I am finally here. Much has changed in the last three years. The criminal Ba'ath regime has been replaced by an insurgency fueled by Iraq's neighbors who hope to partition Iraq for their own ends. This is coupled with the ever present transnational militant Islamist movement which has seized upon Iraq as the greatest way to kill Americans, along with anyone else they happen to be standing near. What was once a paralyzed state of fear is now the staging ground for one of the largest transformations of power and ideology the Middle East has experienced since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Thanks to Iran, Syria, and other enlightened local actors, this transformation will be plagued by interregional hatred and genocide. And I am now in the center of this. Is this why I joined? Yes. Much has been said about America's intentions in overthrowing Saddam Hussein and seeking to establish a new state based upon political representation and individual rights. Many have framed the paradigm through which they view the conflict around one-word explanations such as "oil" or "terrorism," favoring the one which best serves their political persuasion. I did the same thing, and anyone who knew me before I joined knows that I am quite aware and at times sympathetic to the arguments against the war in Iraq. If you think the only way a person could bring themselves to volunteer for this war is through sheer desperation or blind obedience then consider me the exception (though there are countless like me). I joined the fight because it occurred to me that many modern day "humanists" who claim to possess a genuine concern for human beings throughout the world are in fact quite content to allow their fellow "global citizens" to suffer under the most hideous state apparatuses and conditions. Their excuses used to be my excuses. When asked why we shouldn't confront the Ba'ath party, the Taliban or the various other tyrannies throughout this world, my answers would allude to vague notions of cultural tolerance (forcing women to wear a veil and stay indoors is such a quaint cultural tradition), the sanctity of national sovereignty (how eager we internationalists are to throw up borders to defend dictatorships!) or even a creeping suspicion of America's intentions. When all else failed, I would retreat to my fragile moral ecosystem that years of living in peace and liberty had provided me. I would write off war because civilian casualties were guaranteed, or temporary alliances with illiberal forces would be made, or tank fuel was toxic for the environment. My fellow "humanists" and I would relish contently in our self righteous declaration of opposition against all military campaigns against dictatorships, congratulating one another for refusing to taint that aforementioned fragile moral ecosystem that many still cradle with all the revolutionary tenacity of the members of Rage Against the Machine and Greenday. Others would point to America's historical support of Saddam Hussein, sighting it as hypocritical that we would now vilify him as a thug and a tyrant. Upon explaining that we did so to ward off the fiercely Islamist Iran, which was correctly identified as the greater threat at the time, eyes are rolled and hypocrisy is declared. Forgetting that America sided with Stalin to defeat Hitler, who was promptly confronted once the Nazis were destroyed, America's initial engagement with Saddam and other regional actors is identified as the ultimate argument against America's moral crusade. And maybe it is. Maybe the reality of politics makes all political action inherently crude and immoral. Or maybe it is these adventures in philosophical masturbation that prevent people from ever taking any kind of effective action against men like Saddam Hussein. One thing is for certain, as disagreeable or as confusing as my decision to enter the fray may be, consider what peace vigils against genocide have accomplished lately. Consider that there are 19 year old soldiers from the Midwest who have never touched a college campus or a protest who have done more to uphold the universal legitimacy of representative government and individual rights by placing themselves between Iraqi voting lines and homicidal religious fanatics. Often times it is less about how clean your actions are and more about how pure your intentions are. So that is why I joined. In the time it took for you to read this explanation, innocent people your age have suffered under the crushing misery of tyranny. Every tool of philosophical advancement and communication that we use to develop our opinions about this war are denied to countless human beings on this planet, many of whom live under the regimes that have, in my opinion, been legitimately targeted for destruction. Some have allowed their resentment of the President to stir silent applause for setbacks in Iraq. Others have ironically decried the war because it has tied up our forces and prevented them from confronting criminal regimes in Sudan, Uganda, and elsewhere. I simply decided that the time for candid discussions of the oppressed was over, and I joined. In digesting this posting, please remember that America's commitment to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his sons existed before the current administration and would exist into our future children's lives had we not acted. Please remember that the problems that plague Iraq today were set in motion centuries ago and were up until now held back by the most cruel of cages. Don't forget that human beings have a responsibility to one another and that Americans will always have a responsibility to the oppressed. Don't overlook the obvious reasons to disagree with the war but don't cheapen the moral aspects either. Assisting a formerly oppressed population in converting their torn society into a plural, democratic one is dangerous and difficult business, especially when being attacked and sabotaged from literally every direction. So if you have anything to say to me at the end of this reading, let it at least include "Good Luck" Mark Daily

Vaya con Dios, sir. And, thank you.

Eric

Happy Independence Day 2008

Photo taken during Chaplain's Prayer for Troops and Veterans, March 9, 2006 at St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University. Holding the flag are a US Army Captain, a US Army ROTC cadet (now Lieutenant), a USMC officer candidate (now Lieutenant), a USMCR Corporal, a former USMCR Marine, and a former US Army soldier (me!), all Columbia students. The NCOIC of the ceremony is a former US Army soldier. The Captain, both former soldiers, and former Marine served in Korea.

Update: With inspiration from the Nathans hot dog eating contest, which Joey Chestnut won again over Takeru Kobayashi, I celebrated the day with hot dogs and Yoo Hoo (Yoo Hoo is an Army nostalgia thing for me) . . . you know what, my stomach just isn't as tolerant as it used to be.

Eric