Iraq War Analogies

From the moment the President first started talking about invading Iraq, we've heard comparison after comparison to the Vietnam War. But this analogy has never really struck me as accurate. But I was thinking about it this morning, and it occurred to me that the better analogy is to the American Civil War:

1) One side (Union/U.S.) wins a decisive and total victory over the other (Confederacy/Iraqi Baathists).

2) The outcome leads to political freedom and emancipation for (a) oppressed group(s) (Black Slaves/Iraqi Shiites and Kurds).

3) Disgruntled members of the formerly dominant group (White Southerners/Iraqi Sunnis), rather than leading a guerrilla struggle against the occupying army (Union/U.S. Army), start killing innocent civilians (Black Freedmen/Iraqi Shiites and Kurds) and those cooperating with the occupiers (Carpetbaggers and Scalawags/Iraqi Police and Government officials).

Number three is the one that really distinguishes the Iraq War from the Vietnam War. The Viet Cong, though they killed plenty of innocent Vietnamese, used the classic guerrilla strategy - harass the occupiers until they crackdown on the civilian population, thus causing the civilians to look to the guerrillas for protection. Therefore, the Viet Cong gained strength by winning real popular support. The Iraqi insurgents have instead opted for a terrorist strategy, a la the KKK, which wins them no popular support, but which they hope will eventually cause the U.S. to throw in the towel due to frustration.

The good news? The Union Army eventually crushed the KKK, causing it to disband (it later reformed in the 1910s).

The bad news? Eventually the White Southerners won anyway. The Northerners tired of Reconstruction after 11 years and basically ceded control back to the good ol' boys, who ruled the South uncontested for 80 years until the Civil Rights struggle began in the 1950s.

Here's to hoping that we don't have to wait until the 2090s to see Iraq ruled freely and democratically.

Being Rich is Hard

Remember that song "Mo Money Mo Problems"? I always took that to heart, because it's certainly true that rich people live very difficult lives that I think us working people just don't understand. Further evidence comes from this story about Paris Hilton

Heiress Paris Hilton is wearing two engagement rings, because she can't choose between the two diamond bands her fiance Paris Latsis offered her.

The Greek shipping heir gave Hilton a choice between two pricey rings from celebrity jewelers Harry Winston and Tiffany.

One has a 24-carat canary yellow stone, the other a 15-carat white diamond. They are worth $2.1 million and $4.2 million.

But the 24-year-old loves them both.

A source says, "She just can't decide."

Gulag Island

Any left-winger who wants to criticize President Bush should do so only after thinking to him/herself "are my comments more likely to make me or the President look like a fool?"

Case in point: the recent Amnesty International report which compared the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the Soviet Gulag. The President called this charge absurd, and he's absolutely right. The Gulag victimized (and killed) millions of innocent Soviet citizens, while the abuses (which I strongly oppose, just so there's no misunderstanding) at Guantanamo Bay have victimized, at most, a few hundred people. Not only isn't Guantanamo equivalent to the Gulag, it's not even the worst prison system on the island of Cuba!

So, in the end, because Amnesty International decided to sex-up its report with a ridiculous historical analogy, rather than drawing attention to U.S. abuses, the report only served to discredit opponents of President Bush. So once again, us moderate liberals get to sit around and watch as those to our left consistently undermine us with their immature antics.

Deep Throat Caused the Cambodian Genocide ...

or so says Peggy Noonan:

What Mr. Felt helped produce was a weakened president who was a serious president at a serious time. Nixon's ruin led to a cascade of catastrophic events--the crude and humiliating abandonment of Vietnam and the Vietnamese, the rise of a monster named Pol Pot, and millions--millions--killed in his genocide.

Nixon's ruin led to the genocide in Cambodia? Um, wtf? It's one thing for conservatives to not consider Felt a hero, since he did bring down a conservative president. But it's another thing entirely to invent a sequence of events whereby Deep Throat is the cause of Pol Pot's genocide. That's absurd, slanderous, and way out of bounds for polite discourse.

But more importantly, it's totally incorrect. Several points:

1) It was the American Army's incursions into Cambodia while Nixon was President that destablized the country and started the sequence of events that led to the Khmer Rouge's takeover.

2) Pol Pot carried out his genocide while Nixon's appointed successor - Ford - and right-hand man - Kissinger - were still in power. These men did nothing to stop the genocide.

3) The North Vietnamese who Nixon was fighting actually did intervene in Cambodia, and ended the genocide by toppling the Khmer Rouge.

and most importantly 4) Nixon's downfall can be blamed entirely on one man - Richard Nixon. His resignation resulted not from some scandal cooked-up by liberals bent on his destruction but from his own criminality.

Ms. Noonan's retelling of history where Nixon would have somehow defeated the Viet Cong and strangled the infant Khmer Rouge in the cradle is pure fiction. But hagiographic fantasy appears to be her specialty.

Wilco

Oh, no - Jeff Tweedy is sober and happy! This almost assuredly spells the end of Wilco. How many rock band do you know who really hit their stride during periods of calm and happiness, singing songs of domestic bliss?

Now, of course, as a fellow human being, I wish Jeff Tweedy the best. I'm glad that he's kicked his habit and is enjoying time with his wife and children. But, let's be realistic. Jeff Tweedy isn't my friend or something. My main (read: only) interaction with him is through his music. And so my primary concern is that he continues to produce high-quality music for people like me to listen to. And, frankly, I don't think his current lifestyle choices are conducive to that goal (though I hope to be proved wrong).

Half kidding aside, the most worrying part of the article is where he says that he's not so interested in playing short rock songs anymore - he'd rather play extended jam songs like "Spiders (Kidsmoke)." Um ... Jeff, I'd really rather that you didn't. The short, tight rock songs are a big part of Wilco, especially live. I'd take "Outtasite (Outta Mind)" over any song on A Ghost Is Born, anytime - one of the most cathartic experiences one can have is shouting "Okay alright! Okay alright!" along with an entire theater of fellow concert-goers. Please don't deny us that pleasure in favor of a 12-minute version of "Spiders." You're not Phish, Jeff - try to remember on which side your bread is buttered.

SNL

Here's a site that I had forgotten about: Saturday Night Live Transcripts.

A few of my favorite sketches:

Grayson-Moorhead

Neil Diamond Storytellers

The Census

My Keychain

For the last week, my keys have rattled mourningly in my pocket. My keychain has died.

It was the only keychain that I've ever used, a leather catcher's mitt giving to me in second grade by my friends Andrew and Ally. I had it for eighteen years. But on Saturday, the last threads holding the keyring tore and my keys fell to the floor. I searched for a leather loop to reattach the ring to, as I have in similar cases many times over the years, but this time the search was in vain. There was nothing left. So I left the mitt on the kitchen counter and have taken my keys to work alone all week. My pocket feels naked without my mitt - when I stick my hand in, no longer do I feel the comforting leather of the keychain, but only the cold metal of the keys.

I miss my keychain, and I don't know how I can replace it.

Continuity

I came across this wonderful essay on continuity in science fiction written by a scientist. Enjoy. :)

SFGate

So I read the San Francisco Chronicle's website, SFGate.com, on a daily basis to keep up with news from my hometown. Generally, I like the Chronicle (even if all of the snobbish intellectual-types in California are always complaining how, really, it sucks compared to, I guess, the New York Times or whatever). However, they have a few columnists who really get my goat, including this jerk, who only appears on their website. Near as I can tell, he's one of those people who thinks that he's the only guy in the world who knows what's up - that people in power lie, that religious folks are all suckers, that pop culture is vapid. He doesn't argue points, he just denigrates whatever he doesn't like. Note the approving quotes on his page about how awesome and one-of-a-kind he is.

His column today is basically about how Star Wars sucks, George Lucas sucks, Star Wars nerds suck, and basically the movies are just crap for little boys. Now, I disagree with all of this, but that's not the point. The point is that he writes this as if, y'know, he's the first person to notice that the emperor has no clothes, as if all sorts of people haven't been saying the same things about the prequels for years now. And as if it really takes balls to attack Star Wars nerds, a universally loathed subculture (are there any subcultures that aren't universally loathed, come to think of it?).

Anyway, I've just always hated people like him (I knew too many of them in college), who seem to think that their drivel is so totally original.

Music Addiction

So I've been thinking lately about what it's like being a music fan, and I realized that it really borders on addiction, at least for me. That is, I always want more cds, thinking "I'll just get these ones, and that will be enough," except that it's never enough. Once I actually buy and listen to some new cds, it isn't more than a few days before I move on to wanting something else. And then I sorta feel bad, like I should have enjoyed and appreciated the ones I just bought more.

A big part of this is the law of diminishing returns. Those first cds in your collection you cherish and listen to a hundred times, day after day. But once your collection spans the hundreds or the thousands, you can't listen to any one cd that often. So, you go out and get that new cd by that new cool indie band. And you listen, and y'know, it's a smart, tight, finely-crafted pop album consisting of excellent 3-4 minute songs. But you don't love it (there are exceptions, of course). Not the way you loved those first cds. So you listen a half-dozen times, memorize a handful of the lyrics, and move on.

But then, of course, you have to keep buying - because there's always more good music coming out, and you have to keep up with all the new hot bands, and of course, with the old hot bands, too (until they pull an R.E.M. and start sucking). So you get suckered into being a completist - you need every band, and everything by every band. But it's still not enough.

In the end, I think this pattern of addiction can be attributed to Nick Hornby's observation in Songbook that, really, a pop song isn't that complicated and there's only so many times you can listen to one before you "get" it. After that, you have to move on. That's why it's always so exhilarating when you listen to an old song and discover something new - you've successfully squeezed blood from a stone, as it were. But once you become a real fan, you devour songs faster and faster. You're more skilled at picking out the important bits, and discerning the trash from the treasure. And then more music is needed.

Anyway, given this pattern, I've always just been happy that I'm able to fend it off a bit, as it were. I try hard not to give in to the temptation to buy every cd, and to become a fan of every new cool band. I content myself with really liking the first two Shins albums, but not bothering to buy the first two Interpol albums. Is Interpol good? Probably (everyone says so). But it's not worth the time, money, and effort to find out. Perhaps if I were rich, I wouldn't feel constrained this way, but somehow I don't think I'll ever have that problem.

Some Stuff I've Read Recently

So I ended up a bit disappointed by Slate's history week, especially the conversation between Ravitch and Wiener that just sorta ... ended. Thud. And most of the articles on specific topics just weren't very gripping. But that's the problem with history - most stuff that doesn't relate to your field of interest is boring. For instance, in grad school, I had a couple articles published in the school history journal. But when the issues actually came out, mine were the only articles I was interested in reading (and I bet most of the other contributors felt the same way).

Anyway, there was one stand-out history article at Slate - David Greenberg's two-part essay (here's part one and part two) on the difficulty of bridging the gap between academic and popular history writing. Academic writing tends to be dull, jargon-ladened, and obsessed by topics that no one cares about (see the paragraph above). Popular writing, on the other hand, often lacks original research or any familiarity with preceding work in the same field (historiography). Greenberg's suggestion, then, is to marry accessible writing on interesting topics with solid historiography. He cites Gordon Wood's The Radicalism of the American Revolution (a book I loved) as a prime example of this style of history. Here's to hoping that historians in and out of academia follow Greenberg's advice.

Finally, today I read an interesting article on gender-imbalance in Asia. The economist Amartya Sen has argued that this imbalance is caused by the misogyny of Chinese, Indian, et al. societies and the resultant neglect and infanticide of females. However, as the article details, Emily Oster has discovered that a large part of the disparity can be explained by the high incidence of Hepatitis B in Asia, which for unknown reasons, causes women carriers of the disease to be more likely to give birth to boys than girls.

Torture and Idealism

So the whole Newsweek story has been done to death this week, but I feel like I should say something on the topic, at least obliquely. First of all, let me acknowledge that Newsweek made a serious journalistic error, and their retraction was necessary. Second, they should not be held responsible for the rioting and death that followed - that was the work of fanatics, and the news media shouldn't be in the business of censoring itself for fear of causing morons to overreact. Third, given what we know about what has occurred in U.S. prisons (free registration required), right-wing self-righteous anger at Newsweek is a little like a murderer getting angry that his indictment wrongly claims he ran a red-light during the crime.

The broader point about this topic, and what makes it so painful and frustrating for a hawkish liberal internationalist like myself, is that I believe in much of what President Bush says, but his inability to live up to his ideals is maddening. I supported the war in Iraq because, ultimately, it meant ridding the world of a brutal, sadistic, genocidal regime. I believe that all peoples deserve to live in democratic states, or more realistically, at least in moderately free republics. So Bush's declared aim of holding every state in the world to a democratic standard - something the United Nations has been astoundingly bad at - is one I wholeheartedly agree with.

But whether or not President Bush believes in one standard for all, his actions belie this believe. He is rightly horrified by torture, but he makes excuses, covers up, and refuses to hold anyone accountable when it is practiced by our own troops (not just torture - murder, too). He even absurdly claimed in his latest press conference that we never knowingly render suspected terrorists to regimes that practice torture - as if Egyptian, Syrian, and Uzbek prisons were best known for their lengthy massages and world-class spa facilities. Bush also campaigns against nuclear proliferation while our military engages in research on smaller and more useful nukes (as if we could even use such a thing without all sorts of legal, diplomatic, military, and economic fallout, in addition to the, y'know, radioactive fallout).

In short, George Bush is, at times and on certain foreign policy issues, a hypocrite (note: I did not call him, nor do I believe that he is, a liar). So why do I support him on some issues? Well, because while I can imagine my ideal President, that's not the guy we've got (nor will we ever have him). So I support Bush at times, knowing that I'll be disappointed, but that some good may come of it, too. Besides, better a half-hearted democratizer like Bush than someone who doesn't believe in democratizing at all, like Cheney or Rumsfeld (that, by the way, is why they cannot reasonably be considered neo-conservatives - they're just plain conservatives).

Star Wars

So Annie and I saw Episode III last night, proving how big of nerds we are. This was undoubtedly the best of the prequels, even if there were a few scenes that I think should have been done differently. But that's the inherent difficulty of making a movie where people already know the ending. (And really, isn't this why so many people think that Episodes I-II sucked? Because they sat there in the theater saying "No, that scene didn't live up to my preconceived notions - I would have done X instead.")

I don't want to give anything away, but I will say this: 1) Episode I was totally superfluous - almost nothing from the plot of that movie is necessary to advance the story in Episodes II-III, and 2) Lucas' inability to write a convincing love story hurts the prequels as a whole.

Finally, over at Slate they have a discussion between the two biggest Star Wars nerds on their staff (yes, I read Slate a lot). Anyway, several parts of the discussion struck me as inaccurate, but this section was waaay off:

And while I'm on the subject, is there anything Obi-Wan Kenobi tells Luke Skywalker at the beginning of Star Wars that turns out to be true? ... He says Luke's father was a great pilot. These prequels give us no real evidence for that.... He says that he fought with Luke's father in the
Clone Wars. If that's true, it's sure hard to tell.

Um? Did this guy watch the prequels? Anakin is several times shown to be a great pilot (that's the whole point of the dumb pod-racing sequence in Episode I). And as for Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting in the Clone Wars together - um, the Clone Wars are all of the fighting in Episodes II-III, and they certainly do a lot of it, side-by-side. That's why Obi-Wan is at times referred to as General Kenobi - because they're fighting a war.

Okay, nerdiness will now come to an end (until my next post, that is).

History Lessons

The continuing debate between Jon Wiener and Diane Ravitch at Slate regarding how to teach history is quite interesting.

One specific thing that struck me the other day, however, was this point from Ravitch, rebutting Wiener's claim that it is most important to teach "the conflicts":

If you don't know the central events and players—the central narrative—it is
difficult to understand the views and behaviors that diverge from the central
narrative. How can you teach "multiple perspectives" when students don't know
what happened in the first instance?

I found this interesting most of all because I made almost the exact point in an intro-level history class at UC Santa Cruz. The professor had structured the class as a series of debates about American history, and made sure to focus on the perspectives of minorities, women, dissidents, etc. But I found that what happened was that the students who already knew the history participated in the discussions, while the students who didn't already know the history were lost, because the professor spent almost zero time on the basic narrative.

Now, in fairness to Professor Yang-Murray, these were students who had, like all California students, already taken American history in 5th, 8th, and 11th grades. They should have known the basic narrative well enough to move deeper into the material. So the failure was really at the elementary and secondary level, which I think is the point Ravitch was trying to get across. You can't expect sophisticated historical analysis from students who had the basketball coach as their history teacher in high school.

My Brother, Part 2

So my brother had this to say in an email:

You know Jake, you're not a geek for writing so much about Star Trek and history
on your blog, you're a geek for HAVING a blog.

Yeah, well if blogging is so geeky, then why does Matt have this blog? Riddle me that, Batman!

More Star Trek

Okay, my newfound Star Trek obsession has become a running joke, but this post about the end of Star Trek is really good. Lileks does a great job of summing up most of my feelings about the show.

History Week

So Slate has a number of history-themed articles this week, which is cool, because while history is hardly ignored in the media, it's rare to see discussions like this one between Diane Ravitch and Jon Wiener about the kind of things that historians actually discuss and worry about.

I haven't had a chance yet to read all of the articles (so I'm sure I'll post more later), but this line in Ravitch's post today struck me:

In no other subject do a majority of students register so little knowledge of a
subject taught in school.

I know that American students have for years and years scored low in history, but somehow I never realized it was so bad. Partly this is because I just can't wrap my head around the idea that the average American has more knowledge of math or science than history. Maybe that's just because history has always come easily for me, and I just sort of assumed that it was easy for everyone else (at least relatively speaking).

Seriously, what subject could be easier? There's little jargon, no computation, and much of the material is stuff that people already know and have opinions about (George Washington, the Civil War, Hitler, etc.). Your average intelligent person, I've always figured, would be far more able to carry on a conversation about World War II than the Pythagorean Theorem. This has even caused me to think, at times, that my degree in history is really no big deal because, come on, anyone can do history - it takes a genius to do biochemistry.

But apparently, my assumptions were wrong. People really do have trouble with history, and I'm not sure why.

British Election

As I'm sure that everyone knows, Tony Blair and the Labour Party won their third straight election last week in Great Britain. I was looking at this map shortly after the election, and I was struck by the similarities and differences between Britain and the U.S. Though the colors are reversed, the map looks strikingly like that of the U.S. - a sea of one color (in this case, blue for the Conservatives), with little bits of the other (red for Labour). Like the U.S., the countryside is heavily conservative, and the cities are mostly liberal. Also similar to the U.S., the percentages don't necessarily translate neatly into the share of power. In the U.S., a slight Republican majority nationwide has translated into a solid Republican majority in all branches of government, meaning that the government as a whole is far less equivocal than the electorate. In Britain, this is even more pronounced, as Labour's 35.2% victory translates into an electoral landslide of 356 seats (55% of the total).

But the differences are striking as well. First of all, despite a winner-take-all system like our House of Representatives (as opposed to a proportional system, like in other parliamentary systems), there are more than two parties. The Liberal Democrats, notably, captured 22% of the vote, with smaller parties getting another 10.5% - accounting for 92 seats. This is partly explained, looking again at the map, by regional differences. Note that the Conservatives won only a single seat in Scotland, for instance, while the local Scottish National Party won 6 seats. Second, whereas in the U.S, the equality of representation of states in the Senate and gerrymandering in the House favor rural (and therefore conservative) areas, in Britain this is reversed. London alone, for instance, accounts for 74 seats, and other urban areas are similarly overrepresented, which helps to explain the dominance of Labour.

Anyway, if you're inclined to look at Britain as a sort of Bizarro version of the U.S., except with a different language, then these election results would tend to confirm that belief.

Jason

My friend, Jason Lefler, who I've known since middle school and who I roomed with in college, has started a travel blog. I've added it to my blog list. Jason's a lot like me, except with a far more intricate sense of humor, and a far more sophisticated taste for wine. I wholeheartedly recommend his posts, even if they don't seem to make sense sometimes.

My Brother the Ump

So here's a picture of my brother Matt umpiring a 4th grade youth baseball game in San Francisco - which is totally cool.

Thing is, I was looking at this picture and I realized that, even though Matt is kneeling, he's a head taller than the catcher. I remember playing baseball at that age, and I guess I didn't realize at the time just how young and little we all still were. I mean, I felt pretty grown-up already at the ripe old age of 10. :) I guess I'll chalk this up as another one of those things where your perception changes a lot as you get older.