President Bush: An Honest Mistake?

It sure seemed strange.

There was President George Bush citing the number of Iraqi civilian dead as about 30,000.

At a December 12 question and answer session at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia Bush used the figure put out by a strongly anti-war British based group, which publishes on the web Iraq Body Count.

Since when does the President publicly adopt as reliable the numbers put out by a sometimes controversial anti-war civilian watchdog?

When official American sources say they cannot estimate or give out civilian body counts, when official policy obscures these deaths in order not to undercut support for war.

Is such Presidential "openness" just an "honest mistake?"

Interesting to speculate on how Bush came to rely on Iraq Body Count figures -- which, after his comments, were qualified by official sources.

The figures President Bush used come from a pre-emptive human rights watchdog put in action before the launching of a pre-emptive war. This is, no doubt, the first time in history a civilian group other than the Red Cross was set up a civilian casualty monitoring system BEFORE a war began.

Iraq Body Count uses in modified form a media monitoring technique developed by Marc Herold, a strongly anti-war professor from the University of New Hampshire. He opposed and monitored the Afghanistan war at a time many American media were reluctant to report civilian casualties there for fear of appearing unpatriotic. (The press of other nations reported civilian casualties). Herold, whose reports on Iraq were challenged by some as exaggerating civilian deaths, was an advisor to Iraq Body Count when it was set up before the American invasion of Iraq.

Iraq Body Count provides a "button icon" which any web designer can place on a web page. Whenever the page is opened any place in the world, it reproduces the icon with the latest automatically updated casualties figures displayed. It's tone is more restrained than Herold's work on Afghanistan.

For more on American and other media coverage of civilian casualties and on Iraq Body Count's automatically updating internet button, see this writer's web essay "Civilian Deaths: Afghan and Iraq Wars " researched during both the Afghan and Iraq wars.

Iraq Body Count's automatically updating "button" is found in that essay. The writer corresponded with both Prof. Herold and Iraq Body Count staff in the course of his research.

Plunging Onward Out Ahead!

"All I could do was to scoop out a hollow in the sand."

"It worked. I'm here," said the 84 year old Marine veteran of amphibious assaults on Iwo Jima, Guam, and Guadalcanal.

Plunging Onward Out Ahead.

"I'm the World War II generation," he continued in the locker room of New Bern's Courts Plus gym.

Born in '22, he now was slow, so slow, as he crouched in the corner laboriously pulling on his trousers.

Slowly...slowly...slowly.....Yet once engaged in conversation, his story flowed out like a mountain stream.

Plunging onward out ahead...

"Were you the famous Marine photographed raising the victory flag over Iwo Jima?" I asked him with a chuckle.

"No, I'm the one who ran for cover," came a swift, twinkling reply.

"There was no cover, " he continued. No trenches could be dug into the beach soil. "All I could do was scoop out a hollow in the sand."

Then came the shrapnel -- in his chin through the lips, and right above the brow. "I pulled the shrapnel out, stuck on the bandaids, plunged onward out ahead."

Later, at Guam, came more serious wounds.

"Burns," he said. All over the face, shoulders and chest. When a Japanese suicide plane crashed a bit too close. For months he recovered in military hospitals -- fortunately, he recalled, penicillin had just become available, so antibiotic coated water wetted bandages made of toilet paper could keep infection at bay.

"You know now I'm loosing weight but my stomach keeps getting bigger especially when I sit...I used to do three sets of racketball every lunch hour....Now I'm down to swimming, but that gets hard with water in the ears...Today I just did a steam bath..."

"You're 64?" he said to me. "A young one.....you're doing the right thing to exercise. That will help keep you alive."

"Chiao," said the man from Iwo Jima, as he trudged just a bit woundedly out through the locker room door.......

Yes, it worked. He is still here.

Plunging onward out ahead.

"Gavin Plan:" What future in Iraq?

With a media blitz Bill Clinton moves to shore up Hillary's unfolding bid to become a presidential contender.

As usual, he stakes out a centrist position, breaking with his party's left, especially on Iraq. As does Hillary, he breaks with some Democrats' calls for quick Iraq withdrawal.

Instead he swings to qualified support for the emerging Bush doctrine, picking up on Bush's victory speech and the 35 page document outlining American strategy for victory in Iraq.

That strategy echoes in my ears -- for it is an agressive "let's win" version of the "Gavin Enclave Plan" advocated for Vietnam way back in the mid Sixties by famed World War II paratroop general James M. Gavin. He became an early critic of the Vietnam war, broke with government doctrine and retired early.

Gavin's view was that to win in Vietnam required escalation and war with China. Instead the US should withdraw to strategic enclaves, scale down fighting, then, if possible, negotiate. The Gavin plan was rejected (see below) for fear it would conceed the bulk of South Vietnam to communist rule.

Today's Clinton doctrine is an aggressive Gavin plan retooled "to win" -- whereas the original Gavin plan (see below) was rejected for fear it would NOT win.

Under the emerging Clinton version of the Gavin plan, the US would gradually withdraw to non-urban Iraq areas, reduce its occupying "footprint," bring home some troops, and thus reduce US casualties. It would hopefully reduce anti-Americanism in Iraq -- but allow U.S. forces to sally forth in agressive raids from American bases targetted especially at Al Qaeda -- thus allowing for a long term, less costly American presence.

(Yet since this was written, this doctrine for gradual withdrawal lies under a dark cloud, rejected by Bush, it would seem. For increasing sectarian violence means such an approach could lead to growing chaos. Indeed the Administration is beefing up deployments in Bagdad and elsewhere, putting off plans for withdrawal and keeping longer in combat troops who were slated for a return home, June 2007)

The plan would back up the new Iraq government with its weak police and military -- while retaining American public support for a long term presence in Iraq. All with a minimum of American casualties.

Of course Gavin saw his plan as a way out of an unwinnable war, while the Bush/ Clinton approach is aimed at a prolonged presence with disagreements on how to do it.

To maintain America's influence in Iraq, to block Iran, protect Israel -- and keep American troops close enough to strike at any growing terrorist bases in Iraq. Thus to keep Iraq from becoming the kind of terrorist sanctuary that Taliban ruled Afghanistan was for Al Qaeda.

The Clinton agenda is, of course, to smooth Hillary's path, to let her seem tough, but advocating policies which will reduce American casualties.

****************
On the Johnson Administration's rejection of the Gavin Plan, see:

Foreign Relations, 1964-1968, Volume V, Vietnam 1967
Released by the Office of the Historian
Documents 374-387

The Wise Men's Meeting of November 1 and Planning To Stay the Course, November-December, 1967

II. Possible Alternative Courses of Action

George Ball said that no one in the group thinks we should get out of Vietnam, and no one gives propriety to the Gavin or Galbraith enclave theory

James Gavin, a former General and Ambassador, advocated the enclave theory of withdrawing to fortified areas, most notably during hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February 1966. Former Ambassador John K. Galbraith's similar plan was made public in late June 1967.

****************
On the famous paratrooper himself, see James Gavin:

The postwar military was not kind to Maj Gen James Gavin. He became the strategic planner for the postwar Army. While at home on the battlefield, he was not comfortable in Pentagon politics. His differences with top Army leadership ultimately led to his decision to retire.

Gavin continued to be influential in civilian life. He became chairman of the board of Arthur D. Little Company, advisor to President John F. Kennedy, and United States ambassador to France under the Kennedy administration.

"Born in 1907, James Gavin was the son of an unwed Irish immigrant. He was placed in a New York City orphanage at the age of one or two. He was eventually adopted by Martin and Mary Gavin, a Pennsylvania coal-mining family. His youth taught him the discipline and hard work that would pay dividends throughout his life. He enlisted in the US Army at age 17. Showing promise, he was selected for admittance to West Point."

"Gen. Gavin came to be known as the "jumping general" because he parachuted with combat troops during World War II. ...While a paratrooper, he led assaults on Sicily and on Salerno Bay, Italy, in 1943, reaching the rank of brigadier general, and jumped with the parachute assault section of the division on the first night of the Normandy Invasion (June 5-6, 1944). Elements of Gavin's section took the town of Sainte-Mère-Église and guarded river crossings on the flank of the Utah Beach landing area. Gavin was later made major general at age 37, the youngest major general since Gen. George Armstrong Custer. He commanded the 82nd Airborne during operations in The Netherlands and his division later fought in Germany until the German army surrendered in 1945."

Gen. James Gavin died in 1990.

To Come Home Aged but Ageless

A child cries out "'grandpa" and reaches out to touch a seasoned man he has only for the first time met.

Is this some ancient gene of automatic recognition with an automatic hunger for a seasoned face distant in years but close in kinship?

Then sing, sing, sing an ancient lullaby deep from a grandpa's youth. Maybe "All the Pretty Little Horses."

Stroke the child's hair. Watch relaxation cover the sleepy face. A timeless ritual softens the cry and eases him to sleep.

What's It All About?

The feeling that one has made a difference.
That there is something of you that will continue after you're gone.
That the fact that you have lived has in some way changed the world.
To touch a child....especially if that child is part of you.
To calm that child with stroking and a song.

These special moments transcend all hardships, all roadblocks which make rough the highway of life.

Reaffirmed is the world's natural order.

To hold and look upon the youngest is to come home aged but ageless.

In this instant moment of recognition, "The Circle is Unbroken."

Age, it has no meaning -- as the river flows on....

When Journalists Become Monkeys in the Jungle

Ah yes, Judith Miller of The New York Times goes to jail for refusing to divulge her anonymous sources.

Surely that symbolizes the moral cloud under which journalists now operate.

When reporters "defy the law," they may cite high principle. But beneath it all can be narrow self interest, or hunger to preserve professional standing by maintaining the ability to be trusted by future sources who may seek a reporter as a safe mouthpiece. How easy it may seem to hide behind the confidentiality of being a reporter's anonymous source!

As important as confidentiality of sources can be, we now have a situation where anonymous sources are as much a part of the problem as of the solution.

Beware anonymous sources.

Too often a scoop is a trap in disquise laid by an anonymous dagger carrying assassin whose motives have nothing to do with public interest or freedom of the press.

When hungry journalists race through the jungle eager to harvest any piece of fruit devious monkeys toss their way, it is the journalists who can end up as monkeys.

It is not at all clear that today's Judith Millers protect "whistleblowers." Indeed they may be in the service of ruthless "spin doctors" who seek to hide behind journalistic skirts to manipulate politics and public opinion for partisan political purposes.

Far better to focus on the important issues: do not allow oneself to be used!!!!! Keep the big picture in mind --- and do not be seduced by the promise of an "easy" scoop.

The still unproven assertion is that someone close to the Bush Administration was an anonymous source trying to convince reporters such as Judith Miller to unmask Valerie Plame as a undercover CIA operative. Although Judith Miller did not use what an anonymous source may have told her to "out" Plame, conservative commentator Robert Novak did. Ironically no one has at least publicly threatened to put him in jail!

What is at stake? The scuttlebut is that someone wanted to damage Plame's career, to get revenge on her husband, former Ambassador to Iraq Joseph Wilson, an outspoken critic of Bush plans to invade Iraq.

That Time Magazine parted company with Miller to gave up the court sought documents partly so that its reporter could stay out of jail further darkens the brew. If it seems a bit like professional aggrandizement for Miller to hold back, It seems a bit like corporate expediency for Time to give in.

Oddly Judith Miller, brilliant, accomplished though she is as a preeminent Times expert on terrorism, also is the reporter accused by anti-war critics of helping open the door to invade Iraq.

Her critics say passed on too uncritically the scare mongering anti-Saddam spin on weapons of mass destruction peddled to both press and government by partisans of Iraqi expatriate Ahmed Chalabi. Miller and others passed on the "spin" partly based on tips by anonymous sources.

Chalabi is a controversial figure for many reasons. In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, under his guidance, a major portion of the information on which U.S. Intelligence based its condemnation of Saddam Hussein, including reports of weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to al-Qaeda, filtered its way to the U.S. government and into the U.S. media.

Much of this information has turned out to be false. That is one reason for a recent falling out between Chalabi and the Bush Administration.

So some see Miller not simply as a champion of freedom of the press but as a symbol of just how much a journalist can be corrupted by anonymous sources with hidden agendas.

Miller published nothing about Valerie Plame. Still, she appears to have allowed herself to be excessively manipulated by anonymous sources -- in what appears to be a failure of journalism accuracy and credibility.

So it comes to pass that on occasion a reporter's principles can also be a tool aiding misinformation and corruption -- for an anonymous source can have a license to irresponsibly spin!!!!!!

When Journalism Does its Job

It can be the privilege of a journalist and foreign correspondent to work for years with courageous people who endure much hardship to take on almost impossible odds, to do what must be done, to do what advances understanding and tolerance, to do what expands compassion, to do what rouses to action, to do what helps heal.

When a Hero Becomes an Embarassment

The movie Motorcycle Diaries could be taken many ways. Here is my take on this monumental man who ended his days as revolutionary martyr, an icon to Castro's failed global ambitions, a guerrilla revolutionary hunted unto death.

Guevara, the doctor child of priviledge came from the developed Europeanized side of southern Latin America, the Argentine, ventured north into the Chiliean, both lands of German immigration. the developed lands to the south of South America.

The more Europeanized Argentina from which Che came (as well as more Europeanized Chile) were later to be wracked by the brutal disappearances, Pinochet and all the rest, fascist style generals overturning their countrys' constitutions, cracking down on Marxism, partly in fear of Castro's influence. In both "civiliized" Chile and the Argentine almost "European style" fascist generals led inquisitions into the Left.

But that was twenty years later.

And as Guevara biked North in the early 50's , he biked deep from remnant Europe deep into the Third Word, leaving European "civilization" beyond, into the world of Indian mountain tribalism, dominated by Spanish elites, Peru and neighboring Bolivia, the area where banditry, rebellion, drug growing were to become the symptom of the incomplete subjugation of the highland, non-coastal Indian who once held such dominance in some of the world's greatest civilization. The Leper is a symbol of third world backwardness, treated, isolated in ambivalence by priests, doctors and nuns. While the big employers who sometimes exploited the Indians could often be from American corporate giants -- or American investment, ie Anaconda Copper.

It was in this "biking north into the Third World" which lay the origins of Guevaras's programs for global third world rebellion.

In uneasy alliance with Castro, he led the Cuban expeditionary forces in the far flung adventures both in northern Latin America and fighting the South Africans in Anglola Africa. This was the period when Castro sought to become a global power by providing Cuban soldiers in Soviet supported expeditionary campaigns.

Ultimately the Americans stepped up the pressure on Castro (and the Soviet Union) ---- and told him if you want to survive, distance yourself from Che and Che's activist support of Soviet supported "wars of liberation."

Under some accounts Castro did exactly that. And Che left for one last revolutionary foray into the Bolivian highlands -- to be hunted down by Bolivian commandos aided or led by the CIA.

With Guevara's passing, Castro had a revolutionary martyr to honor, but no longer the living irritant with America. Castro had now diassociated himself from a grand dream to lead a third world insurrection from the Americas to Africa. Oh, yes, he continued to defy America, but he had pulled in his horns a bit.

And so it came to pass that Guevara died, lived on a living legend, brought alive once again by Motorcycle Diaries.

No he was not the revolutionary Trotsky, ice picked by Stalin. But like Trotsky he became an embarassmnent to the real politik of the world. He, too, would be hunted down. His icepick, too, would come.

Dance of the Titans

It is most interesting that even as Bush and Putin dally with common ground, in front of Red Square, they each revert to traditional nationalisms:

Putin the theme of Russian/Soviet nationalism circling in the wagons to prevent Western penetration of Russian interests in Eastern Europe and along the Russian underbelly of Latvia, Gerogia, even Iran -- and Bush the denunciation of Yalta, the espousal of expanding liberty with the assertion of liberating American power right up around Russia's borders.

The legacies of two great, often expanding continental empires: one recently bled to disintegration -- and the other still in military expansion mode as it fights what it sees as massive potential threats to its survival.

Both may be caught in the past -- as new nations, and new global economies emerge.

Internal dysfunction can be the enemy of empire.