In Iran, Opium is the Opiate of the Masses.

Back in 2001, the BBC ran a story on Iran’s drug problem and quoted a doctor who put the number of “serious addicts” at 1,200,000. The article goes on to say that the number of drug users was rising by 600,000 each year, with ever-increasing numbers of women among the new users. Drug addiction had suddenly become the primary social concern for the government, with over 70% of the country’s prison population incarcerated on drug-related charges. At that time, opium consumption in Tehran alone was estimated to be five tonnes a day. A more recent two-part BBC documentary states that Iran has the highest rate of opiate addiction in the world, with the official figure set at over two million addicts: Unofficially, the figure could be twice that. But as alarming as the figures are, Iran’s drug problem might merely be a symptom of wider and deeper problems.

After all, drug use in Iran is by no means a recent phenomenon. Just last year Rudi Matthee, a history professor, published The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500–1900 (Princeton University Press), for which he won the Albert Hourani Book Award and the Said Sirjani Award. Nonetheless, the fact that today’s Iran is governed by religious law does render the high rates of drug use a bit surprising, if not outright shocking. Further research, however, turned up some answers.

One explanation—also mentioned in the BBC documentary—was the impact of the eight-year war with Iraq, during which many young men started their drug use. This is plausible, considering it’s not unusual for soldiers to use drugs in wartime. The experience of American GIs during the Viet Nam War is a good example, differing only in that just a small percentage of returning American soldiers lapsed into opiate use once back in the US. Similarly, the chief psychiatrist in Sierra Leone reports that about 90% of the mental-health cases he has dealt with involve substance abuse. During Sierra Leone’s 10-year civil war, drug-influenced fighters (including child soldiers as young as 11) could be found in the ranks of all the warring factions. Although drug use declined after the war, it is once again on the rise. It is conceivable, then, that after a long and destructive war, many Iranians may have brought their drug habits back from the war front.

The experience of war, however, only explains drug use among that segment of the population that was old enough to actively take part in the war. And, since that population is largely made up of men (although women did fight as well), how can one explain the increasing rates of drug use among young Iranians and Iranian women? There’s always the possibility that the documentary was biased or that the figures they cited were inaccurate, but there can be no doubt that Iran has a drug problem. The issue has recently been examined by the UN, the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Herald Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times, so regardless of the figures, it seems hard to argue that Iran does not have a drug problem. 

But is the experience of long-term war the only explanation? The answer appears to be “not entirely.” Another reason for the high rates of drug use is the availability of cheap, raw opium. After all, Iran shares a border with Afghanistan, a top producer of unprocessed opium, making Iran a natural conduit for drugs making their way to markets in Europe, the Mediterranean, and or other parts of the Middle East. Clearly, Iran is also becoming more of a market for these drugs. Introductory Economics teaches that the closer a product is to its state and source of extraction, the cheaper it is. In other words, a more refined, processed, or finished product fetches a higher price. Uncut diamonds are therefore cheaper than cut and polished ones, peanuts are cheaper than peanut butter, and iron ore is cheaper than steel. Moreover, a product’s cost can increase as it moves farther away from where it was originally extracted. So it’s not unexpected that Iranians would—thanks to their country’s proximity to Afghanistan—have access to cheaper opium and opium-based drugs than say, someone living in Paris.

But all this leaves one glaring question unanswered. How is it possible that a country ruled by a conservative theocracy—which governs through religious law—happens to have the world’s highest number of drug users? Perhaps the answer lies in the question. After all, a government that believes that all the solutions to social problems can be found in religion might not be best equipped to deal with problems like depression and drug addiction, problems that cannot be easily solved through prayer and meditation. Perhaps such a government might not be the best suited for managing an economy and retaining human and intellectual capital, both vital for a strong economy. Is it any surprise that, according to the IMF, anywhere between 150,000 and 180,000 highly skilled Iranians annually vote with their feet by emigrating? Perhaps there is a possibility that those who are unable—or for whatever reason, unwilling—to leave join the ever-growing ranks of drug users. After all, lack of economic opportunity and personal and professional fulfillment lead to frustration and depression, which in turn may lead to substance use.

But there is yet another, darker possibility. In 1848, a famous German scholar wrote that religion was the opiate of the masses. A century later, George Orwell gave us a dystopia ruled by a brutal and despotic regime that used pornographic literature and alcohol to pacify the nation it governed. Today, with Iran having the lowest mosque attendance of any Muslim country, it seems the regime is witnessing the limitations of religion’s power to stupefy the nation. Luckily for them, though, it appears the nation has decided to replace a metaphoric opiate with the real thing.

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The Battle for Hearts and Minds Rages on.

Reuters reports that US soldiers shot and killed the 17-year-old son of Hamad al-Qaisi, the governor of Northern Iraq’s Salahuddin Province. The killing took place during a raid on a family home, where the governor’s son was staying. One other relative of the governor’s was also killed and three people were wounded.

A US military statement says that an al-Qaeda financier was wounded and captured during the raid. The statement also explained the killing of the governor’s son thus:

As they entered the target building, coalition forces encountered two armed men. Perceiving hostile intent … they shot and killed the men. It was subsequently determined that the two … were related to the governor.”

But it seems there’s some uncertainty around the circumstances that resulted in the killings. According to the Boston Globe, Hussam—the governor’s son—was shot in the head, stomach, and shoulder while he slept. Hussam’s cousin, Uday Khalaf, was killed as he tried to enter Hussam’s room.

This is precisely the sort of thing that makes the battle for hearts and minds in Iraq an unwinnable one. The deputy governor of Salahuddin province reported at least two other attacks that followed the same pattern, accusing US soldiers of using excessive force when conducting raids. The attack was also condemned by the Salahuddin provincial council as an indication of “how the American forces disregard the souls of Iraqi citizens.”

If Iraqis get the sense that US soldiers don’t value their lives, it’s going to be pretty tough to win their hearts and minds. After all, what happens when US soldiers storm a house in search of al-Qaeda operatives? Regardless of who the soldiers are looking for, when they enter an Iraqi home, they’re going to encounter Iraqis. Whether or not they’re armed or affiliated with al-Qaeda doesn’t change the fact that they have friends, neighbors, and relatives who are not going to be happy when they are captured, wounded, or killed. And the killing of any Iraqi has the potential to alienate and radicalize countless others, whose deaths will only anger and radicalize even more Iraqis. It’s worse than a vicious cycle: It’s more like an avalance that picks up greater mass and momentum as it moves down the mountain!

In the short term, brute force might carry the day in Iraq. In the long run, though, it’s a losing game unless the intent is to kill everyone in Iraq. The other option, of course, is to withdraw US troops and put an end to this war.

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A Crash Course on How NOT to Win Hearts and Minds.

I just came across this video from the Winter Soldier 2008 conference, during which veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan gave testimony about crimes committed against civilians. Here’s an example:

There are many others on Youtube.

The videos pretty much speak for themselves. I fail to see how anybody can seriously believe that the US military is winning hearts and minds in Iraq. Every Iraqi killed has a family of people who love him/her and who will want vengeance. The cycle will only get more vicious. The US public may see the troops in Iraq as liberators but I doubt very many Iraqis see them as such. Not anymore.

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For Dr. Watson and Other Racists, Racism’s Beauty Lies In Its Simplicity: Part II

Read Part I here. 

So, back to Dr. Watson’s racist statements. The racism lies not just in what he said but why he said it. Dr. Watson ignored social, environmental, political, and cultural factors, instead trying to to use “race” to explain why Africa was doing so poorly, and why he was not optimistic about the continent’s future. He also argued that the races were not equal (presumably he also meant other “races” besides Black and White). But in reality, he was not proposing anything new. Rather, he fell back on simplistic racist assumptions—Africans are not intelligent and the races are not equal—and later, after he had come under fire, tried to use his position as a scientist to couch his original remark in scientific terms. The jury is still out on whether intelligence is or isn’t genetically predetermined but what we do know indicates that genetic difference, or similarity, is not so neatly tied to “race.”

More importantly, Dr. Watson’s statements rested on a common and essential element of racist thinking, the belief that people who share the same physical characteristics (skin color, hair texture, etc.) also share personality traits (intelligence, industriousness, etc.) regardless of environment, culture, religion, or any of the other factors that may affect a person’s personality. In the interview, Dr. Watson says that Africans are less intelligent, according to ”studies” he had seen (he does not elaborate on how these were conducted or who the subjects were, but that’s a lesser point). He then goes on to add that anyone who has ever had Black employees knows that people of different races are not equal. In other words, Dr. Watson—who ought to know better—is conflating Africans with Black Americans (I assume Dr. Watson has had only Black American, not African, employees), completely overlooking differences in culture, environment, language, religion, etc. In a classic racist display, he observes that Black Africans and Black Americans face similar economic and social challenges, but he concludes this must be because they have similar skin color and/or hair texture.

Dr. Watson should know that because of the widespread rape of slaves in North America, very few Black Americans would be genetically identical to Black Africans, but he ignores this obvious fact in favor of making a blanket statement based on skin color and hair texture. Of course, I’m not implying that Africans are all genetically identical. Quite the opposite. Dr. Sarah Tishkoff, now an assistant professor in the Biology department at the University of Maryland, wrote as far back as 1999 that genetic studies have revealed

an enormous amount of diversity within and between the African populations, and we found much less diversity in non-African populations. Only a small subset of the diversity in Africa is found in Europe and the Middle East, and an even narrower set is found in American Indians.”

Put simply, there is more genetic diversity among the human populations on the African continent than there is in all the rest of the non-African populations combined. Someone with Dr. Watson’s background in DNA research should know that this diversity would mean that, even if Black Americans and Africans were really less intelligent, it would be very unlikely that their “lack of intelligence” came from the same genetic source. To clarify, Black Americans share a genetic predisposition to Sickle Cell Anemia with their West African ancestors because most of them are descended from slaves taken from West Africa. However, the large genetic diversity among African peoples means that Black Americans cannot be genetically identical to East or South Africans because even their West African ancestors are not genetically identical to those other African peoples. Dr. Watson, in making his inference about Africans’ and Black Americans’ intelligence cannot, then, have been basing his statement on genetics because that would have precluded a common genetic root. Rather, he was—in true racist fashion—ignoring the social, political, and economic realities of Black Americans’ and Africans’ lives, focusing instead on the most superficial things both peoples share: dark skin and curly hair.

The other thing that struck me as racist was his focus on the question of lower intelligence while talking about Africans and Black Americans. Why did he pick that particular issue? To me, that would be like a modern scientist being interested in proving “scientifically” whether or not Black men have a gene for large penises, or whether brown-skinned people have higher sex drives (an argument Dr. Watson himself has made before). How ridiculous would Dr. Watson have sounded if he had suggested that Jews possess a gene that predisposes them towards avarice?! But because he chose to discuss Africans’ intelligence, people actually defended him, arguing that, as a scientist, he should be allowed to propose new scientific possibilities!

I’m not a geneticist and I generally oppose attempts to explain individuals’ behavior through racial or genetic arguments but, where there’s scientific evidence, let it speak for itself. But Dr. Watson’s statements were not based on scientific evidence, which makes me strongly suspect his motives. Nor was he proposing a new direction for genetic science. He was absolutely not talking about using modern science to break new ground? I mean, there are many differences among individuals of different “races” that could be studied at the genetic level, but why did he have to start from an old racist “truism” (Africans are less intelligent/the races are not equal)? The fact that he then tried to back it up with unscientific anecdotal evidence (if you’ve ever had Black employees, you know the races are not equal) makes me even more suspicious. After all, the question of difference in intelligence between the races is as old as racism itself. It predates genetics. Why would he be so concerned about using genetic science to prove or disprove a viewpoint that has existed and even thrived in the total absence of the science that could have proved or disproved it?

Furthermore, if Dr. Watson were so intent on using genetics to explain certain qualities in Black American or African people, he could easily have started out with something positive. For instance, statistics show that elderly White men have the highest suicide rates in the US. Dr. Watson could have expressed his interest in finding a gene to explain this (we know there is one because suicidal tendencies seem to run in families). Better yet, he could have talked about an “optimism” or “resilience” gene that might explain why, despite their widespread social, political, and economic marginalization, Black Americans tend to have much lower suicide rates than White Americans. Instead, he chose to focus on something negative, the racist idea that Black people are less intelligent than White people. 

At the end of the day, the beauty of racism lies in its simplicity and Dr. Watson’s remarks demonstrate this simplistic thinking. For people who can’t be bothered to study social sciences, economics, and politics, race “theory,” racist thinking, and outright racism are ideal. Everything about an individual or group can be explained simply by looking at skin color, hair texture, or any of the other signifiers of “race.” The underlying social, political, and economic order is never examined and challenged, so power relations remain intact. The racist in turn remains assured of his or her own superiority, itself the product of nothing more than an accident of birth that resulted in his or her having been born with the “correct” skin color. The racist never needs to compose a concerto, write a great novel, or even read one for that matter. She or he is more than content to know that other people who share his or her skin color have done so. This also absolves the racist of the need to prove his or her own intelligence, because that burden of proof is shifted onto people who were not fortunate enough to have been born with the right skin color or hair texture. Dr. Watson—in lending his voice to the question of Black and African people’s intelligence and industriousness—has joined a long and disgraceful line of pseudo-scientists who have, for centuries, attempted to argue that non-White people, be they from Africa, Australia, Asia, North America, the Caribbean, or the Middle East share one unifying characteristic: Their dark skin means they are not equal to Europeans. Even worse, Dr. Watson has thrown a bone to modern racists who—without considering science, economics, or politics—have always believed Black people are less intelligent than White people.

In making those utterly prejudiced and unscientific statements, Dr. Watson has shown the world that, despite his cutting-edge research, when it comes to social and political issues, he is living two centuries in the past. I am very sorry that the “World Have Your Say” team allowed him to escape the scrutiny, analysis, and eventual denunciation that his words so richly deserve.

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When in Doubt, Blame Jews.

What is it with anti-Semites blaming Jews for everything bad? I mean, I don’t have very high expectations of the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, but his most recent pronouncement defies logic. In a nationally broadcast radio press conference, Lukashenko Lukashenko caused a stir after he accused Jews of turning the Belarussian city of Bobruisk into a pigsty.

[Bobruisk] is a Jewish city, and the Jews are not concerned for the place they live in. They have turned Bobruisk into a pigsty. Look at Israel—I was there.”

Lukashenko’s ignorant remarks drew rightful criticism from the state of Israel, which recalled its ambassador to Belarus and harshly rebuked Belarus’s ambassador to Israel. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni had this to say in response to Lukashenko’s statement:

The role of leaders is to fight anti-Semitism, which is raising its ugly head in various parts of the world, not encourage it. The anti-Semitism reflects first and foremost on the society in which it appears and on its leaders.”

I guess as Lukashenko sees it, it’s easier to blame Jews for the state of one of his cities than it is to hold city authorities accountable for keeping the city clean.

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Turkey Hits Rock Bottom.

Dear Abdullah Gul,

Is it me or has October been a particularly bad month for you and your country? First, the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States House of Representatives voted to condemn as genocide the killing of 1.5 million Armenians during the First World War. This made you guys so enraged you recalled your ambassador to the US and threatened to stop supporting the US occupation of Iraq. As if all this weren’t enough bad press for your country, you have been threatening to send troops into northern Iraq to attack Kurdish insurgents. And, just when you didn’t think things could look any worse, President Bush had this to say in your defense:

Congress has more important work to do than antagonizing a democratic ally in the Muslim world, especially one that’s providing vital support for our military every day.”

President Gul, it saddens me to see that you have fallen so low as to have George Bush defending your democratic credentials! After all, this is the guy whose administration came to power after disenfranchising Black voters in Florida; he cut funding for social programs and vetoed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, despite its popularity; his administration openly supported the illegal and short-lived overthrow of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez; based on false and falsified evidence, he launched an illegal invasion and occupation of a sovereign country in spite of his people’s opposition to it; and his government arrests and tortures people in contravention of the US Constitution and international law. Your government could not have found a worse defender of your “democratic” credentials even if you had resurrected Attila the Hun himself!

Clearly, Mr. Gul, you and your government are clueless when it comes to public relations. But fear not, all is not lost! As a longtime supporter of Turkey’s attempts to join the European Union—and simply out of common decency—I cannot let you continue to damage your country’s image and reputation. Instead, I will break my rule against giving free advice to governments and give you some tips on how not to make yourselves look like a callous, genocide-denying, bunch of thugs. You’ll thank me for it.

1. Stop denying the Armenian genocide. It makes you look worse than evil. It makes you look stupid! I don’t know which dictionary you’ve been reading but when a government deliberately and systematically kills 1.5 million people of the same ethnic or national group, it’s a genocide no matter how you slice or dice it. Whether it happened in times of peace or war, in Namibia, Cambodia, Poland, Rwanda, or the Middle East, it’s still a genocide. No country that committed a genocide can ever hope to claim international respectability by continuing to deny it—unless that country is the US, of course, which Turkey clearly isn’t. Admitting genocide is easy and it will do wonders for your international image. After you acknowledge that the mass exile and killing of Armenians was a genocide, apologize for it. Express your deepest regret for the atrocity, build a monument in Ankara and also in every place that is in any way tied to the exiles and killings. Declare a day of commemoration and atonement. Make it a national holiday. Open your government archives and invite scholars to research, write, and speak about the genocide.

2. You modern Turks have been obsessive about distancing yourselves from the Ottoman Empire. You banned the fez, declared Turkey a secular state, and founded your legal and educational systems on European models. These are all very good decisions. Now you have a golden opportunity to further distance yourselves—in a huge way—from the Ottoman Empire. Acknowledge the genocide but make it perfectly clear that it was an Ottoman genocide, not a Turkish one. Emphasize the fact that modern, secular, fez-less Turkey is incapable of committing such a heinous crime. It will pay off. For example, France has declared genocide denial a crime. This means that France alone can keep you from entering the EU as long as you continue to deny the Armenian genocide. Is that what you really want? Think about how badly you want to join the EU. Think about how much you have already done to get into the EU. Although it must have been very difficult, you abolished the death penalty and un-banned the Kurdish language. These are both big steps. It won’t be a much bigger step to acknowledge and apologize for the Armenian genocide, and it’ll bring you closer to fulfilling your dream of EU membership.

3. Whatever you do, DO NOT invade and occupy northern Iraq! In fact, keep your army where it belongs; in Turkey. Between you and me, you guys haven’t exactly been the most popular country in that part of the world. I mean, your Ottoman predecessors occupied your Arab neighbors so they don’t like you very much. Not to mention, you control Syria’s and Iraq’s water supply. You were also a constant thorn in the side of the Russian empire and it’s successor, the Soviet Union. And, let’s not forget you killed 1.5 million Armenians during WWI so they’re not too crazy about you either. Let’s see . . . what else? Oh yes, you’ve fought Greece and you continue to occupy part of Cyprus, and Iran’s not too happy about having you as a neighbor either. And it seems your NATO allies dislike you more than everyone else because they are the most opposed to letting you into the EU. You must have noticed too that even NATO’s erstwhile Eastern-Bloc enemies—Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania—are already in the EU. Come to think of it, it seems your strongest ally is all the way in North America. It doesn’t look too good, does it, that you don’t get along with a single country that shares a continent—or even a hemisphere—with you? So what will people think if you start flexing your military muscle against Kurds in Iraq? I’ll tell you what they’ll think. Greece is going to be reminded of the times they were at the receiving end of your military might. Iran’s going to think, “Hmmm . . . we have Kurds too. What if the Turks decide to go after our Kurds?” As for Russia . . . well, let’s just say Vladimir Putin is not going to need much of an excuse to do something crazy. And, in case you hadn’t noticed, he was just in Iran expressing his opposition to Washington’s threats against that country. So, if you’re really concerned about maintaing normal relations with your neighbors, you’d stay out of northern Iraq.

President Gul, you and your administration need to get with the program. Times have changed, the world has changed, and Turkey has demonstrated its interest in being part of that changed world. Civilized countries are no longer impressed by cross-border demonstrations of military power. Stay out of northern Iraq. Also, you need to stop denying the Armenian genocide because it won’t win you any friends. Just remember, there’s life after admitting genocide. Look at Germany. Most importantly, accepting the genocide will help you recover from your post-Ottoman Self-Image Disorder, something I know you are very interested in. After all, acceptance is the first step on the path to recovery.

I wish you all the best in the coming days and months. I trust you will make more and more of the wise decisions that have characterized your rule thus far.

 Sincerely,

 Abdul Kargbo

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Rush Limbaugh Puts Big, Fat Foot Into Big, Fat Mouth. Again!

Sorry, I don’t normally resort to ad hominem attacks but the bullshit that spews out of Rush Limbaugh’s mouth just pushes me beyond the bounds of decency. In his most recent outrage, he referred to American troops—including returning veterans—who oppose or openly criticize the Iraq war as “phony soldiers.” Naturally, the right wing’s most vociferous minions are coalescing in a cacophonous show of support (of Limbaugh) and denunciation (of his detractors). But regardless of what Limbaugh meant by his “phony soldiers” comment, one thing is clear: No statement is too inflammatory, too insensitive, or too hypocritical for this man when it comes to pushing the conservative line.

This isn’t, after all, the first time Rush Limbaugh has gotten in trouble for callously pandering to conservative elements in our society. In fact, extreme insensitivity has been the hallmark of his career. In 2003, as one of the hosts of ESPN’s NFL Sunday Countdown, he was forced to resign after making a racially insensitive remark about Donovan McNabb, star quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles. Limbaugh—who will never be as good at anything in his entire life as McNabb is at quarterbacking—had the nerve to say, on the air, that McNabb had recieved more credit than he deserved for his team’s successes because sympathetic media outlets were “very desirous that a black quarterback do well.” I guess in Rush’s fat eyes, it’s not actually possible for a black quarterback to be good enough to merit McNabb’s accolades.

Racial insensitivity is par for the course for Rush Limbaugh so his remarks on ESPN should have come as no surprise to anyone familiar with his show. But Limbaugh deserves accolades of his own when it comes to brazen hypocrisy. As a longtime advocate of the lock-them-up-and-throw-away-the-key school of anti-drug law enforcement, Limbaugh’s own arrest and conviction on prescription drug abuse charges did come as a shock to many. It also gave yours truly a great deal of schadenfreude. Of course, it would have been too good to be true for the courts to lock him up and throw away the key, but I nonetheless let my imagination wander to a blissful fantasy world in which justice was actually done. In the real world, however, Limbaugh was out in no time and, after a stint in rehab, back on the air.

Not in the least humbled by his arrest—and exposure as a hypocrite of the first order—Limbaugh immediately went back to his trademark brand of inflammatory and biased broadcasting. During the 2004 presidential elections, Limbaugh was in the forefront of the campaign to cast a shadow over John Kerry’s military service, parrotting the exaggerated and outrightly false claims of groups like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. This episode shows the size of Rush’s cojones (hint: cojones is not Spanish for gut) because he himself had never served in the military. When his nation needed him to put his life on the line, Rush Limbaugh managed to get a deferment because of a pilonidal cyst, a minor condition that can be easily repaired with an out-patient surgical procedure.

The “phony soldiers” remark is rightly generating a strong negative reaction precisely because Limbaugh, himself a draft-dodger (a term he liberally used when lambasting President Bill Clinton), now has the gall to refer to soldiers who oppose the war as “phony.” This man has never answered the call to serve his country and has never worn a military uniform. In fact, the only uniform Limbaugh has ever worn is that of a “a wiener salesman for the KC Royals baseball franchise.” Yet he now has the audacity to disparage these soldiers who have put their lives on the line and now have the courage—after having personally witnessed the fiasco in Iraq—to call for an end to the war. Only in a media climate totally dominated by right-wing pundits can someone like Rush Limbaugh actually believe he can get away with this sort of thing. Hopefully this will be the last time he does.

Because of this man’s track record, I don’t understand why there is so much argument about what he meant? We can pick apart his words and try to psychoanalyze him ’til we’re blue in the face but one thing is clear: He fully intended to disparage those soldiers who are critical of the war. Limbaugh has been a supporter of this war from the start, and has staunchly supported whatever line the Bush Administration has taken. When the Abu Ghraib scandal blew up, Limbaugh defended the soldiers who tortured and humiliated their Iraqi prisoners, saying on his show that they were just “blowing off steam.” After an active-duty soldier questioned then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about their lack of body armor, Rush Limbaugh called for that soldier to be busted for “borderline insubordination.” From day one, Limbaugh has done whatever he can to support the continuation of this war, and he will continue to do so.

It should therefore come as no surprise that he has now taken to insulting soldiers who have lost faith in this war. The man is a conservative ideologue, pure and simple. I can only hope that something good comes of this scandal. I hope that those Americans who continue to support this war will begin to question the sincerity of conservatives’ support-the-troops rhetoric. Maybe they will finally begin to understand that continuing to send American soldiers to die in Iraq while opposing the speedy return to their homes and families of those troops already there is not a show of support. It’s actually the opposite.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Long, long ago, I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh regularly and I actually thought this fat piece of excrement made some good points. God, how blind I was back then! It must have been the OxyContin.

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New Radio Show: September 24, 2007.

Got a brand new show for y’all’s listening pleasure.

The first segment features some Roma (Gypsy), French, and Arabic tracks. Then we move on to Disco, Reggae, and Hip-Hop: one track by Sierra Leonean rapper Problem M (rapping in Krio, a Sierra Leonean dialect) and the other by NY/DC poet/rapper/all-around-entertainer KOMplex, Mr. Keep On Moving. I met him a couple of times at open mic events in DC and he was impressive enough for me to buy his CD both times. I also put in one of my favorite tracks by the Spanish group Macaco who, for those of you who live in the DC area, will be performing at Lisner Auditorium on October 26. The last segment’s pretty much a random mix of everything I couldn’t get into the first two segments.

As usual, you can listen to the show online or download it to an mp3 player and listen later.

Click here to see the playlist. Feel free to click on any of the links to learn more about the artists. You will also find a couple of the featured artists’ videos in “T’ings ‘n Times Videos.”

Feel free to comment and/or request music for the next show.

Listen to the previous show here.

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Iraq Pulls the Plug on Blackwater.

It looks like the Iraqi government has grown a pair of cojones and decided to take a firmer role in administering its territory by revoking the licence of the private contracting firm, Blackwater. The decision came after Blackwater soldiers killed Iraqi civilians in the aftermath of a car-bomb attack against a convoy they were escorting.

Unfortunately for the government of Iraq—and for anyone who believed the US was not running the show in Iraq—Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other power players in the US government are already turning up the pressure on Iraq’s Prime Minister to reverse the revocation of Blackwater’s license.

Iraqis will soon learn who is really ruling their country.

Read more here.

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Where There is Fear, There is Also Hatred.

The Columbus Dispatch recently ran a cartoon depicting Iran as a sewer with cockroaches crawling out of it and infesting neighboring countries. Enough has been written about how racist this cartoon is—and how reminiscent it is of Nazi and Hutu genocidal propaganda—so I won’t spend any time on that. What is missing from the hoopla surrounding this cartoon is any talk of how national–security rhetoric generally and inevitably dehumanizes entire nations.

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush repeatedly assured Americans and the world that his beef was not with the entire Muslim or Arab world, that his quarrel was not even with the people of Iraq. Rather, we were told Iraq would be a stage of the global War on Terror because its leader was a dictator who was collaborating with Al Qaeda and could potentially put his arsenal of chemical and biological weapons at the disposal of international terrorists. Of course, we now know that there were no WMDs in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein—brutal and murderous though he was—had no links to Al Qaeda. Today, all Iraqis have to show for our trouble is a destabilized and increasingly violent country in which people have to do without recently available basic services like round-the-clock electricity and sewage treatment. Iraqi women are afraid to leave their homes for fear of being raped or worse, men are routinely kidnapped and murdered simply for going about their lives, and sectarian violence yields ever-increasing death tolls.

Yet the majority of Americans continue to hem and haw about the best way out. Opinion is divided on whether to send more troops, withdraw some troops, pull out entirely, and when and in what manner to pursue or abandon any course of action. The arguments over what to do or not do mostly revolve around the number of American casualties, how much the war is costing, and whether Americans are now more or less likely to be the victims of a terrorist attack. In other words, very few Americans are basing their opinions about what should be done on what’s best for the Iraqi people. The rightness or wrongness of this war is almost always judged from Americans’ point of view and almost never from Iraqis’ vantage point. One exception is the argument that if US troops were to leave Iraq, their departure would be followed by a bloodbath. But although this argument is constantly put forward, we never see any Iraqis who support a continued US presence in their country.

Why is this? Because what Iraqis think doesn’t matter to us. In the process of convincing ourselves that Iraq posed an existential threat to the US, we forgot that Iraqis are people too. National–security discourse is concerned mainly with the protection of one state’s population against attack by another state, so it’s inevitable that the people of the other state will gradually become devalued and eventually dehumanized. Take two hypothetical states, A and B, locked in a war of words. As the people of State A are whipped into a frenzy of fear and paranoia by continuous official reminders that State B poses an imminent threat, they can’t help but begin to fear, and then loathe, the people of State B. Having been convinced that they have to choose between their own survival and that of their “enemy,” the people of State A will not only ignore, mitigate, or deny violence done to ”the other side,” they will eventually welcome and celebrate it.  It becomes a matter simply of kill or be killed because the people of State A now believe that in order for them to live, others must be killed. Hermann Goering, Reichsmarshall and head of the Luftwaffe summed it up:

. . . voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

Once the people of State B have been defined as a threat, it’s a short rhetorical step for them to be equated with other threats like viruses, cockroaches, snakes, poisonous mushrooms, etc. State B is a threat so it’s people are dangerous. Viruses and snakes are dangerous too. Ergo, the people of State B are viruses and snakes. What do you do to snakes and viruses when you want to protect yourself? You kill them. But such analogies are seldom made by official spokespeople. Rather, that task is left to journalists and radio personalities.

Ultimately, the essential ingredient for war is fear. Without fear, there can be no hatred. Without hatred, there can be no dehumanization. And without dehumanization, there can be no war. To be sure, organized international terrorism is a legitimate threat but international politics—constructed as a system of states versus states—makes no room for nuance so states can only make war on states. The human tendency to generalize also gets some of the blame. Thus, a nation that produces a handful of terrorists is seen as a nation of terrorists, in the same way that a nation run by a brutal dictator is seen to be brutal. In the international sphere, states derive power and legitimacy from their people. In order to break the power of a state, its power base (i.e., people) must be broken, and there are few better means than war for accomplishing this. Hateful propaganda, like the cartoon in the Dispatch, plays a pivotal role by paving the way to war. Long before the first bomb is dropped or the first shot fired, the people are primed to fear, primed to hate, and primed to tolerate unspeakable violence against their enemies. In other words, they are primed for war.

The cartoon in the Columbus Dispatch clearly shows that some in the US have decided that Iran is enough of a threat to justify a dehumanizing comparison between its people and cockroaches. We can only hope that as a nation, we Americans do not fear Iran enough to allow our government to start yet another war in the Middle East.

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