Agitation

Two of my favorite radio shows (which I most often listen to as podcasts) have included interviews this week about the war in Iraq that have renewed my agitation. We're just digging deeper and deeper holes for ourselves!

The other day Diane Rehm interviewed Dina Rasor, author of Betraying our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War, who discussed the dangers involved in relying so heavily on private contractors to wage our military actions. Cynic that I am, I've just assumed companies like KBR have padded their expense reports as they bill us for services rendered. But my naive self was shocked to hear reports of human trafficking of cheap labor, employees who are not under the control of the military walking off the job at critical moments, refusing to provide vital services due to payment disputes (which makes sense in times of peace, but, hello, we're in a war here!). Our military is basically at the mercy of private companies, and we should all be angry as hell!

This morning (while I put a second coat of paint on our Adirondack chairs, which was also agitating!) I listened to Radio West, produced by KUER here in Salt Lake City. Doug Fabrizio interviewed General Tony Zinni, author of The Battle for Peace. His view is basically that we invaded Iraq and have subsequently mismanaged the war as a result of an utter lack of well thought out strategy that should take into account culture, history and an understanding of human nature. We have failed as a nation to figure out how best to participate in the world since the end of the cold war. We've become a culture that expects simple solutions to everything and prefers sound bites to complexity and nuance.

As I listened to these interviews, I realized that I am truly a product of my time. My world view is very much informed by the fact that I came of age in the late seventies and earned my degrees in international relations and political science in the eighties.

Much of what I learned and discussed in classes and with friends during those years was a direct result of our national debriefing of the Vietnam era and the civil rights movement. Lessons learned had started to crystalize: (1) You can't just export democracy. By definition it has to be a grass roots movement that people understand and embrace on a personal level. (2) You can't change people's hearts and make them stop hating simply by passing laws. And (3) we should be extremely suspicious of the military-industrial complex, in which revenue inevitably trumps morality.

Why, why, why don't we ever seem to learn from our past?