Weird Times At The Beirut Airport

Days like today, I think back to the Middle East. Here's one of the weirdest things that ever happened to me at the Beirut Airport: I was flying up from Arabia to visit my Dad. He was temporarily in charge of Tapline, this company that runs an oil pipeline from Arabia to the Mediterranean, and he was staying on top of a hotel in downtown Beirut. The Middle East...just getting off the plane you hear mystical sounds that may or may not be there. I was around 20 at the time, and I made a fairly large mistake. I picked up someone else's suitcase that looked exactly like mine. Now, that could have been huge trouble. Worse yet, I saw that customs was in Middle East mode, which is kind of laid back, and since there was a long line, I just walked out past some soldiers and hit the street. The Arab street, as they like to call it. Evading customs could have also been trouble, considering I had a suitcase that was not mine. When I got to my Dad's hotel suite, I went into my room and popped the bag. The first thing I saw was a carton of cigarettes. I didn't smoke cigarettes. It became immediately obvious what I had done. There were men's clothes but fortunately, nothing worse. A lot of unusual stuff happens in the Middle East. Money, weapons, hashish, documents; there's lots of potential for trouble. In the screenplay it would have been the suitcase of a spy. Fortunately, there in my Dad's hotel suite in downtown Beirut, it didn't appear to be the suitcase of a spy. I closed the bag and went out to have a drink on the balcony with my father. I had decided not to tell him. Harry's #1 good trait was to be considerate of strangers, and always to be respectful of everyone. He would talk to a cab driver with the same respect as the King of Saudi Arabia whom he often had to go see, and it was not an act. Harry was respectful of friends and strangers alike. He was an oil company worker in government relations so he was essentially a diplomat, and he would have not been pleased that I had taken another passenger's suitcase by mistake. Of course, a bunch of drinks later, I told him about it. He was okay, and simply said I had to go back to the airport first thing in the morning and make it right.
The Beirut Airport - just bombed today again by Israel - is quite a place. The Middle East is a mindblower generally but there are certain points where you feel the whole crazy heat more than others and one of them is the Beirut Airport. When I got out there with the bag, I had no plan. There was a huge door coming out of customs with a bunch of soldiers milling about. I noticed they were paying little attention and were mainly chatting. I decided rather than spend a long time going though the Middle East airline counter, etc... upstairs, that I would just walk past the soldiers in through the outdoor.
This - in retrospect - seems a little crazy but you have to remember I was young and life was an adventure. I made it in the door, essentially penetrating the security of one of the hottest airports in human history, while carrying someone's else's suitcase, and walked back to the luggage area. There I saw my bag, still sitting on the floor near where we had come in the night before. I switched bags and began to leave. I had all my ticket stubs etc, so I was good to go through customs this time, except of course I intended to try and just walk out again. I had nothing to hide, although it could be seen as strange that the plane had landed the night before and I was just now making it through customs. So I began to bolt. This is when my father's example of how to live life kicked in. I realized I had already screwed over some random person in the Middle East and the least I could do was own up to it. I went to an airline official and told the story. The man seemed to know the details, and went into an elaborate long scolding: "You must pay attention." He went on about how the airline had to buy the other passenger a new set of clothes - the whole bit. Having been raised in the Middle East, I knew this was a Middle Eastern thing. He was probably making it up and for sure he didn't really care. This was verified when a beautiful woman walked by and he stopped in mid-sentence to watch her pass. I apologized again in a Middle Eastern way which is to say 1,000 times and left. Eying the door out I saw the soldiers and the customs. Nobody looked too engaged so I carried my bag right past them, hopped in a cab, and went back to Beirut.

The Middle East: It's Never Been This Bad Before

I don't want to interrupt your holiday cheer, but I just want to record something noteworthy from my own humble existence on the planet. I was born in the Middle East - in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. I lived there for 21 years, visiting many of the countries that are on the nightly news these days: Lebanon, Syria, Iran. I've been to Jerusalem and Cairo and Beirut and Damascus. Although I was an American, Arabia was home. I remember going to the consulate near the Dhahran air base to swear in officially as an American when I came of age. The Arabian desert will always be my primal underpinnings even though I haven't been there in over 30 years.

Naturally, I've followed the events of my old stomping grounds. How can I describe what that's like? If you root for the Chicago Cubs try multiplying the sense of futility by many factors of a trillion, and maybe you'll understand. There is a lot of pain that goes along with hoping for the best in the Middle East. The place is a heartbreaker. Nothing will ever equal the terrorist attack that killed my best friend for my own personal sense of loss, but in general I've watched the place go through bad times and worse. I remember during the Gulf War watching my hometown under a SCUD missile attack from Saddam, live on CNN. That was unusually screwed up, but looking back now, that seems almost like the good old days. The first Gulf War was dreadful, but there was a sense of order to it, compared to this.

That's what I want to record tonight. This is the week President Bush goes to Jordan and Cheney went to Arabia. How can they show their faces after what they've done to the people over there? This week is a significant milestone. It's so unusual to be in unchartered territory when it comes to the Middle East but that's where we are. So here goes:

In all my years, I have never seen the Middle East in such horrible shape. The Iraq War and the summer war between Israel and Lebanon, the Gaza Strip...My God, there's so many places that are ready to meltdown. Do I blame the Bush administration? Yes. President Bush is the worst kind of power-happy dummy. He actually was so arrogantly stupid that he looked at the Middle East and thought he could fix it. Well, he fixed it all right. He felt all it needed was a good old-fashioned dose of American military might packaged in a preemptive strike. There are many people in this world who think of President Bush and Dick Cheney as war criminals, and I would hate to have to argue with that. But what about the incompetence? What about leadership that gets us into a mess this big? Oh well. This part is all old news, and doesn't explain what I sense tonight.

There's something more happening now. This situation has gotten away. We're acting like we still have a say in the course of events. That could be the worst miscalculation yet. We think we are so great, that we can always bring this back from the brink. The leaders over there are literally begging the people to turn back, but this thing is too hot now. We talk about timetables like we can still set the agenda of events, but the American troops could pull out tomorrow, and we could find out that what we have unleashed over there still brings the world down. Maybe that's what the religious right wants. You know, the End of the World - Home for the Holidays!

This is as bad as I've ever seen it, and when you're talking the Middle East, that is really saying something. Now get out there and Christmas shop.

Israel Versus Lebanon: Another Disastrous Setback in the Middle East

Just because I haven't posted on the Israel-Lebanon situation lately, doesn't mean I haven't been immersed in following it. Truthfully, I find it so heartbreaking that it's made life quite surreal. As with many long-term Middle East followers, this is the worst kind of repetition, and while everybody is talking about the many children killed in this, I've been thinking about the youngsters who go on living. There has got to be a bunch of Lebanese kids around 8 years old who've been frightened out of their wits these past few weeks. In another 10 years they will be 18 and ready to fight, full of hatred for the country they blame. This is the worst kind of disaster, because it's not going to accomplish anything positive. Remember, Hezbollah was formed as a reaction to an Israeli invasion back in the 1980s, so what will come from this? The blustery right wing talk show hosts who think this is the solution to the Middle East are just immature, inexperienced macho fools. Sure, they get to sound tough as they swear this is the only plan that will work. Of course, they don't have to participate in it personally and they never explain why it hasn't worked before. The only way this course of action works is if you eliminate one side or the other. I don't think anyone is calling for that. If the two sides are still around this just turns the clock forward so the terrible rage is felt by a new generation.
Here's the closest thing I have to a solution to the Middle East: The key word is diffuse. If it is quiet, let it be quiet. When it erupts, do your best to squelch it as soon as possible. I never even liked it when it was quiet and people began talking about peace. That's when the real violence usually started. Think of this as a tavern fight. You don't rush to bring the combatants together to talk it over. Just keep them apart and threaten and restrain them if either side makes a move. The last thing you want is the fight to go on so the rowdies at the next booth over join in. Then you just wait, and hope the damn thing dies down. If it's a leader like Saddam, you contain him and wait for him to die, just as we did with Fidel Castro. If it's an entire people, you wait for one generation to get too old to fight, and you hope the next is raised in a prosperous environment and is not as hardcore with the hatred. Eventually, the violence fades like in Northern Ireland. These last few weeks probably added another 30 years to the time when peace comes to the Middle East. Lebanon was just entering a better phase, and now it's broken again. How does that help? President Bush and the Neo-Cons seem more driven by a thirst for violence than any rational thought. They talk about wiping out Hezbollah, but if every member of Hezbollah dropped dead tonight, these last few bloody weeks will create another organization and the cycle will go on. There has to be a point other than just the primitive thrill of inflicting damage on someone you hate. Israel could very well find that all the goals it was striving for by this are now further from reach. The number of people they lose will be greater than if they had done nothing. Their security could get worse, not better. I am tremendously frustrated with these Neo-Con plans. Their stated goal of peace through violence sounds like the fantasies of a lunatic. This has been a disaster, and I just hope the war doesn't continue to spread. The longer this fire rages the greater the chances it will go completely out of control, burning us all.

Americans Abroad

I don’t know why this ABC anchor and his cameramen getting hurt in Iraq, has affected me so much. I mean it happens to our soldiers regularly, and unless it’s a large helicopter’s worth or something unusual, we’ve gotten almost used to it. Or at least we’re used to living with the pain. I heard one report that the military hospital the two wounded newsmen were taken to in Iraq does brain surgery on someone almost everyday. That's a lot of head injuries.
I think it was seeing Tom Brokaw on TV, discussing his conversation with the wife of the wounded anchor - hearing the details of evacuation flights and wounds that can change everything for a family in seconds. For me, it set off all those memories of being in the Middle East and having one incident or another occur. Times when the phone in our house in Arabia would ring in the night and I’d hear my Dad talking in a serious voice; asking questions and often making more calls after he hung up.
He was in Government Relations – the part of the oil company that dealt with the King of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the government. Relations between us and our host country were great at that time. People like my father helped to accomplish it.
Still, problems would arise, and a small network of Americans would spring into action. Diplomats, oil company personnel, the American Consulate. People. And as usual, it comes down to the families. Wives that have to be told. Children looked out for. Arrangements made. What do we have here? A plane down in the Gulf? Someone missing in the desert?
Some kind of terrorist attack?
You know Steve Kerr and how his father was killed in the Middle East?
Our families knew each other. My brother played on his brother’s softball team in Cairo. I talked to Steve about that outside the Benson Hotel when he was with the San Antonio Spurs. Just about all the Americans in the Middle East had some kind of connection, and we were all looking out for each other. And we all appreciated what an incredible place the Middle East is, too. Being an American living abroad was like being in an extended family or tribe, where you could be taken care of by some other family at an instant’s notice and feel safe and comfortable to be there. And when a tragic event happened, our shared culture was something to behold. Trouble really brought out the American in you.
Sure, it’s the same here in the States to an extent, but there’s this huge infrastructure. I mean we were out there where you couldn’t call the Coast Guard or some agency. The men and women would organize the best response they could to what could be to some fairly horrible circumstances. Calls were made. Incredible improvised solutions were put in place. I would hear grave voices in the night as this small band of Americans tried to take care of their own. I heard that tone again tonight in Tom Brokaw’s voice.
I associate patriotism inside America with a flag on a pick-up truck and a donation to a charity. If you really want to know what it means to be from here, go overseas.

C-STUDENT TAKES ON MIDDLE EAST PROBLEM!!!

I was feeling bad about this Iraq situation and President Bush tonight when something a friend told me at least 25 years ago, emerged from the deep swamps of time. He told me, “You have to have a certain amount of brains to know you’re stupid.” The Iraq war has been discussed in so many different ways, in such detail, that I think we missed one of the most ridiculous aspects of it completely: What was there in President Bush’s life - the failed businesses, the inability to talk coherently, the general mediocrity – that made him look into the mirror one day and say the following: “The Middle East is one of the most intractable problems the world has ever known, and I’m just the guy to solve it"? Okay, we know he didn’t say “intractable", but seriously, where does he get the confidence in his mental abilities?
I believe most of the problems in this world are caused by people who are not as smart as they think they are. Up until he took office, President Bush had done nothing that you’d give an A-plus to on the report card of life. Okay, I’ll give him the decision to quit drinking and go after Laura, but that was it. Does he even wonder, if he’s so clever, why they call Karl Rove, “Bush’s Brain"? What should that tell him? Yet, this president somehow has the stubborn confidence to think that vast numbers of people, including his own father, just didn’t get it when it came to solving the Middle East.
Do you realize how foolish he had to be, to reach that conclusion?
I know many dignified wonderful people who don’t have strong intellects, but they’ve figured their situation out. Meanwhile President Bush floats in his bubble thinking that he’s doing great. He’s just glad that someone like himself came along - someone who was smart enough to solve this Middle East thing. Yup, America really caught a break when he showed up. You have to have a certain amount of brains to know you’re stupid.

Something to Keep in Mind When You See How Mad the World Is at Us

In the next few days you might be seeing the occasional furious crowd of protestors as President Bush travels from India to Pakistan. You might also have wondered why Muslims could get so worked up by cartoons. It’s simple: There are a lot of furious people out there right now, and the Iraq situation has a great deal to do with it.
My philosophy regarding the Middle East is that we should be concentrating on getting the energy that we need out, not putting energy back in. I’m not talking about stealing anything; just peacefully buying what the Arabs have to sell in the time honored tradition of the “suq”, or Arab marketplace. Did you know some of these ancient trading routes can be seen from space, worn into the desert floor over the eons, one camel step at a time?
What I don’t recommend is putting energy into the Middle East, as with the invasion of Iraq, and the continued occupation. In fact, if President Bush had asked me about the Iraq plan, my one word recommendation would have been "Don't". Indeed, while the pundits fret about whether a civil war is underway or about to get underway, true Middle Easterners worry that the whole region is about to go whoosh! We have put a lot of energy in and it’s coming back in the form of rage.
Frankly, I used to get nervous when things were calm and people started talking about peace. It seemed to me, if it was calm, let it remain calm. When the talk turned to peace, the real violence often started. Of course, this Iraq invasion is more violent than anything I experienced over there. No one even talks about peace now. There have been worse wars: The Iran-Iraq War in the '80s killed over a million. Ironically, back then we were helping Saddam, but why cloud the issue now?
The point I’d like to make, is why these crowds of people are so enraged. See, while we’ve been watching “Dancing with the Stars”, and “American Idol”, a lot of the Middle East has seen the actual war on TV. They’ve seen little children dying from the wounds. They’ve seen what white phosphorous did to Fallujah, vaporizing flesh to the bone. In short, they’ve seen the stuff our government doesn’t want you to see. They don’t even want you to see flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq. They claim it’s an invasion of the privacy of the grieving families, but that’s just typical spin from this sleazy White House. It’s really about preventing you from thinking too much about what’s going on.
Sure, it was nice to watch the Winter Olympics, but what we need is to hand out a bunch of medals and have a closing ceremony for the Iraq War. That's why it's not on TV. If you did see what has really been done in your name, you'd get angry, too, especially knowing this didn’t have to happen. You might even demand that it end. We haven't been exposed to the true horror of this fiasco, but lots of people outside this country have. That’s why so many of them are furious at us right now. Come to think of it, maybe it’s better we don’t look at what we’ve done here. Seeing little wounded children struggling to breathe, can take all the fun out of watching “American Idol.”

New Nation Proposed in Oregon

I don't like those international analogies to describe the Middle East: "It'd be like Canada firing rockets at Buffalo, New York." But what I really don't like is the American refusal to understand why the Palestinians became pissed off back in 1947, and remain that way till this day. You get comments saying they must not be rational - they're religious fanatics. Now as an American, I have no right to criticize what essentially was a land grab. In fact as a human being, I can't criticize it. That's how the world was settled and populated. We took America from the Indians, so who am I to cast blame? "Might makes Right" really does explain the migrations of people on earth. It was a part of the process in getting to know our home planet. The only really irritating part is when people try and pretend it's something that it's not. By now, most land disputes have been settled and things are under some kind of rule of law. There are still some areas of contention like Kashmir between Pakistan and India, and whether Taiwan gets to stand alone against China, but in general this issue was settled 100s - if not 1000s - of years ago. So let's not make this a complete analogy. Let's make it a Proposal - a new idea that you can sign on to support if you want. Here goes:
The Native American Peoples have been treated poorly for hundreds of years. Indeed, their new museum in Washington talks about their Holocaust - the genocidal wiping out of millions of the Indians who were here when we arrived. What if we were to try and make that right and give them their own nation? Israel is around 8,000 square miles on the shores of the Mediterranean. Let's carve out a country in the Pacific Northwest. White people have only been here a few hundred years. Their claim is nowhere near the claim of Palistinians to living in the Middle East. Why not seize the land from here to the Coast and create a new country that includes Portland? Yes, it's true: Oregonians who own land in the area would be paying an unfair burden for the national pain inflicted on the Native American Indians, but those are the breaks. The Palestinians didn't cause the Holocaust in Germany, did they? I mean this isn't one of those FOX news things where a huge percentage of the American public believes the Palestinians were behind the Holocaust, is it?
Now, I have been in Portland for over 30 years. I have seen bitter battles over esplanades and trams. I have seen protests over whether or not to put in a McDonald's restaurant. Try and imagine how pissed off you'd be if someone seized your home. In our case, if we couldn't resist, we would probably move to other states or Eastern Oregon. Some might go to Seattle. But some might say, "Hell, no. I'm going to fight this," especially if they had nowhere else to turn. If that fight involved living in a refugee camp in poverty while the U.S. government gave the new state billions a year in weapons and aid that was used to bomb you while you sat in your hut, then you might even snap. You might even feel that the injustice was so great that the rage would drive you to do something crazy. Welcome to the world of the Palestinians - formerly from a place called Palestine that you can still see on the old maps. The biggest mistake Americans make about the Middle East is to assume that Palestinians are biologically different from other human beings. The truth is they are pissed off for the same reasons you would be pissed off. Make that the reasons you will be pissed off if this proposal goes through. As for the Palestinians: Announce to them if you want that it doesn't matter - that they will be ground down into submission, much as the Indians were. Might makes right, remember? But don't pretend this is something it is not. That's annoying. And meanwhile: Here's a map of the proposed new nation. If you like the idea, then start packing your things, and get out. It's moving day. Finally! A Homeland for the Indians! I sure hope you're okay with it.

Nostalgia, Anxiety Lead To Song Lyrics Revisit

Here’s the lyrics for a song I wrote about the Middle East around 17 years ago. It was your basic Armageddon panic attack.

Shadows On The Wall

Daylight comes again, and I’m waking up in the backrooms of a dream.
Camels on the furniture and crude oil coming out from the TV screen.
I’d been frightened on my way, I’d been running down the backroads of my mind, when a vision of catastrophe rose up from the desert floor in front of me. What I saw I still can recall but it’s really fading out on me becoming Shadows on the wall, Shadows on the wall. Shadows on the Wall.
In the dream there was a beast living in a cave in the Middle East, a beast made up of all the pain in a land where tears fall like rain.
I just can’t recall exactly what I saw. It’s really fading out on me becoming Shadows on the Wall.
One year it’s the Ayatollah, the next year it becomes Saddam. These guys aren’t the real story, they’re only shadows on the wall.
What I think the dream’s about is justice coming out like a wild beast from a cave, like a zombie from a grave.
Daylight comes again and I’m shaking from a vision in a dream. An ancient battle for a well. A family water fight that went to hell.
Trouble running deep, deeper than a well in the Middle East. Problems like grains of sand, swirling ‘round the dunes of an ancient land.
I wish I could recall exactly what I saw, but it’s really faded out on me becoming shadows on the wall, I still can’t recall exactly what I saw. it’s really faded out on me becoming Shadows on the Wall. Shadows on the Wall. Shadows on the Wall.

How's this for a 2006 Holiday Car Trip? Cairo to Jerusalem

There's quite a story unfolding in my family right now, and it's putting me through some changes. First, some background: My brother David began going out with my sister-in-law Barbara at the University of Colorado at Denver. Her father had worked for an oil pipeline company in Lebanon, before moving to Arabia where he went on to be CEO of Aramco, then the biggest oil company in the world. My father was also a big-time executive in Government Relations in Arabia - the country where I was born - so the fathers were friends. In other words, our families have old ties with each other and the Middle East. We were Americans living overseas.

The days of college in Boulder, Colorado led to Barbara's family's home state of Minnesota. The big question - as with any college romance - was what next? What next turned out to be heartbreak hotel, a temporary or maybe permanent split as Barb went for more schooling in Cairo, Egypt. My brother was extremely bummed out, and everything was up in the air. It was just like most young people in their early twenties trying to figure out what to do.

At this point, I was towards the end of my hitchhiking years. Most of the over 25,000 miles around America had been traveled, but I still had some game left. I decided to hitchhike from Portland to Minnesota and pull a surprise visit. The night before it looked like I'd arrive - when I was in North Dakota - I thought I'd call David to tell him I was on the way. He said I had to get there by a certain time. It was either 2 or 3 in the afternoon - something like that, or he'd be gone. He would not tell me why but it was obviously a major deal.

I had to get to St.Paul, and towards crunch time, I was stuck in Minneapolis in a freeway construction site. This is when the first real break happened. My brother was working at a place called Frosty's - as I remember the name - that was right by the church with the big blue dome. I explained to my next ride where I was going and the guy had a personal connection to the restaurant. I think he used to work in it. He drove me right there - right to the place, where my brother was finishing his shift. I think I made it from Portland with 40 minutes to spare.

He finally told me what he had done. He had joined the military in his heartbroken state and they were coming for him that afternoon. He would swear in that day and spend overnight at some other location. I immediately began talking him out of it, and when the military recruiter called my brother's apartment I took the phone, and told the man in no uncertain terms that they were not getting my brother that day. The other real important break was that one of his friends from one of his many prep schools, showed up out of the blue. We began a 2 or 3 day party sequence that I won't go into out of respect. There are children involved here.

In conclusion, my brother ended up bagging the military and following Barb to Cairo - with help from my big sister. That was where the adventure really began. David started interning at a news organization, and began working as a video journalist. When the Achille Lauro ship hijacking happened he got a quick interview with Mubarak that went all over the world. In America, it was on the Today Show and NBC Nightly News. That was his big break.

What happened in the next years was like a screenplay. In fact, it is a screenplay called "Covering It" that we wrote together. Dave and Barb got married and had 4 kids born in Cairo, London, South Africa, and the Philippines. After his last stint as Reuters television chief in China, David retired from the insane, dangerous, burn-out world of international news coverage.

This Christmas my family is getting a refresher course in what it was like to worry all those years ago. My brother and his family all met up in Cairo once again in December of this year, and - get this - drove from Cairo to Jerusalem in a car. They're still over there right now.

We have email so it's not as isolated and weird as the old days when David would be detained somewhere. And I do mean detained. Actually, some of his old video is so riveting, that it still shows up to this day on news specials about South Africa, etc...One tidbit: He sat in a garden at Bishop Tutu's house with Nelson Mandela, the day after Mandela's release from prison. On the other hand, he missed one of his kids graduations because he was being detained by the Chinese police.

I got permission to tell my part of the story before David left. When they are safely back, I'll ask to blog the picture of his family back by the Pyramids. The original was taken twenty years ago by a then unknown photographer, who is now an old Middle East hand. Then it was only of their first daughter, Shannon - now there are 6 in the family and the 4 kids are mostly adults.

My brother has a way of coming up with these classic adventures, and the holiday trip this year is no exception. I mean, come on. It's 2006 and you're driving the family from Cairo to Jerusalem? That is an inherently lively proposition. Obviously, Jerusalem is on high alert during the Holidays. Who am I kidding? The Middle East is always on high alert somewhere. One of the emails mentioned the atmosphere was pretty tense. Yeah, no kidding.

Me, I'm handling the whole thing much better now that I know they made the Cairo-Jerusalem drive okay. I forgot what it was like to worry about these maniacs. Of course, I also forgot how cool it was thinking about this legendary family out there doing their thing.

Bulletin From Bethlehem

My sister-in-law emailed me that my little band of world travelers made it to Bethlehem and saw the bronze star in the Grotto of the Nativity with the famous words in Latin: "HIC DE VIRGINE MARIA JESUS CHRISTUS NATUS EST". Security was extremely tight, so they skipped the Midnight Mass and headed back to Jerusalem, which I completely understand. The Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was going to attend that service which should have pegged the security levels so far into red you can't even see them anymore. It's tiring when you're in a crowd wondering if something will explode.

I made this trip as a youngster in January of 1967. Of course, since then our violent religious clashes have given way to peace and understanding....NOT! In fact, some of the things we saw back then were destroyed in the 6 Day War later that year. I was also spit on by an Arab man riding a donkey. There's a lot of anger in the Middle East, in case you haven't been keeping up.

I try and refrain from discussing organized religion. I have family who are devout Catholics so why go there? I even attend Midnight Mass with them out of a sense of duty and the compromise that is marriage. So any comments I make now may be caused by acute sleep deprivation and the lingering effects of incense poisoning.

I get it about faith. I understand. I only raise concern about certain religions when they talk about the end of the world. I believe such talk - in the wrong hands - could lead to action. I love humanity enough that I firmly believe we should go on, and I hate this defeatist talk, especially when those who are saying such things, could make it happen. Personally, I think we should be moving out into space. We should already be living on the moon, and we should have had some astronauts on Mars by now. It's a true shame. We landed on the moon in 1969. That's almost 40 years ago. What gives?

I also believe in the Santa Claus doctrine: Be good for goodness sake. Not because you are being threatened with eternal damnation. That's not sincere - it's coercion. Be good because it's a nice thing to be. Now I will admit I'm against Santa Claus for the list. Frankly, it sounds too much like the NSA.

Enough. Be lighthearted. Laugh. Go forth and celebrate. I believe faith is one of those things that is going to happen. Personally, I enjoy the mystery of it all and the quest to figure it out. I appreciate the quiet serenity of believing that you know, but it often takes forms that are neither quiet nor serene. Part of thinking you know - but not really knowing - is the need to challenge anyone who doesn't see it your way. That can escalate quickly.

If you really knew, it wouldn't be a problem. You'd just laugh off any challenges to your version of what is going on. That doesn't happen. Taken lightly it is a disappointed stare from the mother-in-law. Taken to extremes it is a full scale jihad. I do resent the fact that religious people won't let others be. They think they are doing you a favor by pressuring you, and they are often asked to recruit more people, but you should be allowed to decide on your own.

Let's look at faith versus knowing. Take the equation, "One and one equals two." If some guy doesn't believe that you don't get all hostile to him. You don't debate him for hours, much less storm his village and slaughter his cattle. It's something you really know so you just chuckle when the guy makes his case, and say, "Whatever, dude." Religion isn't like that. Challenging someone's faith brings out the pit bull because the person trying to believe doesn't want to go there either.

So what is really going on? I'm not sure, but I have an analogy for the mystery of the universe. We all want to know what the deal is, don't we? Okay, many of you are sure you already know, and that's fine, but play along. Here's the analogy:

There is a game show called "Deal or No Deal". I haven't watched it, but I sense there is one amount in a briefcase and you must gamble to get more from another. If that is not how it works, I apologize to the devout followers of game shows out there. I respect your right to believe in the game show of your choice. Don't I sound gun-shy? Wow, all this tolerance and diplomacy have clearly gotten the best of me.

The point: I think accepting an ancient belief is like settling quickly in life. It is like taking the first briefcase. The one you were exposed to as a child. My theory is that you should hold out for more. Assume that the universe is a vast puzzle and try an attain the ultimate briefcase. The one with the real truth in it. Who knows? Maybe it will turn out to be the first one you received in life. It's possible. It could be Christianity. Of course, there are different types of that. (See Northern Ireland.)

I know most of you reading this don't believe Islam is the way, but billions do. I bet most of you think it's definitely not Scientology. Wouldn't that be just awful? A big "I told you so" from Tom Cruise? The Sacred Shrine of the Sofa Jumping Incident? Perish the thought, but you can't definitively prove he isn't right just as you can't prove your way is correct. Tom Cruise has faith in his way and you have faith in yours.

Me? I think what resides in that ultimate briefcase is different from anything anyone on this planet has even contemplated yet. My idea of heaven would be to find that out. Maybe there will just be one word to explain the universe: Because. I ask myself why all the time. Why all these billions of galaxies? Light takes 100 thousand years to cross our galaxy and there are billions more out there. Yet, people see the light from these distant galaxies and say that the light had to arrive from them in 6000 years. Fine. Run with it. Choose that briefcase if you want. If it makes you happy, take it. Call me greedy, but I want to continue searching.

P.S. If you find any of this offensive, I apologize. If you are truly confident in your faith you will forgive me, and love me all the more. I think it is a historical fact that a child was born in the Middle East who went on to have a huge impact on the world. The message of peace and love is absolutely beautiful and brilliant. I wish more of his followers followed it. If we are all God's children, then we should show the same love and protection for a child born in the Middle East this morning. Even if its parents don't share your religion. And - once again - if you take offense at any of this, I apologize. It's just the incense talking.

The Moral Clarity Crew Gets Real

One of the most aggravating points that you'll hear in the run up to what looks like an attack on Iran, concerns our need to go there because we've broken Iraq. It seems like just yesterday men such as Ronald Reagan were concluding that Iraq under Saddam was bad, but at least it provided balance with Iran. Of course, back then the world was a very complicated place, and sometimes you had to think a few moves ahead. This was long ago, before our current President dumbed down our foreign policy to the sandbox level.

How many zillions of times have we heard the right wing ask, "Do you think we're better off without Saddam?" Also annoying was the childish-sounding answer the liberals gave, the "Yes, buts..." The answer to that is that the right wing doesn't get to choose when the clock started in the Middle East. I think we'd have been better off staying out of Iran way back when, and not causing a backlash that gave the Muslim fundamentalists control of a state in the Middle East. Then we wouldn't have felt we had to be an ally of Saddam, supplying him with weapons and helping him to stay in power.

It's almost like the second thoughts I have about America training Osama bin Ladin. I wish that hadn't happened either.

But now that we've had our little moral clarity crew come in and determine the thing to do was go to Iraq, suddenly you're hearing the same people make a startling announcement: The war there has given Iran too much power in the Gulf and something must be done. So we're spending as much as 2 trillion dollars to make Iran a bigger power. Plus, now that Iraq is seen for the fiasco it is, the Bush team is getting ready to have one more major fiasco in Iran. Meanwhile, this was all supposed to make things better.

These are two of the biggest oil countries on the planet, and we've trashed one and now we're looking hard at attacking another. What are we trying to do to the world's oil supply? Are we going to get a startling admission later that it turns out we really need oil and we shouldn't damage the pool? Don't we know that now?

Of course, the process has been streamlined a little. The neo-cons probably won't even bother with another terrorist attack, or making the case against Iran. They'll probably just do it and act unilaterally even within our own government. I guess the big question many are asking is what's the harm? So what if we attack another country?

The problem with making gigantic blunders that cost around 2 trillion each, is that there are only so many you can afford. If we keep this up our own country will implode. Remember the quote President Bush mangled about not getting fooled again? This is the "again" part, folks.

It's all predictable to an extent and I'm preparing my mind to deal with it. The only thing that's over the top for me, is when they say we have to go into Iran because Iraq is broken. That's making me a little crazy right now. If slamming Iraq was so great for Iran, maybe the moral clarity crew can explain why we did it then?

President Bush and the Screw-Up Tax

Do you know how much of our money is going to the military operations in Iraq? Nothing – zero. That’s all on the backend of a 9 trillion dollar debt that will be dealt with by our children and their children. Now, if the economic temple comes down, we will feel it, but as of right now, the borrowed money for the war isn’t hurting us a bit - in fact it’s contributing to our economy. I’m sure the 12 billion and counting that Halliburton received, finds its way to other Americans as their employees and shareholders spend some of the profits. So how has this cost us? It’s what I’m calling the President Bush Screw-up Tax.
Let’s start by acknowledging what more and more water-carrying conservative Republicans are beginning to admit: Iraq was a screw-up. The vast human dimensions of the screw-up are still not clear - for example, 9 more American soldiers were killed over the weekend - but one economic result was the impact on the oil supply. The world uses 80 million barrels of oil a day. Take a moment and ponder that. Supplies do not have to be affected too much to cause an extraordinary swing in price. The Iraq War cut the amount of oil Iraq produces. It was hoped it would be at 5 million barrels a day right now. I think it’s closer to 1 and the trend is downwards over the last few months, as the violence grows and the U.S. kisses off any reconstruction efforts. No one thinks Iraq will be pumping oil smoothly for several years to come.
Our mistake in the Middle East played a large part in the fact that oil is up by over 30 dollars a barrel, double what it was when this gang of chicken-hawk cowboys first rode into Washington. We’re paying in everything from the price of gas, to the price of food and it’s all part of this Iraq War. The uncertainty alone is costing us. Unlike the national debt however, this is felt now with real dollars from you and me. That’s why it is more like a tax. Of course, the White House likes to talk about the tax breaks they’ve given, which mainly went to the wealthy anyway, but they never bring up the immediate economic consequences of their failed war. They never bring up the Screw-Up Tax.
One other thing: Everyone focuses on the obscene profits our oil companies are making off this thing, but do you want to know who’s really getting rich? The oil-producing countries including Iran. I read that Saudi Arabia is making a billion dollars every two days. That means President Bush has spent our children’s money to make these countries even richer. When you count in what he’s done for the terrorist recruiting efforts it’s official: The only thing a lot of factions in the Middle East regret is that President Bush can’t serve a third term. And as for America? We’re stuck here paying the President Bush Screw-Up Tax, and wondering what the White House will dream up next.

The Gig In Seattle

I'm going to start this off with the first official Portland Freelancer blogging tease. Something is happening to one of my buddies in the music business, and I am under strict orders not to elaborate, but it is beautiful. I mean it brings a tear to my eye. While the Oregonian has been following Storm Large, who I'm totally behind by the way, I've been tracking this. Stay tuned or stay blogged. However you want to say it. Okay, the gig in Seattle:
I've never really talked about the bass player. This is a fairly unusual set of circumstances. In fact, it's downright stunning in a probability sort of way. When I was growing up, my father worked in government relations for Aramco. Another one of the executives in that department was named George Mandis, and one of his sons was named Bill Mandis, although we called him by a nickname that he doesn't want out there. Not because it's dirty or anything - it's just silly. Anyway, Mandis as I'll call him here, was a few years ahead of me in school, and was a hero of mine when I was a kid. His Little League team, the Steelers, was as legendary to me as the 1927 New York Yankees. He became the lead singer of the rock band in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and I used to stand outside their little practice building in Arabia, trying to glimpse the guitars. I knew in 4th grade that this was going to be my path. I mean it was so obvious to me that music was the best thing humans have ever come up with, so why spend your life doing anything else?
My turn to be in a rock band eventually came and my group rose up. In one dramatic audition that still bothers Mandis to this day, we landed one of the main dances in our little trio of oil towns in Arabia. That was the beginning of our glory years as local rock legends, and the end of his reign.
The Mandis family moved away from Arabia, which to us was equivalent to dying. I mean we were partying all over the world, we were local rock stars, we were scuba divers and great spear fishermen. We were living in an Indiana Jones movie in the Middle East, and we knew it at the time. We appreciated what we had, and were all too aware that it would end. We were deeply nostalgic about it even as it was happening. Just before Mandis left, he made it back to Arabia for Christmas break in 1970. We had our band but no lead singer and Mandis performed with us during that incredible time.
When I was 18, I was in my hitchhiking years, eventually racking up well over 25,000 miles. I even passed through a sleepy little town named Portland not knowing it would become home. I also stopped in Eugene where Mandis was going to college and we stayed up till the wee hours recording rock and roll - tapes that exist to this day. That was 1972, and I lost track of Mandis at that point.
Fast forward to 1988. My band had blown up. The drummer was about to go to prison and the wreckage of my life was dropping from the sky like a wounded bomber. I had made one last attempt to reunite the team in Spokane but that was when we heard the FBI was about to come through the door and the drummer turned himself in. I was at a Christmas party in Portland working as a waiter when I looked up and saw Mandis's sister, who informed he was living less than a couple of miles away right here in Portland, working as a school teacher. Once again we began performing rock and roll, and to say it was therapeutic is putting it mildly. I mean think of those odds: We both had traveled from Arabia and ended up living in the same area. Not only that: He had the exact same kind of Teac Tascam 8-track recording machine I owned. So during the worst phase of my music"career", suddenly this boyhood hero is there to continue with the rocking out.
We go on to form a duo. I teach him to play bass, and I begin playing tambourine with my foot. With the added sound we have enough to play actual parties. Places like Harrington's downtown and the Dandelion Pub.
The only stressful thing for me in this process was teaching him to play bass. You have to remember that was my instrument until I stretched out some ligaments and was forced to switch to guitar. So it was frustrating to teach someone who was a teacher himself, but who didn't seem to want to practice and get better as much as I would have liked. I kept at it for approximately 13 years, and then it became a source of great irritation for me, ultimately leading to the end of the duo.
At this point I fell in with a musician named Tim, who is a force in the medical marijuana community. We met at a party on Sauvie's Island and he gave me his CD. I took the rather arrogant step of putting a couple of songs on my 8-track and then adding electric guitar. He liked it and so I was invited to join his band. This was also deeply therapeutic at the time, as I was pretty upset at how the duo had ended. Tim was all about musical courage. We played one practice and did a gig. After years of playing bass and rhythm guitar, I was suddenly in a band playing lead. That was a tremendous bit of good fortune for me.
We played the mainstage of the Hempfest 5 years ago and every year since. It's quite a scenario. Afterwards you walk away and you realize the sound carries something like 500 yards. Around 3 years ago I had the idea of getting my old buddy Mandis and Tim in a trio. Frankly, I knew there'd be tension as both are lead singers, but I was hoping for 3-part harmonies and it worked. Tim is a demanding perfectionist type and I frankly wanted to see what would happen. Maybe this would override my ability to get Mandis serious about practicing. Maybe the pride-rival factor would work into music magic. It's been three rocky years and frankly the only one who really melted down was me. I told Tim to shove his guitar up his ass one night and I regret it. Tim still harbors great ambitions in the music field while Mandis is a teacher. He still doesn't even think of himself as a bass player even though he's been playing for around 15 years. He's a lead singer.
Mandis agreed to play the Hempfest but it's not his scene. He's not opposed to helping someone medically with pot, but the whole stoned hippie thing, is not something he believes in. So it was
nice of him to participate these last three years. Saturday he was not feeling well, but we went up to Seattle, and took it to the stage again. The problem with describing how it went is that if you do great in rock and roll, you attain a temporary level of coolness that can be destroyed by flaming about how great everybody did. I will say we have had some tragic performances. I personally have done some things at that Hempfest that will haunt me. I mean horrific music where I lost my nerve. Fraudulent singing and playing that sucked. Afterwards you walk around backstage and everyone wonders why you're even there.
Without threatening my temporary cool, let me just say that I have never had less time to set up. I plugged into a strange amp and from the first note the band was...I better not say. Remember if you do great, don't talk about it. We also crushed at the second stage around 6.
Between shows I met Randi Rhodes and chatted briefly. She looks completely different than the woman I had imagined from her voice, and I thought she was a lot of fun to be around. I imagine somewhere back in the Air Force days, Randi might have been involved in some fairly rowdy parties. She sure seemed like a live wire, and I like the in-person version a lot. I gave her my CD of the "Let's Leave Iraq" song.
Now we get to the hero time. Mandis and I have tons of old memories to talk about on these long car drives. Being local rock legends does guarantee a certain amount of appreciation from the opposite sex. He even brought some old newspaper clippings from those days including a picture of the December, 1970 Christmas break when my band backed him as lead singer. So this is a long history and a great thread for me in my life. Okay, so we're rocketing along home from Seattle, and it looks like we'll get back around 10:30. I mean we left at 6 that morning so that's a fairly long day. We talked a lot about politics, oil, the Middle East and our fathers who were great men. So we get within 23 miles of Portland. Let me repeat that...23 miles of Portland, when we are suddenly caught up in a horrendous road work situation, that takes 2 full hours to creep through. Let me repeat that....2 full hours to creep through. Mandis had not been feeling well all day and he was dying to get home. The Hempfest isn't his scene or his crowd and he basically does it as a favor to me. This had the potential to be a major guilt trip. Rather than get snippy about the mind-boggling delay, Mandis switched into a very kind of philosophical mellowness that ended when we had finally made it through, with peals of laughter at the situation. All these years later, that struck me as heroic behavior. Seattle was amazing. I got home at quarter of 1. Who cares about the temporary cool? I'm going to come right out and say it: We kicked ass. We were rock and roll lions. Both my amps I used were snarling beasts that sounded like Joe Perry of Aerosmith. From the first note, we were a force, and without overstating it, the gig this year in Seattle validated not only my life, but all that I hold sacred in the universe.

24.) The Hitchhiking Years: The Storm

By the time I got to Ohio again, the freshness of Spring had given way to the first signs of Summer. There was no question I was also not the same. The person who had slept in a farmer's field the night after my 18th birthday was significantly less idealistic than before. Do you remember that? I had been attacked by a dog in Buffalo and the next night in Ohio was when I really dealt with the paranoid aftereffects, especially when I heard a pack of dogs barking in the distance.

This time it was around 5 weeks later and I was in southern Ohio heading East. Yes, I was much more used to being out there. My first major hitchhiking trip had been from Massachusetts to Florida and back on Spring Break earlier in the year when I was still 17, but that was with another guy from my hometown of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. It's much different when you're out there on your own, and I had gone through quite a bit. Of course, this account is skewed because I mostly just mention the dramatic stuff, whereas much of it was just rides, conversations, and hitchhiking strategy: Lots of decisions on what to do, and lots of Americans to meet.

Here, I should say that the American People came off great. Sure, there were individuals who were a threat, especially the guy who tried to kill me in Arizona, but for the most part the citizens of the United States were terrific, and they really impressed me a lot with their warmth and humor.

I go through different levels of disgust with the government but I'll always love the American People. It's a hip room. I should add that you can also get a negative opinion of a country like England based on the pompous Royals, etc, but when you go there and meet the People they're great. It's the governments that are causing the problems. I always get a kick out of it when someone visits the Middle East and realizes how wonderful those people are too, despite what we've been told to believe.

I had some great conversations out there. You know a hitchhiker like me is a perfect confidant because I'm just passing through. I was told things that nobody in the driver's immediate life knew about. Plus, as opposed to taking a bus, these drivers would point out the really cool details: How a bomber had crashed on that hill over there, or how Timothy Leary had been arrested at that last intersection.

The other part that exceeded my expectations was the actual countryside. I love Arabia and I'm a big fan of the desert, but seeing the Rockies and the Wild West? What a stunning piece of land we have here. Mt Shasta, the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River, the Pacific Northwest. Every state had amazing parts. It's a gigantic, beautiful place.

Of course, there was no way the reality of the United States could match the mythical version formed in my brain overseas. At best, there were moments when it was close, such as the time I saw a young Jerry Garcia in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn in downtown Philadelphia. Or from this trip, the time I saw Willie Mays play baseball. But being here tore the mythical nature of the place apart.

By the time I hit southern Ohio on the way home, I had seen the heavy political wounds that were also everywhere in 1972. We were heading into Richard Nixon's reelection, Watergate was just ahead, and Vietnam hung over everything.

This led to an incredible lack of understanding between the generations, that manifested itself in millions of painful family scenarios. I also was aware of the racial problems but I didn't realize they were such a factor in society. I guess social issues in general seemed much more daunting than I had imagined as a kid.

When you heard the music of Chuck Berry or the Beach Boys you formed one opinion, but don't look too closely at Chuck Berry's real life - including prison time - and don't look too closely at the relationship Brian Wilson had with his father. If you do, the music might not sound the same.

1972 was the year I began to see these truths, although I didn't let my idealistic version of America go. I still kept it in my heart and visited there sometimes like a childhood memory. You know, I really enjoyed seeing certain places I had heard so much about, but I also appreciate the legendary cities where I didn't go. It's nice having those, too. For me, Detroit is still Motown because I've never been there.

So it was a weary and a somewhat more cynical hitchhiker who hit a roadside cafe before retiring into the woods to sleep that night in Ohio. I do remember sensing some really ominous energy in the air. The sky, and the way the humidity felt, seemed a little scary.

Sure enough, during the night, these thunder storms rolled through that shook the earth. I broke camp and jogged for cover under a freeway bridge amid intense flashes of lighting and giant Booms! Mother Nature was putting on an amazing display of fireworks. It was so violent that just being under the bridge wasn't good enough. It was raining sideways and I had to scramble up the hill and hide at the very top, right under the roadway of the overpass. Interestingly some other hitchhikers were pinned down all the way across the freeway and their voices traveled on the beams so they only sounded 30 feet away. At first they were whooping and hollering almost like at a rock concert, but with each devastating explosion of thunder they became more and more quiet. We were getting knocked loopy out there, and there was nowhere to go.

I realized I would have to stay the night on the concrete incline so I took my belt and some rope and tied myself to the beams. I got in the bag and eventually fell asleep, but it was one of those nights when you wake up three times as tired as you started. I was almost back to New England but I needed to hurry. America had been great, but I was fading fast.

Today's Middle East Headlines Proving How Dumb Ronald Reagan Really Was

I often marvel at Bush supporters' ability to see greatness in Republican foreign policy. It's actually cute to me at this point, like when a child says they believe in the Easter Bunny. Since Iran and Lebanon are back in the news, let's revisit the second dumbest president in the last 30 years, Ronald Reagan. Look, I'll concede he was one heck of a movie star. Some of those movies are classics. Everyone talks about "Bedtime for Bonzo", but you can pretty much count on a Reagan appearance in a movie as a guarantee of cinematic greatness. Just a thought: I never call President Bush a chimp, but I wonder if fundamentalist Bush supporters view "Bedtime for Bonzo" as some sort of prophesy? Of course, the right wing spin is that Reagan was just about our greatest president. I liked him as a charismatic figure - he nodded and waved to me one time in a hallway - and he had outstanding timing delivering a joke. He was right there with some of his Hollywood buddies.
My question is about Iran-Contra. Like the Iraq War, it suffers from terminal dumbness - yet Republicans praise the administration that came up with it as being so skilled at foreign policy that it is a wonder we survived Bill Clinton at all. Let's look at the heart of the plan: Selling missiles to Iran. Now, in case you haven't been reading the paper the last few months, Iran is all over it. One big story is about Iran supplying Hezbollah. My question is what kind of presidential dumbass would sell Iran missiles? Does that make any sense? Okay this is overshadowed sometimes by the other Reagan plan of putting several hundred Marines in a high-rise in downtown Beirut, with guards that had no ammunition. Think about that next time a Republican tells you how swift they are at foreign policy. Still, we have yet to get to the heart of the dumbness: If you are making a deal that could really get your administration in trouble, why would you make it with sworn enemies? Did you ask them to promise not to tell? And no fair crossing your fingers? Wouldn't they want to use it to cause you trouble later? As a matter of fact, the Iran-Contra story broke in a newspaper in Lebanon. Gosh, what a surprise. You might remember, this led to quite a stir back home. At this point, it's typical of Bush supporters to say, "But that's old news." First, in Middle Eastern terms that was like yesterday. But second, it has all the hallmarks of the current Republican Party foreign policy which is also extremely dumb. It was not surprising, for example, that a former US ambassador said recently that President Bush didn't even know what Sunnis and Shiites were a couple of months before the war. Going into this Fall we will no doubt hear how we can't trust our foreign policy with anyone but Republicans, but how lame an argument is that? I will give President Bush some credit though. He has yet to sell Iran missiles, like his hero Ronald Reagan did. And spare me the defense that Reagan didn't know about it. You can't have it both ways: Either President Reagan was a kindly old bumbling fool or he was the greatest President of all - someone who knew what was going on in his own administration, especially on a matter as huge as Iran-Contra. Now I will concede that Reagan might have been so out of it, that his subordinates like Poindexter ran wild. You could try and blame the whole stupidity of Reagan Foreign Policy with regards to Iran, on Ollie North. That argument actually has some merit. I mean Ollie's so dumb he's now an analyst on FOX News.

Great News From Iraq: It Turns Out There's Lots of Oil There!

Sometimes when you do something nice for someone, it can come back at you in ways you never imagined. Take the situation in Iraq: Here we go halfway around the world to bring freedom and democracy to a long-suffering People and guess what? It turns out the place is swimming in oil! In fact, the big oil companies are on the verge of locking up long-term lease agreements for Iraq's oil supply.

That should be a lesson for all of us. I know it's been easy to be critical of this plan. I hate to sound callous, but I always wondered why we should bother to be so nice to Iraqis? Shouldn't we take care of our own in New Orleans first? I admit I've been a little bit tough on our President over all this, because I failed to see the upside, and things haven't been going all that great.

In fact, President Bush is announcing his new plan for Iraq this week, and you can tell expectations are a little low. This one is called Operation Enduring Quagmire.

Now don't kid yourself: the plan establishes tough new benchmarks for the Iraqi government. For example, by the year 2020, they must switch from hangings to the electric chair.

I admit it's been tough to see the point of the whole situation, but that just goes to show you not to judge too quickly. The news that Iraq has gigantic oil reserves really changes things. It must have been a very pleasant surprise for the President and Dick Cheney. Here they go out of their way to be nice, and they get rewarded big-time. I guess good things happen to good people.

As big-hearted as this administration is, I bet they would love to get Iraq's oil industry rolling, as a parting gift. After all, we've grown used to being good to our Muslim friends during this rewarding democracy project, and - darn it - it just feels nice to be nice. What would be a sweeter move than to do the People of Iraq right one last time?

Unfortunately, no matter how much goodness is in our hearts, there are times when even the White House has to live in the real world. That's why these leases for Iraq's oil will last 30 years. And there's another unfortunate little twist, that's absolutely tearing up the big oil companies. Because of all the unrest in the country, we may have to spend a little more to help the Iraqi People get that oil money. Darn it. So that's why we're going to take 75% of the profits for oil and give the country 25%.

Now you understand this is just a temporary surge. As soon as we report that we've recouped our high spending costs, the foreign oil companies will drop down to a 20% share. Of course, some cynics have suggested the 20% rate is still twice the normal amount, but if you've been paying 75%, it's quite a drop. Besides, goodness like we've shown over there should be rewarded a little.

The important thing is to get past all the bickering and celebrate our incredible good luck. Who knew when we went over, that they had this kind of oil? And there's even more of a blessing to come: I'm sure as soon as the Iraqi People learn the details of this lucky break, they'll be thrilled. They'll probably be so delighted, that they'll leave our oil operations untouched, just waiting for that magic day 30 years from now, when they get whatever is left! Hey, I've just thought of some more good news: In 30 years when the oil leases are up, we'll probably be able to bring home the troops!
Independent Online Edition > Middle East

Robert M. Gates: One Word From the Truth

The new Secretary of Defense came so close to saying the truth on his first day in office. It was as if he was trying to communicate the real deal, but in an acceptable format for his new boss. The brain is so good at sending secret signals of what we really believe. Here's how he put it: “All of us want to find a way to bring America’s sons and daughters home again. But as the president has made clear, we simply cannot afford to fail in the Middle East. Failure in Iraq would be a calamity that would haunt our nation, impair our credibility and endanger Americans for decades to come.” If he just replaced "would" with "will", you have a devastatingly accurate picture of reality:

“Failure in Iraq will be a calamity that will haunt our nation, impair our credibility and endanger Americans for decades to come.”

After all, that's what has really happened, and I'm sure Robert Gates knows it. He certainly didn't try the administration's tired old line that we are marching to victory on this. Nobody tries shoveling that anymore. Gates is quite aware that he didn't get the job because the plan was working so well with Donald Rumsfeld. Of course supporters of the administration will insist this isn't how the new Secretary of Defense feels at all. It's wrong to read into his words. He may even believe in this mission as much as the President is pretending to - that things will eventually turn out great.

Maybe so, but I was amused to see the Yahoo News headline about the comment. Apparently, I wasn't alone in hearing a slightly different message. Here's the headline from early this morning: "Gates: Failure in Iraq will haunt U.S."

And so it goes.

Gates: Failure in Iraq will haunt U.S. - Yahoo! News

Finally! The BBC Suggests a False Flag Hit in Lebanon

Yes, they buried the lede. That's two things I learned in the newspaper business: Don't bury the lede, and don't spell it "lead". "Lede" is an inside-newspaper term. So the BBC buried the lede about the Lebanon hit, but in this case they had no choice. This article falls under my theory of how news organizations really work to put topics out there that the reporters suspect are true, but can't address openly. Why? The powers that be in their own corporate structures don't want them to go there.

Read this BBC story and you'll see a text book example. It discusses the strange lack of motive Syria had in this recent assassination in Lebanon. Could this have been a false flag hit by the Neo-Cons? They sure advanced their agenda more than Syria did. Of course, using the term "false flag" would imply too much knowledge of this dark world, so the BBC reporters didn't bother. But they did imply it, which is all the freedom most corporate services are allowed.

That's the real news in this story: "Absent a Syrian Motive, Lebanon Hit Seen as False Flag Operation". Now read the article and see how carefully the BBC is with this topic. It's buried so far down that it's almost comical. I can just see the editor saying, "All right lads. You buried the lede, and that was wrong. But it's better to bury the lede than lose our bloody jobs. At least we've put the story out there. Now let's see what happens.
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Killing plunges Lebanon deeper into crisis

Neo-Con Richard Perle Ditches Iraq

Have you ever seen a Neo-Con in person? I’m not talking about the legions of cowardly sheep who follow this President, and who think that giving up our freedom in the name of feeling safe is somehow a manly thing to do. No, I’m talking about a member of the original gang of weasels who brought us to this place in history. Well, I have. I was once in a hallway and Richard Perle walked by.

There are few people who I wouldn’t shake hands with - I may not make a scene about it, but I’d stay at least 6 feet in distance so the opportunity wouldn’t come up. Richard Perle is in that category. I consider him an arch criminal - a man whose twisted schemes have cost lives in the hundreds of thousands, and suffering that will go on till the last American vet from Iraq passes away 80 years from now. So I stayed 6 feet off to the side and watched as this cretin slithered past.

You know he looks the part? He does. I mean this is a sickly looking man with ghastly white skin and dead eyes. The poison in his soul has clearly seeped to the surface, and his terrible viscous deeds hang over him like a bad smell.

By the way, it is popular in some circles to suggest that Richard Perle is doing the bidding of Israel - using our foreign policy to enhance Israel’s security in the region. I’ve even heard that the Lebanon model of maximum damage and suffering is what is really going on in Iraq. That is a theory, you know. That the insurgency is getting some help from unlikely places.

The thing to remember is that you can’t lump a country or the FBI or the U.S. military into one position or another. Richard Perle is not doing the bidding of Israel. He is working with the Neo-Cons in Israel. That’s the difference, and there’s a huge peace movement in Israel that is every bit as appalled as anyone here by what’s happened in the Middle East. So, save your knee-jerk reactions: I’m not anti-Jew. I’m anti-Neo-Con.

Hmm, let's see how the Neo-Con plan is going these days. Wow, not all that great. In fact, it's clearly time for the chicken-hawk manipulators who got us into Iraq to start scurrying for cover. How about Richard Perle? Guess what this slippery bastard is saying now? He’s abandoned the Iraq War and blamed the failure of his plan on poor execution by President Bush. In a Vanity Fair article he states, "The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn't get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly.… At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible."

Would he do it again, knowing what he knows now? "I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.'"

Quite a man, huh? Tell all those grieving parents of a fallen soldier that one of the Neo-Cons who dreamt up this Bush doctrine, is now trying to scrape it off his shoe. Sorry, the plan that got your son’s limbs blown off? It turns out it was a bad idea. Yet, the blame doesn’t rest solely with the Neo-Cons. As the movie, "Natural Born Killers" points out, you can’t be mad at a snake for being a snake.

The blame also falls on these shrinking numbers of Bush supporters who sold out American ideals in a macho rush to support this despicable gang of armchair thugs. It’s you - the phony patriots of the right wing - who’ve done the most harm to this country. Sure, Richard Perle will go down in history as one of the worst sinister creeps ever to hijack a country’s foreign policy for their own craven ends. But the right wing Republicans in power now and their devout followers, actually may end up destroying much more. They’ve helped destroy the greatness of America. It is these right wing conservatives who will share the Neo-Con guilt and be forever stained with blood from the war in Iraq.

James Baker III

You know when Election 2000 was really over? When the Bush campaign sent James Baker lll to Florida on their behalf for the recount. It had been stolen earlier when Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris spent serious bucks to hire a new company several months before the election to remove from the voting rolls around 90,000 legal voters - mostly Democratic and African American. That's how the election was stolen, and you might not accept it, but your grandchildren will read about it as a historical fact - if they bother to look.

But back to James Baker and let's skip the 3rd part. As he told Imus the other morning, he's really the 4th anyway. I guess even his name needs a recount. At any rate, many people believe he made all the difference down in Florida - he's that good - and I respect him for it. I don't like many of the current Bush team, but I always liked James Baker. Incidentally, my peers in the States would sometimes ask me what oil company executives were like. Believe me at the top of the heap, the ones I met - my father and his buddies - were a very entertaining bunch. They were impressive like James Baker. When my Dad would drop by my school and take my college buddies out, they would talk about him for months. These high-caliber executives can often be amazing people, and you could tell Imus was pretty impressed with his guest.

So what did Baker say that contrasted so well with the current Bush administration? First, back when he was 40, working as a lawyer, he lost his 38-year-old wife to cancer. He was despondent and his tennis doubles partner suggested jumping into politics as a way to handle the grief. His doubles partner would become the first President Bush. At the time Baker was a Democrat whose grandfather had told him to avoid politics, but he changed parties, and jumped in, and the rest really is history.

Imus asked Baker if the Israel-Palestine issue were settled, would that end the problems in the Middle East? That's a pretty astute question because it drew out quite a revealing answer. James Baker said that it would be a huge step in the right direction, and that we aren't doing enough to make it happen. Then he took on the Bush-Limbaugh doctrine that diplomacy means appeasement, although he didn't use that phrase. He said when he was Secretary of State, Syria was on the list of terror-sponsoring nations. He visited Syria 15 times, and got them to meet directly with Israel on the 16th time. He said the idea of only talking to your friends is ridiculous and that you have to talk with your enemies.

There are several reasons - in my opinion - why this administration doesn't do that: 1. They're chicken hawks and they have to compensate by being phony tough guys who use the military to act out.
2. Diplomacy is hard work, and these guys are not into governing hard. President Bush rides his bicycle, but he's not bearing down on anything else. The rest is spin and the facade of governing, as exposed by Katrina. 3. Finally, it wouldn't work if their people did it, because their people don't have the personal skill of James Baker. That's why they've asked him to come back, but he says he's too old, and that's too bad. It doesn't matter if you hate the Republicans or not, here's a man with great statesman-like ability, and this Bush administration has exactly zero of those.