"[This resolution] will signal a change in direction in Iraq that will end the fighting and bring our troops home safely and soon."
- Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives
"[W]e can only describe this week's House debate on a vote of no-confidence in the mission in Iraq as one of the most shameful moments in the institution's history."
- Wall Street Journal
I've seen this before.
I believe that the war in Iraq has more differences than similarities to the war in Viet Nam. The pro-war and anti-war debate playing out in the country right now has not approached the virulence of the debate over Viet Nam, but there are signs that we are heading down that road.
In 1971, as a freshman member of ROTC at the University of Florida, I avoided wearing my uniform around campus because of the hostile stares that I received. In the Spring of 1972 President Nixon mined the harbors of Hanoi and Haiphong and unleashed a wave of Air Force and Navy bombers carrying new "smart" bombs on North Viet Nam. Those True Believer students at the University of Florida, as well as at other universities around the country, took to the streets seeking the opportunity to show there displeasure for the President's actions by getting tear gassed and arrested. Police from five counties showed up in Gainesville to oblige them.
No student's rioted in the streets when President Bush announced his change in policy in Iraq but one result of his decision was to cause many more people around the country to harden their positions about the war on one side or the other. For many the debate on the war is not a political issue but a moral one, and this can be said for both sides of the issue.
Hardened opinions and moral indignation provide very poor lubrication for a rational discussion on any subject. The debate on Viet Nam disintegrated into people believing the opposing side was immoral merely because of the position on the war. The stares that I received when I wore my uniform on campus were strained with moral indignation. The mere fact that I as a 17 year old boy would wear a U.S. Army uniform demonstrated to them that I was morally suspect.
We don't need to be going down that road. I am saddened by the fact that I see some already treading down that old path again.
What makes me even sadder is that the primary purpose of the suicide bombs that have afflicted Iraq the last four years was to divide this country. I am afraid that they have succeeded all too well.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Friday, February 09, 2007
Translation problems
I have translated words from one language to another. I speak Spanish fairly well yet I quickly discovered the difficulties of transforming the stern, engineering textbook phrases of my native tongue into the soft, beautiful paragraphs of a Romance language. I felt as if I was painting a sunset in autumn on a New England forest with a palette of eight crayons. I was similarly troubled converting Spanish to English. My translations appeared to impart a clarity on intent and meaning that was never present in the original.
I am having the same trouble translating the experiences that I had in Iraq to my family, friends and readers. Whether verbally or in writing, English doesn't give me the necessary tools the describe what I saw, felt, heard, smelled or tasted.
In the February 5th "New Yorker" Ryszard Kapuscinski, a "legendary travel writer", wrote of his first trip abroad in 1956, when he traveled from his native Poland to India. He returned home chastened by the experience. "India was my first encounter with otherness, the discovery of a new world. It was at the same time a great lesson in humility. I returned from that journey embarrassed by my own ignorance. I realized then what seems obvious now: another culture would not reveal its mysteries to me at a mere wave of my hand. One has to prepare oneself thoroughly for such an encounter."
In the fall of 2002, I found myself suddenly reassigned to an Army Reserve unit alerted to prepare for deployment to Iraq. I had never been to the Middle East nor had I read much about it. I had spent the previous twenty years learning Spanish and traveling to almost every country in Latin America. Despite having lived in Colombia, and then returning on numerous visits, and despite having learned their language, with the dialects and different regional viewpoints, I knew enough about Colombia to fully grasp how much I really didn't know.
Although I lived in Kuwait for two months and Iraq for ten, and I made an effort to learn the language and read numerous books about the region's geography and culture and religion, I still have no idea what I don't know about that country. I suspect that the Rosetta Stone for all this may lie in fiction, that a novel may indirectly convey what I want to say.
Whether a populace that actually cares about the life history of Anna Nicole Smith will want to read what I have written is another story.
I am having the same trouble translating the experiences that I had in Iraq to my family, friends and readers. Whether verbally or in writing, English doesn't give me the necessary tools the describe what I saw, felt, heard, smelled or tasted.
In the February 5th "New Yorker" Ryszard Kapuscinski, a "legendary travel writer", wrote of his first trip abroad in 1956, when he traveled from his native Poland to India. He returned home chastened by the experience. "India was my first encounter with otherness, the discovery of a new world. It was at the same time a great lesson in humility. I returned from that journey embarrassed by my own ignorance. I realized then what seems obvious now: another culture would not reveal its mysteries to me at a mere wave of my hand. One has to prepare oneself thoroughly for such an encounter."
In the fall of 2002, I found myself suddenly reassigned to an Army Reserve unit alerted to prepare for deployment to Iraq. I had never been to the Middle East nor had I read much about it. I had spent the previous twenty years learning Spanish and traveling to almost every country in Latin America. Despite having lived in Colombia, and then returning on numerous visits, and despite having learned their language, with the dialects and different regional viewpoints, I knew enough about Colombia to fully grasp how much I really didn't know.
Although I lived in Kuwait for two months and Iraq for ten, and I made an effort to learn the language and read numerous books about the region's geography and culture and religion, I still have no idea what I don't know about that country. I suspect that the Rosetta Stone for all this may lie in fiction, that a novel may indirectly convey what I want to say.
Whether a populace that actually cares about the life history of Anna Nicole Smith will want to read what I have written is another story.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Robert Stein is going to jail
[Robert Stein, a] former civilian contractor for the Defense Department was sentenced ... to nine years in prison and ordered to forfeit $3.6 million for his role in a bribery and fraud scheme involving contracts to reconstruct Iraq.
- LA Times, January 30, 2007
Robert Stein, along with an Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel named Bruce Hopfengardner, steered Iraqi reconstruction money to an American contractor named Phillip Bloom. Stein and Hopfengardner worked in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) South Central headquarters in Hilla during late 2003 and early 2004, the time when I also served there. The service of all of those men and women who were there during that time was besmirched by the actions of these men.
Two additional Army reserve lieutenant colonels have been charged but not yet convicted of crimes related to the actions of Stein, Hopfengardner and Bloom during that time. One of the those lieutenant colonels, a major at the time of the incident, worked directly for me. This is one thing about my service in Iraq of which I am not very proud.
I departed Iraq in February 2004 and the officer in question remained in Hilla until June 2004. According to news accounts, this officer allegedly received money for unspecified actions performed. I don't want to reveal the officer's name because of a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. My strong suspicion that the officer's alleged illegal actions took place after my departure is small consolation. Yet in the end my association with this scandal, however indirect, is painful to me.
Mike Gfeller, a State Department officer with experience in the Middle East and a fluency in Arabic, was the man in charge of CPA South Central at the time and, of course, must accept some responsibility. In my judgment he is a good and honorable man who worked long hours and achieved many notable accomplishments during his service in Iraq. His mistake was that he trusted the wrong people.
The big question to the outside observer is: How could something like this happen? I can give some reasons, but these points can by no means excuse the crimes that were committed.
I interacted with Stein and Hopfengardner almost every day but I had no supervisory responsibility over them, nor did I play any role in the process or oversight of the millions of dollars that were spent by CPA South Central for Iraqi reconstruction. The money being spent came from the hoards of cash hidden throughout Iraq by the former regime and seized by the Coalition forces during the invasion. None of these funds were provided by the U.S. taxpayer, yet the CPA had a responsibility for oversight and wise use of these monies.
The money was allocated by Ambassador Bremer to Mr. Gfeller with the objective of keeping the Shia dominated south central region of Iraq peaceful and content. All transactions in Iraq at that time were on a cash basis and CPA South Central had to literally drive to Baghdad, load up the cash in a vehicle and drive it back to Hilla, where it was kept in a safe at the former Babylon Hotel, the headquarters for South Central.
I observed some of the administrative procedures that were used to control the dispersal of this money. Project worksheets were prepared and approved and money was signed for when it was received. The money was paid to the contractors on a % completion basis and a U.S. Army Corps of engineers team was assigned to oversee the projects to verify that the work was done.
A lieutenant who worked for me was a project officer for some of the smaller projects in the Hilla area and I traveled with her as she inspected the projects to verify that the work was being completed. I also traveled with the Corps of Engineers Team as they inspected projects and I could see with my own eyes that work was being done.
There was considerable pressure to get these projects funded, worked and completed. I even felt the pressure because I knew the situation in Iraq. Electrical power was intermittent, gas lines were long and there was very little employment. We couldn't fix the electrical grid or the gas lines so we needed to demonstrate that we were doing something constructive for the long suffering Iraqi populace. To achieve this end, I saw no problem in approving the use of a lieutenant assigned to me on a part time basis to help get the money spent.
At the time (Fall 2003) we were all very frustrated at the progress of the reconstruction. In fact, the institution of spending controls by CPA in Baghdad seemed an unnecessary aggravation. They required that the proposed projects be publicly posted and that at least three bids be received. One source of my aggravation was that some local Iraqi contractors, not fully understanding the bidding process (a radical concept in Iraq at the time) were losing out to more savvy contractors in Baghdad. The results of the spending requirements appeared to be having an effect contrary to our goals.
Why all the rules, why the bids? we asked. We need to put these people to work before they start shooting at us. Someone shooting at us was on our mind every time we left the compound. The fact that I wasn't getting shot at, but others in my area were, was small consolation to me. As the number of attacks progressively increased I knew that the danger was increasing. So the pressure to get the money spent, to put the Iraqis to work and show them that something in their miserable lives, however small, was improving, came not only from my sense of duty in seeing the mission succeed but from a personal sense of increasing danger to myself and my soldiers.
No system or process, however complex, will prevent misappropriation of funds if the persons responsible are unethical. The rules governing oversight of public corporations in the United States would fill volumes but the corporate officers at Enron were able to get around them. Something else in Iraq, I believe, was one source of the problem. Seeing $50,000 or $100,000 written on a ledger is quite different than seeing the cash, in stacks of wrapped $100 bills, stacked on a table before you.
And there were numerous opportunities to see large amounts of cash. One morning, for example, my lieutenant project officer mentioned that she had $60,000 in cash in her bag. To me this was an astounding amount of money, more cash by many orders of magnitude than I had ever seen or handled. I didn't ask to her to open her bag so that I could look because I sensed that that much money displayed in the open was an unnecessary temptation for the others in the room.
I suspect, but not do not know, that the amount of fraud in Hilla increased after I left in February 2004 for several reasons. First, people began rotating out and weren't replaced. Unfortunately, some of these people leaving were involved in the oversight process and therefore weren't there for the plotters to worry about. Secondly, as CPA saw the June deadline approach for the transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government, the CPA employees began to frantically spend money on as many projects as they could. They did not have enough people to properly supervise such a large number of contracts. They saw their ability to influence the course of events slipping away and they had to compress their objectives into a unmanageable period of time.
I wasn't ever worried that my lieutenant would steal any of the money. In fact, at the time, I remember feeling a sense of pride that we were doing such a good job of using this money for its intended purpose. Little did I know.
Little did I know. Should I have known? Should I have done something about this? If I had known then I would have done something to correct the matter. If I had suspected something then I would have investigated. I truly believe that. But I didn't know. I didn't even suspect. I had many jobs in Iraq but auditing the expenditures of CPA South Central was not one of them.
Does any of that make me feel any better? No. Stein, Bloom and Hopfengardner have tainted me. Forever. And there's not anything that I can do about it.
- LA Times, January 30, 2007
Robert Stein, along with an Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel named Bruce Hopfengardner, steered Iraqi reconstruction money to an American contractor named Phillip Bloom. Stein and Hopfengardner worked in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) South Central headquarters in Hilla during late 2003 and early 2004, the time when I also served there. The service of all of those men and women who were there during that time was besmirched by the actions of these men.
Two additional Army reserve lieutenant colonels have been charged but not yet convicted of crimes related to the actions of Stein, Hopfengardner and Bloom during that time. One of the those lieutenant colonels, a major at the time of the incident, worked directly for me. This is one thing about my service in Iraq of which I am not very proud.
I departed Iraq in February 2004 and the officer in question remained in Hilla until June 2004. According to news accounts, this officer allegedly received money for unspecified actions performed. I don't want to reveal the officer's name because of a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. My strong suspicion that the officer's alleged illegal actions took place after my departure is small consolation. Yet in the end my association with this scandal, however indirect, is painful to me.
Mike Gfeller, a State Department officer with experience in the Middle East and a fluency in Arabic, was the man in charge of CPA South Central at the time and, of course, must accept some responsibility. In my judgment he is a good and honorable man who worked long hours and achieved many notable accomplishments during his service in Iraq. His mistake was that he trusted the wrong people.
The big question to the outside observer is: How could something like this happen? I can give some reasons, but these points can by no means excuse the crimes that were committed.
I interacted with Stein and Hopfengardner almost every day but I had no supervisory responsibility over them, nor did I play any role in the process or oversight of the millions of dollars that were spent by CPA South Central for Iraqi reconstruction. The money being spent came from the hoards of cash hidden throughout Iraq by the former regime and seized by the Coalition forces during the invasion. None of these funds were provided by the U.S. taxpayer, yet the CPA had a responsibility for oversight and wise use of these monies.
The money was allocated by Ambassador Bremer to Mr. Gfeller with the objective of keeping the Shia dominated south central region of Iraq peaceful and content. All transactions in Iraq at that time were on a cash basis and CPA South Central had to literally drive to Baghdad, load up the cash in a vehicle and drive it back to Hilla, where it was kept in a safe at the former Babylon Hotel, the headquarters for South Central.
I observed some of the administrative procedures that were used to control the dispersal of this money. Project worksheets were prepared and approved and money was signed for when it was received. The money was paid to the contractors on a % completion basis and a U.S. Army Corps of engineers team was assigned to oversee the projects to verify that the work was done.
A lieutenant who worked for me was a project officer for some of the smaller projects in the Hilla area and I traveled with her as she inspected the projects to verify that the work was being completed. I also traveled with the Corps of Engineers Team as they inspected projects and I could see with my own eyes that work was being done.
There was considerable pressure to get these projects funded, worked and completed. I even felt the pressure because I knew the situation in Iraq. Electrical power was intermittent, gas lines were long and there was very little employment. We couldn't fix the electrical grid or the gas lines so we needed to demonstrate that we were doing something constructive for the long suffering Iraqi populace. To achieve this end, I saw no problem in approving the use of a lieutenant assigned to me on a part time basis to help get the money spent.
At the time (Fall 2003) we were all very frustrated at the progress of the reconstruction. In fact, the institution of spending controls by CPA in Baghdad seemed an unnecessary aggravation. They required that the proposed projects be publicly posted and that at least three bids be received. One source of my aggravation was that some local Iraqi contractors, not fully understanding the bidding process (a radical concept in Iraq at the time) were losing out to more savvy contractors in Baghdad. The results of the spending requirements appeared to be having an effect contrary to our goals.
Why all the rules, why the bids? we asked. We need to put these people to work before they start shooting at us. Someone shooting at us was on our mind every time we left the compound. The fact that I wasn't getting shot at, but others in my area were, was small consolation to me. As the number of attacks progressively increased I knew that the danger was increasing. So the pressure to get the money spent, to put the Iraqis to work and show them that something in their miserable lives, however small, was improving, came not only from my sense of duty in seeing the mission succeed but from a personal sense of increasing danger to myself and my soldiers.
No system or process, however complex, will prevent misappropriation of funds if the persons responsible are unethical. The rules governing oversight of public corporations in the United States would fill volumes but the corporate officers at Enron were able to get around them. Something else in Iraq, I believe, was one source of the problem. Seeing $50,000 or $100,000 written on a ledger is quite different than seeing the cash, in stacks of wrapped $100 bills, stacked on a table before you.
And there were numerous opportunities to see large amounts of cash. One morning, for example, my lieutenant project officer mentioned that she had $60,000 in cash in her bag. To me this was an astounding amount of money, more cash by many orders of magnitude than I had ever seen or handled. I didn't ask to her to open her bag so that I could look because I sensed that that much money displayed in the open was an unnecessary temptation for the others in the room.
I suspect, but not do not know, that the amount of fraud in Hilla increased after I left in February 2004 for several reasons. First, people began rotating out and weren't replaced. Unfortunately, some of these people leaving were involved in the oversight process and therefore weren't there for the plotters to worry about. Secondly, as CPA saw the June deadline approach for the transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government, the CPA employees began to frantically spend money on as many projects as they could. They did not have enough people to properly supervise such a large number of contracts. They saw their ability to influence the course of events slipping away and they had to compress their objectives into a unmanageable period of time.
I wasn't ever worried that my lieutenant would steal any of the money. In fact, at the time, I remember feeling a sense of pride that we were doing such a good job of using this money for its intended purpose. Little did I know.
Little did I know. Should I have known? Should I have done something about this? If I had known then I would have done something to correct the matter. If I had suspected something then I would have investigated. I truly believe that. But I didn't know. I didn't even suspect. I had many jobs in Iraq but auditing the expenditures of CPA South Central was not one of them.
Does any of that make me feel any better? No. Stein, Bloom and Hopfengardner have tainted me. Forever. And there's not anything that I can do about it.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
The parallel between Katrina and Iraq
"It's been almost 17 months since Hurricane Katrina pounded coastal Mississippi and southeastern Louisiana, and about a year since Congress authorized the bulk of its rebuilding aid for the region... But review of the devastated region shows that rebuilding is in a deep stall."
- The Wall Street Journal
When I read the above quote in Saturday's WSJ I was immediately reminded of news media coverage of the rebuilding of Iraq and how Haliburton was screwing everything up. Here we have major problems in spending money to rebuild a devastated area in the United States. Imagine the difficulties in spending the same money under Congressional rules, oversight and "gotcha" media coverage in the middle of a combat zone.
In my civilian job I work for the Florida State Emergency Response Team, the best state team in the nation (we're not smarter than everyone else, we just have had more practice). The Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Craig Fugate, has said on many occasions that emergency responses can be performed cheaply, efficiently or quickly. You must pick one of these three choices to perform your response. In Florida we respond quickly, because that is what our citizens want. This type of response is neither cheap nor efficient.
In Iraq in 2003 we were also looking for a quick response to the problems we were encountering. We felt that people were dying because we weren't spending money fast enough but the federal bean counters showed up to slow us down and protect the taxpayers dollar. I remember, at the time (November 2003), asking myself: How in the hell are these Iraqi contractors going to figure out the U.S. federal bidding system? I mean, they were requesting bids like they wanted these contractors to build a Post Office in Tallahassee, Florida. It was insane.
I was ready to accept inefficiency in the allocation of contracts in order to gain speed. What I wasn't ready to accept, and what shocked me when I found out, is that some of my coworkers (some even Army officers) were stealing for their personal gain. Inefficiency - yes, stealing - no.
- The Wall Street Journal
When I read the above quote in Saturday's WSJ I was immediately reminded of news media coverage of the rebuilding of Iraq and how Haliburton was screwing everything up. Here we have major problems in spending money to rebuild a devastated area in the United States. Imagine the difficulties in spending the same money under Congressional rules, oversight and "gotcha" media coverage in the middle of a combat zone.
In my civilian job I work for the Florida State Emergency Response Team, the best state team in the nation (we're not smarter than everyone else, we just have had more practice). The Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Craig Fugate, has said on many occasions that emergency responses can be performed cheaply, efficiently or quickly. You must pick one of these three choices to perform your response. In Florida we respond quickly, because that is what our citizens want. This type of response is neither cheap nor efficient.
In Iraq in 2003 we were also looking for a quick response to the problems we were encountering. We felt that people were dying because we weren't spending money fast enough but the federal bean counters showed up to slow us down and protect the taxpayers dollar. I remember, at the time (November 2003), asking myself: How in the hell are these Iraqi contractors going to figure out the U.S. federal bidding system? I mean, they were requesting bids like they wanted these contractors to build a Post Office in Tallahassee, Florida. It was insane.
I was ready to accept inefficiency in the allocation of contracts in order to gain speed. What I wasn't ready to accept, and what shocked me when I found out, is that some of my coworkers (some even Army officers) were stealing for their personal gain. Inefficiency - yes, stealing - no.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
The new Iraq strategy
"[S]ome people, I just think have been partisan about this - and that, to me, is the worst reason of all."
- Senator Joe Lieberman, in the Wall Street Journal, when asked why some Senators are now prepared to vote against the President's Iraq policy
After almost four years of televised bombast, blood, and bombs from the Iraqi theater of operations the American people are understandably displeased with the progress of the war. The elections in November sent a clear signal to the Bush administration that a new Iraq strategy was needed. Since the election the President has responded with significant changes in policy and personnel.
His first act was the welcome, if belated, replacement of the Secretary of Defense. In my judgment, much of the blame for the existing situation in Iraq lies with the decisions of Secretary Rumsfeld and the President must bear responsibility for not removing him earlier.
Additional significant personnel changes include a new commander at Central Command, replacing General Abizaid, and the imminent departure of General Casey as commander of the forces in Iraq. To what extent that the military strategy for the last three years was imposed on them by Secretary Rumsfeld is unclear to me.
- Senator Joe Lieberman, in the Wall Street Journal, when asked why some Senators are now prepared to vote against the President's Iraq policy
After almost four years of televised bombast, blood, and bombs from the Iraqi theater of operations the American people are understandably displeased with the progress of the war. The elections in November sent a clear signal to the Bush administration that a new Iraq strategy was needed. Since the election the President has responded with significant changes in policy and personnel.
His first act was the welcome, if belated, replacement of the Secretary of Defense. In my judgment, much of the blame for the existing situation in Iraq lies with the decisions of Secretary Rumsfeld and the President must bear responsibility for not removing him earlier.
Additional significant personnel changes include a new commander at Central Command, replacing General Abizaid, and the imminent departure of General Casey as commander of the forces in Iraq. To what extent that the military strategy for the last three years was imposed on them by Secretary Rumsfeld is unclear to me.
In any event this strategy, the beginnings of which were being implemented when I left Iraq in early 2004, has not been successful. This overall strategy was for the U.S. to pull back and allow the Iraqis to take charge of their own security and most importantly, force them to achieve the level of political unity required to defeat the insurgency. For a variety of reasons, this strategy didn't work.
In January 2004 I returned to Iraq from home leave and flew into Baghdad from Kuwait. At that time the Palace in the Green Zone had established transient billets in an elaborately decorated room next to the main dining room. By chance I ran into the CPA Governate Coordinator from Babil province, a female State Department employee with whom I worked in Hilla. She was also returning from leave. We spent the night in the Palace and attended a senior leadership meeting there in the Green Zone the next day.
In attendance was Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, as well as Jeremy Greenstock, his British Deputy, and the Governate Coordinators for all the eighteen provinces in Iraq. Also in attendance was General Sanchez, the Commander of all the MultiNational forces in Iraq, and his Division Commanders. Bremer and Sanchez had begun these monthly meetings in November 2003 in an effort to improve the coordination between the military and CPA.
Major General Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, and Major General Petraeus, the commander of the 101st Airborne Division, were at the meeting. Both men, now Lieutenant Generals, will take over military command in Iraq, with Odierno serving as Petraeus' Deputy.
Ambassador Bremer has been roundly criticized for a number of his decisions in Iraq but this was my first opportunity to see him in action and he was very impressive. Sanchez attended the meeting but spoke very little since the main purpose of the meeting was to discuss political and not military strategy. I was a fly on the wall and listened, fascinated, as the room full of people used this opportunity to address their problems and concerns to Bremer.
Bremer listened to their comments and discussion for a hour and then, in a few short minutes, responded to each question and concern with clear, unequivocal guidance. I was amazed at how he was able to succinctly summarize the issues of the previous hour and spit back bullet point responses. A big point that was frequently brought up by the military commanders was the need to improve the economy so that the pool of young men could be occupied with employment and not be candidates for the insurgency. Bremer responded that economic development could not proceed until a secure environment had been created, and that creation of a secure environment was a military responsibility.
The change in strategy that the President announced last week was one from waiting on the Iraqis to one of creating a secure environment in Baghdad. This is a significant change in military strategy, the details of which are not relevant to my current argument. The President's political opposition has given the President little credit for his new strategy. For some of these individuals who are speaking out against the President, I agree with Sen. Lieberman's comment about their motivation.
The President does not believe that the American people voted for an immediate, or even rapid, withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. There are some who disagree with that statement. Fortunately, the President is in charge and not Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi. Fortunately, I have decided not to spend the next two years furious at Nancy and Harry, but it will be difficult.
The "New Yorker", my favorite liberal magazine, responded to the President's speech in typical New Yorker fashion this week with an article by Steve Coll that led off with the following sentence: "Watching George Bush's televised speech last week, when he revealed what he called 'the main elements' of his plan to rescue Iraq, was like watching a slightly nervous lieutenant colonel read PowerPoint slides." These gratuitous slights of the President, a running theme in the New Yorker since Bush began to run for office, imply that anyone who looks and sounds this goofy can't be saying anything serious.
Neither Nancy, nor Harry, nor the New Yorker are offering any solutions to the former or revised strategy in Iraq. All they are offering are vitriol, and malice and spite. Some people in this country are allowing their hatred of George Bush to interfere with the national security interests of this country. I will leave you to determine who these people might be.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
The Book TV bus
BookTV, a television program featured on CSPAN2 has been traveling around the country in a school bus converted into a rolling video studio decorated with the usual featured program advertisements. They have been in Florida for over a month and stopped by Tallahassee yesterday. They met up with the Tallahassee Writer's Association, of which I am a member.
We all got a tour of the bus and I go to do a short TV interview that may, or may not, be fetured on BookTV sometime in April. They were looking for authors of nonfiction books on topics of national interest, and after showing them my book, "Messages from Babylon", they wired me for sound and turned on the cameras. Whether my clip ever airs on CSPAN2 or not, it was a priviledge to get interviewed.
We all got a tour of the bus and I go to do a short TV interview that may, or may not, be fetured on BookTV sometime in April. They were looking for authors of nonfiction books on topics of national interest, and after showing them my book, "Messages from Babylon", they wired me for sound and turned on the cameras. Whether my clip ever airs on CSPAN2 or not, it was a priviledge to get interviewed.
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