The Daily Grasshopper

On Saturday, I turned 34. To celebrate, I went to Boston Common with approximately 25,000 of my friends and protested the U.S. government's ongoing invasion of Iraq. I held a very simple, if inelegant, sign, which captured my feelings about this entire mess succinctly: "What the Fuck?" Several people asked to take a picture of it.

This morning, I was in Boston Municipal Court for three hours, waiting for the wheels of justice to grind out a decision on my legal status. As some veteran "Grasshopper" readers will recall, I was arrested in early February for sitting in at U.S. Senator John Kerry's Boston office to protest his support for Bush's war. The original essay, "An Arresting Development," is here:

http://www.netway.com/~pkeaney/020503arrest.html

The assistant district attorney gamely offered us a continuation without a finding and 20 hours of community service - legally speaking, a slap on the wrist.

However, given the nature of the case (or, more accurately, the identity of the plaintiff), we concluded that we were in a position to do some bargaining. Our pro-bono lawyer, Lee Goldstein, told the D.A. we wanted to talk to Kerry's office about getting the charges dropped completely. My co-defendant, Matt Osborn, and I consider our action at Kerry's office to have been a form of community service, in that it raised awareness among the people of the Commonwealth that their "great liberal hope" (Kerry leads among Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination in some early polls) supports the war. So we don't really feel like picking up cigarette butts and soda cans on the side of the highway as penance. The D.A. was stunned. I'll keep you posted.

So that's where I've been for the past couple of days. I apologize for the interruption in service. Based on the news I've been reading, however, it seems there will be no shortage of things for us to contemplate, at least in the weeks and months to come. So, on to the news...

For starters, did I mention that I think this war is really about oil? You're probably not going to believe this, but the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army has named two of its forward operating bases in Iraq after the biggest American and British oil companies. This was reported in last Wednesday's New York Times, a story I originally skimmed over after reading the headline and intro ("Troops Endure Blowing Sands and Mud Rain," NYT, 3/26/03, p. A1). I figured, for some reason, that it was about the weather in Iraq. It was, for the most part, but it also contained this little tidbit of information, near the end of the story:

"By day, the soldiers from the 101st were kept busy reinforcing the camp they have set up here in central Iraq, primarily a base for the helicopter gunships flown by the division. The official name is Forward Operating Base Shell; another similar base is called Exxon. Although they are in remote areas of the country, a few snipers have been spotted around the perimeters, and there is concern about mortar fire. The soldiers bulldozed the sand into long berms, and dug bunkers as a refuge."

Is that incredible, or what? Not "Forward Operating Base Liberty," or "Forward Operating Base Apple Pie." Of course, I'm reminded of the confession of the Marine whose memoir of the first Gulf War I've written about a couple of times ("Jarhead"), and then it doesn't seem so crazy. He understood that he was fighting for "others who have billions of dollars to gain or lose in the oil fields" (http://www.netway.com/~pkeaney/030203umpire.html).

I chose to write about the alleged uprising in Basra the day the Times published the story about the bases (an uprising alleged, that is, by British intelligence sources - funny, I haven't heard anything more on that). Thanks to "Grasshopper" fan Paul M. for bringing this little vignette from "Operation Iraqi Fiefdom" to my attention. You can read the whole story here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/26/international/worldspecial/26STOR.html

And on Saturday, Oliver Burkeman wrote an article in the Guardian on the incredible brazenness of such a choice of names for forward operating bases. You can read his article, in which he tries to get an explanation on the names from the Pentagon (he failed), on the Common Dreams site:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0329-10.htm

"In a war where public perceptions are arguably as important as the military strategy, the US army appears to have handed a huge public relations victory to those who believe the conflict in Iraq is all about oil. The 101st Airborne Division has chosen to name two of its main outposts in the desert Forward Operating Base Exxon and Forward Operating Base Shell."

And while ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch/Shell will undoubtedly profit enormously from the U.S. occupation of Iraq, there will be human costs to absorb, and they're rising significantly. We're reminded of these costs by the picture on the front of the New York Times yesterday. The same exact photo ran on the cover of the Boston Sunday Globe. It's a photo of a U.S. Marine doctor sitting cross-legged with a blood-spattered Iraqi girl in his arms. According to the Times caption "her mother was killed by cross-fire on the front line near Rifa."

And the costs of this war will also be borne by U.S. soldiers. Not only the ones who die or are wounded in combat, but also the ones who pull the triggers that generate the cross-fire that kills mothers and orphans children in places like Rifa. The price those soldiers will pay can only be guessed at. All in all, a staggering toll has been rung up in just a short week and a half, and we are only beginning to taste what's in store.

Sunday's Times features a front-page article about the young American men and women fighting, dying, and killing in Iraq. It's entitled "Military Mirrors a Working-Class America." It tells a familiar tale:

"A survey of the American military's endlessly compiled and analyzed demographics paints a picture of a fighting force that is anything but a cross section of America. With minorities overrepresented and the wealthy and the underclass essentially absent, with political conservatism ascendant in the officer corps and Northeasterners fading from the ranks, America's 1.4 million-strong military seems to resemble the makeup of a two-year commuter or trade school outside Birmingham or Biloxi far more than that of a ghetto or barrio or four-year university in Boston."

You can read the whole story here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/30/international/worldspecial/30DEMO.html

Moving from the pieces on the board to the men whose job it is to move them around, there's an opinion piece called "Politics Shapes the Battlefield in Iraq" in the "Week in Review" section of the Times. It contains several interesting points, but I wanted to examine a single short paragraph, because it tells us a fair amount about the mindset that prevails among elite opinion-makers. The article is written by Steven Weisman, a Times columnist, who wrote this about Turkey's rejection of U.S. troops earlier this month:

"And the ground war has been hampered because Turkey did not accept its role as host of the northern front forces, again for political reasons. Its government was too weak in the face of antiwar feeling."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/30/weekinreview/30WEIS.html

You'll note two assumptions: 1) weaker countries (by definition, the rest of the world) have "roles," which they are advised to understand and "accept"; and 2) "weak" governments are those that bend to the popular will, in this case "antiwar feeling." By contrast, strong governments, like Britain, Spain, and Italy, support the U.S.-led invasion despite the vocal majorities in their respective countries that condemn it. And that's a "liberal" commentator.

Moving on to the right, Bush himself is as untroubled today as he ever was about the costs of this war. Elisabeth Bumiller's article in yesterday's Times, "President, No Matter Where, Keeps Battlefield Close," wraps up this way:

"Despite the stress, friends say that Mr. Bush is far less frustrated now than he was in the protracted period of prewar diplomacy that ultimately failed. But they said he is weighed down by reports of the dead and prisoners of war, particularly by Specialist Shoshana Johnson, the only woman among seven troops taken captive last week.

'That troubled him,' Mr. [Roland] Betts said. 'But is he thinking, Did I do the wrong thing? Not at all.'

Friends and advisers says that Mr. Bush has never expressed any doubt about his decision to go to war - a certitude that those closest to him say he has exhibited most of his life.

'The only time I've seen him second-guessing himself was when he said that we shouldn't have traded Sammy Sosa,' said Mr. Betts, referring to the days when he and Mr. Bush were owners of the Texas Rangers."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/30/international/worldspecial/30BUSH.html

Way back on March 4th, when this war was just a glimmer in Dick Cheney's eye, I wrote:

"I'll tell you who else has a right to be a little skeptical right now: the U.S. troops."

I was writing in reference to this quote from a Times article, which has since taken on enormous significance:

"While the issues surrounding basing troops in Turkey might seem to argue for a delay in military action, both White House and Pentagon officials say that President Bush is as determined as ever to move forward quickly, and is not likely to be distracted by either logistical or diplomatic obstacles."

http://www.netway.com/~pkeaney/030403jerks.html

The U.S. troops still have a right to be a little skeptical.

PK
http://www.dailygrasshopper.com