Post No. 192: Why Some are Concerned the Terrorists Might Win: “They Can’t be Bought and Don’t Seem to Mind Dying”

© 2014, the Institute for Applied Common Sense

This is a tad longer than my typical post of 750 words, but I feel that we Americans need a tongue-lashing, since we can’t whip one another since the Adrian Petersen muck-up. (This post is not only directed to my primary audience, college students, but to all citizens.)

My blog is about personal responsibility, choices, and making decisions. We didn’t like it when Jimmy Carter tried to “warn” us in 1979 during his speech which has been derisively referred to as the “Malaise Speech.” He described it as the greatest threat to American democracy. The truth be told, we Americans have become lazy and spoiled.

We do not like being inconvenienced or questioned. Our notion of personal freedom and pursuit of happiness may always outweigh what is needed to defeat the enemy we find embodied in the current group of terrorists, unless we have 9-11s of greater intensity and more frequency. The changes we had to make as a nation since 9-11 are relatively minor inconveniences.

In my view, Americans are the most spoiled people on the planet, and most of us still are not satisfied. It is why we seem to want our cake and eat it too, and have difficulty balancing competing interests so that they add up to a 100% course of behavior or conduct. Instead, we want 50 here, 60 there, and 20 in some other place. It’s one of the reasons why we are incapable, as a nation, of solving problems. Right now, we are a nation which wants the terrorists to go away, but at the same time, not engage in a war which might accomplish that goal.

The intransigence and polarization we are experiencing are not solely attributable to the current President. It is who WE have become as a people, and consistent with that notion, we decline to take responsibility for that as a people, especially on an individual level. Instead, we point the finger at easy targets. However, it is unfortunately what happens to humans who have grown accustomed to comfortable lifestyles and seen economic conditions improve for so long that they become “expectations” and “emotional entitlements,” pretty much through no effort on their individual parts, only to see things later fall apart.

When I traveled throughout Europe in the 1980s, my bags were regularly searched, the heels of my shoes torn apart, and I had to undergo extensive interrogations. Flights to certain cities (London to Athens and Cairo) were cancelled for extended periods. It was a royal pain in the ass; however, I was just a visitor. Just before I was scheduled to go to Cairo, the militia started storming the tourist hotels near Giza because they found out that they were going to have to serve 3 years instead of 2 years. I was in Europe very close to the time of the Leon Klinghoffer killing and the taking of the Achille Lauro in 1985. The people of Britain and Europe know what it is like to have bombs raining on your homes and exploding in your subways.

In the mean time, we’ve become a nation of dilettantes, yours truly included. Consider what Americans did to VOLUNTEER during WWI and WWII (real, practical, substantive, and tangible activities), and what they were willing to do without. (Tangentially, this summer I generated an incredible number of yellow squash and cucumbers from one plant each, and when I showed them to my 93 yr old Father with dementia, he said that he remembered people here growing Victory Gardens during WW II.)

While making a selfie or posting support on Twitter for our troops or revolutionaries in the Middle East may provide some personal satisfaction, pounding a keyboard is not going to be very effective against ISIS. Right now, you see very few people over the age of 30 voluntarily doing anything to aid in this fight.

Instead, we leave it up to others to handle, and sit comfortably in our homes ingesting an overwhelming diet of sitcoms. The constantly changing, theoretical, individual right to keep and bear arms, to protect us against our government’s activities, those with whom we disagree or feel are undeserving, and those who strike fear in our hearts simply when we encounter them, seem to outweigh those things that we could do to effectively make this a better, stronger, and more secure nation for our collective benefit. But we bitch about “someone else's” handling of the mess, which is a classic human mess, and not one really specific to our time.

And do you really believe that a legitimate, major, world power can function with a volunteer army?

These factors are also the same factors which, if we allow them to continue, will contribute to our decline as a world force. We’re dun fur if we do not think more comprehensively, and come to the realization that we are part of the global community, and that others have values dear to them which are different than our values. (Thus the subtitle of this post.) There is an argument to be made that we might rally a little bit during the next 20 – 30 years (and I sure hope so), but I’m afraid that we collectively do not care enough anymore. We’ve learned to dodge inconveniences.

Add that to the fact that we allowed Corporate America, although its conduct was legal in nature, to sell us out to China (who was our ideological enemy not that long ago) thus decimating our middle class and creating a massive security risk. We no longer even have the manufacturing capabilities to transition into making arms and supplies should we really get into a war like we did in WW II, not to mention a war with China. Furthermore, our internal infrastructure is so poor and in need of critical repairs, that if the enemy landed on our shores, we’d be hard put to mount a credible defense.

Having adequate, decent paying jobs here at home is what really matters. People need to have a sense of purpose, a feeling that they can provide for their loved ones, and a little self-esteem. The terrorists feel that they have something of value for which they are fighting. What are we fighting for? Another big screen TV, DVD recorder, jet-ski, ATV, or vacation home? Do those in poverty have the wherewithal and resources to fight the terrorists, or are they too distracted fighting for their mere survival? Jobs, also by the way, contribute to tax revenue which helps us all.

We need to come up with some new solutions for some historic human problems if we intend to continue as a legitimate world power.

Our inability to get anything done anymore is reflected in the way we wage battles against most everything these days – like a corporation making a cost-benefit, risk analysis, and only doing what it can on the cheap with the hope that it will accomplish its public relations goals in the short term, and that the guys at the helm will be gone when the long term negative consequences come back to haunt us. While I'm a technocrat at heart, and that might be just fine for corporate governance, in theory. However, it’s a bunch of crap when it comes to taking care of a nation of real, live people as opposed to financial investors.

Unfortunately, we are relegated to management by committee under our current governance model, and lack the ability to think about, and plan for, the long-term. Perhaps somewhat related, I recently heard someone on C-Span talk about Eisenhower’s concern regarding the threat posed by the Military – Industrial Complex. Apparently when the speech was first drafted, it read “Military – Industrial – Political Complex.”

A good buddy of mine has a quote attributed to Albert Einstein in his signature on all e-mails he sends out: "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Although I generally disagree with him about 98% of the poop he puts out there, he is spot on about this one.

Post No. 176a: Re-Posting of "Lest We Forget Who the Real Parties in Interest Are"

Today is Veteran's Day, formerly known as Armistice Day. Many may not be aware that the major fighting of World War I formally ended at the 11th hour, on the 11th day, during the 11th month of November in 1918.

We originally generated the following post two years ago during this same month. Earlier today on MSNBC's Morning Joe, journalist Lisa Ling, and documentary film maker Ken Burns discussed a new documentary exploring Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome experienced by our soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly after serving multiple tours. With two years behind us, we thought it appropriate to re-visit some the issues raised in our original piece.

Additionally, the History Channel is currently airing a series, Vietnam in HD. Although all of the Fellows of the Institute served in the military during the Vietnam Era Conflict, we are continually amazed about how little we knew and appreciated about "the whole situation" at the time. Should you decide to view the series, pay particular attention to the comments of our soldiers about who they were and what they endured, both in Vietnam and here at home.


© 2009 and 2011, the Institute for Applied Common Sense

“Mother, mother, there’s too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother, there’s far too many of you dying
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today, hey”


“Father, father, we don’t need to escalate
War is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today, hey”

-- Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, recorded June 1, 1970

The History Channel recently aired a documentary about the Woodstock Festival held on August 15 – 18, 1969, originally billed as “An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace and Music.”

The anti-war sentiment in this country concerning Vietnam was at a fever pitch.

A significant portion of the population was affected in some manner by our involvement in that “conflict.”

College campuses served as battlegrounds and stages on many levels. Whether due to the draft, the protests, the status of ROTC units, or the interrupted lives, every college student was affected in some way.

And so were their relatives, and neighbors, and church members, and co-workers, and friends….

However, on college campuses today, there is far less concern about our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, one way or the other. (Some would suggest that is the way it should be; like a building super, when things are going well and he is doing the dirty work, one never sees him, nor has the need to contact him - personally.)

Plus, there is little concern about having one’s education interrupted to visit a foreign land.

My, how times have changed.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a noted presidential historian who appears regularly on TV. Earlier this week, she and her twenty-something son, Joey, spoke with Charlie Rose, about Joey’s two tours, one in Afghanistan, and one in Iraq.

Fortunately, he returned in one piece and was remarkably philosophical about the experience. As for his Mom, it was clear that she breathed one massive sigh of relief upon his return.

All of us living during WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, knew someone personally affected. Now, primarily because of our volunteer military and the use of sophisticated technological weapons, we have transitioned to a place where relatively few of us personally know someone involved, or even personally affected, for that matter.

And that may not be a good thing, no matter where one stands on the wars.

While in a grocery store recently, we observed a very sharp, well-groomed young man speaking to a customer. His name tag revealed that he was the Store Manager.

We inquired as to how long he had been with the chain, to which he responded a surprising 7 months. He laughed and explained that he had previously been with the chain for a number of years, and that he had over 15 years of retail experience.

He also mentioned that he had served in Iraq.

But he was a stranger in a grocery store with whom a random conversation was held.

And although a human being, not a parent, or a child, or a neighbor, or a church member, or a co-worker, or a personal friend of ours.

My, how things have changed. What should concern us all are the consequences associated with this change or multiple changes.

Our nation’s involvement in the Vietnam conflict profoundly influenced the worldview of millions of American college students for almost two decades.

One obvious change is in America’s view of the military. During Vietnam, returning soldiers were frequently held in contempt, as if they were responsible for the conflict. A frightening number of them found themselves on the streets.

Today, we view the returning troops as akin to heroes, having purportedly protected us from another terrorist attack on our home soil. Interestingly, very few of them, thus far, appear to have wound up on the streets – at least not yet.

That we as a society have not fully examined, with any degree of real seriousness, the long-term ramifications of placing the burden of this battle, whether justified or not, on so few shoulders and so unevenly distributed, should cause us to pause.

When things get personal, issues take on a whole different complexion and complexity. When it’s some other guy’s issue, who we really don’t know, it’s far easier for us to ….

Is there any lesson to be learned from Vietnam? Kearns Goodwin suggests there may be. If a pullout is dramatic, it may signal weakness and be perceived as a loss of the investment of the lives lost thus far. If an increase in resources and equipment is dramatic, more lives will be expended and the definition of success will become murkier.

What Kearns Goodwin regards as potentially problematic is the route taken by then President Lyndon Johnson - the intermediate approach.

Our fear is that without that personal connection, neither side will be prompted to make the real difficult decisions.

With a volunteer fighting force, it is even more important to constantly remind ourselves who the real players are.

Post No. 146c: Article of Interest: In Bold Move, Taliban Order Stoning Deaths

We have often noted that, "There are more than 2 or 3 ways to view any issue; there are at least 27 TM."

The following article appeared in the August 16, 2010 electronic edition of the New York Times. We would be curious as to your take on the order and whether those of us in the US should say or do anything? Do we have a dog in the fight?

Interestingly, the Taliban provide many social infrastructure functions in many societies which their local governments or even outside international agencies do not. Should the purported "good" they provide outweigh the purported "bad?"

The New York Times

by Rod Nordland

KABUL, Afghanistan - The Taliban on Sunday ordered their first public executions by stoning since their fall from power nine years ago, killing a young couple who had eloped....

To view the remainder of the article, click here.

Post No. 33: Are You Curious About What's Been Going on with the Iraqi Oil?

Article of Interest of Interest from the August 6, 2008 Edition of the New York Times

August 6, 2008

As Iraq Surplus Rises, Little Goes Into Rebuilding

By JAMES GLANZ and CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

Soaring oil prices will leave the Iraqi government with a cumulative budget surplus of as much as $79 billion by year’s end, according to an American federal oversight agency. But Iraq has spent only a minute fraction of that on reconstruction costs, which are now largely borne by the United States.

The unspent windfall, which covers surpluses from oil sales since 2005, appears likely to reinforce growing debate about the approximately $48 billion in American taxpayer money devoted to rebuilding Iraq since the American-led invasion.

In one comparison, the United States has spent $23.2 billion in the critical areas of security, oil, electricity and water since the 2003 invasion, the report said. But from 2005 through April 2008, Iraq has spent just $3.9 billion on similar services.

Over all, the report from the Government Accountability Office estimates, Iraqi oil revenue from 2005 through the end of this year will amount to at least $156 billion. And in an odd financial twist, a large amount of the surplus money is sitting in an American bank in New York — nearly $10 billion at the end of 2007, with more expected this year, when the accountability office estimates a skyrocketing surplus.

The report was requested by two senior senators, Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, and John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, and on Tuesday they were quick to express strong dissatisfaction over the contrast between American spending on reconstruction and the weak record of spending by Iraq itself.

“The Iraqi government now has tens of billions of dollars at its disposal to fund large-scale reconstruction projects,” Mr. Levin, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a joint statement with Mr. Warner. “It is inexcusable for U.S. taxpayers to continue to foot the bill for projects the Iraqis are fully capable of funding themselves. We should not be paying for Iraqi projects, while Iraqi oil revenues continue to pile up in the bank.”

From the beginning of the conflict, American officials assured taxpayers and the world that Iraq would use oil money to pay for reconstruction. But that has not happened. Several senior Iraqi officials were either traveling on Tuesday or declined to comment, saying they were not familiar with the report.

Sinan al-Shabibi, governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, which the report said was holding $5.7 billion of the surplus at the end of 2007, said that while he could not speak for the government, problems with spending money often had to do with continuing security problems and a shortage of expertise in Iraqi ministries.

“Yes, there are problems, but that does not mean those problems are going to continue,” Mr. Shabibi said. “In all developing countries you put objectives, and sometimes you don’t reach them.”

“But,” he said, referring to the government, “they are determined to spend this money on development. They see it as a priority.”

Senators Levin and Warner pointed out that in 2007, for example, Iraq actually spent only 28 percent of its $12 billion reconstruction budget, according to the accountability office. But even that number could overstate the success rate in most of Iraq, because $2 billion of the spending took place in the relatively peaceful confines of the northern Kurdish region.

And in another troubling sign, the report said that from 2005 to 2007, Iraq devoted only 1 percent of the operating expenses in its budget to maintaining reconstruction projects that had been built with either American or Iraqi money. That finding raised fresh questions over whether the huge investment in some of those projects would have any long-term impact.

Like so many statistical measures from Iraq, the ones in the new report are likely to be used to support opposite positions on how much the United States should continue spending and how long it should stay in the country, said Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington.

The figures could be used to argue that because the Iraqi ministries still do not have the capacity to spend their own money, further assistance from the United States is called for, Ms. Alexander said. Or the huge oil revenues could be seen as proof that Iraq has the resources to solve its own problems if it would only use the money.

But one finding that is sure to raise questions all around is the enormous pileup of cash in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as well as several Iraqi banks, Ms. Alexander said. The money in New York is a legacy of a system set up to handle Iraqi oil revenues when the country had no capacity to do so on its own.

The purpose of the money was to rebuild Iraq, not draw interest in a bank, Ms. Alexander said. “I don’t know what function that serves right now. In my mind it raises another set of questions which is, ‘Who’s minding the store?’ ” she said.

“There may have been people who said this is going to be harder than you think, this is going to take a long time, but nobody said what we should do is collect a lot of money and let it sit there,” Ms. Alexander said.

The deposit at the Federal Reserve Bank is so large that the United States has been obliged to make $435.6 million in interest payments to Iraq through the end of last year, according to the new report.

The overall estimates of Iraqi surpluses will come down somewhat if the Iraqi Parliament passes stalled legislation that includes a $22 billion supplemental budget for 2008. As of Tuesday, that bill had not been passed, since it is mired in wider negotiations over provincial elections.

Some of the Iraqi spending figures cited in the report were also a matter of dispute in the past, with the Iraqi government and American officials in Baghdad claiming that Iraq had consistently spent more money than the accountability office had given it credit for.

But the office said evidence for higher spending was based mainly on so-called special reports prepared by the Iraqi Finance Ministry — reports that use vague budgetary terms and unclear source material and contain columns and rows that do not add up properly.

Joseph A. Christoff, director of the international affairs and trade team at the accountability office, said it was fair to say that a shortage of qualified officials in Iraq had diminished the capacity of central ministries to write contracts and carry out rebuilding.

But he said it was also true that with so much American assistance available, the Iraqi government may not have felt much urgency to increase that capacity and spend its own money.

“I think some people would contend that because we have continued to make a sizable investment, there hasn’t been a proper incentive until now for the Iraqi government to make its own investment,” Mr. Christoff said.

Reached late on Tuesday in Baghdad, the Iraqi planning minister, Ali Baban, defended his country’s commitment to spending Iraqi money on reconstruction, saying that the government was pushing as hard as it could to complete projects.

“I admit that there is some delay in spending the money on the projects in the provinces and in the ministries,” Mr. Baban said. “We have problems in this issue because there are lots of obstacles we face, because of the situation that we’re going through. We’re trying to deal with that, we’re trying to improve things, but you know the situation in Iraq.”

James Glanz reported from New York, and Campbell Robertson from Baghdad.

Post No. 1: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ECYCLED (Is America Properly Using Its Human Capital?)

I was just thinking the other day, in light of some recent events in the news, about the importance of recycling in our lives. Due to increasing concern over the state of the environment, and advances in technology, we as a nation now spend 974 googodzillion dollars on recycling things.

As with many writers, I hesitated even starting this piece, because I was too lazy to perform the necessary research and acquire the supportive data. However, I was able to locate one bit of information that highlights the significance that recycling has taken on in our society. According to a 2007 report prepared by the Institute for Applied Common Sense, in conjunction with the Strand Corporation, the average American adult now spends roughly sixteen of his or her waking hours recycling things.

When I first came across this statistic in a recycling trade association publication, it forced me to think about all of the things that folks recycle these days. I thought about aluminum cans, plastic bags, paper bags, and even spoiled food (to generate compost). I once saw a show on the large number of sets, equipment, and props left on a California beach during the 1930’s or 1940’s after the completion of the filming of a classic, blockbuster film.

During the show, aired during the late 1990’s, the narrator walked us along the beach and pointed out some relics of that film production. That, of course, would not happen today, if for no other reason than the fact that the bean counters in the corporations that run the entertainment media would consider such a disposal as wasteful. Hollywood’s past waste also reminded me of a relatively recent initiative on the part of the United States Defense Department. In a similar vein, the military has recently embraced recycling, at least to some extent.

During the mid -1990’s, my firm served as an outside vendor for one of the largest retail corporations in existence during the 20th Century. My partner and I had the pleasure to meet a retired U.S. Army General, who had been brought on by our client, to address some of the corporation’s distribution, supply, and inventory issues. The general was none other than the general responsible for getting all of our military equipment and personnel into the Middle East, in preparation for the Gulf War, which forced Sadaam Hussein out of Kuwait.

He made one comment that has stuck in my mind since our conversation. He indicated that during virtually all prior foreign wars, the United States military had left behind its heavy equipment and facilities used by our fighting men and women. The Gulf War would be different. The general was not only responsible for retrieving our equipment for re-use, but also getting it back to the States or delivered to other military installations throughout the world, within six months.

Here recently, we’ve heard all sorts of comments by talking heads about our “once great nation,” which is purportedly “on the decline.” Unfortunately, the discussions are usually focused on individual issues about which reasonable people may differ, and thus they blur the real issue. I would agree that something has changed in our mood and our confidence. I would also agree that we appear to be bumbling and stumbling in many areas. However, I believe that the heads who are the closest to hitting the target are the ones that speak of our government’s failure to ask Americans to make a uniform sacrifice in our amorphous war against terrorism.

What made America great in the past was our ability to look beyond our personal, political, and sectarian differences. We used our collective resources, both human and material, in a coordinated effort to achieve a significant goal, or two or three relatively clearly defined goals. Simply put, the vast, vast, vast majority of the country bought into the program, or at least reached some consensus.

We as humans have long understood that any collection of human beings, be it a family, a team, an army, or a nation, functions at its highest level when the members all appreciate the goals, buy into the goals, and execute on a collective level. That’s what made America great – the collective effort. In his overlooked work, The Disuniting of America, (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n9_v44/ai_12122328), legendary Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761556940/Schlesinger_Arthur_Meier_Jr_.html) wrote of how the pursuit of individual self-interests by special interest groups has led to America’s inability to unify its efforts. He wrote of the continuing disintegration of our society driven by the pursuit of individual goals, not collective goals. (Interestingly, America’s response, at least on an emotional level, to our effort to push Sadaam out of Kuwait in the first Gulf War, was cited as an aberration and example of the power of the collective will.)

I vaguely recall a song some thirty or so years ago, the title and words I seem incapable locating these days. It spoke of our disposable society, and “plastic skates, cardboard plates, and wigs instead of hair.” Disillusionment and disaffection – that’s what hurting our country, and contributing to widespread malaise and apathy. If you’re fortunate enough to be doing well in America at this point in time, then things look rosy to you. However, many of the human resources, in which we have theoretically made an investment, are being tossed aside on a regular and blatant basis. Far too many folks (particularly those born in this country as were their parents) make personal investments in America and become disappointed. That’s not to say that we should coddle everyone. However, we’ve figured out how to invest in things, be they made of plastic, rubber, steel, aluminum, or wood, and then recycle them. For some reason, we haven’t figured out how to do that with human beings.

What is particularly poignant about this notion is that we just went through an “unsettling” period with the Michael Vick dog-fighting thing. I consider myself a reasonably astute guy; however, I still to this day can’t quite figure out why we humans don't get as upset about what we regularly do to other humans. This is not to suggest that I dislike dogs, or fail to appreciate the concept of protecting animals from cruelty. However, what was the real issue? We discard (or should I say “toss aside”) humans every day in one form or another.

Here recently, CNN (http://www.cnn.com/) aired one of its Special Investigation episodes, entitled “Waging War on the V.A.” When I saw the trailer for the then upcoming piece, I was immediately drawn to the picture of a human being whose face and head were unrecognizable as those of a human. It was the story of Ty Ziegel, a young soldier sent to Iraq to fight, and who was severely injured by an explosive device. Shortly thereafter, he held up a cast of his head, with a massive section of the skull removed (which made me gasp), only to indicate that the cast reflected the extent of the damage to his skull. His face appeared as a collage of skin grafts more closely resembling paper mache, than human skin. When the show aired, the bombshell exploded – our V. A. had “dissed” him by rating him at partial disability levels for many of his injuries, resulting in a total monthly disability check in the neighborhood of $2,700; not the check in the neighborhood of $4,000 that he and his significant other expected.

After watching the show for twenty minutes, I simply turned it off. I could not watch any more of it. I walked away and switched to a sitcom. Then it hit me – that’s what most of America has done to these young men and women who have given their lives on behalf of “freedom and democracy,” at the request of our government. They’ve done everything, and more, that we have asked of them. It also reminded me of a movie that debuted in 1946, “The Best Years of Our Lives,” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036868 ) which chronicled the difficulties encountered by three servicemen returning to the same small, mid-western town, after their valiant service during World War II. In 1947, it won Academy Awards in eight categories, including Best Picture, Best Leading Actor (Fredric March), and Best Director (William Wyler). It must have struck a chord.

The difference now is that the average one of us is not personally and directly affected by the impact of this sacrifice that we ask these boys and girls to make. We have a small, volunteer army, and the vast majority of Americans are not invested. I tell you what we could do. Our government spends thousands of dollars training soldiers to be leaders and to deal with difficult situations – the most difficult.

After they get a little banged up and are no longer of use to our military, and return to the States, we seemingly do not know what to do with them. How about reinvesting in them, and recycling them. The task should begin with the re-training of returning officers and high-level non-commissioned officers. Can you imagine anyone more committed to the success of an enterprise than a guy or a gal willing to take a bullet or an explosive device. The captains of American industry should lead the way.

If we can recycle things, and get so worked up about dogs, we ought to at least be able to figure out a way to get a better return on our investment in human beings. Who knows, perhaps knowing “who threw the dogs out” will have some positive influence on America in the days to come. Now I’m through.

© 2007, The Institute for Applied Common Sense