It’s a scandal worthy of the Yes Men. Over the course of three years, this band of merry pranksters impersonated World Bank officials and told bemused audiences that Spain should outlaw the siesta, corporations should adopt "compassionate slavery" for workers in Africa, and fast food restaurants could solve the global hunger problem by serving a new hamburger made out of human waste.
In 1609, a terrible thing happened: not terrible in the manner that great wars are terrible but in the way that opening Pandora’s Box was terrible. King James I of England discovered that dividing people on the basis of religion worked like a charm, thus sentencing the Irish to almost four centuries of blood and pain.
Imagine a reconciliation process in Iraq that fails to include militias or Sunni and Shia hardliners? How about a reconciliation process in Afghanistan that sidelines violent Pashtos in the south? The chances of either process succeeding would be slim. In both cases, the excluded parties comprise a powerful majority and thus must be included for reconciliation to produce a lasting peace. Keep anyone out and they are bound to want in. That type of exclusion is exactly what is being proposed in Somalia. The country remains in turmoil following the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion in December that toppled the Islamic Courts Union. Ethiopian troops continue to fight resistance in the capital Mogadishu and elsewhere in the country. Yet, amid this violence, Somali leaders in the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) refuse to include the former Islamic leadership, along with other sectors of society, in forthcoming talks. This grave mistake is bound to instigate further violence, much like Mogadishu has witnessed in the last months as hundreds have died in clashes in the city. As long as the current Somali government continues to exclude parties that are more popular than the TFG, Ethiopia, and the United States combined, reconciliation will be a mere façade.
The state, according to classical liberals, is a problem. It meddles in the economy. It over-regulates. Through the tax system, it robs Peter to pay Paul. If only the state would get out of the way, these purists argue, then the invisible hand of the market would magically set things right. Equilibrium would reign, and the gross national happiness of the country would rise like the temperature on a warm, summer day.
Gamblers in Las Vegas frequently cling to the illusion that they can win. Some do. Most don’t. The casino owners—usually called "the House"—have rigged the system in their own favor. The flashing lights, free drinks, and oxygen-enriched air in the casino distract the gamblers from this elemental rule. Sure, you might hit 21, score big on Black, or finally get three cherries in a row. But over the long term, the House always wins and you always lose.
Liberals love a good war. There’s nothing like a bombing run or a missile attack to preempt the perennial criticism of liberals as weak on defense and national security. Take Truman and Korea, Kennedy and Cuba, Johnson and Vietnam, or Clinton and Kosovo. Wars demonstrate "spine" and "leadership" and all the qualities that tell the public that the liberal is no longer that spindly, bespectacled fellow on the beach getting sand kicked in his face.
This is how I wanted to see my self…
This is what I thought we would do in Iraq
That’s what I always thought we were about…
Barefoot, little kids… I remember that one
there… he couldn’t have been five years old
Just a damn little kid, you know?
Little, black, cracked, bare… Dust covered
feet.
Tiny little kid… Tough as hell. His brother
too.
The sand must’ve been 150 degrees, fuckin’
hotter than that! Everything was so damn
hot; the heat
Would come up through my boots like standing on a stove.
The kid had baby toes that were like coarse
callused black elephant leather. That kid
had the craziest rough ass skin
I gave the kid an M.R.E. and some other
food. A bunch of crap I was sick of eating…
Kids would stand on the roads every damn day asking for that crap.
There was nothing else… bleak dead dust
days, powdered sand-lands of nothing for
miles and miles.
There was nothing but an unattainable horizon
and a damn long ass road.
But the fucking little ass kids would come
out of nowhere…
Nothing around! Not a damn thing! But these
damn kids would just appear.
I thought we were going over to help these
damn kids that would come out of nothing and go back into it. Feed the hungry, help the
oppressed, give relief from day in day out
pain.
That is what I wanted to think I was there
for.
Barefoot, all day long
All they wanted was food from us…
Like damn kids on the 4th of July… we were a spectacle, a parade of crazy floats passing
out food.
But then we hit one you know… That was it!
It all changed
We were told not to stop… Don’t stop not in
the towns. Keep the truck moving and don’t
stop. Forget the kids!
Now, now I can’t forget the kids. Damn kid.
I’m not even there. Hundred thousand miles
away and its still in my fucking head.
Ah fuck ’em they were just a part of the damn landscape anyway.
Martin Espada is a poet and English professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He talks here with poet E. Ethelbert Miller.
Dennis Kucinich is a Democratic congressman from Ohio. He was one of only 14 Democrats to oppose the current Iraq supplemental bill, which sets a deadline for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The bill, the Iraq Accountability Act, did not, however, cut funding for the war. Here he speaks with Michael Shank about the reasons for his vote, his fears of an attack on Iran, his concerns about the future of the Democratic Party, and his faith that new American leadership will craft a different partnership with the world community.