A Whole Different Class of People Here

I was flabbergasted when the the Congressional Research Service reported on May 17 that the Pentagon didn’t have a clue what the 108,000 contractors the Department of Defense (DOD) has in Afghanistan were actually doing--let alone how well they were doing it.

Fortunately, my Uncle Jimmy, who works at the Pentagon, was in for the weekend, and I got a chance to ask him about it.

“Jimmy,” I said, “is this true?  You guys really don't have any idea what these people are doing?”

He laughed.  “Take it easy, Ace,” he said.  “You know how you media guys blow things out of proportion.”

I felt better already.  “Great.  Could you put it in proportion for me?”  I glanced at my notes.  “According to the report, DOD spent $160 billion with contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq these past six years. That seems like a lot of money to go unaccounted for.”

“Not a bit,” he scoffed.  “We actually save money by eliminating oversight.  We have over 40,000 more contracted employees in the country than we do troops!  Do you know how many people it would take to actually keep track of over a hundred thousand contract employees and monitor their work?”  

“Gee, I don’t know,” I said.  “A thousand?”

“Guess again,” he said.  “More like ten to sixteen thousand.  So we’ve saved, off the top of my head, somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 to $20 billion by eliminating supervision.” 

“That’s a high-priced neighborhood,” I joked.  “But I’d think you’d be worried about theft and corruption and inefficiency and work going undone and people goofing off.  Things like that.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said, shocked.  “Ace, these are U.S. defense contractors you’re talking about.  They’re the biggest and the best.  If you can’t trust KBR, DynCorp, Fluor, Washington Group International, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and corporations like that to give you an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, who can you trust?”

I was silent for a minute, and he looked at me.  “I know that look, Ace.  You’re actually thinking.  What is it?” he asked.

“I was thinking about ‘corporate welfare,’ and just remembering those news stories back in the 70s when Ronald Reagan and Reader’s Digest hammered the welfare system and ‘welfare queens’” I told him.  “Cities and states have kept an eagle eye out for welfare fraud ever since.  You see governments zeroing in on welfare clients all the time.  Charlottesville cracked down on more than a dozen in April for taking money they allegedly weren’t entitled to.  Most of them were charged with siphoning off a thousand to four thousand dollars.”

“Defrauding the system.  That’s outrageous, isn’t it?” said Jimmy.  “But what’s your point?  I don’t see any connection.  We’re talking about a whole different class of people here.”

© Tony Russell, 2013

Shopping Bags Full of Money

Afghan president confirms he received tens of millions of dollars from the CIA in suitcases and sacks 'for access to Karzai's inner circle'       

      - Headline, The Daily Mail, 29 April 2013

Each year the Hur Chamber of Commerce confers its coveted “Golden Scissors Award” to that federal department or agency which has done the most to cut through government red tape.  The award is normally not conferred until December, but this year the Chamber judged that one agency has already distinguished itself so markedly that the outcome of the competition is no longer in doubt.

In announcing that the Central Intelligence Agency is the 2013 winner, Robert Spinner, the Chamber’s president, heaped praise upon the agency, calling it “a model for the entire federal government.”

“We in the business community have long decried government bureaucracy,” said Spinner, “but the CIA has shown that it is possible for government to transcend itself, working with the same ‘can do’ attitude that distinguishes private enterprise.  Our hats are off to them.”

The announcement comes less than a month after the New York Times revealed that for the last decade the CIA has handed out tens of millions of dollars to Afghan officials in monthly payments.  Wads of money were delivered in backpacks, suitcases, and plastic shopping bags.  

The cash--variously described as “payments,” “bribes,” and “assistance”--is apparently not subject to the oversight, restrictions, and accountability of official American aid.  

“That’s the beauty of it," said a CIA official.  “Nobody on our end asks what we do with the money they give us, and we don’t even count it when we’re packing the shopping bags.  The money all goes directly to President Karzai and whomever he wants to share it with, and he doesn’t have to account for it to anyone on that end either.”  It was this chain of creative shortcuts that drew special praise from the Chamber.  

Disgruntled Afghans who didn’t get their own shopping bags full of money complain that the payoffs have “fueled corruption and empowered warlords who may be linked to the Taliban as well as politicians with ties to the drug trade.”  

Equally bitter are American officials who didn’t get an opportunity to pass out money bags themselves.  They have gone so far as to charge that “the biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan has been the United States.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, however, described the bags of money as “multi-purpose assistance.”  

“It really hasn’t been that much money,” Karzai added.  “Most of it went to providing assistance to the wounded, the sick, and the disabled.”  He was unable to supply documentation for this assertion, of course, since he too has been cutting red tape.

A CIA spokesperson said that the agency stood ready, if asked, to provide training and technical support to the Department of Defense in developing streamlined financial disbursements of the sort for which his agency has just been recognized.  

“You have to remember,” he said, “that the cost of the war in Afghanistan--our CIA cash not included--runs about $60 billion a year.  The military’s expenditures make ours look like a drop in the ocean.”

Despite the popularity of the Chamber of Commerce choice, not everyone has been so positive about revelations of the CIA’s so-called “ghost money” payments.  One elderly county resident, claiming to remember “a time when the Constitution still meant something,” denounced the CIA ‘s actions as “yet another sign that in the Founders’ system of checks and balances, the checks have been replaced by cash.”

Full disclosure:  a former correspondent for the Hur Herald is said to be attempting to organize a march of the unemployed on CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.  Marchers will carry their own empty shopping bags to the headquarters, hoping to have them filled, while singing “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”

© Tony Russell, 2013

An Equal-Opportunity Peace Advocate

Writer’s note:   This column is a sequel to the November 8, 2010, column “War?  What War?” in which Uncle Whitt chastised Ace for his foolish claim that we were a nation at war.  Unfortunately for Ace, he fares no better this time around in an encounter with another neighbor.

*                     *                          *

I found a parking place with twenty minutes still left on it at the side of the courthouse, and hurried out front to catch the peace protestors.  With a little luck, I could finish up and get back to the car before it was time to put another dime in the meter.

Three people were standing on the sidewalk, holding hand-lettered signs and waving when a car happened to drive by.  I didn’t recognize a couple who appeared to be in their seventies, but my heart sank at the sight of the third one, who was all too familiar.  Ms. Carrie Higgins, my former third grade teacher, now a feisty octogenarian.  “How’re you doin’, Ms. Higgins?” I said.  “What’s your sign say?”

She turned, saw who I was, and held her sign up so I could see it.  “You can read it yourself by now, I expect,” she said.  

“Give Peace a Chance,” I read, and nodded.  “We got a news tip that you folks had some pretty controversial messages,” I told her.  “Guess it was accurate.  That’s certainly provocative.  What has the public reaction been to your sign?”

She considered.  “We’ve been coming out here almost every Thursday for nine years, Ace, so your tip is a trifle tardy.  But to answer your question, a lot of people wave at me as if I’m a distant cousin by this time.  Other people give me a thumbs-up or make the peace sign, which is encouraging.”

“How about negative reactions?”

She laughed.  “We get some of those too.  Once in a while somebody scowls and jerks his thumb down.  One gentleman raises his middle digit each week as he drives by.  Some people crank their windows down and yell for us to move to Iraq if we don’t like it here.”

“Why did you laugh?” I asked.

“I laugh because their reactions baffle me,” she said. “Really, now.  ‘Give Peace a Chance’?  How can that be objectionable?  Can you explain that to me?”  

“Well, it’s political, isn’t it?” I said.  

“I’ve often thought about what Colman McCarthy said about politics,” she answered.  “He said the true definition was ‘Who decides where the money goes.’  And in that sense, it’s certainly political.  Do these bitter, angry people really endorse killing women and children, destroying cities, diverting a trillion dollars away from health and education and employment and research and what all, and bringing home horribly wounded and mentally scarred sons and daughters as their return on their tax dollars?”

“I meant political parties,” I said.  “They’re probably Republicans, and you’re criticizing George Bush’s war.”

Ms. Higgins gave a ladylike sniff.  “The last time I looked, Ace, Barack Obama, a Democrat, was president.  Mr. Obama has increased the military budget every year he has been in office and has escalated the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  We are as opposed to his policies as we were to Mr. Bush’s.  I’m an equal-opportunity peace advocate.”

I glanced at my watch.  I still had about four minutes.

“Maybe they see your protest as unpatriotic,” I offered.  “If our country is at war, you should support the war.”

She gave me an appraising look, and I squirmed.  For a minute I was back in an old high-ceilinged classroom with an oiled wooden floor.  “If the war is unjust, am I obliged to back it anyway?” she asked.

“Uh, it’s our country  ....,” I began, and stopped.

“If the war is bankrupting the nation and robbing our children and grandchildren of their future, am I obliged to support it?”

“Well, Ms. Higgins ....”

“If the war is alienating millions of people overseas, turning them into our enemies, and making us less safe in the long run, am I obliged to support it?”

“Well, you know, uh ....”

“If I surrender any moral sense I have, and any critical thinking ability I have, I’m simply a slave of the state, not a free and responsible citizen,” she declared with some passion.  “Are you seriously suggesting that loving your country enough to try to persuade it to halt a disastrous war is unpatriotic?”

Actually I was, I guess.  But I stole a glance at my watch and breathed a quick sigh of relief.  “I wish I had more time to talk with you,” I told her, “but I think I’ve got enough for a story.  If I don’t leave now, I’m liable to get a parking ticket.”

“That’s a convenient excuse, Ace,” she sighed.  “I’m afraid you haven’t changed a great deal in forty years.  When are you going to grow up?”  And she pivoted and resumed waving her sign at cars as they drove past.

© Tony Russell, 2011

The Pentagon’s Good Samaritans

Sign on door of our granddaughter’s preschool this morning:  “In honor of Martin Luther King’s birthday, let us be kind to one another.”

* * * * * *

We were all sitting in the living room.  I was studying the sports page, Patty was reading the front section of the paper, and Kevin was doing his homework.  Patty gets fascinated by something she’s reading and just has to share it with you, so it was no surprise when she looked up and said, “Did you see this?  The general counsel for the Pentagon implied in a speech that Martin Luther King would have supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because ‘we live in a complicated world,’ and King would have recognized that ‘our Nation’s military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack.’”

“No, I didn’t see it.  It wasn’t on the sports page,”  I said.  “Who was the speaker?” 

She skimmed down the story.  “His name is Jeh Johnson.  (I don’t know how you pronounce J-E-H.)  He graduated from Martin Luther King’s college, Morehouse.  He was a classmate of Martin Luther King III, and says King’s son was his study partner in college and has been a friend of his for almost thirty-five years.”

“So he has some credentials to speak on the subject,” I said.  “What does he base his claim on?”

Patty said, “That’s the peculiar part.  Actually, he doesn’t make much of a case for it, after making such a big deal about how he’s a King family insider.  He says, ‘Today, at the Defense Department, how do we honor and respect Dr. King’s message and legacy and reconcile it with our mission?‘  Then all he does is talk about Dr. King’s use of the parable of the Good Samaritan to show why he was in Memphis helping striking sanitation workers.”

I didn’t know Kevin had been listening.  “I’m afraid you lost me there, Mom,” he said.  “What does that have to do with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?”

She frowned.  “Well, let me read what Johnson said:  

In 2011, I draw the parallel to our own servicemen and women, deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere, away from the comfort of conventional jobs, their families and their homes.  Those in today’s volunteer Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps have made the conscious decision to travel a dangerous road, and personally stop and administer aid to those who want peace, freedom and a better place in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in defense of the American people.  Every day our servicemen and women practice that “dangerous unselfishness” Dr. King preached on April 3, 1968.”  

I did a double take.  “So he’s saying that the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are comparable to the Good Samaritan?  That they’re only there because they’re ‘personally stopping and administering aid’ to the Afghani people?  And therefore King would have approved?”

Patty nodded.  “It’s right near the end of his speech,” she said.  “After all the buildup, that’s what it amounts to.  He doesn’t have any other argument for why King would have approved.  We’re Good Samaritans.”

“‘Personally stopping and administering aid’ somehow doesn’t square with  shooting people and bombing them and torturing them and sending unmanned drones to blow up houses with women and children in them, does it?” I mused.

“That argument is just garbage!” yelled Kevin, red faced.  “It ignores everything Dr. King ever said about nonviolence and loving your enemies and America’s role in the world.  I don’t care if Johnson is black and a Morehouse graduate and a friend of the King family, he still twisted the idea of being a Good Samaritan to justify fighting a war!  Johnson is just trying to attach Dr. King’s good name to a war he would actually have condemned even more strongly than he condemned the Vietnam War!”

“Whoa, calm down there, Kevin,” I said, reluctantly laying the sports section aside.  “You seem to feel pretty strongly about this.”

Kevin took a deep breath.  “Sorry I got so loud, Dad,” he said.  “It just makes me mad.”  He held up the book he’d been reading and a couple of sheets of paper he’d been taking notes on.  “This is my homework assignment,” he said, waving the papers.  “And this is a book of Dr. King’s speeches.  I’m writing a paper for history class on King’s use of nonviolence.  Anybody who spends any time at all reading King’s work can see that nonviolence and Christ’s command to love your enemies meant everything in the world to him.  Given all Mr. Johnson says about his connection with Morehouse and the civil rights movement and the King family, he can’t be that ignorant of King’s writing and thinking.  He deliberately betrayed King’s legacy to propagandize for the Pentagon!  It makes me sick!”

“You disagree with Mr. Johnson.  You don’t think Martin Luther King would have backed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I take it,” Patty said.

Kevin gave her a look.  “That’s what I said, Mom.”

“No,” she said, “that’s what you yelled.  But all you did was give your opinion, which happened to be different from Mr. Johnson’s.  Opinions are cheaper than pennies.  Can you back yours up?”

Kevin hesitated while he thought about it.  “I think so,” he said more quietly.  “I’ve just been taking notes from King’s speeches.  I haven’t laid my notes out for a debate or anything, but Dr. King was always developing an argument in his speeches anyway.  And they’re consistent from speech to speech, from year to year.”

“Let’s hear them then,” Patty said.

“Well, okay, just give me a minute,” said Kevin.  He began shuffling his papers and making checkmarks by some passages, while Patty and I went back to reading our sections of the paper.  

“Okay, I think I’m ready,” said Kevin after a while.  “These two quotes are from a 1957 sermon, Loving Your Enemies.”

Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody.  Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe.   And you do that by love.

“It’s pretty clear to me,” said Kevin, glancing up, “that going to war doesn’t ‘cut off the chain of hate and evil in the universe’ through love.  And he uses that idea of violence being a downward spiral over and over again.”  He went on to the second passage.

There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet.  Jesus discovered it centuries ago. Mahatma Gandhi of India discovered it a few years ago, but most men and most women never discover it.  For they believe in hitting for hitting; they believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; they believe in hating for hating; but Jesus comes to us and says, "This isn’t the way.”

“This is from later on in the same sermon,” said Kevin.  “The reference to Gandhi is important, because King learned a lot about dealing with political problems nonviolently from Gandhi.  He wasn’t just talking about person-to-person nonviolence, but about dealing with major conflicts within a society or between nations.  And when it comes to war, he believes that Jesus is telling us ‘This isn’t the way.’”

“You’re doing pretty well so far, Kevin,” said Patty. “Do you have more?”

“Sure,” said Kevin.  “If you weren’t positive that the quotations above were talking about nonviolent action as an alternative to war, these passages are from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1964.”

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

“And this.”

I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land.  "And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid."  

I was impressed.  “Those are really powerful passages,” I said.  And there’s no doubt what he was talking about.  What was that phrase again?  ‘Nonviolent redemptive goodwill’?”

“Right.  I’ll just read two more,” said Kevin, who was getting into it.  “These are from his 1967 speech Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam.” 

The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies.  It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat.  The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.

“You see how he contrasts freedom and democracy with violence and militarism there?” asked Kevin. 

Patty and I nodded.

“Listen to this last one,” he said.  “The final sentence is the famous one that gets quoted so often, but it seems to me a lot of its power comes from the sentences before it.”

This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love.  A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

We were silent.

I finally broke the silence.  “You know, I’ve never heard any of those things,” I said.  “All I remember ever hearing was clips from the I Have a Dream speech, year after year.”

“I see why you got so angry,” Patty said.  “You read them to us in chronological order, and if anything they became more firmly opposed to war and militarism, and more steadfast in calling for love as an essential element of freedom as time went on.  To pretend that he would have supported our current wars is...”  She groped for the right words.  “It’s repulsive.  It’s an abomination.  And it’s a common propaganda technique.  You don’t have to prove your point; you just have to make it look as if there’s a debate about whether something is true.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Kevin, curious.

“Because most people won’t research it,” answered Patty, “and a lot of people end up thinking you could legitimately argue it either way.  Anyone who reads Johnson’s speech carefully, and then reads some of King’s work, as you have, will quickly see that there’s no doubt that the Pentagon’s claim is sheer balderdash.  But how many people will take the time to do that? ”

“It’s just not right!” said Kevin, frustrated.  “What can we do about it?” 

Patty laughed.  “Good for you.  That’s King’s question, isn’t it?  You don’t just take the evil and take it and take it because you’re nonviolent.  You make sure your heart is right, and then you act.”

That sounded like my cue.  “Well, if we’re done,” I said, “I want to finish reading about the Patriots game.”  And I picked up my section of the paper.

© Tony Russell, 2011

"War? What War?"

             If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again 

be any war. 
                                - Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored
                                  graphic footage from the Gulf War

* * * *

“Ace!  Bob’s on the phone!” called Patty.

Bob didn’t waste any time.  “Ace!” he barked out.  “Get over to the courthouse right now.  There are half a dozen people down there carrying anti-war signs.  It’s the biggest peace protest here in years, and I want you to get some pictures and interview them before they get too cold and head home.”

“I’m on it, Chief,” I assured him, then grabbed my coat and headed out the door.

One of my neighbors, Uncle Whitt, was just walking past the house, dragging his rat terrier Roscoe, who--as usual--was doing his best to lift his leg at every tree, bush, hydrant, gate, and signpost they passed.

“Where are you running off to in such a big hurry, Ace?” he gasped, wheezing from the effort of dragging Roscoe every step around the block.

“There’s a big story down at the courthouse,” I said.  “An anti-war rally.”

He stopped.  “Anti- what?  An anti-war rally?  What war?” he demanded.

“The same war we’ve been in for the last nine years,” I told him, surprised.

“What the Sam Hill are you talking about?” he snapped, staring at me as if I had just claimed visitors in flying saucers had arrived from outer space.  “We’re not at war.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“I read the newspaper every day,” he said.  He must have thought I was trying to pull a fast one on him, and he was obviously getting hot.  “You get the same big city paper I do.  Have you seen any articles about a war?”

I had to stop and think about it.  “Now that you mention it,” I said, “I don’t remember seeing anything lately.  I don’t even know what I mean by ‘lately,’ though.”

“War is news,” he said belligerently.  “Big news. Listen, I’ve lived through World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, and I know what kind of press coverage they had.  There’s been nothing in the paper about a war.  Don’t you think a major newspaper would cover one of the biggest stories in the world if we were at war?”

“Sure, but...,” I began.

“In wartime, newspapers are filled with pictures of mothers whose homes have been destroyed or whose children have just been killed.  Soldiers carrying their wounded buddies.  Bleeding, bandaged soldiers being evacuated.  Human interest stuff that makes a war intimate and personal.  Have you seen any pictures like that?”

“Uh, no,” I said, “but....”

“We’re always hearing that the world is shrinking.  That this is ‘an age of instant communication.’  That ‘our lives now are intertwined with those of people on the other side of the globe.’  Have you been feeling communicated with by people we’re at war with on the other side of a shrunken planet?”

“No, I guess I haven’t, but....”

“If you’re at war, the war looms huge in a nation’s life.  People talk about it constantly.  It’s part of the fabric of everyday life while it lasts.  It’s part of your consciousness.  Do you hear people talking about a war?  Is a war part of your consciousness?”

That caught me off guard.  “Well, no, but....”

“We just had midterm elections,” he interrupted me.  “I did my civic duty.  I watched all five debates between the candidates for Congress from our district.   Nobody mentioned a war.  In five debates.  Not once.  Considering that the military eats up around half our federal budget, and wars cause huge casualties and hardships, don’t you think it would be hard for candidates to ignore a war?”

“Yes, but....”

“Don’t ‘yes, but’ me,” he said.  “Did you watch the debates?”

“I did, Uncle Whitt,” I said.

“Did you hear anybody mention a single word about a war?”

“Well, no,” I said, “but....”

“And the Republican candidate’s main claim was that he would cut taxes.  Just like all the other Republican candidates.  Wars aren’t cheap.  You don’t cut taxes in wartime.  You raise them to fund the damn war.  Even an idiot knows that. So it’s obvious we’re not at war.  Don’t you think his opponents would have jumped all over him if he tried to pull a stunt like cutting taxes when we’re fighting a war?”

“Uh, ....”

“If we were at war, wouldn’t the war be one of the major issues in the election?”

“You would think so, but....”

“And don’t you think there would be millions of protestors clogging the streets in DC and New York and LA if we were fighting a war they didn’t care for?”

“I suppose so,” I said, “but....”

“Do you see streets packed with demonstrators?” he challenged, as Roscoe began to fidget.

“No, no, but....”

“Do you see soldiers welcomed home with parades, given the keys to the city?  TV news covering soldiers’ returning from a combat zone, or soldiers’ bodies being flown home with their families receiving a flag and attending their burial?”

“Well, no, but....”

“Do you think our government is actually conducting an invisible war?” he demanded sarcastically.

“I know it sounds crazy, but....”

“Ace,” he said, “you were never the brightest candle on the cake.  But this takes the cake.  I don’t know how you came up with this tomfoolery, but somebody with delusions like yours needs to have his head checked out.”  And, giving Roscoe a jerk, he trotted off in a huff.  Roscoe--as usual--took a nip at my pants leg as he passed.

I stood there for a minute, feeling a little dizzy.  Then I turned around and walked back into the house.  “Patty,” I said, feeling idiotic, “this may sound odd, but I need to know.  Are we are at war now, or are we not?” 

© Tony Russell, 2010

Writer’s Note:  Just to be absolutely clear, this column in no way is intended to say or imply that there aren’t people in this country who care deeply about the war and try to stay informed about it, whether it is because they have a friend or family member in harm’s way, or because of the devastation and suffering the war is causing, or simply because they are sickened by what’s being done in our name.  The column’s intent is to show how successful our political leadership (and their corporate string-pullers) have been in muting media coverage of the war, eliminating it as a political issue, and erasing it from our public consciousness.