Blogging

“Americans, who are you?”

by

I left the following comment at zenpundit :

Kabir says,

“I don’t touch ink or paper
This hand never grasped a pen
The greatness of four ages
Kabir tells with his mouth alone”

Tom Tom Club (Wordy Rappinghood) says,

“Words in paper, words in books
Words on TV, words for crooks
Words of comfort, words of peace
Words to make the fighting cease”

And Asia Times writes,

The channel broadcasts in Pashto language from 12 pm to 3 pm in the afternoon and 6 pm to 8 pm in the evening. The programs include jihadi taranay (jihadi motivational songs….

And drones the size of bees, some day

And mobiles crossing the Kush; they play

Tribal songs for jihadi alms, a call-to-arms

On 11/11 our cell phones say:

And Americans can talk endlessly about the importance of democracy, but they never thought to explain to the chiefs why they came back to Afghanistan. They arrived with suitcases full of cash to buy help but they never told the chiefs that they were there because the way al Qaeda attacked the US on 9/11 meant that many Americans couldn’t find so much as a fingernail of their massacred relatives to bury because the bodies were ground to dust.
.
Not to be able to bury one’s dead or even a piece of one’s dead — knowing THAT would have meant a great deal to the chiefs and those in their tribes. But the Americans never explained, never even cried, never showed emotion. THEY NEVER ACTED HUMAN; they never interacted with the Afghans in ways that are the same for all — not only all humans but all mammalian creatures. In other words, they displayed not a whit of common sense.
.
What do you talk about when you first sit down with a man whose life has been circumscribed by war and who knows nothing about you and your tribe? The answer is you tell me of your battles, I’ll tell you of mine and in this way we establish a commonality of experience.
.
You transform the rug or patch of sand you’re sitting on into the terrain of the battle, and you use sticks and stones or teacups as place markers for the troops to show how the battle was fought. In this way, you demonstrate that the battle is truly in your heart, that it means enough to you that you can bring it alive for another.
.
If you don’t show what’s in your heart, then you haven’t established a basis for developing a mutual understanding, so then there is no way to move off the dime. Only when you’ve demonstrated by your stories of war that your tribe also shed much blood for independence, can you move on to explaining stuff about government. You can explain that you were losing too many of your sons in battle so you devised a type of government that would help defend your freedoms and with less bloodshed. And so on.

– Pundita, “Americans, who are you?

Contra Pundita, I bet this has been done sporadically between some who are working together as NATO attempts to build an Afghan Army – one able to protect its borders and serve as an irritant to transnational groups in the region. Many stories have yet to be told….

Resolution for the Next 15 Months: Don’t Obsess

by

Elections get me obsessive.

The Internet — with its perpetual incoming tide of news and commentary — is my crack pipe.

But there are way too many important things going on in my world to waste a lot of energy and focus and time on an election I can do nothing to influence.

So, yeah, my plan is to read, and be aware, but don’t be obsessive.

Let’s see how I do.

It will be hard.

Walter Russell Mead

by

Mead has been on a roll lately. If you have not been reading his blog, start doing so.

Like anything long lasting, blogs have their ups and downs, their great streaks and their doldrums.

Right now Mead has the best blog going. He had a great series of longer pieces, then he recently started adding shorter, more “traditional” blog posts mixed in with the long ones.

Mead has all his well-established smarts and knowledge. But recently he seems to be possessed by the zeal of a convert. He has the sharp edge of someone who is sick of the lies and won’t tolerate them anymore. He will probably go to his grave claiming to be a liberal and a Democrat. But he has seen through it all, and he is brutal, as well as funny.

UPDATE: Wow. Cool. I just noticed I am on his blogroll. I swear, there is no corrupt bargain here.

UPDATE II: In case you have not read it in a while, please recall that Mr. Mead is the one who came up with the idea of Jacksonian America, which he first described in this article. This essay bears re-reading. It is a chapter in his excellent book Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. Another book by him which is very good is God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World, which is a big step toward the comprehensive history of the Anglosphere that Jim Bennett is going to write one of these days. Also, Mr. Mead’s capsule book reviews in Foreign Affairs are always good, and I have bought several books based on his recommendations and have not been let down.

Repose

by

I have so much I should be doing I keep clamping down so I don’t have a panic attack.

But, its Memorial Day and I am taking it easy. I have been going to read Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities for a long, long time. And I finally bought the highly praised recent translation last year. As a devotee of all things literary pertaining to the final years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (e.g. the three masterpieces: The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth, and The Snows of Yesteryear by Gregor von Rezzori and The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig), Musil is long overdue.

So, I managed to evade the rest of the family and get a few minutes on the front porch with Musil and a stiff glass of lime, ice, tonic water and Tanqueray gin — which was in the back of the cabinet and forgotten until a few days ago.

Chicken and grilled veggies up next.

God bless America.

Wretchard:

by

It is this single-minded pursuit of the irrelevant by the self-important that constitutes the greatest catastrophe of our time.

Of course, this week, the phrase “It’s not going to happen” clarified.

Jethro Gibbs’ laconic “Yah think.” (Foreign policy, domestic policy, life) works, too.

But the obvious may need saying – before it’s swamped by the irrelevant.