Thomas Friedman gets it right

While I’ve obviously become fatigued with political postings, I still fear that “they are trying to kill us.” Thomas Friedman got it right, I think, in yesterday’s NYT (the first paragraph resonating with the right and the second, I hope, with everybody):

Former President George W. Bush’s gut instinct that this region craved and needed democracy was always right. It should have and could have been pursued with much better planning and execution. This war has been extraordinarily painful and costly. But democracy was never going to have a virgin birth in a place like Iraq, which has never known any such thing.

Some argue that nothing that happens in Iraq will ever justify the costs. Historians will sort that out. Personally, at this stage, I only care about one thing: that the outcome in Iraq be positive enough and forward-looking enough that those who have actually paid the price — in lost loved ones or injured bodies, in broken homes or broken lives, be they Iraqis or Americans or Brits — see Iraq evolve into something that will enable them to say that whatever the cost, it has given freedom and decent government to people who had none.

The meaning of Fort Hood, if there is one

Eric Etheridge, writing for The Opinionator at NYT, has collected a batch of viewpoints on the meaning of Fort Hood. He quotes some who see Nidal Hasan's rampage as a signal of "an internal jihadi threat we're ill-equipped to thwart" and others who see the rampage as "just another meaningless moment of American lone-gunman violence".

Update: And here is Michael J.W. Stickings writing at HuffPo, quoting Andrew Sullivan, rejecting a choice between these two viewpoints and instead finding a path in the middle of the two.

Fort Hood

Why is it that a mere 120 miles away from Ft. Hood (or 70 miles when I was in Austin) I am able to carry a weapon, but our soldiers, while on base, are not? Is it remotely possible that the major would have done this (or at least had had the impact he did) knowing every one of his targets was actually armed.

I qualified for my permit and practiced at a huge range south of Killeen where many of the Ft. Hood soldiers trained and competed on their own time with their own weapons. The idea that they should not be able to carry while on base seems outrageous to me. OK, maybe if they've just come back from a tour there should be a time-out to worry about PTSD and all that, but as a general rule this seems nuts...in the virtual shadow of the Lubys that ended up the catalyst of my right to carry.

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

Muslim organizations condemning terror tactics

One of the rallying cries from those who would seek to stoke us-versus-them sentiments is that there is no condemnation by Muslim organizations of terror activities. In fact, the problem is that their messages of peace are simply not carried by the main stream press. From Amy Eilberg at the Strib:

She [Dr. Ingrid Mattson, leader of the Islamic Society of North America] was way ahead of me [by issuing a statement condemning the violent plot of the four thugs in NYC], and so were many other Muslim leaders. By the end of the day, I had received notice of several press releases, including from the Islamic Society of North America, Council on American-Islamic Relations, and Muslims for Progressive Values, a press conference planned jointly by Muslim and Jewish leaders in New York City, and multiple expressions of concern from friends and colleagues in the Muslim community in the Twin Cities. There were eloquent statements about the utter incompatibility of acts of violence with Islam, expressions of deep solidarity with the Jewish community, and prayers for the healing of the madness in our world that gives rise to violence.

Conflict sells papers; peace and solidarity do not.

Thoughts on the UK

Some general impressions regarding my recent trip to the UK:

* The British transportation system is awesome. From taxis, buses, underground, overground, and trains, you can get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time and it’s affordable. The only complaint that I had, as a tourist, is that on weekends and holidays, services are limited due to “planned engineering” and unless you are extremely familiar with the routes and stops, knowing the best, easiest and fastest way to navigate around these is a problem. Where you can get from point A to point B in a straightforward way during the week, on the weekends you have to go from A to C to D to B.

* English, and for that matter Scottish food, is horrible. C is rather adventurous when it comes to food, and even she stopped eating it after a day or 2. You never see a “British” restaurant, so I don’t even know where one would find that type of food. You do see ethic food of almost any country you can think of. We ate French, Italian, Chinese and Mexican (in Scotland no less) and the quality was awesome. Not overly expensive and the portion sizes were what I would call normal – not American-sized like we have here. Needless to say, the beer choices at pubs was incredible and they were extremely helpful in helping foreigners get the style of beer they wanted. They even had “extra cold” Guinness (which seems like an oxy-moron) which C said was very good.

* I love watching the BBC. There is something about the accent, the calm delivery and manner of the “presenters” that makes you believe they really KNOW what they are talking about. The coverage of the civil unrest in Thailand, the rescue of the American ship captain, the break-up of the Easter holiday plot (more on that) was so radically different than what we would have seen here. Maybe it’s the 24/7 news channels here (as far as I could tell, Britain does not have 24/7 channels – even CNN international isn’t) that make news so sensational. There always seems to be “breaking news” on CNN and Fox, but is it really news and is it really that important? Or is it because they have to fill 24/7 programming and to keep viewership, they “invent” breaking news?

* If one wants to see a truly international city, go to London. It was amazing to see and hear so many different languages and people. Not so many Americans – mostly Germans, Spanish, and Italians. And even those who were “British” (based on accents), most were not white Anglo-Saxon. The number of Asians and Indian/Pakistani speaking with British accents and obviously lived there was astounding. And to truly understand England's, and especially London’s, role in the global economy, we were told an interesting fact that I had never realized. London is the only major city that can handle banking transactions on the same business day from Asia to the US.

* As much as we here in the US are warned about terrorists, for most of us it’s not something that we truly have to worry about on a day-to-day basis. But in the UK, it is a very real and daily threat. If it’s not the IRA, it’s “home-grown” 2nd or 3rd generation Muslim extremists. And if they aren’t home-grown, it’s Pakistani’s on student visas. This is a HUGE problem. A terror plot based in Manchester was busted up a few days before Easter. All the folks rounded up were in Britain on student visas. There are numerous bogus universities that when you look at their websites, they show a “campus” with lecture halls, libraries and large number of courses. But they are actually store-fronts with a couple of rooms and courses in how to be a bouncer. But the authorities don’t have the time, or perhaps inclination, to run these all down. So all someone has to do is show a class schedule and proof of paying tuition and they get a visa. They get to Britain and disappear into the many ethic communities in most of the medium to major cities. The guys in this plot were in Manchester and surrounding cities and some of them worked as security guards at the Manchester airport or at shopping malls. Of course, their friends and landlords were shocked and couldn’t believe that these clean-cut students, who when not working or in class, spent all their time at the local mosque, could be involved in something like this.

* England was so green and lush, even in April. Gotta be all the rain they get.

* Nothing like watching a soccer match in a pub. And while soccer is their national sport, in Scotland it seemed like rugby was the sport of choice.

Guess that’s it – cheers mate!