Humbled

This is hands-down the most brilliant writing that I have read about the Iraq War, from military historian Frederick Kagan.

Congress and Iraq

Friends, Enemies, and Spoilers

Fighting to Win

And brilliant analysis of the tactics of the surge from another favorite military historian, John Keegan.

How will it work?

I am humbled, to say the least.

Love,
Ben

Cutting through the bullshit

Iraqi national Hoshyar Zebari pleads in today's lead Washington Post column:

Don't Abandon Us

Something that really cuts through all the bullshit.

Love,
Ben

Learning not to trust anyone but myself

I have learned a really important lesson after this experience at Eisenhower.

I don't trust anyone but myself, anymore. I don't expect loyalty or to be treated well by anyone except, perhaps, my spouse. I look after myself and have no interest in looking after others except insofar as it is a mutally supportive relationship.

I just don't trust anyone anymore.

I think that could be different. But not the way people are behaving, right now. And I have no interest, anymore, of putting myself in anyone else's hands, anymore, except for my own.

I completely understand why my Aunt Connie left teaching (an inner city school, no less) now. And why so many quality teachers leave the inner city for better pay and better school districts.

Because the truth is that helping others carries a significant burden, even for the most idealistic. It involves being bullied by do-gooders and by less noble folks, alike, who whine persistently about the poor state of their schools and their communities and, all the while, are often responsible for that poor state. I want no part of that, anymore, if people aren't willing to critically analyze their situation and engage in anything other than the aggressive, less thoughtful approaches which have gotten them in trouble in the first place. You want a dysfunctional community, I say, by all means. It's all yours. I just don't want to hear your whining when you refuse to change the very things that create your situation. It is very much like Palestine. If you want a better life, you will have to renounce the aggressive ways that have created your situation. If you refuse, you live with the consequences.

I have no interest in sacraficing myself for such causes anymore.

My future is completely open, at this point. I would like to teach and write, but I'm not wedded to it, at this point. My one, single, important criteria for my life is that I want a career and a life that I can feel good about and feel happy doing and perhaps contribute something to others. I have no interest in being a martyr anymore. And I have no interest in being bullied for the rest of my life, anymore. So anything that involves as little of that kind of treatment as possible.

But I feel no loyalty, anymore, to the cause of wealth inequities or inner city schools or poverty work as long as everyone involved refuses to face up to the very kind of self-centered, aggressive behavior that creates those conditions.

I don't trust anyone but myself anymore.

I know we can give up the more self-centered behavior that gets us into this mess. I also know that we will refuse as long as we refuse to face up to what shitheads we are.

All I know is that I won't be supporting shitheads, anymore, no matter what flavor they come in. And I know, at this point, that I can only trust myself while we pretend like this path is more noble than it is.

By the way: Notice how bullying renders you completely irrelevant to the people you bully? Yeah, and the crazy thing is that you didn't do any damn good.

And, at this point, I don't really give a shit either way about people who do this with me.

Or their causes.

Love,
Ben