The smart way out

Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to President Carter and respected foreign policy thinker, makes, for me, the first coherent and thoughtful argument for the advantages of an American pullout from Iraq.

The Smart Way Out of a Foolish War

It is nice to finally see someone make the argument, rather than just assert a partisan line as a reaction against an opposition policy, which is too often the way things are done in American politics and Washington, generally.

On Iran and Israel and Palestine (at the end of the article), I think Brzezinski is undeniably right and it is nice to see someone argue openly for the position he takes on Iran, of open negotiations.

On Iraq, I still think he's wrong.

It's a tough call, I know. Will leaving breed action on the part of Iraqi security forces and reduce dependency on American forces? Maybe. It's a tempting line of reasoning, I have to admit. It is essentially what liberals have been arguing since they've called for a pullout.

The problem is that they really don't know that. It's a policy position liberals have been taking in contrast to the Administration and they are bullshitting if they say that they know that Iraqis will step up to the plate and shed their dependency on American troops if Americans leave.

The truth is they don't know. They, just like everyone else in politics and too often in life, me especially, talk and write like they know more than they do. Pretty common in politics, really. I encourage everyone to note it and be skeptical of it in my own writing.

The likelihood is so uncertain on such a call, that when the stakes are this high, my call goes to the people doing the work, first and foremost, meaning both Iraqi security forces and the government responsible for them and American forces, both of whom, who, by and large, also disagree with Brzezinski's call, here. Brzezinski might be angling for a job with an Obama administration. But he seems to genuinely believe what he is arguing, here, enough, that I might give him the benefit of the doubt. It also might be somewhere in between as it, sadly, often is in politics (cynical reasoning is not new to Washington, as you may have noticed).

But the fact of the matter is that the people who do the security work that Zbigniew is commenting on, here, in a thoughtful Washington Post article, to be sure, but not security work that he does day-in-day-out as those Iraqi and American soldiers are doing there in Iraq, say that he is wrong. And I trust them better, is the truth. They are the only crew I really trust more wholeheartedly through this whole godforesaken mess. One of the reasons I just might join them after my stint here at Cap City, if that is feasible and my most reasonable path for my life, by my lights.

And it makes sense. When the Iraqis are ready to take over, they will say so. When the American forces think they are ready to take over, they will say so.

But magically wishing that they will stand on their own two feet, when they may not know everything they need to know or be reasonably prepared for everything they need to be reasonably prepared for to make that a reality in a very complicated and difficult security mission, is wishful thinking, I think, on Zbigniew's and most liberals thinking, frankly, that pretends far more certainty than they could actually ever have.

The truth is that most people do not really know what to do next. And liberals in Washington are often just as arrogant as the conservatives in Washington who started this goddamn war. Like those conservatives, they often have good intentions. But like those conservatives, those intentions often are not matched with better understanding or results. And like those conservatives, they are generally loathe to admit when they are wrong or have fucked up.

I have every reason to trust those American and Iraqi soldiers, on this one, and every reason to be skeptical of both Brzezinski and liberals who reason like this without accounting for the legitimately experienced and knowledgeable skepticism of those troops.

Zbigniew Brzezinski might not be a bad advisor to a candidate or President Obama, just as Joe Nye might not have been a bad advisor to a candidate Hillary Clinton.

But that doesn't mean they are right about a pullout.

And there is every reason to believe that those troops know better what they are talking about doing the work, day-in and day-out.

My colleagues have all kinds of reasoning I don't agree with. But I also know that, for the most part, they know what they're doing better than most people who write about, critique, and otherwise comment from the sidelines on our work. And I'm quite confident that the same is true, generally, among those troops in Iraq, as well.

Politicians play politics. That's the problem. They get too wrapped up in their bullshit and the bullshit that too often substitutes itself for substance in politics. That's the problem with power. It makes cowards and bullshitters out of all of us.

And that's why it's a safer bet to trust those who have less reason to bullshit and more commitment to getting the job done right. Those people are the American and Iraqi troops, by my lights.

But I do appreciate finally hearing on argument, on this question. Makes the discussion that much more reasonable to have someone take thinking about it seriously.

What drives me craziest about my job

We had a long day, today.

I teach at an alternative special education school for kids with serious behavior and mental health issues. The kids in our cluster tend to be more aggressive behavior problems. We have a lot of thugs and a lot of kids just seeing how much they can get away with. In special ed, we have all kinds of labels like "conduct-disordered" and "behavior-disordered". And the value of those terms is in understanding dysfunctional behavior, depersonalizing it, to some degree, and focussing on teaching better, more functional, behaviors and the academic skills that these kids miss out on because they fuck off their classes and have often done so for a very long time. So many of their reading, math, and other skills are extremely low. So low, that I am in awe of their capacity for bullshitting themselves that it doesn't matter, most days. But many kids act in exactly this way, sadly.

We do see a lot of progress. It's very, very, very slow. It's a job that requires the most patience I have ever had or seen in any job I have ever had or seen. Our cluster, in particular - we have some of the more misbehaving kids in the school - is a daily dose of hostility, aggression, nastiness, resistance to doing work, blowing off school and school work and otherwise wondering why the hell we do it, often.

But you do see enough progress that you know that you're making a difference. You just don't hear it very often from the kids and their parents. And the fact of the matter is that if these kids didn't have teachers to be patient with them, they would be in very, very deep shit in life. Most schools, generally, would have and already have kicked these kids out, at this point. This is very much a school of last resort for many of these kids. And, lucky for them, a school staffed with some of the most patient, decent, and, often, skilled, teachers I have ever worked with. I do believe that adults and kids rationalize kids' behaviors, too much, and look for explanations other than those that offer responsibility as a path towards something better. But, on the whole, these are some of the most decent people I've ever worked with.

The staff are the reason to work in a school like this. Even after experiencing far tougher school experiences than most teachers in most schools, they are less grizzled, less cynical, less mean-spirited, more decent, more patient, more genuinely concerned and compassionate, more skilled, and just more decent people to be around that other schools I've worked in.

Having said that, this job drives me crazy, most days. It drive me crazy because I care so much about these kids and what we're doing.

But it also drives me crazy because of all the bullshit.

I have come to the conclusion that most of the problems of the most serious poverty (and maybe of all poverty, in wealthier liberal democracies, like the United States, at some level) is often a function of people constantly bullshitting themselves and one another about why they are facing hardship.

The most serious bullshit I deal with with these kids, which may or may not be correlated with anyone's poverty - is the very stupid and foolish and wearing rationalization that school and education and intelligence doesn't matter.

There's a million different variations of it. School doesn't matter. I know people who don't have much education and have good lives. Smart people think they're better than me. There's school smarts and street smarts. Yada, yada, yada, fucking yada. A million different excuses for why I'm not taking school seriously and if that means that my life suffers as a function of that, there will always be someone to blame for my circumstance other than myself.

It gets wearing, most days.

And today was a particularly wearing version of it.

If I could pinpoint one reason why it is discouraging being a teacher, many days, this is it.

The very kids and people who need education and its benefits the most are, often and generally, the very people most resistant to owning up to that fact because it hurts their feelings and their egos and they would rather have both of those safely in tact than to face the truth that education matters enormously in life, both in terms of material well-being, but also, often, in terms of being a more decent, thoughtful, and well-rounded human being.

And the bigger lie is that when I fail in school, it is because others have failed me, which might be true, sometimes, and will always be true, at some level, no matter how good a job teachers and schools do, and because people who have failed in school and Americans do settle for a system of schooling that will always fail those aspirations as long as it is politicized more than being an open, more independent system where schools, teachers, and kids and parents can improve on their own merits rather than bullshitthing themselves through political or other reframing of their situations that is constantly trying to escape responsibility for their lives.

I know. I care about this job and this work far more than most kids or parents and probably a lot of teachers and administrators do. I know, because I work longer hours that most teachers and administrators. So why get all worked up about it?

I guess because I didn't come from much. And I wanted to make opportunities available that might not otherwise have been available had I or someone not offered them.

And because it's perfectly clear to me, now at the ripe old age of 34, that education clearly is the most important investment of time, energy, money or whatever that anyone will make in their lives. People will say different. But they're bullshitting themselves, generally.

Because education is the one most serious way to tell the difference between what's true, what's real, what matters, and what's bullshit. Education, when it comes down to it, is what is left over after the bullshit is skimmed away.

And what drives me craziest about this job is everyone bullshitting themselves, me, and one another about that one, central, clear-as-fuckin' day truth about the fuckin' world, no matter how much people try to talk and bullshit their way out of it.

And when kids and their parents can't come clean about that fact of life, then all of this feels like an enormous waste of time. I know that's not true, because I'm terribly concerned for most of these kids once they venture out into the world beyond school. They're in deep shit, as it is. They're in deeper shit if they pretend that all that learning, or the lack thereof, doesn't mean anything in their lives.

Down deep, no matter how much people pretend, they know it's bullshit. Education isn't everything. But it's a huge fuckin' doorway to most things.

What keeps me here and in teaching, for now, is that, like a parent - like a teacher - I know that it matters, even if the kids and even many of their parents don't, many days.

I'm glad I've done it, just to have the opportunity to contribute and to cut through the bullshit a little, in my own life and in the world, at large. I don't think I would have understood the world as well had I not done this work. Now I do.

And plenty more to learn where that came from.