The Horror of the Israeli Palestinian Conflict

 

Like everyone else, I watched in horror as events unfolded in Israel and Gaza. As a veteran of multiple tours in Baghdad, Iraq, I know firsthand the frightening chaos of armed conflict and the visceral anguish of the resultant aftermath. Once, we came upon a mound of fresh corpses; Suni men and boys gunned down by Shia extremists. Their sole fault was living in a neighborhood primarily peopled by Shia. I’ll never forget the coppery stench of freshly spilled blood or the wailing of wives, and other kin, as they policed up the mortal remains of loved ones. We must never forget that all the political posturing and nationalistic chest-thumping results in very real death and anguish, in this case for thousands.

The Hamas terrorists that carried out this attack, the behind-the-scenes planners and financiers who conceived of and funded it, and the long-term short-sighted Israeli political policies that stirred up such hatred all bear some share of the blame. Force will not solve this problem. Neither will trying to get back to whose fault it really is. Too much blood has been shed over the centuries for a profitable reassignment of guilt. Each side must come together to build a new order that eschews violence as a means to bring about political and cultural change. They must learn to live alongside each other in peace. I’m reminded of a passage in Ezekiel 47.

22 You are to allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the foreigners residing among you and who have children. You are to consider them as native-born Israelites; along with you they are to be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. 23 In whatever tribe a foreigner resides, there you are to give them their inheritance,” declares the Sovereign Lord. Ezekiel 47:22 English Standard Version

Ezekiel, speaking for the Lord, gave instructions on how to reenter the Promised Land. While the Jews were in captivity, foreigners came and settled in the land. God wanted Israel to treat them as native-born Israelites, with the same rights and privileges. In many other places He, the Lord, reminds Israel to treat the sojourner well. For example, “You shall have the same rule for the sojourner and for the native, for I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 24:22 

Somehow, these two warring parties must come together, setting aside their differences, and forgetting past abuses to build a future together. Penning in hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the squalor that is the Gaza Strip serves only to strengthen hatred and spawn violence. Attacks that leave over a thousand Israeli civilians lying dead in the streets and venues of their cities does not forward the cause of peace. The Israeli government has the right, indeed the responsibility, to secure its citizenry; however, indiscriminate shelling and bombing only adds fuel an already blazing inferno. Somehow, leaders on both sides must step back from the chasm and start rebuilding already threadbare trust. 

What does this look like? I’m not sure. I do know that you cannot treat each other with so much hatred and build a meaningful peace. For a start, any political scheme that supports the warehousing of Palestinians in such degrading conditions or denies Israel the right to exist as a nation must be discarded. The injured parties, and they are legion, must learn to salve their pain through the building of a just equitable society and not retribution. Perhaps, that is the toughest part. So much blood has been spilt over the years, so many wrongs by both sides accumulated, that asking for the aggrieved to extend forgiveness and forebear furth reprisals seems shallow; however, to build an enduring, just, peace requires great sacrifice by all parties. Those of us who enjoy the safety of home and hearth should avoid joining in rabble-rousing for either side. There is enough radical and reactionary rhetoric from the wounded parties. We must not join in censorious practices that only discourage meaningful conversation but also aid those forces calling for violence. We cannot condone the slaughter of innocents by either party, but we must encourage listening and support rebuilding, physically and emotionally. We must take up the role of healing and binding up the wounded on both sides. The carnage must stop. 

Political Maturity

 Political Maturity

Bemused, I watched as our congress went through another paroxysm on the way to some semblance of budgetary progress. Hobbled by a handful of extreme conservative Members of the House, Speaker McCarthy struggled to develop a proposal that reflected reality and had some hope of wending its way through the congressional maze past extreme members of his and the opposition party. And that’s the true problem he, and by extension the rest of us, face. When he managed to work up a compromise and secure short-term budget relief, reactionaries from his own party turned on him, historically ousting their own choice for speaker. In a spasmodic reaction to not getting everything they wanted, these representatives hobbled our government reducing any chance of thoughtful leadership and legislation to near zero. To them, the idea of successful compromise is anathema. They have thoughtlessly discarded one of the most important tools of democracy in order to placate their most extreme constituents and their overweening thirst for power and recognition. 

    We’ve forgotten how democracy in a representative republic works. The extreme wings of each party demand their way now and supported by their more extreme and vocal voters at home continuously work to stop any progress. In our soundbite-driven media cycle, our representatives believe that saying the right things suffices for actual work. Properly delivered soundbites inflame the base and develop the impression of standing up against their foes without the real labor required to make a democracy work.

In our current political culture, compromise has become a sign of failure instead of wisdom. Long ago we embraced the concept of a pluralistic society, one in which members of various groups with differing viewpoints work together to form policies that best suit the body politic. This makes legislative progress in our country slow and halting; however, it does help make sure that we do not veer too far to one extreme or another; but, in recent years we seem to have discarded this concept. Politicians, and more importantly the electorate, seem to revel in posturing, neglecting the hard work of governance, and that is the problem.

Good governance requires diligence and hard work. We reward our elected officials more for their pronouncements than for their progress. We’d rather “own” the other guy than stand shoulder to shoulder as we labor to solve some of the pernicious problems we face in our nation. Elected officials want to remain in office and take the actions they think will keep them there. Instead of holding our representatives accountable for progress or lack thereof, we laud them for sticking it to the other guy. We’ve forgotten that in a democracy we seldom, if ever, get all that we want. Most of the time, we must satisfy ourselves with incremental progress toward an often ill-defined and constantly moving goal. Sadly, most of us seem to be unsatisfied with the compromise and the resultant good governance. We’ve allowed ourselves to become politically and culturally myopic, forgetting that others have pressing needs, wants, and desires that must be addressed in a pluralistic democracy. Sometimes I’m just not going to get my way, and a politically mature outlook requires that I not only recognize that fact, but that I also do not game the system. Sadly in many quarters, we’ve abandoned political maturity, accepting gamesmanship over progress, however incremental. 

As the electorate, we incur the blame for this state of affairs. Oh, we like to heap blame on the other side or perhaps some amorphas behind-the-scenes cabal of big-money donors. After all, don’t they hold all the levers of power? My one vote does not matter. This is not the case. We go to the polling place. We enter the booth. We cast our ballots. As long as we continue to accept cool soundbites over the actual hard work of legislation that leads to good governance, our nation will suffer. We must elect men and women who are willing to roll up their sleeves and slog through the difficult negotiation process that results in legislation that leads to good governance. We need more statesmen and fewer politicians. Sam Rayburn, from Texas by the way, and one of the greatest Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives, understood this well. He held the speakership for over twenty-one years, with two interruptions. The position of Speaker comes with a prime suite of offices. As the story goes, during one of his brief hiatuses, the outgoing speaker asked Representative Rayburn when he wanted to move into the Speaker-Suite. Rayburn responded that he did not need to move in. He wanted to devote himself to the business of governance. Representative Rayburn understood his responsibility, and we need more representatives like him.

We need to raise up and elect men and women who understand the art of a representative democratic republic. We also need to support them in this endeavor. We’ve allowed ourselves to drift into the political practice of punishing those who reach across the aisle and get things done. Selfishly, we demand our own way all the time, forgetting that in our pluralistic society, we will have to be satisfied when others get their way. As long as we reward representatives for meaningless posturing and promoting legislation that is doomed to failure, we will endure dysfunctional government. When we recover our political maturity, hold our representatives accountable for getting the real work of good governance done, and stop punishing them for necessary compromise, we will see a capital that starts to function again. 

9/11 Remembrance 2023

 Twenty-Two Years Later

Everyone who was alive and old enough to remember paused today, and so did I. I remember standing in the car-rental business in Wiesbaden, Germany staring at the CNN feed in disbelief as the smoke billowed from the first strike. I had just transferred to First Armored Division and was working on the various steps needed to move my family from Cleveland, Ohio. Bemused, I drove over to the division headquarters, heading up to the Judge Advocate General’s office, where I watched again in disbelief as the second plane crashed into the tower. Unable to continue with my in-processing, I stood there and stared in horror as the towers slowly collapsed. I remember the clouds of office paper drifting down, twisting in the bright sunlight. Heading down to the planners’ vault, I knew that my life as a soldier would change. I could not imagine how, but I knew that nothing would be the same for me.

Looking back over the intervening twenty-two years, years filled with toil, multiple combat-deployments, promotions, other assignments, eventual retirement, grad-school, and a second career in education, I wonder? I wonder what to make of it all. If they could, I wonder what those who perished that day would make of the world we now inhabit? Did we learn anything? Did we take actions that somehow redeemed their involuntary sacrifice? In some ways we did. We did bring the perpetrators to justice. Those responsible were held accountable, but did we take actions to make such an atrocity unthinkable, or as I suspect have things remained fundamentally the same?

You see, our socioeconomic-cultural system, with its attendant inequities, generated the rifts, or chasms, that separate us from each other. Of course, those inequities do not justify the actions of those desperate men on September 11th. But those inequities, years and years in the making, help me understand the why of September 11th, and understanding the why helps me to take actions that might make such evil unthinkable. So, what systemic changes will preclude, or inhibit such dark actions?

First of all, we could work to create a culture and society in which we evaluate a person based on the content of their character, not the size of their bank account, political party affiliation, religious convictions, race, or gender. Pigeon-holing people based on such arbitrary delineations, does not truly help us understand each other, and is quite lazy as getting to know someone requires listening and listening implies work. True listening also validates the humanity and worth of the person we are attending to. The better we know people, the better we treat them.

Secondly, we should seriously address the socioeconomic inequities that plague our nation, region, and globe. Far too many people labor in modern wage slavery. We must learn to care for the millions of faceless men and women who are born into, exist, and die in grinding poverty with no hope of escape. Spreading the wealth around a bit, and it would not take much, would alleviate much of the turmoil that vexes the modern world. People ought to enjoy adequate recompense for their labors.

Thirdly, we ought to better resource education everywhere. Good quality education ought not to be the domain of only the well-heeled portions of society. We waste so much human capital by scrimping on education. When we invest in our children, we invest in our future. Well-educated people normally make better life-decisions and who knows where the cure for cancer or a needed technology to combat global warming might spring from. Spending on helping young men and women across the globe enjoy good quality education better secures our corporate future. We also should provide an easy path for those who aspire to higher education. Though it is not a panacea, a well-educated citizenry does not as easily come under the sway of despotic leaders.

These are just three areas of emphasis we might consider. Though they do not guarantee a cessation of violence, they would help ameliorate some of the pernicious inequities that help generate such atrocities. Days of remembrance and monuments are proper and necessary; however, they do not meet all the need. If we wish to remember all the slain of that day, we must redouble our efforts to address the causes of their obliteration. We best honor them by working hard to bridge the crevasses that separate and heal the wounds that fester so. That is how we remember and honor. 

Guardrails and Guidelines

 Guardrails and Guidelines

“Gentlemen, if it costs more than a baseball cap, don’t accept it,” intoned the Lieutenant Colonel from the Fort Cavasos (formerly Fort Hood) Judge-Advocate-General office. 

Stifling a yawn, I glanced around the room at my fellow attendees, a bunch of bored looking lieutenants and captains. It was a hot fall day in Central-Texas and none of us thought this particular lecture important. The Army had designated Fourth Infantry Division, 4ID also known as the IV, or Ivey Division, the Army’s test division, and as such we expected a deluge of contractors to descend and descend, they did. Soon, each week brought a new toy or device for us to examine, play with, try to break, and evaluate. Along with the “cool-toys,” came contractors eager for positive comments by evaluators. The institutional Army well understood the moral battleground we were about to enter. Each contract dealt with millions of dollars and as junior officers; we were unprepared for the ethical quagmire we faced. So, we all had to attend a series of briefings designed to acquaint us with what was acceptable and ethical and what was not acceptable or ethical. We needed the briefings. Soon our lives were filled with contractors and offers of lunch, jackets, and yes hats. For the rest of my time in 4ID, we lived with contractors in our hip-pockets; but it would not end there.

As my career progressed, I found contractors and the associated inevitable ethical questions a regular part of my military experience. Coming back from my first tour in Iraq, I landed in Germany in V-Corps, where one of my major duties was to oversee the various automated platforms we used to construct a Common Operational Picture, known as the COP. On my first duty day, I walked into the office and was handed a copy of a new contract with a multi-million-dollar price tag. 

“We need to go and brief the two-star general and get him to sign the contract,” barked Toni, the civilian representative for the company (I’ll not mention the name of the company).

“So, is everything in order,” I asked, thumbing through the contract as we walked across the Kaserne in Heidelberg, Germany.

“Oh yes, of course,” replied Toni, “The general has already seen it and been briefed. We just need to get his final signature, “You don’t need to worry about anything.”

As usual, we arrived at the general’s office and had to wait for a while. I continued reading through the contract, making sure that I understood what was in it, when I came across a startling paragraph in the contract. The contract set aside a significant sum for the hiring of a person I knew was not qualified to hold the position. Additionally, they were the wife of a high-ranking person on the general’s staff. This was a clear case of conflict of interest and nepotism. They were to be paid over one-hundred thousand dollars to do a job for which they held no qualifications. I sat there in a quandary, wondering what to do and how to get out of this situation. Eventually we were called into the general’s office. We sat there at his conference table, he thumbing through the contract and me sweating bullets. 

“You know Matt, this contract is about one-hundred thousand more than I want to spend,” he mused, “Do you know of any way we could cut about one-hundred thousand out of it?”

Breathing a great sigh of relief, I replied, “Sure Sir, right here. We can cut this position out of the contract. We can shuffle its duties to other positions without much of a problem. If you’ll just line through it here and here and initial in both places. I’ll rewrite the contract and get it to you tomorrow or the next day.”

“Very good,” he replied, picking up a pen and lining through the offending position, “Get back with me as soon as you can.”

“Yessir,” I replied feeling much better.

Walking across the compound, I said, “Toni, don’t you ever lie to me again. I will be watching you like a hawk. I do not trust you.”

Toni never got better. He always worked on the edge of legality, and for the rest of my time in that position, I had to scrutinize his every move. In fact, years later in a different assignment, I would run across Toni again. His company was competing along with two others for a similar contract, and I was asked to provide a recommendation on which to hire. Of course, I did not recommend Toni or the company he worked for. When they did not get the contract, he accosted me in the hall.

“Sir, that was so long ago. Why do you still hold a grudge?”

“I don’t hold a grudge, Toni. You never changed and I do not want to have to work with you again. I know that you will still do the same things.” We never spoke again.

A debate regarding establishing a code of conduct, or ethics, regarding the Supreme Court has unfolded over the past few weeks. Recent information regarding multiple justices reveals a variety of questionable actions, actions which call into question the objectivity of the justices. In various venues Supreme Court justices, including Chief Justice Roberts, have demurred when asked about the need to establish a code of ethics for the Supreme Court. Justice Alito used the U.S. Constitution as his justification saying, “I know this is a controversial view, but I’m going to say it, no provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court – period.” 1

Whenever we enter into a realm inhabited by businesses competing for large sums of money, we must navigate an ethical quagmire. Businesses and their leaders seek to turn a profit, which is not a bad thing; however, when they seek to influence decisions through cultivating personal relationships with senior decision-makers they quite possibly cross an ethical line which may or may not be clearly delineated. This is why ethical guidelines are so important. As an Army officer, an official of the U.S. Government, I understood the limits. Living inside those limits allowed me to not only make morally defensible decisions, but they also helped me develop solid relationships with the various contractors I worked with. We all understood the rules, and for the most part, willingly lived by them. There were a few exceptions, such as Toni, but the majority of the contractors that I worked with did not seek to obfuscate the issues at hand. Apparently, the Supreme Court needs similar guidelines.

Members of the court have pushed back against calls for them to write such ethical guidelines, claiming that Congress has no authority to require such action. While I’m no constitutional scholar, the Constitution does make mention of the Supreme Court Justices holding their offices, “during good Behaviour.” Perhaps, a code of conduct, or ethical guidelines, might help Justices navigate the perilous waters of “good behaviour.” I understand the justices being charry of any encroachment upon their constitutionally outlined powers, but we have embraced the concept of checks and balances in order to ensure that the three branches of government not only work well, but also maintain public trust and confidence, a challenging task in today’s hyper-partisan environment. 

According to a recent Gallup Poll, public confidence in the Supreme Court is at a historic low. 2 While the same poll indicates the erosion of public confidence in many societal institutions, it remains quite troubling. It might behoove the court to take steps to shore up public confidence, and one of those steps could be penning ethical guidelines. Ethical guidelines lay out behaviors that are acceptable and behaviors we must avoid. They clarify relationships, making interpersonal interactions smoother, and when we know that the other party expresses genuine interest, unmotivated by nefarious gain, we find that the guidelines enrich our personal relationships. Instead of pushing back against such guidelines, the members of the Supreme Court ought to take the time to carefully construct their own. They intimately know the struggles and perils of holding such powerful positions. Taking such a step would help them pilot their institution through our hyper-partisan culture, and might restore some lost public confidence.  

1. https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-ethics-alito-d98b0edf1340ff3ed66b345c5ddcf0dc

2. https://news.gallup.com/poll/394103/confidence-supreme-court-sinks-historic-low.aspx 

 A National Divorce

As a new lieutenant in the Army, my commander assigned me to work on a project with another lieutenant in our company.  I did not care for this lieutenant, and he did not care for me. There was no specific reason, we just came from different backgrounds, liked different things, and employed different leadership styles. I approached my commander asking for a different partner. He demurred, saying he did not have another officer to assign to the duty. I offered to work with a sergeant. Again, he rebuffed me. I then offered to work on the task alone. At this point, his patience exhausted, he asked me why I did not want to work with this lieutenant. I admitted that we did not get along. My commander reminded me that it said U.S. Army on our uniforms and personal differences did not matter, completing the task mattered. I was to keep my opinions to myself and focus on solving the problem. Chastened, I left his office and during the ensuing weeks, discovered that I could work with the man and that he was not quite the knuckle-dragging-Cro-Magnon I imagined. I learned that one can put personal differences and beliefs aside, focus on a specific task, and make progress on seemingly intractable problems. This skill learned early, helped me throughout my military service. It is a skill woefully short in our public arena. In fact, some discard this idea altogether. 

One of the ideas espoused by some political talking heads, and elected officials of both parties, is the concept of a “National Divorce.” Briefly, this theory embraces the idea that socio-political differences run so deeply as to divide communities, making cohabitation impossible, and that states should exercise increasing autonomy, separating from each other, weakening our federation, and strengthening state and local authority, a semi-return to an articles of confederation situation, creating islands of blue and red across the continent. The difficulty of coming to a consensus in a pluralistic society drives, in part, this thought process. For many, political association forms a significant portion of their personal identity, and close proximity to those who think otherwise threatens their comfort, and in our increasingly talking-head-driven personal silo constructed world-view some see such a situation as unacceptable. Driven to the extreme, we view anyone who does not share our political affiliation as dangerous and seek a community that looks, feels, and thinks as we do.

While it is certainly more comfortable to surround ourselves with like-minded individuals, it does not bode well for a pluralistic society. Long ago, we embraced the concept of a working democracy in which individuals of differing backgrounds and beliefs might coexist in harmony, working together to solve societal problems, and coming to consensus through well-reasoned discussion; however, recently we seem to have either forgotten this or decided that it was too hard, requiring too much work. Perhaps, that is the real reason some call for a national divorce, dividing our nation into separate places for red and blue folks to reside. Working on difficult issues with someone that thinks differently takes great effort. Grappling with a new idea or concept stretches the brain, forcing one to consider things from another point of view. When working with the lieutenant I disliked, I found out why he led the way he did. Not only did it explain some of his actions, but surprisingly, I added a few new tools to my leadership toolkit. Ultimately, I profited greatly from working with someone very different from myself, despite the additional effort required.

When we give up on the democratic process and retreat into homogeneous communities, we lose something very worthwhile. Yes, working together to solve problems requires great effort and at times, compromise; but, the rewards outweigh the risks and the associated labor. Those who advocate for a “national divorce” may very well rob us of great profit for comfort. The work required to build a functioning pluralistic society is tremendous; however, we reap great rewards as a result of our labors. 

Of course, creating more homogenous communities is easier, in the short run; but, where do we stop? The idea of a national divorce implies accepting the denigration of “the other.” We would rather segregate ourselves than rub shoulders with someone who espouses something we do not. A national divorce, like a marital divorce, would be quite messy. What do you really know about your neighbors? While most of the people in your neighborhood, city, or state may support similar ideas, what gives us the right to expect them to uproot their families and move into a state you feel is more suited to their ilk? Who is going to design the litmus test for such segregation? That is what a national divorce truly means, a segregated society and a segregated society is fundamentally flawed at its core. We should not support the idea of separation, instead, let us gird up our intellectual loins and commit ourselves to the work required. The Founding Fathers laid out noble concepts for the building of a good, just society. From John Winthrop’s “City on a Hill (read the full version), through the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, we see a golden idea thread linking these and other documents, that of a society in which peoples of manifold differences work together to build something new, something better. This takes heart and soul. Let us not abandon this great experiment, called the United States. Let us reinvigorate ourselves and continue the work started so long ago. The work of building a society worthy of the descriptor, “City on a Hill.”

Christmas Musings Day 25

Everything For Him

John 1:3 (ESV) ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

               If you watch my Facebook feed, aside from finding out that I’m quite boring, you will come to know that I enjoy astronomical phenomena. I greet each new image from either the Webb or Hubble Space-Based telescopes with great joy. I find the vast panorama of stars, galaxies, and dust-clouds entrancing. I spend too much time gazing and imagining. I like to think of creation, not the argument between the old and new earth crowds. No, I like to think of incomprehensible intellect that conceived of such grandeur and beauty and then breathed it into existence from nothing. Imagine the might that brought our reality into existence deciding to enter into it as a participant.

               He planned and executed the very star that heralded His birth, making sure it started shining at just the right time. He conceived of hay, knowing that His first bed would be lined with it. I do not know if the swaddling cloths were wool, cotton, or linen, but He thought of those weavable materials, understanding that they would warm against the chill of that first night. He envisioned and then fashioned pregnancy and then spent nine months, or so, of His life in a womb. He placed a hill outside Jerusalem, knowing that He would die there. He orchestrated all of it, understanding that one day He would alter Himself to participate in it. The one who flung the stars into space and set up the orbits of the sun, earth, moon, and other planets would one day crane His neck to gaze in wonder at the beauty He created. 

Christmas Musings Day 24

Rascal Rehabilitation

Genesis 28:4-5, 14 (ESV) ⁴ May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham!” ⁵ Thus Isaac sent Jacob away. And he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban, the son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and Esau's mother…¹⁴ Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

               Normally, we do not recount the story of Jacob as part of Advent. I understand why. Jacob does not play a pivotal role in the birth of the Messiah. He does hold a place in the lineage of Jesus, making an appearance in both genealogies. But we do not read about him in any of the Advent accounts; consequently, you will not find a Jacob figurine in any Nativity set. Perhaps we should reconsider. Jacob starts off as a bit of a rascal. He’s not the kind of guy you want to hang out with, or if you do, keep your hand on your wallet. In fact, when God extends His promise to Jacob, he is fleeing his brother. Despite his character flaws, God extends the promise to him and Jacob responds positively. God works with him, rehabilitating him, making him something new. So new, that God changes his name from Jacob, “supplanter,” interpreted as someone who seizes, circumvents, or usurps to Israel, meaning “contended with God.” Israel emerges from the ashes of Jacob and takes his place as part of God’s great Advent story, which gives me great hope.

               You see, those who know me most intimately know that I’m a failed person. Oh, I’m better than I used to be. Life has a way of scuffing off rough edges; but, I still have foibles, some grievous ones. But these weaknesses do not keep me out of God’s plan. As He worked with Jacob, turning him into Israel, He works with me, weaving me into the tapestry of His plan. He takes me as I am but is unwilling to let me remain a rascal. He bends with the remover to remove. So in those dark moments of self-examination when I realize the true depth of my personal failure, I can rest assured that He still has a plan to redeem my life. That is what Advent is all about, redeeming the rascals.