Category Archives: May You Live In Interesting Times

Give Me Your Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free?

Foreigners come to the United States for all sorts of reasons. Some come for temporary visits to conduct business, visit tourist sites, or study, to name a few. Others are immigrating, and still others are refugees.

The bar for entry is highest for refugees. Typically, a refugee spends a couple of years after applying for refugee status while the claim is considered and checks are made. These include interviews, electronic checks, fingerprints, medical exams, and investigation of past history.

Obviously, our borders must be protected as far as possible from those who hate us and want to do us harm. We rightly guard traffic into our country.

To protect ourselves from any possibility of terrorism, however, we would need to forbid basically all entries—no business or tourist travelers and no foreign students learning from American universities, for example. Our country would suffer major commercial damage, not to mention losing influence.

Odd that refugees, who are vetted more than all others coming to this country, would be so feared.

November 1989, When the World Changed

In November, 1989, I was a planner for a regional commission in North Georgia. After years if dull jobs, I thought I had found my calling, work I enjoyed. I had laid aside my earlier dreams of finding an international job, one that would take me to other countries.

That autumn, I and most of the world watched, incredulous, as one Eastern European country after another threw off Soviet rule. The old longing returned. I wanted another job, somewhere in the middle of all those global changes. Silly daydreaming. No hope of that, of course.

A year later I prepared to leave for my job in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after finishing my orientation as a U.S. Foreign Service officer.

The year 1989 often appears in my novels, stamping the place of that momentous year for me and for the world. From A SENSE OF MISSION:

That fall the world changed.

From our peaceful island, as we stacked wood for winter, cooked apples into applesauce, and noted the sun rising ever further south, we watched the slow liberation movement that swept across Eastern Europe. We held our breath, for at first it looked to end as tragically as Tiananmen Square.

It did not. The prayed-for change materialized. The Berlin Wall fell without bloodshed. For good or for ill, Eastern Europe began meshing with the West.

This month, Germans celebrate the day the Wall fell, twenty-six years ago. This is the Germany that so many of those Middle Eastern, African, and Asian refugees defy death to reach today.

The Great Game Goes on, Even if Americans Ignore It

Hilary’s emails, the Republican struggle over the House speakership, and the latest celebrity dustup occupy our news media. Meanwhile, the rest of the world trudges on. Even though few of us tune into what’s happening elsewhere, things do happen elsewhere.

The news magazine, The Economist (British based, not American) recently featured the new “great game” being played out from the South China Sea to Syria.

Since World War II, the United States has enforced what is called the liberal world order. That is, an order which favors openness and rule-based relations.

Despite tragic blunders at times, the world is a better place than it would have been if, say, Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia had triumphed instead of the alliance led by the United States.

Yet, too many wrong choices have led to consequences we can’t escape. Our military prowess could not handle the cultural conflicts in the Middle East. Atrocities happened on our watch, like those in the prisons we operated in Iraq. Our reputation as the good guys plummeted.

Russia has profited by our mistakes and is attempting to place its footprint in the Middle East, to prove that they are more capable than we are in solving Middle East problems.

In Asia, we can claim some credit for democracy’s growth in places like Japan and Korea.

Nevertheless, China has become an economic power to rival the United States, despite its autocratic rule. The Chinese want international power as befits, they feel, a powerful country. They do not want an international system run only by Americans. Our task is to convince them that it is in China’s interest to join a system based on rules and order.

Are we up to it? The Economist noted that the greatest brake on American leadership is “dysfunctional politics in Washington.”

Did Pope Francis Zap Xi?

China’s president, Xi Jinping (pronounced Shee Jin Ping), paid a state visit to the United States. Ordinarily, Xi’s visit would have grabbed the most headlines. It might even have overcome the celebrity status now given to presidential nominees.

However, a visit by Francis, the Roman Catholic pope, upstaged them all, at least for a while. He spoke to Congress about saving both the poor and the planet from greed. He appeared to single out one man, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who has played a central role in the Iran nuclear agreement, for a handshake.

He blessed children, including the grandchild of U.S. House Speaker John Boehner. His request for Boehner to pray for him deeply impressed the Speaker. Perhaps the Pope’s request played into Boehner’s decision to announce the next day his coming resignation from his posts as speaker and as a Congressional representative.

The Pope has left the United States. Politicians have returned to calling each other names. Political commentators speculate that Boehner’s resignation will bring on more political infighting.

Concerning any lasting benefit of the Pope’s visit, we might consider a parable told by Jesus in the New Testament. The parable told of a woman putting yeast in bread, allowing yeast’s silent growth until it spread through the entire mixture.

No political agreements were produced by the Pope’s visit. Xi and President Obama did reach a few agreements. Yet who’s to say how much effect Francis’ bit of yeast might have over time?

 

Jade Helm Is Over and We’re Still the Land of the Free

Jade Helm, the U.S. military training exercise in Texas and surrounding areas, is over. No government roundup of private firearms ensued. No rogue U.S. government was set up. No martial law was declared.

The operation’s commanders said their aims were satisfied. The drill, so the military said in the beginning, was to train troops to operate in “hostile” territory. Since U.S. forces often operate in hostile territory, designating a section of the training terrain as “hostile” is not unusual. It’s a training term.

Last spring, U.S. Army soldiers with the 2nd Cavalry Regiment carried out a 1,100-mile convoy through six countries en route to their home station in Vilseck, Germany, after finishing training with allies in Poland and the Baltics.

To reassure countries on Russia’s western periphery, the U.S. and other NATO allies have been training continuously in the Baltics and Poland since Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine last year.

The forces were cheered by local residents, reminiscent of liberation scenes at the end of World War II.

Interesting that units of the American army can ride through Eastern Europe and be welcomed as heroes, but here in the U.S., we don’t trust our own army.

 

Refugee Story from the Mother of A Friend

I’m reading the story of a refugee, the mother of a friend of mine. The mother was a child during World War II. Her family was fairly well off on their Latvian farm in the Baltic region of Europe before the war. Then they fled, as armies churned toward them.

She was wounded from nearby fighting. They fled further with millions of other civilians. Some estimate the number of displaced persons during the war as high as sixty million.

Finally the war ended, but they could not return to Latvia, now under Russian control. Europe was devastated from the war. They were placed in a “displaced persons” camp with thousands of others from different countries. They remained in the camp about four years.

Eventually, the family emigrated to the United States. She became a nurse, and her family entered the American mainstream.

Now we are again facing the greatest civilian displacement since that other war. They come from the fighting in Syria, Iraq, Lybia, Afghanistan and some sub Saharan countries. Economic refugees join the surge, making it more difficult to identify true refugees.

Families grab what they can carry and flee to any country that promises safety. They pay life savings to human smugglers, who, once paid, don’t care whether they reach safety or not. Thousands die en route.

Perhaps we can learn lessons from that other time. Obviously, the chaos that ensues when thousands of people surge into small countries calls for a more orderly process. The fact that the European Union, or the rest of the world, was not prepared for this exodus is water under the bridge. Better to work on the immediate situation.

Perhaps displaced person camps can be set up, especially for families. They could be cared for in a more humane setting while proper vetting of the applicants is carried out. We would expect all democratic nations, including the United States, to take in refugees, as the U.S. did following World II.

 

We Buy Politicians; Why Not Buy an Army?

It seems money rules not only politics but increasingly warfare.

In dysfunctional societies like Somalia, mercenaries act in place of a national army. Even in some countries with recognized governments, both the civilian police force and the military are corrupt or ineffective. Wealthy citizens hire their own security.

Faced with an increasing number of terrorist threats to U.S. diplomatic posts in countries with minimal security, the State Department began contracting with private security firms. The firms handle security for the more dangerous missions. Members of one firm, Blackwater, hired to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq, were convicted of murdering unarmed civilians after a firefight in Baghdad in 2007.

The contracts with security firms often are lucrative, giving the companies great incentive to manipulate conditions, if necessary to keep a contract. In the case of the Blackwater incident, investigators earlier found serious misconduct by the company, but the findings were ignored because of the security firm’s power over security arrangements.

On a broader issue, going to war becomes easier for a country like the United States if it can contract forces to fight. The government need not mobilize support from its citizens.

It’s doubtful if hired guns will make the world a safer place. Read “Hired Guns” by Allison Stanger, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2015.

 

The Nuclear Accords with Iran and Injustices, Ours and Theirs

In the 1990’s I served in the State Department with one of the released hostages of the Iranian takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979. The Iranian government, in a breach of all international norms, allowed radicals to take over the U.S. embassy and imprison sixty-six Americans. Some were released at various times, but fifty-two Americans, including my acquaintance, were held for 444 days. Captives were mistreated and harshly interrogated. They were released in January, 1981.

Today, three Americans; Amir Hekmati, Jason Rezaian, and Saeed Abedini; are jailed in Iran on spurious charges. Saeed Abedini, is a Christian pastor whose imprisonment in Iran is a form of religious persecution.

Iran has supported Syria’s brutal tyrant, Bashar al-Assad.

Iran also has issues with the United States. Before the takeover of the U.S. embassy, we strongly backed an Iranian ruler, the Shah, whose regime used secret police and torture. Before that, in 1953, the United States supported a coup against a popularly elected Iranian official because we disagreed with his policies.

All wrongs cannot be righted, either ours or theirs. That is not the purpose of the nuclear accords. Their purpose is to control nuclear weapons. Judge them on their ability to inhibit nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

 

Reflections on CHRISTIANS AND POLITICS: UNEASY PARTNERS, by Philip Yancey

I first became acquainted with Philip Yancey’s writings when I read Soul Survivor. That book traces Yancey’s spiritual journey from a legalistic, racist religion to one in keeping with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yancey spent years as a journalist and has written articles for Reader’s Digest, Saturday Evening Post, National Wildlife, and Christianity Today. He was the editor for twenty years of the magazine Campus Life.

I was drawn to his more recent Christians and Politics because Yancey’s writing speaks to my concern with Christians driven by hatred rather than love.

Yancey receives his share of vituperative letters for his writing. The world, he says finds itself repelled by the hatred expressed by some Christians.

“When the church accepts as its main goal the reform of the broader culture,” Yancey writes, “we risk obscuring the gospel of grace and becoming one more power broker.”

Jesus refused a political kingdom. Whenever his followers seek power instead of transformation, the church suffers.

 

Young Americans and the Islamic State—Closer Than I Thought

According to a recent news article, an American young woman began a relationship with a new group of friends. She found them online after reading about the Islamic State. She was curious about them and wanted to know why they behaved as they did.

She found them easily, and they were willing to spend hours with her to explain their view of the world. They were, she said, very kind. They were interested in what she wanted to do with her life. They told of the new Islamic State, where one could live by God’s laws.

The young woman had grown up as a Christian, but her new friends said she didn’t have to leave Christianity to become a Muslim. She could join a faith that, they said, corrected Christianity.

At one point, she contacted her Christian pastor with questions about the Trinity and what Christians believed. The pastor spent about fifteen minutes with her and said she needed to trust God.

What appears to have won over the young woman were the hours her friends spent with her, listening to her, and answering her questions. Eventually, she converted, online, to Islam. She has considered traveling to a Muslim land to live with fellow believers.

The new convert to Islam was not part of an immigrant family, the kind often pictured as drawn to the Islamic State. She wasn’t trying to find her way within two cultures. She grew up in a more mainstream American society.

We think of our young people as pleasure-seeking hedonists. Perhaps many are looking for our friendship and our time. Perhaps they want to find purpose and meaning and a place to serve.

Here’s the entire story if you’re interested.

 

Four Problems. Which One Should Concern Us the Most?

The Islamic State in the Middle East claimed responsibility for attacks in Tunisia and Kuwait that killed over sixty people. Another gruesome murder in France may or may not be related. The IS already is responsible for horrible atrocities in Iraq and Syria. It has perfected Internet capabilities to entice thousands of young people from other countries to join its ranks.

China wishes more influence in Asia. The country also is establishing economic and cultural ties with Africa, long dominated by European and American interests. How do we reassure our allies in the Pacific and other regions, while encouraging China to increase its global reach within established international norms?

Russia’s Vladimir Putin has stoked the nationalism of his country, still smarting over humiliation at the swift demise of the Soviet Union. How can we best encourage the integrity of countries like Ukraine while avoiding another arms race?

Paralysis threatens our ability to pass legislation in Congress and in many of our state assemblies. The Supreme Court’s decision on Citizens’ United encouraged powerful interests to spend millions of dollars to influence elections and legislation. Vituperative remarks fill the digital world, beamed to millions in sound bytes before anyone checks on their truth or falsity.

Which problem do you think should concern us the most?

 

Get Them Out! Removing U.S. Embassy Staff from Harm’s Way

The U.S. embassy in Yemen recently shut down, due to the ongoing conflict in that Arabian Peninsula country. Terrorists have targeted the embassy for years. When the current government fled, the State Department deemed the situation too dangerous for onsite diplomatic work. Personnel were evacuated to the tiny nation of Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, bordering Somalia.

When I entered the Foreign Service in 1990, my orientation class was told: “You’ll probably be evacuated at least once in your career.” Only once in a career is increasingly optimistic.

In 1993, I was evacuated out of Algeria when terrorists targeted diplomatic personnel of several countries. In 2003, my posting in Saudi Arabia dramatically ended as U.S. missions there drew down due to terrorist threats. Fortunately, I was able to leave on an airplane in both cases. A recent evacuation from Libya included a nineteen hour trek across the desert to Tunisia.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made a first ever visit by a Secretary of State to the U.S. embassy in Djibouti. His remarks to the evacuated staff from Yemen highlighted the complexity of an evacuation.

“I wanted to personally come here really just to tell the world about the story of what’s behind the news headlines when they read “Refugees trapped in Yemen,” or “trapped in Aden, people trying to get out.” And people have no sense of all the machinery that has to come together to work to find a way to get out, a safe way, get onto a boat, the harrowing nature of traveling across water under those kinds of circumstances; your family huddled on a deck or down below, or if you’re lucky, on a larger military ship . . .

“And the entire State Department family contributed to this effort from – literally, from Madrid to Jerusalem to Casablanca, people have come together . . . And the entire embassy here in Djibouti and the entire embassy community – American and local staff – have all joined together.”

Just another “evac” operation.

 

Al Qaeda and ISIS Aren’t the Same

The terrorist group Al Qaeda so far is a movement, not a nation. In contrast, ISIS (the organization calling itself the Islamic State) holds territories in Syria and Iraq and has a land-based army. These and other distinctions were made by Audrey Kurth Cronin in his article “ISIS Is Not a Terrorist Group” (March/April 2015 Foreign Affairs).

Because ISIS is essentially a nation, some suggest a conventional war against it. Cronin calls this a “folly.” He reminds his readers: “Wars pursued at odds with political reality cannot be won.” Such a war would be exhausting and certainly not supported by the American public over a necessarily long duration.

Cronin advises a policy of containment, the policy generally followed in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. We never fought a hot war with the Soviet Union. We waited out our adversary until it collapsed. While waiting, we shored up allies and built our economy. We knew some colossal failures (Vietnam), but overall, our policy was correct.

Similarly, Cronin suggests that we become a “diplomatic superpower,” rather than one dependent solely on military solutions. Effective leadership requires patience.

 

Why Do We Make It So Hard on the Mothers?

I watched a television correspondent interview a mother and son after she had pulled her son, not gently, away from the street violence in Baltimore.

It was obvious during the interview that the mother loved her son and wanted the best for him. It was obvious that the son loved and respected his mother. Why do we make it so difficult for responsible mothers to raise their children?

Why do we not insure that a mother can find work at decent wages to put food on the table and pay the rent? Why do we not insure that good schools and job training are available for the son and all American children?

What are our plans for these millions of poorer American young people of any race? Where do we expect them to learn job skills? We have some of the finest schools in the country—but some of the poorest as well.

When I was raising my sons as a single mom, I was able to hold a decent job because I had a college education. In the days when I was a young person, college tuition was low enough that my own widowed mother could pay it.

My sons graduated from college as well, because they went to good public schools. They were able to use various government programs to help them with tuition or were able to find part time jobs that paid enough. College costs were lower.

I think the most heart rending part of the television interview was the question to the mother: “What do you fear most when your son walks out the door to go somewhere?”

“That he won’t come back,” she said.

 

The Iranian Negotiations and World War I

Tower Red PoppiesWe are in the midst of the centenary for World War I. The recent placement of red ceramic poppies in the moat surrounding the Tower of London brought home its horror: a sea of red, 888,246 poppies, representing British commonwealth soldiers killed, only part of the estimated millions of deaths, civilian and military, for all the nations involved. Most of the soldiers were young men in the prime of life, forever unable to live the productive lives that would benefit their nations.

Today we acknowledge how horribly stupid this war was. A royal was shot in Serbia. Different nations lined up, driven by pride and perceived loyalty. Leaders thought the war would be a simple skirmish, over with in a short time. It wasn’t. Modern weapons changed the way wars are fought.

The reminder of that war, and the absurdity that so-called civilized nations allowed it to happen, caused me to examine more closely the Iranian nuclear deal that is going through the paces. I think I must support it.

Do we want to be part of another war in the Middle East? Look at the horrors unleashed by the last one we initiated.

World War I (and probably World War II, its continuation) wouldn’t have happened if nations had backed down, swallowed a little of their pride, been reasonable. But they didn’t. It wouldn’t have been a perfect deal for anyone but better than the alternative of WW I.

Negotiations are so much harder than starting a war, in the give and take, in the lack of complete victory for one side or the other. They are, however, superior to the alternative.

 

More Modern and Less Western

Just because Twitter and Facebook carpet the globe, we should not assume the wholesale acceptance of Western values. The current terrorist horror, the Islamic State, exploits digital diplomacy but hardly condones democracy, capitalism, or individualism.

Some admire Western values but would prefer a full stomach first. Many wish merely to go bed with no fear that a bomb will fall on them during the night. Others in less precarious situations are repelled by our country’s partisan politics, the amount of money we spend on our elections, and the immorality they perceive in our culture.

Almost two decades ago, Samuel P. Huntington, a political scientist, wrote the following:

“As Western power recedes, so too does the appeal of Western values and culture, and the West faces the need to accommodate itself to its declining ability to impose its values on non-Western societies. In fundamental ways, much of the world is becoming more modern and less Western.”
—Samuel P. Huntingdon, Foreign Affairs (November/December, 1996).

 

Let’s See, Why Are We in the Middle East Again?

When I worked at the U.S. consulate in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, I often visited the nearby Saudi Aramco oil complex. I was told that the first productive oil well, Dammam No. 7, struck in the mid 1930’s by U.S. oilmen, was still flowing. Whether this was true or not, I don’t know, but many other wells certainly were. They produced the black gold that grew a fortune for Saudi Arabia.

Until the discovery of oil, the United States had little interest in the Middle East. World War II called for oil to fuel war efforts. Then followed the American love affair with suburbs and the automobile.

The Mideast had oil, and we wanted it. A half century later, we were in the midst of oil wars and terrorism. Now Arab protestors want change, but brutal dictators don’t want them to have it.

We yearn for a perfect solution or merely to forget about the place. But harsh events draw us back. Baggage from our past involvement prevents us from walking away.

We are annoyed because easy solutions can’t be found. It challenges our can do attitude. We thought we could solve the problems of Afghanistan and Iraq as easily as we invent digital gadgets.

We broke the Taliban (so we thought) in Afghanistan and brought down Saddam’s Iraq. Unfortunately, we began wars in both places with little knowledge about the history of the region and its multitude of tribes and languages and its ancient hatreds.

Why should we be surprised at the ethnic mayhem that resulted?

 

Why I Had My Children Vaccinated

The only available vaccine I remember in my early childhood was against typhoid fever. A great aunt had caught the disease in her teen years and almost died. My mother made sure my brother and I were vaccinated against it.

I contracted whooping cough when I was a few months old. I caught it from my brother who caught it from school classmates. I don’t remember the illness, of course, but my mother certainly did. She remembered listening to the “whoop” of two children struggling to breathe, fearful she would lose them.

I remember the measles I got when I was three or four. Mine was a mild case. My brother’s case was quite serious. He lay for days in a darkened bedroom to avoid harm to his eyes.

When I was about two, my parents cut short our family vacation. I had developed fever and vomiting, and they were terrified that I might have caught polio from an outbreak not far from where we were staying. Fortunately, I did not have polio, and years later, my mother’s voice still reflected relief when she told of that time.

I have vague memories of a funeral for a neighborhood child who died of polio. I remember pictures of children encased in “iron lungs,” the mechanical devices that breathed for them for however long it took to recover chest muscles paralyzed by polio.

When the polio vaccine became available, my mother rushed us to the nearest vaccination center. It came too late for a classmate, who had caught the disease earlier and walked now with a twisted leg.

Of course I brought my children to the doctor for vaccinations against those diseases.  I didn’t want to know the fear my mother knew.

 

Lesson from Charlie Hebdo: Be Angry But Sin Not

I doubt I would ever have read Charlie Hebdo even if French were my native language. Some of its offerings appear, IMHO, unnecessarily offensive. Nevertheless, I am appalled at the murders at the headquarters of the French journal, as are those who tweet “Je Suis Charlie” (I Am Charlie).”

Hopefully, few of us will kill because of our disagreement with another—but many of us listen to lies about them, or half truths, or intemperate accusations. We are thus a party to the incivility and political dysfunction that permeates this age. Perhaps Charlie Hebdo even contributed to this atmosphere.

Anger is not necessarily bad in itself. It’s how we handle our anger that counts. To understand someone does not erase our disagreement with him or her. It does prevent rancor and destroy hatred.

 

Golden Rule Applied to Captives

One of my duties when I worked for U.S. embassies and consulates in foreign countries was visiting American citizens in foreign jails. We wanted assurances that they weren’t tortured or otherwise ill treated.

The humane treatment of prisoners , especially political prisoners, has a been a bedrock of U.S. foreign policy. I was proud to speak out for our imprisoned Americans, aware of our tradition of opposing torture.

What would I say today?

Any treatment of our prisoners, including enemy combatants, may be the measure meted out to our captive citizens by other countries. Treat our prisoners as we would want our own citizens, including our soldiers, to be treated in foreign jails.