The "Commander-in-Chief" chat

There must come a time in every presidency when the generals whisper to the president that they, not he, are in charge — whenever they choose to be.

Call it the “Commander-in-Chief” chat.

My guess is that seasoned presidential candidates probably get this hush-hush lecture long before they hit the campaign trail. Who knows, it could come with the assignment of the secret service detail.

And who knows what the consequences of bucking the generals (and the intelligence establishment) might be. Conspiracy theorists will tell you that JFK learned the hard way.

What we are getting now is the “soft” (or is it semi-soft?) way.

General David Petraeus, following in the footsteps of his predecessor, General Stanley McChrystal, has been publicly questioning President Obama’s withdrawal plans in Afghanistan. The general’s election-year timing is politically perfect to weaken the president.

Here’s a president who is reeling from domestic problems he didn’t create, and along comes Petraeus to question Obama’s military policy.

It’s a lose/lose situation for the president.

If Obama sticks with his stated July 2011 drawdown plan in Afghanistan, he can expect to suffer whatever the generals (and the spooks and the arms merchants) dole out.

If he goes along with them for the inevitable “quagmire” escalation and accompanying public protests, he can pull an LBJ and simply not run for a second term.

The problem with wars in fractured places like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan is that once you get into them, you’re stuck — and end up making matters worse both here and there.

These are not words that generals, or presidents, like to hear.

Cat Diplomacy

Jacques Von Lunen, a former student of mine from PCC, has taken over the pet column in The Oregonian. Over coffee and croissant today, he shared that a whole new world is opening up to him. Covering the domestic animal kingdom is no small task. But for someone who once dreamt of being a vet, Jacques seems to have landed a dream job — at least as long at The Oregonian survives.

Part of his assignment is to contribute to the inevitable Oregonian “OregonLive” pet blog. While blogging, he’s discovered that the mere mention of the word “pit bull” is a reader magnet.

His weekly column appears in the paper on Tuesdays, and today’s topic immediately grabbed my attention. It is about getting a cat to accept new arrivals (nuisances, interlopers, intruders, mortal enemies) to its domain.

We have a cat, who now owns the house we once thought was ours. Occasionally I have wondered whether Izzy (seen above) might accept another cat. After reading Jacques' column, I’ve concluded that The Great One, who barely accepts me, would go ballistic if we tried to introduce him to a “new friend.”

But Jacques did offer some intriguing ways to try to get a well-established cat at least to consider allowing another cat — or dog, or baby — to enter its world.

As I read the advice, my mind wandered to diplomacy. I wondered whether Hillary Clinton might pick up a pointer or two from the column.

There are an awful lot of human beings out there who have trouble sharing real estate. They’ve been known to fight like, well, cats, to keep each other at bay — and, coincidentally to keep the arms industry thriving.

So take Jacques' suggestion that two strange cats initially should be placed on opposite sides of a closed door but let them eat near the door so they can hear each other munching away. That’s like putting human adversaries at opposite ends of the table. “Hey, he’s eating the same food; he can’t be all that bad. I wonder how he likes the shrimp cocktail?”

Then there’s the ploy of tying two cat toys at the ends of the same string and threading the sting under the door. The cats can both “play” with trying to pull the string away from the other without actually seeing the rival. In this scenario, the game’s the thing, not the rivalry.

Diplomats do this with agenda setting and preconditions. They never have to see each other during the give and take.

The suggestion that there be a “pheromone exchange” is a little hard to imagine. It entails rubbing a towel or sock over the cats’ faces and then putting one’s rubbed cloth in the other’s room. I suppose this is worth a try with humans. What if Shiites and Sunnis or Israelis and Palestinians took in each other’s laundry? At the very least it could lead to some serious cuts in defense spending.

The next suggestion is to open the door between the rooms but put up one of those protective, telescoping baby gates. I think the Pakistanis and the Indians have something like this along their borders. There’s a good deal of ritualized posturing, grunting and snarling, but nobody gets killed.

Finally comes the moment of truth when you put both animals in the same room. Jacques recommends keeping a squirt gun handy, just in case. With humans, squirt guns would be novel, but fire hoses, Mace or tear gas might work better.

Jacques adds that it’s also good to create an upbeat, good-times mood “with toys, treats and play.” With humans that might translate into bribes, beer and back rubs. Whatever.

Finally, he says, if none of this works “separate them again and start the process over.”

Patience is the order of the day. Think Ireland, Korea, the Holy Land, Pakistan and India.

A post-peace march encounter with the past

So Portland’s Peace march was bigger than Seattle’s. Who knows, it may have topped San Francisco’s.

Well, never mind. This is not some March Madness peace play-off between cities.

Besides, the evening news tonight is spending more time on a handful of anarchists jousting with police in front of the Justice Center than it is on shots of the winding, quirky, sardonic, bitter march for peace.

And then there was my ride back from the march on the trolley….

An in-your-face guy in his fifties seated across the aisle spots my “Wage Peace” sign and says, “So you’d rather fight them here than over there?”

I’m never good with impromptu retorts, which is probably just as well, but this guy won’t let my silence stand.

“So you’d rather fight them here than over there—and, believe me, we WILL be fighting them here.”

Silence.

“Serve in ‘Nam?” he asks.

“What?”

“Did you serve in Vietnam?”

“No,” I say.

“Did you ever serve anywhere?”

“I was in the Peace Corps in Africa for three years helping people,” I offered.

“Some people don’t want help.”

“Well the people I helped sure did.”

“Some people don’t want help,” he repeated.

“The people I helped CERTAINLY did.”

It was his turn for silence.

Two more trolley stops and he got off in stony silence.

They call Portland “weird,” but they don’t know the half of it.

When my antagonist watches the news tonight, will he remember the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer he encountered on the bus, or will he be focused on the hand-cuffed anarchists being carted off by the police?

Or will we be one in the same?

As for me, I wonder what this Vietnam vet went through 40 years ago that delivered him into the hands of George W. Bush, who never served anywhere for this country.

And still doesn’t.

Writing Sen. Smith: "Iraq" as "Other"

Earlier this week, I wrote an e-mail to Sen. Gordon Smith to put some steel in his spine about Iraq.

Writing the senator on-line is an exercise in frustration.

Sure, Smith's web site invites you to write him about concerns, but before you do that you need to scroll through a list of topics to choose one to describe your issue.

I'm just guessing, but the categorizing probably allows some mail-answering computer to spit out an appropriate response. "Regarding your concerns about Iraq etc."

This should be easy, I think as I put hand to mouse. Iraq has become our defining issue.

So I set out to find "Iraq" on Smith's topic list, which, oddly, is not arranged alphabetically.

"Terrorism" is high on his list.

I pause there, but pass. I figure "Iraq" is going to scroll into view soon.

There is "administration," whatever that means...Bush? Or...I didn't get my social security check in the mail?....

Scroll on...there's "Defense," which gives pause but doesn't fit. After all, the Iraqis haven't attacked us. On the contrary....

There's "Sudan," so at least one hot spot is listed.

But then here comes the "Clean Diamond Act," which opens a whole visa of possible topics, namely specific pieces of legislation...but it is the only one so honored.

Strange.

Keep scrolling. "Foreign Relations." I don't think so.

Buried in the list is "Other," which I am beginning to view as a hollow fall-back topic for "Iraq."

And then I come to the end. No "Iraq."

I scroll back up thinking I have missed it.

I haven't.

Maybe Sen. Smith wishes it would just go away. If only.

Perhaps the site hasn't been updated since the fall of 2002, when Smith and his colleagues voted to permit the president to invade "other."

In desperation I choose "Defense" and begin with, "Senator, I respectfully submit that 'Iraq' be put on your topics list. And here's why......"

P.S. Sen. Ron Wyden's web site has a similar list. "Iraq" is a listed topic.

Protest reflections: The war and its lubricant

The candle-light protest/vigil held at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Capitol Highway Thursday evening certainly won't sway the president, but it is part of a national effort that is changing the minds and building the resolve of others.

Particularly hearting was the participation of high school students.

When Ruth Atkins, the protest organizer, invited me to read aloud the name of one of our fallen Oregon soldiers, David Weisenburg of Portland, a sudden grief and a renewed resolve welled up in my voice.

The broad public is finally getting it about this war and this president. The large majority seems set on holding the new Congress, peace's new power player, to the November mandate for change.

What the public still doesn't get—at its peril—is the real, one-word cause of the war: oil.

We need to make the oil connection crystal clear—particularly to this young generation. Today's youth will be living with the consequences the oil cartel's connection to the war and to myriad other Bush disasters. Some of those consequences, like global warming, are major and obvious threats to them (and us) now, but will deepen over their lifetimes.

The war is already taking its toll on their generation.

All the Bush/Cheney justifications for the war—WMDs, Saddam, terrorist links, growing democracy—were bogus. This invasion made no sense—and the continued war makes no sense either—unless you follow the oil pipelines. They lead directly to Big Oil and Bush/Cheney-Halliburton. And now we see the Iraq government fall into line, as reported in the British press.

Significantly the American mainstream press has uttered hardly a word about oil's role in the Iraqi conflict. It is as though the three letters, O-I-L, are a political taboo. Look in vain for the word "oil" in corporate media's voluminous analyses of Bush's speech Wednesday. Indeed, look in vain for any Democratic legislator uttering the word "oil."

It's not enough for the new Democratic congressional majorities to oppose the Bush/Cheney escalation. It's time for Democrats to expose the Big Oil/Bush/Cheney/Republican cabal that has dictated this administration's policies on everything from corporate tax loopholes and tax cuts for the wealthy, to uncollected off-shore oil lease revenues to global warming denial and military intervention.

As we protest in the weeks ahead in Hillsdale and thousands of other American communities, we must understand fully what we are protesting.

WE told them so!

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on Friday recounted an "honor roll" of celebrity politicians who opposed the invasion of Iraq from the start. The title of the column was "They told you so."

Frankly, they didn't tell a lot of us anything we didn't already fervently believe.

We were doing our own "telling."

So let's praise our own honor roll, which is too long to recite here. Thousands marched and chanted peacefully through the streets of downtown Portland to protest the invasion, both before and after the tragedy.

Here in Hillsdale, as early as the fall of 2002, a group of us marched every Sunday from Hillsdale and back. Our most senior walker was in her 80s. Several children joined our walks.

The "Peace Walkers," as we called ourselves, were heartened by dozens of motorists who honked encouragement. The children took particular pleasure in counting the honkers. "That's 76!" "We're up to 93!"

Of course we endured a handful of pro-war drivers, some of whom actually stopped in the middle of Capitol Highway to rant at us. I sometimes wonder what they are thinking now.

After the invasion, we laid plans for the 2004 elections and started "Hillsdale Votes!" to register and turn out voters here. We did so regardless of political affiliation, although the large majority were Democrats.

The surge in registrations from 2004 carried over into 2006. Obviously many who registered to vote for Bush in 2004 used their power this year to vote against the war and for a new Congress controlled by the Democrats.

The photo shows some of the placards we carried on those walks. They are a reminder of just how much work needs to be done.