Armenian Serendipity and Israel Loses Moral Authority

Last month, while browsing the collection of a used book store, I was drawn to a small book titled, Passage to Ararat, by Michael J. Arlen, about a man exploring his Armenian identity. I quickly picked up the book, as it resonated with me on two levels.

First, as someone who has read the subject of ethnic identity widely and given much thought to the issue, I was intrigued with Arlen's quest to find his own Armenian identity despite (or, because of) his late father's seeming indifference to it. Second, I had opportunities a couple of years ago to visit Armenia. During these trips I got a chance to travel widely in the country and talk to many Armenians. I quickly developed a fondness for the country, its people, and their rich heritage. Arlen's book piqued my interest as it gave me an opportunity to learn more about this fascinating country and its people.

Last week I finished reading Passage to Ararat. Arlen's exploration of Armenian history and its impact on modern the Armenian psyche was truly exceptional writing as well as enlightening reading. As circumstance would have it, just days after I finished reading the book I came across news that a small crisis was brewing between Israel, Turkey, and American Jewish interest groups, particularly the Anti-Defamation League. If you have no idea what the connection is between Armenia, Turkey, Israel, and the Anti-Defamation League, read this. If you are not inclined to read that, here's the Cliff's Notes version: Armenians claim that, in 1915, the Turks of the Ottoman Empire (the predecessor to today's Turkey), committed genocide against Armenians. Through the years, Turkey has steadfastly denied the charge of genocide. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, the Anti-Defamation League stated that the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in 1915 by the Ottoman Turks was "tantamount to genocide." This got the Turks in a hizzy and now Israel, so as to not endanger its ties with Muslim Turkey, is pressuring American Jewish groups to not recognize what happened to Armenians as a genocide. Ironic, huh?

Issues of identity abound in this conflict. If you ever read Passage to Ararat, and I hope you do, you will note the centrality of the Armenian genocide to modern Armenian identity. Even more central is a sense of Armenian "self-hate," to use Arlen's words, at the inability to prevent the genocide and, later, their inability to make Turkey acknowledge its role. Reportedly, anywhere from 1 to 2 million Armenians were systematically slaughtered in their Ottoman homeland (this is a significant number in absolute as well as relative terms, as there aren't that many Armenians to begin with--certainly not as many Armenians as there were Jews during WWII).

A much more well-known act of genocide is the Jewish Holocaust during WWII. And even as the Jews received some justice and had their day in court, this event too is a central theme in modern Jewish identity. Or is it?

The fact that Israel has made a deal with Turkey to deny the Armenian genocide speaks volumes to the fluid nature of identity. It also speaks to Israel's values. The Israeli State has become a genocide denier for political expediency. This is their right, and likely good politics, but I can't help feeling a sense of loss and disappointment. In my eyes, Israel can no longer claim the moral high-ground when it comes to the dark issues of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Army Transformation

This article by conservative military historian Fred Kaplan landed in my in-box three times on Tuesday. It was sent to me by friends and colleagues and, needless to say, has very likely made the rounds in the Pentagon and other national security agencies already.

The article is well worth reading if you are into such matters as military innovation, institutional change, and the institutional effects of the war in Iraq on the U.S. Army. It is a well-written and thoughtful piece. In fact, the only critique I have on the article has nothing to do with anything Kagan writes but, instead, with a quote attributed to the Vice Chairman of the Army, Gen. Richard Cody.

Let me set the scene. In May, an Army Lieutenant Colonel wrote an excellent article decrying the performance of senior Army leadership (i.e., its Generals) in the conduct of the Iraq debacle. The article, A Failure in Generalship, was very widely read throughout the Army community. Two months later, General Cody finds himself in a room filled with Army Captains, fielding a series of questions that echo the complaints set out in the Generalship article. To whit:

In response to the captains’ questions, General Cody acknowledged, as
senior officers often do now, that the Iraq war was “mismanaged” in its first
phases. The original plan, he said, did not anticipate the disbanding of the
Iraqi Army, the disruption of oil production or the rise of an insurgency.
Still, he rejected the broader critique. “I think we’ve got great general
officers that are meeting tough demands,” he insisted. He railed instead at
politicians for cutting back the military in the 1990s. “Those are the
people who ought to be held accountable,” he said.

Here's the beef: Gen. Cody copped out with that answer. I happen to have worked for Gen. Cody at one point in my checkered career and I can say with some authority that Cody is known for being a straight talker. He's a no-bullshit kind of guy. So his answer above is surprising because it is a dive. Let me translate what he meant:

“I think we’ve got great general officers that are meeting tough demands." This means: I and the other general officers that lead the Army are doing a great job. We are not at fault. That article is wrong. Instead of being diplomatic, he should have been straightforward with his Captains. He should have acknowledged some of the shortcomings which, at this point, are clearly evident.

“Those are the people who ought to be held accountable.” This means: blame the civilians that were in office in the 1990s. Now, who where the civilians in office in the 1990s? Democrats. According to Cody, the poor state of the Army today is due to the Clinton Administration. What a crock.

During the Clinton administration there were significant troop and budget reductions as well as an increase in the Army's operation tempo (i.e. the number of times forces were deployed). This caused significant wining in the Army because it had to deal with increased deployments with lower troop levels (smaller force structure). This meant that there were too many deployments for the size of the force. But what Cody doesn't say, and how we now know Gen. Cody is a political hack, is that the troop reductions and budget cuts first happened under President George H.W. Bush immediately following Desert Storm. Further, had 9/11 not happened, idiot Rumsfeld would have cut the size of the Army even further (I think reducing it by two divisions was the going in assumption, if I recall) and used the savings to buy more airplanes and space technology.

Thus, to blame the policymakers of the 1990s is very disingenuous and smacks of political spin. Moreover, how reductions and mismanagement of the force in the 1990s impacts our current piss-poor performance in Iraq, is not clear. I think it's a leap of logic. Very disappointing. Yet another example of the failure of Generalship in the Army.

One more thing. The article alludes to the changes the Army underwent as a result of the Vietnam War. That war was a watershed event for the Army as an institution. Many of the most redeeming characteristics of the current institution, such as the degree of professionalization, was borne from the Army's experience during that war and immediately afterwards. (Even some of the not-so-redeeming characteristics, such as it's aversion to counter-insurgency, is a result of that war). The current war in Iraq will play a similar role in transforming the U.S. Army. The jury is still out on what the Army of the future will look like as a result of Operation Iraqi Freedom, but there are some fine line and field grade officers that definitely have an idea. The Young Turks of this generation.

W is getting hammered. In his speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention this week Bush compared the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to all of America's wars since WWII. Most of the criticism is coming from this line:

Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is
that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens
whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like "boat people,"
"re-education camps," and "killing fields."

The analogy, of course, is that withdrawing from Iraq will lead to disaster, the deaths of millions of innocent lives. I don't know what's going on in that White House, but I think they're cracking up over there.

America's biggest psychological hang up is the Vietnam War. That war was such a social and political catastrophe that to this day, 35 years after we pulled out of Vietnam, its spectre haunts every single foreign policy decision involving the use of military force. Even in the military, you can pretty much talk about a Vietnam and post-Vietnam force, particularly in the Army, as if the war and its effects on the Services were a demarcation line between states.

So back to Bush's speech. If you are an anti-war person, you pretty much want to link the conflict to the Vietnam War in any way possible. This will have provide your audience with an automatic, knee-jerk association: CAUTION, BAD, STAY AWAY. But if you are pro-war, then you want to stay as far away as possible from any Vietnam comparisons, no matter how trivial. Perhaps you can find a way to link your war to a "good one" like WWII. But definitely, don't touch Vietnam. I would think this is common sense. So, what the heck were Bush's press people thinking? Particularly now when some type of a withdrawal in 1998 is all but inevitable?

Baby Steps to Awareness

Excellent article on a frequently overlooked aspect of intelligence reform: the intelligence community's, particularly the CIA's, employment practices.

Mike McConnel, the director of national intelligence, echoed this theme
Tuesday in his remarks at the conference, in which he called for the hiring
of first-generation Americans. For years, he said, intelligence agencies
habitually screened out candidates born outside the country, fearing they
might be susceptible to foreign influences or blackmail if they had
relatives living abroad. "The rationale was, we couldn't bring them into
our midst -- there was too much risk," McConnell said. "We are going to
change those habits. It is now our policy across this community: We do not
screen out first-generation [Americans]."

As some of my close friends could attest to, this issue has been a big beef of mine for a long time now. There has been a few articles recently talking about the stupid hiring practices of the CIA. In effect, it is biased against Naturalized Citizens and first generation Americans as "foreign contacts" is a significant justification used to not hire otherwise excellently qualified candidates for Analysis or Operations. This de facto policy is the product of equal parts "cover your ass" bureaucracy, risk aversion, and paranoia. With a good helping of failure to understand and adapt to the changing geopolitical landscape. The end result: sacrifice improved access to hard targets and enhanced intelligence products on the off chance that we might hire a bad apple. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

McConnel has been a breath of fresh air in the IC. On this issue, as on the issue of interagency intelligence sharing, he is saying the right things. I wonder how long it will take for the bureaucracy to catch up with the vision. In the mean time, I will continue to recommend to any Naturalized Citizen or first generation American that asks about working in the intelligence field, don't even bother applying to the CIA.

Iraq Wins Asia Cup

Iraq 1 - Suadi Arabia 0.

Opportunities For Action?

Two recent articles regarding politics in Latin America are noteworthy. The first is this article in the Washington Post describing Raul Castro’s July 26 speech in Camaguey, Cuba; during which he apparently indicated he was willing to open the country to more foreign investment.

Speaking at a ceremony commemorating the start of the 54th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, Raúl Castro declared that Cuba is considering opening itself further to foreign investment, allowing business partners to provide this financially strapped nation with "capital, technology or markets."

The younger Castro's remarks, coupled with his unusual admission that the Cuban government needs to pay its vast cadres of state-employed workers more to cover basic needs, amounted to the clearest indication yet of how he might lead this island nation. Castro, who was named interim president last July 31, vowed to partner only with "serious entrepreneurs, upon well-defined legal bases."

...

But he also was careful to appeal to hard-line party leaders, saying that any new business deals must "preserve the role of the state and the predominance of socialist property" and that the government would be "careful not to repeat the mistakes of the past, [which] owed to naivete or our ignorance about these partnerships."

...

Castro condemned the United States for using "corn, soy and other food products" to produce fuel, saying prices for those food staples were sure to rise. But he also leveled withering criticism at his countrymen for "absurd inefficiencies" in food
production that force Cuba to import food and promised unspecified "structural
changes."

Before this speech, it was generally considered that, though incapacitated, Fidel retained significant influence because his “Fidelistas” retained positions of power in government. Raul Castro, of course, has his “Raulistas,” mostly military men that dominate the island’s security structures. The big questions after Fidel’s operation was whether these two factions would duke it out, how that fight was going to be conducted, and who was going to emerge winner. Of course, there was very little doubt that Raul was going to be the successor, but what was open to question was the degree of bureaucratic resistance or support to Raul’s rule.

Raul’s frank language during his speech, particularly his criticism of his brother’s failed policies, indicates that the Fidelistas may be coming around to Raul’s point of view. The article alludes to this scenario, to some degree of Raulista consolidation.

For the U.S. this is an opportunity to exploit the schism that exists between the Raulistas and the Fidelistas. While neither of these groups are democratic, the Raulistas appear to be the lesser of two evils. U.S. policy inaction over the last months could be understandable given the uncertainty over which faction was going to come out on top in Cuba. But as it appears that the Raulistas are emerging victorious, it may be time for the U.S. to offer incentives to encourage their development and help isolate the Fidelistas. The U.S. should change their overall approach of conditioning full relations with democratization, but flexibility could go a long way towards speeding up a transition.

The second is a Miami Herald article, here, describing the speech given by Venezuela’s departing Minister of Defense in which he appears to be criticizing some of Chavez’s policies. Here’s the relevant section form the article:

''We should invent socialism of the 21st century . . . but not in a chaotic or disorderly fashion,'' Baduel said at the ceremony. “Before we redistribute wealth, we have to create it. We can't redistribute what we don't have.''

Taking a jab at Chávez's control of all government branches, he added: ``It should be clear that a socialist production system is not incompatible with a profoundly democratic political system, with checks and balances and separation of powers.''

Baduel wound up his speech without uttering the new Cuban-inspired salute that Chávez has recently imposed on the armed forces -- ``Fatherland, socialism or death.''

On the assumption that the journalist covering this speech is doing an accurate job and the article accurately reflects what happened, there are two things one can surmise right away.

First, General Baduel has big balls to criticize Chavez’s polices in public while Chavez is sitting in the stage behind him. That is a courageous man.

Second, if the article is accurate, the speech is a sign that all is not well within Chavez’s security structures. Whatever ideological differences may exist (if any) between the President and his security structures, bureaucratic politics is likely the driving factor in any potential schism.

If one is to take Chavez’s defense reforms seriously, from the development of an asymmetric defense warfare strategy to the creation of a civilian militia to act as a “military” vanguard in case the U.S. invades Venezuela, the traditional primacy enjoyed by conventional military forces in Venezuela’s security structure is in question. As a result, proud men like Baduel, career military officers that are clearly devoted to their Service and their chosen profession, will form the core of bureaucratic resistance to some of Chavez’s policies.

In this scenario, improving U.S. military-to-military relations with the Venezuelan armed forces is a key to not only exploit this potential schism for information and intelligence but also to provide moral and other support to these types of officers. Of course, this is assuming that such officers would like support from the U.S.—admittedly, a dangerous assumption. Mil-to-mil relations with Venezuela have long been dormant. It’s perhaps time to attempt to reinvigorate this channel.

Futbol Is My Life

Iraqis love soccer. When I was in Baghdad I bought a soccer ball and organized pickup games inside our small compound. Between the Iraqi guards and soldiers, the Nepalese guards, and us Americans (usually just me), we could get enough people together to play up to 5 on 5. We couldn't play much more than that, we had a very small playing field due to the T-barriers and HESCO baskets, stacked two and even three high. The only other open area was just outside of the wire, next to the street; a football-sized field with a giant trench obstacle running the length of it to prevent car bombers from reaching our building.

So, we played in the courtyard, cramped between our building and the explosion barriers, on the hot cement. One Iraqi guard in particular stands out in my mind. He would strip out of his thick navy blue uniform pants, take off his socks and shoes, and play in his underwear, barefoot. On cement that had been cooking in 120 degree temperature. He was very good.

In one game another Iraqi guard sliced the ball of his bare foot. The huge gouge, I thought, merited some stitches. They drove him to the local clinic and three days later, he hobbled back to the courtyard after work, took off his shoes, wrapped his injured foot with duct tape, and began to play. When I told him he shouldn't play due to his injury he smiled at me and said "futbol is my life. If I can't play, no life!" He grinned, mussed up my hair and hobbled over to take his position in the field.

On another occasion I was woken up by my boss. "Get your stuff on," he said "there's some shit going on just outside." By the urgency and tone of his voice, I knew what he meant. I turned off the roaring a/c window unit that drowned out all noise outside and, sure enough, I could hear the cracking of single shots and the staccato of bursts. There was a big firefight going on. I grabbed my helmet, flack vest, and weapon and headed to the roof of the building to take up my firing position in between an American and a Nepalese guard. The night sky was lit up by tracers and the sound of gun fire was everywhere. It wasn't deafening, but we definitely had to speak up to get heard. Boss was on the sat phone several feet behind me talking to the TOC up the street when I heard him say, in disbelief, "okay." I turned to look at him as he turned off his phone. "Shit" he said. It turns out there was no fire fight that night. The Iraqi national soccer team had defeated Saudi Arabia. What we were hearing was celebratory gunfire.

News of car bombings in Iraq are so common that it is easy to not give it a second thought. I lived through a car bombing, back in June 18, 2004, and even I get "car bomb fatigue" with some of the news coverage. It is hard to describe the carnage caused by these weapons and even harder to describe the psychological effect, the heavy, oppressive atmosphere, the deep deep sadness, that these explosions generate--at least it did in me. But today's news of the twin bombings during street celebrations after the Iraqi national soccer team advanced to the finals of the Asia Cup--one bombing near the Monsour District, close to where I played my pick-up games, killed 30 people--brought everything back. I hope Iraq wins the final. It's against Saudi Arabia.