What We Need to Learn From T.E. Lawrence

I have noted in frustration many times how the USA's leadership never seems to learn anything from history or from the debacles suffered by others. The Middle East mess is a prime example where history should have made it obvious that Chimperator Bush and Emperor Palpatine Cheney were taking the nation on a fools errand. A new book is out and highlighted on the Daily Beast which looks at the life and experiences and views of the legendary T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, and how much of today's quagmire was created by the western powers - most notably Britain and France - ignoring Lawrence's advice and trying to impose unworkable boundaries creating nation without regard to the indigenous people that should have been factored into the equation. Greed, arrogance and hubris won out and we are still paying the price today while worsening the situation with another generation's arrogance and hubris. Here are some highlights on Michael Korda's new book:
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T. E. Lawrence was far more than a glamorous, swashbuckling, heroic figure in flowing robes mounted on a camel, leading the Arab tribes against the Turks in World War One. . . . Today, when the Middle East is the main focus of our attention, and when Muslim insurgency, his specialty (and to some degree his invention) is the main weapon of our adversaries, the story of Lawrence’s life is more important than ever.
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Much of what we face today in the Middle East (and even in Afghanistan) has its roots in Lawrence’s doomed struggle to get the Arabs what he (and they) thought they had been promised and deserved for rising in revolt against the Ottoman Empire, and in the betrayal of their hopes and his at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Therein lies the birth of the many grievances and bitterly disputed frontiers that still divide the region fatally, and which in the last 90 years have caused enough bloodshed to stain the sands of the desert red, with no sign that it will stop any time soon. But neither have we turned back to Lawrence to see where the Western world went wrong, or to learn from him how to understand and deal with the roots of Muslim anger at the West, or with the wars of terrorism and insurgency of which Lawrence was to some degree the inventor.
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Lawrence . . . played a significant role in shaping the modern Middle East, as well as warning where its stress points would be—warnings that were ignored at the time, and, worse, are still being ignored today.
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It is not therefore surprising that one of Osama bin Laden’s chief complaints against the West—one which often mystifies Westerners—is “the Sykes-Picot Agreement,” the 1916 secret treaty between Britain and France (and Imperial Russia before it collapsed) to divide up the Arab lands of the Middle East between them once the Ottoman Empire was defeated.
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On this subject, at least, Osama bin Laden and T. E. Lawrence would have stood as one. Lawrence fought against the Sykes-Picot Agreement, attempted to undermine it, drove the Arabs on in a desperate race to capture Damascus and declare an independent Arab state before the British Army could get there, argued against the Sykes-Picot Agreement vehemently with Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau after the war in Paris at the peace conference, as well as face to face with King George V at Buckingham Palace . . .
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It is not necessary to agree with the Arab point of view about their own history, but it is foolish to ignore it. In the eyes of Arabs, the West (including the United States, which acquiesced to the brutal and cynical British and French partition of the Middle East) is responsible for the fragmented reality of the area today, and for its artificial frontiers. This is the unforgivable “original sin” to Arabs, and the subsequent partition of Palestine is merely a further extension of it, exacerbating wounds that were already there.
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Many of the problems that exist in the area—including, but by no means limited to Syrian-armed interference in Lebanon, the failure to create a viable “Kurdistan” for the Kurd people, the hostility between Arabs and Jews in Palestine, the future of the West Bank—were addressed by Lawrence in the map he prepared for the British War Cabinet and the Paris Peace Conference, but brushed under the table by the great powers.
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Had Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lloyd George been willing to agree to Arab demands, an Arab-Jewish state might have existed that could have absorbed the bulk of the European Jews whom the Germans would slaughter between 1933 and 1945, as well as producing a state with advanced agriculture, industry, and education, in which Jews and Arabs might have proved that they could live together peacefully and productively.
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Nobody understood better than Lawrence how a small, highly mobile group of insurgents could immobilize, exhaust, and eventually defeat a much larger and better equipped modern army by an endless series of “pinpricks,” small raids in which high explosives—the equivalent of today’s IED, or “improvised explosive device” in Iraq and Afghanistan—were used to destroy key objectives, bridges, roads, railway lines, water towers, and telegraph posts, keeping the larger force constantly on the alert, never knowing where the next strike would occur, and tying up thousands of enemy soldiers in useless guard duties.
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Bombing people will seldom change their mind, and certainly not about their own government, whether done by the Turks against the Arabs in 1918, or by the British against the Iraqis in the 1920s, or with drones in Afghanistan today.

Donald McEachin To Reintroduce Virginia Non-Discrimination Bill

Last year Senator Donald McEachin introduced legislation to protect Virginia state employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace. The bill passed the Senate, with every Democrat voting in support of it, but it was defeated in the Republican-controlled House of Delegates. McEachin is not giving up and he will be reintroducing his bill in the upcoming 2011 session. ALL Virginians deserve equal opportunity, fairness and justice and I applaud McEachin's efforts. Would that we had a similar in the White House.
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In the run up to reintroducing his bill, McEachin is asking Virginia residents to be a citizen sponsor of his non-discrimination legislation, Senate Bill 747. McEachin's goal is to take the voices of thousands of people with him to the General Assembly to legislators and Taliban Bob McDonnell the overwhelming support for this bill.
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I encourgae Virginia readers to go sign onto Senator McEachin's effort and help send a message that we are tired of Virginia's allowance of religious based bigotry in the work place. You can sign onto the petition here. Join me in doing so. Thank you.

Monday Male Beauty

DADT, DOMA and Other Anti-Gay Laws Encourage Gay Suicides

For some time now I have been directly laying responsibility for homophobia and gay suicides at the feet of the Christianists and professional Christian set - i.e., Benedict XVI, Tony Perkins, Maggie Gallagher, etc. But there is another group equally guilty: legislators and public officials who either support anti-gay laws or lack the guts and spine to demand their repeal NOW. Obviously, this indictment includes the Liar-in-Chief who claims to oppose DADT and DOMA and yet has his Department of Justice doing everything to defend these discriminatory laws in court. That's right, Barack Obama by his failure to end these laws has blood on his hands just like the anti-gay Christian extremists. A piece on The Body does a great job "connecting the dots" and lays out the case for why this conclusion is accurate. Here are some highlights:
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[L]aws are the formal expression of society's value judgments. They can be seen as a kind of official statement of position on a particular subject. Criminal laws, for example, define acts that are so unacceptable society will punish their commission. So when a government, be it federal, state, or local, enacts a statute mandating discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, that government declares -- in the most solemn and official manner possible -- that LGBTs are an inferior caste.
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That's what DADT does when it declares that "[t]he presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability." (10 U.S.C. § 654(a)(15).) The same is true of DOMA . . . . Thirty-nine states have copied Congress and enacted their own prohibitions on same-sex marriage. Typically, voters have approved these bans by overwhelming margins after campaigns that have demonized gays and lesbians who want to marry as a threat to society.
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Studies show that statewide campaigns to ban same-sex marriage are harmful to the mental health of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. According to the American Psychological Association, anti-gay "legislative and initiative actions can also result in psychological distress for lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people. Immediate consequences include fear, sadness, alienation, anger, and an increase in internalized homophobia."
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Homophobic laws send a pair of dangerous and damaging messages to society at large. They tell LGBTs, including LGBT youth, that they are second class and less worthy than their straight peers. At the same time, they give the nod to bullies that it's okay to do violence to a group of people whom the law itself says are inferior. No one should be surprised, then, that violence against LGBT youth is the result, or that LGBT youth sink into despair and thoughts of suicide. When those entrusted with making laws enact statutes requiring discrimination against LBGTs, they help create and sustain an atmosphere of hatred and bigotry.
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If they [Obama, Secretary Clinton, and Speaker Pelosi] are serious about combating suicide among our community's youth, then they must devote themselves to the task of dismantling this country's appalling system of legal discrimination against LGBTs. And doing that will require them to do much more than make videos.
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Sadly, I expect nothing but more disingenuous words from the Liar-in-Chief. With each passing day I realize further that he is part of the problem and not part of the solution as so many LGBT Americans had hoped would be the case. In my opinion, he truly doesn't give a danmn about LGBT citizens - he only wants our votes and our money. Nothing more.

The Two Obstacles to Gay Marriage

In The Stranger Dan Savage has a great answer to this question: What is the biggest barrier to the acceptance of gay marriage in the U.S.? Here's Dan's 100% on point answer:
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There are two big barriers. First: all those loud, aggressive, and hypocritical right-wing "Christian" shitsticks who oppose marriage equality because of some supposedly anti-gay bullshit they read in the Bible while ignoring everything in the very same Bible that limits their own sexual freedoms—you know, all those motherfuckers who masturbate, fornicate, divorce, and remarry, and then turn around and oppose same-sex marriage because it "goes against their religion."
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Second: all those quiet, timid, and cowardly NALT Christians out there who support marriage equality but have allowed their conservative coreligionists to hijack Christianity. ("NALT" stands for "not all like that," the phrase you hear from liberal Christians whenever you bitch about conservative Christians, i.e., "We're not all like that!" Yes, yes, NALTs—we know. You're not all like that. Don't tell us. Tell Tony Perkins, tell the pope, tell Maggie Gallagher.)

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If the Christian Taliban is not countered, they may well totally kill the "Christian brand" in the eyes of coming generations - indeed, it is already happening. And all of the timid Christians who refuse to speak out against the Christian Taliban are ironically helping to kill the religion they claim to hold dear. Just because Chritianity has been around for many centuries doesn't mean it cannot die like many of its predecessors - think the cult of Isis, the Greek gods, and many, many others that are now dead religions.

More Sunday Male Beauty

Priest Who Says Being Gay is Normal Banned from Writing

Conservative - and some might argue, demented - Christians are continuing their rear guard effort of trying to stop the spreading acceptance of the fact that homosexuality is a natural occurring phenomenon in nature. The anti-modernity crowd likewise refuse to accept that all of the LEGITIMATE medical and mental health experts (i.e., those not funded by wingnut organizations) have concluded that sexual orientation is not something that is a choice or that can be changed. A new example of this ultimately losing battle is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican (known as the Inquisition in past centuries) command that a priest who accepts modern knowledge no longer be allowed to publish any of his writings. The move echos that of Benedict XVI's predecessors who tried to silence those who said the earth was round and not flat and did likewise to those who said the earth orbited the sun rather than vice versa. One would think that given Church's centuries long record of being incredibly wrong on so many things, the Nazi Pope and his minions would have perhaps learned something. But such is not the case. This latest target of the Vatican's anti-modernity and anti-knowledge wrath is Capuchin priest Fr. Owen O’Sullivan who had the timidity to write that same-sex attraction is simply a facet of the human condition. Here are highlights from the Irish Times:
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AN IRISH Catholic priest has been banned by the Vatican from publishing any more of his writings after he suggested homosexuality is “simply a facet of the human condition”.
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This follows an article on homosexuality by Capuchin priest Fr Owen O’Sullivan, published in last March’s edition of the Furrow magazine. Described as “a journal for the contemporary Church”, the Furrow is published at St Patrick’s College Maynooth.
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Throughout history “same-sex attraction and acts have been a consistent feature of human life . . . Same-sex attraction is simply a facet of the human condition,” he said. He recalled church teaching says it is not wrong to be gay, ‘‘but it is wrong to act gay”. He suggested: “Imagine someone saying... ‘There’s nothing in itself wrong with being Irish... But that doesn’t mean you may act on it. So, no more Guinness, going to Croke Park, singing rebel songs into the early hours of the morning, waving Tricolours, no more craic.”
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The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican contacted the Capuchin secretary general in Rome with an instruction Fr O’Sullivan was no longer to write for publication without first having his articles approved by it.
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Capuchin headquarters in Rome contacted Fr O’Sullivan’s superiors. Contacted by The Irish Times , Fr O’Sullivan did not feel free to discuss it nor did Fr Ronan Drury, editor of the Furrow .
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The Catholic Church is losing membership all over the educated areas of the world. Idiocy like this situation will only serve to accelerate the Church's decline in the developed world (perhaps not a bad thing) and ultimately leave Catholicism as a religion of the ignorant and uneducated.

John McSenile - I Mean McCain - Wants New DADT Study

Either John McCain - who hence forth will be John McSenile on this blog - has truly gone senile or he's drinking Kool-Aid dispensed by Tony Perkins and similar members of the Christian Taliban. Both McSenile and the 13th century minded Christianists and Catholic Church leadership need to grasp that the world and views on homosexuality are changing whether they like it or not. On Meet the Press today, McSenile basically had a temper tantrum over the fact that the Pentagon study on DADT appears poised to deliver a result that McSenile and the Christian Taliban crowd don't like. McSenile would waste more time and more money for another study which, if not rigged, would deliver the same result. The following is a clip on McSenile on Meet the Press:

McSenile is quickly becoming the poster boy for the argument why we might want to have mandatory retirement ages for members of Congress. I continue to ask myself WTF happened to the McCain of a decade ago. Moreover, McSenile just won another 6 year term so, if he thinks he has to appeal to the Christian Taliban, he needs to wake up. The odds of a McSenile run six years from now are likely slim to none and even if he did run for re-election, over the next 6 years a goodly number of the gay-hating older generation will have died off. Here's Think Progress' take on McSenile's increasingly untethered behavior:
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McCain has always said he will reconsider his stance on DADT “the day that the leadership of the military comes to [me]” and says it should be overturned. Yet, when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates came to McCain in February announcing they were in favor of repealing DADT, McCain invented a new condition — the completion of a study the Pentagon is conducting looking into the repercussions of repealing DADT.
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Last month, reports surfaced that the study had found that a majority of American servicemembers would not object to serving alongside openly gay troops. Then this week, sources familiar with the study, which is to be released in December, told the Washington Post that the study had concluded that repealing DADT will not disrupt the military during a time of war. But appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press today, McCain yet again moved the goal posts, deploying his latest stumbling block to repeal. The problem? The study McCain demanded is now not good enough
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“McCain seems to be saying he wants a do-over because he doesn’t like the findings and recommendations in the Pentagon report going to Secretary Gates,” the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a gay rights legal group which works to end DADT, said in a statement responding to McCain today. “In other words, McCain is telling the Pentagon: Keep working until you produce the outcome I’m looking for.”
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Despite what McCain might think, the military has confidence in the quality of its study. Even the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James Amos, to whom McCain refers during the Meet the Press interview, disagrees with McCain on the study. In September, during Amos’ confirmation hearings, McCain tried to get Amos to cast doubt on the study. But Amos rebuffed McCain, saying he was confident in it.

Sunday Male Beauty

Dedicated to Gen. Amos

Leading the Marine Corps Past Don't Ask Don't Tell

Richard Cohen has a column in the Washington Post that looks at the unfitness of new Marine Corps Commandant, Gen. James F. Amos, for his position. Indeed, I suspect that given his druthers, Amos would likewise support a segregated military where blacks would be treated not much better than gays under DADT. Of course the larger question is WTF was Obama doing when he tapped Amos knowing full well that Amos is against the repeal of DADT - a repeal that the Liar-in-Chief claims to support even though his actions suggest the exact opposite. The fact that Obama tapped Amos is on a par with his selection of Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation and demonstrates that actions speak louder than words. Someone needs to get the word to Amos that, if DADT falls either by legislative action or court invalidation, he needs to get his ass on board or tender his resignation. Perhaps a career as a Bible beating preacher would be a more appropriate career choice. Here are highlights from Cohen's column:
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The Marines need one good man. That would be a commandant who sees his job as implementing the end of "don't ask, don't tell" and integrating openly homosexual men and women into the Corps. As it is, the current commandant, Gen. James F. Amos, has indicated that he is not up to the job. He can't distinguish between a gay man and a sexual predator. In the general's telling, the coming end of this discriminatory policy could produce sexual havoc in our nation's barracks and battlefields.
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What if a Marine in front of, say, the U.S. Embassy in Paris was gay? I shudder. London? I shudder some more. This shuddering is not shared by most enlisted men and women. To them, the all-but-certain end of the policy - either the courts will find it unconstitutional (the Supreme Court ruling Friday was far from the last word on this) or Congress will "man up" on this issue - does not fill them with dread.
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Given the law of averages, I was undoubtedly in the Army with gay men. We shared the same barracks and slept, on the occasions when I could not avoid it, on the ground. We showered together and used the lavatory together - the Army is just wonderful at stripping away all dignity - and I never knew of an incident.
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[T]he military is the military, and leaders are expected to lead. If gays are integrated into the services, there will surely be incidents - this is human nature - but they can be handled. Enforcing discipline is what officers do. . . . If and when the policy is changed, President Obama ought to see to it that Amos is not tasked with implementing it. At the very top, the Marines need one good man.