Kipli's Cage

I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind this week. It was not anything like what I had expected, given that it stars Jim Carrey (of whom I am not a great fan). The idea of the film centers around a medical/science fiction procedure that allows you to selectively erase memories connected to someone. Had a bad relationship? Wipe her from your mind! Sad about your pet chinchilla passing away? Forget about it! Literally!

The film raised some questions. How bad would a relationship have to get before you would be willing to erase it completely from your mind? Would you want to erase all of it, or just try to erase the bad parts? Or would the memory of the good parts be itself so painful that you would want to erase that as well? Would you necessarily be happier after erasing the memory? And if you had your memory erased but then found out about the previous memories, would you go through it all again in the hope that this time maybe it will turn out better?

I don't think I've had a relationship that was so terrible/painful that I'd want to erase it from my mind. At least, I can't remember one.

The other movie was a documentary, Fog of War by Errol Morris. It's about Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson. Many people see him as one of the architects of the war in Vietnam---that it was at his urging that Johnson increased troop levels and overall committment to the war to the point that we couldn't simply withdraw.

The film paints a slightly different picture, one in which McNamara was very skeptical of the war wanted to get out as soon as possible (he recommended troop withdrawals by the end of 1965 and believes that had Kennedy not been assassinated, we would not have been involved in Vietnam). With recordings of cabinet meetings and phone conversations, the film makes the case that Johnson in fact was against reducing the troop levels and, soon after taking office, was pushing for at least maintaining the current level of U.S. involvement. McNamara saw Johnson as the President of the United States and felt that he owed the office, and the man, his loyalty.

But in the end, McNamara is not let off the hook with the simple ``following orders'' defense that he seems to want to take. If McNamara had indeed had the kind of misgivings about what was happening in Vietnam, why didn't he speak out more forcefully against Johnson? Why didn't he go so far as to resign? And, after he was forced out at the start of 1968, why didn't he speak out publicly against the war that he seems to want to say he opposed? McNamara pointedly refuses to answer those questions.

In all, a good film, and especially worth watching at this time, given our situation in Iraq. To that end, here's a section that really struck home for me. It starts with McNamara relating his 1995 visit to Vietnam.

There aren't many examples in which you bring two former enemies together, at the highest levels, and discuss what might have been. I formed the hypothesis that each of us could have achieved our objectives without the terrible loss of life. And I wanted to test that by going to Vietnam.

The former Foreign Minister of Vietnam, a wonderful man named Thach said, "You're totally wrong. We were fighting for our independence. You were fighting to enslave us." We almost came to blows. That was noon on the first day.

"Do you mean to say it was not a tragedy for you, when you lost 3 million 4 hundred thousand Vietnamese killed, which on our population base is the equivalent of 27 million Americans? What did you accomplish? You didn't get any more than we were willing to give you at the beginning of the war. You could have had the whole damn thing: independence, unification."

"Mr. McNamara, You must never have read a history book. If you'd had, you'd know we weren't pawns of the Chinese or the Russians. McNamara, didn't you know that? Don't you understand that we have been fighting the Chinese for 1000 years? We were fighting for our independence. And we would fight to the last man. And we were determined to do so. And no amount of bombing, no amount of U.S. pressure would ever have stopped us."

Lesson #8: Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.

What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe that we should ever apply that economic, political, and military power unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn't have been there. None of our allies supported us. Not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning.

People, especially nutcases like Ann Coulter, should read McNamara's words about Vietnam and realize that it wasn't ``the liberals'' or ``the media'' or even Kerry's 1971 testimony that lost the war in Vietnam. I'm not sure that there was anything, short of perhaps nuclear weapons, that would have won it.

No, not that Wang Chung. This Wang Ch'ung.

If the heavens had produced creatures on purpose, they ought to have taught them to love each other, and not to prey upon and destroy one another. One might object that such is the nature of the five elements, that when the heavens create all things, they are imbued with the matter and energies of the five elements, and that these fight together, and destroy one another. But then the heavens ought to have filled creatures with the matter and energy of one element alone, and taught them mutual love, not permitting the forces of the five elements to resort to strife and mutual destruction. — Wang Ch'ung, The Indifferent Heavens (First century, CE)

Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, appeared on CNN's Crossfire this evening. Here's the transcript.

He took them to task for failing miserably at their jobs: to hold a politician's feet to the fire and get him to answer questions, and to engage in real debate on the issues.

STEWART: See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now, you're helping the politicians and the corporations. And we're left out there to mow our lawns.

BEGALA: By beating up on them? You just said we're too rough on them when they make mistakes.

STEWART: No, no, no, you're not too rough on them. You're part of their strategies. You are partisan, what do you call it, hacks.

...

BEGALA: Let me get this straight. If the indictment is — if the indictment is — and I have seen you say this — that...

STEWART: Yes.

BEGALA: And that CROSSFIRE reduces everything, as I said in the intro, to left, right, black, white.

STEWART: Yes.

BEGALA: Well, it's because, see, we're a debate show.

STEWART: No, no, no, no, that would be great.

BEGALA: It's like saying The Weather Channel reduces everything to a storm front.

STEWART: I would love to see a debate show.

BEGALA: We're 30 minutes in a 24-hour day where we have each side on, as best we can get them, and have them fight it out.

STEWART: No, no, no, no, that would be great. To do a debate would be great. But that's like saying pro wrestling is a show about athletic competition.

Tucker Carlson tried to defend himself (and Crossfire) by pointing out the questions that Stewart asked Kerry when Kerry appeared on The Daily Show. Nice try, Carlson, but that "argument" won't work---it's a fallacy known as Ad Hominem Tu Quoque, or the "You Too!" Fallacy. Carlson attempts to address Stewart's claim that Crossfire is not fulfilling its journalistic responsibility to the public by bringing up Stewart's own questions of Kerry. So what? Whether or not Stewart was John Kerry's "butt boy," as Carlson so eloquently put it, Stewart's claim about Crossfire still stands.

Crossfire is indeed 30 minutes out of 24 hours. That's all day and all night, and yet, for some reason, they can't seem to do more than talk over each other, spout partisan lines back and forth, and construct poorly thought out and fallacious arguments.

Crossfire, and many other shows like it, are indeed failing the public. Stewart was right to call them to task.

Some final quotes from Coulter's talk:

"Of course liberals compare this war [Iraq] to Vietnam. They compare every war to Vietnam. Vietnam is their favorite war because America lost."

[snip]

"The Democrats are the party of the billionaires, the George Soros's, and the Republicans are the party of the middle class, upper middle class, millionaires. They have the billionaires, we have the millionaires."

"But no, liberals hate democracy."

[snip]

"Of course, we found weapons of mass destruction, we found lots of weapons of mass destruction, we just haven't found stockpiles."

[snip]

"Liberals did not support this war because Saddam is a threat to America and America's interests. Liberals opposed this war because Saddam is a threat to America and America's interests."

It is amazing to me that anyone can believe that "liberals" (whoever they are) hate America, want to see it fail, oppose making its people safe, and love Vietnam because America lost (so during the war they must have been in favor of it. Oh wait...).

Roger Simon of U.S. News and World Report, in an appearance on CNN's Reliable Sources, had this comment about last Thursday night's presidential debate:

Bill Clinton in 1996 rehearsed his facial expressions. He stood at the lectern day after day and rehearsed how he would look when Bob Dole was talking. Clearly, I'm guessing here, but I would think clearly John Kerry rehearsed how he would look when President Bush was speaking, and clearly President Bush did not rehearse, or else there's no explanation for the scowl and growl debate as it is now being dubbed.

Leaving aside his assessment of Kerry and Bush at the debate, doesn't "clearly" normally mean that no guessing is necessary?

Clearly, I guess, it doesn't.

Much of Coulter's speech last Thursday night concerned racial profiling.

The Court said, the government has estimated that 85 percent of the illegal immigrants are Mexican. Consequently, the court concluded, it was logical for the border police to look for Mexicans.

Meanwhile, 100 percent of the terrorist attacks on commercial airlines have been committed by Muslims. When there is a 100 percent chance, it ceases to be a profile. It is called a description of the suspect.

They are men, naturally, with identical hair color, eye color, skin color---you could even use one of those paint chips for the skin color---they are all speaking Arabic to one another. How many have the names Mohammed? But we have no idea who to look for...

This is not a psychological judgement about a particular ethnic group, it is an all points bulletin. Warning: the next terrorist to board an airline will be a Muslim. And if appearance can be used as a factor by police trying to stem the dire threat of one more illegal Mexican in Los Angeles raking leaves, it can surely be used by law enforcement to stop what could be a terrorist attack that leaves thousands, perhaps millions, of Americans dead.

I am sympathetic to her point, but I think she makes it sound simpler than it is. If you look at pictures of the 19 hijackers on 9/11, you'll see that there is not likely to be a single "paint chip" that we could check their skin color by.

Moreover, there are many Muslims (even Muslim extremists) who are not from the Middle East. Does Coulter not remember the Bali bombings that killed over 200? And what about John Walker Lindh, Jose Padilla, or Richard Reid? If we make Coulter's assumption, that the next terrorist will be a Muslim and he can be visually identified, then I fear that we're setting ourselves up for a trojan horse.

Coulter's more tame point, that appearance can be used to determine who is given extra scrutiny, is a good one. I'll admit it doesn't make much sense to pull out the old white guy named "Ted Kennedy", but to totally ignore such people as a matter of course would create a vulnerability in our system that could be exploited. More intelligent scrutiny (which means including a good dose of common sense) is what we need, not a set of criteria that we assume will completely describe a possible terrorist.