Belleville Kansas to Hereford Texas: Moron’s Delight

Travel, ,

 

Watching the Weather Channel I realized that it is all based on fear. After all who would watch it if the weather was “normal.” Normal is boring. No one needs to see that. People need to watch scary stuff. That is what they showed tonight and again in the morning. They kept talking about a “winter storm.” When you listened more carefully it became obvious there was no storm. No snow, no precipitation no blizzard. There was just extreme cold. I don’t deny that extreme cold needs to be respected but that is not a “winter storm.”

The Weather Channel reported that 200 million people in America woke up to colder than normal temperatures. That sounded fearsome. That is until you realized that the United States has 320 million people. That meant that 120 million people woke up to temperatures above normal! Is that really so scary?

As we drove through Kansas I noted what I referred to as “Mennonite Country.” These were the communities around Newton Kansas and Tabor Kansas. I remember, friends of mine who went to post-secondary school here. There are some Mennonite colleges in the area.

After driving through Kansas we entered Oklahoma by late morning.

We drove by many Oil wells. In Oklahoma oil and gas is king. The environment is the vassal. Not even a lord, but a lowly vassal. A controversial pipeline project has been proposed from the Tar Sands of Canada to refineries in Texas.

The proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, if it is built will travel through the heart of the Great Plains. The Great Plains are what we in Canada call the Prairies. Part of it will go through Oklahoma, the land of Scott Pruitt. Amazingly, earthquakes have been on the increase in Oklahoma. In fact, “the earthquake risk in Oklahoma is greater than anywhere else in the U.S.”

Oklahoma earthquakes have increased exponentially. In 2007 it had 1 over 3.0 on the Richter scale. Recently that has increased to more than 700 such earthquakes per year–a startling increase. Starting in about 2009 the frequency of earthquakes in Oklahoma increased from an average of fewer than two 3.0+ magnitude per year since 1978 to hundreds per year in 2014, 2015, and 2016. Thousands of earthquakes have occurred in Oklahoma and surrounding areas of Kansas and North Texas since 2009. What is happening here? This is where we drove today.

What is the cause of this? Some point to the significant amount of subterranean activity such as oil drilling, and more recently fracking. To this Trans Canada Pipeline who wants to build the pipeline, proposes to add a new element—bitumen. Bitumen not oil will be transmitted by its proposed pipeline. How does that fit with all this seismic activity? The answer is not well.

“With all these earthquakes the Keystone XL pipeline endangers any place that it passes,” according to veteran Oklahoma lawyer Garvin Isaac a long time critic of oil and gas interests in the state. Isaacs warns that “earthquakes and pipelines are a lethal combination.” Now Isaacs is a lawyer not a scientist, so we have to take what he says with healthy degree of scepticism, but it seems intuitively true. Of course I am a recovering lawyer so you take what I say with an even greater measure of scepticism. I know my wife does. She says I don’t know what I am talking about. She might be right. But since when has that ever stopped me from talking?

While the cause of this increase in earthquakes is not certain, many believe that the main cause is “water violently injected underground as part of the natural gas fracking process.”

Of course during this period of the enormous growth in earthquakes Oklahoma has been “protected” by its Attorney General Scott Pruitt who was responsible for investigating, challenging, and prosecuting the oil and gas sector. The best friend of oil and gas was in charge of investigating it. Unsurprisingly, during this time he spent much of his time fighting the federal Environmental Protection Agency about its role in this process of behalf of the federal government. Oklahoma’s Attorney General was more concerned about reducing regulation, than finding out what was going on. Pruitt was not interested in enforcing laws or regulations against corporations, he was opposed to such laws and regulations.

Since then Donald Trump appointed him the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. That seems like a good fit. While Pruitt was AG for Oklahoma he spent much of his time suing the federal EPA that he now heads because he believed only the state should regulate environmental issues. Of course he really meant no one should regulate, because he did not want the state to regulate oil and gas either. Unsurprisingly, many oil and gas businesses supported Pruitt’s election campaign.

While Pruitt was the AG of Oklahoma he sued the federal EPA 14 times. During this time, oil and gas controlled Oklahoma. Since Trump has appointed Pruitt the head of the federal EPA the oil and gas sector has its best friend as its regulator! Nice.

In Oklahoma politics it is often a matter of scratch my back and I will scratch yours. Pruitt clearly believed in this approach. Now he is in charge of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The fox is in the chicken pen.

The New York Times described Pruitt’s connection with the oil and gas industry as a “secretive alliance.” [1] The only part of that which does not ring true is that the relationship was not all that secret. Secrecy is not needed in a state like Oklahoma. Everyone expects and accepts such a relationship. Anything else would be unnatural, if not un-American. An elected official is expected to act in accordance with the needs of oil and gas. Oil and gas is sacred in Oklahoma.

One of the places where oil and gas interests intertwine with the forces of Mother Nature is Cushing Oklahoma. That is about half way between Tulsa and Oklahoma City. We drove near to it today. Cushing calls itself the “pipeline crossroads.” Cushing is also home to “the world’s largest oil storage facility. According to the 5th Estate, which had an interesting television show on this issue shortly before we left, “it holds enough gasoline to fill up ½ of all the automobiles in the U.S. and if the Keystone pipeline goes ahead it will reach from Alberta right through it to the Gulf of Mexico.” In Cushing there are 50 million barrels of oil stored underground. Add Keystone Pipeline and add another 800,000 barrels of oil per day and you have a powder keg. An earthquake here would create a pretty big mess.

As Isaacs said on the CBC show, “Donald Trump wanted Pruitt in there to protect oil and gas. Of course, he was not there to protect the environment. None of this was an accident.

Much to our surprise as we were driving Sarah, our GPS woke up! She had frozen solid in Fargo and refused to cooperate. This was wonderful news. We figured this happened because temperatures had rose enough to satisfy her.

We also noticed signs advertising Free 72 oz. steaks. Presumably, we would have to eat it. This reminded me of the good old Dutch Maid Ice Cream Parlour on Osborne Street when I went to University. They had a sundae that was called “Moron’s Delight.” It was so big that if you ate one you could have a second one free. What a deal!

We stopped for coffee at a MacDonald’s in Sayre Oklahoma. It is located about halfway between Oklahoma City and Amarillo Texas. Chris enjoyed a latte and I settled for a good old black coffee. I picked up a newspaper from Elk City. It had a section I found interesting. It contained a list of all the local that had been jailed recently. I did not notice any names I recognized. Not even the miscreants that I know.

After that we drove into Texas. Surprisingly it was colder here than the other states we drove through. We noticed hoar frost on the roads, but it was not so serious that we could not keep moving. It was cold, but really driving conditions were excellent. No problem for hardy Canadians. Local radio commentators kept talking about “extreme cold” but by Canadian standards it was a piece of cake.

Texas is a place of great culture. That may surprise some of you.  We arrived in Hereford Texas after dark. We did not like driving in the dark, but wanted to avoid Amarillo so we kept going a little farther. After checking in to one more modest inn, we dined at the Pizza Hut. That is called ringing in the New Year with elegance.

 

[1] Eric Lipton, “Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General,” New York Times, November 14, 2014

What happens when Military Leaders Lie?

Television Shows, War,

 

The Ken Burns documentary series The War in Vietnam has a lot to say about war and lying. They go to together like love and marriage. Maybe better.

In June 1967, First Lieutenant Matt Harrison was appointed to be part of a group of an elite unit ready to rush anywhere that they were needed. They were called “General Westmoreland’s Fire brigade.” Harrison thought he was uniquely qualified to lead a troop. He and 2 of his friends were idealists and “Boy Scouts.” He really believed that there was nothing more important than what he was going to be doing in the War in Vietnam.

Perhaps the first day that he was there, an American soldier showed him what he thought was a bunch of dried apricots on a leather thong. He was puzzled–until he realized that these were desiccated human ears. Gruesome Souvenirs. Until then, “I knew theoretically what it meant to be in a war, but of course no one can really understand it until they’ve done it.” Reality behind the ideals had set in. This incident reminded me of Kurz in the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad with his ring of human heads. To Conrad, this was the reality behind the ideals of European colonization. Reality was very different from noble ideals.

On June 21, 1967, just a few days after joining his combat troop, Matt Harrison was leading his men down a mountain side to rescue (he hoped) a platoon of American soldiers on a trail where they had encountered a much larger heavily armed troop of North Vietnamese soldiers. Harrison’s men could not get down because the way was barred by enemy soldiers. During the night, Harrison’s men could hear screams of soldiers and wounded down the mountain. By dawn the North Vietnamese soldiers melted away and Harrison and his men went down to find the American soldiers. “Out of 137 men of Alpha company on the mountain, 76 lay dead. 43 had been shot in the head at close range. Ears had been cut from some. Eyes gouged out. Ring fingers missing. 23 more men were wounded. Harrison found his classmates Richard Hood and Donald Judd among the dead.”

As Harrison said, “This was my introduction to war. This was my welcome to Vietnam. We spent the rest of the day putting those bodies into body bags and getting them out of there. Getting killed is forever. That was something I had known theoretically, but I now understood particularly when I put my 2 classmates in body bags, I said I had gone to school with for 4 years and who were good friends and who just a week before we had been drinking beer and ribbing each other, and these guys were now gone.”

Matt’s Company–Charley Company–found just 9 or 10 Vietnamese bodies. The company was sent to find more bodies. The American senior officers needed their body count. But the soldiers never located more bodies. Matt believed they did not locate more bodies because they were not there, but the military leaders were reluctant to accept that the Americans could suffer such heavy losses without inflicting more damage on the enemy. “To admit that a rifle company in the 173rd had been wiped out by the North Vietnamese was not something our leaders were prepared to do. So we had to sell ourselves and we had to sell the public on the idea that we had inflicted casualities on the North Vietnamese as severe as they had inflicted on us.” It did not matter that it was not true. The leaders wanted it to be true. An American news reporter was told that the rifle company had killed 475 enemy soldiers and of course the reporter believed that and reported it accordingly to the American public. Everyone believed it, but it was a lie. It was fake news.

“When another officer suggested to General Westmoreland that the figures seemed too high to be believable, he replied. ‘Too late; its already gone out.”

As Harrison said,

 

A couple of days after the battle, Westmoreland came up to speak to us as what we thought of as his brigade, and he hopped up on the hood of a jeep in very crisp fatigues looking every inch the battle Commander and gave us a pep talk, and told us how proud he was about the magnificent job we had done. But by then I had more than just a suspicion that this was the fairytale. That Westmoreland was wrong, and I didn’t know whether he knew he was wrong or he believed what he was being told and wanted to believe, but this was the first time that I had to come to grips with the fact that leadership was either out of touch, or was lying. [1]

 

It is never good for morale when soldiers start to realize that their leaders are lying to them. Naturally they wonder why? They wonder what is the real truth?

What is the effect of military leaders like Westmoreland sanctioning lies to the American public? Do those false reports go on to the civilian leaders of the military? Was McNamara being fed lies too? How about Johnson? Lies from the military raise many troubling issues. How fair is it for fighting men and women and their families who are laying their life on the line for what they really believe is a noble cause to be lied to? What gives the military leaders that right?

Westmoreland who had already said he could win the war in 3 years now sent an urgent cable to Washington asking for 200,000 more troops. This request came as a shattering blow to Robert McNamara the Secretary of Defence. He offered his President two options: try again to negotiate a settlement with North Vietnam or accede to Westmoreland’s request for more soldiers. Even at that, McNamara was gloomy. He said even then, “the chances of victory might be no better than 1 in 3.”

Under such circumstances was it not absolute madness to even consider sending more men? Yet Johnson’s military advisors in Washington, led by McNamara, these men–the best and the brightest–voted to send more men. Even when the Secretary of Defence believed they had a mere 1 in 3 chances of winning the war!

As Karl Marlantes said,

 

 

My bitterness about the political powers at the time, was first of all the lying. I mean I can understand a policy error that is incredibly painful and kills a lot of people, a mistake made with noble hearts…Then you read that by 1965 McNamara knew by 1965 that the war was unwinnable. That was 3 years before I was there. That’s what makes me mad. Making a mistake–people can do that, but covering up mistakes then you are killing people for your own ego. That makes me mad.

 

         Me too!

How would you feel if you had been sent to a war where the leaders thought there was just a 1 in 3 chance of winning the war, but they kept that pessimism secret and told rosy lies instead? How would you feel if your son or daughter was sent to fight a war 6,000 miles away to keep Communists out of that country when there was such a poor chance of winning the war?

 

[1] Matt Harrison, The Vietnam War (2017) produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, PBS

Wabi-Sabi

Fat Opinions, ,

 

I love old buildings. Old buildings bring to life a philosophy that arose in Japan called Wabi-Sabi. It is a philosophy that concentrates on impermanence and transience. The building epitomizes impermanence. It was crumbling in the field. Practitioners of this philosophy don’t seek perfection. They realize perfection is not of this world. As Richard Martin said, “Wabi-Sabi reminds us that “nothing in life, or design, is perfect.”        Practitioners of this art find magic and beauty in the ordinary. They look at the existential. In other words they look at things as they actually are, not in some invisible essence. They concentrate on the vital here and now.

It reminds me of Michelangelo who found beauty and life emerging out of stone. He celebrated the world of becoming as opposed to the world the complete. Incompleteness is all. The philosophy is consistent with the the Buddhist concept of the first noble truth: “Dukka, or in Japanese, mujyou (impermanence). Wabi-Sabi is also a philosophy of the existential. It concentrates on the vital here and now rather than the ideal forms of essence of objects. It is an idea that is comfortable with what actually exists and sees no need to reject that in favor of some idea, which might some day come to place. It is prodigal in favor of what we see here and now in front of us in all of its genuine though by no means pristine glory.

Wabi-Sabi is ready to accept things as they are. It does not see life as many in the West do as a journey of progress towards ever better. It does not look for growth or progress. It accepts the now. It gives a eternal yes to the here and now. In fact it emphasizes instead decay and aging rather than growth and progress towards an ideal. That is exactly what we saw today in the field.

The philosophy of Wabi-Sabi requires that we abandon our customary elentless pursuit of the perfect and the better in favour of marveling what is already there before us. It celebrates what is right with the world right now.

Complementary to this view is an approach that recognizes the importance of slowness. Only when one moves slowly can one see what is often overlooked, namely the beauty in the imperfections that confront us. According to Martin, “For me, this is the perfect antidote to the invasive, slick, saccharine, corporate style of beauty.” It is the style that rejects the airbrushing and Photoshop perfections of corporate advertising campaigns.

I read recently for example, about the fact that the advertising campaigns now photograph women who are gorgeous, but even they cannot compete any more with the perfect ideals they are expected to realize. Even they cannot meet these unreal standards. So photographers routinely airbrush out tiny imperfections or Photoshop changes to the models. Kate Winslett, one of the most beautiful of the current crop of Hollywood actresses was not good enough for a recent edition of GQ magazine. Airbrushing techniques were used to make her thinner. Even though in the article she was quoted as being appalled at the current obsession of the beauty industry with absolute thinness.

Marketing geniuses routinely alter the images of the breasts or waists of their already magnificent models. They are never good enough. The photographs have to be “enhanced.” As a result the beauty you get is as close to perfection as one can get. But to me it reminds me of the moth trying with fatal diligence to get to the perfection of the light. I find such beauty boring, and finally soul destroying.

Opposed to this is the beauty found by Wabi-Sabi. It is found as part of the quiet, the still, the ordinary, the real. As Leonard Koren who wrote in his book Wabi-Sabi for Artists, designers, Poets & Philosophers said,

Wabi-Sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional… The closest English word to wabi-sabi is probably ‘rustic’… Things wabi-sabi are unstudied and inevitable looking… Unpretentious… Their craftsmanship may be impossible to discern.

Photographers who practice Wabi-Sabi find things well worthy of a photograph in old buildings, peeling paint, decaying wood, rusted metal, ancient lichen on old rocks, scratches, and worn spots. They like imperfect lines. They like what is rustic rather than what is antiseptic and shiny new.

As Richard Martin said in Photo Life Magazine, ,

 

“Wabi symbolizes rustic beauty and quietness. It also denotes simplicity and stillness and can apply to both man-made and natural objects. It can also refer to quirks and anomalies in things, a unique one-of-a-kind flaw, for example, which sometimes occurs during the process of production or creation.

Sabi refers to things whose beauty can come only with age, indicative of natural processes that result in objects that are irregular, unpretentious, and ambiguous. It refers to the patina, such as a very old bronze statue or copper roof turned green. It also incorporates an appreciation of the cycles of life.”

 

The building standing in the field was collapsing from old age. Sort of like me. The philosophy of Wabi-Sabi does not reject aging as many in the West do. It embraces it instead. It welcomes the grace and greater beauty that often follows. That is how I felt about the building standing in the field.

Andrew Juniper in his book Wabi-Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence described it this way,

“Wabi-Sabi is an intuitive appreciation of transient beauty in the physical world that reflects the irreversible flow of life in the spiritual world. It is an understated beauty that exists in the modest, rustic, imperfect, or even decayed, an aesthetic sensibility that finds melancholic beauty in the impermanence of things… The term wabi-sabi suggests such qualities as impermanence, humbleness, asymmetry, and imperfection. These underlying principles are diametrically opposed to those of their Western counterparts, whose values are rooted in the Hellenic worldview that values permanence, grandeur, symmetry, and perfection.”

To my mind this a grand view of life and beauty. It recognizes the extraordinary that is all around us. We don’t have to go to the ends of the earth to find it. It can exist out in a farmer’s field. It is not far off in some ideal world that we can never approach. Like Jude we may have to find that the beauty or the love we seek is on our shoulder. All we have to do is be aware. All we have to do is see.

Then, when we see that beauty, as photographers we press the shutter. The camera is the perfect instrument for dealing with the here and now. That is all it can do. It can only see and record that one brief shining moment when its shutter is open—so briefly yet so completely. That is photography!

One of the parents of Wabi-sabi is a philosophy that is in determined opposition to soulless consumption.   It resists that soulless consumption that insists always on something new. It cherishes the old. It rejects the modern fetish of the modern. It accepts the old for what it is—something of lasting durable value, even where the outer appearance is shabby is worn. The real value of the thing remains. It is what endures, no matter what blows are suffered upon it.

It is only the dull, shallow, and shabby who no longer appreciate this beauty. People that are swindled by the temptation of shiny appearances, baubles in other words, are the same ones who can no longer recognize true value. There is an enduring value in things that the genuine conservative wants to preserve. The conservative wants to conserve the valuable.

Those who don’t see the enduring value think that time spent on repairing, protecting, or restoring is time wasted. So often in today’s shallow world as soon as something is apparently not working as well as it should it is discarded. Not only is that wasteful, it is foolishness. The person of Wabi-Sabi searches out what is of enduring value.

Perhaps the Persian poet Rumi said it best when he said, “Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasure.”

Fargo North Dakota to Belleville Kansas: Spiritual Vigilantes

religion, , ,

         Today there was no meandering for the meanderer. What a pity. We decided we wanted to get as far south as we could in one day. That meant bearing down and not getting off course. Getting off course is what I do best. This was hard. It was not the way we like to travel, but we thought it was necessary.

It was fiercely cold over night. We woke up and temperatures were about -31°F. I think it had been colder during the night. I had plugged the car in for the first time ever. In the morning the GPS was frozen solid. Nothing could wake Sarah from her icy tomb. We thought she was dead. We were very sad. We need that GPS and had not brought a spare portable GPS. We would have to navigate on our own.

Today we drove across the Great Plains of North America. Many consider this a boring drive. Not I. In fact, I consider a comment about this being boring to be a comment on the shortcomings of the viewer, not the plains. First of all, you cannot appreciate the plains by driving through them at 100 kph (or more) as we did today. The beauty of the prairies is subtle. It requires discernment. It demands attention. The prairies, unlike the mountains for example, are not “in your face.”.

The Great Plains or prairies is one of the most stressed ecosystems on the planet and also among the least protected. It is not protected for two reasons, in my opinion. First of all, because the plains have a subtle beauty people are not as inclined about getting involved in their protection. That is why the nature organization I belong to is called Native Orchid Conservation and not Liverwort Conservation. The great beauties–whether human or botanical–get all the attention. That is a pity.

Added to that, humans see the plains as their own. They have taken them over to such an extent that they are entirely part of the human landscape. Very little of the prairies have not been disturbed. It seems to many humans that we can do with the prairies whatever we want.

As a result of these two factors the plains just don’t the respect that they ought to get. That is unfortunate, not just for the plains, but for us too. 50% of North America’s ducks are produced in the Prairie Pothole Region. It has been estimated that 100 million ducks live in this region. And many of these birds are in trouble. The problem is not just lost of wetlands, thought that is a big problem here, but the problem is severely compounded by the degradation of the what still remains. If wetlands don’t contain grass there is no place for birds to nest. That is  also a huge problem.

The Plains changed dramatically when people started tapping into the Ogallala Aquifer. The Ogallala Aquifer is a shallow water table aquifer that is surrounded by silt, clay and gravel located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. It is one of the world’s largest aquifers and underlies an area of approximately 174,00 in portions of 8 states (South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas). It took us the better part of 2 days to drive through it at 75 mph.

  • If spread across the U.S. the aquifer would cover all 50 states with 1.5 feet of water
  • If drained, it would take more than 6,000 years to refill naturally
  • More than 90 percent of the water pumped is used to irrigate crops
  • $20 billion a year in food and fibre depend on the aquifer[1]

The most important fact of course is that the aquifer would take 6,000 years to replenish if it were drained as some fear we are now doing.

The water that permeates the buried gravel is mostly from the vanished rivers. It has been down there for at least three million years, percolating slowly in a saturated gravel bed that varies from more than 1,000 feet thick in the North to a few feet in the Southwest.

Industrial-scale extraction of the aquifer did not begin until after World War II. Diesel-powered pumps replaced windmills, increasing output from a few gallons a minute to hundreds. Over the next 20 years the High Plains turned from brown to green. The number of irrigation wells in West Texas alone exploded from 1,166 in 1937 to more than 66,000 in 1971. By 1977 one of the poorest farming regions in the country had been transformed into one of the wealthiest, raising much of the nation’s agricultural exports and fattening 40 percent of its grain-fed beef.

As Jane Braxton Little joined out, “the miracle of new pumping technology was taking its toll below the prairie. By 1980 water levels had dropped by an average of nearly 10 feet throughout the region. In the central and southern parts of the High Plains some declines exceeded 100 feet. Concerned public officials turned to the U.S. Geological Survey, which has studied the aquifer since the early 1900s. As Jane Braxton Little said, “It was found that in some places farmers were withdrawing four to six feet a year, while nature was putting back half an inch. In 1975 the overdraft equalled the flow of the Colorado River. Today the Ogallala Aquifer is being depleted at an annual volume equivalent to 18 Colorado Rivers. Although precipitation and river systems are recharging a few parts of the northern aquifer, in most places nature cannot keep up with human demands

As William Finnegan pointed out, “In the United States, the Ogallala Aquifer, which reaches from Texas to South Dakota and is indispensable to farming on the Great Plains, is being drained eight times faster than it can naturally recharge.” In southern Kansas, 180 miles west of Wichita, is one of the High Plains areas hardest hit by the aquifer’s decline. Groundwater level has dropped 150 feet or more, forcing many farmers to abandon their wells. The cause is obvious, says Mark Rude, executive director of the Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District: overuse. With a liquid treasure below their feet and a global market eager for their products, farmers here and across the region have made a Faustian bargain—giving up long-term conservation for short-term gain. To capitalize on economic opportunities, landowners are knowingly “mining” a finite resource.[2]

None of this is pretty. All of this is dangerous.

I was surprised to learn that between 2001 and 2008, a mere 7 years, 32% of the cumulative depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer occurred. I was also surprised to learn that in addition to agriculture, 2 major sources of depletion were the oil and gas industry and coal industry–all industries that the current President is doing to much to prop up while so much of the world believes we should be cutting back. Trump wants to make things worse!

As we drove along Interstate 29 into South Dakota I saw an old building I had seen 3 times before.   Each time I wanted to photograph it, but noticed it too late to stop on the Interstate. Today it happened.

 

I love old buildings. Old buildings bring to life a philosophy that arose in Japan called Wabi-Sabi. I will post a separate blog about this interesting Japanese philosophy.

After driving all day without meandering we arrived in Belleville Kansas. We checked in to a modest inn and proceeded direct to a local dining establishment. It was a classic small town Midwest restaurant on a Saturday night. All the men wore cowboy hats or John Deer caps or facsimiles. We enjoyed a good sold meal of hamburger steak and curly fries for me, while Chris had mashed potatoes and gravy. It was simple American fare. It was good. It did not hurt that I had a Busch Light Beer to go with the meal. They even served opossum pie. I feared this was what it was. I asked the waitress and she explained there  were no opossums in the pie. It was chocolate cream and pecans. It actually sounded good, but my heart was set on coconut pie. Later I regretted this. Even though the pie was great how many times will I have a chance to eat opossum pie?

There was a treat waiting for us in our hotel–a book called Spiritual Vigilantes. I kid you not–vigilantes! The book claimed to tell the truth behind the attempted destruction of God’s law in America. It asserted that the Christian Church is in the midst of “extreme spiritual warfare with its members being taught lies with every word of false doctrine.” It added, “the left will not stop until their mission to remove any evidence that God exists in the United States is completely removed.” Is this where religious freedom has led us?

[1] Jane Braxton Little, “The Ogallala Aquifer: Saving a Vital U.S.” Scientific American, March 2009

[2] Jane Braxton Little, “The Ogallala Aquifer: Saving a Vital U.S.” Scientific American, March 2009

Steinbach Manitoba to Fargo North Dakota: I don’t believe in Generals

Travel

 

Chris and I invariably start out late on the first day of a holiday. Too much too do with too little time to do it. But today, we outdid ourselves in a late start. Of course we blamed the grand children and their parents for staying a couple of days after the Christmas party at our home. Although we cast blame on them, we loved the visit. It was a fantastic visit from Nasya, Emma, Nick, Debbi and Nolan who all stayed a couple of days extra to keep us company and we loved every minute of it, but this made it impossible for us to pack or get ready for our trip down south. It was all worth it. And retired people like us can go with the flow. We just left a few hours later than we otherwise would have wished. No biggie.

First I had to drain the hot tub. That was a draining experience. Then I had to pack my stuff. It is hard to pack for 3 months. Packing is always more difficult or at least time consuming than I think it will be. There are many important things that “must” be brought along.

At the top of the list from my perspective are books. I always take too many books. This time I took a stack of books, but I was reminded of Abdul Kassem Ismael, grand vizier of Persia in the tenth century A.D., who never travelled without his library of 117, 000 volumes, carried by a caravan of 400 camels trained to walk in alphabetical order. Sadly I had no servant to do my bidding. What a pity.

Our first stop was the Salisbury House. We had not eaten breakfast or lunch. This was barbaric! I loved the cartoon I read there that showed 2 polar bears. One said to the other, “I never thought we would be going south for the winter.” This was no doubt in reference to a recent event that was reported by Canada’s head of Weather Reporting Dave Philipps. He said that he lived in Windsor the most southerly part of Canada. The other day, he said, it was much colder there than it was at the North Pole. The weather is acting weird. Again.

The day was fiercely cold. The coldest of the year I believe. Temperatures were expected to reach -33°C. It was about -30 when we left. Yet, the drive was most pleasant. Conditions were perfect except for extreme cold, which we had to be careful about of course. It was my last chance to listen to CBC radio for 3 months. At least that was what I thought. I had not taken into consideration the wonders of modern technology. More on that later.

CBC broadcast a wonderful repeat of the Song Writers Circle that had been held in June for the Juno Awards. There were a number of outstanding singer/songwriters including Colin Linden, Lisa LeBlanc, and Bruce Cockburn. Cockburn talked about his song “Lovers in a Dangerous time.” He said it was not just about lovers, but it was also about the times. These times are dangerous because of wars and environmental damage and economic chaos. Yet a line from the song said, “Spirits open to the thrust of grace.” He also talked about his song “If I had a rocket Launcher.” In that song he said,

I don’t believe in guarded borders
And I don’t believe in hate
I don’t believe in generals
Or their stinking torture states

The ride out was beautiful. We saw gorgeous sundogs near the border. The beauty of the prairies on such an extremely cold day is also extreme. Chris took a couple of great shots of them as we drove. Later we were shown a fine prairie sunset. What a great start.

The Tonkin Bay Resolution

History, Television Shows, War,

 

When Lyndon Johnson became President after John Kennedy died, he realized that knew new plans and new strategy were urgently needed. The U.S. was getting mired in a war it did not need and Johnson did not want. But he felt he was stuck with it. He chose General Westmoreland to lead the American war effort in Vietnam. He had been a decorated military leader in Korea and Johnson chose him personally. He also replaced Henry Cabot Lodge as Ambassador with General Maxwell Taylor.

By the end of his first year as President, his cabinet and top military generals recommended that he increase the number of American military “advisors” in Vietnam from 16,000 to 23,400 by the end of 1964.

Johnson wanted to gradually increase military pressure on the North. Soon Johnson authorized American aircraft to bomb neighbouring Laos. He allowed American vessels to oversee shelling of coastal bases of the North. Of course, all of this was conducted in secret. “The American people were not to be told. It was an election year.” So the truth was withheld from them.

Misleading the public about critically important matters like war, is abhorrent. It makes one extremely wary of politicians. How can they possibly justify withholding the facts from the people who will have to pay the ultimate price for the decisions the politicians make? Or withholding the truth from parents who see their children volunteer to serve their county in war. No one has the right to withhold relevant information to them, least of all one’s elected officials.

Meanwhile the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the President that they were fighting on the North’s terms. They urged much more massive and dramatic action. They wanted air strikes on the north and the deployment of American forces in South Vietnam. They wanted boots on the ground. Johnson refused believing such aggressive action would pull China into the war just as such actions had pulled them into the Korean War in 1950.

Barry Goldwater, his opponent in the election blamed Johnson for holding back and doing nothing about Communist aggression. On July 30, 1964 South Vietnamese ships under the direction of the US military shelled two North Vietnamese islands in the Gulf of Tonkin. The tiny North Vietnamese navy was on high alert. As the television series said,

 

What followed was one of the most controversial and consequential events in American history. On the afternoon of August 2nd the destroyer USS Maddox was moving slowly through international waters in the Gulf on an intelligence gathering mission in support of further South Vietnamese action against the north. The Commander of a North Vietnamese torpedo boat squadron moved to attack the Maddox. The Americans opened fire and missed. North Vietnamese torpedoes also missed, but US planes from an American carrier in the bay damaged two of the North Vietnamese boats and left a third dead in the water. Ho Chi Minh was shocked to hear of his Navy’s attack and demanded to know who had ordered it. The officer on duty was officially reprimanded for impulsiveness. No one may ever know who gave the order to attack. To this day, even the Vietnamese cannot agree but some believe it was Le Duan.

 

Many like Huy Duc a North Vietnamese soldier believed that the North Vietnamese leader who was gradually taking over from Ho Chi Minh wanted to “elevate the war.” Some of the North Vietnamese soldiers, like Nguyen Ngoc, believed that had this not been done the North would have achieved victory in 1965. They already had much of the countryside and the government would likely have collapsed within a year if the Americans had not intervened with a large military force, as they did. However, as we know, these actions drew the Americans in and drew them in big time. Johnson ignored military advice and did not retaliate immediately. However he warned the North that any more unprovoked military attacks against Americans would bring them into the war. He failed to mention of course to the American people that the actions of the North were not unprovoked. They had been provoked by shelling of he South Vietnamese forces. “Both sides were playing a dangerous game.” And, of course, in war dangerous games often lead to violence. I hope the current American President appreciates this, but I seriously doubt it. Trump like so many American Presidents before him is filled with hubris about how easily it will be for the US with all its weaponry to win any war it chooses to engage in.

On August 4, 1964 the American radio operators mistranslated North Vietnamese radio traffic and concluded that a new military operation was imminent. It was not. They were actually getting ready for attacks from the South. Although no attack occurred, hyper alert Americans convinced themselves wrongly that an attack had occurred. Johnson was told an attack had “probably occurred” and decided it should not go unanswered.

Johnson, in announcing relation against this aggression by the North said it would be limited because “Americans know, though others seem to forget, the risks of widening war. We still seek no wider war,” he said. After that, for the first time, American pilots dropped bombs on North Vietnam.

2 months earlier, Johnson had asked McGeorge Bundy one of his military advisors to draft a resolution for Congress to authorize the President to use force in against the North Vietnamese. He now sent that to Congress. The Tonkin Bay incident was what he needed to ask Congress for authorization by way of that draft resolution to deal with aggression against the US by North Vietnam. As a result he got the famous Gulf of Tonkin Resolution from Congress which as Johnson said, was “like my Grandma’s nightshirt, it covers everything.”

Johnson was waiting for the right time to send a message to North Vietnam that we are ready and serious to deal with North Vietnam by supporting South Vietnam. As James Willbanks, an American military commander said, “That message was sent; I think we misread the enemy, because they are just as serious as we are.”

I think Willbanks was wrong. The North Vietnamese were more serious. Much more serious. The Americans talked a great line. They spent a lot of money. They sacrificed a lot of lives, but eventually they cried ‘Uncle.’ The North Vietnamese never did. They defeated the greatest military power in the history of the world! They could only do that with more grit, more determination, and more intelligence. In all of these the Americans were second rate, no matter how loud their barrage of patriotic words.

On August 4, 1964 the Tonkin Resolution was passed by a vote of 88 to 2 in the Senate and in the House it received unanimous approval. When it comes to aggressive military measures, the President of the United States usually gets his way. And he did again. Overnight Johnson’s approval rating for handling the war jumped from 42% to 72%. Even doves considered him measured and reasonable compared to Goldwater who seemed extreme. “The American public believed their President.” Even though he had not been entirely honest with them.

Of course North Vietnam did not believe Johnson. They were not convinced that he sought no wider war. They decided to escalate their efforts in the south before the American sent in their own combat troops. For the first time Hanoi started sending North Vietnamese troops into the south out of the paths they had hacked out of the Laotian jungle–the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The war was ramping up.

It was really a small incident, but it was the first that had pitted North Vietnamese forces against US Forces. It is not without significance that this was just before a Presidential election that Lyndon Johnson wanted to win. Just like Kennedy had wanted to win and just like Nixon would want to win after him. Johnson wanted to show that the Vietnamese that America was strong. He wanted to show Americans that he was strong. He wanted to appear decisive.

The Tonkin Bay resolution is seen by many now as the crucial resolution that got America mired in the war in Vietnam. It was the basis–the legal basis–for all that happened from the American perspective.

Of the two dissenting votes one was given by an amazing American. This was Senator Wayne Morse from Oregon. He was interviewed by Dick Cavett. When I was in college we would watch the Dick Cavett show nearly every night. Cavett had intended to have a late night entertainment talk show but he and his viewers were attracted to controversial subjects. None was more controversial than the War in Vietnam. Morse was able to speak the truth to power, when almost no one else was able to do that. He was one of the only 2 Senators that failed to support the resolution. These are the powerful words he said on that show that day,

 

If the Johnson administration had told the American people 5% of the facts of the Tonkin Bay incident the resolution never would have passed. The second thing I want to express in my conversation with you is watch out for the development of government by secrecy and executive supremacy. You had it manifested in the Tonkin Bay resolution. You just were not told the facts about America’s aggression in Tonkin Bay…We are a very proud people and its good that we’re proud, but we can’t run away from the facts just because we have a false sense of pride. And the difficulty with our Vietnam policy is that we have been the outlaw in South East Asia. We have been the aggressor. We violated one section after another of the Charter of the United Nations. We practically tore up the Geneva Accords. We have to face up to the fact that we cannot conduct a unilateral military course of action around the world without the world organizing against us. We’ve got to get out of Asia.

 

Dick Cavett later described that show with obvious pride. Cavett said the audience fell dead silent when Morse spoke about why we were so mistaken about this war. Cavett believed that Senator Morse was a great man. “He would be almost the definition of one.” It is not easy to say ‘No” when all around you are clamoring for war. Morse could do that. What a pity that more political leaders were not able to hear him.

On November 1, 1964 the North Vietnamese forces shelled an American air base in the south. 5 Americans died, 30 were wounded, and 5 B-57 bombers were destroyed on the ground, and 15 more were damaged. The Joint Chiefs recommended the President authorize an immediate all out air attack on 94 targets in the north and to send in regular marine units, not as advisors but as combat forces. Johnson refused to this 2 days before the election. Johnson won the election by a landslide.

As soon as the election was over, Johnson approved what he called “a graduated response.” These included limited air attacks along the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos and tit for tat attacks on North Vietnamese targets. He did not want to launch sustained attacks on the North until the South got their own house in order. In private, Johnson doubted that air power alone would ever work. He believed that eventually he would have to send in ground troops. He did not say so publicly. Again, the President did not tell the whole truth. And young men and young women volunteered to risk their lives to support their government. But their decisions to volunteer were made without knowing the truth. That should be a war crime.

All the News (or not)

History, Television Shows, War, War in Vietnam

 

General Paul Harkins was the America head of the Military Assistance Command in Vietnam in the early 1960s. Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense appointed first by President Kennedy in 1961. He kept his position under President Lyndon Johnson until 1968. He was considered a brilliant thinker and was responsible for implementing what was called systems analysis and later called policy analysis. Like so many of Kennedy’s advisors he was a Harvard Graduate. Harvard has never been famous for graduating students filled with modesty. They considered themselves the best and brightest.

McNamara loved data and he constantly demanded more of it from those under his supervision, such as General Paul Harkins. As a result, Harkins, doing as he was told, provided McNamara with mountains of data. In fact, McNamara was provided with “far more data than could ever be adequately analyzed.” As a result alarming reports from field officers such as John Paul Vann were not given the attention they deserved.

General Harkins had little use for sceptical reporters such as Neil Sheehan. Sometimes he even preferred that “bad news was buried.” Why advertise your own shortcomings?

When bad news is not seen or paid sufficient attention to, military analysts like McNamara are not in the best position to make the best decisions, no matter how bright they were. Even the best and brightest need all the news–the good, the bad, and the ugly. If military leaders are not in a position to make the best decisions their soldiers suffer more than anyone else.

The current occupant of the White House at the end of 2017 is famous for treating any news he does not like as “fake news.” As a result he too can fall into the same trap that Kennedy did. In fact this is much more likely in Trump’s case, because Kennedy was not a moron. Morons, more than most, need all the bad news.

Insurgencies

Television Shows, War, War in Vietnam

The War in Vietnam was different than World War I or World War II. Many U.S. advisors did not understand the problems of fighting an insurgency. This was not like fighting a regular army in Europe. For example, many of these advisors failed to appreciate that if you “rescued” a village by destroying it you created a village of resisters rather than a village of supporters. Force had to be used effectively against a robust insurgency. The notion that the Americans must win the hearts and minds of the people was not a joke and was not to be taken lightly. It was vital to success against an insurgency. Yet very few American advisors understood how this could and could not be done.

One of the American military advisors that did understand these issues was John Paul Vann. Vann was a U.S. soldier who understood that the United States must not alienate the people. You could not shell a place with artillery because you might kill more women and children and in the process do more harm than good. You could only send in snipers to kill snipers. This is a lesson that may have been lost over the years.

The Americans had some unfortunate biases. For example, they assumed without much evidence to support it, that people in the cities were sympathetic to them and friendly to them, while all people in the countryside were Việt Cộng. In the villages it was actually very difficult to tell who was friendly and who was not. After all, the enemy did not wear identifiable uniforms or carry signs announcing their loyalties. That is how insurgencies and guerrilla wars work. That can be very challenging for a foreign power to deal with. Americans had problems with this in Iraq and Afghanistan as well.

If the Americans saw someone in a village that was running away from them, they quickly assumed that this must be an enemy combatant. Tran Ngoc Toan put it well, “If they killed 1 enemy there would be one replacement. If they killed the wrong man there would be 10 replacements. Usually they kill the wrong man.” That is how insurgencies work and why they can be extremely successful, well beyond their apparent capacity.

Wars have to be fought with more than military might. They have to be fought with brains.