Somewhere there’s a shooting war going on and our troops are doing what troops always do. They’re paying for the failure of diplomats and statesmen to carry out their job descriptions as men and women who solve problems between nations and forge peace from centuries-old conflicts. The diplomats and statesmen/women work long and hard at being understood by others of their profession while having great care to utter nothing that might be misunderstood or be taken as insult by the peoples of a nation that has no real international significance or hope of international greatness. The diplomats pay a horrid cost in lost sleep, in upset stomachs due to ceremonial feasting and drinking, in jet lag, varicosities, and the occasional bad photograph showing them disheveled. The troops risk is much less. They pay for failure, from the diplomatic levels down to the fire-team level, in blood, their blood and that of their squad mates.
Diplomacy practices dating back to the days of divine right monarchies insisted that diplomats be afforded the courtesy and some of the privileges that would be shown to a monarch by another. Thus, insulting an ambassador was seen as simultaneously insulting that ambassador’s sovereign. When and if one monarch needed to raise more foot soldiers and camp-followers to invade another’s lands or fend off invasion of one’s own; somehow the original insult was conveyed to the potential recruits in such scurrilous and often inaccurate repetitions as to question the masculinity and bravery of the poor serfs who were being dragooned into yet another bloody interruption in their already short lives.
So today, we find ourselves chained to a system that is designed more to avoid insult to monarchies which either exist in regal impotency or which exist only in national memory.
Spain once owned half the globe, Portugal the other half. This division of land and populace between two divine right monarchies was courtesy of the Roman church. This was the non-Christianized world, of course. The “most Catholic” royal houses were expected to export the Roman Church’s dogma and rule, converting those by force, if required, who had been, previously, lucky enough to not need conversion.
Lines dividing the non-Christian world between Castille (modern Spain) and Portugal: the 1494 Tordesillas meridian (purple) and the 1529 Zaragoza antimeridian (green)
Before Spain, the Caliphate ruled much of the world bordering the Mediterranean. Since Islam converted and controlled by the sword, diplomacy often fell prey to perceived insult. Other empires stretching back to dim history record tale after tale of diplomatic failure leading to battle.
After Spain, England carved an empire as did France. Both nations exist today: the English still a world power with a respected if diminished military and the French as the butt of jokes by other European nations and the mob who attend Fox Tea Parties.
Japan and China have societies that require every citizen to practice diplomacy in public. What goes on at home is the stuff of a thousand movies and the foundation of countless monasteries.
The Soviets did to diplomacy what the Russian mob has done to the myth of honor among thieves. And while the U.S. pretends to be the center of egalitarian government, we are rapidly becoming yet another oligarchy with a nearly hereditary diplomatic caste.
Propping all this pomp and fussy protocol, all this supposed honor rendered to representatives of world powers and to beggar nations and failing states are the men and women who carry the spears, serve the guns, and leave bits and pieces of their selves behind in foreign lands.
As a nation we have foreign policy goals and desires. We want oil; we want cheap raw materials – less so than previously – trade treaties, and access to travel routes. We want other nations to work and play well together so as to meet our needs and goals. As a rule, other nations don’t care that much what we want. They have their own needs and goals.
We are the dominant military power in today’s world. That’s good, far better to be dominant than to need assistance from another nation merely to use common sea lanes. Unfortunately, the nature of warfare has been changed irrevocably by the technology of warfare. Dominance no longer assures victory on the field of battle. Irregulars, insurgents, pirates, jihadis, and other combatants willing to die for their cause can often wreak battle damage or terrorist attacks that seem to far outweigh their numerical and technical makeup. And being dominant does not protect our troops from such attacks.
We still make demands of other nations. We call them requests and deliver them in polite, diplomatic language. Other nations decline or refuse them using the same language. When the demand is important enough to one nation, and refusal will not or cannot be avoided, it falls to the troops to achieve what the diplomats can’t.
It might be that the time has come to stop pretending that we, as a nation, care about hurt feelings or sense of insult perceived by citizens of other nations. Having been one of the troops on the ground, I have no compunction, at all, to avoid insulting another nation and would feel absolutely no remorse at personally delivering that insult in verbal form that can be clearly understood. I value my blood and that of every other man and woman in our armed forces very highly. There are no diplomats or heads of state that merit that regard. There are no religious leaders or figures that merit that regard. There is no national population on this planet that merits that regard.
Is it time for diplomacy to be carried out in plain language? Would we have fewer failures, fewer wars, if we made our demands and our reasons clear at the beginning of any diplomatic exchange? Could we lay our bottom line along with our initial demands and stop pretending that anything but power and money are really at stake in all such negotiations? For the sake of our men and women in our armed forces, I hope we can affect such changes.
I hope we can admit that our purpose in Iraq and Afghanistan is driven by monetary concerns that our government is acting, incorrectly, to benefit commercial concerns. I hope we can admit that stopping piracy on the high seas is different than toppling dictators and religious fanatics who lack the capability to actually wage war against us. I hope we can admit that sending in covert teams to capture or kill those who actually do attack our nation is acceptable while wholesale invasion of other nations with no clear purpose, goal, or exit strategy is not. And I hope we can agree that in any future war, we will draft those politicians who vote to fight it, diplomats who failed in their missions, along with their family members of adult age and place them squarely on the field of battle, to share the risk and to risk their own blood and family futures. Maybe then, diplomacy will become less a holdover from the days of divine right rulers and more an actual tool to resolve disputes between nations.
Dinner tonight will be cheeseburgers with a sweet potato for Gloria and home fries for me.
The day is bright and sunny. Trees are shedding their leaves faster than I am shedding hair from my head. I imagined myself with gray hair when I was younger but never imagined losing my hair. Since I almost always wear a hat outside the house for the shade it provides my eyes, and since I long ago learned that mirrors satisfied no vanity in my mind, as long as Gloria can live with my scalp I can too.
It is supposed to drop below freezing tonight. Later this afternoon I’ll lug another 40 pound of salt pellets over to the well and add them to the filter system. Then I’ll plug in one lamp and drop some warfarin bait in for the mice. That should pretty much wreck my shoulder and arm for the day.
Gloria had a routine checkup Dr’s appointment today. She’s been very concerned about post-prandial glucose levels. Her physician was very pleased with her recorded glucose levels obtained by home monitor. She works very hard at maintaining very tight glucose control. I feel sorry for her as she has had to give up many of her favorite foods. Genetic predisposition to a disease is wicked and generally inescapable. Knowing that doesn’t ease the affliction.
In a perverse manner, I’m enjoying listening to some of my more rabidly right wing correspondents complain about the shortage of H1N1 vaccine. They, of course, want to lay the blame on Obama. They are all too willing to ignore that the disease appeared and reached pandemic status during the Bush administration. They also fail to understand that their vaunted “free market” opted out of vaccine production in this nation, for the most part, as far back as the 1970’s. As I recall, the profit margin was too small and there was too much fear of lawsuits filed by parents who had autistic children and believed the thimerosal component of some vaccines was at fault. The result is an inadequate supply of vaccine today. The free market could have easily ramped up production when the virus first was declared pandemic. The major manufacturers chose profit over public service once again. Quelle Surpris!
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Blue Flannel and Socks
Blue flannel and socks, curled up quiet next to me,
Unspoken symbols of trust in the morning of our love,
Knew that I'd accept her as she really was and somehow,
Quickly realized that I was worthy of her absolute trust.
She didn't know what flannel did to me, she couldn't
Said, this is who I am, no pretense, subterfuge, just us.
She had to hope that I was worthy of her confidence,
Made the huge commitment, showed me who she really was,
Turned a sudden corner, accepting the relationship, quite fully,
Before she went upstairs to change out of her daytime clothes,
But still, she had to feel some trepidation, padding softly,
Gently down the stairs to sit beside me, legs bare, but for socks.
Curled up there with her head upon my shoulder, quiet comfort,
Basking in the peace that cycled back and forth between us,
Thinking of the comfort that was instantly apparent,
Radiating like warm microwaves around us,
Healing any doubts that might have still remained,
Welding tightly bonds we forged that night between us.
Isn’t it amazing how little things like flannel speak so loudly
If you’ve only ears to hear them when they whisper in the night,
The creature comforts we assume that tell so much about us,
The simple things we cherish that make us feel relaxed, feel alright,
And I cherish that one instant when she said so much about herself to me,
A silent moment wrapped in flannel, trust freely given me that winter's night
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