gradstdentsteve

gradstdentsteve @ 2008-02-12T15:46:00

2008-02-12T21:05:17Z

http://www.flathatnews.com/news/1872/breaking-nichol-contract-not-renewed

there's more to this than first there seems. Believe it or not, I think the BoV's after the right goal. All science and learning and progress lives by controversy. but, while nurturing when calm and rational, when controversy reaches the point where it's all vitriol and name calling, then it becomes damaging. This is where things are w/ Nichol. all the fights, the BoV has done its level best to end the controversy, and failed at every step. So, they take the next step and try and remove what they see as the root cause. remove Nichol and the poison drip at the center of all of this will go away and the controversy will go away. the BoV is trying to ride above the debate, by releasing Nichol and claiming it's not about the policies. it's the only way they can end the fight now.

it won't work. w&m has become a battlefield of the culture war. the rancor continues on both sides, just read the comments. and now one side has a martyr; now there's blood in the water, and the fight will be re-energized, and certainly will ascend to a new level. both sides will now begin eating their young, if they aren't already. all of w&m should take comfort in the fact that American institutional/historical memory is 17 minutes long.

the darkest days of this fight are ahead.

RoW post #2

2008-01-18T05:37:34Z

Thursday, January 17, 2008

dogs that haven't barked

In the midst of a the most contentious, and admittedly most exciting, election cycle in some time, where Iraq is never out of the headlines and never far from the debate, one issue has left the headlines. Politicians aren't the only ones debating the legality of the war and the presence of American troops in Iraq. A few army officers and soldiers have attempted to refuse to deploy, citing their objection to the conflict.

About a year and a half ago, 1LT Ehren Watada refused to deploy with his unit to Iraq. He was not unwilling to serve, not even to fight; he even requested deployment to Afghanistan instead of Iraq. It was only to Iraq that he refused to go. His case has become exceptional since Watada decided to speak to the press about his refusal and since the army decided to file charges and begin a court martial. About a week before Watada was first to face trial, Bobbie Morgan published a piece in the now-defunct Bainbridge Buzz defending Watada and trying to rally others to do so also. The piece is here. Watada started off with a political statement, but Morgan turned it around into a defense of freedom of speech and an aversion to war crimes prosecution.

The latter is completely ineffective. The Nuremberg Trials that Morgan cites did not try regular soldiers and officers for engaging in wars of aggression, but for carrying out the Holocaust. The charges for wars of aggression went to the top brass and political leaders. Watada is not in that line. Also, does anyone really think that the US is going to be subject to the same such trials, even if we lose badly? The ICJ doesn't have this kind of jurisdiction, we've refused the ICC, and even if we hadn't, no US soldier would answer a subpoena and no one could enforce one on a US soldier. The power of international law still only extends to those who are willing to follow it.

But military discipline and culture does prevent soldiers from making public statements against policy as a way of preventing the army from becoming a political actor. This is the rule that Watada violated and why he alone among those who refused to deploy have faced charges. And it is why so many Watada supporters have actually been upset that Watada's first hearing was declared a mistrial and closed right away, even when, due to the prohibition against double jeopardy, the mistrial virtually guarantees that Watada will face no civilian punishment for his actions (And the stays against the court martial he's received from civilian courts block military punishment.). Watada appears clear, but his supporters are upset because he will never be able to state his policy objections in court. Indeed, the statement elsewhere on the same site from Representative and Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich show this contradiction, railing against the judges actions the prevent Watada from speaking in court, but also praising them as the correct actions. Other statements show just how ambivalent the defense is to the double jeopardy issue; they want him to speak in trial and be proven right, not to have the charges swept away.

This also keeps Watada's story out of the news during the election current election cycle. Watada and the issues of moral, objection, and the state of the military that are connected to this have stayed out of the election debates on Iraq. But these are not the issues that Watada's supporters want to discuss. They don't want to liken Watada to the conscientious objectors that the military has allowed to avoid combat when drafted since at least the Civil War. Nor are they that concerned about keeping him out of jail, which the military has not truly done its best to do, since the military has never charged Watada with failure to follow orders under the UCMJ. Rather, Watada's supposed supporters want to use Watada, and the larger class of the military's internal objectors to the war in Iraq, as a way to drive their arguments against the war.

first post from the rules of war blog

2008-01-14T02:17:43Z

Gulf of Tonkin: take 2

Small boats harass American warships. It's been all over the news, including the claims that it didn't happen the way government spokespersons first reported it, leaving attempts to identify what really happened to little more than "he said-she said" for the time being. What is left unclear is whether this is the the Straits of Hormuz in the past week or Southeast Asia in 1964.

Regardless of what happened in the latter, history already records the results, from the War Powers Act to the long story of Vietnam. We don't yet know where the events of last week will lead, or necessarily what really happened. The coverage so far has included some of the controversy over events, but mostly focused on the rules of engagement. Could the American warships have fired? Should they have? After all the discussions 5 years ago about self defense, the events came close to being a legitimate case of self defense, either for the American or Iranian side, depending on which set of events of you choose to believe. Clearly provocative action was taken, whether you believe the Americans took it or the Iranians took it. Had the threatened side fired, they would have been in their rights.

Though, it's likely we'd now have controversies over who fired and who didn't and whether the shots were aggressive or defensive. Twenty years from now, we'd probably know who was right and who wasn't about what happened. For now, we should all be thankful that no shots were fired; regardless of which side fired and whether they were right, it is likely that had they been fired, American troops would already be streaming towards Tehran with attack orders issued under the authority of of the laws passed last time something like this happened.

more study needed

2007-10-18T17:06:10Z

If you're going to go on CNN and talk about how important and fulfilling you finding it is to help the people of Rwanda, esp. after making a movie about the genocide, please don't call them the "Rwandese."

Request for Removal from Petition

2007-02-18T06:53:52Z

tonight, I sent the email below to info@savethewrencross.org. I am tired of this issue and want to be over.

To Whom It May Concern:

Word first reached me about the removal of the Wren Cross in early November, 2006. Having been raised in the Catholic tradition, and as a current practicing Catholic, who attends mass every week, and works hard on his faith outside of mass, I immediately thought it inappropriate that a chapel should be without a cross. As such, I moved quickly to sign the petition posted on www.SavetheWrenCross.org, a petition that I understood to be drawn from the College’s student and alumni population. I am happy to see that it generated sufficient publicity to create a debate about the policies the College and President Nichol should apply regarding the cross on the space in the chapel, which I would dare to refer to as worship space.

But, since November, several things have changed. First, as a student of government policy and democratic process, I am well acquainted with the role, and indeed necessity of compromise in open, pluralistic societies, no matter whether they are as large of the United States or India or as small as the individual halls in the dorms across campus. It is my opinion that President Nichol’s recent decision to display the cross on Sundays, while it is available upon request for display all other days of the week is an acceptable compromise solution to this issue. I will not claim that it is my own, personal ideal solution, but I find it acceptable in the context of America’s public schools and my desire to make all people feel welcome in whatever community I also belong to. Second, the petition has moved largely out of the hands of students and alumni. Of the over 16,000 names, less 4,400 names come from students and alumni; students and alumni now make up only slightly more than one quarter of the signatories. Both as a cause of this and as a result, the College has garnered a great deal of outside attention on the issue, much of which I believe is in bad-faith on the issue, and which uses the petition in a way that I neither anticipated nor to which I wish my name to be used. I humbly request then that my name be removed from the petition. The entry is listed as follows:

(omitted for privacy)

As of this moment, it is listed as entry # (omitted for privacy), when the names listed are limited to only students and alumni.

I thank you for raising this issue when action was first taken. And I was heartened by the response the college community gave in the months immediately following the decision to remove the cross. Since then, however, the course of the debate has seen me move from heartened to concerned to annoyed to exasperated, and even, at times, disgusted. I now believe that the debate has within its reach the ratification of a valid compromise solution. It is my hope that the college community may be given a chance through the tools of debate within the community to ratify or reject that solution, and in so doing, bring this scandal to a close and move forward. Unfortunately, my location, removed from the campus as it is, renders me unable to truly assess whether the issue has been settled. But, while the debates continue, I no longer consent to the use of my name in the manner in which the petition is now used, and so request that it be removed.

Thank you,

/undersigned w/ my graduation and program information/

gradstdentsteve @ 2006-12-28T01:46:00

2006-12-28T06:49:06Z

I have a new apartment! contact me directly if you want details about location/contact

christmas gift theory

2006-12-24T06:00:36Z

So, I was reminded tonight of the variety of ways that people decide whom to give Christmas gifts and what to give. So, I'm curious about what everyone thinks about that.

Also...it's a good way to find out if I've gotten anyone's attention for this journal yet...

step 1

2006-12-23T06:41:18Z

Ok. It's been suggested many times that I start one of these. So...here goes: 1st entry, and, already, I'll get back to doing this for real some time later.