Peace

More on convergence of war and gaming

/ Eamon / Leave a comment

Yesterday, I described two different perspectives about what it means to fight wars remotely and through computers. I’m not a gamer, so I wasn’t aware just how similar video games are to the video from Wikileaks. If you had the stomach to watch that clip (beware, it’s extremely violent and disturbing), you will probably shocked to see just how similar the game Call of Duty is to the actual experience:

My point here is not so much to slam video games, but to suggest there is something remarkable — and awful — about this convergence of technologies. Entertainment, since its earliest forms, has always used war as inspiration. But until now it has been impossible to have a simulated experience that is so nearly exactly like the real one.

And it’s not that entertainment has chased war as much as some experiences of war — the remote ones — are becoming more like entertainment. Part of the appeal of entertainment that shows killing is that it removes all the nastier aspects of the experience — from the humanity of an enemy to the feeling of immediate vulnerability. Old west gunfights were probably nothing like those in High Plains Drifter. Saving Private Ryan might be uncomfortably real, but it certainly can’t be a substitute for participating in D-Day. The similarity between coordinating drone strikes, though, and playing Call of Duty seems unprecedented.

Does this influence how we as a country decide which wars to wage? It’s hard to say for sure, but there are certainly some interesting parallels between our foreign policy and the experience the technology helps create: god-like feelings of omnipotence, invulnerability, superiority, cold detachment from others’ suffering.

It is awe-inspiring technology, but it is also dangerous — not just for journalists carrying video cameras around the streets of Baghdad, but, I think, for the people pulling the trigger (or pushing the buttons). Or maybe I just think that way because my parents read me Lord of the Rings when I was 10.

(Hat-tip MB.)

Ridiculous road trip pt. 1: Burundi

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Between November 10 and December 5, I went on a road trip that took me from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to Bujumbura, Burundi – via Nairobi, Kisumu, Kampala and Kigali. Hitting all five countries in the East African Community (EAC) in four weeks via bus is an endeavor I can only describe as ridiculous. I estimate that I logged more than 75 hours in buses; if someone could calculate the mileage for me, that would be awesome. (This is not counting at least 45 hours of trains and automobiles I undertook at the end of October, going from Dar es Salaam to Tanga to Mombasa, and then from Mombasa to Nairobi, and then back to Dar – see previous posts.)

For some reason, I’m going to start with Burundi, a country where I only spent three nights and didn’t do any real reporting. Burundi was basically my journey’s terminus, and maybe for that reason I can get a little sentimental about it. But for whatever reason, this beautiful, war-torn little country looms large in my mind. Continue reading →

Obama prize: for the people

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My initial reaction was, like so many Twitterers and Facebookers, “It’s too early.” Obama has not nearly dismantled the GWOT to the degree I want to see, he’s still presiding over two specific wars, he hasn’t taken a position on the Goldstone report or condemned the bombing of Gaza or Israeli nukes, he may send many more troops to Afghanistan. My expectations are high, and there’s too much about American policy that continues to reek of war and imperialism.

But as a day has passed, I’ve grown more and more excited about his award. One person whose opinion I greatly respect prodded us on Twitter:

“It’s the height of cynicism, and the triumph of punditry, to scoff from the sidelines at President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize.”

I don’t think all the negative reactions to the award from the left have been simple, sarcastic scoffing. Many are related to the continuing hugeness of the American war machine, the missile strikes on civilians in Afghanistan, the failure to satisfactorily shut Guantanamo.

Continue reading →

Afghanistan: Ain’t no time to wonder why

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On a sweltering day at Woodstock in 1969, the band Country Joe and the Fish did something that every Eighties Baby born to hippies knows well.

First, they led the crowd in a rousing chant of the word “fuck”, just for the heck of it. Nowadays, when soft-porn club bangers saturate the radio, the fact that shouting “fuck” was a show-stopper seems downright quaint.

But Country Joe’s second moment of lasting fame—a rousing, angry anthem condemning the Vietnam War—should continue to give us pause today.

“Ain’t no time to wonder why,” he sang. “Whoopee, we’re all gonna die!” Continue reading →

How badly has U.S. policy failed Somalia?

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“The only people who care at all about Somalis are the people who are working out of mosques. But I’m told that if they’re working out of mosques, they’re bad guys.”

That’s the conundrum that Columbia Professor Richard Bulliet says a CIA desk officer related to him at a conference in Washington a decade ago. Despite that clear revelation in the rank and file of the intelligence community, the United States has spent the 2000s doing everything possible to disable the Islamists in Somalia–even if it meant propping up brutal warlords with no real vision for a Somali state.

Bulliet recalled the incident last night during the event “The Obama Administration and the Middle East”, co-sponsored by the Arab Student Association, Columbia University Amnesty International and several other groups. Panelists–even as they expressed their happiness at Obama’s election–gave a sobering analysis of the limited prospects for fast, fundamental change in American policies in the Middle East. (Other panelists included Columbia profs Gil Anidjar and Peter Awn, CUNY professor Amir al-Islam and ACLU attorney Hina Shamsi.) Continue reading →

Inauguration exclusive: the audacity of hoping for a better U.S. policy toward Syria

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LGD Note: I reported this piece back in October and wrote it in November for a class at Columbia, with the intention of publishing it on a foreign affairs-concerned website. At the time, the handful of advocates for a better U.S. policy toward Syria were sounding optimistic. Then came the U.S. attack on the village of Sukkariyyeh in eastern Syria, which brought relations between the two countries to an all-time low. It also complicated my story in a way that I couldn’t untangle during midterms. I offer the piece here with the caveat that all comments were obtained back in October before the attack, and long before the Gaza war. But I think there is some interesting food from thought here that is relevant despite all the things that happened since I reported it. What kind of change will Obama bring to our policy with this overly maligned country?

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By EKA
November 15, 2008

American voters aren’t the only ones celebrating the election of a new president this month. In Syria, which is still reeling from the October 26 attack by U.S. commandos on the village of Sukkariyyeh, people are hoping the new presidency will mean a different American approach to their country. Continue reading →

Jon Stewart keeps it real for Gaza

/ Eamon / 1 Comment

If Jon Stewart was a total partisan about anything, he wouldn’t be doing his job. So I expect him to be more cynical and keep a better critical distance from the bombardment of Gaza than I have been able to do. (But hey, I don’t think I’m doing such a bad job myself!)

Still, it was a huge relief to see him joking about the Israeli incursion in a way that made all the Israel apologists on TV look like dum-dums. (They tend to be much more annoying than Israel apologists in real life, because their position on the matter seems much more a political stunt than actual conviction.)

My favorite part of Monday’s show: New York mayor Michael Bloomberg asks, If a crazy neighbor was shouting through your door threatening to kill you, wouldn’t you want the NYPD to send all available resources, not just a single cop?

“That depends,” says Stewart, “if I was forcing that person to live in my hallway and pass through a checkpoint every time he needed to take a shit.”

LOL

Palestine: get on the bus

/ Eamon / 3 Comments

Wouldn’t it be embarrassing to look back at the year 1983 and recall being on the fence about Apartheid in South Africa?

“Gosh,” you thought, “I mean, I don’t think it’s ideal that blacks and whites are separated in that country. But S.A. does plenty of good things. And I can’t imagine those wild terrorists, the ANC, taking over.”

I hope I’m not really describing you here. My point is, with the power of hindsight, it’s hard to see how anyone would have shied from denouncing Apartheid, let alone openly supported it. Yet plenty of powerful people stood by while one of the most ruthless and distasteful political systems in modern history thrived for more than 40 years. Our own Reagan administration blocked sanctions against South Africa and believed the racist government could be nudged toward reform by helping Apartheid’s architects get richer. (His plan didn’t work.)

Nearly 20 years after Apartheid ended in South Africa, the world finds itself at a similar juncture with regard to the Palestinian people. With Israel’s blasting of Gaza, there’s no better time to make sure that, 20 years from now, you don’t find yourself in your own embarrassing hindsight moment. It’s time to get on the bus for the Palestinian people, especially if you’re an American. It’s time to demand that Palestinians receive the same rights that Israelis have. That they have the same opportunities to live long and prosperous lives. That they are not physically confined to walled, impoverished homelands (like the black “homelands” in South Africa) based on their ethnicity. Continue reading →

Re: Good guys and bad guys in Darfur

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As long as we’re having a discussion about Darfur, I thought it would be a nice time to bring up this definitive interview from last year with Mahmood Mamdani on Democracy Now! (Sorry to overload on Mamdani inteviews from this particular show, but these clips are too good to pass up.) Below is part 1 of 3. I recommend watching them all.

The Darfur issue continues to be very relevant: VP-elect Joe Biden is a pro-interventionist who thinks the United States should enforce a no-fly zone in Darfur. (Sorry to subject you to more Palin in that link — you can skip her part, which begins at 2:03!)

This is worrying to me. I think Washington looks for military solutions because our military is so big, not because it is the best way to deal with things. Even pro-ICC, pro-interventionists like International Crisis Group president Gareth Evans say that military action in Sudan makes no sense. Read his objections (starting page 6 of the linked doc); they could apply to a lot of other places, like Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the idea of stepped-up intervention has been tossed around.