September 2006

711 Stewart Avenue, Garden City, New York is owned by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), although most of the signs that say “INS” have been covered with taped-up pieces of photocopier paper and new seals hanging below say “Department of Homeland Security”. Because INS alone didn’t make foreigners quite scared enough.

At 9:06 AM on a mildly humid Monday morning, I sit with my parents in the back of a room that is nearly 50 yards long. Hundreds of chairs are arranged in long rows and at the front of the room is the most diverse crowd I’ve ever seen in one place.

Five hundred legal aliens are about to take their oaths of citizenship and become American citizens- as legit as Thomas Jefferson himself. They are from China, Jamaica, Belarus, Italy, Burma, Albania, and beyond. Dressed in their best attire, which in some cases is just jeans and sneakers with a button-down shirt, these 500 souls have moved their lives and their families across the world in pursuit of the American dream. My family is here to support Elaine, a close family friend who lived in the US legally for 30 years before deciding to become a citizen.

The supervisor stalls for time while wayward oath-seekers trickle into the building late. He puts the applicants at ease, tells a few jokes that are self-deprecating and funny. He reminds the new citizens about forms they have to file to get their full benefits: passports, documents for children which will enable college grants, and correction forms to fix typos on their certificates. He seems to be honestly and sincerely excited about the multi-national delegation seated in front of him and their decision to become American citizens.

At the end of one stalling tirade about the applicants’ new lives as Americans, the supervisor segues from his personal take on what it means to be a good citizen to his personal take on America’s reputation. He talks about how America is “really” a good country, even though a lot of other countries “knock it”. It seems as if he is suddenly trying to excuse all of America’s shortcomings and convince the new citizens that this really isn’t a bad place after all- as though someone in the crowd was having second thoughts on account of America’s bad rep. Then he asks if there are any applicants serving in the military.

I look around for some comrades, but see no hands go up. He continues in a reverent tone, “The country is very grateful for the service of men and women in the armed forces, and if you see them, you should thank them.” Then, returning to his apology on behalf of America: “Most people in the military joined just so they could go to college. They don’t have any say in foreign policy; they’re just doing their jobs.”

I flush. I feel my face turn red and sweat forming on the back of my neck but I remain motionless.

Did I hear that right? Did the supervisor of an INS facility about to swear in 500 foreigners as citizens of the United States just apologize for American policy and trivialize the commitment of over a million brave souls? Seated in front of him are men and women who have sacrificed untold amounts to save money, travel around the world, overcome culture shock and racism, learn English, study American history, assimilate, and run a bumpy gauntlet of interrogative paperwork- to become part of, and share personal responsibility in, the very country he is masochistically excusing.

Did any of the more the nearly 4,000 men and women killed in Iraq die for their college benefits? I don’t think so. They died because their courage was so unflappable that without question or hesitation, they placed themselves in dangerous situations with no regard for their own peril, because that’s what their citizens demanded. Sgt Yarbrough never asked me to write a college recommendation for him- although I would have in a heartbeat- instead he asked me to promote him and went on to request another deployment to Iraq. When he was killed in Iraq, it wasn’t for college; it was for his only obligation: the Constitution, and it was at the will of every American citizen forming the majority, including all the new ones, no matter where they came from.

Why are Americans so self-conscious about their country’s foreign policy? Is it because they don’t support it? Is it because they feel guilty about not speaking up when they didn’t support it or because they are too ignorant to know what to ask for from their delegates? Is it because they sense its illegitimacy?

How can we be so insecure about something as absolutely monumental and ethically concrete as fighting a war, that an INS supervisor is compelled to, voluntarily and without provocation, apologize to new citizens minutes before they join the country and share the responsibility themselves?

Oh yeah, and FYI: we don’t die for college.


Further Reading: 2 Dinar on non-US citizen veterans

When we were just learning our way around Camp Fallujah in early September 2004, there were always hordes of Marines hanging out near the old theater on the former Iraqi army base, waiting for their “Warrior Transition Brief”. We called this the “don’t beat your wife brief”- it was the training you got to tell you what it was going to be like when you went back to the world and how you were supposed to act. We were jealous of the short-timers; we had a long way to go.

My relationship with my girlfriend Julie had been tenuous. We met in the first week of college, fell in love quickly, and after years of dating it had become clear to both of us that we were soul mates. But my insecurity and the impact of her childhood divorce had badly damaged our relationship and for two years she wouldn’t have anything to do with me. I moved around the US and eventually to Japan, living a solitary, masochistic existence. She moved in with her boyfriend.

When I told Julie I was going to Iraq, she suddenly wanted to see me, and sounded interested in me for the first time in years. Her visit the week before I deployed was the happiest four days of my life, despite the looming hardships. I felt unstoppable- I was going to fight the good fight and my woman had come back to me.


During the Iraq deployment, I relied heavily on Julie, and it seemed all the baggage between us had been silently forgotten. She was still the woman I had always loved, and I felt like the kind of man she deserved. The war was all consuming and I spent my free time thinking about how I would leave the Marines and we would spend the rest of our lives together.

When the time came for my unit to go home, we were cocky and incredulous during our own warrior transition briefs and Post Deployment Health Assessments. No way were we screwed up, we thought. Many of us had led reasonably sheltered tours, so we felt we didn’t even rate any psychological issues. Later, I’d realize that this attitude was part of my problem.


When the plane from Kuwait landed at March Air Reserve Base and I walked out onto the tarmac, I felt satisfied. When the bus pulled onto the parade deck at Pendleton- the PA system enthusiastically announcing our arrival- and I stepped off the bus to hug Julie, I felt like a rock-star. But by the time I went to get my luggage and put it in my parents’ rental car five minutes later, I was already a little depressed.

The welcome home weekend probably would have been the best four days of my parents’ and Julie’s lives, if it hadn’t been among my worst. I was a jerk. I couldn’t make simple decisions like when to eat. I didn’t want to hang out with my family. I drifted in and out of thought, ignoring people around me, morose and sulking. Every recreational activity seemed idiotic and self-indulgent. In the parking lot of the San Diego Zoo, I couldn’t find the willpower to go inside, and when my mother asked me, intuitively, if I wanted to go back to Iraq, I thought the question was absurd- until the word “yes” came out of my mouth and I started crying.

I don’t think anyone realized the significance of that moment at the time, but looking back, I realize that it was a red flag that my war wasn’t over, and that I had unanswered questions in my head. While spending my welcome home weekend at the Hotel Del, I enviously watched the Navy SEAL trainees working out in the surf in front of their base on Coronado. I envied their fraternity- the type of lifestyle that had sustained me for the last four years when Julie ignored me and my family was thousands of miles away. In three months I would be off active duty, heading back to NY to start a new career. I had a sense that the most important chapter of my life was closing and I wasn’t ready for it.

When Julie left that weekend to go back to NY, I was devastated, sobbing alone in my hotel room at the sight of a love note she had hidden for me. But when I put on my desert uniform and showed up to work on Monday, snapping salutes in the early morning sun outside our battalion command post, I felt comfortable again. I was surprised by how happy I was to see the same guys I’d spent the last 210 days with. I allowed myself to be re-enveloped by my family of warriors at the cost of paying attention to my own family and Julie.

In the end, coming home from Iraq would be the deathblow to the relationship I’d spent years trying to rebuild with the woman I wanted to marry. Unable or unwilling to think about anything but being a Marine each day and to focus on daily self-indulgences like bullshit hobbies I hadn’t had time for in years, I ignored Julie and lived in my own little world.

My last day on active duty was a big one. I found myself leading the Battalion over a hill on a large formation run, carrying the colors for one last time. The CO smiled at me as I ran by- I could tell people were sad to see me go. Later that day I promoted one of my best troops to Corporal, making him into a non-commissioned officer. The XO sat me down in his office and told me my career plans were bullshit and that he could only see me as a Marine. Better than half of me believed he was right. By the end of the day, I was one of the last Marines in the command post- I drove home in my uniform. I felt like I was getting kicked out of the house, even though I’d chosen to leave.


When I got to New York, there was no homecoming for me with Julie. I felt like I had buried my war tomahawk on the long drive from San Diego, but Julie was no longer interested in me and seemed fully ensconced in her metropolitan lifestyle. For two more years, she’d respond to me haphazardly, occasionally let me take her out to dinner, and refuse to share a single moment of substance. Eventually I cut the last lines tethering our ships together, and watched her sail away without looking back.

Through this entire trauma, I had loaded my plate up with as much work as I could handle, trying desperately to keep my life moving forward. But the omnipresence of the war would not let me be. I worked out relentlessly, read books on tactics, looked into Arabic classes, and called reserve units to find out when they were deploying. Since arriving home, I had promised myself to put Julie before the Marines, but if she wasn’t interested, then maybe I’d go back to the desert and answer some of those unanswered questions. My parents looked nauseous when I told them I was thinking about joining a reserve unit. I hated civilian life and there was no reason to stay here anymore.


When the Walter Reed scandal broke, the military crapped their pants. Within days I got a phone call from a defense contractor that had been hired to call all the Iraq and Afghanistan vets and have a little chat about their health. It was a post-post deployment screening. On the phone, I found myself lying again. No, I was not stressed out. No, I did not have trouble talking to people or sleeping. Yes, I was doing just great.

In reality, I was, and remain, wracked with guilt and insecurity- different than survivor’s guilt and far less noble. This is the guilt of leaving to pursue another career when the Corps needed strong leaders like me. The guilt of not having gone all-in when gambling with my life; of not having been catastrophically injured. The guilt of not having killed and the guilt of not living with the timeless veteran’s regrets about his killings. The guilt of being indifferent to the hundreds of opportunities available to me because they all bored me and all I wanted to do was fight. The guilt of having destroyed the most important relationship in my life because of all this guilt about the war.


I’ve been eyeing the presidential candidates all year, waiting for the time when I thought I could stomach the idea of maybe getting killed in a war I still didn’t believe in- but was nonetheless the place on earth where I belonged. Last month, one of my friends from the Marines who never went to Iraq and became a Wall Street lawyer after active duty, quit his job, joined an elite reserve unit, and began preparing to go fight. He is the third person I know who has done this, even after I was the first one talking about deploying with the reserves.

I know why he did it before me though. The sense of guilt and insecurity is deeper with him, since he hasn’t been over there yet. I only hope his experience is meaningful enough to keep him from wanting to go back or distracting him from the things in life that are most important.

Like any serious football fan, I kept one eye on the NFL draft this weekend, watching my favorite college players embark on the next chapters of their athletic careers.

One of the ESPN profiles caught my eye- it was a US Military Academy (USMA, a/k/a “West Point”) cadet in uniform being interviewed in what seemed like some pre-NFL draft hype. The sound was off on the gym TV so I figured it was something else- service academy graduates are obligated to serve on active duty, or so I thought. Turns out I was wrong.

The NY Times reported yesterday that USMA Cadets Caleb Campbell and Mike Viti will not be joining their comrades fighting in the Global War on Terrorism, but instead will be authorized under new Army regulations to play pro football in the NFL. Campbell was selected by the Detroit Lions in the seventh round of the 2008 draft and Viti signed a free agent contract with the Buffalo Bills.

The new policy, established in 2005, allows “individuals with exceptional skills to pursue professional careers while remaining on active duty”, according to the Times. The exceptional individual is to be assigned to a nearby recruiting post as a part-time recruiter and is eligible for early release from active duty after two years. This policy is unique to the US Army and is not DoD universal.


How the Army Sees It:

“People have philosophical problems with this — they think everyone else is going to Iraq,” said one Army official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the policy. “You can’t judge someone’s worth by their proximity to the battlefield. There are a couple thousand soldiers on recruiting duty. Is he still helping the Army? Yes. Is he still serving? Yes.”

Let’s take it from the top: the sacrifice is on the battlefield, period. The fight is on the battlefield. The burden is on those on the battlefield and their families at home. The greatest need is for well-trained leaders (exactly what West Point produces) to fight. Campbell’s service as a part time recruiter is in no way comparable to that of the soldiers walking the streets of Basra.

Additionally, recruiting is considered special duty in the military- normally it’s duty with a lot of responsibility and autonomy, and performance as a recruiter can make or break someone’s career. It’s also duty that’s given to troops coming off of deployable unit tours; in today’s world we call those people war vets. And while it’s very hard work, it usually represents the only duty a service member can get close to home so these billets are highly sought after. Campbell will certainly be a public affairs trophy the Army can parade around liberally, but no more so than actual veterans who have gone onto great careers in the civilian sector after their service- from Ted Williams to Roger Staubach.


How Campbell Sees It:

“I’ve heard stories about what’s gone on in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Campbell said. “In another sense, the N.F.L. is just as much pressure. You’re out there to take somebody’s job. In terms of coaches can’t cut me? We’re talking about the N.F.L. here. This is a cutthroat business.”

Yeah, the NFL is just like war. Watching or hearing about your friends dying, reckoning your own mortality, lying to your family about what you do, eating MREs and T-Rats, the heat, the celibacy, the compartmentalization of all emotions, the ruined personal relationships, the inner strife about what you’re doing, and the anger about how little the average voter understands or cares about what you do. You nailed it champ.


How I See It:

The civilians who run the US Army have hired too many consultants who don’t understand the way the military culture works or why it should be preserved. Consultants see brand awareness opportunities. They see endorsement opportunities. They think the Return On Investment on Campbell’s West Point education is higher with him in Detroit than Mosul because the money needed to get the equivalent of NFL exposure would probably be a whole quarter’s budget. These people are great marketers, but terrible soldiers- because they’re not soldiers. And they are trading away the strength of the military culture for a few awareness points.

The issue here is equity. We all join the military to serve- at the core of all the college scholarships or self-expressive benefits of being a warrior, service is why we sign up. And in that service, we expect to be treated fairly- we wear uniforms and cut our hair the same way, we eat the same food, we sleep in the same dirt, we stamp out cronyism, and we embrace our multicultural nature. How are Campbell's classmates heading off on their first 15 month deployments supposed to feel while he heads off to NFL training camp? More importantly, what does the average soldier think, hearing about this story during his involuntarily activated combat deployment- the one that pulled him away from his own civilian career after he was honorably discharged?

When you consider all the kids that killed themselves to get into West Point (probably the world’s best military academy, and undeniably one of America’s best schools) and you think about the nearly limitless bounty of upward mobility that comes with its degree, the new Army rule means that those “exceptionally skilled” individuals are wasting slots for real soldiers as well as wasting their degrees and training- as far as taxpayers are concerned.

Campbell may have been placed in an awkward position, but the decision should be clear to a real warrior: The NFL will be there in four years. Honor your obligation and your service, and pick up a rifle. If Campbell prioritized the NFL over regular service, then why attend West Point? Why not go to any of the other colleges that would have let him play ball?


One of the first articles I wrote on 2 Dinar was about Pat Tillman, the Army Ranger killed in Afghanistan four years ago this week. Tillman was a pro safety who left his NFL career behind to enlist in the army, and served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Campbell story is Tillman in reverse, made worse by the fact that the public seems to be incapable of telling the difference. Tillman shunned the spotlight for dark nights in the Afghani mountains and made the ultimate sacrifice. Campbell is ignoring both Tillman’s legacy and the service to which he is obligated- and the Army is encouraging him.


Further Reading: NY Times 2 Dinar on Pat Tillman

Edits made [day of publication]

In the introduction to his 1961 translation of Mao Zedong’s On Guerrilla Warfare, retired Marine General and Navy Cross recipient Samuel B. Griffith II quoted from a Newsweek magazine article dated 3 Jul 1961:

“Pentagon– A new and fiendishly ingenious anti-guerrilla weapon is being tested by the Navy. It’s a delayed-action liquid explosive, squirted from a flame-thrower-like gun, that seeps into foxholes and bunkers. Seconds later, fed by oxygen from the air, it blows up with terrific force.”

Griffith angrily responded to the article, writing:

“Apparently we are to assume that guerrillas will conveniently ensconce themselves in readily identifiable ‘foxholes and bunkers’ awaiting the arrival of half a dozen admirals armed with ‘flame-throwing guns’ to march up, squirt, and retire to the nearest officer’s club. To anyone even remotely acquainted with the philosophy and doctrine of revolutionary guerrilla war, this sort of thing is not hilariously funny. There are no mechanical panaceas.”

Griffith’s translation of Mao’s text is a disturbing and enlightening read. The conclusion to be drawn is not only that American military and political leadership failed to understand the nature of guerrilla warfare in every war since the end of WWII, but more interestingly that the Iraqi insurgents have an equal misunderstanding of the war they are fighting and what it can or will bring them.


The major issues of the Chinese Civil War, Vietnam War, and Iraq War are identical: an imperialist foreign power invades an agrarian society in order increase its wealth and strengthen its influence in the region. Yet because the Iraqi insurgent leadership views the current conflict as an extension of the medieval crusades with no strategy other than destruction, the only endstate they can offer, either through victory or defeat, is chaos.

While the Chinese and Vietnamese insurgencies were revolutionary nationalist movements, the Iraqi insurgency by comparison is not and therein lies its fundamental flaw, or critical vulnerability. Indeed, unlike China or Vietnam, there is no history of revolution or nationalism in Iraq, only the taking of power by strongmen. Any revolutionary movement in Iraq was crushed by Saddam Hussein in order to ensure his own survival in power. What is more, because it has no national aspirations, the Iraqi insurgency also lacks a unified goal, except for getting the Americans to leave. And given that the idea of a “nation of Iraq” is a western created concept that ignores Iraq’s diversity and significant history, it is difficult to envision a unified Iraqi nation-state founded by the Islamic fundamentalists.

The Chinese and Vietnamese insurgencies were guided by communism, a political ideology. The Iraqi insurgency is inspired by radical Islam, which has been politicized, but at its heart is still a regionally oriented religion. And while communism can become the symbolic religion of its followers and can be followed with religious intensity, it is neither a religion nor a cultural identity. Islam is at the core of the Iraqi insurgency, and is a fundamental difference in the way it conducts its operations from these insurgent precedents. It is indeed to the Iraqi insurgency’s detriment that its fighters are not seeking rewards in this lifetime.


Overall Iraqi insurgent strategy is inherently tied to the politics of Iraq and ultimately to those of America as well. As part of the surge, in the 2007 “Anbar Awakening”, local sheiks formed neighborhood defense forces and cooperated with American forces in preventing insurgent groups from operating in their villages. As the American economy falls into recession, it takes front stage in the presidential election race- the war in Iraq is no longer the most important issue on the minds of American voters.

Similar to the Vietnamese at Dien Bien Phu and the Americans caught in the Tet Offensive, the period from April to November 2008 represents an opportunity for the Iraqi insurgency to make a strategic attack which would cause the American electorate to elect an antiwar, withdrawal candidate. I will not speculate on what form this attack will take, or whether the insurgents will recognize this opportunity on a macro or micro level, yet it is easy to imagine a devastating attack which would turn the American voter clearly away from a “stay the course candidate.”


In the end, the Iraqi insurgency will continue only due to one of two potential reasons: a lack of political will by Iraqis to invest in a national government or by the Americans to help facilitate it effectively. (1,300 Iraqi soldiers and policemen dismissed over the weekend for refusing to fight in Basra?) As a guerrilla organization, the Iraqi insurgents lack strategic leadership and a viable political vision of the type of society they want to replace the current occupiers with. The communists’ power- and the inevitability of their successes- stemmed from their complete concept of an idealized society, which they immediately set to implementing.

Highly fractioned and with nothing to offer except perpetual violence, the Iraqi insurgency will likely fall apart on its own if merely given the time to do so- but the chaos the insurgents have sewn will last as long as the vacuum of national leadership remains. The mechanical panacea to which Griffith alluded is not an American withdrawal or a mine-resistant tactical vehicle. The only solution to guerrilla warfare is a functioning government.

If I could pick one foreign policy issue for the next president, I wouldn’t have to think about it: fix US-Israeli policy and secure Palestine.


When I was helping pile as much ammunition onto Camp Fallujah as possible, in preparation for the impending assault on the insurgent stronghold, a rumor flashed through the junior officers in my battalion that the commanding general had received a brief on the insurgency in Iraq and that he himself had said that “there was no military solution (alone)” to the security problem in Iraq.

As obvious as this was, it was a revelation to us in that we had believed that universally, American leaders planned to bomb and bulldoze all of our country’s problems into the ground. This realistic look at the situation in Iraq should be used to view all of our political challenges: there is not always a singular solution to a problem and sometimes the solution that works (paying off sheiks, in the case of Iraq) may not be the one that maximizes your personal utility as a national leader or warrior.


Dissect any call to Jihad, peruse any manifesto against the US by Islamic agents, interview any Syrian on the streets of Damascus or banlieusard on the outskirts of Paris, and I’ll hedge that 90% of them will tell you that their main beef with America is about Palestine.

The Palestinians have been complaining about their mistreatment for decades. The Jihadis have used it to build credibility for their causes and then compounded its importance exponentially when America invaded Iraq- the persecution of Arabs, and more generally Muslims by proxy and outright invasion has been the call to arms that couldn’t be stifled by propaganda or politics. Indeed, if you look at it from an outside perspective, it is a compelling argument.

There is a deep complexity in the Palestine-Israel issue that has caught many American politicians in its snare- having them bouncing back and forth from bogus platitudes towards Israel to bogus talk about reform directed to the Palestinians, couched in (now transparent) threats to a people already stuck on the bottom. While I recognize the layers of risk and investment as well as terrorism and war that have combined to make the Palestinian problem what it is today, I am going to ignore the tip-toeing and cut straight to what I consider America’s best and only course of action: switching sides.


Among Americans, understanding the history of Palestine is immeasurably more important than understanding the history of Iraq, and any reading of this history must account for one truth: since the Greeks arrived in Palestine, the region has always been ruled by foreigners. And while there is debate about when the Palestinians of today arrived there, or how closely related Palestinian and Jewish DNA actually are, the simple truth that Zionism in its practice is no less a form of conquest than that of the Turks or Crusaders in their times, has as lasting an effect on Palestine as slavery does on America.

Another fact is that Israel- the implementation of Zionism- was realized in Palestine through both political lobbies and terrorism, just as the Palestinian authority of today was. Inasmuch as the Irgun and Lehi attacks helped force the British to sponsor the establishment of the Israeli state- PLO and ANO violence helped bring the Palestinians to the UN. Through America’s myopic lens of terrorism-centric reasoning, it figures that Israel and Palestine today are both as legitimate and illegitimate as each other.


So why is this important to Americans? If America is going to extricate itself from the Middle East, restore its reputation as a proponent of freedom and democracy in a context other than hypocrisy, and continue its international war against sectarian terrorists, it must make peace in Palestine and the security of the Palestinians its top priority. (Israeli security has already and always featured as a top American agenda item.)

When Diana Buttu, a Stanford-educated lawyer working as a negotiator for the PLO, comes on C-SPAN on the eve of the Annapolis peace talks and tells Americans that what the PLO is demanding is simply the enforcement of international law (Israel returning territory acquired during the Six Day War, and allowing Palestinian refugees to return to their homes), it’s hard to understand why we won't rush to deliver this. Under the UN mandate and the 1948 treaty, the Israelis had no right to occupy and settle in the West Bank.


But America is not Israel, so how are we responsible? In many ways, both valid or simply in perception, America and Israeli policy are deeply linked in opinions found in most parts of the world outside of the US.

Start with the most painful touch points- when a TOW missile comes off the rails of a Hughes AH-64 Apache helicopter and blows out a Gaza City shanty, or a round fired from a Colt M16 hits a Palestinian girl in the head, the tools of death the Israelis are using are all American-made. To Palestinians, these weapons are as iconic as the AK-47 and RPG are to us. This serves to link the Israeli military state firmly to the American military industrial culture. When Muslims around the world see footage from Iraq and Gaza, the only difference is the insignia on the tanks and indeed, I’ve found several pictures on the Internet whose captions accidentally confused the two war zones.

As a sectarian state, albeit a democracy, politically, Israel is an inconsistency in our rhetorical platform. If we go around telling the world’s Islamic nations to embrace democracy and the liberalization that allows multiculturalism, how can we continue to support a country with a national religion that has created apartheid?

America has sponsored Israel with rhetoric and military aid, but our support for the country goes deeper: American monetary grants to Israel account for approximately one third of all US foreign aid. This staggering imbalance is not lost on the Muslim world- the US taxpayer holds the receipts for both Israeli defense and recent attempts to reinvigorate the Israeli economy.


America needs to recognize the weight this issue carries and make it the top foreign policy priority by becoming an advocate for Palestinians the same way it claims to be for oppressed peoples everywhere from Tibet to Afghanistan. To do this, America must de-link its comprehension of the Palestinian issue from its international view on terrorism. While Palestinian terrorism is reprehensible in the same way Israeli military rule is, neither should become ideological obstacles for our country to help create true and lasting peace. It seems that we've painted ourselves into an ideological corner in regard to terrorism and will allow this to cost the Palestinians, Israelis, and ourselves success.

Military force and promiscuous violence- backed by the US- as a solution to the Palestinian intifada is not viable. “Innovations” in policy like building a wall around Palestinian territories to stop suicide bombers will not keep them out of Jerusalem- it will only embolden them. If you want Palestinians to stop fighting for freedom and safety, you have to concede that the best way to do that would be to ensure their freedom and safety. American leaders should reverse the national bias from Israel to Palestine and work arduously to secure rights, territory, and safety for Palestine, per international law.

Without a doubt, this is the core issue at the crux of anti-American sentiment in the Middle East, but what will it take to break America out of its uninformed, Eurocentric perspective on Palestine? It's going to take a leader who separates the solution that works from the one (s)he wants, and is willing to burn the political capital, perhaps in a career-ending fashion, to achieve this goal. If I can break the groupthink, you can too- I’m not only a veteran of America’s Iraq conquest and a violence-savvy Marine- I’m also Jewish, the descendant of refugees. What defines us are not our demographics but how we think- and what we do.


Further Reading: Among countless articles and books on this subject, I recommend National Geographic on Bethlehem as an insightful introduction. Additionally, these maps from the BBC provide an excellent graphic explanation.

Do Something: Your Senators Your Representatives

Edits made 9 Apr 08