Robert Koehler from CaglePost.com Columns by Robert Koehler from CaglePost.com http://rss.caglepost.com/columns.aspx?name=Robert+Koehler Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:00:00 GMT http://backend.userland.com/rss RSS.NET: http://rss-net.sf.net/ 'W' Is For Withdrawal "From now on, the war they started is ours." Seemingly these words of an Iraqi soldier, noted in a Guardian U.K. story, were uttered in pride. This was on June 30: National Sovereignty Day, the day U.S. troops withdrew from Iraqi cities. Sorry, but i... http://www.caglepost.com/article/9229de2a-bff1-4a98-af70-e6092ea55be1.html Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:00:00 GMT The Iron Triangle When I read about the Defense Department's plans for my future security, why do I feel so insecure? The New York Times privileged us the other day with another dispatch from what we used to call -- back in my days as a toiler in the journalistic tren... http://www.caglepost.com/article/d1a1ba01-9a29-4353-86c9-7448a586f446.html Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:00:00 GMT Democracy's Paradox Wanna hear a good Holocaust joke? Or a rib-tickler about lynching? How about starving Ethiopians? You'll bust a gut. I spent an eerie couple of hours recently on the wrong side of the sicko line, checking out hate sites and hate jokes. What's the dif... http://www.caglepost.com/article/37ec6ef6-8456-43ba-9914-fc97ee2a44ad.html Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:00:00 GMT Justice For The Privileged Take empathy out of the concept of justice and what you have left are rules: simple, mechanical, lifeless. "Are we really going to insist," Texas Sen. John Cornyn asked the other day, after President Obama talked about closing down the Guantanamo det... http://www.caglepost.com/article/ca256c75-3401-4e2c-89cb-96af0170c98c.html Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:00 GMT Peace Rising n sacred remembrance of all those we have killed, and are continuing to kill . . . The flag waves, the heart stirs, the music rends the air. Memorial Day 2009. I stood at a bubbling fountain in downtown Chicago and listened to speakers from Vietnam V... http://www.caglepost.com/article/deed37e3-4e2d-4bac-a595-1b7d46141549.html Wed, 27 May 2009 07:00:00 GMT Never Again The reason we must keep the torture issue alive is not to exact a small measure of comeuppance from the Bush administration zealots who bent the law till it screamed, but to alter the course of history. Thus the filing of disciplinary complaints a fe... http://www.caglepost.com/article/7108e7e0-743a-4a7e-8016-c9856efc8c79.html Wed, 20 May 2009 07:00:00 GMT Goliath's Vulnerability Is The Truth The desperation of our military efforts is showing around the edges of the carnage and tragedy. This past week has brought three official U.S. denials that we have done what eyewitnesses and/or other evidence indicates we did: a) used white phosphoro... http://www.caglepost.com/article/6d2595a1-c019-4c51-a5b3-684e81564825.html Wed, 13 May 2009 07:00:00 GMT The Hounds Of Heaven "The special forces guys -- they hunt men, basically. We do the same things as Christians; we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down. Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the kingdom." It's worse than you think. Torture, r... http://www.caglepost.com/article/7d1e1e80-3f22-46c0-8453-4bc4e7dd1b15.html Wed, 06 May 2009 07:00:00 GMT Torture And Treason None dare call it . . . what is that word again? It's a word I associate with the McCarthy era and patriotic fanaticism; its commission is the cardinal sin against the nation-state and, as such, not only too easily flung at an ideological opponent bu... http://www.caglepost.com/article/3a96c430-9de2-471a-b291-02090f7bc3f6.html Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:00:00 GMT Wall Of Fear "Frankly, this does look a lot like Jimmy Carter. Carter tried weakness, and the world got tougher and tougher, because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators -- when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead." The c... http://www.caglepost.com/article/e48666ae-7115-45b4-8430-19b60fa9ce99.html Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:00:00 GMT War As Entertainment OMG, pirates! Headlines around the country squealed with glee as our Navy SEALS -- the Easter SEALS -- took out the Somalian baddies, freed the newest American hero and helped President Obama with the "dodging of a PR bullet," as USA Today put it. Me... http://www.caglepost.com/article/7da1f5ee-52e1-446a-8d15-264ca3a06a39.html Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:00:00 GMT Geo-Insanity's Latest Mutation As our warrior robot drones eradicate evil -- or at least "militancy" -- from above, the Suicide Army of the East vows to keep blowing itself up until we call them off. This is not the plot of a bad sci-fi thriller. It's page one of the New York Time... http://www.caglepost.com/article/72bccc5e-0f53-4148-b691-dc4a80809c8e.html Thu, 09 Apr 2009 07:00:00 GMT Saving Obama "Now, I'd like to speak clearly and candidly to the American people . . ." I believe him, with a passionate urgency -- this new president, swept into office on a surge of hope and anger. I believe him without cynicism. After all, he has a terrifying ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/7afdff24-b254-43b7-be2a-6a0a69e69044.html Wed, 01 Apr 2009 07:00:00 GMT Gold For Humanity When exactly did it happen -- that "blinding flash of the obvious"? It may have been during lunch -- outside, in a park in the nation's capital on a beautiful, cherry-blossom afternoon -- as public health theorist Ari Cowan held forth about working w... http://www.caglepost.com/article/74ceee28-d22e-4b38-b638-47931e4124cc.html Thu, 26 Mar 2009 07:00:00 GMT A Modest Proposal "But administration officials also worry that taking too hard a line with AIG and other companies could discourage top financial experts and institutions from joining the government efforts to fix the financial system." -- Weisman, Reddy and Pleven,... http://www.caglepost.com/article/8664682a-54e5-4317-90f0-0ecc96b5da44.html Wed, 18 Mar 2009 07:00:00 GMT Reversing The Cycle Of Violence So much experience in the room, so much wisdom, so much . . . concentrated hope. Poke at it slightly and the truth comes out, in brief, quick anecdotes: Two neighbors were at bitter loggerheads over a barking dog. After all communication broke off, t... http://www.caglepost.com/article/6154c974-fdc7-4761-a9d8-416a4738ce9d.html Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:00:00 GMT Singing Placebo "There is a mind-body link, though we don't know much about it." The oncologist's dry half-concession that something lay beyond the scope of his knowledge, followed by a shrugging dismissal of whatever it might be (let the quacks worry about it), sti... http://www.caglepost.com/article/776f6f83-21c7-47c6-bbef-370193eb9bad.html Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:00:00 GMT Kids For Cash A number of bad ideas and virulent trends in American life converge, it seems to me, in the unfolding scandal in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., known as "kids for cash." The blurring of the line that separates profit from state, especially since the Reagan era, ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/ca5ceb3c-9556-4ba0-bba8-9058754c2300.html Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:00:00 GMT Cross Of Irony "Down the long lane of the history yet to be written, America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. . . . Di... http://www.caglepost.com/article/508310bb-2ada-494e-ae13-156f00792ceb.html Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:00:00 GMT Truth And Healing Can we find ideas -- political ideas -- big enough to be worthy of this moment? You know, before the cynicism and the disappointment and the recession and the dumbed-down media and, oh yeah, the regrouping Republicans, conspire to dull Barack Obama's... http://www.caglepost.com/article/c4acc4ce-8dff-414f-bf40-38b9057cb759.html Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:00:00 GMT Keeping The Bush Era Viable Rest assured, there are powerful interests that will not put up with an Obama presidency if it's about even half the changes it threatens -- I mean, promises -- to make. Watch them circle, yipping at his integrity. "Obama's moralizing tone may not we... http://www.caglepost.com/article/e201f900-e45d-48f4-98d7-12f8383bfaa9.html Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:00:00 GMT The Human Franchise It was the young woman's desolate face -- her mug shot -- that pulled me into the story. Now that is a pretty mug shot . . . LOL. Burn, Baby, Burn! I touch the edges of this story, this tragedy, gingerly, wishing, oh, Lord, that I were in more certai... http://www.caglepost.com/article/e027d370-b1a7-4076-a32c-aa7f25e55a09.html Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:00:00 GMT Childish Things No matter how much celebrity they try to infuse him with, Barack Obama remains, somehow, as unassuming -- so it appears -- as that picture of him, which made the rounds on the Internet a few months ago, wiping his own table at a fast-food restaurant.... http://www.caglepost.com/article/feb9e19b-7869-477c-a55b-19086c44d004.html Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:00:00 GMT The Moral Dead Zone "Mr. Ban said too many people had died and there had been too much civilian suffering." That almost bears repeating, but I won't because I don't believe it. Too many? In the moral dead zone of the human heart, perennially justified as "war" (evoking ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/78403262-2190-4a96-8a97-ca18cb083e03.html Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:00:00 GMT Be The Peace "Surely, they say, there must, there has to be another way of doing this." OK, let's start here, with this flicker of anguish, this quick stab of despair and disbelief that war is a rational means to an end. These words, from an essay by Jeremy Ben-A... http://www.caglepost.com/article/1998b491-df5f-4578-b4ef-34af350a97c4.html Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:00:00 GMT The Future Of Civilization The tight, absurd parameters of "peace," as they are drawn by the military model we continue to believe in, make real peace --neither bitter nor temporary -- impossible even to imagine. God save us, for instance, from New York Times editorials, which... http://www.caglepost.com/article/66d35cfe-04f8-46d1-ae9c-98640041de14.html Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:00:00 GMT Dark Prayer The water churned and pushed against the ice with a dark seriousness that reminded me of prayer. Subzero Chicago night at the edge of the year, the edge of change, the edge of what's bearable. I stood on an old breakwater, a long, crumbling construct... http://www.caglepost.com/article/1fe4bc51-76e3-4504-91ae-b15d587282a2.html Wed, 24 Dec 2008 08:00:00 GMT The Pacifier Tree "Dad, did you know the governor of Illinois was arrested?" Well, no. This was last week. I was in Denmark, visiting my daughter, and this was my first news from Crazy Land in a while. It's dangerous to go online when I'm traveling. I learned, among o... http://www.caglepost.com/article/97269c86-2c48-425c-bae2-1712b38147fe.html Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:00:00 GMT Redefining 'Realism' The war regroups. What if Barack Obama, as he pursues his pragmatic strategy that so far seems to be 10 parts "reassurance" (to the defense and financial establishment) to one part "change," is really finished with his anti-war base for the next four... http://www.caglepost.com/article/75b35452-34d0-43be-9479-ab525cd3a572.html Thu, 04 Dec 2008 08:00:00 GMT The Ghosts Of Desert Storm Seventeen years and three wars later, the ghosts of Operation Desert Storm -- the cancers, the chronic headaches and dizziness, the fibromyalgia, the ALS and so much more that have stalked returning vets, whose medical claims have been denied, ignore... http://www.caglepost.com/article/5fa1b476-bb49-4437-9bfc-e08d129da8ca.html Thu, 27 Nov 2008 08:00:00 GMT History Is Screaming Nobody opines sagely anymore that the races will never get along, calmly ladling conventional certainties over the earnest idealism of civil-rights activists. But we live in a world so permeated with militarized fear of demagogic leaders and rogue st... http://www.caglepost.com/article/9b0a6a34-93f6-40b5-9731-ae6d1dabf130.html Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:00:00 GMT Hope And Vision I hope it's time, if nothing else, to retire cynical bumper stickers, such as: If elections could change anything, they'd be illegal. The air remains thick with a sense of history and change, if not mandate. People are still buying last Wednesday's n... http://www.caglepost.com/article/90273396-f2d5-4baf-93a2-dde642c52e9d.html Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:00:00 GMT Our Fragile Dream It had already been a long day for me, and for the country, when I rode the train downtown to Grant Park on the night of Nov. 4. History was crowding against my thoughts -- my car was full of joyful, youthful, rock-the-vote noise -- as I looked out t... http://www.caglepost.com/article/e4ff2ec5-e31f-405c-bd78-b179be8ea1c7.html Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:00:00 GMT The Time Has Come President-elect Obama . . . I'm daring my own heart to write these words, to let hope's preview ignite me for an instant. Despite all my reservations (Afghanistan) and all my fears (how will they try to undermine his presidency, or prevent it by thef... http://www.caglepost.com/article/106e014d-3fe8-4683-b148-09f9d8afbeeb.html Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:00:00 GMT Redesigning Democracy Two seconds of radio news was enough -- suddenly the 2008 presidential campaign collapsed around me in an unrecognizable heap of consumer politics as I ate breakfast. "Redistribution of the wealth," John the Candidate was saying. "That's one of the t... http://www.caglepost.com/article/8d6fdcd4-fa98-4298-9639-45908d08b97e.html Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:00:00 GMT Our National Juncture Here's the difference between vote fraud, which is real, and voter fraud, which, though almost nonexistent, has instantly gripped the popular imagination: The former is a complex, internal problem of democracy, the acknowledgment of which require... http://www.caglepost.com/article/3ffcaeb6-10e4-43c3-837e-06724436f881.html Thu, 16 Oct 2008 07:00:00 GMT Brace Yourself Call it, what, our crapshoot democracy? The looming election -- the process itself, not merely the feints and jabs of the candidates -- is actually getting some mainstream media attention, as in, ahem, voting public, excuse me, but maybe you should b... http://www.caglepost.com/article/6d7e2fdf-c0b3-4eb4-9efb-495ae0d15a97.html Thu, 09 Oct 2008 07:00:00 GMT The War To Promote Terror The "necessary war" in Afghanistan, which both presidential candidates support -- the one, you know, that's really about terrorists and Osama and all -- raises as many troubling questions about who we are as the other war we're fighting and losing. C... http://www.caglepost.com/article/27f7358d-5166-488a-8b60-75265641b539.html Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:00:00 GMT The Deep Cry For Integrity How about we tack a values shift onto the $700 billion economic bailout package the Bush administration is asking for? Hello, 2008? This is 1929 calling. What's still missing in too many venues of official concern is the big, national aha! We can't s... http://www.caglepost.com/article/f6c91c1e-b7af-45dc-a2d6-d341e6343839.html Thu, 25 Sep 2008 07:00:00 GMT Goo-Goo America Say you've got a global agenda that's far too important to leave to chance -- wars to fight, quagmires to feed, interests to protect, secrets to hide. Staying in power is crucial. This presents a big problem in an election year for the Republican Par... http://www.caglepost.com/article/a70f45f9-4641-41ea-842e-970756563461.html Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:00:00 GMT An Embedded Prayer The outrage and grief push against the edge of language: "A visitor to the village and to three graveyards within its limits on Aug. 31 counted 42 freshly dug graves," writes New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall. "Thirteen of the graves were so smal... http://www.caglepost.com/article/801eb5a3-027c-4597-a372-76b926ad37e8.html Thu, 11 Sep 2008 07:00:00 GMT Logical Consequencse Call it creative self-destruction, maybe. How surreal it's been this week to watch the Republicans reap a small portion of the divine comeuppance due them, first from a hurricane, then from a pregnant teenager. Surely more of the same is on its way, ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/13434555-7102-4da0-8615-05c913e2e9f4.html Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:00:00 GMT State of Denial Talk about naive. The Union of Concerned Scientists apparently thought the Democratic and Republican national conventions would be appropriate events at which to bring up the awkwardly substantive topic of U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiles (6,000 or so... http://www.caglepost.com/article/f98c346c-c2db-4e4a-9b5a-b3d6b5b6a742.html Thu, 28 Aug 2008 07:00:00 GMT Predator And Prey Bad bear! Within the false outrage coursing through much of mainstream politics and the media, there is a grudging reverence for the brutality of the latest world crisis, if evinced only in the satisfaction that America has found its next enemy. Cold... http://www.caglepost.com/article/77e8044a-8887-4834-a758-329df2499d60.html Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:00:00 GMT Civilian Diplomacy Peace is no more -- and no less -- than the audacity of sanity, reaching past the dubious geopolitics of national self-interest and standing, as Hank Brusselback did, underneath the ancient bridge in Esfahan, Iran, listening to the men who had gather... http://www.caglepost.com/article/2715a51c-5175-4844-a645-a9ef018ea9ee.html Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:00:00 GMT No Name For The River What astounds me about the "race card" -- which either did or didn't get played in the presidential race recently -- is its thinness. Racial politics, and racism itself, used to be a way of life, as pervasive as hatred, as far-reaching as ignorance. ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/4fb995ab-d537-4292-83f3-e4dff512bc18.html Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:00:00 GMT Citizens Of The World What a surprising burst of hope I felt, looking at the photo in the newspaper the next day: Barack Obama stands before 200,000 Berliners and addresses them as a "fellow citizen of the world." It may be premature, but I'm announcing it anyway: We've r... http://www.caglepost.com/article/e764d12d-193c-45a7-8c65-e722652b515c.html Thu, 31 Jul 2008 07:00:00 GMT The Next New Yorker Cover Since I'm usually one of the last people in the country to get my copy of the New Yorker (well, it sure seems like it), I'm aware of any excitement or controversy the new issue has generated long before the magazine actually lands in my mailbox. So I... http://www.caglepost.com/article/1cb691b8-b0a0-498f-b218-5eeefa409eab.html Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:00:00 GMT Stigmatizing War The moral center of humanity slowly asserts itself. Only the most powerful are too afraid to join. You may have missed the news: At the end of May, 111 nations, including, at the last minute, Great Britain, showing the world the power of an unleashed... http://www.caglepost.com/article/8eff76d8-6bf0-4e88-adef-e097758ca513.html Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:00:00 GMT Steel Rain "Civilian casualties have been a continuing issue in Afghanistan, and President Karzai has rebuked American and NATO forces for what he has called carelessness in their military operations." This is the genteel, bloodless language of geopolitics, spo... http://www.caglepost.com/article/0133ce66-7d5f-40a7-afbb-ae978508e9fc.html Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:00:00 GMT Words And Bullets The "debate" about guns has clogged up the dialogue about a safe society, and I'm wondering what we can do about that. Last week's Supreme Court ruling, which overturned Washington, D.C.'s gun ban and reinterpreted the tortuously worded Second Amendm... http://www.caglepost.com/article/4e2e7450-a2be-4f68-813d-36214b5f4844.html Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:00:00 GMT An Urgency of Joy The culture of war goes quietly about its business. Last week, Congress fed it another $162 billion, perhaps with some nostalgia: This was the final war-funding request of the Bush administration, the lame-duck, despised status of which making absolu... http://www.caglepost.com/article/2d1b97c0-1168-4a5e-8b99-5c27e6250afc.html Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:00:00 GMT The Shadow Platform Lies are sticky critters, often advancing complex, covert agendas that are essentially denial-resistant. That's why the new Web site launched by the Obama campaign -- fightthesmears.com -- to counter the rumors and absurdities about the candidate and... http://www.caglepost.com/article/3f2f3ac8-181a-4de8-942c-74b8edecbdd5.html Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:00:00 GMT Be The Media! Camera, lights, mike-in-the-face. Hey Bill Moyers, what are you doing at a left-wing, partisan media conference? That was how Fox News producer Porter Barry tried to ambush television's most venerable voice of sanity this past weekend, after Moyers s... http://www.caglepost.com/article/f1949f63-60a2-47fe-9565-6ea3efdd823a.html Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:00:00 GMT Now What? Funny how we can't seem to hear the truth until it's uttered by a professional liar. Thus Scott McClellan, who was George Bush's press secretary for three years, beginning shortly after we invaded Iraq -- the very Scott McClellan who personified lock... http://www.caglepost.com/article/eded516f-68d4-4b65-84e8-31dfc56a39bb.html Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:00:00 GMT The Flip Side of Glory An American soldier's sexual assault of a 14-year-old Okinawan girl has caused a diplomatic crisis that could result in Japan's refusal to increase its participation in the Iraq war, creating a rare situation indeed: an instance in which rape matters... http://www.caglepost.com/article/6f20e77b-fdcd-4759-9cfd-59cf1aacbbfb.html Thu, 29 May 2008 07:00:00 GMT The Politics Of Peace So we blink, take a breath, stare once more at the vote total: 149 nay, 141 yea. War funding request denied! This is a first, fleeting and fluky though it may be. Look quickly and imagine a Congress that doesn't feed the war god every time it pounds ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/3216bdfb-f280-455b-8634-748159c4f474.html Thu, 22 May 2008 07:00:00 GMT The Penta-Pundits Well, why shouldn't the Pentagon put its four-stars on the tube to ladle out patriotic talking points to the American public like mess hall stew? There's a straightforward quasi-honesty to government-managed news, which only has a weird feel because ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/44463d08-8f32-469d-a319-d1af21706b92.html Thu, 15 May 2008 07:00:00 GMT Apology Denied "I want you to feel that Iraqi life is precious," he told them. Well, that's not going to happen. Here, at the level of basic humanity, the occupation of Iraq - indeed, the entire Bush administration - begins to unravel. We can see this with excrucia... http://www.caglepost.com/article/cee8c4c2-d1f7-4e6a-9f63-75dc5298f84f.html Thu, 08 May 2008 07:00:00 GMT The Possible Future Lurid headlines have been blooming in my fair city, Chicago, along with the daffodils. A dozen dead, 40 injured in less than a week. The mayor calls a gun summit. The police chief promises to send SWAT teams in full battle dress to troubled neighborh... http://www.caglepost.com/article/047955f9-fd88-4eb7-931f-d80fc75b5ace.html Fri, 02 May 2008 07:00:00 GMT Shattering The War Consensus Why, for God's sake, does nothing change? The war goes on, the money flows, the blood flows and the lies stay exactly the same. Have you noticed? Have you ever wondered, with a stab of transcendent confusion, why a self-correcting rationality hasn't ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/68a7882c-0483-47a0-b0a8-d318d57485ac.html Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:00:00 GMT The Done Deal If politics is the art of saying nothing, then Barack Obama is sure blowing it, isn't he? His latest "gaffe," to proclaim at a private fund-raiser in San Francisco (of all places) that small-town Americans are bitter and cling to guns and God in lieu... http://www.caglepost.com/article/9eaecca8-e13e-4844-bcb9-05dccf1907df.html Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:00:00 GMT Truth's Wreckage The interests of war, which siphon off 40 percent of every dollar we pay in taxes, have no choice but to declare peace - or at least truth - anti-American, because the blood myth of national exceptionalism, and the perpetual insecurity it creates, is... http://www.caglepost.com/article/fbf89cec-cb91-4264-879e-2d45d3f834c2.html Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:00:00 GMT Fire And Race What could be more brittle than "Americanism"? What could be more tedious than the mass defense of its teary-eyed, ahistorical ignorance? We are still in the toddler stage of national awareness, apparently, too young to be told how we got here. Thus ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/5722ced2-9a91-47b4-98b6-4afcfa46b624.html Thu, 03 Apr 2008 07:00:00 GMT Keep The Republic The ground feels a little soft, but we're going to stand it. Premise one: Having a fair election - all votes counted, all who are eligible and want to vote allowed to vote - is far, far more important, even in 2008, than who wins. Premise two: Fair ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/dece15fd-c683-4c51-b382-c74bff7c2b73.html Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:00:00 GMT Where War Meets Peace "I trained my weapon on him," Kristopher Goldsmith said. It was a little boy, 6 years old maybe, standing on a roof, menacing the soldiers with a stick. "I was thinking, I hate these Iraqis who throw rocks. I could kill this kid." OK, America, let's ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/cabdb37a-bc04-4e74-874a-35389c490426.html Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:00:00 GMT The Fear Fundamentalists It's 3 a.m. and your child is sleeping. A detainee groans at Guantanamo. On the campaign trail, the Clinton PR team is guzzling coffee, dreaming up new ways to milk votes out of fear. Why, I wondered, is she going after these votes in the primary? Su... http://www.caglepost.com/article/94c48a94-132f-4650-b345-36e81cf02a5d.html Thu, 13 Mar 2008 07:00:00 GMT Losing The Future A certain reverence is required just to approach the book's title: "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict" by noted economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes. I can see why they understated it. The pulse of outrage beats... http://www.caglepost.com/article/35d22b32-6c9d-43f5-ad21-db445282209a.html Thu, 06 Mar 2008 08:00:00 GMT The State Religion Grab your flak jackets because there's "trench warfare" on the campaign trail, as would-be commanders in chief prove their mettle not merely by persuading people to vote for them but by "demolishing" their opponents - because the leader of a country ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/304f689e-fe09-4428-a696-862c03a068f2.html Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:00:00 GMT The Hillary Nutcracker Oh, come on, do we need this? I know, I know, it's cute. STAINLESS STEEL THIGHS! FEEL THE SQUEEZE! Perhaps the fact that a major party is about to nominate either a female or an African-American male to be president of the United States is so lacking... http://www.caglepost.com/article/8917b1ed-eeac-4e34-bb7e-4ab1e2283dfb.html Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:00:00 GMT Snow And Miracles The snowmobilers stopped and talked to the truck driver who'd been sitting behind me for the past eight hours, then they sped off and I watched as his truck came back to life, the headlights suddenly filling my car, the engine revving. I could scarce... http://www.caglepost.com/article/f60f3120-7895-4b70-9606-138499823f9c.html Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:00:00 GMT Fault Is In The Eye of The Accuser No matter our credentials, we've all paid too much for something. A few bills too much for a car because we really, really wanted it, or for a vacation because we felt we desperately needed it, or for a bathroom remodeling job because we didn't compa... http://www.caglepost.com/article/2418bc6c-53a2-4efc-ad64-6b6397ccc6eb.html Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:00:00 GMT Defeat Without End "Many in this chamber understand that America must not fail in Iraq, because you understand that the consequences of failure would be grievous and far-reaching . . ." There it is again, that choking lie, so smoothly administered - with just enough... http://www.caglepost.com/article/ea8df410-8133-4ca8-b013-c74000958db3.html Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:00:00 GMT Conspiracy Theorist "We should at least get votes back on paper and get people counting them by hand." As innocuous as these words may sound, they make me feel like I'm on I-35 in Minneapolis, headed toward the Mississippi River Bridge. Ankle-deep in a presidential e... http://www.caglepost.com/article/465421c9-21f2-45a8-b1f2-72de7a7b66b2.html Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:00:00 GMT The Eternal Underdog "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes." Ladies and gentlemen, it's none other than "the Filipino Monkey," now doing voiceovers for the Pentagon! More bad melodrama in the Gulf, I'm afraid. And war with Iran is still a no-go,... http://www.caglepost.com/article/56715f5c-1276-4fa8-b8a5-2f5113b35442.html Thu, 17 Jan 2008 08:00:00 GMT Primary Concerns As the breathless sports coverage of the presidential primaries bursts around me this morning, I'm doing my best to resist surrendering to the contrived drama about "comeback kids" and the flying shrapnel of numbers and hold onto my troubled skeptici... http://www.caglepost.com/article/1a91dec5-1b74-4898-a7c1-2c377aac5bac.html Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:00:00 GMT Pseudo-Reporting Many U.S. media outlets were quick to give us a primer on Islamic terrorism in the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assassination last week, even though actual evidence points the finger far more at our ally in the war on terror, Pakistani President Pervez M... http://www.caglepost.com/article/dc29de26-1f14-4d8c-b00f-59d250620b56.html Thu, 03 Jan 2008 08:00:00 GMT Beginner's Mind More and more, I'm softening to the idea of being a beginner and finding joy in doing something I've never done before, to the point where I'm on the stump for a shift in the vocabulary of beginning. "Clumsy," "crude," "awkward" - aren't these the t... http://www.caglepost.com/article/80f84769-38be-4817-992a-61d7ab2daa20.html Thu, 27 Dec 2007 08:00:00 GMT Tinsel And Values Whereas there are approximately 300 million apple pie lovers in the United States, making apple pie the dessert of choice of 99 percent of the American population; Whereas the holiday season (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa) is a festive occasion in ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/c069a3ed-b6fc-46fd-81bf-3b92970f29a7.html Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:00:00 GMT Tinseland Values Whereas there are approximately 300 million apple pie lovers in the United States, making apple pie the dessert of choice of 99 percent of the American population; Whereas the holiday season (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa) is a festive occasion in wh... http://www.caglepost.com/article/9b64cd61-3427-4d34-ae49-6ea778124f97.html Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:00:00 GMT Crooked timber America's suicide bombers don't use bombs and don't seem to have a cause larger than their own angst, but they're as lethal as any misguided political fanatic and they beg a question as urgent as any the human race has faced. Yet it's the same old -... http://www.caglepost.com/article/a854d3b5-0e44-4e4a-9660-6fe521037891.html Thu, 13 Dec 2007 08:00:00 GMT Crooked Timber America's suicide bombers don't use bombs and don't seem to have a cause larger than their own angst, but they're as lethal as any misguided political fanatic and they beg a question as urgent as any the human race has faced. Yet it's the same old... http://www.caglepost.com/article/b1d25fec-6e68-4947-abee-4f532b42781b.html Wed, 12 Dec 2007 08:00:00 GMT Iraq's Million In the Fantasy Middle East, the troop surge is helping plucky Iraq get its act together; and Iran, as serious a threat as ever and still lusting to start World War III, awaits liberation by the superpower known as "Johnny Democracy." In the realit... http://www.caglepost.com/article/0e209798-5bd8-4bf0-abd8-fd12f57a3155.html Thu, 06 Dec 2007 08:00:00 GMT Trial by Fire Hose "This is America, get used to it." A generation ago - well, two, perhaps - such a comment, surfacing with malicious anonymity at a Deep South high school, along with Confederate flags, swastikas and scrawled references to "white power," would have b... http://www.caglepost.com/article/2e4030fd-d428-469a-b119-e471e2c64ac1.html Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:00:00 GMT The Devalued Currency of Truth "I asked Sgt. Gaskins about his hopes for the future. He replied that he has no future." - psychotherapist Rosemary Masters This is the cost of our wars, and sooner or later we need to begin paying down the debt. But it is only payable in the deva... http://www.caglepost.com/article/f6edae77-49be-4b85-9dc0-2381f08ac0f0.html Thu, 22 Nov 2007 08:00:00 GMT Baghdad In Middle America Honoring vets means nothing at all unless it means honoring the deeply gouged personal truths each experienced during deployment. But the dismissal of such truths is as much a part of war, and its aftermath, as the propaganda and geopolitical whopper... http://www.caglepost.com/article/3e40514d-4ead-43a8-a898-3524c9087284.html Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:00:00 GMT Used Razor Blades Hidden agendas unfold and a sinister veep whips fear into a froth one more time: "Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions. We will not allow Iran to have a nucl... http://www.caglepost.com/article/1420edc2-c938-4e8c-b9d9-4e3266f31f99.html Thu, 08 Nov 2007 08:00:00 GMT Crash Course in Empathy ""They will be longed for always,"" the Website said, and I believe it, imagining the hole in the lives of those who loved the three men Jeanette Sliwinski killed. I also hear the unbearable sorrow in these words from a newspaper account: ""From her ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/937ce34b-3c58-4c6c-8549-a0c9b6d1a389.html Thu, 01 Nov 2007 07:00:00 GMT A Nation Downwind ""Please, dear God, don't let us have killed John Wayne."" - unidentified government official, 1980 Mary Dickson's new play, ""Exposed,"" is a sacrament of grief and anger that doesn't stop at the edge of the stage or end with the actors' bows. Be... http://www.caglepost.com/article/09e892a9-b745-4097-8858-e75363190eec.html Thu, 25 Oct 2007 07:00:00 GMT Pre-Existing Conditions Deep in the heart of the postwar hell that awaits many injured and emotionally shattered vets lies a memo so toxic with cynical irony it deserves to be posted on americasarmy.com, the U.S. Army's official teen-entrapment Web site. ""We can't fix e... http://www.caglepost.com/article/a4266b71-c07c-4596-b2de-2a2f57caae2b.html Thu, 18 Oct 2007 07:00:00 GMT An Adolescent Choice The details quicken the pulse and keep the crime alive. Two teenage girls walking home on a June night in 1993 in Houston happen into a pack of drunk young men; they're gang-raped, beaten, dragged to the woods and strangled - one with her own shoelac... http://www.caglepost.com/article/05ac121c-2cf8-46c0-9636-9df8f939112f.html Thu, 11 Oct 2007 07:00:00 GMT The American ID I don't know how many people read the Sun, but my guess is that even if its circulation stats aren't greater than, oh, Foreign Affairs, let us say, or The New Yorker, its position in the American consciousness is more central simply by virtue of its ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/de4a5c73-2b10-4e4c-ba69-0477b7acaa89.html Thu, 04 Oct 2007 07:00:00 GMT This Hallowed Landmark The New York Daily News, with its long tradition of lurid and stupid headlines, outdid itself in its special welcome for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week, warning him: ""If you even think of setting foot near Ground Zero, you can GO TO... http://www.caglepost.com/article/3c61fa73-55c1-47c8-ac0b-4c6c715e5ee4.html Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:00:00 GMT Sanity in Tiny Nibbles The abyss between ""crime against humanity"" and ""we'll have to look into this"" may be all but unfathomable - deep as a mass grave - but sometimes we have to trust the process. I fear that democratic progress is a mouse's progress: justice - san... http://www.caglepost.com/article/f465687d-3e16-4efc-b148-336abc52fe62.html Thu, 20 Sep 2007 07:00:00 GMT Martin's World ""By then I had pulled Martin into my lap. Martin had let go of his bowels, was gurgling and losing consciousness. We were both completely soaked and covered with blood, and I was sitting in a puddle of blood and body fluids. I quickly realized I nee... http://www.caglepost.com/article/8ac4b1e1-0f2a-414a-b561-32d9ed0a94bf.html Thu, 13 Sep 2007 07:00:00 GMT The Prerequisite for Salvation The poster exploits the howling demons of our culture. It's my morning smack-in-the-eye, bright gold, four feet high, dominated by a female in stark silhouette striding resolutely into the wreckage of post-apocalypse Las Vegas. She wields a wicked-lo... http://www.caglepost.com/article/c476ba87-f1b5-4561-9d22-cebc810499b6.html Thu, 06 Sep 2007 07:00:00 GMT Presence of Mind ""I knew the situation was serious. I was shaking all over. But I was amazed by the complexity of my mind - the most clear part was just the speed and agility of my mind. I immediately began talking to him in a calm voice and engaged in eye contact. ... http://www.caglepost.com/article/48d592b1-c105-4d0c-91f8-3821ae14b12d.html Thu, 30 Aug 2007 07:00:00 GMT The Nanny State The ""ahhh"" of familiar pleasure I felt as I accelerated was cut off abruptly as I watched the gas-mileage readout on my sister's new Camry plummet. How dare the requirements of fuel-efficient driving presume to contradict the habits - and unackn... http://www.caglepost.com/article/760a30bb-d916-45aa-b202-ed4da50e4eb7.html Thu, 23 Aug 2007 07:00:00 GMT Creative Destruction Heckuva job, fellas! The monster called Iraq that the Bush administration has bequeathed humanity was created with a breath-sucking mix of high-tech ruthlessness, messianic ideology and sheer, FEMA-quality incompetence - and, it turns out, a littl... http://www.caglepost.com/article/61324fd2-e30f-4bd8-8001-d236eb1df858.html Thu, 16 Aug 2007 07:00:00 GMT Disciples of Yossarian Following on the heels of his flirtation with violent "decisiveness" toward Pakistan, Barack Obama got twisted up even further in the conflicting loyalties that complicate the lives of Democratic presidential candidates and the people who vote for th... http://www.caglepost.com/article/3cd02c34-9514-4cdf-8271-057c15490775.html Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:00:00 GMT

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