When I was a sophomore in college way back in 1999, I shared my dormroom with a very nice Chicano guy who arrived in Ohio from L.A. as a slightly out of shape trombone major. Within a few months he decided to double major in trombone and political science and started working out almost every day. Over that same time, he traded about 30 pounds of fat for lean muscle and went from wanting to play music somewhere to wanting to serve his country as an officer in the Marines. Over lunch we'd talk about a wide range of topics, many around the major political issues of the day. At one of the most leftist colleges in the country, Julian had been mocked many times by student's locally popular opinions on current events and he expressed sincere frustration during our conversations.
Knowing (and liking) him as I did, I really wanted to find a common ground between Julian and everyone else, and so did he. He wasn't some meathead warmonger. He was a very moral, thoughtful and dedicated guy who was choosing an honorable path for his life. He was like a lot of the best people who decide to join the armed forces. There had to be another way of looking at the issue. As someone interested in international aid and development I saw huge opportunities in exploiting the military's training management abilities, not to mention their pocketbook in looking at non-military but activist projects for the biggest defense spender in the world. This idea was in much better harmony with those times than today. We weren't immersed in a full-scale war, and we'd become embroiled in the Balkans on such a cooperative mission. Compared to now, America looked like a benevolent big brother to the world. Why couldn't the military dig latrines and build schools? They are idealistic, organized, know how to get things done, and have the full faith and credit of the American taxpayer.
Julian was sworn in as an officer in the Marine Corps under the nearest American flag to our college graduation ceremony, and that was the last I ever saw or heard from him. It was less than two years later that we were invading Iraq, another year later and the message changed from Weapons of Mass Destruction to the more contemporary democratic nationbuilding line we've been hearing ever since. It turned out that the Pentagon had the same aid and development idea all along; they just didn't think it was as good a sell as chemical munitions.
Despite intermittently good intentions, none of this worked. Everyone knows the story. In our arrogance, we never secured the place properly or took any number of basic facts into account, like keeping track of who's sunni, who's shia and why it matters. We went from benevolent big brother to old, lost alcoholic caught in the wrong part of town and looking for a payphone to call mom.
We never really got around to completing the big civics projects we had in mind. Baghdad is in a perpetual state of brown-out, the water's still not safe to drink, and all those contractors with offshore accounts sure aren't getting paid with Iraqi oil money.
Putting aside the completely destructive variety of insurgent that one could actually brand a terrorist, we've also got competition when it comes to digging latrines. Many groups funded by allies, friends and enemies all competing to do a better job than us to get the lights on and the kids off to school. Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army is a destructive force-- outside of its Shi'ite land holdings. Inside, they provide food, security, schooling and livelihoods to their constituents.
Al Sadr would be nobody if he neglected this. He'd be in charge of a group of isolated guerrillas whose existence depended on funding from the outside and a willingness to die for the cause. He'd end up like al Qaeda's man in Iraq, al Zarqawi; dead because he'd be a clean target. Instead, Al Sadr's group has been branded even more dangerous than Al Qaeda by the Pentagon. We can't do anything about him, and he's proving far more effective at doing our job in Iraq.
As things go from bad to worse in Iraq, Julian's been on my mind more and more. He believed more than anyone else I knew in the power of the US to intervene in the world for good. I still think we can change the world. I think this is a fundamental belief for many Americans. We can and should intervene, but how?
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