The Surge to Nowhere

During a visit to Baghdad in the late 1980’s, American journalist Tony Horowitz picked up a copy of the local newspaper The Baghdad Observor. On the front page was a story proudly proclaiming that ’sixteen strategic mountain peaks’ had been captured from the Iranians. All of those mountains were Iraqi; their original capture by Iranian forces had never been reported.

The current debate over the success of the Iraqi ’surge’ has followed much the same path. In recent months supporters of the war, who never admitted that anything had gone wrong in the first place and heatedly denied that there was a civil war going on in Iraq, have been loudly proclaiming a turnaround in the Iraqi situation, with reduced violence and the defeat of al-Qaeda. General David Petraeus was hailed as a second Ulysses S. Grant and many conservative pundits suggested he should be made Time’s Man of the Year.

It’s a beautiful idea ruined by some ugly facts. Coalition casualties remain high; in fact, the months after the surge has been among the deadliest so far, Iraqi civilian deaths have lowered somewhat, but remain higher then 2005 levels according to the Iraq Body Count..

While the defeat of al-Qaeda is good news, al-Qaeda was always one of the smallest and least influential militant groups in Iraq, never numbering more than a thousand active members. The US government managed to dispose of them by arming and funding radical Sunni militias who remain the sworn enemies of the elected government in Baghdad. Also, I suppose it is bad taste to point out that al-Qaeda was not a presence in Iraq before the invasion.

Ethnic conflict remains intractable, with the Iraqi parliament unable to form a stable governing coalition due to frequent defections and intra-party revolts. The intermarriage rate between Sunnis and Shi’ites has plummeted to almost zero. Four million Iraqi citizens still reside in foreign refugee camps, mostly in Jordan and Syria.

Of course, the point of this whole discussion is not whether or not the US is winning in Iraq at all. The point is to create a narrative, a narrative of betrayal and squandered glory, in which defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory by liberals in Congress and the anti-war movement. The stabbed-in-the-back trope is a recurring theme in world history, and has found particular favor here in America. As in Europe after the Warsaw Pact, as in Korea after the armistice, as in Vietnam – or, indeed, as in Scooby-Doo - we would’ve gotten away with it, if it weren’t for those meddling kids.

Cooking for Trouble

In the midst of the presidential primaries, I suppose I ought to comment on them somehow. Unfortunately, I don't have anything original to say, so I'm going to talk about something completely different: reality TV.

Specifically, Kitchen Nightmares, a show starring famously irascible British chef Gordon Ramsay, in which he finds a failing restaurant and sets it to rights. The original was on the BBC. The American version airs on FOX.

Not to sound elitist, but the British version is better, both in terms of how it's presented - no censorship, more of a focus on food and the restaurant business instead of family drama - and also in terms of the quality of the people involved.

One salient example involving two restaurants should be enough to prove my point. Ramsay managed to turn around both the Taluca Lake pizzeria Sebastian's and Nottingham Indian restaurant the Curry Lounge. Both places seemed to suffer from similar problems. Both are run by dilettantes; pharmaceutical executive Raz and married-to-money Sebastian. Both tried too hard to be hip - Sebastian's with its Hollywood location, the Curry Lounge with its Bollywood-meets-strip-club decor. Both had absurdly expansive menus. Both relied on frozen and prepackaged ingredients; a natural result of having so many dishes to prepare.

Despite being something of a preening ninny at times, Raz at least had the wherewithal to hire decent Indian chefs to make his food. Sebastian freely confesses to fiirng 50 people in the last year alone, and most of his employees are aspiring actors biding their time.

The Curry Lounge's 'speciality', as it were, is to 'Create Your Own Curry'. It doesn't take much to realize this is a terrible idea; curries are made of numerous spices combined just so to give the right flavor and consistency. Letting people mix and match - as Ramsay did, ordering a spicy chicken korma with shrimp - produces some pretty awful monstrosities. Still, Raz's mistakes seem to come from a generosity of spirit; he wants to please everyone and so focus is lost.

Sebastian, on the other hand, is in love with (what he believes is) his own cleverness. He is convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that his restaurant’s ‘concept’ of is brilliant even though no one, not even his wait staff, much less the customers, can understand it. I don't really get it either; it has something to do with a long list of pre-arranged ingredients added to one of four meats and then put on a pizza, or maybe a sandwich… the phrase '20 gourmet flavor combinations' came up repeatedly.

Raz puts up some resistance to Gordon's sensible ideas, but when he actually tastes the food he changes his mind. When Gordon suggests they simplify the menu and use fresh ingredients, Sebastian literally purples with rage, then switches back to the old menu in the middle of dinner service.

Despite his smarminess, Raz is a sensible man and is humble enough to take the advice of experts over his own. Sebastian is a nutcase, and is firmly convinced that his terrible idea is franchiseable and will soon spread all over the world. When Ramsay expresses his disbelief and walks outside for some fresh air, Sebastian does a little dance and declares “I won that one”.

The Curry Lounge is still up and running. Sebastian’s closed less than a week ago.

The King and Them

With the world focused on the sudden and shocking death of Benazir Bhutto, another political dynasty far older than the Bhuttos has fallen.

I'm talking - as if you didn't know - about the Nepalese monarchy.

Via the BBC:

Parliament in Nepal has voted to abolish the monarchy, as part of a peace deal with former Maoist rebels

Nepal will be declared a republic after elections in April next year.

King Gyanendra, whose dynasty dates back to 1769, lost popular support when he sacked the government in 2005 and assumed absolute power.

...

The king's fall from grace began in February 2005, when he dismissed parliament and took executive powers for himself, saying this was the way to root out corruption and end the Maoist insurgency of the day.

But his heavy-handed action united political opposition to him, and a violent uprising in April last year forced him to restore parliament.

The new civil authorities have since stripped him of his powers, his command over the army, his immunity from prosecution - and now are set to strip him of his title.

Well, the can declare themselves a 'federal democratic republican state' all they want but it's clear as Himalayan snow that Nepal is going to be a People's Republic before the new year is out.

The Maoists simply have too many advantages. They have the organization, they have the popular support, and they humbled the King's military with all its Western aid. Comrade Prachanda should start looking for apartments in Kathmandu.

Baroque Intrigues

If anyone remmebers the sordid (but hilarious) account of Bill O'reilly's sexual harassment of Andrea Mackris. His come-ons were so awkward, so bizzare, it's as if he'd never tried hitting on a woman before. The Smoking Gun has the transcript.

Well, someone had the brilliant idea to make it into an oratorio. Behold!:

My Professor, the Racist

It's a little surreal to see someone you know has been accused of a crime or some other misdoing. Stories of serial killers, seal-clubbers and the like are always full of tearful friends and loved ones exclaiming that they never suspected it even for a moment.

Last week, a professor of mine who was accused of being a racist:

Professor Donald Hindley (POL) was charged with violating the University’s Non-Discrimination and Harassment Policy for statements made in his classes, sources say. Based on documents forwarded via e-mail, Hindley, who has taught at Brandeis for 46 years, will have to undergo University-funded anti-discrimination training and have a monitor in his classes.

“I, as Provost, am extremely concerned for the welfare of the University’s students…the University will not tolerate inappropriate, racial and discriminatory conduct by members of its faculty,” said a letter allegedly written by Provost Marty Krauss, which was scanned in its entirety and sent via e-mail by Hindley to the Concerned e-mail listserve.

“I sincerely hope that you will recognize the seriousness of this matter and take affirmative steps to correct your conduct. Failure to do so may result in further disciplinary action up to, and including termination,” the letter concluded. Krauss did not respond to e-mails and phone messages asking for clarification.

According to his e-mail, Hindley said that on Oct. 22, he received a message from Director of Employment, Employee Relations & Training Jesse Simone, asking to meet regarding “an important and confidential matter.” During this meeting, Hindley said, Simone said “a complaint [had] been made by ‘more than one’ student in my Latin American Politics course that my remarks were racist.” Hindley added that “it seemed to me that the complaint had been shown to be preposterous.”

When asked about the complaints made, Simone’s superior, Vice President for Human Resources Scot Bemis, said the office refused to comment. However, according to one of the letters forwarded, Simone stated that she had “concluded my investigation” on Oct. 30, concluding that Hindley’s remarks were “inappropriate, racial, and discriminatory.”

Later that day, Krauss sent another letter with her decision to pursue anti-discrimination training and have Assistant Provost Richard Silberman monitor his classes.

“It appears that other than the complainants[,] no students from either of my classes were contacted—let alone students from previous semesters, years, etc.,” concluded Hindley's e-mail. “This [is] the Reinharz Brandeis University: secretive, authoritarian, and personalist. We all know what sort of ‘community’ this creates. The individual secret deal is what matters.”

Hindley declined to elaborate via telephone, stating any comments he made could be used against him. He did not answer when asked if he would pursue legal action.

Student responses to Hindley’s situation were sympathetic. “I have taken both of Professor Hindley's Latin American Politics courses and as a result of those experiences I am highly skeptical of the validity of these charges,” said Kenny Fuentes ’08. “Our study of these regions of the world are full of racial tensions and harsh realities that Professor Hindley never sugar-coats. His blunt analysis of the racism problems in Latin America may surprise some, but… he strongly stands against the domination of the indigenous and afro peoples of Latin America by the largely white ruling class.”

“He has dedicated his career to educating his students about the rampant racism still prevalent in Latin American societies, a form of racism largely unknown to the American population,” Fuentes said. “Without passing judgment on the complaints which as of now remain unknown, I am concerned that this situation represents, at best, a misunderstanding, and at worst, a political attack… speaking from intellectual experience and personal knowledge, I am strongly inclined to support Professor Hindley.”

"That's not the first time I've heard someone say that," said Jeff Arak '07. "He does have a rather cavalier attitude in his class conduct from what I remember."

Kevin Conway ’09, who is not a Hindley student, disagreed with the process leading to the decision.

“Regarding whether or not the investigation is illegitimate and politically motivated, consider that [Simone] … wrote Hindley on [Oct. 30] about an alleged racist remark made in ‘late September,’” said Conway. “For the better part of a month the investigation was conducted behind closed doors, without even so much as a courtesy phone call to Hindley, who… has the right to be informed that he's being investigated.”

Describing the second letter by Krauss as “humorous in many regards,” Conway added “instead of suggesting that Hindley have a talk with the offended student… and apologize for an allegedly offensive remark… Brandeis has now elected to put a monitor in his classroom. So at the end of the day, the offended student is still offended and we've accomplished nothing, but this is how we deal problems at Brandeis: with committees, not with communication.”

Conway concluded by saying “Hindley may very well be fired because of an unknown racist remark, an accusation promulgated by an anonymous Brandeis student. [It] sounds totally illegitimate to me.”

Ephraim Rinsky ’09, who currently takes a course with Hindley, said “basically the deal is he'll occasionally use words that would be offensive in another context, like ‘wetback’ but the thing is that the way he uses them is in a sarcastic way to make a point about ignorance.” Instead, Rinsky said, “he uses them in a way that shows the ridiculousness of abuse…I think the context of that word Americans still have the Mexican’s land and then when they come back we call them wetbacks. Basically, your ears perk up when you hear that word. You think its racist, but when you pay attention, it’s not racist…it’s more of satire against people who are ignorant.”

Rinsky added “sometimes he uses words that are offensive, but I never really think they are in a maliciously racist way… even if he is sometimes offensive, I don’t think that is a reflection of any racism. We were discussing these issues like Brazil, where there are several race classes there. I think it is unrealistic to expect him to teach a class about parts of the world where there is deep-seated racism without touching upon the topic of race and describing to us what it’s really like there.”

He said “I feel like the University is being hypocritical—our motto is 'truth even unto its innermost parts.’ I think to ask him to cover up and not really tell us the truth as he sees it would be doing us a disservice as students. I think those innermost parts are referring to the not-so-pretty truth that can’t be ignored.”

A victim of political correctness? Not quite; it came out recently what he supposedly said:

After last week’s coverage of the allegations of racism brought against Professor Donald Hindley (POL) for statements in his Latin American Politics classes, a student explained the nature of the complaints they had brought to the Administration.

“I reported him because of all the completely inappropriate comments he made, mostly in September, which trickled down to October, and we get occasional comments [now].

“Some people think they are comforting, spice up the class, make him more approachable,” said a student who wished to be known as Jane, who submitted complaints against Hindley after meeting with her advisor and departmental chair Steven Burg (POL). “It completely backfires, because you can’t respect him as you should as a tenured professor for nearly 50 years.”

Jane explained that her complaints dealt with alleged insensitivity by Hindley to the issues in his class, including usage of the terms “mi petite negrita”

'Negrita' means 'little black girl' and is used in many parts of Latin America as a term of affection.

First of all, this is completely nonsensical. There is zero chance he or anyone else actually said 'mi petite negrita', as it is gibberish. 'Petite' is French and 'negrita' is already a diminutive in Spanish.

But if we assume he actually said 'negrita' in the course of teaching his class, there's nothing racist about it whatever. What Hindley is accused of is, essentially, exposing the racism of people in Latin America. Having just got back from Argentina, the sheer number of times people would greet each other as 'negro' or use 'negrita' as a term of endearment made it an absolute commonplace, like 'man' or 'dear'. If talking about racism is racist, we're all in trouble.

More to the point, Hindley's real problem is that the administration doesn't like him and is looking for any excuse to override his tenure. The guy's in his mid-70's; they could have the decency to wait a few years and just let him retire.

Oh, but my favorite part:

Despite her complaints, Jane said she may take another course with Hindley, because “I won't have to do work.”