Burke's Perspective and Coming Soon out of The Heart of Darkness

James Lee Burke, gulf-cost native, old-timer, detective novelist and current part-time Louisiana resident / man of the world has this to say about presidents and hurricanes:

"When New Orleans was hit by a hurricane in '65, Lyndon Johnson walked into a shelter and said, 'The people of this country are behind you.' By God, he cared about people. How could the current administration not order troops, hospital personnel, trucks with water and food in to this city?"

I just ran across that in a magazine and thought it was interesting. Burke's got a little history in the area, and a little fame, a perspective you'd think we'd hear more of, but I never heard that little tale on the nightly news. The liberal media must not want us to hear stuff like that. All they want to tell us is how well everyone is recovering and how great Mardi Gras is this year. Yet when reporters actually take the time to talk to someone who is trying to rebuild, they tell of federal obstacles. Apparently the liberal media doesn't want us to hear too much of that either, 'cuz you sure don't see many of those stories on the nightly news anymore. Just smile and ignore it... it'll go away, at least at the polls.

Speaking of interesting perspectives, the House voted today to block the U.A.E. port security contract. U.A.E. Arabs are folks who have hosted thousands of U.S. troops since before OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM. We trust the U.A.E. enough to send young soldiers, sailors and airmen to live in their country, but not, apparently, enough to do business with them? I'm not quite sure I understand the House's perspective. Their vote says that U.A.E. Arabs aren't worth doing business with, but Iraqi Arabs are worth $370 billion and counting, over 2,300 troops' lives, and over 33,000 total lives? How do I make sense of that little paradox?

What's really weird is I've caught myself wondering lately, what if this whole mess works out in the end? Especially when the president endorsed the U.A.E deal. To me, that was the first sign that he actually bought into the crap he's spewed about partnership in the Middle East. It was the first move consistent with all the rhetoric that supposedly justifies this war. So then I think what if Bush's cowboy craziness actually does what previous presidents knew was necessary but believed impossible?

Then I watch the news.

Sure, only the "bad" stuff gets reported, but what's good about war? I know first hand that the majority of the bad stuff goes unreported as well. A death here, a permanent disability there aren't news anymore to anyone outside of that poor troop's family. That's happening every day and we don't hear about more than a tenth of it. Nor do we hear about the massive amounts of squandered resources, corruption, and cash being thrown away, projects 75% completed and then abandoned because some other commander has a different priority. We may not hear many victory stories from over there, but it's not the result of a conspiracy by the media. In my humble opinion, our media portrayal of the war in Iraq is more accurate than most of us would like to admit.

Tangentially speaking...
Talk about failing to learn from the lessons of history. I just finished re-reading Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness. Check it out if you haven't. It's short. If you absolutely oppose books, watch the movie version, Apocalypse Now (which is not, by the way, an accurate or objective documentary about Vietnam). Both are stories about how one's values begin to erode when subjected to ambiguous and contradictory leadership that plops one into dangerous and unfamiliar environments. H of D could have been a diary of my experience in Iraq, but that's another post.