Two posts for the price

Post un: Iraq

While driving to work this morning, I tuned in to NPR and heard the President outline his future strategy for Iraq. More of the same, about says it. I won't dwell on it. I want to discuss something that came after the speech and something that I have often thought about.

It is my understanding that what goaded the President into addressing the nation is the criticism that terrorism seems to be far from declining in Iraq. Insurgents are hitting Iraqi civilian and American military targets daily.

There were post-speech analyses by various grand poohbahs. Also, this being NPR an' all, there was an effort to be balanced. So you had Russ Feingold, Democratic Senator from Wisconsin, telling us what exactly what he thought of the President's plan, and also, his grip on reality.

And then there was Iliana Ross-Leighten, Republican Congressperson from Florida, who spiritedly defended the war in Iraq. It is something she said that I want to focus on.

The host of the show (I forget his name) asked this question of the Congressperson: "But ma'm, there is no link between 9/11 and Iraq. So why are we in Iraq?"

Now this is something that I have often wondered about myself. Though idly, because I am a non-American and therefore there are a few degrees of separation between my individual self and this war. I do not even personally know anybody who is serving in or has died fighting this war. Am I within my rights to wonder about the reasons for this war, then? Well, only to the extent that it is a global event. Just as an American has the right to wonder about and investigate the cause of the Asian tsunami, I suppose I might, as an Indian, be forgiven my curiousity about the cause of a war that is responsible for the death of regular people in another part of the world. Why did the US invade Iraq, specifically? Why not Pakistan, father and occassional peddler of the Islamic nucelar bomb? Why not Sudan? Or Saudi Arabia. So the host's question to the Congressperson made me sit up and pay attention.

Now before I tell you what Congresswoman Iliana Ross-Leighton's reply was, let me go off on a minor tangent and tell you that I, personally, believe in simplicity. Simple is good. And the simple answer to the host's question is of course this, "Well, we decided to go into Iraq because of a pressingly important reason which can be summed up with the following two words: just cuz. And since we are now in it, we gotta knuckle down and fix it. Or at least, we have to try."

But the Congresswoman did not say this because no politician can, for obvious reasons, speak the embarassing truth. Also, the above answer does not make for good copy.

So instead, she said this (And I may not be getting this verbatim because I am not an aural eidetic, but I'm pretty sure that I am capturing the gist):

Quoth she, "The point I am trying to make is: people say that we are getting attacked by terrorists because we are in Iraq. But what about 9/11? We were not in Iraq then, and we got attacked."

I would have driven off the road laughing, except for the fact that I didn't. That answer is such a mess that I don't even know where to begin. It first attempts to avoid the question, then begs the question, is trivially true, and misdirects.

Let's examine misdirection first. Note that if you invert the last sentence, this conclusion arises: Had we been in Iraq then, we would not have been attacked.

Invert the logic and you create a bogus link between Iraq and 9/11! Sweet! It becomes a little frightening when you consider that a minor variation on this sort of reasoning, dressed up in political spin, was essentially the rhetoric that was used to sell the war to Americans in the first place. Apparently, some people still hold to it.

Consider that sentence again: We were not in Iraq then, and we got attacked.

So what IS the problem with the reasoning in that last sentence? The problem with that sentence is NOT that it is not true. The problem is that it is too true.

Here is what I am talking about. You can substitute the name of almost any country for Iraq and it does not change the truth content of the Congresswoman's statement. For example, how about this: "But what about 9/11? We were not in Greenland then, and we got attacked." 

Or: "But what about 9/11? We were not in Germany then, and we got attacked." 

That is the problem with the reasoning. It can be used to sell ANY war against any country.

Actually the replacement word does not even have to be the name of a country. It could be a profession or a hobby or anything. How about this: "We were not into Feng Shui then, and we got attacked." Or: "We were not into semi-nude mud-wrestling then, and we got attacked."

The statement is trivially true.

The statement becomes non-trivial only when it can be proved that Iraq (or Greenland or Feng Shui) was responsible for terrorism directed against the United States ex ante, and hence we could have pre-empted 9/11 by being in Iraq (or by being in Greenland or by following Feng Shui).

The good Congresswoman is stretching mightily to draw (sell?) the inference that Iraq was actively involved in: (A) terrorism in general, and (B) 9/11 in particular, by implying that not being in Iraq led to the attack on 9/11. 

But that is exactly the sort of conventional wisdom that we are questioning. The question is if Iraq was connected to 9/11. The question is if the United States did not just waste a whole bunch of resources (yes, that is an insensitive and callous way of saying "lives") fighting a war that did not need to be fought. Or needed to be fought elsewhere.

The Congresswoman's statement is therefore also a good example of begging the question. Simply restate the question as an assertion and use it to support your argument. Turn your desired conclusion into a premise. Sweet. I must learn to do this sometime.

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Post deux: A Photo Blog

I sometimes analyze the content of my blog. It is a sobering thing to do. Criticism is the cheapest kind of talk and my blog has a lot of it.

If you want to see creativity, check this out: Babu's Photo Journal. I was surprised to find the author commenting on my earlier post. If I am not mistaken, this is of course my friend D from New Jersey. D, I really like the comments that you tag your pictures with; they make the pictures come alive. I liked this one especially: Traffic is chaotic and unruly in Aizawl, as in most other Indian cities. Police is a mere witness. But everything works out in the end.

My First Kiss

Do you remember the thrill of your first kiss? Do you remember the pain of the first dent on your car? I bet you do. Any first always holds a special place in one's heart. Well, today I am thrilled at a first of my own. I have received my first hate mail. I am moved.

No really, a real live hate mail. Not the civilized, well-articulated, but basically tame, non-abusive (ha, ha) stuff that some of the readers of this blog sometimes hit me with. So outright hate is a first. Okay, give me a moment here. I have to swallow this lump in my throat.

Oh I know I'll get used to it. I'll eventually develop a crust and take it as the normal course of things. I'll (horrors!) learn to ignore it even. But this is my moment and I intend to live it.

Okay, enough foolin' around. The background is as below.

I wrote a post about Bengalis called La Nuit Bengali and how we are naive to have let ourselves be governed by the Communists for this long. Well somebody--who is without doubt a fellow Bengali--got all heartbroken at the way I put it. And he posted a comment, mysteriously enough under a different post called Eighty-Twenty expressing his pain. Go figure, eh?

Now I must warn you, brace yourselves. This guy is a real wordsmith. Very articulate. His comment in its entirety, edited a little by yours truly for family-friendly presentation, went:

You bustard [sic], bleep bleep, bloody bleep, go & bleep ur mother before calling bengalees idiots

As you can see, he is a regular Shakespeare whose time hasn't come. So there you have it folks, my first hate mail. I am touched. Shucks.

After the initial excitement of my first kiss dwindled to nothing, a wonderful thought struck me. I always had this idea that India is behind the curve when it came to per capita Internet access. Internet was for the rich dudes who could afford the steep prices. The fact that a person like Anon is loose on the Internet posting ummm...comments on blogs and stuff proves that this reality is changing. The arena is opening up. The Internet has obviously touched even the lowest strata of Indian society. Very encouraging.

Also, after the excitement went away, I thought about how and whether to respond to Anon or not. I thought for about five minutes and decided thus.

At first, I thought to myself idly, why not rip this obvious retard a new one. Publicly. A reaming that he will talk to his little grandchildren about, over after-dinner coffee and brandy.

But on second thoughts, I have decided to be nice to him. There are four reasons.

First, the general level of conversation by way of comments has been quite high on this blog. Don't want to lower that by getting medieval on and tearing to shreds someone who is, judging by the symptoms, a lobotomized mental dwarf.

Second, it would be just too easy to take this poorly-funded lab experiment (Anon, that's you) to the cleaners, given that it has demonstrated the same linguistic ability and gift for expression as flotsam. No challenge here.

Third, it wastes my time. I am not in the business of tutoring morons who are beyond redemption in the niceties of basic netiquette. I am also not in the business of dispensing free lessons on how to conduct a civil discussion in mixed company, in a public space.

Fourth, it is unsatisfying to beat up on a nebulous entity that you can't even assign a name to. It's kinda like backchatting to yourself in front of a mirror. Pointless and lame.

But I will tell Anon a little something. Just this once. This is why.

As is the norm I suppose among folks like Anon, he did not display even the superficial courage of leaving his name (fake or otherwise) and an email address in his comments. If he had, I would have contacted him at his email address to discuss things in a private manner. Instead, he safely and anonymously hurled some random insults in the public comments section on my blog and moved on to happier hunting grounds.

Well I hope the little bastard comes back and reads this at least.

Dear anon, my little dimwitted songbird, the fact that I called Bengalis idiots obviously annoys you and makes you jump up and down like the retarded ape you no doubt are. You very likely did not ponder carefully everything that I said. You do not consider why Bengal, from the position of being a relatively rich and industrialized state, is now damn near at the bottom of the heap and is just recently making a whimpering effort to scramble back some scraps. You do not think--quite possibly because you are a brainwashed, foul-mouthed, Commie stooge--that every Bengali who really cares about what happens to that state should be screaming from the rooftops about what idiots we have been, by repeatedly electing the Leftists (and still doing it) into power like whip-crazy masochists.

No, you did not do any of this. Instead, you jumped up and down and displayed your ignorance/arrogance by vomiting infantile, unstudied garbage into my blog. Well, being the helpful sort that I usually am, please allow me to do something about your obvious discomfort.

Bengalis are idiots.
Bengalis are idiots.
Bengalis are idiots.
Bengalis are idiots.
Bengalis are idiots.

There, are we feeling all better now? No? Well there's more where that came from. Here you go.

Bengalis are idiots.
Bengalis are idiots.

And you, my dear, with your well thought out comment, just helped along that notion better than I ever could have done myself. I was putting on a bit of rhetoric when writing about Bengal. Remember that I am a Bengali too. But you went well above and beyond the call and provided a concrete example of what I was only talking about in the abstract. Do yourself--and by extension the rest of us regular Bengalis who suffer the ignominy of getting equated with the likes of you--a favour by:

(1) Learning to read. In particular, read the postscript at the end of that post which got you all excited and doing wee-wee on the floor, you misshapen mutt. It might give you a hint.
(2) Educating yourself.
(3) Learning to spell common words correctly.
(4) Learning to think for yourself.
(5) Letting the Commie bastards who first violated you and then brainwashed you at the tender age of six know that you have decided to think for yourself and will no longer wash their dirty laundry for them like the good little slave they brought you up to be.

Apologies as always to regular Bengalis (Anon, this is not you). Do forgive the rhetoric. It is directed at Anon, a fellow Bengali whom nature has obviously not been terribly kind to. It is our patriotic duty to bring him into the light. But slowly and carefully, because he is not completely housebroken yet. Roll up that newspaper and keep it handy.

Dear anon, you don't yet get how this whole Internet thing works, do you? Let me clue you in, you imbecile. The Internet gives you anonymity, but not unchallenged artistic license to spew whatever bilge your unfortunate upbringing lets you think is okay to spew in mixed company. Expect to be called on it, you insufferable friggin' bastard.

But really anon, pleasantries apart, here are some serious thoughts for you to chew on. Take it slowly and you should be fine.

Anon, I am every bit as proud a Bengali as you make your own self out to be. It hurts you to see bad written about Bengal; it hurts me to write bad about it. I am proud of Bengal's past, not terribly impressed with its present, and want to be proud of its future. I hold a lot of things about Bengal sacred also, as you undoubtedly do. But here's something to think about. Never hold anything so sacred that you blind yourself to its faults.

It occurs to me however, judging by the blunt hint that you have provided of your general level of intelligence, that there are grave chances you will not understand much of what is written in this post. But this is okay. I'll let you in on a secret. This post is really not for your benefit. Writing this post gave me something to do late on a Friday night and hopefully will provide much amusement to the civilized readers of this blog who will laugh at you and be entertained. It has nothing to do with you.

Anon, here's my take on you: you are either a prepubescent, sweaty, acne-ridden visual catastrophe who has just yesterday discovered this crazy little thing called the Internet. In which case, the natural question must be, "Does Daddy know that you are stealing time on his computer and peeking at stuff you are not supposed to see? And will he take you out to the shed and spank your sorry behind when he finds out?"

Or perhaps, you are an over-the-hill, lower-echelon Commie-grunt who, against party directive, is trolling blogs when he should be out there on the streets getting in the way of progress.

If the former, my friend, there is perhaps hope for you. Hope that you will one day grow up and get yourself an education that will in turn free (what currently passes for) your mind. If the latter, allow me to say to you: you poor, poor fool; you probably deserve more pity than scorn, because you are beyond the reach of medical science now.

Respectfully Yours (Come now!)
Sougata Sarkar


Postscript: Hey you anon, it occurred to me a little late that the content on the Internet is what may be called a gated private good. Which is a meaningless but cool sounding phrase I just made up. What that means, you idiot, is that once you have paid a gate fee in the form of access charges, the entire content of the Internet including public forums like blogs become available to the best of us (that would be everybody except you) and the worst of us (that would be you).

Internet content is not a purely private good once you (or in your case, the university or somesuch that made the mistake of admitting you) has paid the gate fee. It is non-excludable, which means, you moron, that any worthwhile content that is available to the best of us is also available to vermin like you. It cannot be withheld from you. And actually, in my personal opinion, this is how it should be. Reading blogs and other content written by regular folks offers troglodytes like you the only decent shot at becoming human beings. But mind you, I said reading, not writing. You are, in your current primitive state, still far from contributing anything to the sum total of human knowledge.

Bearing that in mind, if you are thinking of posting any further comments on my blog, please don't tax the few brain cells you have in the effort. Your comments will be deleted and sent to the trashcan, where quite honestly, you yourself likely crawled out of.

Feel free to come in to my blog and browse. You can even engage in civil dialogue with me or the bright people who occassionally read this blog. They or I will be happy to improve your (A) knowledge, and (B) manners. But any attempt at puerile, adolescent commenting will be dealt with severely. In plain English, if I see so much as another swear word in your comments, I will personally and digitally spank you till you are raw, like the bad little child that you are.

I have noted your IP address and will follow up on this quite mercilessly, I assure you.

Don't know what an IP address is? It is this dotted number quad that...oh screw it...this is the magical shit that makes the Internet happen and allows total asses like you to make themselves publicly manifest.

Fucking cretin.

The Campaign

This is probably one post too many on the same topic, so I would like to offer my apologies in advance. But I could not resist taking one more potshot. Sue me.

Here's the situation as rediff would have it.

Film personalities from Kolkata on Tuesday joined the chorus of protests over Ganguly being kept out of the national squad, as demonstrators conducted signature campaigns and tore tickets of Friday's India-South Africa one-day match.

Kapil Dev (Remember him? Yeah, that guy.), after the matter was brought to his notice, had this message for Kolkatans.

Why did you not protest about (Anil) Kumble [who was excluded from the one-day squad] not playing ? Don't you feel bad? It's the same thing.

The time Kolkata people feel bad about Anil Kumble, then I will feel bad about him [Ganguly's exclusion]. When they feel bad about (V V S) Laxman, then I will feel about Sourav Ganguly," he said, in response to a question at an interaction in Bangalore, arranged by GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare.

Because India comes first, then the State; You cannot think about your State and not think about your country. Country is much more bigger.

Aw golly-gee Kapil, I am not sure if that's a lesson in patriotism or geography, but thanks. Sorry, couldn't resist that.

Seriously though, he's right of course. Conducting a signature campaign to protest the exclusion from the national team of a cricketer that belongs to your state is parochial and indicates misaligned priorities. What's more important, it's stupid. I fail to understand the reason for the fuss. Does having Sourav play on the team improve Bengal economically? Culturally? Spiritually? Nope, negative, and feh. So what gives?

Meanwhile, here's how the All Bengal Signature Campaign Counter (brought to you courtesy of a big business house that wants your money) reads:

Number of signature campaigns to protest Sourav's exclusion, that I know of: 1
Number of signature campaigns to protest the Delhi blasts, as far as I know: 0

It is heartening to note that Bengalis, for one, have their priorities all lined up.

Yes, that's sarcasm.

Sideways

Sideways is a nice movie.

One scene in the movie is pertinent. I suspect that altogether too many people end up opening their best bottle of wine in a McDonald's.

What do I mean? Don't ask me. See the movie.

Yes, I know; cryptic, touchie feelie, philosophical bons mots annoy you. Me also. Ditto.

the prayer

On October 29, 2005 sixty-two people in New Delhi doing their Diwali shopping and going about their business were murdered by terrorists in three separate explosions.

This is November 13, 2005 and we are happy to report that we have since moved on. No, ladies and gentlemen, these terrorists will not defeat us. I am not quite sure what "defeat" means in this context, but whatever it is, they will not get it by us. Just two days after the blasts, for instance, we were getting all excited about sticking it good to Sri Lanka in a cricket match. The display of spirit was astonishing. Of course, the fact that nobody I personally knew got their insides splattered over a pavement helped boost my spirit some. I suppose everybody else followed a similar reasoning also to keep their respective morale up.

We are an apathetic people. And it is not the fact that India is a largely poor country that makes us so. It is not purely the struggle to overcome resource constraints and earning three square meals that keeps us busy and blinkered. Not entirely. After all, we do find time to devote entire days at a time to cricket. Even the inane movies we create and consume are double-length, three-hour inquisitions. We lack the time for empathy? I think not.

Two emotions struck me after the explosions. I found the display of concern by Pakistan amusing and the apathy of the media stunning.

Let's take the latter first. Allow me to go off on a tangent and bring up an email that my sister wrote to me after the London blasts. She said this, in effect: Dada, I am sickened by Americans and Brits who moan about 3000 and 57 lives lost to terrorism, respectively, and turn away disinterestedly from a similar loss of Indian and Chinese lives.

I basically agreed with her, but my reponse was as follows, and I quote verbatim:

Why just massacres in India and China? Brits and Yanks are famously callous even when Russian schoolchildren get shot up by Chechens. But what are you going to do about it? They have the media muscle. Now India, Russia, and China have two choices: either build up muscle and lecture back to the Brits and Yanks, or just shut the fuck up.

And besides, why do we blame the Brits and Yanks? Indians themselves have no self-respect. When exactly three Australians die in India, the press goes wild and everybody and his brother beats their breasts about it. We are told their names, what brand of toilet paper they use to wipe their white asses, and also gently informed that the bereaved wife will get a Padmashree the next time around. [You do realize by now that I am talking about Graham Staines, right?]

But when a hundred pilgrims are butchered in cold blood in Amarnath, we take this as normal. Do you know the names of any of the victims of the Kashmir insurgency? Name one, I challenge you.

Don't blame the Brits. They are simply looking after their own. Develop some self-respect first. Others won't do it for us.

I personally think that the media is apathetic because we are apathetic. It is not an accident. The few who take the time to write stupid blog posts and bitch and moan about terrorism do not form a critical mass. How do I know? From a simple observation of cause and effect. If there was critical mass and if we were vocal enough, the situation on the ground would have been different.

Next up on the stand: Pakistans' angst over the explosions.

Immediately after the blasts, Pakistan offered its sympathy and further offered to help us probe into the terrorism. The blasts are quite likely the handiwork of Lashkar-e-Tayiba, a terrorist organization from Pakistan that Pakistan will not break up.

See, it's kinda like this. Suppose I have a deranged son who is a physical menace to all around him. I have repeatedly been asked to commit him but have consistently refused to do so. Part of the reason is because he makes life unpleasant for my neighbour by vandalising his property every once in a while. My hope is that my neighbour will finally tire of it and move, selling his house in a fire sale. This will give me the oppportunity to snap up his property real cheap. One day, my son goes above and beyond the call of duty by raping and then battering to a pulp my neighbour's daughter. Now if I continue to protect and encourage my son, and at the same time send my neighbour flowers and my commiseration, what would I be called? A hypocritical, sadistic, fucking criminal-by-proxy, is my guess.

Now I know how the story goes, okay? I know that given the unfortunate reality that Pakistan has a few nukes, we must play nice with them. We cannot invade the bastards. We cannot even go after the terrorist camps in Pakistan because that may provoke an all-out nuclear war. So we make pathetic, lisping, PC noises when sixty people are vaporized in a Delhi market. Better sixty people once in a while than sixty million in one go, is how the thinking goes, I suppose.

Within the country, we repeal POTA (we do not modify it, we ditch it) because we would rather have a few people go up in smoke once in a while than offend a few potential terrorists and sympathizers.

So I know how the script goes. We must be nice. But can we spineless, thickskinned horse's-asses please, please at least stop playing cricket with these murderers Pakistanis? Is this too much to ask? It is not correct to note that an embargo on cricket will solve nothing. It will too, solve an important problem. It will allow me to keep my lunch down and not upchuck everytime I hear my fellow Indians talk about the wet dreams they are having thinking about Sachin Tendulkar going head to head, no pun intended, with Shoaib Akhtar.

Those who know me some will also know that I am an atheist. So I deny myself the luxury of prayer. However, on the outside chance that I am wrong and there is really something to this god-hypothesis and reincarnation hooey, I would like to tender this prayer:


Please oh Lord of the Skies, Earth, and All Creatures Great and Small, please let me not be reborn into this pathetic, snivelling, backbone-free, self-loathing culture that I am currently a part and parcel of. Better being born the son of a panhandling bum and a homeless crack whore in a culture with a trace of respect for itself, than the son of a rich gutkha king in a prideless one.

Om.


But wait, no, that doesn't sound quite right. On closer examination, you will notice that there are several things wrong with that prayer. I noticed this too. In fact, I thought about that prayer long and hard. I slept on it. And these are the flaws I discovered with the prayer:

(a) It reeks of escapism.

(b) It does nothing for me. I am asking for a limiting of personal material comforts in my next edition by choosing to be the son of a crack whore. Not a smart move.

(c) It does nothing for my culture. My culture will not miss one petulant individual (namely, me) and therefore the above threat of abandoment will not create an incentive for my culture to change in any fundamental way.

So I thought about it and modified it. Here is the modified prayer:


Oh Lord of the Earth, Skies and Too Many Other Things to Mention Here, please do not let such horrific acts of terrorism transpire on Indian soil in the future. Or any other soil, for that matter.

But if you do--and pay close attention here--IF YOU IN YOUR INFINITE WISOM DO ALLOW THIS, please arrange it so that the next explosion, instead of just taking out nameless, unwept, disposable people who will be written off as a statistical footnote to a proxy war, also takes out the son or daughter of a very important person. Like the son of an influential newspaper editor, for instance. Or the daughter of an extremely important politician.

Let me repeat that oh Lord, in case you've forgotten to take your usual recommended dose of Ritalin today, you attention-impaired son of a bitch. The SON or DAUGHTER of an important person, not the important person himself. Taking out an important person will do no good. A Laloo will be replaced by a Paswan and we will be no better off. The one who gets killed has to be someone who holds great emotional value to an influential person.

You may ask: Why do I ask so of our attention-impa... er, dear Lord? Reason is below.

Premise A: As I write this, India is ruled by uncaring, corrupt politicians. These politicians see no need to do anything fundamental in response to random acts of terrorism. The lives of sixty odd people is negotiated cheaply over the counter without missing a beat.

Premise B: Perverse though this may sound, these same politicians are in a position to make a change. Simply by the virtue of office. You or I will not make a difference. Not in my lifetime at least; there is no criticial mass. So yes, strangely a Laloo Prasad can bring about change. But for that, a Laloo Prasad must himself change. That is a binding precondition.

Premise C: People often change in response to a massively negative external stimulus. In plain English, people react to pain. The language of pain is universally understood.

Conclusion: Those who are in a position to bring about change must suffer a direct loss to be shaken out of their apathy.

You may further ask: Is this prayer too harsh? Not really, if you think about it. All I am asking is that the sixtieth non-entity who is destined to get blown up by an improvised explosive be substituted by the offspring of an important politician. I am not asking for more bloodshed than will happen anyway. At least this way, there is a small but non-zero chance that an important politician will act. Or a newspaper will actually take a stab at forming opinion. Otherwise all you have is a meaningless and needless blood-sacrifice as happened in Delhi on October 29, in the year of our Lord two thousand and five.