Taxonomy of an Appology

Martin Luther King Jr. once said that given a long enough timeline, the arrow of human history points towards justice. I would think that was true even if he didn't say it in that booming august alliterative voice he had. He could probably have ordered Chinese food in that voice and it would have sounded epic. Give me the Potstick-er-er-ers. And the Frie-e-e-ed Ric- ah. And no Em Esssss Geeeeeeeeeee.

I want to ask people who are reading (people who aren't? I am asking you nothing, in fact, I'm making fun of your blog indifference even as I type.) to try something for me. Today, and only today, the thing I am asking you to do is not sexual in nature and won't require that you apologize to your parents for embarrassing them in public. Although, would it hurt you to apologize to your parents for embarrassing them in public? Probably not. Imagine that this arrow is an actual giant big object. Let's say it's made out of wood- a nice polished teak or something. Now, what happens if we get up on top of it? It balances pretty well. It's pointing that way. Let's try this. Let's take 5 steps forward.

I remember a lot of people I knew saying, on September 11th, that we, the US should commit ourselves to a non-violent response. That we should take 5 steps this way. That we should shore up our security inside the US, work to build toward a non-external energy-reliant economy and commit ourselves to the ideal that no Muslim-reared child would die because of what happened at the twin towers. I was one of those people. We said that we should use the power of the goodwill coming our way to forgive and challenge the rest of the world to do it, too. We could lead by example. If people never learned how to say "I'm sorry", we should learn to forgive anyway. We could have made the names of those 3k+ people who died that day stand for something real. I still believe this. As strongly as I think anything, I think that we need to be better as a country- we needed to learn how not to act in anger, but to pursue peace with our best tools. At the very least we should have noticed that we were not attacked by a nation, but, in fact, by a small group of people who were likely trying to create the exact result we gave them.

In hindsight it may seem obvious that what happened on September 11th was a large scale case of "suicide by cop". You've all probably seen suicide by cop before. It's what happens when you get up in a clock tower somewhere and start pumping hollow shells into people until the police bring in the sharpshooter to remove you. You know it's suicide but you don't care. It's what you're there to do. When a tiny group of people attacks a giant sovereign nation, they have at least some suspicion that the nation will start blowing people up in retaliation. You know it's going to mean thousands more of your supporters die, but you don't care. It's what you're there to do. And we played along. If Osama Bin Laden had tried to find a way to get the US to destroy any of its remaining credibility in the Muslim world, pitch wildly to the right, remove the civil liberties of its own population and waste billions of dollars he couldn't have succeeded more. The country has become more religious, more paranoid, more violent, poorer, less concerned with civil liberties, more xenophobic, in essence, we have become more like them. And the fact that thousands of their own supporters have died to get there is inconsequential to them. It worked. We did it.

The group of people who believe that internally directed action was the right course of action has grown. The arrow of human history points forward. You are rarely wrong about this sort of thing if you stand on the arrow and take 5 steps forward. When the US attacked Iraq, some people stood up and said it was wrong, unequivocally wrong. The number of people who now admit that seems to be growing every day. Equal rights for women. Breaking down segregation. Defending human liberty. The guarantee that Martin Luther King made, beneath the surface, was this. Get up on the arrow and take 5 steps forward. You will be hated today but vindicated tomorrow.

So, eventually, you'll be right, but not this minute. This minute, people will call you an idealistic idiot. They'll call you self-congratulatory for noticing that there is an arrow and writing about it. They'll call you simplistic and stupid and claim that you don't understand people. They'll make fun of your hair. (ok, this is me projecting, but kids can be really cruel) But Martin Luther King gave us something amazing when he gave us that arrow. He gave us the right- the challenge - to speak into the future. To live in the future. He gave us a tool that lets us take that 5 steps.

I want to tell you what I see if I step up on that arrow and look at Iraq. I hope you'll take a look and talk about what you see, too.

Ok. Looking.

Let's face it. Iraq is fucked and so are we. While I'm happy that people are finally starting to notice this, I'm disappointed that they don't follow the thinking to its conclusion.

It's time for the United States to apologize for Iraq.

This should not be revolutionary thinking. When you do something wrong, you apologize. Ending this war is a priority and doing it correctly is an even bigger priority. We've past the point in history where good intentions are enough. It's time to end this war in a way that ensures something like it won't happen again. Really good apologies usually come in three steps:

1. Express your apology for what you did
You've got to say "Hey, I notice this was wrong. My bad". The "My bad" part is important. You tell Jill that you understand that getting drunk and touching all of her cats in an inappropriate way is wrong. Every one of them. Let's say you didn't miss one.

2. Commit yourself to fixing your mistake, to whatever degree it is possible
You've got to try to undo whatever damage you can from your mistake. You get the damn cats all the therapy they need.

3. Put machinery in place to make sure you don't do it again.
This is how people know you really meant it. You make sure it doesn't happen again. You go to AA. You throw out all your kitty porn. You start dating a human. You do what it takes.

And maybe, just maybe, Jill will believe it. Maybe it will start to make it right. This will make sure that your relationship with Jill isn't completely destroyed. Cats, however, never forgive. You're on your own there.

And maybe you saved Jill from a life of cat-entrenched serial despondency, quiet undercover solo masturbation and a final will and testament bequeathing everything to "Mr. Mistypaws.", but it wasn't your choice to make. You fucked up. It doesn't matter what you meant to do, what you did was wrong.

What we did in Iraq was wrong. We took a sovereign nation surrounded completely by unfriendly borders and forced them to tell us if they had substantial weapons. If they said "no", this left them open to attack by every bordering nation. If they said "yes" this left them open to attack by us. We gave them no credible way to prove anything, failed to exhaust diplomatic options and, unprovoked, invaded and destroyed their infrastructure. We killed children, destroyed homes and separated families. We detained people in violation of all known international laws, we tortured people and, regardless of how you view these actions you will likely agree, we engaged in policies that we would decry if any other nation on the planet followed them. We placed them on the brink of genocide and civil war and now have no reasonable plan to do anything about it. To jump in this conversation, I want to suggest how to end it. But I want to suggest a way that is specifically concentrated on justice. How do we get more justice and move the arrow of human history by ending this ridiculous and untenable war. My suggestion:

1. Apologize. Make it clear that the United States, along with its allies in this war, were wrong to initiate this conflict. Develop a long term restitution plan that can help fund infrastructure development, personal property replacement and medical care. Explain exactly what we did wrong and commit ourselves to not doing it again. Make it clear that the US does NOT support preemptive warfare and will not any longer engage in it. Completely and unequivocally state that we were wrong. Make it clear exactly at every step. What we did wrong and begin the conversation of how to avoid it. Make all documents regarding this conflict available to the UN. Be more forthcoming than we think we have to be. This is a transparent and clear apology.

2. Place all troops in the area under the authority of the UN. Shift as many US troops as possible to other UN controlled locations and swap them out for Arab-speaking ones wherever possible. When possible, put Arab speakers in positions of authority on the troop line and create comprehensive Oversight through a commitment to the most stringent application of the Geneva conference protocols. Commit ourselves to funding a 10 year plan through the UN that will use learnings generated in Rwanda and Burundi by Amnesty international to respond to human rights abuses quickly, internally, and stave off the coming civil war. Hire a "Peace Czar" whose job it is to research and determine ways to develop and support the peace in the area. Fund this. Begin humane education and engagement training with all remaining troops, including weekly education in ethics and first response humanitarian aid. Support Non governmental aid organizations in ensuring that people in the area are fed and invite them to provide addition input on oversight.

3. Vote in and attach the following to our constitution as the 28th amendment. This is in response to the gulf of Tonkin incident as well as to the current war. We have to make it clear that the US will not engage in this sort of warfare in the future:

Section 1. The right of the people to live peaceably is necessary to their ongoing liberty and happiness, and shall not be abridged unjustly or without cause. Given that the United States is a nation that actively seeks out peace and rejects the idea that any nation should wage war frivolously, no war or policing action may be initiated or engaged against any sovereign agency unless the agency attacks first or two independent unaffiliated organizations find that human rights abuses warrant our engagement. No war or policing action shall last longer than is necessary to ensure our safety or mitigate those abuses.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.


4. work with the world community to create a consensus on what happened for inclusion into history books. For this to be an ongoing lesson, it has to be remembered. We need to stand as an example of what an effective apology really is.

The old adage "Everything happens for a reason" is one of the most evil, stupid ones to make the meme circuit. Little girls aren't raped for a reason, hurricanes don't kill children for a reason, Jill's cats are not sexually abused for a reason (They are cute.) The reality is a little more subtle and complex. If we are very smart, work very hard and are exceedingly lucky, we can MAKE a reason out of what happens. It's time to make a reason for this war. It's time to put a headstone on the thousands of people murdered. That reason may well be the pursuit of the perfect apology and a new era in world politics. The era of personal national accountability.