Caleb Carr on Bernard Lewis's "Was Osama Right?"

Caleb Carr sent TMP this missive responding Bernard Lewis's "Was Osama Right?" in last week's Wall Street Journal:

Lewis's piece is, unfortunately, a further demonstration that he has lost the laser-sighting he had before, during, and after 9/11; and he's lost it, as have so many, because of a genuine, deep, and almost unbelievable unwillingness to comprehend the complexity and importance of Iraqi Shi'ite politics.

But first off, the piece is an extraordinarily narrow view of the problem, in terms of American society. It is true that the American reaction to the Al Qaeda threat has not yet been deep or broad enough; but that has nothing to do with any inherent weakness on the part of the American people. As I'm often told by people in my impoverished corner of upstate New York State, which gives more than its fair share of troops to the cause, the population of America is still ready to be fully mobilized and to pay any price required -- if the reasons behind both can be adequately and respectfully explained by the administration. That's been problem number one since 9/12. In the vacuum left by that absence, the division of America, regionally and economically, as well as between military and non-military classes, has been the principal operating influence: 9/11 hit a narrow slice of America, in all of this categories; and it may well be that it will take a "major event" that kills thousands of Americans from all walks of life to inspire a modern Pearl Harbor-type response -- remember that the sailors and soldiers at Pearl did come from just such a broad cross-section of America, which was why that attack was felt so hard. It appears that AQ is busily preparing just such an event; the Las Vegas New Year's Eve plot (both Richard Clarke and I had already picked Vegas as the city most at risk, during this phase, although that's likely now shifted, obviously).

Whether they can pull it off depends on several things, all in the balance:

1) Will we allow the Iraqi Shi'ites to finally exterminate everyone even disposed to support Al Qaeda in their country, since AQI and their affiliates are the main force of the insurgency now? "Extermination" may sound a strong word; given what their own language toward the Shi'ia is, given their continued propensity toward what is as close to genocide (NOT "execution styled killings") that they can manage, the Sunni and particularly Al Qaeda extremists have earned it. Furthermore, will we finally abandon Maliki's corrupt government for the true Shi'ite power, the Sistani-Hakim axis, and believe that Muqtada's followers are once again pulling back at their bidding?

2) Is all of this activity being coordinated with/by Ryan Crocker, and is he coordinating with Rice's negotiations with Iran? This would seem a no-brainer, but as we have learned, there's no such thing, in this administration.

3) Will Musharraf survive and get the final upper hand on the ISI, or will he get himself killed/leave Pakistan first? And, if the latter, will AQ get their nuclear device from that source (which is a FAR greater and more imminent danger than a nuclear Iran) in the short or the long run? Will NATO not only meet but increase its commitment to Afghanistan, which is at a critical pass (and which only the Brits and the Dutch seem to take in any way seriously)?

These are the questions upon which the struggle depends on, now; not issues of "American weakness." That IS an issue; but one of rather subordinate importance. The American public is in a state of very profound confusion that the anti-war groups and Congress are choosing to read as blanket opposition to the war; yet reactions to Congress indicate that Americans are looking for solutions, not unqualified withdrawal.

- c.c.

Samuel Beckett's only love poem

CASCANDO.
1.
why not merely the despaired of
occation of
wordshed

is it not better abort than be barren

the hours after you are gone are so leaden
they will always start dragging too soon
the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want
bringing up the bones the old loves
sockets filled once with eyes like yours
all always is it better too soon than never
the black want splashing their faces
saying again nine days never floated the loved
nor nine months
nor nine lives
2
saying again if you do not teach me I shall not learn
saying again there is a last
even of last times
last times of begging
last times of loving
of knowing not knowing pretending
a last even of last times of saying
if you do not love me I shall not be loved
if I do not love you I shall not love

the churn of stale words in the heart again
love love lovethud of the old plunger
pestling the unalterable
whey of words

terrified again
of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you
of knowing not knowing pretending
pretending

I and all the others that will love you
if they love you
3
unless they love you

That Sounds like Zombie #1 from THE BRAIN EATERS

Something struck me as eerie about Jonathan Lethem's recent New Yorker short story, "Lucky Alan." The character Sigismund Blondy, when he speaks, sounds an awful lot like Hampton Fancher, the actor ("The Brain Eaters" of 1958, etc...) and screenwriter ("Blade Runner," etc...).

I suspect this is no coincidence.

A Moon for the Misbegotten

... the Old Vic's production of "Moon," which premiere I reviewed last fall in London, has transferred to NYC. O'Neill's play is "news that stays news," so I'm reprinting here...

A Moon for the Misbegotten
Old Vic, London

After stumbling badly with a dire production of “Resurrection Blues,” and closing the theater for the summer, Kevin Spacey and the Old Vic have returned with a magnificent, powerful production of a touchstone of American theater--Eugene O’Neill’s last play, “A Moon for the Misbegotten.” The play, intimate and accessible yet three hours long, is all too little seen (its last major production was more than twenty years ago). Critically it’s been overshadowed by the playwright’s towering masterpiece, “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” to which it serves as a kind of coda. This production, in the hands of artists most devoted to O’Neill--Spacey, the shatteringly-talented and earthy actress Eve Best, and Howard Davies directing--is simply a triumph. These hours at Old Vic were among the shortest I’ve spent in the theater.
Josie Hogan (Best), a full-figured and “real” woman, with a quick tongue and ruined reputation, lives on a ramshackle Connecticut farm with her ducking-and-diving father Phil Hogan (played by the Irish film and theater star Colm Meaney).
They rent their patch, the only home Josie’s ever known, from Jim, a member of the disintegrating Tyrone family seen in “Long Day’s Journey.” A third-rate actor who long ago buried his dreams, Jim now evades his grief with bourbon at the local hotel and with his mad dashes toward the bright lights in New York.
This is a genre-shifting play, beginning as hard-working Josie takes her pleasure in slapstick pranks at the expense of a local millionaire, her own father, and their friend Jim, who hides his self-loathing under his own good-natured high-jinks. In a mortgage melodrama subplot, Josie’s father, fearing Jim will sell out their homestead, schemes to put one over on him. This plan is knocked sideways, when during Jim and Josie’s long night’s journey… of talking, drinking, and carnal wrestling, and delicate caressing… toward day, and something like love, he reveals to her a searing pain at being unable to love without destroying, as well as his humiliation over a betrayal of his dead mother. Josie has her own, more surprising secret that Jim had already perceived. As Josie and Jim begin reluctantly to expose to each other the terrible pain of living a constant lie, the play transforms during these mesmerizing performances into a display of raw emotion and naked humanity. Miraculously, as the morning dawns, O’Neill, writing with the lightest touch, draws these two back into their own skins, with an air of grace still lingering about the stage. The last words spoken by Spacey’s Jim, and the last words O’Neill was ever to write for the stage, reflect what each has allowed the other to give themselves: “forgiveness and peace.”
Two points might give theater-goers pause… first, the Irish accents of the Hogans, Josie and Phil; in fact, O’Neill had insisted in the play’s first production that Irish actors should play the roles of these characters who would have been recent immigrants. Second, the high-plains-inflected music of Dominic Muldowney, reminiscent of Ry Cooder, sounds very odd for the play’s New England setting.
A deep bow, nonetheless, toward Davies, whose Almeida production of O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh first brought Spacey to the London stage, and who directed Best in “Mourning Becomes Electra” at the National, winning her the 2003 Critic’s Circle Best Actor Award. Their performances are likely to be award-winning again.

--James Scott Linville

Am away, so posting will be light for a couple weeks