I’m here in Lawrence, Kansas at a conference on the situation in Iraq one year after the “victory”. It’s always good to get out into the heartland and listen to what’s on people’s minds in the US heartland, ways outside the Washington beltway. Three weeks ago, Bill and I were in Oxford, Ohio, where he was speaking at a similar gig at Miami University.
I only got into town in time for the tail end of the session before the one I was speaking on. It seemed really interesting. There was a retired military guy who now teaches at the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, whom I heard voicing some interesting thoughts. I’ll tell you more about ’em later.
There was also a totaly asinine, silver-coaing type of guy from the State Dept, called Robert Silverman, who said things like “well the abuse allegations ware not our finest hour but the general trend-line is upward”, etc etc… He certainly didn’t look as though his heart was in it, though, and he slunk away from the conference soon after.
I had prepared my contribution fairly carefully on my way here, and I spoke about the “culpable idiocy” of the suits in the Pentagon and in the White House who had launched this war in the way they did: unilaterally and with quite insufficent manpower… I have to admit I got quite a good reception from the audience to what I said… One person challenged somethng I said about the UN. But I have never actually before heard a wolf-whistle along with the clapping when I finished any previous talk.
(Bill said maybe it was because I was so sexy. He was only joking. I didn’t take that as a demeaning remark.)
Anyway, more from Kansas later. I need to rush off to today’s sessions.
Helena was actually one of the strongest speakers at the entire conference. people were constantly coming up to tell me (because I happened to moderate the panel she was on) how clear and passionate (in the positive sense of compelling) her remarks were. During a more casual after-dinner exchange among Friday’s speakers and others at the dinner, she was pushed hard about her support for increased UN involvement in transition Iraq and was great. Every time the questioner mentioned a situation in which the UN had not been as successful as we might wish, Helena was ready with a counter-example. It was a high point of the conference for me, watching them go back and forth.