Monday, December 12, 2005

The World's Game


Alrighty class, it's time for the easiest game in the book: Which one doesn't belong! Pele, Johan Cryuff, Cobi Jones, and Heidi Klum. All were on stage to take part in the World Cup draw on Friday, but one isn't like the others...

Easy, you might say. Three are world class footballers. One is a super fly super model. Sure, Pele has filled out nicely in old age, but there's still only one The Grillmaster would want to see in a bikini. Exit stage right, Heidi, and straight into our dreams.

But not so fast, mes amis! For to judge by international press reaction to the US Team's prospects after the draw, it's apparent that the world still doesn't take any footballers from these 50 States seriously. They'd rather see Heidi Klum win the Cup than any ragtag bunch of Yanks. At least she's German.

Now the US did get a tough draw. Italy plays the beautiful game as do few others. The Czechs are a formidable side with lots of European experience. It will take top-notch football for any team to advance out of Group E.

But that's precisely what the US has been playing for the past four years! We outplayed Germany in the quarterfinal loss in 2002. We have firmly supplanted Mexico as the power of North American soccer, Mexico's inexplicable top ranking be damned. We've climbed to the world top 10, and will field a team that is both relatively young and with serious World Cup experience. The US may have been slightly disheartened by its draw, but you can bet that Italy, the Czechs, and Ghana were none too happy to see us in their segment of the tournament.

Or perhaps they were happy. Perhaps they're every bit as arrogant and dismissive as the international press, which has already declared that Italy and the Czechs will advance with ease. That's our best hope. Underestimate and dismiss all you want. We'll comfort ourselves with the knowledge that this is the best chance ever for the US to make big noise in the one tournament that we're never supposed to win. That and knowing that Heidi Klum comes to America when it's time to pose for swimsuit issues.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Education with Application. Who knew?

The Grillmaster has recently received confirmation that he did in fact secure a Masters of Comparative Ethnic Conflict from Queen’s University Belfast. Comparative Ethnic Conflict is a mouthful, but today’s post just may show that it actually has something to teach us. ‘But Grillmaster, you’ve been back in the States for four months,’ you might say. ‘Surely you received your grades months ago.’ Naïve fools! Very few things happen with what one would call efficiency in the great administrative vortex that is the United Kingdom.

As it goes in postgraduate degrees, so it is with final status negotiations around implementing the Good Friday Agreements. The parties continue to sputter towards the basic conclusion that all can foresee: shared power, oversight from the UK and Ireland, and a final end of political violence. The province is unlikely to descend back into the painful violence of the Troubles, but with Paisley and Adams in control of electoral politics, what one would call normal representative government is likely still some time off.

The past weeks have seen a similar reminder from the former Yugoslavia. There, the accord hammered out at Dayton gave ten years of relative peace (with the teensy exception of that whole Kosovo thing). At the same time, that peace has been guaranteed only at the point of NATO guns, with populations clinging ever more doggedly to ethno-national identities. Western diplomats made the prudential judgment in the past month that the parties, a decade removed from the worst of the conflict, could begin to modify the Dayton Accords to build a more unified, effective government.

The fate of the Oslo Process is perhaps the classic case of good documents alone not adequate to resolve ethnic conflicts. The story of their ultimate collapse has been told by many more qualified than this writer. Suffice to say that with all the roadmaps, frameworks, and interim agreements one could put a nice coat of wallpaper on that lovely little wall that Ariel is building through the West Bank.

Ethnic resentment dies hard, and thus resolving (or transforming if you prefer) ethnic conflicts takes years of careful prodding and poking, managing rivals while promoting local responsibility. The governments of the UK and Ireland have done this admirably in Northern Ireland. The success of the former Yugoslavia will likely be judged over the coming years. Israel-Palestine is very much a work in progress. None of these situations, however, is more uncertain or more important than that we currently face in Iraq.

It is important to remember the lasting nature of outside engagement in the above examples at this time of national reevaluation of our policy in Iraq. I sense that among the well-intentioned and even analytically sound calls to bring our troops home is that ugly skeleton in the closet of American diplomacy: Isolationism. There is a growing part of the American public that wants to be rid of the worries of Iraq. This is a dangerous undertone of statements like, ‘We need to allow the Iraqis to run their own country.’

America should draw down her troop levels in the months ahead, but the squabbling, feuding, opportunistic politicians of Iraq make our continued deep involvement in the process an absolute necessity. What worries me is that weak-willed politicians may use the slogans of ‘allowing the Iraqis to secure their own destiny’ as an excuse for abrogating our responsibility and ability to contribute to the shape that future takes.

Of course Iraqis should control their own destiny. Except that we just removed their old world order with our bombs, in the process removing the main impediment to open ethnic conflict. It may be a good thing that Saddam is gone, but policy makers need to learn from Belfast, Sarajevo, and Hebron just how much outside management is necessary before deeply conflicted societies can run their own affairs.

This requires a delicate dance. American policy makers must remain engaged with Iraqi officials as crucial decisions are made regarding that country’s future. American military officials must continue to cooperate with Iraqi forces combating the insurgency. American corporations must responsibly engage in the task of rebuilding the shattered Iraqi infrastructure. And all of this must as much as possible avoid the semblance of an occupation. The Grillmaster harbors serious doubts as to whether this administration is up to the tall task that it has brought upon itself.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year


Last night, in what is becoming a bit of a tradition, the Grillmaster and friends got an early jump on the Christmas season by stuffing ourselves with ham and egg nog, watching 'Charlie Brown Christmas' and 'The Grinch,' and trying to convince ourselves that the wintry mix falling from the sky was actually proper snow. I hope everyone gets the chance to have such moments of joy, friendship, and fullness as the holiday season progresses.

There is yet another rite of the season kicking off as well: the radical right's shrill cries that the evil, baby Jesus-hating liberals are trying to take the Christ out of Christmas. Bill O'Reilly makes it a particular interest of his, which clearly indicates how seriously one ought to take it. Evangelicals target Target, Catholics watch Wal-Mart, and Speaker Hastert takes the firm stand that the blue spruce in the Capitol ain't no damn Holiday Tree. It's a Christmas tree, just like the one that Jesus was born under!

Now PC can obviously go too far. It's just plain silly to deny the fact that the tree in the Capitol is only there because of Christmas. Call a spade a spade, and let's go sing carols. Or even better, let's talk about how Christ might spend the government's money during the season of his birth, rather than what he would call the odd tree that for some reason has come to mark it. John Podesta hits this point out of the park in a very succinct way here.

The whole Christ in Christmas bruhaha is most interesting as a perfect type-case of what the radical right does best: drum up fear and cultivate unrealistic feelings of victimization. God is under attack! The gays will destroy marriage! The evolution will destroy our children's minds! And the taxes will destroy our ability to buy REALLY BIG inflatable Santa's! Funny how that last one always manages to find its way into the mix.

The message of the birth of Christ is a powerful one. Anybody who watches Linus, trusty blanket in hand, recite the Gospel passages from memory knows that. Wal-Mart's marketing strategy has absolutely no impact on the reality and power of that message! Hell, I might even feel a little better about myself if Christmas were entirely distinct from megastores and elected officials of any sort.