The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: An Interview With Conscientious Objector Aidan Delgado

In 2001, Aidan Delgado was twenty-years old and in need of a life anchor. Delgado had primarily grown up abroad in far away places such as Cairo, Egypt, Thailand and Senegal due to his father’s career as a diplomat. While attending college in Florida, Delgado felt culturally out of place and adrift. Having led an “ivory tower” existence of academia and privilege, Delgado opted to join the United States Army Reserves for a different perspective.

By sheer coincidence he signed his enlistment contract on September 11th. Those closest to him questioned the wisdom of Delgado's choice. The terrorist attacks convinced Delgado he made the correct decision as the country underwent a surge of patriotic feeling and rallying to the flag. At the time he was proud of having decided to join the United States Reserves before September 11th. Delgado didn’t know it yet but the next three years of his life would transform his entire being.

To calm his nerves prior to reporting for basic training at the end of October 2001, Delgado read about Buddhism. He concluded that Buddhism was like “coming home” and suited his outlook on life even as he prepared for war. Initially, Delgado embraced the Samurai ethos that blended Buddhism with the warrior spirit to justify his participation.

He was trained as a mechanic and assigned to the 320th Military Police Company in 2003. Initially, Delgado served in Nasiriya, the Southern Part of Iraq for several months before being redeployed with his unit to Abu Ghraib. Since Delgado knew Arabic from his adolescent years in Cairo, he was frequently utilized as a translator on missions. On these missions he witnessed horrific abuse committed by Americans against Iraq’s civilian population. He told Bob Herbert of the New York Times in 2005 that,

“Guys in my unit, particularly the younger guys, would drive by in their Humvee and shatter bottles over the heads of Iraqi civilians passing by. They'd keep a bunch of empty Coke bottles in the Humvee to break over people's heads."

That sort of gratuitous violence was a harbinger of things to come. During this period in 2003, Delgado experienced an internal crisis. The warrior ethos was not compatible with his sensibilities as a Buddhist and he opted to apply for an honorable discharge as a conscientious objector.

The army tried to persuade Delgado to apply for non-combatant status instead and still complete his duties as a mechanic. It would’ve been the path of least resistance and Delgado rejected it. As far as Delgado was concerned, applying, as a non-combatant was a half-measure and he wanted to make a moral statement.

The path Delgado chose was a long tough road of bureaucratic struggle, taunts, bullying and peer abuse. The army hoped to provoke Delgado away from pacifism, make him feel ostracized and humiliated. Many considered Delgado a coward and a traitor as he continued to fulfill his duties while the application process went forward.

Delgado’s application for conscientious objector status had not been resolved when his unit was redeployed to Abu Ghraib in November 2003. Shortly after he arrived, a prison riot against the miserable conditions there resulted in a fatal shooting of four detainees who threw stones. Delgado told Bob Herbert how he confronted a sergeant who claimed to have fired on the detainees:

"I asked him if he was proud that he had shot unarmed men behind barbed wire for throwing stones. He didn't get mad at all. He was, like, 'Well, I saw them bloody my buddy's nose, so I knelt down. I said a prayer. I stood up, and I shot them down.'"

When Delgado initially arrived at Abu Ghraib he assumed most of the detainees were hardened insurgents and terrorists. He later learned while working as a radio operator for the Abu Ghraib headquarters brigade that most detainees were either petty civilian criminals or completely innocent. Ultimately, Delgado concluded that regardless of why they were there, American behavior could not be excused.

Delgado’s unit was dismissed after it completed its duty in March 2004. He received an honorable discharge after returning to America in April 2004. Currently, he’s an antiwar activist as a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and the Buddhist Peace Alliance. Delgado captured his spiritual journey and experience in Iraq with his recently published memoir, The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes From A Conscientious Objector In Iraq (Beacon Press)

It’s not fully possible to grasp what soldiers like Delgado went through and witnessed. What does it mean to read that serving in Abu Ghraib is hell or living through mortar attacks is scary? Is it really possible for mere words to convey how soldiers such as Delgado are torn between loyalty to the uniform they wear and their humanity? How can one truly understand without having lived in the shoes of someone like Delgado himself?

Those of us who haven't been in that position can't truly understand. Nevertheless, Delgado skillfully puts the reader in the front row of his year in Iraq, the friends and antagonists he interacted with, the near death experiences he endured and the torturous battle waged within his soul about right and wrong.

Delgado agreed to a podcast interview with me over the telephone about his book, experiences inside Iraq and Abu Ghraib in particular. We also discussed how racism towards Arabs and the Muslim world helped facilitate the crimes committed against Iraqis and his spiritual journey as a Buddhist and anti-war pacifist. Our conversation is approximately fifty-six minutes and took place on Sunday, November 18th. Please refer to the media player below.



This interview can also be accessed for free by searching for "Intrepid Liberal Journal" at the Itunes Store.

Please note that Aidan Delgado only had access to a cell phone for this interview. The sound quality is quite good most of the time and the passion of his convictions comes through. Also, I made a couple errors during the podcast I would like to correct. In introducing Aidan I referred to his unit as the 320th Military Police “Academy” instead of “Company.” I also listed Kuwait among the countries Aidan lived in while growing up when in fact he only visited there.

Conservatives Have No Clothes: An Interview With Greg Anrig

To paraphrase former President Ronald Reagan, conservatism is not the solution to the problem; conservatism is the problem. In his recently published book, The Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing (Wiley & Sons), policy expert and journalist Greg Anrig indicts right-wing ideology and examines their legacy of insipid governance.

It’s a familiar tale of woe for liberals at this point. The conservative method over simplifies problems such as terrorism with misguided fear mongering about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Domestically conservatives will distort the root causes of why inner city schools fail by demonizing the entire public school system or make false claims that Social Security is poised for imminent collapse. In terms of obtaining and holding onto power the conservative method of marketing distortion has been highly effective in most national elections since 1968.

The consequences for the country have been disastrous. Even when Democrats have prevailed, the radical trend of privatization was only slowed temporarily to the detriment of workers and consumers alike. From healthcare, to the gutting of FEMA and the misguided pursuit of empire have left Americans economically insecure and isolated in a dangerous world.

In a sober analysis, Anrig, the Vice President of Programs at the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank and regular contributor to the liberal blog tpmcafe.com, critiques the conservative record. Specifically, Anrig evaluates the degree that policies championed by conservatives have delivered on their promise to make America stronger and safer and our government smaller and more efficient.

E. J. Dionne, syndicated columnist for the Washington Post praised Anrig’s book and noted:

“Ending the conservative era requires organizing, yes, but also hard thinking and shrewd analysis. When progressives of the future look back at how they triumphed, one of the people they'll thank is Greg Anrig. Drawing inspiration from the work of the early neoconservatives who demolished public support for liberal programs, Anrig casts a sharp eye on conservative ideas and nostrums and shows that many of them simply don't work because they are rooted more in ideological dreams than in reality. Facts are stubborn things, Ronald Reagan once said, and Anrig makes good use of them in this important and engaging book."

Anrig agreed to a podcast interview with me over the telephone about his book and issues such as education, Social Security, national security and the Democrats ineffectiveness at challenging the conservative paradigm. Please refer to the media player below. Our conversation is approximately forty minutes.



This interview can also be accessed at no cost via the Itunes Store by searching for the “Intrepid Liberal Journal.”

To Die In Jerusalem

When I was seven years old my brother and I were fighting in the back seat of my grandmother’s car. This particular skirmish had a back-story of recriminations and mutual dirty deeds. We were both angry. Each of us felt justified. As the fight escalated everyone in the car and others on the highway were endangered. So my grandmother turned sharply and simply said, “Stop it!” We both protested about who started what and when. My grandmother wasn’t having any of it and forcefully declared, “I don’t’ care who started it. It stops now.” We stopped. Grandma had spoken.

I recalled that incident from my childhood while watching a “screener” for the documentary, To Die in Jerusalem which premiers on HBO this Thursday at 9:00 P.M. EST.

To Die in Jerusalem recounts the tragic story about two teenaged girls – one a 17-year-old Israeli student named Rachel Levy, the other an 18-year-old Palestinian student/suicide bomber named Ayat al-Akhras – brutally entwined by fate in March 2002. They died together in a Jerusalem market when Ayat chose the path of martyrdom. Both girls made the cover of Newsweek as a result.

This documentary focuses on Rachel’s mother, Abigail Levy, efforts to coordinate a one-on-one meeting with her counterpart, Um Samir. Both mothers are in pain and victims of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On camera, Um Samir claims she would have stopped her daughter “by force” if she had known what Ayat planned to do. At the same time she blames the state of Israel for an occupation that has compelled Palestinians to resist by any means necessary. Naturally, Abigail Levy believes the act to be senseless murder making peace even more unattainable.

The mothers finally speak via satellite hookup. In fleeting moments there seems to be the potential for common ground. Um Samir proclaims they are both victims and observes that presidents and prime ministers who make decisions of war and peace were far above mothers like them. But as the conversation continued it was clear they were both culturally and ideologically locked and incapable of processing the other’s point of view.

Abigail Levy simply couldn’t accept that Israel’s occupation bore any responsibility for nurturing an environment of hate among the Palestinians. Um Samir seemed incapable of accepting that terrorism was only digging the Palestinians into a deeper hole of despair and therefore her daughter as well as other suicide bombers had sacrificed their lives for nothing.

The documentary ends with both giving up on trying to persuade the other because neither is truly listening to the other. When it ended my heart felt as if it were impaled on a dull blade. Um Samir had declared that presidents and prime ministers were above mothers like them. In reality the leadership of both societies largely reflect both of these mothers. Consequently, it’s doubtful we’ll see peace between both peoples in my lifetime.

Albany's Mayor For Life: An Interview With Erastus Corning Biographer Paul Grondahl

Erastus Corning 2nd was elected mayor of Albany, New York eleven times, serving forty-two consecutive years, an unsurpassed tenure in American political history. Even before birth, Corning’s destiny as Albany’s “mayor for life” was scripted. As pillars of the WASP establishment, Corning men were expected to attend Groton and Yale and assume positions of leadership in industry and politics. One could say that the Corning family was noblesse oblige on steroids: an assumption that with wealth, power and prestige come social responsibilities. Yet the noblesse oblige represented by the Cornings had a dark side as their class established an oligarchy in Albany to preserve their status and power.

In the 1920s, the financial, institutional and industrial strength represented by the Corning dynasty forged an omnipotent alliance led by a salty tongued Irish working class political boss named Dan O’Connell. This unlikely union of the well bred Corning family and the O’Connell clan of Irish saloonkeepers initially bonded through cock fighting! Eratus’s father Edwin served as Lt. Governor in the late ‘20s and collaborated with O’Connell until poor health forced him to step away from politics.

When Edwin Corning died in 1934, Dan O’Connell became a surrogate father for the future mayor. As Albany’s political boss, O’Connell paved the way for Corning to assume the reins and become mayor at the age of thirty-two in 1941. Corning served until he died in 1983. Ironically, this powerful man who battled Thomas Dewey, sparred with Nelson Rockefeller and mentored Mario Cuomo, never enjoyed the power of self-determination.

A complex and lonely soul, Corning presided over a fiefdom of cronyism, corruption and stability. He mingled easily with the working class that the O’Connell-Corning machine kept obedient while enjoying the exclusive privileges of men in his social class. As other cities peaked with post war development and endured social turbulence in the 1960s, Albany remained virtually unchanged. And the citizens of Albany continued to return Corning to power.

Paul Grondahl, an award winning journalist with the Albany Times Union skillfully captured the “shadow" and “light” of Corning’s rule, as well as his convoluted private life in his book, Mayor Erastus Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma. Originally published in 1997, Grondahl’s biography about Corning was just released in paperback by the State University of New York Press.

William Kennedy, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Ironweed, writes in the introduction that,

“This is an important book for Albany, for anyone interested in political power. It widens our vision (with a view from inside City Hall) of the O’Connell Democratic organization, which controlled Albany from 1921 until the Mayor died in 1983, making it the longest-running boss machine in American political history.”

Grondahl agreed to a podcast interview with me over the telephone about his book and Erastus Corning. Our conversation lasted forty-five minutes as we discussed the public figure, the political machine he served and his private life. Please refer to the media player below.



This interview can also be accessed via the Itunes store at no cost by searching for “Intrepid Liberal Journal.”

Demand Serious Change

I received an important email today from J-Ro at The Seminal, a group blog that,

"presents an independent media viewpoint outside of partisan politics and corporate control. Hailing from all over the globe, our writers bring you thoughtful commentary on current events."

They've organized a national protest movement against the ongoing war in Iraq. As J-RO put it to me,

"Our blog has started a national protest movement against the Iraq war called Serious Change . Serious Change is about reclaiming the symbols of power for progressives and for the anti-war movement. We protest in professional attire to communicate that we are intelligent, we are organized, and we are seriously dissatisfied with our country’s direction. We demand Serious Change."

You can read more about it by clicking here. One of the cities they will be marching in is New York. Information on where and when to meet can be found by clicking here. Even if you can't make it yourselves, please publicize this information on your own blogs to help recruit as many people as possible.

Simply put, we're killing people we shouldn't be killing. And we're losing people we shouldn't be losing. The time has long past for Serious Change. Blogging is wonderful and the "netroots" have accomplished things. However, we will not end this war from our keyboards. Stopping a war requires marching feet and leather lungs.

How the U.S. Helped Sink Larijani

Editor's Note: This is Barbara Slavin's first post with the Intrepid Liberal Journal. She is a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and author of "Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S. and the Twisted Path to Confrontation." Barbara has also covered the Middle East for over twenty-years as a reporter, most recently as a senior diplomatic corresspondent with USA Today. I'm most gratified at Barbara's willingness to share her unique perspective. The views expressed here are her own.

Bush administration officials often say they don't understand the Iranian government. They have proven this time and time again by undermining those mostly likely to negotiate crucial differences with the United States. Now the administration appears to have lost yet another opportunity to slow Iran's march to nuclear power and its efforts to play the spoiler in the Middle East.

The loss this time involves Ali Larijani, a red-bearded intellectual who styles himself Iran's Henry Kissinger. A conservative who ran for president and lost to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, Larijani got the consolation prize of chief nuclear negotiator and secretary of Iran's national security council. This weekend, Larijani resigned from the negotiator post. His replacement: an obscure deputy foreign minister, Saeed Jalili, who is said to be an ally of Ahmadinejad.

Despite a reputation as a hardliner, Larijani began reaching out to the United States soon after Iranian elections in 2005. In an interview he gave me in Tehran in February 2006, Larijani praised his U.S. counterpart, Stephen Hadley, as a "logical thinker" and said "there is no limitation on our side" to negotiations with the United States.

Larijani authorized a deputy, Mohammad Javad Jaffari, to ask for backchannel talks with Hadley or a designated emissary. When the White House did not respond, Larijani publicly on March 16, 2006, accepted a prior U.S. offer for talks limited to the situation in Iraq. A week later, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei endorsed the proposal -- a dramatic step for someone who had up until then threatened those who publicly advocated talks with the United States as traitors. An Iranian website close to the conservative leadership, Baztab, announced that the Iranians had put together a high-level delegation and that talks would begin in Baghdad on April 9. But the Bush administration got cold feet. Its refusal to meet undermined Larijani within the Iranian power structure and humiliated Khamenei. The chief beneficiary was Ahmadinejad.

The United States finally agreed to enter nuclear negotiations at the end of May 2006 but only if Iran would suspend its efforts to enrich uranium and as part of talks including Britain, Germany, France and the European Union. (Larijani did take part in a half dozen subsequent meetings with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana but without success.) Direct U.S.-Iran talks about Iraq did not take place until May of this year. Delay on both fronts has been costly: Despite a U.S.-driven campaign of pressure and sanctions, Iran-backed attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq have escalated and Iran is much closer to the ability to make nuclear bombs. President Bush said last week an Iran with nuclear weapons would usher in "World War III."

A U.S. decision to talk to Iran unconditionally in 2006 might not have stemmed this escalation. But it is impossible to know -- just as it is impossible to say what would have happened had the Bush administration not put Iran on an "axis of evil" in 2002 or accepted an offer for comprehensive negotiations with the government of Ahmadinejad's predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, in May 2003.

Administration officials argue that U.N. and other sanctions are exacerbating divisions within the Iranian regime and that Iran will eventually knuckle under to pressure. Divisions certainly are increasing in Tehran but the "reasonable people," as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice likes to call them, are still not getting their way. The victors so far are those like Ahmadinejad who argue that the best way to earn U.S. respect and recognition is to confront Americans in Iraq and elsewhere and gain the capacity to build nuclear bombs as soon as possible.

An Interview With Iranian Expert and Journalist Barbara Slavin

Barbara Slavin, senior diplomatic correspondent for USA Today since 1996 and author of the recently published book, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation (St. Martin’s Press), writes that,

“Iran and the United States are like a once happily married couple that has gone through a bitter divorce. Harsh words have been exchanged – husband and wife have come to blows and employed others to inflict more punishment. Apologizing is hard and changing behavior even harder. This relationship is unequal, with one side or the other feeling more vulnerable at any given time and afraid the other will take advantage of concessions.”

Currently, the public faces of both nations, presidents George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been content to throw rhetorical bombs and raise the diplomatic temperature – increasing the likelihood of war. Indeed, at times it appears that conservative hardliners in both countries are eager for conflict as a means to maintain their respective grips on power.

The journey from the CIA backed coup that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected leader Mossadeq in 1953 and replaced him with the Shah, to the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and current tensions is replete with ill conceived schemes that damaged both nations. Slavin, using her extensive contacts among the powerful inside Iran and the United States, documents missed opportunities for reconciliation between both countries during the administrations of the first President Bush as well as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

The combination of her remarkable access to people such as Madeline Albright, Condelezza Rice, Iranian reformers like former President Mohammad Khatami, longtime establishment figures such as Ali Rafsanjani, as well as dissidents like Akbar Ganji and everyday citizens, allows Slavin to shed sunlight on a nation most Americans know very little about. She is also the first newspaper reporter from the United States to interview Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

Slavin has accompanied three secretaries of State on their official travels and reported from Iran, Libya, Israel, Egypt, North Korea, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Syria. She is also a regular commentator for U.S. foreign policy on National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting System's Washington Week In Review and C-Span. This month, she joined the U.S. Institute of Peace as a Jennings Randolph fellow, to continue her research on Iran. Slavin also serves as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Prior to joining USA Today, Slavin was a Washington-based writer for The Economist and the Los Angeles Times, covering domestic and foreign policy issues, including the 1991-93 Middle East peace talks in Washington. From 1985-89, she was The Economist's correspondent in Cairo. During her career, Slavin has traveled widely in the Middle East, covering the Iran-Iraq war, the 1986 U.S. bombing of Libya, the political evolution of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism. Earlier in the 1980s, Slavin also served as The Economist's correspondent in Beijing and reported from Japan and South Korea.

Prior to moving abroad, she worked as a writer and editor for The New York Times Week in Review section and a reporter and editor for United Press International in New York City.

Slavin agreed to a podcast interview with me about her book, Iran and their turbulent relationship with the United States. Please refer to the media player below. Our conversation is just under thirty minutes. This interview can also be accessed via the Itunes Store by searching for “Intrepid Liberal Journal.”

Are Voters Irrational: An Interview With Economist Bryan Caplan

People across the political spectrum routinely question the senses, intelligence and values of their fellow voters. A decade ago conservatives chafed, as President Bill Clinton remained popular in spite of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In recent years liberals like myself seethed while Republicans maintained one-party dominance in spite of their incompetence and criminal policies. They’re also citizens who challenge the wisdom of any voter who supports the two-party duopoly.

Bryan Caplan, an economist at George Mason University and co-editor of EconLog challenges the rationality of voters with his book, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (Princeton University Press). Caplan, a libertarian, contends that democracies fail because of voters themselves rather than favorite scapegoats such as special interests. He argues that voters are regulated by four irrational prejudices:

1. Too little faith in the free market;
2. A distrust of foreigners;
3. Undervaluing the conservation of labor;
4. Unjustified pessimism that the economy is going from bad to worse.

Referencing those four biases are a reoccurring theme of Caplan’s book that skillfully mixes economics, political science, and psychology to analyze how voters think and the public policies that result from what they want. Overall his book is compelling and provocative. On July 30th, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times referred to Caplan’s book as “the best political book this year.”

I concur with Caplan that for too many voters ideology is analogous to religious faith and evidence doesn’t penetrate their entrenched worldviews. However, as a liberal I disagree with Caplan’s equating skepticism about the free market or free trade agreements with irrationality.

In my opinion the free market isn’t appropriate for all sectors of the economy such as healthcare or education and free trade has too many imbalances that require attention. Furthermore, I believe too many conservative/libertarian economists ignore the hidden economy that isn’t measured by the Gross Domestic Product or quarterly statements. Caplan of course disagrees and I suppose by his definition I’m one of those irrational voters.

Each of us can become imprisoned by our own belief systems and it’s healthy to challenge our perspectives. Caplan graciously agreed to a podcast interview with me over the telephone about his controversial book. Our conversation was approximately forty minutes. Please refer to the media player below. This interview can also be accessed via the Itunes store by searching for "Intrepid Liberal Journal."