Flashback Friday: The Time I Interviewed William B. Davis

Chances are you heard the news about The X-Files being slated for a limited revival later this year. I plan to address this development in more detail soon, but for now, let's flashback to a juicy, X-Files related moment from my life: the time I interviewed William B. Davis, who portrayed The Smoking Man, for UCLARadio.

Given that he has been bombarded with endless questions about his time on The X-Files, I decided to also ask him questions about his appearances in films and his memoir Where There's Smoke: Musings Of A Cigarette Smoking Man (a great read by the way). He was beyond gracious, which is saying a lot considering that at the very end, my phone (over which he was speaking) was dying, so to preserve power, I clicked the button to turn the screen off. I clicked the button and sure enough the screen turned off, but so did the call just as he was saying bye. Horrified, I called him back to apologize, believing I made a colossal idiot of myself. But as I said, he took it all in stride, so it was all good. With all that being said, here is the full interview for your listening pleasure.

War In Kosovo: A Matter Of Credibility, Not Compassion

Since I missed last week's Flashback Friday (again), I decided to share another piece I wrote, this time an essay about one of my many political hobby horses: the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. I believe it was one of the worst episodes in the history of American foreign policy, exceeded in terms of reprehensibility only by the big wars like Iraq and Vietnam, so imagine my luck when it was listed as a possible prompt for an essay I had to write back in college. This was one of the first papers I wrote for school that I felt that I had an actual investment in, so much so that I found myself in the novel position of having to cut information from my paper, rather than pad it as is usually the case. As such, this is the full, original paper I wrote, including the abstract and all the information I didn't include in the version I submitted to my TA. I had to reformat the citations though, as they were originally footnotes, which apparently don't lend themselves to Blogger well.

                              War In Kosovo: A Matter of Credibility, Not Compassion

This paper demonstrates that the American-led 1999 intervention in Kosovo was motivated by concerns about perceptions of American and NATO’s credibility and justifications for the alliance’s continued existence rather than the humanitarian concerns publicly given prior to and during it’s execution. Evidence is marshaled from professors and researchers versed in the Balkan conflicts, a key military figure in the operation itself, and two journalists who covered the war as it unfolded. None of this is to say that humanitarian reasons played no role in NATO’s decision to intervene; rather, it is simply that they were secondary to realist issues of prestige and credibility. This important distinction sheds light on the decision of Slobodan Milosevic to concede to NATO’s demands as well as the question of whether the operation was a success or not. Through a solely humanitarian or constructivist lens, the operation was a failure, but if viewed from a realist perspective, as American and NATO officials did, it was a success.

NATO’s 78-day bombing of Kosovo is practically all but forgotten in the public consciousness, and so also is the political analysis of that particular crisis. This is very unfortunate since when the conflict is brought up or referenced, as it was when it seemed the United States and its allies were about to intervene in Syria last year, its origins, conduct, and outcome are misremembered. Such incorrect recollections and analyses confuse or even outright negatively influence Americans perceptions and reactions to current foreign policy issues. This is not merely a theoretical concern, an esoteric subject for debates between scholars of international relations: these incorrect memories enable presidents’ to invoke humanitarian issues in a particular state as a casus belli against said state even if the United Nations Security Council has not permitted military intervention on the part of foreign actors or to engage in an air war with a nation that has not aggressed against the U.S. without asking Congress to authorize such action. Scenarios such as these materialized in former president George W. Bush’s non-UN sanctioned invasion of Iraq and President Barack Obama’s bombing of Libya without Congressional approval, but they had undeniable precedent in the 1999 Kosovo war. Thus, it is imperative to carefully examine the reasons and outcomes of America’s decision to lead NATO in attacking the now-dissolved Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). In this paper, I will debunk claims that the war was motivated solely or primarily by Western concern about human rights violations by the FRY against ethnic Albanians and demonstrate that NATO and in particular, American concern about being perceived as unwilling to act against potential enemies as well as the need to revamp NATO’s mission following the end of the Cold War were the primary reasons for the intervention. The effects of these realist priorities can be seen in the conclusion of the conflict, when NATO settled for occupying Kosovo rather than the whole of Yugoslavia in exchange for Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s decision to withdraw Serb forces from the province. Although human rights violations continued after NATO intervened (this time, against Serbs who remained in Kosovo) and were quite possibly exacerbated by the bombing, the U.S. and NATO, if viewed from the realist vantage point of many of their officials and spokesmen, got what they wanted from the intervention: credibility and purpose.

Most prominent among the hazy memories of the Kosovo War is the notion that it was predominantly a humanitarian war, forced upon NATO by the aggressive policies of Slobodan Milosevic. Laying blame for the various troubles in the Balkans solely at the feet of Milosevic and Serbia did not begin with Kosovo. Throughout the decade, headlines such as “The Serbs Asked For It” (in reference to NATO’s 1995 intervention in Bosnia against Serb separatists) in the Los Angeles Times[1] and stridently anti-Serb editorials by prominent figures such as The New York Times’ Anthony Lewis[2] and Thomas Friedman[3] gave the impression that the Serbs were uniquely evil amongst the peoples of the former Yugoslavia. This is not to say that the Serbs, whether in Bosnia or Kosovo, were totally innocent or victimized by a sinister conspiracy within Western media: it is simply to establish that such coverage of the war lead to an overwhelmingly negative perception of Serbia on the part of Americans, regardless of Serbia’s strategic irrelevance to American interests. Considering this, it is not surprising that many accepted the accounts of massacres and torture in Kosovo as sufficient rationale for war. The Clinton administration recognized this and offered moral reasons that emphasized the brutality of FRY soldiers and police to the public. “We act to protect thousands of innocent people in Kosovo from a mounting military offensive… Ending this tragedy is a moral imperative,” then-president Clinton said in a speech the day the bombing commenced[4]. Similar statements were made by NATO officials such as General Klaus Naumann, who claimed, “Armed intervention against a sovereign country without a Security Council mandate was in this case a last ditch effort to stop massive abuses of human rights.”[5] Naumann’s statement is interesting, in that it implicitly suggests that although the intervention did not have approval from the UN, it was justified on the basis of preventing human rights violations. Indeed, past UN inaction had allowed Serbs to commit atrocities like those done at Srebrenica and Sarajevo, so Naumann’s point seemed a fair one to American and other Western citizens. However, one must ask, if humanitarian crises in autocratic nations warranted intervention, why was Yugoslavia singled out for bombardment when there were clearly other candidates for such treatment. One of the participants in the NATO operation, Turkey, had spent most of the decade waging it’s own war against Kurdish insurgents. The tactics used by the Turkish military chillingly resembled those employed by the Yugoslav forces in Kosovo: burning, bombing and shelling Kurdish enclaves at such a degree that as many as 3,000 villages were destroyed and 2 million Kurds were made into refugees, to say nothing of the countless innocents killed[6]. The possibility that an alliance would initiate a bombing campaign against one of it’s own members under any circumstances is understandably implausible, but it weakens said-alliance’s position when it cites human rights abuses as a pretext for war while overlooking or even facilitating the aforementioned member’s atrocities, as the Clinton administration did when it sent Turkey Cobra helicopters and F-16 bombers which were subsequently used to obliterate entire Kurdish villages[7]. It is even more egregious when there were other nations that treated ethnic minorities as poorly as or even worse than the Serbs treated the Kosovar Albanians, as James Kurth pointed out:

“Sadly, in the 1990s, the actions of the Serb government against the Albanians in Kosovo… were not especially unique. The decade saw at least four comparable examples where a state representing one ethnic group undertook systematic violence against another ethnic group living within the boundaries of the state. This was the case in Rwanda in 1994 (the Hutu regime against the Tutsis), Burundi from 1993 to the present (the Tutsi regime against the Hutus), Sudan throughout the 1990s (the Islamic regime against the Christians), and Iraq throughout much of the 1990s (the Iraqi Ba’ath regime against the Kurds).”[8]

Kurth goes on to add that with the exception of Iraq, neither the U.S. nor NATO seriously considered intervening to halt human rights violations in any of the above countries[9]. One is left curious as to why stopping Serb atrocities against Albanians was, to quote Bill Clinton a second time, “ a moral imperative”[10] but stopping the Hutu genocide against the Tutsis was not or why the objective of neutralizing Slobodan Milosevic warranted bypassing the UN Security Council and Congress but neutralizing Saddam Hussein didn’t.

Then there is the question of the conduct of the war itself: despite being branded as a humanitarian war, NATO’s bombing campaign actually increased the danger to both Serb civilians and the Kosovar Albanians it claimed to be acting on behalf of. Just days after talks between NATO and Milosevic failed in March of 1999, the Serbs began expelling Kosovars at an unprecedented rate[11], a measure almost certainly meant to solidify their control over the province before the bombing began. From the start, the NATO bombing failed as a humanitarian endeavor because it actually worsened the crisis it sought to contain. Even General Naumann admitted this, writing

“Premised on humanitarian needs, it was difficult to defend the NATO intervention logically and politically when it was initially causing damage but did not prevent the expulsion of the Kosovars. That a huge outflow of refugees followed the initial bombing was embarrassing, to say the least.”[12]

As if driving the Serbs into committing even more atrocities wasn’t enough, NATO’s determination to keep causalities at a minimum lead the alliance to require their pilots to fly at higher altitudes to avoid Yugoslav radar and anti-air missiles, reducing the danger to the pilots but increasing the risk to civilians, as the pilots had greater difficulty in identifying targets[13]. Policies such as this lead to incidents such as a NATO fighter firing twice upon a bridge as a train crossed it, killing at least 14 Serb civilians[14], the destruction of the civilian-staffed Serbian state television and radio headquarters[15] and the bombing of an ethnic Albanian convoy that resulted in the death of 73 refugees[16]. Protecting the lives of one’s soldiers in a particular operation is a laudable goal and should be prioritized, but when doing so jeopardizes the lives of the civilians the soldiers are supposed to protect, one must reconsider the wisdom of the operation in question.

Having demonstrated that the United States and NATO, far from being convicted that ethnic cleansing and genocide must be halted in their tracks wherever they may occur, were prone to ignoring humanitarian crises and even working with states that caused them, in addition to failing to consider how their actions might trigger more atrocities and endanger civilian lives, one can now consider two more likely causes for the American-led intervention in Kosovo: credibility and purpose. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, both the United States and NATO faced political crises of identity: having premised their foreign policies entirely on countering the Soviets for the last 40 years, what role would they play in the world now that the most significant threat to them was no more. The solution for both actors was simple: find new enemies. These new enemies included “rogue states” or autocratic regimes with connections of varying degrees to terrorists and believed to be pursuing weapons of mass destruction. These states, particularly Middle Eastern ones like Iraq and Iran “exercised an important influence on the way that the Clinton administration came to conceive of new purposes for NATO and to perceive the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.”[17] Thus, Yugoslavia was perceived by the U.S. not as a member of the developed world like Great Britain or France, but as yet another malevolent actor on the international stage like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or Muammar Gadaffi’s Libya. This treatment of Yugoslavia was especially prudent as Clinton sought to not only redefine NATO but to expand it eastward, which would inevitably bring the alliance into conflict with the fiercely independent Serbs[18]. In many ways, the Kosovo war can be thought of as a test run – or in the eyes of dictators, a warning - for future American and NATO operations against rogue states, as it involved action against an internationally-isolated state oppressing a segment of it’s population and totally eschewed deployment of ground forces in favor of air power. In that sense, it was successful, as it showcased not only NATO’s resolve to act against rogue states, but also it’s ability to quickly mobilize it’s forces and utilize them to devastating effect. Naturally, these goals and actions alienated Russia and China, the two nations capable of resisting the U.S. and NATO. Russia adamantly opposed NATO encroachment on it’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe[19], and China viewed humanitarian intervention in Kosovo as a dangerous precedent in regards to it’s occupation of Tibet and confirmations of it’s concerns about “U.S. hegemonism”[20]. These attitudes necessitated the U.S.’s bypassing the United Nations and acting through NATO instead, as Russia and China would almost definitely veto any resolution authorizing intervention in the Security Council, a course of action that remains heatedly debated to this day. This fact was recognized by General Naumann, who wrote “Some countries may be inclined to intervene and feel justified in doing so if blatant violations of human rights were met with indifference or, worse, a veto in the Security Council”[21], indirectly referencing the U.S.’s approach to Kosovo. The influence of this precedent can be seen in the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the “Coalition of The Willing”, an alliance of convenience to counter claims that the United States was acting unilaterally against Iraq and in violation of the United Nations charter. Why the “Coalition of The Willing” was not taken as seriously as an obsolete alliance trying to reinvent itself is a subject for another paper.

Equally importantly, the NATO bombing demonstrated Clinton’s and by extension the U.S.’s credibility in matters of foreign policy. As President of the United States, Clinton had to make sure that not just his word but the word of whomever held the office carried weight within the international community. This was surely why, “shortly after taking office, [Clinton] had reaffirmed the validity of the Christmas warning issued in 1992 by President Bush.”[22] The Christmas warning was a promise by George H.W. Bush to intervene unilaterally in Kosovo if Milosevic moved against the Albanians there, and is especially noteworthy as it precedes NATO’s bombing by almost 10 years. Even more noteworthy is that Clinton felt the need to reiterate it and act on it years later after it had been issued and the president who originally made it had been replaced by him, suggesting it was very important to him. It is possible that both domestic and international doubts about Clinton’s commitment to use force after the Black Hawk down incident in Somalia and American failure to intervene in Rwanda motivated his decision to go to war with Yugoslavia. Indeed, in the speech he gave on the first day of the bombing, Clinton stated that the first objective of the intervention was “to demonstrate the seriousness of NATO’s purpose so that the Serbian leaders understand the imperative of reversing course”[23], putting it before the widely-reported humanitarian goal of protecting Kosovar Albanians. Clinton’s speech illustrates the motives behind Operation Allied Force perfectly: halting Serb ethnic cleansing was a priority, but showing bad actors that the United States and NATO are not to be taken lightly was even more important in their eyes.

If the goal of the mission was to demonstrate American resolve, it worked. After 78 days of bombing, Milosevic, compounded by other factors, realized that NATO’s resolve was stronger than he had anticipated and pulled Serb forces out of Kosovo in June of 1999. He had interpreted earlier moves by NATO, such as air exercises in countries bordering the FRY, as bluffs[24], and believed that he could wait out any action the alliance took. But as the war dragged on, Milosevic’s erstwhile supporters turned on him, holding him responsible for the violence that befell Serbia[25]. Even Russia, his longtime benefactor, urged him to seek a peaceful solution[26]. At last, Milosevic relented: Kosovo would be a province of Yugoslavia no more, occupied instead by NATO peacekeepers who would supervise their new state of quasi-independence. Curiously however, not only did NATO not force Milosevic to step down, but it also withdrew it’s demand from the earlier Rambouillet Agreement to allow unlimited access to all of the FRY for it’s soldiers and personnel[27]. This settlement is very revealing, as it shows that rather than objecting to Milosevic on predominantly moral grounds, NATO was willing to compromise with him when it best suited their purposes. If they really viewed Milosevic as the modern-day Hitler sensationalistic journalists and reporters claimed him to be, it is highly unlikely they would have consented to any agreement in which Milosevic remained in a position to someday wage war again. Not that human rights violations ended with the departure of Milosevic and his forces from Kosovo: far from it actually. After the war, NATO found itself tasked with protecting Serbs and other minorities who found themselves disenfranchised in the now-independent Kosovo. As Branislaw Krstic-Brano observed:

“Serbs and other non-Albanians were forced to flee… Major O. Irgence, a KFOR spokesman, stated that for five months (from June 12 to November 10), 379 people were killed in the province and that ‘a disproportionately large number of victims are Serbs, taking into account that they currently make up about 6 percent of the population.’”[28]

Accounts like this belie the claim that, as a humanitarian mission, Kosovo was a success. Whether or not acts are human rights violations is not incumbent on whether the people they’re being perpetrated against belong to a group that until recently committed the same acts. With this in mind, if NATO’s goal genuinely was to halt atrocities in Kosovo, it failed, as Serbs, Roma and Jews faced persecution under their watch[29].

            However, if one endorses the view that the U.S. and NATO primarily approached the conflict with a realist frame of mind, then the Kosovo war was an unqualified success. It was accomplished without deploying boots on the ground and almost no military causalities, it demonstrated American resolve and commitment to future threats, and it gave NATO a new lease on life when it seemed that it might no longer be relevant. The influence of realism can also be seen in the war’s outcome, when Milosevic finally understood how serious NATO was and conceded to their demands. Almost certainly pleased with how the operation turned out, NATO permitted Milosevic to remain as President of the FRY and abandoned it’s designs on the entirety of Yugoslavia, settling for Kosovo alone. After all, they had gotten what they really wanted: purpose and credibility.

---

[1] Cockburn, Alexander, and Jeffrey St. Clair. Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. 1st ed. New York City: Verso, 2004. 5. Print.

[2] Ibid, 4.

[3] Ibid, 24-25.

[4] Clinton, Bill. "Statement on Kosovo (March 24, 1999)." Miller Center. The Miller Center, 19 Feb 2014. Web. 19 Feb 2014. <http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3932>.

[5] Naumann, Klaus. "NATO, Kosovo, and Military Intervention." Global Governance. Vol. 8.No. 1 (2002): 13-17. Web. 19 Feb. 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/27800324?seq=1>.

[6] McKiernan, Kevin. "Turkey’s War On The Kurds." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Vol. 55.No. 02 (1999): n. page. Web. 19 Feb. 2014. <http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.culture.indian/2005-08/msg00317.html>.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Bacevich, Andrew J., Eliot A. Cohen, et al. War Over Kosovo. 1st ed. New York City: Columbia University Press, 2001. 81. Print.

[9] Ibid, 81.

[10] Clinton, Bill.

[11] Sell, Louis. Slobodan Milosevic and The Death of Yugoslavia. 1^st. ed. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. 305. Print.

[12] Naumann, Klaus. 13-17.

[13] Bacevich , Andrew J., Eliot A. Cohen, et al. 14.

[14] "NATO/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 'Collateral' Damage or Unlawful Killings?." Amnesty International. No. 1. (2000): 30. Web. 19 Feb. 2014. <http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR70/018/2000/en/e7037dbb-df56-11dd-89a6-e712e728ac9e/eur700182000en.pdf>.

[15] Ibid, 40-42.

[16] Ibid, 33.

[17] Bacevich , Andrew J., Eliot A. Cohen, et al. 74.

[18] Ibid, 75.

[19] Ibid. 89-91.

[20] Ibid. 92.

[21] Naumann, Klaus. 13-17.

[22] Sell, Louis. Slobodan Milosevic and The Death of Yugoslavia. 1^st. ed. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. 284. Print.

[23] Clinton, Bill.

[24] Sell, Louis. 287.

[25] Bacevich , Andrew J., Eliot A. Cohen, et al. 20.

[26] Ibid, 20.

[27] Krstic-Brano, Branislaw. Kosovo: Facing The Court of History. 1st. ed. No. 1. Amherst: Humanity Books, 2004. 294. Print.

[28] Ibid, 307.

[29] Ibid, 307.

The Only Concern Troll In The Room: Obama Poohs Poohs Pot Legalization And Wags Finger At Young Americans

Probably one of the most obnoxious things about Barack Obama is his constant posturing as a voice of moderation and reason in a nation gone mad, forced to reign in the insanity of both hysterical conservatives hell-bent on obstructing his agenda and ungrateful left-wingers who, for whatever reason, believed he would be the transformative figure he campaigned as in 2008. This meme is referred to by drooling liberals affectionately as "The Only Adult In The Room". What kind of adult we are never told, although given his penchant for NSA surveillance and indefinite detention, it's likely the Big Brother sort.

The Only Adult In Winston's Room.

To find an example of this annoying persona, one need look no further than his recent interview with Shane Smith for Vice News. Although the two cover a number of issues, it is the last one they discuss that makes Obama go Full Concern Troll. When Smith tells Obama that he will be fondly remembered by young people if he legalizes marijuana, he indignantly responds that "it shouldn't be young people's biggest priority." Instead, he thinks they would be better off "thinking about climate change, the economy, jobs, war and peace. Maybe way at the bottom you should be thinking about marijuana." It doesn't seem to occur to him that it might be a bit hard for young people to get jobs when many of them have convictions for drug-related offenses or that legalizing pot will open up a vast, untapped market that will greatly stimulate the economy, but hey, those aren't his priorities, are they?

After this tiresome finger-wagging, Obama, as per the course, covers his bases for those still impressionable enough to judge him by his words instead of his actions, by adding that he would "separate out the issue of decriminalization of marijuana from encouraging it's use," without seeming to realize that he has actually exposed said bases. He goes on about the well-documented excesses of the War on Drugs, how it has been "heavily skewed towards cracking down on non-violent drug offenders," how it has had a "terrible effect on many communities, particularly communities of color," how it "render[s] a lot of folks unemployable because they got felony records," (hey, so it did occur to him after all!), how it leads to "disproportionate prison sentences," and how it "costs a huge amount of money to the states."

Wow, and if I were to simply go by what he said before, I woulda thought they were all just a bunch of indolent stoners who didn't want to do anything but get blazed and watch Altered States! I mean, what is all this bullshit about separating "decriminalization of marijuana from encouraging it's use"? When did the current debate surrounding the drug war, in which people are imprisoned en masse for doing something that hurts no one but themselves, become a referendum about collectively affirming as a society the recreational usage of marijuana? Is there some bill being pushed as we speak through the House of Representatives and Senate that would make Cannabis sativa the national plant of the United States?

No, this is concern trolling, plain and simple, by The Only Adult In The Room. He purports to understand and even agree with those who support decriminalization of pot, yet belittles them for working actively towards that because there are Very Serious Issues like war and peace (by the way, isn't this the same guy dropping bombs on Syria and Iraq right now and who dropped some on Libya a couple years back?) they should be more concerned with. Don't think this is because he plans to have one of his sudden changes of heart, wave his magic pen, and make it legal, because he passes the buck onto the states and Congress, suggesting that if enough of them "end up decriminalizing, then Congress may then, you know, reschedule marijuana." Never mind the fact that he has the authority to do this on his own but for shallow political reasons refuses to do so, as Eric Holder, a concern troll in his own right, helpfully pointed out. Nope, he'd rather talk big about enacting sweeping changes and then, in classic Obama fashion, do nothing and blame it all on a do-nothing Congress, like he always does. What a strange state of affairs that when it comes to something as sensible as marijuana legalization, The Only Adult In The Room behaves like the petulant child who insists he enjoys the game the other kids are playing even as he sits in the corner by himself and mocks them for partaking in such a trivial activity.

You know it's bad when Tumblr is making valid political observations.

Flashback Friday: The Time I Saw The Philip Glass Ensemble

I know you're probably wondering why I'm posting a Flashback Friday on a Sunday early, early Monday morning. Aside from the fact that it gives me yet another excuse to stroke my massive ego by reminiscing about triumphs past, I wanted to make up for not posting one last week (loyal readers might remember that I instead wrote about the new sanctions on Venezuela and whether they'll lead to military intervention in that nation). Truth be told, I had been hoping to publish that post earlier during the week and do a Flashback Friday post as I regularly do, but real-life commitments (hey, remember those?) conspired to keep me from writing it until Friday, putting me in a serious quandary: repost something I wrote almost a year ago for another site about a topic I have already covered in some depth on this blog, or write an original, hard-hitting post that deals with a topic that I have yet to cover? Of course, I opted for the later, if for nothing more than to provide you guys with something not only exclusive to this blog but that also amounted to more than my little hill of beans, to paraphrase Bogey. I postponed the Flashback Friday, and am finally getting around to sharing it, the topic being my review of the Philip Glass Ensemble's performance of "Music In 12 Parts" at UCLA's Royce Hall.

This particular piece was written, like my interview with Tim Russ, for UCLA Radio, and unlike that one it was actually published on it's Tumblr blog! The original post can be seen here, in case you're interested. Seeing the Philip Glass Ensemble live was a privilege in and of itself, but I must confess that I can't help feeling a little a glum as I revisit this experience. A week and a half before the show, I emailed Mr. Glass's publicist to set up an interview to promote the concert on UCLA Radio. I thought it was a long shot, but decided it was worth a try. Shockingly, I got a reply the next day, saying it might be possible if we could work out a time. I mapped out my schedule for the next week and a half and let them know what times worked for a 30-40 minute interview, as well as the fact that I could do it over Skype or phone, although ideally Mr. Glass would be able to come into the station for a live, 30-40 minute interview. I must have crossed my fingers before I clicked "send", and if I didn't, I sure wish I did. I never heard back from them. Maybe it was too short-notice, maybe it would have been too-long, maybe it was just they lost interest. I don't know. I emailed them a week later practically begging them to let me interview him for 5 minutes, and over the phone no less. Still nothing. Yet, a year later, I still believe, given a healthy degree of ambition and commitment to my work, that someday I will finally score that interview with Philip Glass. In the meantime, let's see that review, reprinted in full below!

Concert Review: Philip Glass Ensemble @ Royce Hall 5/3

The polarizing nature of Philip Glass's work can be summed up in my experience at one of his performances at Royce Hall this past weekend. While I sat through the program for the entirety of the five hours comprising it, the couple in front of me hastily departed after only the first portion. One might assume that they were expecting something similar to Glass's soundtracks for The Truman Show or Candyman. Given the pigeonholing of Glass by amateur film connoisseurs as "the weird soundtrack guy", this is plausible. It is also unfortunate, because "Music In 12 Parts" is one of Glass's crowning achievements, easily on par with his 1976 opera Einstein On The Beach and his soundtrack to 1982's Koyaanisqatsi.

As indicated by the name, the piece is composed of twelve individual parts, which were bundled by threes into single segments, for a total of four 50-minute portions. However, there were intermissions after each portion and an hour-long dinner break was held after the second portion, so endurance was hardly an issue. In typical Glass fashion, the portions started abruptly and ended in a similar fashion. Far from being disconcerting, this was a testament to the skill of the Ensemble to ensure that the three keyboards, the flute, the bassoon, the voice of Lisa Bielawa and, occasionally, the saxophone were able to play in perfect harmony off the top. Bielawa, the sole vocalist, deserves special mention in particular. Having listened extensively to Einstein On The Beach, I expected a whole chorus to perform the vocal parts at this concert. Instead, Bielawa magnificently sang all the vocal portions and perfectly alternated between the soothing melodies and ominous crescendos the piece dictated, at times rivaling the most apocalyptic moments of Einstein. This was most apparent in Part 12 of the composition where, in very small increments, her part grew more complex each time the rest of the Ensemble played the same musical passage. It is also worth mentioning that Part 12 was my favorite part of the concert.

Of course, the keyboard players drew my attention as well. Philip Glass may be the heart and soul of the Ensemble, but it seemed that in this concert, keyboardist Michael Reisman did most of the heavy lifting, playing some truly captivating organ passages throughout. This is hardly an indictment of Glass, however. Far from it, it's quite possible that he simply deigned to play the more subdued keyboard parts. Not that I would guess that simply by watching him. Indeed, while the other players sat still and appeared collected, Glass made no effort to conceal his passion for the music, lurching forward and throwing himself back before lurching forward again, in a manner as cyclic as his music. He really felt it that night, and the audience, including this writer, did too, because it granted the Ensemble a standing ovation when Part 12 of "Music In 12 Parts", after five hours, finally concluded.

Vituperation and Venezuela: Is Regime Change At Hand?

Judging by the lack of coverage on my Facebook feed (which is basically, for better or worse, the metric by which I ascertain whether something is in the public eye or not), most Americans aren't aware of the fact that President Obama issued an executive order this past week declaring a "national emergency" due to the "unusual and extraordinary threat" posed by Venezuela to us flag-waving, God-furring 'Murikans. On the face of it, the fact that the members of my sample group are apparently unaware of this development implies that this threat isn't as extraordinary as the administration claims it is. Nor is it as unusual as Washington would have us believe, given our duly-elected representatives record of constantly labeling states like Grenada Libya Panama Iraq Yugoslavia Iraq (again) Libya (again) Syria a menace to the United States. With these discrepancies in mind, one can expect the administration and it's lapdogs in the media to groom the crumbling worker's paradise to our south and Nicolas Maduro, the tepid try-hard who took over for the late Hugo Chavez, into Enemy Numero Uno and the latest New Hitler.

The New Hitler? He ain't even the New Mussolini!

In case it isn't abundantly clear by now, let me repeat myself. Is Venezuela a nice place? Certainly not. A place where you have to make a concerted effort to get your hands on toilet paper or condoms can't seriously be the pinnacle of human development. But that doesn't mean lobbing cruise missiles at Caracas will make it a nice place or create a dearth of toilet paper and condoms anymore than Russia or China bombing New York or LA every time law enforcement harasses black people will stop police brutality (which, for those of us who have been paying attention to what's happening in Ferguson, seems a slightly-more likely possibility than you would think).

"But Cardinal," you say, "they're not proposing attacking Venezuela, they're just placing sanctions on high-ranking officials involved in human rights abuses! What's the harm in that?"

The harm in that is that sanctions almost always lead to war with whomever they are levied against. In one of the links I posted above, the U.S. slapped sanctions on Muammar Gaddafi and members of his family shortly before it started bombing his Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in conjunction with "the international community" (which in practice, it should be noted, is a euphemism for the United States and a couple of it's European and, if it's lucky as it was in that instance, Middle Eastern butt-monkeys). Right before Desert Storm, George H.W. Bush pressured the United Nations into placing some on Iraq, and and both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush continued these same sanctions before launching their own attacks on that nation. Sanctions, in short, are not alternatives to war but preludes to or even "acts of war," as Ron Paul memorably put it when speaking out (futilely, as it would turn out) against  placing more on Iran. Considering that at the moment there is serious chatter about a violent confrontation with that nation (thanks in small part, by remarkable coincidence, to Paul The Lesser), we can reasonably assume that Venezuela is also on the short list for eventual military intervention.

Still, you might wonder, what does the U.S. have to gain from overthrowing Maduro? More specifically, why is Obama suddenly so concerned about the political and economic situation in Venezuela? It seems to have come out of nowhere, just as it randomly came to light that he was not only keeping tabs on the political situation in Libya in 2011, but also determined to rid the world of the New Hitler 2011, Muammar Gaddafi. It was shocking not simply because Obama promoted himself as The Anti-War Candidate in 2008, but also because up until that point he had never publicly expressed wariness, much less opprobrium, of Gaddafi.

Quite the opposite, actually.

With Gaddafi now buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in the North African desert, perhaps Barry's now flexing his claws in preparation for a swipe at New Hitler 2015 Maduro (to be fair, it remains to be seen if he will beat the current incumbent, Vladimir Putin). This might be because since Chavez's rise to power in 1999, Venezuela has, at least rhetorically, been a thorn in the side of the U.S. This is evidenced by the rate at which other Latin American nations rallied to Venezuela's side upon the imposition of the sanctions, something that will surely rustle Washington's jimmies, given the free reign it has traditionally granted itself over the region. Although Venezuela, as mentioned before, doesn't pose a significant military threat to America, it's tendency to vocally challenge U.S. dictates, as Chavez did in regards to Bush's invasion of Iraq, the secession of Kosovo, and NATO's bombing of Libya, and Maduro did in regards to Obama's attempted 2013 strike on Syria, gives it the clout necessary for the weaker nations of the Western Hemisphere to rally behind it. Oil might also be a factor considering Venezuela's plentiful reserves, but I would heavily stress the "might" part of that statement, as it's main trading partner is, surprisingly, the United States. Thus, I believe it's more about influence than about resources.

Regardless of the question mark hanging over the "why", we must not underestimate the magnitude of the "what" - that is, war with Venezuela. It may take the form of a "shock and awe" style invasion with U.S. Marines storming one of the Chavista resistance's bases hideouts a-blazing only to find out they're in an innocent civilian's home and the bodies on the floor are not insurgents, or it may take the form of a high-tech, low-risk "humanitarian intervention" where stealth bombers hail ordinance upon the regime's barracks' and anti-air defenses in Caracas only to hit hospitals and churches instead. It may look like something entirely different, and it may not happen until many years from now. But whatever form it takes and whenever it happens, the groundwork for it is being laid as we speak.

Flashback Friday: The Time I First Listened To Pink Floyd

So here we are again: another week without a single post by me. In my defense, I've spent the majority of it recovering from a debilitating injury (a pulled muscle, to be exact), making thoughtful writing kind of difficult for yours truly. Indeed, I am on some heavy-duty Ibuprofen (prescribed, in case any narcs/DEA agents are wondering) as I type this, hoping to God that it doesn't wear off soon. I did at one point try to write something (similar in tone to the serious post I mentioned last week, but about a different topic and, if it turns out the way I envision it, not nearly as long), but again, my ailment conspired to keep me from fully developing it, forcing me to put it on hold. Given that I am medicated at the moment and thus have a small window of opportunity to write, I will make it up to you all by sharing with you a Flashback Friday about one of my most formative experiences: the first time I heard Pink Floyd.

I don't remember exactly when it was was, but I remember where I was. I was in the backseat of my parent's car on the way to the Orange County Circle, listening to my Walkman (yes, dear reader, it was that long ago). I listened almost solely to The Beatles and 60s' one hit wonders at this early point in my life, but that day, I had decided to listen to something new, if you can call a band that disbanded some 20 years ago new. Before leaving for the Circle that day, I took my dad's copy of Dark Side Of The Moon. I had heard many things about Pink Floyd and that particular album, so I was curious to see what all the fuss was about.

Remember the last time you used one of these? For me, it was shortly after Lehman Bros. went belly up.

I was... uninitiated, to put it lightly. As I mentioned before, my musical palate was limited to the soft, mainly happy-go-lucky songs of such groups as The Tokens, Strawberry Alarm Clock, and Tommy James & The Shondells. Probably the most out-there thing I listened to at the time was Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatles' soundtrack for the film of the same name, which speaks wonders about my musical naivete. I was familiar with bizarre lyrics like those heard in "Incense and Peppermints" or "I Am The Walrus", but as strange as the words said in these songs were, they were at least presented in a straight-forward fashion for the most part. This was certainly not the case with Dark Side Of The Moon. 

I stewed with anticipation as I placed the disc in the Walkman and hit play. I waited... and waited. I focused my undivided attention on the soon-to-be-heard music, yet I heard nothing. It was maddening, hearing people chattering, laughing, machines being operated, hearing anything and everything but the music. I even could hear my heart beat increasingly louder, perhaps a sign of an imminent anxiety attack. It was just as I became convinced that I was going insane before the aforementioned sounds built up to a crescendo punctuated by a shrill scream and ominous droning sound. Only then did it hit me that this WAS the music.

I was floored. I had never heard anything quite like that, and to this day I haven't heard anything that managed to recreate that sense of impending insanity. It took me a while to recover as the album merged seamlessly into "Breathe", but I was hooked. I devoured the rest of the album, from the passionate vocals and haunting piano from "The Great Gig In The Sky" to the mellifluous guitar chords and cerebral verses of "Brain Damage". From there, I eagerly sought out the rest of the Pink Floyd canon. I have found that while most of their albums are great in their own, distinct right, none of them quite evokes that same sense of emotional urgency that Dark Side did the first time I heard it. Well some might think I bemoan this fact, I absolutely do not. Better to have one album that does this fantastically, than to have a whole bunch that try to live up to this standard and do so poorly.