A Wise, Outspoken Marine

FIASCO, by Thomas Ricks, introduced me to Marine Corps General James Mattis, esteemed by his peers as the finest soldier our country has produced since the Korean War. The portrait of the politically incorrect General Mattis, drawn by Ricks, brought to mind one of my heroes, Joseph W. Stilwell, esteemed by his contemporaries as "the fightingest General in the United States Army."

General Stilwell often exasperated his civilian overlords with his caustic remarks. Frequently, he was cautioned to to stop referring to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, El Supremo in China, as "the Peanut." Finally, the G-mo wore out FDR's patience. A firm message (a "hot bundle of paprika," according to Stilwell) was dispatched to the G-mo insisting he implement reforms to "increase the combat efficiency of the Chinese Army." General Stilwell memorialized the event with a poem:

I've waited long for vengeance, at last I've had my chance.
I've looked the Peanut in the eye and kicked him in the pants.
The old harpoon was ready, with aim and timing true,
I sank it to the handle and stung him through and through.
The little bastard shivered and lost the power of speech.
His face turned green and quivered as he struggled not to screech.
For all my weary battles, for all my hours of woe,
At last I've had my innings and laid the Peanut low.
I know I've still to suffer and run a weary race,
But, Oh! The blessed pleasure, I've wrecked the Peanut's face.

General Mattis looks like General Stilwell. And he sounds like him, too. The protocol boys had to do back flips trying to anesthecize these remarks in San Diego in February 2005.

It's fun to shoot people. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. I like brawling. You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they don't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.

About the fighting in Iraq, General Mattis said it is "almost embarrassing intellectually." Then, he warned,

Don't patronize this enemy. They mean business. They mean every word they say. Don't imagine an enemy somewhere in the future, and you're going to transform so you can fight him. They're killing us now. Their will is not broken. They mean it.

Naturally, the press focused on the colorful bellicosity and political INcorrectness of the "fun to shoot people" part of this quote. The underlying wisdom and criticism of the Bush blood for oil policy went by unnoticed.

The only objective worth achieving in this confrontation with Islamic Fundamentalism is the end of purdah, getting women out into the sunshine. So far, that aspiration, dressed up as a War for Democracy, has been swallowed up in the pretext for an oil grab. Or, it has been lost sight of in a shallow game of opportunism.
During the Soviet regime in Afghanistan, 55% of government employees were women. Unfortunately, for those semi-emancipated women, we saw an opportunity to use the Islamic Fundamentalist rebels to get even with the Russians for their meddling in Vietnam. Our clients won - and the Berlin Wall came crashing down on the women of Afghanistan. They were pink-slipped, sent home and forced back behind the Veil. Those who persisted in modern ways were marched to the new soccer stadium and executed in front of 30,000 cheering men.

We had a chance to redeem ourselves for this crime against the women of Afghanistan. Instead, we left the job half-finished and rushed off to invade Iraq, perhaps the most secular country in the Middle East. Our Saudi masters were calling.

Iraq, like Afghanistan (and Ba'athist Syria) had made great strides bringing women out from behind the Veil. Our ally, Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, was still punishing the women, who, in 1990, had gone out for a drive unescorted.

(In addition, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Osama bin Laden, penniless after his alms-giving mission to the Sudan, relied on a network of Saudi and Gulf States donors to finance al Qaeda.)

We chose to back away from an unfinished mission of redemption in Afghanistan in order to bring down the most secular country in the Middle East, adding the women of Iraq and Saudi Arabia to the list of those betrayed. How pathetic!

The remarks of General Mattis bring into sharp relief the essence of this struggle. The enemy wants the Veil. We don't. That is a fight worth having.

(There is more along these lines in my essays A WINNABLE WAR, THE REAGAN LEGACY, THE FOUR BASIC STRATEGIC CHOICES, and RUMFOORD'S POCKET HISTORY OF IRAQ.)

Writings

I should post a resume for my creative works.

SCREENPLAYS

Vinegar Joe

This dramatizes one of the great adventure stories of World War II. In 1942, U.S. Army General Joseph W. Stilwell was sent to China to "increase the combat efficiency of the Chinese Army." The mission turned sour, failing to turn the tide of the Japanese onslaught in Burma. Stilwell's headquarters command was forced to escape through the worst malarial district in the world into British India. Stilwell was the only person to lead a group out with no fatalities. On other trails, 30,000 people perished.

The Peanut and I

A sequel to Vinegar Joe, taking the story through the Cairo Conference of December 1943. General Stilwell, the fightingest General in the United States Army, was placed in a very sensitive political mission. This script dramatizes all the obstacles to the great General's fulfillment of his mission.

* I plan at least two more scripts dramatizing the Stilwell saga.

Lyon of Missouri

This tells the story of Nathaniel Lyon, a General who saved Missouri for the Union in the early months of the war. Lyon was the first Union hero of the war. Had he survived the Battle of Wilson Creek, he might have been lifted up to command the Army of the Potomac rather than McClellan. This might have shortened the war by two years. The designers of the Civil War game rate Lyon on a par with Stonewall Jackson, in terms of the significance of their deaths.

Lyon was an extraordinary character. The first five pages of this script will make the best actors drool for the part.

Cycling to Paradise

This romantic comedy tells the story of a group of rank amateurs in Denver trying to produce a movie. It is set around my job as a school bus driver.

Rumsfeld's Folly

For this script, I simply imposed a linear structure on Kurt Vonnegut's, The Sirens of Titan, and substituted luminaries of the Bush Administration: i.e. Noel Constant = Bush, Sr.; Malachi Constant = Bush, Jr.; Salo, the cloven-hoofed Tralfamadorian = Cheney; etc.

You can get an idea by scrolling down to the entry "Rumfoord's Pocket History..."

At Summer Solstice with the Ancient Ones

The plot line for A Midsummer Night's Dream set in Mesa Verde during the 12th Century. Sounds pretty dreamy, don't you think?

I have made it through the last scene, but this script is far from finished. The names for the immortals must be changed. Anything indicating ancient Greece must be squeezed out of the script. Almost anything too intrusive upon the religion of the Puebloan peoples must be squeezed out. Etc. A lot of work still to do.

The Love Bubble Man

This is a fictional story worked around a peculiar tangent of the JFK assassination. Two reporters, Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe, spent time in Jack Ruby's apartment on the evening of November 22, 1963 (hours after the shooting in Dealey Plaza, and before Ruby shot Oswald in the Dallas police station).

At present, this is a confused script, but, if thinned down, it might work well as a Cold Case episode

The Graven Images of Nationalism

Incomplete, about half finished. A fictional story set around the catastrophe in Iraq. I'm just too angry to contain long soliloquies condemning the war.

STAGE PLAYS

Czar Reed and the Punk

I call this a dialogue between the 19th and 20th Centuries. It is a two man play, minimal set. The historical personage is Thomas B. Reed, a United States Speaker of the House, 51st and 55th Congresses. Speaker Reed was a wonderful character. A simple quote from one of his contemporary opponents across the aisle (Champ Clark, a Democract from Missouri), should suffice. "Speaker Reed ruled the House by the brutality of his intellect. Sometimes he rubbed the skin off. Sometimes he cut to the bone. And sometimes, he crushed in a skull as though it were an eggshell."

Reckoning with Marlowe

This play was conceived as a companion piece to Shakespeare in Love. It is structured around the production of a play. In this case, the play within the play is Tamburlaine, the first play employing blank verse. It made a sensation in Elizabethan London.

This play makes a perfect evening of theater. Despite the serious theme and the depth of the tragedy, there is an amazing amount of humor (thanks, in large part, to Thomas Nashe).

Worcester v. The State of Georgia

Two cases reached the Supreme Court challenging the Indian Removal Act of 1829, the legislative crime which enabled the Trail of Tears. The second case, Worcester v. the State of Georgia, proved a victory for the Cherokees. Unfortunately, a genocidal maniac, Andrew Jackson, occupied the White House at the time. President Jackson refused to implement the Court order. The Trail of Tears followed.

This play dramatizes both Supreme Court cases.

The Humblest Individual

In Charleston, South Carolina, in 1823, a remarkable civil rights case reached the Federal Circuit Court. 131 years prior to Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, William Johnson, a State's Rights Supreme Court justice, citing the commerce clause to the Constitution, decided a case in favor of the plaintiff, a person of color.

This case swirls around the Denmark Vesey slave revolt of 1822. The play is quite a window into the times. Unfortunately, the swift pace of the story is completely broken by the actual court proceedings. This defect might not be so noticeable in a screenplay.

TELEPLAYS

The Gold Conspiracy

Beginning in 1949, the gifted Dutch diplomat and Sinologist, Robert H. van Gulik, began writing the Judge Dee mysteries. Taking a hero of Chinese folklore, Judge Dee, a Tang Dynasty official legendary for his rectitude and sleuthing, van Gulik created a series of very entertaining books celebrated by scholars and mystery fans alike.

Van Gulik made creative use of a key feature of ancient Chinese administrative practice, the rule of avoidance. Mandarin officials seldom stayed more than three years in any post, especially if they were doing a great job. They did not want anyone to build up an independent power base. So van Gulik sets his stories in several different places, following the career of Judge Dee.

The Gold Conspiracy dramatizes van Gulik's book, The Chinese Gold Murders. Judge Dee travels from Beijing to his first post at Penglai, in Shandong Province, where he exposes a plot of one of his classmates to manipulate the gold market.

Three Penglai Puzzlers

This script dramatizes three of van Gulik's short stories.

The Willow Pattern

A dramatization of another van Gulik story, the last set in Judge Dee's first post, in Shandong Province.

Obviously, the Judge Dee series would make a wonderful addition to the Mystery series on PBS. There probably would be another 12-15 scripts taking Judge Dee through his entire career.

Aussie Aviators

Afer the Armistice in 1918, the Australian government sponsored an air race from London to Fanny Bay, Darwin, despite the fact that the infrasructure supporting flight did not exist east of Calcutta. All of the aviators involved experienced a unique adventure. However, the team of Parer and McIntosh, flying a dilapidated, war surplus DeHavilland DH9 endured, perhaps, the greatest adventure of the 20th Century. Eight of the twelve episodes envisioned have been written.

"The Armistice and a Peacetime Folly"

In November 1918, John McIntosh began pilot training. After just a few days in the course, the war was over and training ceased. Raymond Parer, on the other hand, was the finest test pilot of the day. This episode dramatizes their meeting and the announcement of the Race.

"Inquest, Sabotage, Espionage, and Death"

Episode two tells the story of the failed teams. The Alliance team crashed into a Surbiton orchard and died 8 minutes after take-off. There was an inquest. The Blackburn Kangaroo team crashed at the gate of an insane asylum in Crete. An oil return hose suspiciously failed, causing the crash. The Sopwith Wallaby team, taking a more northerly route than the other teams, landed in the middle of a revolution in Serbia. They barely escaped execution as spies. The team of Howell and Fraser crashed off the coast of Corfu and drowned in 8 feet of water.

"Dodging Redcaps"

In episode three, our heroes, Parer and McIntosh, depart London in early January 1920, one month after the Smith Brothers, in their state of the art Vickers Vimy, had arrived in Darwin, winning the Prize. Parer and McIntosh did not have clear permission to fly. Technically, they were away without leave and subject to capture by the British military police, the Redcaps.

"Aflame over Forti di Marmi"

Episode Four. After two weeks in Paris repairing the plane, Parer and McIntosh continued on toward Rome. Above Forti di Marmi, a little town in northern Italy, a wing caught fire. Only a rapid descent of 5000 feet averted doom.

"Vented by Vesuvius"

Episode Five. The leg from Rome to Cairo was highlighted by a near crash into Vesuvius when a vent of gas out of the crater created a draft sucking the plane down thousands of feet in a few seconds.

"A Mills Bomb in the Assyrian Desert."

Episode Six. The leg from Cairo to Baghdad was punctuated by a daybreak raid of marauding Arabs on the shores of a lake somewhere near Ramadie.

"Friendly Cannibals"

Episode Nine. The leg from Calcutta to Rangoon included an emergency landing on an island in the middle of a tributary of the Irrawaddy River. The flight would have ended there without the help of a tribe of primitive people.

"Upside Down in the Land Down Under"

In episode twelve, Parer and McIntosh take a victory lap south and east from Darwin, destination Melbourne. The flight ends not far from Melbourne when a gust of wind flips the plane over. Parer saves McIntosh from a firy death, getting him out of his harness and gasoline spills all over the Great Scot.

Bumper Stickers

I have adorned the bumper of my Saturn LS with three stickers: 1) "We are making enemies faster than we can kill them"; 2) "Jesus is a Liberal" and; 3) I'm already against the next war."

After work one day, I found a 3X5 note card in my passenger seat which read, "You're a jerk for your bumper sticker." One of Limbaugh's Loonies just had to share his thoughts with me. I don't know which bumper sticker offended him, but I am prepared to defend them all.

Before stating my three cases, it is worth noting that my opponent did not damage my car. Right wing loonies are morally superior to left wing loonies because they respect property rights. Left wing loonies love Humanity... in the abstract. They just hate people. Right wing loonies like people - and respect the property of others. But Humanity gives them the creeps, conjuring an image of hordes of little brown people who must be kept in line with The Whip.

Now, about my bumper stickers.

1) "We are making enemies faster than we can kill them."

That should be painfully obvious to everyone. A friend just returned from New Zealand. Everywhere she went, people expressed their contempt for our President. How could you put such a moronic warmonger in the White House,? they often asked. Imagine! Hated in New Zealand.

The neo-con clowns, so fond of Churchill, should have considered this valuable observation: "The only thing worse than fighting a war with allies, is fighting one without them."

2) "Jesus is a liberal."

The centerpiece of liberal thought is the Separation of Church and State. That thought never crossed the collective Mind of ancient Athens. The Romans never conjured it. The first utterance conveying the notion of separating Church and State was, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. Render unto God that which is God's." When Jesus disappeared from this earth, all the push to implement that idea departed with Him. The Catholic Church became the primary obstacle.

Eighteen centuries after the Resurrection, the Founding Fathers, working collectively, managed to implement the idea - into our Bill of Rights - which Jesus had conceived working alone.

How ironic that today's Christians are our greatest threat to the Separation of Church and State.

3) "I'm already against the next war."

The neo-con screwballs are trotting out the same old reductionist logic that plunged us into the Inferno of Iraq. After dismantling the Reagan policy of using Iraq to contain Iran and Hezbollah, they argue that deterrence has failed. In other words, they created this Crisis and now argue that only they can resolve it.
These people are a curse. It's time to send them off to combat in Iraq. Or let the Marines use them for bayonet practice!