…or are they. Why are all the appropriate lyrics milling around in my head at least 10 years old? And I’m not the only one asking that question.

Friday morning addendum: The fact that this post has the same title as one of Vaughan’s posts (which, by the way, argues the opposite of this one) is a freak coincidence, which is kind of funny considering the post below titled Reflections.

Addendum to the addendum: This post had draft status until this morning, so it really is a freak coincidence.

One of the commercials shown prior to the film when I saw Bowling for Columbine on Sunday was one designed to recruit young people to the navy. I only just remembered. At the time, I thought it was pretty tasteless as a commercial out of context, it presented various recruits as players in a computer game. Surely they don’t actually want people to join the navy in the belief that it will resemble a computer game? Surely? But in the context, in retrospect, especially, with imminent war hanging over us and before that film, it was not just in bad taste, it was offensive and scarily insensitive.

Voice in my head: Somewhere over the rainbow (not quite sure who’s singing, it could be Eva Cassidy)

This arrived in my mailbox this morning (a quick search revealed the original source, credit where credit is due).

The Logic of War
March 13, 2003

All right, let me see if I understand the logic of this correctly. We are going to ignore the United Nations in order to make clear to Saddam Hussein that the United Nations cannot be ignored.

We’re going to wage war to preserve the UN’s ability to avert war. The paramount principle is that the UN’s word must be taken seriously, and if we have to subvert its word to guarantee that it is, then by gum, we will. Peace is too important not to take up arms to defend. Am I getting this right?

Further, if the only way to bring democracy to Iraq is to vitiate the democracy of the Security Council, then we are honor-bound to do that too, because democracy, as we define it, is too important to be stopped by a little thing like democracy as they define it.

Also, in dealing with a man who brooks no dissension at home, we cannot afford dissension among ourselves. We must speak with one voice against Saddam Hussein’s failure to allow opposing voices to be heard.

We are sending our gathered might to the Persian Gulf to make the point that might does not make right, as Saddam Hussein seems to think it does. And we are twisting the arms of the opposition until it agrees to let us oust a regime that twists the arms of the opposition.

We cannot leave in power a dictator who ignores his own people. And if our people, and people elsewhere in the world, fail to understand that, then we have no choice but to ignore them.

Don’t misunderstand. I think it is a good thing that the members of the Bush administration seem to have been reading Lewis Carroll. I only wish someone had pointed out that “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass” are meditations on paradox and puzzle and illogic and on the strangeness of things, not templates for foreign policy. It is amusing for the Mad Hatter to say something like, ‘We must make war on him because he is a threat to peace,’ but not amusing for someone who actually commands an army to say that. As a collector of laughable arguments, I’d be enjoying all this were it not for the fact that I know–we all know–that lives are going to be lost in what amounts to a freak, circular reasoning accident.

PETER FREUNDLICH
Peter Freundlich is a freelance journalist in New York.

Feeling ever so slightly ill this morning. It could be because I watched the news before leaving for work. It could be because I didn’t have enough sleep last night (nor, indeed, the – what? – 17 preceeding nights). It could be because I certainly drank enough yesterday. It could be a combination of all three.

It could be because I had “Barbie Girl” floating around in my head for rather longer than the ideal (the ideal being precisely 0.000000000000001 seconds) yesterday. It’s gone now, though reminding myself of the fact at this point may bring it back. I prefer the sickeningly appropriate selection currently playing…

Voice in my head: Sting singing Russians

A lot of people have had a lot to say about the war, amongst them Vaughan (who is back! What joy!). He links to Robin Cook’s excellent resignation speech, for example.

However, it was a completely unrelated passage which caught my eye today. There seems to be a strange sort of connectedness in blogging. Time and time again I find that a concept I have been struggling to put into words is expessed to perfection on one or other of the blogs I read regularly (and there are not that many). Somehow, when I am elated I find the elation reflected, when I am lonely I find the loneliness reflected and when I am suffering from ennui, someone else is expressing their ennui in just the exact words I would have used if I’d thought of them first. Just this last week I have come to the conclusion that the drawback to living alone is the absence of anyone to give you a hug when you need one. And then I find:

Fuck. One of those days when I thought the wrong things, did the wrong things and said the wrong things. Everything just felt wrong. This evening, I walked in the front door, shut it behind me, stood there for a moment and just wished for somebody to hug me and tell me that everything would be OK. Instead, silence. Apart from the whirring of my mind, of course. That never stops. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Must find distraction. The swings and roundabouts are back with a vengeance.

I dunno.

You know you’ve been in England too long when you prefer chips with your curry. The Dubliner does it excellently. If I were rich I’d go there every day and become a fat alchoholic. Just as well that I am not, then, I guess.

We’re in the finishing stages of a big project at the moment, which is why I’ve been so busy at work, and it’s wearing me down a bit. It’s wearing me down even more than the plain workload would account for, as the project is for the medical services of the Norwegian armed forces. I’m not really uncomfortable with it as such, the medical services, though supporting services to the military, being a very non-agressive and humanitarian sort of unit. There are issues, of course, it’s hard to reconcile the work entirely with a reasonably firm belief that non-violence is the answer in most conflicts, but then I’m not so much of a pacifist that I am opposed to Norway having a military force for defence purposes. However, what with the current situation, “defence” is looking dangerously like it might turn into “attack”. And that I am not comfortable with. And it’s wearing me down. Quite possibly my emotional self is not as reconciled as my intellectual self, emotional logic having a life of its own. Or quite possibly the problem is that I am finding it impossible to forget the current situation even when lost in work because of the connection. The conversation at lunch today did not help in the least – I am getting hyper-sensitive, and I’d really prefer not to envision what our system might and might not be used for over the next few months or years in addition to its original purpose (which is simply to log the medical details of conscripted soldiers and military staff during peace time). I’ve seen too much M*A*S*H (if there is such a thing as too much M*A*S*H). I’ve read too many books where operating rooms in wartime figure vividly. I have too active an imagination to bear the thought of what even a small-scale conflict is going to do to the people of Iraq with any sort of equanimity, never mind full-on war.

Couldn’t we all just be friends?

The annual general meeting of the whisky society (Norsk MaltWhisky Lag) is this evening. Last year the official part of the proceedings was over very quickly, in about half an hour, and apparently this is quite usual. It’s as well to have an incentive (like a whisky tasting) to keep the uneccessary gabble at such meetings to a minimum, I guess.

Voice in my head: Avril Lavigne – I’m with you

Oooh, release date for The Chamber of Secrets is 11 April. I know what I’m getting for my birthday this year (if no one buys it for me, I’ll get it as a present for myself…)

Ok, so it goes on. We’re on to appropriate poetry again. Nordahl Grieg’s “Til ungdommen” was written in 1936. Funny how little the world has changed.

Til ungdommen

Kringsatt av fiender,
gå inn i din tid!
Under en blodig storm –
vi deg til strid!

Kanskje du spør i angst,
udekket, åpen:
hva skal jeg kjempe med
hva er mitt våpen?

Her er ditt vern mot vold,
her er ditt sverd:
troen på livet vårt,
menneskets verd.

For all vår fremtids skyld,
søk det og dyrk det,
dø om du må – men:
øk det og styrk det!

Stilt går granatenes
glidende bånd.
Stans deres drift mot død
stans dem med ånd!

Krig er forakt for liv.
Fred er å skape.
Kast dine krefter inn:
døden skal tape!

Elsk og berik med drøm
alt stort som var!
Gå mot det ukjente
fravrist det svar.

Ubygde kraftverker,
ukjente stjerner.
Skap dem, med skånet livs
dristige hjerner!

Edelt er mennesket,
jorden er rik!
Finnes her nød og sult
skyldes det svik.

Knus det! I livets navn
skal urett falle.
Solskinn og brød og ånd
eies av alle.

Da synker våpnene
maktesløs ned!
Skaper vi menneskeverd
skaper vi fred.

Den som med høyre arm
bærer en byrde,
dyr og umistelig,
kan ikke myrde.

Dette er løftet vårt
fra bror til bror:
vi vil bli gode mot
menskenes jord.

Vi vil ta vare på
skjønnheten, varmen
som om vi bar et barn
varsomt på armen!

— Nordahl Grieg

I have failed to find a translation, but the literal meaning (no attempt at poetry here) of the most pertinent parts:

(verse 5&6) Quietly moves the rolling line of grenades. Stop their urge for death, stop them with spirit. War is contempt for life. Peace is to create. Throw your forces in, death shall be overcome.

(verse 9-12) Noble is man, the earth is wealthy! If there is need or hunger, it is caused by betrayal. Crush it! In the name of life, injustice shall fall. Sunshine, bread and water belongs to us all. Then the weapons are lowered, powerless. If we create human dignity, we create peace. He who, on his right arm, carries an invaluable and inalienable load cannot commit murder.