Kemstone's Journal

The pattern of Obama’s method of governing is becoming clearer every day. He ran on a platform of Change, and does everything he can to appear to be delivering that change without actually changing anything. He tackles huge issues like health care and financial reform at home, and pursues lofty goals abroad such as the elimination of nuclear weapons and peace between Israel and Palestine. In each case, it’s easy to imagine that he is in fact making big changes—as long as you’re not paying close enough attention.

You’ve got people on the left who believe he really is delivering on the change he promised, and people on the right who believe that he is changing things so profoundly that America is becoming unrecognizable from what it used to be. Neither group would dispute that he is a transformative president—they only disagree on whether the transformation is positive or negative, and in the case of the tea-partiers, the most disastrous thing ever to happen in the history of America. I disagree with the whole premise. I don’t think he’s actually changing a damn thing.

Let’s start with health care reform, as this is the only major battle that is technically over and that we can speak about definitively. Judging by all the news coverage, particularly of all the tea-party protests of people absolutely furious over the bill, you’d think that Obama had completely altered the very foundation of America’s health care system. And people who don’t follow the news closely might really believe that everything will be different now. But what was really accomplished? I can’t put my finger on it. There’s going to be an insurance exchange set up in a few years, but it will only offer private insurance and will only be available to a small segment of the population. Insurance companies are technically no longer allowed to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions or to take away people’s coverage when they get sick, but there have been several stories in the news over the past few weeks about insurance companies continuing to do both things. Such practices may be illegal now—or they will be in a few years—but the penalty is less expensive than the crime, so they’ll just go on with business as usual.

Now we’re talking about financial reform that’s just as weak and watered-down as the health care bill. The biggest problem with Wall Street is the derivatives trading—selling bogus financial products and betting on them failing. This bill won’t even ban that—it will just force banks to make them public. As if everyone is paying close attention to how much money their banks have tied up in derivatives. At best, it’ll make it easier to see the next financial crisis coming when it does. It certainly won’t prevent it. Banks, like any corporation, have to make as much money as possible for their shareholders. As long as making these bets is permissible, someone is going to do it, and they’re going to make a lot of money from it. To compete, everyone else has to follow suit, even if they don’t want to. A banker might personally be dead-set against these practices but if he wants to keep his job, he has to go along with them. It doesn’t matter how transparent it is—if it’s permissible it will be done.

So ‘financial reform’ will likely be just as empty as health care reform. And now that republicans are beginning to indicate that a few of them might get on board, we can expect the bill to become even weaker. They can pass this slap-on-the-wrist legislation and pretend they all worked together to solve the problem, and in November they can claim that they stood up to Wall Street when in fact they just did exactly what Wall Street wanted them to do, save for a few minor bits and pieces that will be an inconvenience to the bankers at best. Obama can add another ‘legislative victory’ to his list of ‘accomplishments’ and go on posing as the Change president. People who don’t pay much attention will either believe he solved the problem, or in the case of the tea-partiers, that he made everything infinitely worse.

And what about his work on the global stage? For the most part, I’ve been very pleased with what he’s doing in terms of reaching out to the Muslim world and enlisting international cooperation to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation, but how much actual change will come of it? I understand that eliminating nuclear weapons altogether is unrealistic and taking an incremental approach is the only way to go about it, but it just seems like taking on nuclear weapons is a mostly political calculation, as if Obama asked an advisor “What is the least controversial cause I can champion on the world stage and thus boost my international credibility and secure my legacy?” Obviously, reducing the threat of nuclear war isn’t going to draw a lot of criticism—unless of course you’re in the tea-party.

As for the Muslim world, I’m extremely pleased with the tone he’s taking—but we all know that rhetoric is by far the president’s strongest quality. In many cases—such as financial reform—words don’t matter half as much as what you actually do, but when it comes to Muslim perceptions of the United States, words matter a great deal, and Obama typically chooses the right ones. At least it’s a far departure from the previous president, who actually used the word “crusade” to describe our presence in the Middle East. But at the point where words end and actions begin, Obama hasn’t changed anything. Our troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan and there is no sign that they’ll be coming home any time soon. The war in Iraq was already winding down when Bush left office, so you can’t credit Obama with the troop withdrawal there. At best you can say that had McCain been president, the surge in Afghanistan might have been a little bigger. In any case, regarding military policy there is nothing this president has done that can legitimately be considered ‘Change’.

Obama is not the first president to run on a platform of Change. It’s actually one of the most frequently used political platforms of all time, as the desire for change is always present when the system is so imperfect. It just happened to catch fire in the 2008 elections because everything was so incredibly bad after eight years of Bush that it was inevitable that the candidate who could most credibly promise Change (and who wasn’t named Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinitch) would win. And Obama did more than just promise change—he personified it. A black president would, in itself, be a major change in terms of how we perceive ourselves and how the world perceives us.

To be sure, there has been a major change in the perception of the rest of the world towards us. I lived in Germany when Bush was re-elected, and I lived here again when Obama was elected, and the difference in how people reacted to me after each instance was substantial. In the same respect, the perception Americans have of their own country has also been altered dramatically, though mostly in the case of the tea-partiers who now see their country as some kind of nightmarish socialist dystopia.

But beyond that, nothing is changing. The powers-that-be who really controlled things under Bush are still very much in control under Obama, only now they have to make a few minor concessions here and there so Obama can continue to maintain the façade of a transformative leader. But those of us who are paying attention are not fooled. A president truly interested in change wouldn’t spend so much time talking about compromise and bipartisanship. He wouldn’t be saying that Wall Street and Main Street rise and fall together—he’d be going after Wall Street with fury, inviting their anger and hatred just as FDR did during the Great Depression.

Yes, we occasionally hear tough rhetoric, and when we do we think, “Is this the new Obama?” We wonder if maybe he learned his lesson and is now going to forget about this bipartisanship nonsense and fight for real change. But when he says that he’d rather have a strong bill than a bipartisan bill, it’s much more likely that this is calculated to placate progressives who have been calling bullshit on bipartisanship since the very beginning. Even the changes to his own rhetoric are purely for the sake of appearance.

When all is said and done, we have a president who is going to protect the establishment, and unfortunately there’s no alternative. Republicans also protect the establishment, only they get to do so more openly. Democrats have to walk a fine line between appearing to change things and not really changing anything at all. Obama is a master at this.

Of course I know the objection: “What do you expect? Be patient, he’s doing the best he can. Change has to come incrementally. He’s laying the groundwork for future changes that really will make a difference.” Well, I hope you’re right and I’m just being naïve. But all signs seem to indicate the contrary. I think we have a president more concerned with his own political image and his presidential legacy than actually doing the hard work America needs a president to do. If Obama’s method of governing is really “Change we can believe in” then Fox News’s method of reporting is really “Fair and balanced.”
His brand of Change is just that—a brand.

Only one thing is certain about 9/11 conspiracy theories: you won’t find the truth on the internet.

Whatever you believe about the events of 9/11, there are countless websites that will back you up and countless websites that will argue against you. For every aspect of the terrorist attacks which brought down the World Trade Center buildings and hit the pentagon, you can find explanations supporting the official story or explanations that suggest a conspiracy. It would be useless for me to waste any time going into detail on this blog post. Here I only wish to look at the big picture and ask: Is it reasonable to believe that 9/11 was an inside job?

First, a little about my own history regarding “9/11 Truth”. I was not one of those people who, on September 11, immediately thought that the government must have been involved. I accepted the official story that Islamic Fundamentalist hijackers had taken over the planes with box-cutters and flown them into buildings. It certainly seemed, and still seems, plausible that such an attack could work. I found it amazing that they were actually able to pull it off, but I didn’t think it was impossible.

But the very first time I heard someone suggest that Dick Cheney and the American power-elite were behind the attack—a couple of guys at a music festival shouting at the crowd—I immediately went up and talked to them because this did not seem at all absurd to me. In fact, I barely had to speak with them for five minutes before I was completely convinced it was true. At that time we were well on our way to war in Iraq, and it was clear that the government was willing to lie in order to win support for this war that they’d seemed hell-bent on starting. If they desperately wanted war, and they obviously did, what could be a more perfect way to gain support for that war than inflicting a massive attack on our home soil and blaming it on Islamic terrorists from the Middle East?

For awhile I accepted the conspiracy theory. What turned me around, ironically, was watching Loose Change for the first time. Having the conspiracy theory spelled out like that in all of its minute details actually made it seem more absurd than when it had just been a vague idea of government involvement. But this film was saying that bombs had been planted in the towers before the attacks, that it wasn’t actually a plane but a missile that hit the pentagon, that the collapse of WTC Building 7 was a controlled demolition, and all kinds of other theories about the attack that made it seem way more complex than it needed to be. I did a little online research, found a few websites that debunk the conspiracy theory, and was satisfied that it wasn’t a conspiracy after all.

That was about five years ago, and since then my basic stance on 9/11 is that there may be some flaws in the official story, some government officials such as Cheney and Rumsfeld might have known the attack was coming, but at the end of the day the perpetrators of the attack were Islamic Fundamentalists organized by Al Quaeda and led by Osama bin Laden.

I had two basic questions which justified this belief: 1- Why would they go through so much trouble planting bombs in the towers, firing missiles, demolishing Building 7 and so on, if their only goal was to justify a war in the Middle East? Specifically, if they wanted a war in Iraq, why not claim at least some of the hijackers were Iraqis? 2- If there really were bombs planted in the buildings beforehand and people throughout the government and intelligence agencies were complicit, why haven’t people come forward? The government sucks at keeping secrets. The Bush administration was enormously incompetent in just about everything it did. The idea that these idiots could pull off such an incredibly successful attack in secret and get away with it just didn’t jive with my political perceptions.

I recently re-watched Loose Change, along with the Alex Jones documentary Terrorstorm, and opened my mind again to the possibility that Americans, not Islamic terrorists, carried out the attacks. Alex Jones does a good job of pointing out just how often in history a country carries out an attack on itself in order to justify military aggression. From Hitler’s burning of the Reichstag to Johnson’s Gulf of Tonkin, such “False Flag” operations have happened repeatedly and usually to great success.

All details aside, just consider the possible motives behind the attack if it was an inside job. We know that Bush wanted to kick some ass in Iraq because his daddy didn’t finish the job. We know that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the rest of the neocons were thirsty for war long before Bush was even elected. Not only would it make their buddies in the military industrial complex very rich, but a permanent war waged against an unstoppable foe (no matter how many terrorists you kill, you can never stop terrorism) would allow the powerful to get a lot more powerful. Not only do you increase your power over your own citizens via initiatives such as the Patriot Act which would never have passed during peaceful times, but you increase your power on a global scale by putting troops on the ground in the most oil-rich area of the planet. Putting them in Afghanistan would be easy. Iraq would be trickier. The real prize is Iran, which is the most difficult. But if you’ve got troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran is surrounded and you can go after it more easily somewhere down the road. You just need to get public support behind you, and the best way to do that is to make everyone afraid, angry, and thirsty for vengeance. You need something to avenge—an assault on your country. And what could be more symbolic of America than those two towers standing in New York City? And while you’re at it why not hit a couple of targets in Washington as well including the pentagon to throw off suspicion of CIA involvement? And when should you do this? Early in the presidency, obviously, so you have plenty of time to carry out your plans for war. Why not right after the summer, when everyone is back from vacation and paying attention to the news again?

You see, it just makes so much sense. It made sense to me when I first heard the idea and it still makes sense now. Anyone who says that no American would ever inflict this damage on their own country is hopelessly naïve. What was really damaged? A few buildings were destroyed and a few thousand lives were lost. But America wasn’t damaged. If anything, it gave America the opportunity to increase its power, and they began to abuse that power immediately after the attacks. Besides, it’s not really “America” anyway but the powerful elites who run the corporations that run America.

What doesn’t make sense is the level of complexity and elaborate planning that had to have gone into the attacks were it really an inside job. Why put bombs in the buildings? Why destroy Building 7? Why fire a missile into the pentagon instead of crashing the plane there? If your only goal is to justify war, why not keep it simple? Previous False Flag operations have been incredibly simple. Johnson justified an escalation in Vietnam due to a False Flag attack on a single boat. Wouldn’t Americans have rallied behind Bush and supported a war if only a single plane had crashed into a single tower? Did they really need to demolish the buildings entirely? And what’s the point of blowing up Building 7? Nobody even knows about Building 7! How many people who supported the war did so because of Building 7? “Man, it pissed me off when they got the first two Trade Center buildings, but I was ready to forgive them until they took out Building 7. That was just one building too far, my friend.”

Okay, to be fair the whole Building 7 thing is the weakest sauce in the whole conspiracy theory. Both Loose Change and Terrorstorm spend way too much time dwelling on the collapse of Building 7, showing clips of news reporters talking about how the building was going to collapse before it actually came down. So I guess those reporters were in on it too! No, I remember watching TV that day and keeping my eyes glued to the screen because they were talking about how everyone expected that building to come down. It had taken massive damage when the other towers collapsed and everyone expected it would come down as well. That doesn’t mean they had foreknowledge of a plan to take it down.

I said I wouldn’t get too deep into detail, but that’s just the biggest example I have of why I’m still skeptical about the conspiracy theories. They raise a hell of a lot of really good questions—like why were no fighter jets scrambled as soon as the government realized what was going on—but they also raise a lot of stupid points that lead you to believe they’re just grasping at anything to justify their theory. It’s easy to believe that they came up with the conspiracy theory first and then just went looking for whatever evidence they could find to back it up.

So for the most part, my first major question—why go through so much trouble—remains largely intact. But in my online research I did come across a few somewhat plausible explanations for demolishing the towers. They weren’t looking to escalate a war that was already happening like Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin—they were looking to start a brand new war. And not just a war, but several wars which would stretch across the Middle East and last indefinitely. You’d need a really serious national trauma to justify that, and one plane in one building wouldn’t have been enough. The buildings had to come down to justify the whole “This country will never be the same” idea that the administration propagated as soon as the attacks took place. Okay, I suppose that’s reasonable. There are also a few possible explanations about how the owner of the buildings wanted to avoid asbestos lawsuits or something, but that seemed rather trivial.

As for the fact that none of the hijackers were Iraqi even though they supposedly wanted to use the attacks to justify the invasion of Iraq, I haven’t found an answer. They certainly went through a lot of trouble trying to find a connection between Iraq and 9/11—even waterboarding detainees to try and extract false confessions—but if they manufactured 9/11 you’d think they would have manufactured that connection as well.

And what about my second question—why has nobody come forward? Well, I suppose the most fruitful outcome of my online search was discovering that a number of people actually have come forward but nobody takes them seriously. Some websites offer explanations of how the whole thing could have been pulled off with less than a dozen people actually being completely in-the-know about the operation. And of course lots of people could be keeping quiet due to bribery, blackmail, or intimidation. And we can’t forget that if anyone did knowingly participate in this operation they probably believed in the cause and thought it was the right thing to do. Why blow the whistle on your actions if you feel your actions are justified?

Nevertheless, I can’t be swayed completely. There are real terrorist organizations who really do hate us. They could have come up with this plan and carried it out successfully not because of the administration’s complicity but merely because of its incompetence. Bush might really have though at the beginning of his administration that he was going to be remembered for education and tax cuts, not paying much attention to Al Quaeda until the attacks that changed everything came and took him by complete surprise. I’ve seen no evidence that proves otherwise, as every argument by the conspiracy theorists has a rational counter-argument from the debunkers.

If anyone reading this has more information or additional arguments either way, please share in the comments. I’m not on one side or the other, and I’m perfectly willing to be swayed in either direction. I just highly doubt that I’ll ever be completely convinced. Both explanations for 9/11 seem completely plausible to me, and there is so much bullshit surrounding the events that it hardly seems likely we’ll ever know the truth.

But I am glad that people are asking these questions. It’s nice that people in America can still openly question whether their government murdered thousands of its own citizens to justify a war. I would not put it past the powers-that-be to do something like that, and the fact that they got everything they wanted from the attacks strongly suggests complicity or foreknowledge at the very least. If these are the kind of people who really are in control, it won’t be long before such questions wouldn’t be tolerated, and I’d be locked away just for raising them.

The story of my weekend in Frankfurt, told in seven parts:

1 – Obscured By Clouds

I arrived in the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof at 5:45, and the feeling hit me the moment I stepped off the train. There I was again after four years, standing on the platform of Europe’s biggest train station, the site from which so many amazing adventures began. But this time I wasn’t traveling from Frankfurt—this time it was my destination.

As I walked through the old familiar station marveling at just how accurate my memories of it were, I couldn’t help but keep an eye out for Claudia, as I figured there might be a small chance that she changed her mind during the day and decided to come. Naturally, that was not to be, so I would officially be on my own. There would come to be many big advantages to that, but the first was having to take the U-Bahn to get where I was going, and the Frankfurt U-Bahn holds just as much nostalgia for me as everything else.

When I’d been a student, my I.D. card served as a year-long public transport ticket, but since I didn’t have that anymore I figured I’d better pay. So I coughed up €2.20 for a single-distance ticket and hopped on the U4 where I would change over to the U6 at Bockenheimer Warte, one of my most frequently visited tram stations due to its close proximity to one of the university campuses. The feeling of nostalgia overwhelmed me as I stepped on the tram, as every city has slightly different tram cars and it’s a huge part of the city’s character. That feeling grew immensely as I stepped out into Bockenheimer Warte, as like the tram cars each tram station has its own particular character as well. In Bockenheimer Warte there were giant photographs of scenes from the Goethe University up on the walls, and those pictures were still there. I spent so much time staring at those pictures while waiting for U6 or U7, so seeing them again was quite surreal.

I couldn’t resist heading above ground to take a quick look around before continuing my journey to the hostel. I headed up and found the place just as I remembered it, walking around for a few minutes with a big dumb grin on my face—I was back. I’d always hoped I’d be back, and now I was.

After satisfying that brief urge I went back down to the station and took the U7 to Konstablerwache, the city’s most central and busy location. That too was quite a trip to see, but I didn’t spend much time walking around as I knew I’d be doing all that the following day. My only plan at the moment was to walk to the hostel, about a 15-minutes walk from Konstablerwache that I and the other exchange students took countless times on our way to Mr. Lin’s, everyone’s favorite Thai restaurant, or just to Sachsenhausen for a drink. The hostel was right in the heart of Sachsenhausen and right along the river.

Crossing the river was also an incredible feeling, as the Main is really quite beautiful and there’s an excellent view of the city—Germany’s only city with a genuine skyline—from the bridge. I got across and found the hostel exactly where I expected it to be.

2 – When You’re In

As I walked into the hostel there was a crowd of about two dozen Japanese tourists standing in the lobby, which reminded me of how I always found it curious that so many Japanese people came to visit Frankfurt. The thing about Frankfurt is that there’s nothing particularly historically interesting, no great museums or places of interest—just a lot of big buildings. I liked that about living there because it wasn’t much of a tourist town, though for some reason Japanese people were still there all the time. Of course, Hannover is way less of a tourist town than Frankfurt, but you’ll still see Japanese tourists from time to time, always traveling close together in big groups and clutching their cameras and guidebooks.

Checking in was easy enough, and I headed up to my 4-bed room and found to my pleasant surprise that nobody else’s things were in the room. It was quite a nice room too, with clean beds, a sink, and a lovely view of the river right across the street. I left most of my stuff there, taking just the essentials, then headed downstairs to use the computer to check my e-mail.

I didn’t get any e-mails, so I was about to leave the hostel when I bumped into a group of about seven French teenagers, one of whom stopped to ask me if I spoke English. Most people assume I’m German which I’m quite used to, so when I answered in the affirmative he realized that I was a native speaker and then asked where I was from. When I said New Jersey some of the others in the group thought that was really cool, and they started talking to me and asking me questions about America. One of them apparently has an uncle who lives in Brooklyn. I mentioned that I lived in Frankfurt four years ago so they asked me a bit about the city, particularly whether “the girls are nice here?” I kind of shrugged at the question and just said, “Yeah, I guess” because I’ve never noticed any general differences between the girls in different parts of Germany. No matter where you are in the world, there will be a lot of hot girls and a lot of fat, ugly ones. Nowhere has a monopoly on beautiful women (except maybe Eastern Europe). The guys also asked me if I had any weed, and I just said, “I wish” and they told me they had some and if I wanted we could smoke later. I was quite amused by this, as it took me six months to find weed when I lived in Frankfurt, and I’d been back for less than an hour and people had already offered to smoke me up.

Anyway, I said goodbye to those guys and then headed across the street just to sit on the edge of the river for a moment and absorb the atmosphere. I was still a bit melancholy about the Claudia thing, though my mood was picking up at that point, and I listened to “Marooned” on my I-pod which fit the scenery perfectly as the day was just now slipping into evening and the setting sun was reflecting off the water. I’d been listening to Floyd the whole day, having gone several months without listening to it at all and feeling like my return to Frankfurt was as appropriate an occasion as any to bust it out again.

Once I’d soaked up enough of that it was time to get something to eat. There really was no question in my mind as to where I wanted to go: Mr. Lin’s. I headed off in the direction I thought it was and passed a bunch of bars I’d drunk at once or twice but Mr. Lin’s wasn’t where I thought it would be. I wandered around for a bit, wondering if perhaps the restaurant was gone now and what a shame that would be. I spotted O’Dwyers after awhile and from there I knew it couldn’t be far. Finally, I looked across the street and there it was, still alive and well.

In previous travel experiences I’ve never really eaten at an actual restaurant alone but instead just get some fast food or something when I’m hungry, but I had to make an exception for Mr. Lin because it was the place to eat among the exchange students and I couldn’t be back in Frankfurt without going there. It normally feels weird to eat alone at a restaurant, but there was a woman sitting outside alone when I got there so I didn’t feel weird at all. Other than her the place was empty, but there were plenty of other restaurants right there and lots of people sitting outside and eating. I popped inside to ask if I could take a seat outside, and found the guy I think must be the owner sitting around doing nothing. I remembered his face immediately and was quite gratified to see that it was the same guy from four years ago. Obviously he didn’t recognize me, and while I considered explaining to him that I was one of the Americans who always ate at his restaurant four years ago but decided there was no point.

Anyway, I gave him my order, a pad-thai and a hefeweizen, and took a seat outside. The waitress came out with my beer a moment later and that first sip felt heavenly. That nostalgic feeling came back as I sat there considering the fact that here I was in Frankfurt, sipping on a delicious beer on a lovely evening, waiting for my food to arrive. I didn’t have to wait long before the giant plate of noodles, veggies, chicken and shrimps came out, and I dug right in. The food was even better than I remembered it being, and although I was full half-way through it I kept at it until the whole plate was clean. Feeling quite stuffed at that point and noticing everyone around me smoking cigarettes, I got a powerful urge to smoke one. I hate asking strangers for cigarettes but I couldn’t leave to go buy a pack at that point, so I worked up some nerve and asked the lady who had been there alone and who was now smoking if she maybe had an extra cigarette for me. I spoke perfect German and was very polite but she just abruptly told me that was her last, which I’m sure was a lie, but I thanked her anyway and went up to another table in front of another restaurant where some people were smoking and again very politely asked if perhaps anyone had a spare cigarette for me. They too seemed very put-out by my request, but one of the guys begrudgingly gave me one and lit it up for me. I thanked him twice and then went back to my table to enjoy the hell out of that smoke. All I did was eat dinner, but I felt a strong sense of accomplishment.

3 – The Gold It’s In The

It was a little after 8 at this point and I figured it was late enough to start drinking. When I did my lone traveling to Paris and London back in ’05, I didn’t do any drinking because I’ve always shied away from the idea of drinking alone at a bar. Even in my loneliest times in Hannover I never went out to a bar for a drink. I’m just too shy and I figured I’d basically end up drinking alone like a total loser and getting even more depressed.

But I’m a new man now and I had to at least try to get some socialization going. And what better place to do it than O’Dwyer’s, the first non-Caribbean bar I ever drank at? Why not make it the first bar I ever drank alone at as well?

My resolve for socialization was hampered a little when I walked into the place and found it virtually empty. Granted, 8:00 is still pretty early in terms of city night-life, but I’d thought there would at least be a few more people. There were a couple of patrons sitting at the tables, two bartenders and a really cute waitress. I sat at the bar and ordered a hefeweizen in my friendliest voice, hoping that if all else failed I could at least chat up the bartender. I’d assumed he would be Irish, as Irish guys are always good for a chat, but unfortunately these guys were German and didn’t seem too interested in doing anything but pouring my glass and then going back to their game of darts.

I sat there for quite awhile waiting for the business to pick up. I asked one of the bartenders after awhile when the crowd usually gets in and he said 10 or 11, so I still had a long time to wait. I just passed the time nursing my beer, listening to the music (the reason we liked this bar so much has a lot to do with the music, as they play a great variety including classic rock, as opposed to the shit most other places play), watching the muted music videos on TV to see how they synched up with the music, and glancing around to see if I could spot anyone I’d be comfortable enough going up to and introducing myself. I never got a good vibe like that from anyone, and I wasn’t nearly drunk enough to overcome that shyness, so about two hours went by of doing exactly what I feared I’d do, just sitting there drinking alone like a loser.

A couple of guys sat down next to me shortly before 10 but for some reason I got the impression from them that they wanted to keep to themselves. A new bartender started his shift at about that time, and I could tell by his accent he was American so I asked him where he was from and he said Sacramento. I told him I lived in Santa Barbara for two years and he asked when. I said 2007 and 2008, and he said I missed out on the “good” Santa Barbara. Apparently he’d also lived there for four years back in the early 90s, when he said it was a much better atmosphere, people walking barefoot everywhere and whatnot. Then apparently in the late 90s it started getting ridiculously commercial and the town became like one big shopping mall. I found this pretty interesting but he said he had to go take care of something and extracted himself from the conversation with me.

A bit later I was craving another smoke so I asked the same bartender if there was a cigarette machine. He said there was one downstairs (thus confirming what I already remembered) but I needed a card for it, which he gave to me. I headed down and bought a pack, then one of the guys who was sitting next to me followed me down and asked to use the card because he’d been trying to buy a pack earlier but couldn’t figure it out. The guy was definitely Irish and I should have introduced myself then, but for some reason I didn’t as I just wanted a smoke. So I went outside to have one, then came back in and found the friend of the other guy sitting alone.

I honestly don’t remember whether I said something to him or if he said something to me, but he said he was surprised I spoke English as I’d just been sitting there for awhile and he figured I was a German who came to this place all the time. I explained my situation to him—I lived here four years ago and was back this weekend for a visit but the girl I was supposed to stay with canceled at the last minute and now I was on my own—and he said well then why don’t I join him and his friend? He was going to order a couple beers and take them outside where his friend Gavin, tall blonde guy, was smoking. His name was Paddy, and he was a bit shorter than his friend and had extremely short black hair.

So I quite happily walked outside and introduced myself to Gavin who was sitting at a table and talking to a German guy out there, saying his friend invited me to join them. Gavin was delighted to have a bit more company and invited me to sit down and offered me a smoke. I declined because I had my own pack but I joined him as he lit another up. Apparently like me he only smokes when he’s out drinking, so his objective was to finish the pack tonight.

At first the conversation with the German guy continued, who was struggling to speak English to these Irish guys who didn’t speak a word of German as they’d never been to Germany before. But as soon as I admitted to the guy that I spoke a little German he switched back and I became the default translator for the group. Apparently the guy was inviting us to go to the “speak-easy” around the corner, but the Irish guys had no interest in going anywhere. Eventually the guy got up and went alone.

I spent the next few hours getting acquainted with the Irish guys who turned out to be—as all Irish seem to be—really good company. They were in Germany with Paddy’s parents who wanted to check it out, and they came to Frankfurt because it was the cheapest flight. This was their second night here and it was just dumb luck that they came to O’Dwyer’s this night because there was a pub much closer to their hotel. But apparently they made the mistake of buying a drink for a guy who’d been banned, and as a result they got banned as well. Ultimately they said it was a good thing because they found this place which was much better, and they met me which was apparently good because they told me I was better company than that other guy who got them banned.

I was surprised to learn that they were only 22 years old, and they were surprised to learn I was only 25 because I look and act much older. I was a wealth of information about Germany, and even Frankfurt in particular, and I told them a bit about it but mostly we chatted about the standard bullshit—music, TV, movies, funny stories from our past. Gavin seemed to have the same exact taste in music as me, really into classic rock shit like the Doors and Led Zeppelin. Of course he was a Floyd fan too, which means big points in my book.

Once we finished our beers we started ordering rounds of cocktails, as they were having a two for one special and we had to take advantage. So as the night wore on we found ourselves drinking crazy things like Sex on the Beach, cosmopolitans, and something called a Galaxy Special which tasted like a strawberry milkshake and you couldn’t tell there was any alcohol in it. When it got to be really late, because we kept getting four cocktails at a time for just three people (unfortunately the deal wasn’t three for one) we found ourselves drinking several things at a time, taking a sip from the cosmo and then from the Sex on the Beach and back and forth. I knew we were getting into serious hangover territory for the next day but naturally when you’re at that point you just don’t care. I was having a great time so fuck it.

Also later on a very large American girl was talking to us, though I don’t remember her coming up to us or how we got to talking in the first place. Nor do I really remember what we talked about with her. There was definitely a lot of talk about music, and because I still had my I-pod in my pocket I busted it out and let Gavin listen to a few tunes with me (we each had on earphones) and singing along like the drunken fools we were, which the girl got a kick out of.

Finally when it was really late it was time to go “smoke some doobs”. They had weed back at their hotel but I said the Turkish guys at the kebab shops could also get you weed or hash. I never got any personally but I knew people who had, so I figured it was worth a shot. We left O’Dwyers and walked around. I went into a couple of kebab shops and asked them in German if they knew where we could find something to smoke. They smiled at the question but said they didn’t have any, which may or may not be true, and that we should go to Konstablerwache if we wanted some. That was too far for me though.

I walked with the guys and the girl as far as the river, then figured I should probably just go back to my hostel. They asked me if I’d be back at O’Dwyers the next night and I said I would, and they agreed to meet me there. So we said our goodnights and parted ways.

Back at the hostel, the group of French teenagers was outside smoking when I approached and they waved hello to me and invited me to join. But just in the small amount of time it took me to get inside and go out to the balcony, all but two of them had gone to bed. So I just chatted with the two of them for a minute or two about god knows what and then we all went to our respective rooms for some sleep. There was only one other guy in my room when I got in, and naturally he was snoring a little. The funniest thing about staying at a hostel is that there will always be someone snoring in your room, apparently even if there’s just one other person. But thankfully I was too drunk for it to matter and I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

4 – Mudmen

The hangover the next morning actually wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be, though it was still brutal enough. I woke up around 8, probably after only 3 or 4 hours of sleep, and because of my bullshit sleeping schedule (always waking up at 6 or 7 now) I couldn’t get back to sleep. The guy in my room left really early so I had the place to myself again, but it didn’t matter. I stumbled down for some free breakfast amidst hundreds of other travelers, none of whom I bothered trying to talk to, and then stumbled back up to my room to pop an aspirin and try unsuccessfully to get back to sleep. I might have made it if the people in the room next to me hadn’t decided 9:00 was a good time to start blasting crappy pop music at top volume, including that song, “California here we come” which got lodged in my skull where it was quite unwelcome.

The music stopped after a half hour or so and then I came within inches of getting back to sleep but never quite made it all the way there. But at 11:00 I figured I’d better start getting in gear for the day. I took a nice shower (best showers of any hostel I’ve ever been to), shaved, brushed my teeth, and was feeling much better already though still nice and dizzy.

The first thing I did was hop across the street to sit on the edge of the river again and listen to “Mudmen”, both to dislodge that god-awful California song and put some nice pleasant nostalgic-ish Floyd in there. Turned out to be a great choice, and it successfully stayed in my head the rest of the day providing the most perfect background music for everything that followed.

I walked back across the bridge to Konstablerwache and kept going east, as my plan was merely to have a look around at all the places I used to go and all those places were pretty much along a straight path east from Konstablerwache. I refused to look at any maps, wanting to rely purely on the instincts that my faded memories have left me with. The names of the U-Bahn stations as I passed them would confirm my heading in the right direction: Hauptwache, Alte Oper (where I had my infamous night of deep conversation with Lu), Westend, Bockenheimer Warte, Leipziger Straße, Kirchplatz, and finally Industriehof/Neue Börse where my dormitory was.

The area between Konstablerwache and Hauptwache is the busiest part of town, and there were all kinds of street musicians and itty-bitty-political demonstrations everywhere, even some combinations of the two, like a group of five young women singing in really terrible voices about peace and love. When I got to Hauptwache I was approached by an older woman who said something to me in German about “Politik”. I just gave her the standard “Mein Deutsch ist nicht gut” and thought I could move on, but she started speaking English.

Okay, I thought. I’m really in no hurry so let’s hear what she has to say. I might learn something. She asked me where I was from and was happy to hear America, because she was out there on behalf of Lyndon La Rouche, probably one of the biggest radicals in American politics. I could hardly believe it because the last time I was approached by these La Rouche people was outside the Trader Joe’s in Santa Barbara. I had no idea this guy’s reach was so wide. But when I heard the name La Rouche I explained to her that I knew all about him and I’d read the literature but wasn’t interested. Why? Well, there are a few things he believes that I don’t believe. Like what? Well, for example he says 9/11 was an inside job, which I don’t think is true. She goes into an explanation of how she understands that people don’t believe the conspiracy theories like there were already bombs in the buildings and such, but the whole thing had to do with Saudi oil money and so on. I had a hard time following her because her English wasn’t great and she seemed to just be pulling talking points out of the air at times, but I was curious so I kept the conversation going.

Apparently Obama should be impeached because there are a few lines in the new health care bill that will give government control over people’s lives and will lead to some nightmarish dystopian society where doctors are forced to let old people die in order to save the government the cost of keeping them alive. She said it would be just like the holocaust all over again and I expressed my skepticism but she insisted it was already happening. Just look at the bank bailouts and the financial system. Okay, I agree with you there—the economy is fucked and it’s all going to shit. But then she goes on to say that Obama is a fascist and talks more about how the cost of healthcare will bankrupt everything, especially now “with the swine flu out of control”. As soon as she said “swine flu” I realized there was nothing I could learn from this woman, but I humored her and said “Okay, so if what you say is true then what’s the solution?” She had been quite good at pointing out problems but she couldn’t seem to give me any kind of solid idea of what to do about it. We just need to “build up the economy” and spend more on education. Yeah, okay, I’m down with that I guess but could you be any more vague?

At that point a guy in a wheelchair rolled right up to us, put a cup down at his feet and took a flute out of a case he was carrying. The woman started talking to him in German which I understood, saying this was their territory and could he please go play that somewhere else? The guy was very polite to her but he didn’t budge, and she was getting noticeably pissed off. When the guy started playing the flute and she turned away in frustration, I said I had to go anyway and I wished her luck. La Rouche would not be getting any donations from me today.

I was a lot less sure of myself for the next portion of the walk but I passed Alte Oper and got to Westend all right, which meant now I had to turn right and walk north a bit to come to the Western Campus of the university, the building where I had most of my classes, probably the second biggest must-visit location on my check-list, the first being my old dorm. I had to rely purely on gut instinct to navigate the curvy roads to get there, but my memory served me correctly and before I knew it I was back in front of that building. The place was open but virtually deserted, as the summer semester just ended and there are only a few scattered summer classes going on. I amused myself with the possibility of bumping into one of the many girls I met or admired there, such as Andrea or beautiful Marie-Lena. Of course I was much likelier to run into Claudia as she actually works there now, but luckily I didn’t see her.

At this point I really had to shit, so a bit nervously I walked right into the building and down the hall, figuring with my backpack on I looked enough like a student to get away with it, and found the bathroom right where it should be. I took a nice dump in their toilet, feeling totally badass for doing so, just a guy walking in off the street and shitting in the university’s toilet. There was almost no one around so I didn’t get stopped or questioned by anyone.

After that I walked outside to the really nice area behind the building and walked up the steps I used to sit on and smoke before class to sit on them once again and appreciate the fact that I was there. The weather, I should say, was absolutely perfect with just the right temperature and cloud-cover. Yet another reason it was fortuitous that I changed the original plans of coming in June, a weekend that ended up being kind of shitty. But as I sat there admiring the beauty of the place and how awesome it was that I made it back, I realized that I might never come back again. I’d done the whole re-visiting thing. If I ever go back it’ll just be re-revisiting. So along with the sense of accomplishment there was a slight touch of melancholy at the thought that this really was like an epilogue to a book I put down four years ago, but this really was the last page.

From the Western Campus I found my way around the Palmengarten (which you could walk through for free with a student I.D. but of course I didn’t have one now) and back to good old Bockenheimer Warte. I walked down the East Campus building where we had our intensive German class, and back around to the courtyard outside the Mensa, the cafeteria where we ate when we were there. Also in that area were the bookstore where I got my books, the building where I gave Gabriel a few English lessons (which I suppose would be a prologue to the part of my life I’m in now), the Café Extrablatt where we ate a bunch of times, the kiosk where I bought all my cigarettes, and a Subway and kebab stand that we also ate at a lot.

Those last two things were at the end of Leipziger Straße, which is the street you could go to find everything. I passed the T-Punkt where we went through the nightmare of getting internet and stopped at the internet café near there where we used the internet while waiting to have it in our dorms. Just then it started to rain a little, which was perfect timing because I wanted to use the internet anyway and I got in to check my e-mail and do some stuff while the rain ran its course. It felt quite cool to be e-mailing Corey from the same place I e-mailed him five years ago, and I had to readjust again to the fact that the z is where the y should be on the kezboard…it’s bizarre because my fingers made the adjustment so easily and I’ve actually fucked it up several times while writing this now on a normal keyboard.

Anyway, the sun came right back out after the rainfall and I continued down Leipziger Straße in search of my old bank, the Frankfurter Volksbank. I had virtually nothing in my wallet at this point so I needed an ATM, and I wanted to get money from that particular ATM both for nostalgia as well as the practical fact that I now have an account with the Hannoversche Volksbank so I could only check my balance with a Volksbank ATM. Oddly enough I walked right by without seeing it, and when I got as far as the Italian restaurant we also ate at many times (we called it “Prego Man” after the waiter who always used that Italian expression) when I knew I’d gone too far. I turned around and this time found it, and not only that but found it exactly where I expected it to be, just outside the U-Bahn station. I have no idea how I could have missed it when it was right where I thought it would be. I went in and checked my balance, pleasantly surprised to find slightly more cash in my account than I thought I had, then withdrew €50 which I hoped would be more than enough for the rest of the trip, which I’d assumed would be pretty inexpensive.

I could have walked the rest of the way but I wanted to take the U-Bahn from Leipziger Straße for that old U-Bahn nostalgia I mentioned earlier. I also spent a lot of time staring at the art in the Leipziger Straße station so I wanted to check that out again, as well as hear the lady’s voice on the tram say, “Nächste haltestelle: Kirchplatz. Aufsteht links” which always used to mean “you’re one stop away from home.” At first I tried to buy a ticket but I was ten cents short (it wouldn’t take a 50) and the machine didn’t like my card. But I figured that I lived in Frankfurt for a whole year and got carded maybe a dozen times so the odds were infinitesimally small that I’d get busted. Of course it’s always the one time you don’t have a ticket that they check, and then you’ve got to cough up €40, but I decided to risk it and save myself the two euros.

The tram ride was strangely exciting. The lady said the Kirchplatz thing just as I remembered it, and I knew that in a moment the tram would emerge from underground and stop at Industriehof/Neue Börse from which I would be able to see my old dorm. When I stepped out onto that platform, the most frequently used U-Bahn platform of my life, I was giddy as a school girl to look across the street and see the dorm, Friedrich-Wilhelm-von-Steuben Straße 90, my former place of residence. Like I’d done thousands of times before I walked back and slipped inside the opening in the fence to the courtyard among the different dorms. Technically it’s a private ground and I wasn’t supposed to be there, but there was almost nobody there and it’s not like anyone would ask you what you’re doing there anyway. It’s a student dormitory—lots of random people are always coming and going.

I walked to the center of the courtyard and looked up at building C, third window from the bottom, second to the right. Motherfucker. What a weird feeling. There was my window, the same window I’d sat in thousands of time to smoke a cigarette and blow it out, the window through which I viewed the world for so many months. It was open a crack so I could see just a tiny little bit of the room inside, which almost made me tingle. The other places in Frankfurt are places I went occasionally, but that was my home. I may not be proud of it, but I spent more time in that little box than everywhere else in the city combined. In the four years since I left I’ve had several dreams in which I was back in that exact spot, either inside that dorm room or outside on the grass where I was now standing, and I would always wake up disappointed that I was actually in America and not back there. Well, finally I was back there. To think of all the amazing lucid dreams I had in that very room, and here I was making one of my dreams a reality.

So from the dormitory it was a 10-minute walk to the park I used to walk around every so often, and doing that walk again was absolutely #1 on my list of things to do—which also happened to be the last thing on that list. I had a feeling it was going to be the high point of the day, and I was right. As soon as I got back in the park I was overwhelmed with this joyful feeling of being in a beautiful place I really loved—nothing but great memories there.

Thanks to the few minutes of rain earlier, most of the locals seemed to be scared away and the park was much emptier than it would normally be on a Saturday, which naturally worked out wonderfully for me. But during my walk the weather was beyond perfect—I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I walked all the way around almost the whole perimeter, following the same exact path I used to take four years ago, memories reawakening with each new section of fields or woods I’d walk through. Everything was exactly as I remember it, except the playground which now has two zip-lines instead of one, and the bridge under which we set off all those fireworks one drunken evening was having work done. But man, what a beautiful walk.

Of course at this point my legs were killing me, so I’d frequently have a seat on a bench here or there and soak up the scenery. Once I’d gone all the way around I walked back up to the first bench I passed, the one with the best view of the park and sat there for a good long time appreciating the fact that I’d made it back there, feeling sad that I might never return, and trying to decide whether I like Hannover better than Frankfurt or not. My mind is still not made up on that question.

It wasn’t even 5:00 yet and already I’d done everything I wanted to do, so I sat on that bench for a very long time until a mother and her two daughters came and set up a picnic right in front of me. Sensing the potential of such a distraction to completely alter my state of consciousness, I got up, said my last goodbyes to the park, and walked back out the way I came in.

5 – Childhood’s End

I had toyed with the idea of going to the HL, the supermarket where I always used to shop near the dorm, and now that I had finished so early I figured I might as well, as silly as the idea sounded. I passed through the dormitory courtyard one last time and again stared up at my window, letting sink in whatever it was I wanted to sink in, then I bid farewell to my old box and headed off toward the supermarket.

When I got there I was shocked to find that it was no longer a HL but a Rewe, Rewe being one of the two supermarkets I shop at in Hannover. Suddenly it made sense why I haven’t seen a HL since I’ve been back in Germany when they were everywhere before, but Rewe’s are all over the place. I guess Rewe used to be HL, and I got a huge kick out of the idea that I’ve actually been shopping at a HL all this time without knowing it. I actually went inside just to see how similar it was to my memories, and unfortunately the set-up had altered quite a bit so the nostalgia-factor wasn’t too high. I walked around pretending to be searching for a particular item, then walked out without getting stopped by anyone to ask me what the fuck I’d been doing there if I wasn’t going to buy anything. Amazing how much I was able to get away with.

I took a different route back to the tram platform, passing the old post office from which I sent many packages including one full of German chocolate and other assorted niceties for Jessi, and the other student dorm where the Irish students lived and where we had a few nice parties on occasion. I made it back to the tram platform and once again decided not to bother with a ticket (I found it makes the ride a lot more exciting). I sat down to wait for the U6 as I’d done so many times before, and when it came I took one last glance in my dorm’s direction, then boarded it.

I stopped again at Leipziger Straße to go back to an internet café, a different one this time because in spite of the nostalgia-factor of the other place, the internet there was kind of slow. I looked up information about the English-speaking theater, hoping that Star Trek was still playing but unfortunately it wasn’t, but I still figured that seeing a movie would be a great way to kill two hours and get off my feet for awhile. I also found Justin, one of my fellow exchange students, on Facebook and sent him a friend request with a message telling him where I was and what I’d been up to.

After that I went back down to the Leipziger Straße station where I got a call from my mother while waiting for the tram. I talked to her for awhile, having to stop while I was actually on the tram, then I got out at Hauptwache, another tram station I used to go to a lot and which was luckily the closest stop to the theatre. When I reached the theater I checked to see what was playing and the only thing I had any interest in was the movie Hangover which I’ve been told was really great by a few people, including Oliver’s Irish friend Dazz. But for some reason the idea of seeing a comedy alone just seemed weird to me so I considered not going in. The next showtime though was 6:10, and it was now 6:00 so it was just too perfect. I bought a ticket and went in to watch the movie.

It wasn’t as funny as I’d hoped, but it was still quite good. The subject matter, at least, was appropriate for this weekend, about getting extremely drunk and not remembering what happened last night. The movie revolved around a group of guys who have a bachelor party in Vegas, and because I’ve been to Vegas it struck me just how many fucking places I’ve been in the world.

Anyway, when that was over my legs were nice and rested up for the 40-minute walk back to the hostel. It also rained while I was in the theater, but it had apparently just stopped, thus making the absolute perfection of the weather during my trip that much more bizarre.

But the most bizarre part of the trip was just about to happen. The background: four years ago I was a clean-shaven kid with short hair, not exactly the prime target of drug dealers. I knew there were dealers at Konstablerwache so one day when I was desperate for weed I went there and walked around for over an hour until I finally found a dealer. The guy took me to a back alley and told me to wait, then quickly made the exchange: €40 for what I discovered later was just a bag of rocks—actual rocks from the ground.

Four years later I’m sporting long hair and a beard, and this is literally my third time at Konstablerwache since returning and a dealer comes right up to me. I smiled at the irony of it and asked him in English if he sells hash. I know these guys sell to tourists a lot so they have to speak some English, and he said of course he could get me some, “Come with me, my friend, I get you some really good weed, marijuana, you know? I get you fifteen euros of really good stuff.” Fifteen euros sounded reasonable to me—just enough to get high with Paddy and Gavin if I saw them again that night, and I went with the guy as he led me across the street to meet up with one of his many other drug-dealing friends. They led me to a computer game shop, a favorite hang-out place for Turks and told me to wait outside. “You give me money, I go in and bring you back some weed.”

“Oh no,” I said, “I won’t give you any money until I see it.” Damn, that felt good. He kept insisting I give him the money first and I kept refusing. Clearly I’m a bit more intelligent than I was last time, plus I had the advantage of not really caring if I got any or not. But it felt like I was finally vindicating myself—correcting a stupid mistake from four years ago by refusing to make the same one.

He also offered to sell me cocaine or ecstasy but I politely refused that as well. And he kept trying to up the price. “You give me one hundred euros I get you good shit and go home.” Sorry, that’s too much. “Okay, seventeen euros. You give me seventeen, it’s not so much.”

Oh shit. Wait a minute. “Do you mean seventeen or seventy?” German-speakers often have a problem with this, and I’ve had to correct my students on many occasions. “When you said fifteen euros, did you mean fifty? Five-zero?” Yes, of course he meant five-zero. Well, there’s a problem then because I only wanted fifteen. One-five.

At this point his demeanor changed entirely as he suddenly got very hostile. “What do you mean? You say fifteen I get you fifteen.” Clearly he still didn’t understand the distinction between fifteen and fifty. I tried to explain it to him like the English teacher that I am but he wasn’t listening. He thought I was trying to back out because I no longer believed he was legit. “You think I’m playing games with you, man!? I been working out here 11 years, man. I am here every day. You want I give you my phone number?”

“No, that’s not it,” I kept trying to say. “I believe you. I trust you.” To which he smiled and offered me a fist-jab, but then I had to go further and again try to explain the difference between fifteen and fifty but this just got him even angrier. At this point we were walking back in another direction to his other dealer friends who were going to get the stuff and they just kept telling me “It’s okay” like the problem was I didn’t trust them. I finally just decided fuck it and I turned to walk away, but he physically grabbed my arm, pulled me back and got right in my face, literally inches away to the point where his spit was flying in my face and shouting at me about how he’s “not playing games”. I know that, I kept saying, I’m just trying to explain that we didn’t understand each other at first, that it’s not a problem with him it’s just a problem with his English. So he calmed down for a moment and I explained the fifteen/fifty thing again, saying the words as slowly and clearly as possible but it just wasn’t registering with him. But thank fucking god his friend came back because I explained it to the friend who understood right away, and then his friend explained it to him, which of course pissed him off because now he just spent twenty minutes working his ass off just for a miserable €15. But he handed me a little piece of hash which I could tell was legit and about €15 worth, then I took out my wallet which unfortunately had only two €20 and he wasn’t handing out change. But I made the exchange and he walked away pissed. I felt like that was probably some unnecessary spending but it was worth it just for that experience.

6 – Free Four

I walked back to the hostel, pausing on the bridge to admire the beautiful skyline with the setting sun bleeding through some clouds in the background. I got back to my room, which was now populated by two Japanese guys to whom I said hello but nothing more because they clearly could only speak Japanese. I remember thinking this was good—Japanese people don’t snore, right? But I just quickly got my things in order and headed back downstairs. With the hangover from the morning I wasn’t sure I’d be drinking tonight and that I might have to bail on Gavin and Paddy, but having just bought that hash and now feeling fine enough I figured I’d go back out.

On my way out of the hostel I bumped into the two French teenagers from last night and they gave me a cigarette which I didn’t want but politely took anyway and smoked with them outside the entrance. We talked about what we’d been up to today. They’d been at a place called the Red Lion where apparently you can get a blowjob and a fuck for just €20. So that’s what they’d been up to. I asked about the girls there but they didn’t say they were hot, just that they were Latina or Portuguese. A German girl came up to them too to ask them for a cigarette, and she also seemed to have met them before. She started talking to me because she could tell I was American and soon enough those guys left and she complained about how all they talk about is sex. Hardly a shock. So we talked for a few minutes as I gave her the basic gist of my life situation which she found quite interesting. One of the first things she said to me was, “It must have been so sad for your country when Michael Jackson died” and I didn’t quite know how to react to that. I just said that his fans all over the world were very sad, not wanting to go into how most Americans view the situation with simple morbid curiosity rather than any genuine sadness or sympathy. Anyway, I’m a little ashamed to say it but she wasn’t attractive or interesting enough for me to want to continue talking to her for a long time, so I just mentioned I was meeting some people at a bar and I had to go, then I said it was nice meeting her, gave her my name and got hers, and that was that.

I got a quick bite to eat from a pizza stand, then popped into O’Dwyers at 9:30. It was much busier than the previous night but it was still a bit early. No sign of the Irish guys. So I sat there again drinking alone like a loser, watching golf on the TV and slowly nursing my hefeweizen. After about an hour a group of about a dozen English guys all wearing the same polo shirt came in and ordered shitloads of drinks. Since they were standing all around my barstool one of them asked me how I was doing and I said I was pretty good. He too was surprised to hear perfect English and he could distinguish right away that I was American. “We’ve got a yank!” he exclaimed. “It’s always great to meet a yank.” I thought that was the strangest fucking thing to say but hey, to each his own. Of course he then modified that by saying, “Well, it’s almost always great to meet a yank. Not these guys we met last night—some soldiers who were real assholes.” He also asked me if I found the term “yank” offensive and apologized to me for using it but I explained that I couldn’t care less.

One of the guys turned back around to the rest of the crowd—apparently they were having a bachelor party (which the English call a ‘stag party’) and had come to Frankfurt because it’s the cheapest place in Germany to fly to—while the other guy continued talking to me. He said, “Now, tell me if I’m out of line but if I had to guess I’d say you’re a democrat.” Not wanting to get into any kind of political hair-splitting I just said yes and he said it’s the long hair. He said he was fascinated by American politics and that he’s always following the political news. So I thought it was going to turn into a political discussion, which I was quite ready for, but it actually went in a different direction.

I told him everything about myself that I’d been telling everyone else but this time I remembered to ask about him. Apparently he and the rest of the guys there were all schoolteachers, and he explained the British education system to me and complained about the job. He said he envied me because I was living free but teaching high school and college (college in Britain is what comes between high school and university) is basically just teaching kids how to pass tests. Every now and then he can go in another direction but most of the time he has to abide by the curriculum. I mentioned how I almost went that route in Santa Barbara but stopped when I realized how much of a ball and chain it would be. It was a really nice talk but before I knew it the group was heading off to another pub. I exchanged names with the guy, Mark, and he said to look him up on Facebook which I just might do. Apparently Facebook might have a whole new use I hadn’t thought of—keeping in touch with random people you meet during travel. I’m still not sure as to the utility of that, but I haven’t thought much about it yet at this point.

Anyway, at this point it was a little past 11 and I figured I’d just finish my beer and then go home and go to sleep, but just then Paddy and Gavin came in and I knew the night just got a lot longer. They came up to the bar by me, and Paddy’s parents soon followed, as apparently they also wanted to see what was so good about this place. Paddy’s mom was English but she’d married an Irishman and lived there most of her life, and she seemed like a typical nice, intelligent British woman.

But the three of us went outside leaving the parents in there for the time being, and we agreed to stick to beer tonight and just order rounds of pitchers. We sat and talked about the events of our respective days, I told them the story of buying hash and said we could smoke it later if we could borrow rolling papers from someone, but ironically everyone around was smoking normal cigarettes, whereas in Hannover everyone rolls their own. They said they had weed but they forgot it in the hotel again. But at the end of the night I was invited back to their place to smoke some doobs, and I resolved to take them up on their offer this time.

What followed was more hours of chatting about whatever, just a good pleasant time. Eventually I spotted someone with rolling papers and Paddy went up and asked him for one. So I started rolling one up right there, which surprised Gavin because he figured, you know, this was kind of illegal. But I felt right at home, telling him we used to roll spliffs at this place all the time and the worst that would happen anyway is that someone tells us not to do it. I kept it discreet of course, burning the hash below the table and whatnot, but of course nobody said anything. That seemed to be the theme of the day: me doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing and suffering absolutely no consequences. So we smoked the doob, found that the hash was delicious and a bit later I went to buy some papers of my own.

When I returned with the papers, Paddy’s parents had joined us outside, and I quietly asked Gavin if I should wait but he said they were cool, so I rolled up another and we smoked it right in front of Paddy’s parents. I chatted with the four of them for awhile, mostly because the mother found me interesting and I guess I impressed her with all my crazy intelligence and knowledge and whatnot, and I found her to be just as pleasant as the rest of them in spite of the fact that she wasn’t Irish.

As the night grew later the place got more crowded, and at one point a group of about seven other Irishmen, about as drunk as it gets, were sitting outside near us and singing drinking songs which they insisted all the Irish at our table sing along with. So that was quite funny and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Nothing like a bunch of drunken Irish men singing their songs. One of the guys seemed like a real firebrand and he kept insisting that they sing more songs about fighting the fucking British, but one of the guys didn’t want to because he’d asked and found out that this guy’s wife was English. But she didn’t mind any more than I minded being called a “yank” and the songs were sung. Personally, I think it’s great that a culture has that kind of tradition. I don’t particularly care for the songs in a musical sense, but just the idea that they memorialize their fallen heroes in song is something I think is pretty awesome. I only wished I could sing along with the rest of them. I think the one guy, the guy who seemed to be leading each song and getting really enthusiastic about it, noticed this because he then said, “You know what drinking song that everybody knows in every country in the world?” and then he started singing the end of “Hey Jude” which I was able to sing along with for the two or three times we actually went through it.

There were two waitresses there that evening, the cute one from the previous night and another one who was also attractive but in more of a hot way. The ‘cute one’ was German but the ‘hot one’ was Irish, and she kept coming out to chat with her fellow countrymen while taking their orders. Towards the end of the night she gave out the last call, then started encouraging everyone to finish. She said she was really torn about having to break up this wonderful gathering but the place has to close and we were all welcome to go with her to another Irish pub where she’d be drinking.

As we were all finishing our drinks, the cute waitress came outside for a moment to sit down and I started talking to her, asking her about tips and confirming that even in a place like this most people tip around 5%. I’m not sure how it came up, maybe because she apologized for her English not being so good, but it made me think of Krissi and I asked how hard it would be for an American girl with ten years of bartending and waitressing experience to find work at an Irish pub. She thought it would be quite easy for any English speaker to do it, then she asked the hot one the same question and the hot one confirmed it. So if Krissi wants to live in Europe it’s a safe bet that she can.

Just before they closed the bar I ran in and gave my last €5 to tip them, as I’d been mooching off the pitchers others were buying all night long and I needed some karmic balance. After that we followed the hot waitress to another Irish bar, Gavin or Paddy went inside to bring us beer, and a few of the other Irish guys expressed disappointment when it was revealed that the hot one had taken us here so she could meet her boyfriend. I don’t know what they’d been expecting but a lot of them went home. It was fucking late anyway.

Things are pretty blurry at this point, but somehow I found myself introduced to an Arab-looking guy and when I asked him where he was from he told me he was an Iraqi born in Germany. I believe he was a Kurd who lived in Iraq for awhile but got out before the war. I being a drunken American immediately started apologizing up and down for my country having so completely fucked his country up, but he couldn’t have been more gracious, saying he understands and doesn’t hold me responsible for what Bush does anymore than he holds Germans responsible for what Hitler does. I said I was so glad to hear him say that, and I think we may have hugged. In any case it was a touching moment.

Paddy and Gavin were there but I think they were just enjoying the scene. I talked to the guy, I think he said his name was Herrisch, for awhile about what it’s like being an Iraqi in Germany, and he appreciated my understanding of how even though he was born here the Germans will never let him feel German. Having just read a book on that very subject I knew all the right things to say, and anyway it was just a really nice conversation.

When he left, our beers were about finished and the sky was starting to get brighter. That motherfucking sun was coming up. So now I went with Paddy and Gavin and walked all the way back to their hotel, which was no short distance, considering going back to my hostel but figuring I’d never see these guys again so if I could crash at their place why not? I made sure I could crash there because fuck knows after a joint I would not be walking back.

Crossing the river at dawn was kind of nice too, but soon enough we were in their hotel room, a nice cozy little two-bed flat with its own bathroom and everything, and we smoked a joint that Gavin rolled up. I set my phone alarm for 8:00 because check-out time at my hostel was 9:00. Unforuntately it was past 6:00 already so I knew I wouldn’t be getting much sleep. After the doob had been smoked, they laid out some cushions on the floor and tossed me a pillow. I passed out immediately.

7 – Absolutely Curtains

When I woke up, I checked my phone and was startled to see that it was 10:40. Of course—when I went to the theatre I put it on silent mode and forgot to change it back. I’d missed my alarm and my check-out time, and all of my stuff was still back at the hostel including the train ticket and other essential things like my passport.

I immediately leapt to my feet, and went into the bathroom to take a piss, but somehow Paddy had wound up sleeping there on the floor. I tapped him awake and helped him to his bed, then relieved my bladder and wished those guys goodbye. I’m sure they passed out seconds later and probably slept until well after I’d left the city.

Leaving the city was the objective now, as when I’d bought the ticket I planned to stay as long as possible, assuming I’d have company the whole time. But I really didn’t want to wait until my scheduled departure time of 6:20, seeing as how there was nothing I wanted to do and I really didn’t want to get back to Hannover at 9:00 anyway.

I stumbled out of the hotel, head pounding like a motherfucker, but the long walk along the river back to my hostel cleared me up a bit and the headache magically disappeared. When I got back to the hostel I explained what had happened, and one of the front desk guys took me back to the room where the cleaning lady was just getting to it. Unbelievable luck—all my stuff was still there. Not only that, there was no talk of a late departure fee or anything. Once I’d got my shit together (unfortunately I couldn’t take a shower) I left, gave them my key and they gave me my receipt. If only I’d known I wouldn’t be sleeping there Saturday night I could have saved some money.

Now I had to get to the train station, and I decided I didn’t want to press my luck riding ticketless on the U-Bahn again so I’d walk. Unfortunately the Hauptbahnhof is one of those rare places in Frankfurt that I never actually walked to so I wasn’t sure how to get there and ended up taking a really roundabout route, asking lots and lots of Germans along the way how to get there. They all knew exactly how to get there but for some reason none of their explanations alone were good enough and I’d find myself without any bearings just minutes after I’d gone down the ways they recommended. But each time brought me closer until the last guy’s directions finally took me all the way there.

I got into the station and went up to the Reisezentrum to ask about changing my ticket. Well, I’d have to pay a €15 fee (which I expected) but the earlier train was also more expensive, so it added up to €39. I figured “fuck that” and I just asked the guy about lockers where I could keep my things and roam around because that seemed like way too steep a price to pay. I found the lockers but they cost €4 and I had…exactly zero. I went to an ATM, drew some cash, and looked at the clock. 12:20. Six hours with nothing to do but walk around Frankfurt all smelly and hung-over. Suddenly €39 didn’t sound too bad. So I sucked it up, went back and changed the ticket, reducing my wait time from six hours to one hour, and bringing my scheduled arrival in Hannover back from 9:00 to 5:00. I killed the remaining hour in a nearby internet café, where among other things I saw that Justin had responded to my message and he’s going to be working near Amsterdam come this Fall so there’s a chance we could meet up and hang out.

I made it back to the station just in time, then began the long 3 and a half-hour journey to Hannover with a changeover in Fulda. I listened to Obscured By Clouds while departing Frankfurt, then spent the rest of the time listening to other assorted Pink Floyd, which I’ll probably now go a few more months without listening to again. As much as I love the music I think it’s probably best to only bust it out on special occasions.

At any rate, the journey was long and it sucked not having showered but I made it back to Hannover, got back to my apartment and took a shower, then started writing this at about 6:00. It’s now 10:15 and I haven’t eaten dinner or done anything else but I’m quite glad I came back early so I could get this done when it’s as fresh in my mind as it’s ever going to be. Such a detailed account of such an awesome trip is well worth €39 in my opinion—at least that’s what I can tell myself and it sounds plausible enough.

So all in all this was without a doubt, the best trip I went on since coming back to Germany, and ironically it was to the place where I first lived. Even more ironically, if that bullshit with Claudia hadn’t happened (and the odds of it happening were really a million to one) then the whole experience would have been radically different and probably not for the better. Having gone alone was the best thing that could have happened because it really let me do whatever I wanted to do and forced me to open up and try to meet people, which I did quite successfully. I feel a bit more like a real adult now than I did last week.

I still can’t decide whether I like Hannover better than Frankfurt, but whatever the case that city will always have a special place in my heart. If this past weekend was the epilogue to my experience there, then it was a very good ending indeed.

Happy 233rd birthday, America. I was going to buy you something really nice, but instead I wrote you this blog entry.

A lot of shit happened this week, but none of it warrants a full-length post, so rather than launch into a lengthy diatribe on one particular issue, I’ll just comment briefly on each of the major stories. I think I might get into the habit of doing this every weekend, but we’ll see. This week I want to touch on Michael Jackson, the Mark Sanford affair, Sarah Palin’s resignation, Al Franken’s arrival in the senate, and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities.

As for Michael Jackson, I feel that even if I were a big fan of his, which I never was, I would still feel like the coverage was excessive. I completely understand that he was the single biggest celebrity on earth, and I even get the fact that the circumstances surrounding his death are rife with the kind of intrigue and personal conflict that the media thrives on. The fact that there’s been so much coverage is no surprise at all. However, the major news networks still warrant criticism even for doing exactly what you’d expect them to do. One of the jobs of a serious news organisation is to be an information filter, devoting more time to more important stories and less time to less significant things. While the death of the world’s biggest pop star certainly has a lot of cultural significance, it is decidedly unimportant in terms of major world events. While the situation in Iran has slowed down a bit, significant things are still happening there and we’re not hearing about it. The withdrawal from Iraq’s cities, which I’ll comment on at the end of this entry, is also very significant but it’s barely getting covered at all. And the debate over healthcare reform, arguably the most significant piece of legislation to move through congress in the last two decades, is getting almost no attention whatsoever. Instead we’re hearing all about Michael Jackson’s drug problems and the legal battles over his kids and property. Yes, there are plenty of people who find that shit fascinating, but let them get their gossip from the entertainment news, not the major news channels.

Another story that is perhaps getting too much coverage is the Mark Sanford affair. Here I can forgive the media just a little easier because it does have some political significance, and Sanford is bringing it all on himself. He could have, and indeed should have just stepped down and quietly slid into the shadows, but he decided not only to remain governor but to keep talking in extensive detail about his love affair as though his infidelity were the only issue. I couldn’t care less about his infidelity, and I suspect most South Carolinians feel the same way. It’s not the first time a politician has been unfaithful to his wife and it won’t be the last—not even the last time this year. Not only that, but I do feel some genuine empathy for the man on a personal level. By all outward appearances, he really seems to love this woman, which puts him in a very difficult personal situation. When you’re married but you then find a woman who you believe is really your soul-mate, what’s a man to do?

One thing you don’t do, particularly if you’re the chief executive of a state, is to disappear for five days to go see her without telling anyone. That’s what people are pissed about, and that’s why he should resign. Any ordinary person with an ordinary job would get fired for pulling that kind of shit, especially if they’re in a position of responsibility. If a hurricane had hit while he was away, nobody would have been able to reach him so nobody could have legally given the executive order necessary to declare a state of emergency and get those emergency services in gear. Lives could have potentially been lost because of this. And yet he seems to think that the only issue is the infidelity, and the rest of the republican party (with notable exceptions, I’ll admit) seems to think that as long as he can work things out with his wife he can remain governor, as though the sole criterion for public office is adherence to one’s marital vows. How about making sure your staff always knows where you are?

What he did was completely bone-headed and irresponsible and the only honourable thing for him to do is step down, because if he worked in any kind of real job he would have been fired or at least suspended until he could get his act together. Now he wants to stay in office to “learn from his mistakes” and “grow as a person”. Well, that’s really sweet of him, but the people of South Carolina need a governor who actually does his fucking job—not some caricature of a romance-novel protagonist on a deep journey of personal introspection.

The republican party as a whole had a chance to finally draw a line in the sand and call on him to resign, to say that there are certain things that are unacceptable for a person in public office and that no matter what party you belong to you should resign if you cross that line. That might have helped them out a little in the long term when it comes to their credibility, because as of now they have none. Instead they looked at the short-term political calculations and saw that they’d have a better chance in the next election if he stayed on, and so they asked him to stay. The special interests whom he’s serving as governor also wanted him to stay, so he stayed. The people of South Carolina want him to go, but obviously it’s not up to them—this is, after all, the United States of America, where the public doesn’t participate in government but instead merely plays an advisory role every few years.

While Mark Sanford clings to his office for dear life, another republican governor, the last governor I would ever expect to give up power, actually has resigned. I could hardly believe the news that Sarah Palin was stepping down. That’s the most uncharacteristic thing she’s ever done, and she usually never does anything uncharacteristic. She’s a complete caricature—always doing the dumbest, most attention-grabbing ignorant red-necky soccer-mom thing you could possibly do. The only explanation I can think of is that some new scandal, something even worse than any of the hundreds of scandalous news stories that have already broken about her, is about to come out and she knows she can’t survive it. The only thing I’m sure of is that she’s not doing it out of love for the people of Alaska.

I confess that I’m a bit disappointed to see her go. I was really looking forward to her 2012 presidential campaign, which I expected to be the most hilariously entertaining presidential campaign of all time. She represents everything I hate about small-town redneck America, and it’s been quite gratifying to see all of the negative press she’s been getting over the past ten months. She’s been quite fun to hate, and if she finally does slip below the public radar I’m going to miss her. And yet knowing her I just can’t see that happening. She might just be doing this as some kind of tactic to position herself for 2012, or to open herself up to new possibilities like becoming a day-time talk-show host. Either way, she’s such an obvious narcissistic attention hog that I just don’t see her disappearing any time soon.

One person who finally did decide to disappear this week was Norm Coleman, who’d been holding up Al Franken’s confirmation to the senate for over half a year after the election. Now the democrats have 60 senate seats, which means Obama can finally push through his progressive agenda without having to compromise at all to win republican votes…just kidding. Obama and the democrats are too spineless for that. Harry Reid, possibly the biggest pussy ever to walk the face of the earth, has already said that they won’t have 60 votes to pass healthcare reform with a public option. There are a few senators who are democrats in name only, like former republican senator Arlen Specter and the two biggest sacks of shit in the senate: Ben Nelson and Joe “I-fuck-myself-in-my-own-face” Lieberman. They won’t vote for a public option because it’ll hurt the poor struggling health insurance companies (who let people die for profit).

At least that was the republican argument, and we all knew the republicans weren’t going to vote for any Obama legislation anyway. The democrats, also bought and paid for by the health insurance lobby, had the convenient excuse that they might have to get rid of the public option in order to win some republican votes and break a filibuster, but now they’ve got enough votes to break a filibuster and pass the damn legislation even if it’s just with a 51-49 vote. Independent senator Bernie Sanders has made a very good point—if Ben Nelson and Joe fuckface Lieberman want to vote against the final bill, that’s their prerogative, but what excuse could they possibly have for not voting for cloture and blocking a republican filibuster? You don’t need 60 votes to pass a bill, just to end a filibuster, and if any democrat refuses to block a filibuster they ought to be flagged and removed from office at the earliest opportunity because they will have single-handedly killed the public option, thus killing hundreds, perhaps thousands of Americans whose lives might have been saved by that crucial reform. Any democrat who does not vote to block the filibuster is working for the health insurance industry against the American people, and every effort should be made to destroy them as soon as they’re up for re-election.

Finally, I come to the most important and underreported story of the week: the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities and subsequent escalation in violence. The uptick in violence was fully anticipated by everyone, but that didn’t stop Dick Cheney from warning that this move came too soon and any subsequent violence in Iraq will be all Obama’s fault—conveniently ignoring the fact that it was Bush who signed the order to make this withdrawal at this time.

We don’t know whether the Iraqi army and police forces can handle things on their own, but the experts don’t seem to think that they can. Insurgents who have been laying low and only withholding fire because the Americans have been paying them to do so will probably come back to the surface and the situation will deteriorate once again to the point where the Iraqis—80% of whom want us out of there—have to ask us to come back to the cities and stick around. That’ll cause major problems for Obama and the military, but it may help just slightly in terms of the psychology of the Iraqis. So far we’ve been unwelcome occupiers, but if they have to ask us back to the cities we’ll be necessary peacekeepers. They won’t be able to resent us as much for being there because they asked us to be there. Of course they’ll still be completely justified in resenting us for having invaded in the first place, but since we broke the place it’s our responsibility to stay and fix it. The only worse thing than going in the way we did would be to pull out prematurely and leave the place in chaos. Sorry, troops, but you’re going to be paying for Bush’s mistake for a long long time to come.

Either way, I’ll be happy. If the violence does subside and the Iraqis can govern themselves as a sovereign independent nation—good for them. If insurgents still want to rise up and force Americans to stay—that’s good too because it’ll force the neocons who are already claiming victory to put their feet back in their fucking mouths and shut the hell up. I wrote years ago that anything resembling success in Iraq would be a bad thing because in spite of all the mistakes and unnecessary death the neocons would be able to say, “Hey look, we had a few rough patches but now Saddam is gone and Iraq is a free and democratic society just like we promised it would be—wasn’t invading a great idea? Shouldn’t we do the same thing in Iran, and any other part of the world we don’t like?” At this point, the longer our troops are there, the less chance there’ll be of the neocons successfully campaigning for another invasion in the future.

And that’s it for this week. Tune in next week for more bitching about political bullshit—as long as there’s something to bitch about. I have a feeling there will be.

For awhile now I’ve been meaning to write about my thoughts on Obama now that we’re a few months into his presidency and we now have a much clearer picture of what kind of president he’ll be. Presidents often step back from or abandon many of the promises made or sentiments expressed on the campaign trail, and Obama has been no exception. During the campaign, he called for reform of Wall Street, but his appointment of Tim Geithner to the post of treasury secretary has ensured that no significant change will really occur, and that the boom/bust economic cycle of Ronald Reagan will continue to make the wealthy wealthier and the middle class poorer. During the campaign, he said he would end the Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy but hasn’t lifted a finger to make that change even though as commander-in-chief he could easily issue a standing order that the policy is not to be enforced until legislation to overturn it goes through Congress. During the campaign, he called for openness and transparency in government, but he won’t allow the release of more photos from American prisons depicting torture.

And most grievously of all, during the campaign he called for the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay and a renewed commitment to the rule of law with regards to the treatment of POWs, but his actions have been nothing more than a P.R. campaign. Guantanamo is a symbol of America’s violation of human rights, and by closing it Obama is certainly winning points around the world, but meanwhile the detention centre at Bagram Airforce Base, which is basically just Gitmo in another time-zone, will remain open. Not only that, but for some of the prisoners still at Guantanamo, those who fall into that odd category of definitely dangerous but unable to be convicted due to lack of evidence (or inadmissible evidence because it was obtained through torture), Obama is willing to keep them detained indefinitely without a trial, lest he let them go and they attack Americans. I understand perfectly well why he doesn’t want to let any dangerous detainees go even if the law demands it—a terrorist attack by a former Gitmo detainee released by Obama is the Republican party’s wettest of wet dreams, and Obama doesn’t want to take that political risk. But by refusing to take the risk, by endorsing a policy of preventive detention, he is not only blatantly violating his oath to defend the Constitution, but he is affirming the worst of the worst of Bush’s sins—of claiming for the President the rights of a despot to hold anyone in prison for any amount of time for any reason, thus rolling the progress of human rights back several centuries. When news of this came out, I was just about ready to give up hope entirely, to abandon my already tepid support of Obama and dismiss him as just another bullshit hypocrite American president, superior to Bush only in terms of style while effectively identical in substance.

Then I watched the speech he gave in Cairo. I wasn’t expecting to be impressed by it. In fact, I expected to be somewhat bored by it as I’ve often been while watching other speeches he’s given on issues such as the economy. But this speech was not only completely riveting from beginning to end (foreign policy is just inherently far more interesting to me than economics anyway), but it was actually downright inspiring. For someone who spends a great deal of time dwelling on the question of whether humanity will ultimately destroy itself or come together in common interest, to witness this moment in history actually gave me some hope that maybe, just maybe, it will be the latter.

Before explaining myself, I want to address the most basic and common objection I’ve been reading online, both from columnists and journalists reporting on the reactions of Muslims around the world, which is that it may have been a nice speech but words ultimately mean nothing without the actions to back it up. Of course, it is completely true that actions are more important than words, but in many cases words do matter, especially when spoken by the most powerful man in the world. Bush’s words certainly mattered when he called the Global War on Terror a “crusade”, describing it as a “clash of civilizations”. That set the tone for 7 years of jihad, of violent Islamic radicals easily recruiting angry young men into their ranks to fight a Holy War against the Evil American empire, led by a man who, in his own words, was on a “crusade” against Islamic civilisation.

But now along comes Barack Hussein Obama with his middle name and his background of life experience within the Muslim world, saying:

No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point. But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, “Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.” That is what I will try to do – to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.

Obama understands that this is only a speech, and that he can’t expect the Muslim world to just forget and forgive America’s transgressions just because the president quotes the Koran a few times. That’s why I don’t think it’s fair to criticise the speech because it was only words—of course it was only words: it was a speech. The goal was nothing more than to set a new tone, to open up a dialogue between the current administration and the Muslim world, and to demonstrate to Muslims around the world that just as Islam is not the stereotype of a violent fanatical religious cult bent of the destruction of all things good and decent, nor is the United States the stereotype of an evil empire bent on world dominance and the elimination of all local cultures and traditions. Those who fault Obama for merely talking about improving the relationship between East and West are missing the whole point—in order to improve the relationship you have to start by talking.

And as the speech demonstrated, Obama is willing to talk. He raised every major issue, every “source of tension” between America and the Islamic world, when most American presidents wouldn’t go near them—at least not until near the end of their second term. Obama took the biggest risk of his presidency so far by addressing these points: by announcing his positions openly in front of the world as opposed to keeping them behind closed doors, he opens himself up to be measured by history in terms of how well he lives up to the promises he made and the sentiments he expressed. Just as Americans are measuring him in terms of how his actions as president measure up to his words on the campaign trail, the world will ultimately measure him in terms of how his actions in the Middle East measure up to the aspirations he expressed in this speech.

I will now comment on each issue he raised, starting with the most obvious obstacle standing in the way of peace—violent extremism:

America is not – and never will be – at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security. Because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as President to protect the American people.

This is essentially Obama’s explanation for America’s current actions in the Middle East, and it’s one that most reasonable Muslims can probably accept. Personally, I don’t believe that our presence in Afghanistan is making us safer, but I don’t have all the facts so I don’t know. And while I believe that the first duty of the President is to protect the Constitution (it was Bush who expressed the notion that the president’s primary responsibility was the safety of the American people), this at least serves as a legitimate, consensus-seeking explanation for our actions, as opposed to Bush’s “You’re either with us or against us” rhetoric.

Obama also drew a distinction between Afghanistan as a war of necessity and Iraq as a war of choice. And again, while I believe that Afghanistan was also a war of choice, this is something I’m glad to hear our president say to the Muslim world. He also repeated his commitment to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by 2012, thus inviting himself to be held accountable by the Muslim world and by history if he fails to live up to this pledge.

Secondly, Obama turned to the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, first ensuring he maintain the support of the Jewish community by invoking the Holocaust and imploring Muslims to stop blindly hating Jews, but then bravely expressing the other point of view:

It is also undeniable that the Palestinian people – Muslims and Christians – have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations – large and small – that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.

As someone far more sympathetic to the Palestinians than the Israelis, I was extremely happy to hear the American president speak like this, and not to shy away from the word “occupation” when describing Israel’s actions. But it’s not the words themselves that fill me with hope, it’s the simple fact that he’s saying them now, at the beginning of his presidency, while most would wait until nearing the end of their second term to go near this problem, lest they invite historical judgment based on their success or failure in brining peace to middle east. Because the odds are so overwhelmingly tilted towards failure, the president has demonstrated extreme testicular fortitude by jumping right in at the beginning of his presidency, basically saying to the world, “I take responsibility for this—if peace between Israel and Palestine fails during my presidency, I will own that failure.”

Obama spoke directly to the perpetrators of violence on both ends, and delivered my favourite line of the speech when he said:

It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.

It is one of the most simple, most obvious, and yet most often ignored truths in history—violence against innocents is never justified. No matter how noble your cause, if you seek to advance it through means like firing rockets indiscriminately, kidnapping people and chopping off their heads, throwing acid on the faces of little schoolgirls, or let’s say, holding people in prison indefinitely without the opportunity to stand trial, you have sacrificed your moral authority and your side no longer has any more of a right to prevail than your enemies. More than anything else he said, this part of Obama’s message must be taken to heart by everyone involved in these conflicts, including Obama himself.

Obama continued by addressing nuclear weapons, explaining why it would be dangerous for the region and the entire world if Iran acquired such a weapon and thus began an arms race in this volatile region, and confronted head-on the charge of hypocrisy that immediately follows from such a claim. He renewed America’s commitment to elimination all nuclear weapons including its own, thus further inviting history to judge him based on how well he lives up to this pledge.

One of the most eloquent passages came during his discussion of democracy. After acknowledging the controversy over America’s imposing of democracy in Iraq by clearly stating that no system of government can or should be imposed on a nation by any other, he said:

That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.

This is spoken with humility and respect, and is exactly the kind of thing I would want my president to say on behalf of myself and all of the American people. He does not insist that American-style democracy should be adopted by everyone, but only expresses the conviction that we all share the belief that people ought to have a say in the way they are governed, and should be free as possible to speak their mind and to live as they choose. Again, Obama would do well to listen to his own words when it comes to issues such as gay marriage or Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, as even in America there are groups of people who still don’t have the freedom to live as they choose.

The fifth issue Obama addresses is religious freedom, saying little more than that everyone ought to be free to believe as they choose. Of course I agree, but I don’t think Obama goes far enough in condemning religious intolerance. Indeed, he was much more generous to the Islamic faith in general than I would be—there are just as many Koranic verses condoning violence and intolerance as there are supporting peace and understanding—but I’m not dumb enough to expect or to hope that the American president get into any kind of theological debate. Had Obama said anything that might have been perceived as the least bit critical of Islam as a religious faith, his entire goal in reaching out to the Muslim world have been undermined. It’s a shame that this is the case, and it underscores how difficult it will be to work with nations and governments still adhering to such a stringent belief system, but Obama said only as much as he could say on the subject.

Obama also took a lot of criticism by not going far enough in talking about his sixth point—women’s rights. He merely pointed out that our daughters have just as much to contribute to society as our sons, and that countries where woman are well-educated are far more prosperous than those where they are oppressed. Of course it would have been a lot more satisfying had he strongly condemned this oppression, but Obama knows that when it comes to women’s rights issues, he must tread very carefully or he will alienate an entire segment of the Muslim population that would perceive his denouncement of their patriarchal beliefs as an attack on their religion and culture. So as much as I may despise the way women are treated in these cultures, I must accept the need for the president not to press this point too hard too early on.

Obama’s final point had to do with globalisation, and I believe he once again sent exactly the right message:

I know that for many, the face of globalization is contradictory. The Internet and television can bring knowledge and information, but also offensive sexuality and mindless violence. Trade can bring new wealth and opportunities, but also huge disruptions and changing communities. In all nations – including my own – this change can bring fear. Fear that because of modernity we will lose of control over our economic choices, our politics, and most importantly our identities – those things we most cherish about our communities, our families, our traditions, and our faith.

This is exactly the fear we all have about globalisation, and an issue I will no doubt witness firsthand as I travel the world during these changing times. How much uniqueness of culture will be retained from country to country? Will travelling the world feel less and less like seeing different and exotic lands and more and more like seeing only different departments of the same worldwide multinational corporate empire? It’s already the case that you can’t go anywhere that doesn’t have a McDonald’s, and that saddens me, but it would be nice to believe Obama’s assertion that “There need not be contradiction between development and tradition.” We’re still at the relative beginning of this period of worldwide coming-together, and its ultimate effects on local cultures and traditions remains to be seen.

In closing his speech, Obama returns to the loftly, high-minded rhetoric he is so famous for, the kind of rhetoric that gave me hope in his presidency in the first place. Returning to the question of whether there is any chance for the long-term survival of humanity, I remember Bush’s warning about the “axis of evil” and how it seemed to me at the time that catastrophic destruction was inevitable. Now I sit and watch the American president standing in front of the world and using rhetoric that I thought was only used by high-minded idealists such as myself, imploring the world to think about itself in from a much broader point-of-view, for humans to think of themselves as part of a collective much greater than all of us individually:

All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort – a sustained effort – to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.

It is easier to start wars than to end them. It is easier to blame others than to look inward; to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There is also one rule that lies at the heart of every religion – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples – a belief that isn’t new; that isn’t black or white or brown; that isn’t Christian, or Muslim or Jew. It’s a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the heart of billions. It’s a faith in other people, and it’s what brought me here today.

As a child I imagined a president who would unite the world in peace. The prologue to my book describes such a man, but even in my book I only imagined he would appear on the world stage after some kind of disastrous third world war and many centuries of chaos. But to see Obama standing there and using these words, I could not help but think that perhaps there is a chance for us to avoid that catastrophe and start coming together in peace right now, at this moment in history.

The essence of Obama’s message to the rest of the world is simply this: Grow up. Abandon your juvenile beliefs and your petty grudges. Think about the long-term consequences of your actions. Understand that you are responsible for the people lower than you in the social or political power structure, and operate with their interests in mind instead of just your own. Most importantly, consider the world you are leaving behind for your children, and how if you are unwilling to put the past behind you and extend an open hand to those that have offended you in the past, you are dooming your children to repeat the cycle of violence that you are perpetuating.

Finally, I will end with a reflection on Obama’s pronouncement that the heart of every religion, the Golden Rule, is essentially a “faith in other people”. He did not say “faith in a higher power” and this I believe is probably the most significant philosophical proposition in his speech. I’ve read no commentary about that particular line so it’s safe to say that its significance was missed by the media, and I believe more attention should be paid to it.

Faith in a higher power entails a lack of responsibility on our part to do any of the things Obama calls on us to do. If Allah demands the destruction of Israel, that’s the end of the story. If God intends to ends the world in fire and brimstone and save Christians alone, it’s pointless to even try to extend an olive branch. Faith in a higher power leads to a concern only for those in your circle, whether it’s your family, your local community, your nation, or your religion. When you place your faith in a higher power, your central purpose in life is to do whatever you believe is necessary to gain the favour of that higher power, often at the expense of those you belief are in disfavour. Faith in a higher power is anathema to the success of humanity.

Faith in other people, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. A faith in other people entails an unspoken agreement among all human beings to take responsibility for the welfare of all others. Whether or not God exists, it is up to us to determine the course of our own destiny. We must do what we can within our own sphere of influence to make the world a more just and peaceful place, and have faith that others are doing the same thing within their own spheres. Faith in other people is essential to the success of humanity. Without it, we’re only sitting back and waiting for civilisation to destroy itself. If we don’t believe we have the ability to overcome the challenges we face, that we don’t have the capacity to tear down the walls that divide us and embrace our common interests, then we never will.

So it remains to be seen whether Obama’s words will have a real effect on the attitudes of the rest of the world towards the United States and towards humanity in general. I am not so starry-eyed and naïve that I believe there is any strong likelihood of success, of any realisation of Obama’s vision of “a world where extremists no longer threaten our people, and American troops have come home; a world where Israelis and Palestinians are each secure in a state of their own, and nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes; a world where governments serve their citizens, and the rights of all God’s children are respected” but I do appreciate that the most powerful man in the world is expressing such a vision. No other candidate in the 2008 race would have been so bold.

As I often say, we are standing at the most crucial hinge moment in human history, a time period from which we will either spiral into complete economic, environmental, and violent disaster, or rise to meet the challenges we face and reshape humanity under the principles of freedom, sustainability, and peace. Because those who actually hold power tend to have little interest in these principles, I believe our chances are slim. However, because the masses of people throughout the world do tend to believe in these principles, and because people like Barack Obama are out there promoting them, I no longer believe we are inevitably doomed. As much as I despise some of the choices he has made since entering office, I think that in the long-term when we look back at the Obama administration and consider the speech he gave this week in Cairo, we may just see that he was in fact the right man with the right message at the right time.

Watching the news this past week has been infuriating. Just when I thought I’d exhausted all of the anger I could possibly direct at the Bush administration, these memos are released, the far-right reacts by defending the indefensible, and Obama sends signals that none of these war-criminals are going to be held accountable for the harm they’ve caused. If I ever had any hope of ever being able to say once again, as I did when I was a child, that I could be proud of my country, that hope is quickly dissolving.

There are so many aspects to this issue that I’ll need to write extensively in order to cover everything. I’ll begin by stating the argument from principle, which is the only argument I feel should be relevant to this debate in the first place. For most of its history, the United States has championed its proud tradition of treating its enemies better than they treat us, which is what has allowed us to assert the moral high ground in international relations for so long. As far back as the revolutionary war, George Washington ordered his troops to take good care of the British prisoners-of-war even though the British showed no such mercy to captured Americans. His rationale was clear: the British would not be able to accuse their American enemies of cruelty and barbarism, as much as they would have liked to have done so. This was how we treated our prisoners throughout every armed conflict up to and including World War II, when German soldiers who had been captured by other nations found themselves envious of those who had been captured and treated so well by the United States. Our reputation for honor and civility was no small part of the reason we were viewed so positively by the international community, including the countries we had fought against, in the latter half of the 20th century.

Then along came the Bush administration and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 which happened on their watch. These attacks may not have been preventable, but there was intelligence that Al Quaeda operatives were planning an attack on the U.S. involving hi-jakcing planes. This intelligence had been gathered, incidentally, without the use of torture. But the attacks took place, they were hugely successful, and those at the top responded exactly the way Osama bin Laden wanted them to: they got us entangled in a costly war in Afghanistan. That alone may have been necessary—I don’t know enough about the facts to form a solid judgment. But then they took it one step further, and decided to use the 9/11 attacks to justify what the neo-conservatives had been hoping to do for years, and engage in a completely unnecessary invasion of Iraq. Six years later, our military is over-extended, our economy is crumbling, our international reputation is ruined, and Osama bin Laden is still at large, the Taliban still controls parts of Afghanistan, and terrorist groups are still recruiting new members. Even those who believe these wars were justified can’t seriously argue that we had a brilliant strategy for executing them.

A major part of our “brilliant” strategy was the use of harsh interrogation methods such as sleep deprivation, stress positions, slapping, confinement with insects, and water-boarding. The people who implemented this policy never expected anyone to find out, so when the story broke in 2004 that prisoners at Abu Ghraib were being tortured, Rumsfeld, Cheney and the rest of the gang reacted with shock, pointing their fingers at a few “bad apples” who had simply gone too far. Now we know for a fact that they not only knew what was going on, but they had actually devised and authorized that policy! These soldiers were doing what soldiers in every other military and C.I.A. prison were doing, which is following the recommendations handed down to them from the top. The soldiers at Abu Ghraib were scapegoated, convicted, and a few are still sitting in prison today. Meanwhile, Rumsfeld and the rest of the despicable liars who feigned shock and outrage at the soldiers who had been implementing policies they endorsed are still breathing free air. Even those who believe that torture is justified can’t seriously defend that kind of behavior. If Cheney and Rumsfeld really believe that those methods were justified they should have argued that as soon as these facts came to light, rather than let American soldiers take the fall for a policy they pushed forward.

Which brings me at last to the issue of whether this is a justifiable policy in the first place. There are more sides to this argument than it may seem, so I’ll take it one step at a time. One argument that defenders of the Bush administration continue to use is that this wasn’t torture at all. These “harsh interrogation tactics” were all fairly benign, so what are all these left-wing liberals complaining about? These terrorists are evil people who do evil things so why shouldn’t we be allowed to slap them around a little? Sleep-deprivation doesn’t cause physical pain, right? Being confined in a box with insects that won’t sting you is harmless! And water-boarding is so benign that some right-wing commentators will subject themselves to it just to prove that it’s no big deal.

And yet at the same time, these same people are the ones shouting that these tactics were absolutely necessary to prevent another terrorist attack. There are ticking time-bombs all over the place and we can’t afford to deprive our soldiers and C.I.A. operatives the ability to use whatever means necessary to get the information out of the terrorists.

It boggles my mind that they don’t notice the glaring contradiction in these two arguments! If these tactics are so benign that anyone can handle them, then how effective could they possibly be in getting terrorists to give up crucial information? How exactly is sleep-deprivation (which by definition must be done over a long period of time) supposed to prevent a ticking time-bomb from going off? A terrorist is really going to tell us everything he knows because we make him stand in an uncomfortable position for a long period of time? That’s clearly absurd.

Of all the tactics outlined in the memos, the only one that can be envisioned to work in a ticking time-bomb scenario is water-boarding. If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or Abu Zubaydah had information that could prevent another imminent terrorist attack, and water-boarding was so unbearable that they gave up that information and thousands of innocent lives were thereby saved, the Bush administration might have a justification for their actions. They now want to say that information gathered from the interrogation of Mohammed led to the foiling of a terrorist plot to destroy the Liberty Tower in Los Angeles. Of course, they ignore the fact that this plot was foiled in February 2002, while these interrogation tactics were not put into practice until August 2002, a full six months later. And right now, with the release of these memos, any reasonable person who takes the time to consider the facts would understand that ticking time-bombs had nothing to do with it. These men were water-boarded 183 and 83 times respectively. How effective could water-boarding actually be if they could withstand it 3 to 6 times a day for one month? They didn’t break the first 182 times, but on the 183rd it was just too much take? And if time was such a factor, why stretch the process out? Why give them any break at all between water-boarding sessions if the country is in imminent danger?

We now know from the testimony of actual interrogators that the reason these two men were subject to such harsh treatment was not because of any imminent terrorist attack that needed foiling. Up until the water-boarding began, these prisoners had been cooperating, giving us useful information through traditional interrogation. But the administration officials wanted evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Quaeda, so they ordered the interrogators to use the illegal method of water-boarding to extract this information from them. In order to support the lies they were already telling (Cheney had said even before this that it was “beyond all doubt” that a link between them existed) to sell the American public on the idea that invading Iraq was necessary, they completely tossed our national honor out the proverbial window. Centuries of moral high ground flushed down the toilet for what? To extract a false confession from some terrorists so that we’d have a stronger case for an invasion that was supposedly already justified?

The fact is that these tactics are not effective for gaining useful intelligence. The tactics they used came from the SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) manual, the military’s way of training their operatives in how to resist the illegal interrogation tactics used by Asian communists during the wars of the 50s and 60s in order to extract false confessions from American prisoners. False confessions. Deprive someone of sleep for weeks, keep them as uncomfortable as possible, demoralize them, and soon enough you’ll have a person ready to say anything you tell them to say. Certainly not provide any useful intelligence. Certainly not stop a ticking time-bomb.

Not only are these methods particularly ineffective, but the consensus among military officials is that torture in general does not work, even in a ticking time-bomb scenario. This is a quote from the U.S. military’s Joint Personnel Recovery Agency:

The requirement to obtain information from an uncooperative source as quickly as possible-in time to prevent, for example, an impending terrorist attack that could result in loss of life-has been forwarded as a compelling argument for the use of torture. Conceptually, proponents envision the application of torture as a means to expedite the exploitation process. In essence, physical and/or psychological duress are viewed as an alternative to the more time consuming conventional interrogation process. The error inherent in this line of thinking is the assumption that, through torture, the interrogator can extract reliable and accurate intelligence. History and a consideration of human behavior would appear to refute this assumption.

The most effective method of interrogation, as has been repeated in interviews with actual military and C.I.A. interrogators time and time again, is relationship-building and deception. Make the enemy think you’re a friend, and get him to entrust you with information he would never give to an enemy. This is the method we used with Saddam Hussein, and he gave us piles of valuable information all without a single trip to the water-board.

From the JPRA report quoted above:

As noted previously, upwards of 90 percent of interrogations have been successful through the exclusive use of a direct approach, where a degree of rapport is established with the prisoner. Once any means of duress has been purposefully applied to the prisoner, the formerly cooperative relationship can not be reestablished. In addition, the prisoner’s level of resolve to resist cooperating with the interrogator will likely be increased as a result of harsh or brutal treatment.

This is the method the military and the C.I.A. had been using for decades until the politicians in the Bush administration who had been caught off-guard by 9/11 decided that the SERE methods would be more effective. This was an idiotic, brain-dead proposition, and many in the C.I.A. and the military protested. But these idiots, the same idiots who developed our brilliantly successful “I-doubt-this-will-take-6-months”-invasion-of-Iraq strategy, were higher in the chain-of-command than the military and C.I.A. officials who actually knew what they were talking about, and eventually the hotter heads prevailed by replacing the cooler heads with officials who were willing to see things the administration’s way.

All of this is completely verifiable, publicly available knowledge. Anyone who actually wants to know the truth of the matter can go on-line to any of hundreds of websites (not all of which are run by liberals) or go to the store and buy any of hundreds of books (not all of which are written by liberals) and find this stuff out. Yet millions of people still believe that these torture methods were effective and necessary for the sake of national security. Why? Two words: the media.

The media has done to this issue the same thing they do with every issue, and turned it into a right vs. left partisan political battle royale. That’s good for ratings. You have one person on the far left shouting about peace and love, and another on the far right shouting about protecting American lives. Rarely are any facts actually brought into the debate. You’ll hear each side insist that “the facts clearly indicate that my side is correct” but they don’t mention any facts. Occasionally they’ll toss out a fact such as the foiling of the Liberty Tower plot, but not give the opposition the opportunity to counter that with the fact that the information gathered about this attack was obtained through traditional interrogation tactics. Segments on these cable-news shows only last about 6 minutes, and it’s much more entertaining to fill those 6 minutes with a shouting match than with a thorough examination of the facts.

This is not a matter of right and left, but of right and wrong. Torture is wrong. It’s a very simple statement, one that I think Jesus Christ would have probably agreed with. And I think most republicans would have agreed with it before it became clear that the Bush administration used torture. Then all of a sudden it became a political issue and they had to take the side of their party. Would they have been so eager to justify torture if the policy had come from a democratic administration? Rather than see it for what it is—an assault on morality—they took it as an assault on their party, and rushed to find a justification, so they came up with this ticking time-bomb argument that makes sense on the most basic level but simply does not jive with the facts. If you really want to stop a ticking time-bomb, stress-positions and water-boarding is not going to do it. Maybe pulling fingernails, drilling teeth with no anesthetic, or electric shocks to the testicles would do the trick, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about techniques with only one known utility: to extract false confessions. If we want to have a debate about whether we should be allowed to pull fingernails in order to stop a nuclear weapon from going off on U.S. soil, let’s have that debate, but let’s not pretend that the techniques made policy by the Bush administration actually kept us safe.

The facts—the irrefutable facts—indicate that the effect was quite the opposite. Americans may have no qualms about stripping terrorists naked and pissing on their sacred texts, slapping them around and making them as uncomfortable as possible, but the rest of the world looks at this and does take issue. Not only does it strain our relations with our allies—I can tell you from personal experience that Europeans no longer see us as an honorable nation—but it provides the best possible recruitment material for terrorist and insurgent groups looking for more people to kill American soldiers. An Arab teenager who might not have otherwise had reason to believe that America is evil watches the news and sees what’s being done to his people, and that’s all the convincing he needs. Just ask Matthew Alexander, a military interrogator in Iraq who recently wrote a book on the subject called How to Break a Terrorist, and he’ll tell you that most—yes, most—of the insurgents he captured had been targeting American soldiers because they were outraged about what had been going on at Abu Ghraib. There can be no question that American soldiers have been killed as a direct result of these policies of torture.

So what is there left to defend? Most people would agree that torture is wrong, but some would say the ends justify the means. But these means produced no positive ends. We gained no useful intelligence from the hundreds of water-boarding sessions with Mohammed and Zubaydah, we prevented no ticking time-bombs from going off (despite what they’d like us to believe about the Liberty Tower), and as a result of these policies more of our soldiers were killed than would have otherwise been killed. Their blood is on the hands of Rumsfeld, Cheney, and everyone else responsible for implementing this immoral, wrong-headed, and completely counter-productive policy. And none of this is to mention the fact that these methods were being used at nearly every C.I.A. and military prison, and because it’s statistically impossible that every one of the thousands of people who passed through these prisons were guilty of something, it is undeniable that we caused needless suffering to completely innocent people. Even if only one innocent person was treated in this cruel and barbaric manner, that’s one person too many.

The plain truth is that no good whatsoever came from our use of torture. No good whatsoever.

But finally I must turn to the final argument put up by the defenders of torture, to ignore the countless interviews and reports that clearly indicate the ineffectiveness of torture, and ask the question: what if it did work? What if these top-secret memos that Cheney is asking the C.I.A. to release actually exist, and it turns out that Zubaydah actually did reveal information throughout his weeks of water-boarding that led to the foiling of a terrorist plot that we don’t yet know about (one that would have happened after August 2002, unlike the other foiled plots consistently cited by torture-defenders). Then you might have an argument against convicting the people who carried this policy out.

Notice I say that you have an argument against convicting them, but you still have no reason not to prosecute them. Because in a nation governed by the rule of law, we prosecute people who break the law, regardless of the circumstances. It can’t be denied that water-boarding is illegal. We’ve prosecuted Japanese for doing it to our soldiers—we even had some of them executed. We even court-martialed our own soldiers during the Spanish-American war for water-boarding Filipinos. So if you want to defend water-boarding you have to defend the proposition that breaking the law is acceptable as long as it keeps people safe.

If I had a family that was being threatened by a psychopath, and the only way I could protect my family was to kill this man, the police would still arrest me and put me on trial, as they should. But as long as I was given a fair trail, I doubt any jury would convict me. I’d be given the opportunity to make the case to them that I did what I had to do, and that if I hadn’t done it my family might have been killed. Defense of others is a legitimate legal defense, but one that must be proven in a court of law.

Saying that we should not prosecute those who broke the law by water-boarding because water-boarding works is like saying we should not prosecute for murder—that we should not even put people on trial for murder—because in some cases murder works. But “the ends justify the means” is not always a legitimate defense. If a father suspects his son of taking dangerous drugs but his son won’t admit to having any, is the father therefore justified in torturing his son until he confesses? He could say, “Perhaps it was a harsh method, but I got my son to give up the location of the drugs. My actions kept him safe, so I shouldn’t be punished.” We would dismiss this as a ludicrous argument and throw the father in jail for abuse. Sometimes the ends do justify the means, but often they do not. The question we as a nation have to ask is whether the ends of keeping us safer from terrorists are worth the means of violating the law, inflicting massive amounts of suffering, sacrificing our moral standing in the world, and fanning the flames of hatred towards us throughout the Muslim world, thus putting our soldiers at greater risk of attack.

Roughly one thousand Americans lost their lives in the terrorist attack of September 11. Every two days, as many Americans die of cancer. More American soldiers have died in Iraq than civilians who died on 9/11. The estimate for your chances of dying in a terrorist attack are roughly 1 in 9.3 million, about the same as your chances of winning the lottery. If you live in a rural area, you’re far more likely to die from being struck by lightning or being hit on the head with a meteor than from being killed by terrorists. The previous administration deliberately hyper-inflated the perceived threat of terrorism in order to achieve their own political ends. The president was given the powers of a medieval British monarch, who could toss anyone in prison indefinitely without ever charging them with a crime. There’s certainly nothing original about encouraging fear in the populace in order to gain more power. Kim Jong Il does it. Hitler and Stalin did it. Every totalitarian despot in history has done it.

Yet Cheney insists that the terrorist threat is so great that implementing these policies was completely justified. And even if his highly dubious assertion that these policies were successful is true (keep his “beyond all doubt” statement in mind when considering his credibility), he may have saved a few dozen, maybe even a few hundred American lives on U.S. soil. But a few dozen, maybe even a few hundred American soldiers abroad have paid the price for this, and in addition the moral authority we’ve been able to claim internationally since the time of George Washington has completely evaporated.

This is a country founded on solid moral principles, and to give up those principles for the sake of extra security is indefensible. It would be as though we stood up collectively as a nation and said, “Please, Mr. Cheney, do whatever you have to do, just keep me and my family safe! I don’t care how many innocent Arabs have to be rounded up and tortured, just as long as you get a few guilty ones.” This is a cowardly and dishonorable position to take.

The reason we are so proud of our soldiers is because they are willing to risk life and limb to defend the principles this country is based on. Even if torture did work (and it’s all but certain that the particular tactics we implemented did not), even if it reduced the risk of my being killed by a terrorist from 1 in 9.3 million to 1 in 14.7 million, if the choice were mine I would proudly increase the risk of another terrorist attack to preserve and protect the principles of my country. How am I supposed to be proud of my country if we’re willing to sink to such base and repugnant behavior out of fear? How can I be proud of a country where the leaders can behave like totalitarian despots and not be held accountable for it? I think deep down, most Americans feel the same way, and that most of us would be willing to accept a slightly greater risk of terrorist attack for the sake of our national principles. We are not a nation of cowards, and it is an insult for the Bush administration to have treated us as though we were.

This should not be a political issue. This is a question of right and wrong, and regardless of whether they fall on the left or the right side of the ideological spectrum, everyone in this country should be able to agree that what the Bush administration did by implementing these policies—destroying our national honor, knowingly breaking the law, and infuriating our enemies thus further endangering our soldiers—is completely and undeniably wrong.