That was the thing about Hitchens, he took no prisoners. He had this total clarity of his beliefs, but unlike many dogmatists he truly had a deep reserve of knowledge about the things he felt strongly about, and even more importantly he wasn’t afraid to revise his views as he grew. He did this most famously after 9/11, when he broke from the Nation and the Left generally and supported the war on Iraq and other aspects of the Neo-con agenda. Regardless of how you feel about that break, and how it looks over time, you have to admire his chutzpah.

But to my earlier point, to hear Hitchens speak was stunning, he was so utterly confident, had so much knowledge at his disposal, had such confidence without the blemish of hubris, that he was always the smartest person around, always the best debater, and would always take on all comers.

He died, of course, last week, and I can’t help but feeling it is really a true loss. This was one of our greatest intellectuals, fierce, passionate and searching. More than the death of anyone I can imagine I feel this loss as something that is really profound because of the rich writing, debates and ideas we are deprived of had he lived longer.

And just a few days later another one of my heroes, Vaclav Havel, passed on. Havel had been sick for many years, on and off, and reports of his demise were common. He was a former chain-smoker, imprisoned many times under harsh conditions, and he lived a wild, Bohemian life, none of which is associated with longevity. At 75, he had a pretty good run and the man certainly achieved a lot.

Havel personified a small nation’s struggle against a faceless, souless form of tyranny. Even after he was thrown in jail repeatedly, denied his occupation, and forced to do menial labor, he refused the authority’s efforts to force him into exile, even though he was celebrated in the west and would have lived well. He saw things through, continued to put himself out there and on the line, forming Charter 77 in the late 70s, a landmark human rights campaign that preyed on the consciousness of the Communists and certainly helped bring about their demise. When the events of 1989 unfolded “Havel na Hrad” (Havel in the Castle) was the battle cry. And soon there he was, the philosopher/playwright and reluctant politician. The Rolling Stones and Frank Zappa were admirers and stopped by to see him. He reportedly rode a scooter through the castle’s corridors. He helped a tiny country, which had just split in half (after Czechoslovakia became the Czech Republic and Slovakia), manage incredible transitions in a peaceful manner. And he enabled that tiny country to punch above its weight because of his moral authority, addressing the US Congress and winning the Presidential Freedom Award, just a few of the countless awards and accolades he earned and which brought a spotlight to the Czech Republic and broadly to the Eastern European countries transitioning from Communism. He helped stimulate the imaginations of many young people who saw a beautiful, newly liberated country and wanted to try something new, just like the Czechs were doing.

I was one of them. I arrived there in the spring of 1998 with a backpack and a guitar and started reading Havel. His idea of speaking truth to power, of “living in truth”, was one of the things that lingers with me the most. To this day it reminds me that not denying our nature, being honest with ourselves and others, being a good person, are essential characteristics to leading a decent life. Reading Havel and following the arc of his life helped me be a better person.

I also had the chance to meet him on a few occasions through the work I was doing at the time. He was shy and didn’t speak English well, and he didn’t seem comfortable in the limelight. I interacted with him and his office on numerous occasions when he had something to say to the world about injustice or human rights and it was an honor and a privilege.

But by the time I had arrived the Czechs had soured a bit on Havel. A rather crabby and envious people, they seemed to hold him responsible for the country not realizing after the Velvet Revolution the utopian vision that was crushed by the Soviets during Prague Spring in 1968. They were displeased that he married a b-movie starlet a year after the death of his beloved wife Olga. I remember reading Havel saying the Czechs were in a “bad mood” in the late ’90s. They almost always are, and I still feel that they didn’t quite appreciate how special he was for a country like theirs.

And then there is the death of Kim Jong Il. The death of a tyrant coming right after these almost incredible men…. I’m reluctant to lump it together yet feel like it warrants inclusion. Kim Jong Il was a man who received everything in life solely because of who his father was and because of the despotic, hereditary system he set up. He was famous for his cruelty and his tastes for luxuries, even as millions starved in his country. It’s probably wrong to look for meaning in the timing of these deaths, yet I wind up always doing that kind of thing because I have this conviction that things are linked in ways we can’t know. Perhaps the link is that if you have these brave men, who fought passionately for their beliefs and the dispossessed, you have the other side that needs fighting against.

I’ve posted a few times about that relationship, and argued many times with Rindy–on the blog, by email, over drinks, we may have even text-argued about it, mainly about the use of drones. I’m pretty unsympathetic when it comes to the Pakistani point of view. There’s no doubt that it stems in part because of a conviction that the Pakistani security forces bear some responsibility for the horrible murder of Daniel Pearl, a killing I felt very closely.

But mainly I just find it exasperating that we are paying billions of dollars in aid to a country that takes our money and helps our enemies, all of which has led directly to loss of American lives.

On the day that the US officially declares its war over in Iraq, we are also moving towards ending our war in Afghanistan. I fully support this–sick of propping Karzai’s bizarre and corrupt government, spending billions that is much needed at home and, most of all, still losing American lives in that barren graveyard of a country.

But this essay did what good journalism can do at times: educate and demonstrate a different point of view. There is much to be gleaned from Keller’s piece about the Pakistani point of view, some of which was new to me (the details on how effective the Pakistani military has been in Swat and the loss of life it suffers when it battles the Haqqani clan, for instance) and some of which wasn’t (its all-consuming obsession with India and how that drives its policy).

It may have gotten me thinking a bit more broadly about Pakistan and how it views its relationship with the US, but I still support what former CIA official Bruce Riedel wrote in this op-ed about the US pursuing more of a “containment” policy when dealing with Pakistan. And I definitely support both opening the textile trade in the US while drawing down on the amount of direct financial aid we are giving to essentially a military run country that enables the people that kill US soldiers and undermines our policy.

In the interest of bringing discussions like this out of email and into the public, let me expand upon my argument and respond to some of Jeremy’s points. For brevity’s sake, I’ll keep it to two points.

Obama continues torture

“I’m under the impression that we have stopped waterboarding and most forms of enhanced interrogation.”

Jeremy’s impression is technically correct; President Obama signed an order on his first day in office to ban waterboarding and other techniques. But forces in the field can still employ prolonged isolation, sleep and sensory deprivation, and force-feeding, techniques which have been cited as cruel and unusual. Moreover, the rendition program, in which we transfer prisoners to other countries (like Libya) to be tortured, continues uninterrupted. Most troubling is a report that the CIA has a complex in Somalia, where it directly pays guards’ salaries, and to which it brings prisoners from all over the world, god help them.

Beyond the policies themselves, the fact that Obama gave a pass to the enablers and architects of the torture program means that those choices remain open to future administrations. Because he refused to prosecute them as crimes, they have now become policy positions, on which respectable people can disagree. You have a Republican field saying they would bring back waterboarding, but if Obama were honest about how hard and dirty he’s fighting the terrorists he’d win every red vote in the country. Which brings us to our next point.

Drone bombing continues

“I support the drones, mainly because I don’t want US troops on the ground.”

This presumes that we need to attack or invade any country in which a so-called “terrorist” is found. And it blindly ignores the fact that so many civilians, even children, are killed by these sky robots of death. It is a heartless and backward policy, which is bound to result in deadly blowback for America.

“You never come up with anything as an alternative to drone strikes, you only reply with the same tired bumper-sticker ideology of ‘killing a terrorist creates more’. How will you feel when [someone] succeeds in blowing up a truck bomb in Times Square?

Sadly, something terrible like this is very likely to occur as a result of these strikes. The failed Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, very nearly pulled off the trick, and cited American drone attacks in Pakistan as one of his motivations. The drones “don’t see children, they don’t see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody,” he said in court.

At a meeting last month, Pashtun tribal elders described the sounds of drones hovering over their villages during the day, and launching Hellfire missiles at night. A teenager who volunteered to gather evidence of civilian deaths was killed by a drone one week later. My “alternative” to drone strikes is the absence of drone strikes. I do not believe in a military solution to the problem of terrorism; I would point out that ten years of war in Afghanistan did not prevent Faisal Shahzad from acting, but 3 years of drone strikes compelled him to act.

These are some of the foreign policy failures of Barack Obama, a president who ran on a platform of restoring America’s reputation in the Muslim world. As Jeremy said, Obama’s election bought us much goodwill in the Middle East. But that has all been squandered by his policy decisions. The evidence shows a clear and steady decline. I would argue that these trends will eventually lead to more, not less, terrorist attacks against the US.

I’ve noted a few of these places before and their similarities. To me the baseball steriod scandals and the failure of banking regulators to adequately police risk prior to the financial crisis are analogous. There was bad behavior on both sides but it’s more the failure of the groups that were set up to regulate those industries and administrations that are there to safeguard their integrity. Call me a cynic, but I just don’t think we can depend on people to do the right thing. We have to adequately police them.

So while it may seem distasteful to read about Lauder’s various tax-dodges, they are all legal and I could easily see him justifying them with his philanthropic activity.

I’m about a third of the way through Treasure Islands, a book about tax havens. It’s truly disgusting the way the rich and corporations have been able to set up myriad ways for them to avoid paying their fair share. This to me cuts right to the heart of the matter.

I’d really like to see some of the OWS outrage get focused on the issue of taxes. Focus first on reforming the US tax code, and then start to move more aggressively against the global system of tax shelters and the countries that provide them.

But with Washington seemingly at a standstill, unable to do anything productive for the country, is there anyone that thinks our politicians are up to the task of taking on the extremely wealthy special interests that benefit greatly from this system?

60 Minutes, most definitely one of my favorite things on television, did something the previous week on Jack Abramhoff and lobbying that also almost turned my stomach. I feel like our system has been almost fatally corrupted. I also support the idea raised in that segment that if you’re an elected official or work for one then you have to then agree to not work as a lobbyist, at least for a set number of years. Abranhoff was able to buy the influence of key staffers by offers of employment when they leave Congress, and those are very lucrative positions.

So the DL’s comments this week that China is practicing “cultural genocide” are noteworthy. These remarks come at a time when monks are immolating themselves, a trend never seen before the last few months. Is there any real doubt that China is trying to essentially destroy Tibetan culture, or at least neuter it so effectively that it becomes simply a curiosity for tourists (not unlike Hitler’s dream of the preserved Jewish ghetto as a monument to a lost race)? I’m not great fan of religion, but I’m a strong believer in people’s right to worship as they see fit, and preserve their cultural heritage as well, which is why what the Chinese are doing in Tibet (and Xinjiang) is despicable. In addition to flooding the province with ethnic Han Chinese via all sorts of incentives, they directly infringe on Tibetan’s religious rights in everything from having their own leader (the DL) to how they worship day to day. It’s not that different from China’s Christians, who can’t select their own leaders either, except Christian culture is not native to China (and that’s if you consider Tibet an actual part of China) and Christian culture isn’t in danger of being destroyed.

This bothers me enough on its own, but the Israel/Palestine situation comes to mind as an example of where the world uses one set of standards for one group and one set of standards for another. No doubt the continued building of settlements on what will almost certainly be a Palestinian state is wrong and has to stop. But everything that is happening in West Bank is as a result of wars of aggression being waged by the states surrounding Israel.

The Tibetans by comparison never did anything aggressive, they just got invaded by the Communists after they won their civil war. This Tibet issue has been around ever since, and it’s the source of fashionable political posturing for sure. But the DL isn’t on stage at the UN demanding a state, even though he has a better case for one than the Palestinians. It just goes to show that rising Chinese power makes people “realists” and Israel’s comparative size (and lingering antisemitism) makes “idealists” of those same people.

China has also been in the news this week being mentioned (along with Russia) as practicing state-sponsored corporate espionage. It’s heartening to hear them called out for this, but little surprise to anyone who follows China’s business culture. The entire Chinese economic miracle has been built on cheap labor and stolen IP. In fact it’s instituationalized–if you want to form a joint-venture in many sectors of China’s business-world you have to share the IP with your partner (who very frequently exits the JV in a few years, takes the IP, and starts their own business, under-cutting their former partner).

Look, what China has achieved over the last several decades is extraordinary and worthy of praise. Hundreds of millions of people have been pulled out of poverty, and it’s been a steady source of growth in the last few years, when arrogant Western policy-makers certainly didn’t see the systemic risks that literally almost destroyed our society.

But they’re building their entire industrial revolution on the backs of western ideas and continue to steal regularly. That’s why it’s so frustrating to hear about Chinese officials saying they can’t take concrete steps about carbon emissions because China is poor and needs to burn coal and the West is more responsible for polluting the world. It might be true that the West has done most of the polluting but China is reaping many of the benefits of our years of polluting by leap-frogging ahead. They also can’t keep their currency artificially low, dump products in the US to foster their own industries, and otherwise provide illegal tax and real estate breaks for their companies against WTO regulations and then cry foul when they’re not considered a true market economy.

My fear is that the US continues to decline and China continues to grow and its arrogance in asserting its interests, coupled with its child-like screeches of anger any time someone touches upon issues like human rights, Tibet, the death penalty or artistic freedom only make it harder to deal with.

There is a lot to say about the job situation, but alas that is not for this dispatch. But I’ll say that everything that has happened over the last month has been colored by the opportunity and acrimony that are sometimes a part of changing jobs.

So, I had first gone to an Ear/Nose/Throat doctor after noticing hearing loss in my right ear.  He thought it was probably ear-wax buildup; he removed some and said to come back in a week if I still had problems with my hearing. I did and we did some testing which showed significant hearing loss in the right ear. The doctor thought it was probably a virus that had gone to my ear and damaged the nerve; he could have offered steroid therapy to counter-act the virus, but only if I had come in right away, and I had gone months before going to the doctor after noticing that I couldn’t speak on the phone on my right side (and after around a year or so of feeling a faint under-water feeling occasionally in my ear). Nothing really to be done in that case, but the thought was let’s do an MRI to make sure it’s not a rare tumor that sometimes grows in the nerve of the inner ear.

The MRI revealed an acoustic neuroma, a tumor that is fortunately benign but was nonetheless growing inside my head and affecting my hearing. He said it could affect my balance and other things and I should see a specialist to discuss options.

There ensued the rapid series of decisions that have me on the cusp of surgery as I write this.

I met with several leading specialists (fortunately I live in New York City) and learned that an AN is a slow-growing tumor (they estimated by its size—2.5 centimeters by 1 centimeter—that it was likely in my head for 6-12 years) and among the options I could consider was to just leave the thing alone: it’s not cancer and that option would allow me to head to the Caribbean for a scuba-diving trip, as I had been dreaming about for weeks, carefully planning my job search to provide me with a nice amount of time off before starting after labor-day. I actually pulled it off, got the job and the time, I just got a tumor instead of a vacation.

The other options were for radiation or surgery. Highly focused gama-radiation does an effective job of killing the tumor and leaving it at its current size, but essentially dead. It is also a quick out-patient procedure, no overnight-stay in the hospital needed. The problem is it is about 80% successful, and if you’re in the 20% of it not working doing surgery to treat the area, which is sensitive scar tissue after the gama-radiation, is far riskier in terms of damaging other nerves, in particular those that deal with facial function (my most feared scenario in all of this).

The doctors I met with all agreed that surgery was the way to go for me. If I was at a significantly later stage of my life wait and see would be an acceptable approach because I may not be around for that much longer. But I’m only in my mid-30s and this thing will continue to grow so it quickly dawned on me that the best thing to do was to get it done as soon as possible. Fortunately I was able to schedule surgery quickly, with doctors I have faith in, and I have every belief that I will make a full and rapid recovery, aside from the loss of hearing in my right ear, which will likely be complete after the surgery. I’m also fortunate that I have the time off to recoup for starting the new job, and an employer that is very supportive about the procedure and flexible about the start date.

It’s been strange to tell people about it, to witness the various reactions of sympathy, strange to be someone who has never had a health scare to suddenly be someone who is telling those close to him about a tumor and upcoming skull surgery.

But I’m feeling pretty calm about the whole thing actually. I’ve thought about it in recent days, and while I’m sure a bit more anxiety will creep in as the big day is upon me, I realized that it’s out of my control and all I can do is be calm. I was faced with a series of choices when I got the diagnosis: surgery now or later, which doctors, health insurance issues, recovery plans, etc. But now those plans have been made and all I have to do is get on an operating table, allow them to insert an IV, and then go under for around 5 hours. I won’t know a thing until afterwards, and by then it’ll be over.

And what if it is totally over and I don’t wake up? I had been thinking ever since I bought this apartment over the winter that I should have a last will and testament. So this experience finally got me to get my affairs in order. I’ve had the necessary discussions with friends and loved ones. The risks of mortality for this procedure are miniscule, but you can’t deny that they are going to open up my head and poke around, things could go wrong.

And I’ve been thinking about the recent spirituality junta because thinking carefully about death made me realize that I don’t believe in heaven and hell. I realized that if I don’t wake up from the anesthesiologist’s dream then I’m just gone. Maybe I’m willing to entertain the idea that some part of me—some kind essence or energy—may live on, after all they say that energy is never destroyed. Maybe there will be some nebulous feeling out there, some patch of energy that exists outside of time and with people that I’ve been close, and when they think of me maybe I’ll actually be there in some real way, something like that. But probably not. I talked about the John Barth book I read, Nothing to be Afraid of, at the spirituality junta. He wrote about how he has old photos of his long-deceased parents, but it occurred to him that there are no moving images of them or recordings of their voices. They are still beings captured in photos, more alive in the minds of their sons, aged themselves, who will pass away in the not too distant future. Will those pictures of them live on? Only perhaps as curiosities to their future relatives. Unless you’ve achieved rare fame, we’re all ultimately forgotten.

And I’ve actually found all that comforting rather than disturbing. All we have to live for is right here and now. It doesn’t mean to me that because I don’t believe in an after-life that life is point-less and there’s nothing to look forward to. Quite the contrary, I think it’s essential to live life as best you can, to live it richly, to value the relationships you have, to make each interaction with another person as meaningful as it can be. And it’s hard to do that, but I think part of this experience is realizing that for me in way I was aware of but now I really know.

At one point during the last month I said to myself, “I’m going to turn this into a positive experience”. That might be a bit too far—hard to fully spin a tumor in your head as a good thing. But I can find positive             things to take from it. I look around, 4 and half years after I came back from China, on the verge of a new job, with a lots of great things going on my life. I just got have to get past this one thing.

So early morning tomorrow (Wednesday, 8/17) I’m going in to the hospital, I’ll lay down on the table, close my eyes, and around 6 or so hours later I’ll wake up and start getting better. A friend called (one of the positive side-effects of this experience: quality conversations with people I care about) when I was writing this and I told him my feelings about being calm, about it being out of my hands. He said it reminded him of how he feels every time he flies—you trust your safety to the pros flying the plane. That’s what I’m doing. And I’m almost ready for take off.