My Father and I - the American Narrative

My father, Cecil E Shelton on  shore leave in the

 Philippines after the invasion of Okinawa, 1945.

My father and I had a fraught relationship for the last forty years of his life. What I did not know until just a year or two before his death was that he suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). No one told me this nor, as far as I know, was he ever diagnosed with PTSD, but I finally put it together, with the last pieces of that puzzle falling into place because of a conversation with my aunt, his sister. She told me of his nightmares, his crying and screaming in his sleep – things she had learned from my mother, and of his experience relayed through his conversations with another aunt, also his sister and a World War II veteran in her own right, while on leave during the War.

This, however, is not about him. It is about trying to understand him and the war that made him who he was. In order to do so, I must look at that war, and the peoples who fought that war, including those he fought against. It is about trying to come to terms with what I was taught as a child and the things I learned growing up. It is about trying to put in context those very few things I heard him talk about that war – almost never to us, and to put them in a broader context. It is about my father, the United States, Japan and the Japanese, and how a generation of young men and women on both sides grew up under the influence of the mutual experiences of that war.

In the past forty years or so, I have read a fair amount of literature about World War II. Most of it has been about the war in the Pacific, for what should be obvious reasons. I have not, however, chosen to read about the heroics of American troops, battling their way across that ocean, storming ashore on islands that are now hallmarks of American military history: Tarawa, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, the Philippines. Nor will I deal with that here. There is no need. We – those of my generation, the children of that war’s veterans – were weaned on those stories. Whether what we heard was embellished or not, we know them. We know of hero Marines and evil, subhuman Japanese. Never were the Japanese given a human face in those stories. We might know of the Rape of Nanking, but not of the fire bombings of Tokyo and almost every other major Japanese city. We know nothing of those who lived through or died during those bombings.

This odyssey of reading began when I ran across an English language copy of Saburu Ienaga’s Pacific War: 1931-1945  in the early 1980s. (I still have that book.) Although somewhat dense and assuming knowledge of Japanese history that I did not have, this was the first glimpse I had of a Japanese perspective. And what does this have to do with my father? When I told my father about the book, the vehemence of his “Why would you want to read that?” eliminated any further mention to him of learning about the ‘enemy’s” perspective.

Sometimes those who have experienced traumatic events create narratives that justify those events. It is a form of self preservation. “What I went through was worth it because...” In his case, he and his fellow Americans had saved the world from the “evil Japanese”.  He had seen American soldiers killed on the beaches of Okinawa as he ferried them to shore. Although some of those deaths were by friendly fire (I heard him mention this once when I was really young. He didn’t realize that I was listening to his conversation with other Pacific veterans.), he had to see the Japanese as completely evil in order to live with those experiences. He never questioned that narrative, just as many veterans of all wars from all countries do not question the narratives they have constructed and/or accepted. This is not a criticism of my father. It is an attempt to understand him for I, too, have created a similar narrative for myself. After all, that narrative, which he never saw a reason to question, was largely constructed for him.

It is a narrative that has been made necessary to sustain our constant state of war, our frequent foreign interventions, our seeming need to invade and impose our will on other countries. It is the narrative that we are the good guys, wearing the white hats who have sacrificed so much so people around the world can be free, without considering the incredible amount of destruction that we have caused and how little “freedom” has been the result, be it in Vietnam fifty years ago, Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years or against our native peoples in the more distant past. It is a constant in our history that precedes our founding as a nation... It is the underpinnings of phrases like George Bush’s now [in]famous “They hate our freedoms” and his “You are either for us or you are with the terrorists.” It creates a conformity that views anyone who would dare question our country’s motives for its constant wars or who wants to understand another country’s perspective or another people’s reasons as suspect – and that is what caused my father’s and my divergences over so many things.

One powerful word is sadly absent from that narrative: reconciliation. We are taught to hate them. We are not taught who they are and, when it is over, we move on to our next enemy du jour without either looking back or forward, without reflecting. Today, it is the “hajis” and “ragheads”. All Muslims are suspect. Yesterday, it was “gooks”, represented by the Vietnamese and, earlier, by Koreans and Chinese “chinks”. Before that, we had the “Japs”, the “Krauts”, the “Huns” and myriad other epithets, each reflecting the war from which it arose. And, in between wars, what do we do? We talk about our might and how it makes us right. We seek to keep out those we don’t approve of. Brown people, black people, red people who are within our borders are subjected to the same treatment because they dare to question our narrative. When they ask about their perceived exclusion from “Liberty and justice for all”, we use epithets, other justifications, without attempting to understand why they would feel as they do. After all, it goes against the narrative. We even come up with new epithets to substitute those that are no longer deemed acceptable. Does anyone really wonder why the protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson were called “thugs” and, yet, the bikers in Waco were not, even though more people died in Waco than in Baltimore and Ferguson combined?

And, so, how do we get to reconciliation? How do we attempt to humanize our “enemy”, especially once our so-called reasons for hating him have ended. Perhaps we can look at people who have gone beyond, have attempted to understand not only what happened to them, but also why. We can begin by looking at examples like that of Eric Lomas, a British soldier and prisoner of war of the Japanese, and Takashi Nagase, a Japanese officer and Mr. Lomax’s interrogator. Without going into details, both were wracked with trauma from their years of war - Lomax for what he had endured and Nagase for what he had participated in. Mr. Lomax suffered severely from PTSD. He had been brutally tortured while Mr. Nagase served as interpreter during those interrogations. Nagase knew he had been both complicit and silent during the torture of Lomax and other prisoners. He knew the narrative that he had been told and believed in was a lie. His remorse led him to become a Buddhist priest and to work for reconciliation. The short version of this story is that, in order to deal with his PTSD, Mr. Lomax found Mr. Nagase years later and forgave him. They both became friends and both continued working for reconciliation between former foes. It is an uplifting story, portrayed in Mr. Lomax’s book The Railway Man and the 2013 movie of the same name. Theirs is one story among many from different wars involving different people that are largely unknown. Those are the stories that my father never heard, largely because they ran against the narrative. Would they have helped my father deal with his trauma? I honestly do not know, but it would have also required him to step back from the narrative a little in order to avail himself of them had they been available.  I don’t know if he could have done that, but those are also the stories that we, as humans, need to learn. They are everywhere. They remind us that, in the end, we are all the same. Without them, we are doomed to continue hating, and fighting, and letting our wounds fester rather than heal. We can do better than that.

Peace.

Rachim: My Friend, My Brother:

How can you hate people you know? When you get to know the supposed enemy – by breaking bread, sharing stories, helping one another, it becomes difficult to hate. I wrote the following several years ago, but shared it with only a few friends. With the constant and ongoing rattling of sabers about Iran, I think it might now be appropriate to share with a larger audience.

In Memoriam: Mohammed Rachim Rezaizadeh

On my road to Islam, there have been many influences.  Some have come from simply meeting and getting to know people from Muslim countries, interacting with them, seeing that they were good people, that we shared a common humanity, that we want and desire the same things, be it a reasonably comfortable life or social justice – or both.  One of those was a friend from my days at the University of Arkansas in the mid-1970s: Mohammed Rachim Rezaizadeh.

When I met Rachim, he introduced himself as “Ray”, assuming that, like most Americans, it would be easier for me than using his real name.  I insisted on learning his real name – the one given him by his mother and his father. When I successfully pronounced “Rachim”, he smiled and we instantly became friends.  Even though he has long since departed this life, I still think of him often.  Because of him I developed an unending love of his country and his people and a much deeper appreciation of what family means and does not mean.  From him, I learned... well, let me tell you the story.

In order to truly write about Rachim and why he is so important to me, I will also have to delve into my background and into what was happening in my life at that time.  It was 1976 and I was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in political science at the U of A.  I had been extremely active politically, working with both the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) and the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the early 1970s.  As a result, I had been expelled from the United States Air Force Academy, where I had been a cadet.  I later went on to participate in the siege at Wounded Knee in 1973, where I had been fingerprinted and photographed upon our surrender.  I also had spent some jail time, about six weeks, due to my two convictions for trespassing on a military installation and subsequently failure to appear for sentencing on the second conviction.  (I had chosen to go back to Wounded Knee instead of to federal court.)  Consequently, I was under fairly close surveillance by the FBI and would soon flee to Mexico, with the approval of my attorney.  At this point, enter Rachim.

At the time I met Rachim, I was feeling very isolated.  I had been working with a (very) small Marxist group for about a year before, but they had shunned me because I was “hot”. They were afraid I would bring unwelcome attention from the local Feds.  I got along well enough with and had many acquaintances among non-political students, but very few if any real friends.  I honestly no longer remember how I met Rachim.  I was involved with a young women, Pam, and he began dating her twin sister, Patti.  (I’m not sure if he began dating her before or after we met.)  Rachim saw himself as secular Iranian, but, given his name – Mohammed Rachim – his family obviously was not.  He was vocal in his opposition to the Shah (This was 1976), but understood that the SAVAK (the Shah’s secret police) had long tentacles.  I had only a vague idea about what was happening in Iran and the rest of the Middle East.  I knew virtually nothing about the culture and history of Iran and very little about that of other countries in the region.  That, however, was about to change.

Rachim introduced me to this new and exciting world.  Through him, I began to meet and make friends with Iranian and Arab students from a variety of countries.  There was not talk of Persian or Arab superiority, no Shi’a-Sunni split, only brotherhood and sharing.  These were young men who saw themselves as anti-imperialists, who spoke of social justice and equality, who seemed to be longing for the same things I was.  We spent many long hours – Iranians, Arabs and myself – seated around the hookah, smoking, sharing, talking.  It did not matter to them that I did not speak their language – they all spoke excellent English, which they spoke to me.  Speaking among themselves, they reverted to Farsi or Arabic, unless, of course, they did not speak the same language.  They also knew that I was not uncomfortable around people who spoke different languages.  As for my being the subject of unwanted attention from the authorities, that was par for the course for them.  They also were.

Theirs was a brotherhood and I was welcomed into it with open arms.  I would not know for some time how important this was.  I only knew that, because Rachim knew and trusted me, they came to know and trust me.  Rachim, like all of them – the Iranians, the Arabs from various countries, everyone within this circle of friendship, spoke of each other as brothers – me included.  I had never heard the expression, “My brother and I against our cousin, my cousin and I against the world.”  We were all brothers, cousins.  Rather than go on, let me relate one incident, which also marked the last time I saw Rachim.  It speaks volumes about who he was.  It also speaks volumes about his world, his people and his culture.  It also speaks of a debt that I now have with him, with all Iranians and, by extensions, all people from the Middle East and all Muslims.

In the fall of 1976, my position in the US had become untenable.  The Federal harassment had increased and I made the decision to flee the United States.  Pam and I packed an old car and drove it to Brownsville, Texas, accompanied by her sister’s three year old daughter Bianca.  They would serve as a “cover”, giving us the appearance of a family, albeit a hippy family, driving down to the coast.  Patti and Rachim would join us in a couple of days, which they did.  After we arrived, things did not go well for us (the details are not important.).  Our money soon ran out and Rachim had to return to Arkansas.  He knew that I had a brother living in Dallas and suggested that I go with him, so I could ask my brother for help. We pooled our money and, calculating how much we needed for gas to get to Dallas, we gave the rest to Pam and Patti.  We then proceeded to Dallas, where we spent the night with some of his friends.  The next morning, I called my brother and made arrangements to meet him at the DFW Airport, where he worked,   Rachim took me there and agreed to pick me up in about an hour. To make a long story short, the only help my brother offered was to find me a matchbook so I could light my cigarettes.  Other than that, he was unwilling to do anything.  When Rachim picked me up, I was extremely depressed.  Here I was, facing the prospect of leaving the country, perhaps forever, with no money, not knowing where to go or what to do, and my brother, my flesh and blood, had been unwilling to help me, just as my father had refused a couple of weeks before.  (That story need not be told here.)

Noticing my state, Rachim went into action.  He told me that he needed to visit some cousins in Weatherford, about sixty miles to the west.  He also mentioned that one of them was a fairly good barber.  As my hair was well below my shoulders, he thought it would be a good idea for me to “clean my act up” before crossing the border, so as not to arouse any suspicion on anyone’s part.  What I did not realize until later is that this was merely a pretext for me to accompany him.  

We drove to Weatherford in relative silence.  (I am not very talkative when experiencing a serious case of the mulligrubs.)  Upon arriving at his cousin’s apartment, we found him and another half dozen or so Iranians in a rather heated discussion with their landlord.  I do not remember exactly what the discussion was about, but always enjoying a good verbal fray, I jumped right in, citing municipal codes and tentants’ rights, much to everyone’s delight – with the obvious exception of the landlord.  (It’s probably not necessary to say that I was citing codes from Fayetteville, Arkansas – not Weatherford, Texas.)  After the landlord left, Rachim introduced me to everyone as his friend.  We visited and, a short time later, I noticed that everyone had disappeared into a back room.  Rachim soon came out, took me out onto the walkway in front of the apartment and put fifty dollars in my hand, saying that this was all he and his friends had on them and that, if I could wait until the morning to leave, they could come up with at least $200 more.  I was stunned at their generosity.  They did not know me, had never seen me before but, based upon Rachim’s word and friendship, everyone had delved deeply into their pockets.  “My cousin and I against the world...”  I was a friend; thus, I was family – and family had nothing to do with blood, but everything to do with human solidarity.  This was their way.

I was anxious to leave, so I asked Rachim to take me to out to the highway, where I would begin hitchhiking back to Brownsville and then cross the border.  When he let me out, we said our goodbyes.  I was never to see Rachim again.

Fast forwarding, when the Iranian Hostage Crisis started in 1979, I began to read in the Mexican press rumors of an impending crackdown on and deportations of Iranian students in retaliation for the seizure of the embassy compound in Tehran.  I went to the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Mexico City where I, the supposed enemy, was graciously received.  They were unable to give me any information on the impending deportations in general, much less on Rachim’s case in particular.  (One must remember that at that time, Iran and the United States did not – and still do not – maintain diplomatic relations.)  Several years later, after returning to the United States and reencountering Pam, I learned that Rachim had left the US voluntarily.  (He and Patti had gotten married, in a vain attempt to forestall his eventual deportation.)  After the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War, Rachim was drafted, sent to the front and disappeared.  Presumably, he was killed and his body was never recovered.  Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.

It has been thirty-five years since I have seen Rachim and I only knew him for a relatively short period of time and, yet, I think of him often.  Today, I realize that I really knew – and still know – very little about him.  His mother was still alive back then, but he hadn’t talked to her in three years (until I told him to call her on my telephone just before I left – I had no intention of paying the bill.  They talked for over two hours.)  He was from a city three hundred miles to the south of Tehran whose name I do not remember, if memory serves me correctly (which it probably does not).  I have no photos of him and today cannot even remember his face.  He was about my height (I’m short for an American male raised in the “Heartland”) and he had black hair, a dark complexion and dark eyes – but I just managed to describe the vast majority of Iranians.  I do not know anything about the rest of his family, save the cousins that I met so long ago.  What I do know is that Rachim introduced me to a sense of family and human solidarity that I so desperately needed, because my own family and my own society had failed miserably in that regard.  He showed me the human face of another region of the world and of other peoples, societies that my own country would come to vilify and paint in the most brutal terms.  He was raised in a religion that would be demonized, but that I would come to love and accept.  He showed me that those future characterizations were lies before they became so commonplace in our country.  He also showed me that his ethos was not his alone, but belonged to many other peoples, peoples that time has taught me to love and respect.  He taught me that, if I were to see him today, the correct greeting would be “Assalamu Alaikum”.  He also taught me, perhaps unintentionally, that every time I meet people from his country or from his region, I would be encountering people with whom I had much in common.  I am, after all, a member of the same community.  I, like Rachim and all others, am a human. We would all do well to remember that.

On Bilingualism and the American and Brazilian Ways of Life, Respectively.

Q: What do you call a person who speaks two languages?
A: Bilingual.
Q: What do you call a person who speaks three languages?
A: Trilingual.
Q: What do you call a person who speaks four or more languages?
A: A polyglot.
Q: What do you call a person who speaks only one language?
A: An American

The joke cited above, told throughout the world in countless languages – with the notable exception of in English in the United States, illustrates a free ranging conversation I recently had with my niece Deborah. Among other things, we touched on the subject of people speaking other languages in public. She mentioned angry reactions that she got from people because of her effort to learn enough Spanish to communicate with customers at the convenience store where she worked. As she lives in Idaho, those customers were among the many migrant workers who flock there to work in the potato harvest. Most,  presumably, are Mexican. Deborah felt that she was doing a good thing by attempting to help others out and delighted in telling about the positive reinforcement that she received from those Spanish-speaking customers, who helped her learn vocabulary and corrected her pronunciation. Those customers were extremely appreciative that someone –  anyone – cared enough to try to help out. Some of her other customers and coworkers where less thrilled. They criticized her with that overly-trite and repugnantly dismissive attitude that “They’re here. They should learn English.”

No one – including those migrants – disputes that learning their new country’s  language is not only desirable, but also necessary. Anyone who has studied the question likewise knows that many of those being raked over the coals for not doing so are adults whose children go to school.  They know that their children will learn the language and, more often than not, act as interpreters for them. Language acquisition as an adult is more difficult than it is for a child, especially if those adult have lower levels of education and / or are working long hours at low pay in order to support their families. This, however, is not the point I wish to address.

Deborah’s comments confirmed my own personal observations back home in Oklahoma, both as a bilingual and as a casual observer. I am, as most readers already know, a native born and bred Oklahoman, and spent over 40 years of my life in that state. My wife, however, is not. She is Brazilian but lived in Oklahoma from 2005-2011. Because her English is rather limited, we always spoke Portuguese both at home and in public. Consequently, I was able to observe other people’s reactions to what they perceived to be non-English speakers – and what I observed was often not very pretty. We were subjected to hostile stares and occasional snide remarks. (Those making remarks never realized that I am a native speaker of English. They simply assumed that I didn’t speak English because I was speaking another language.) Rudeness was the norm. Solidarity was rarely expressed. We were shown that we were not wanted... “You’re in America. Speak English!” was what we saw in their eyes and felt in their attitudes.  “Go home!” was the unspoken message.  Most, upon learning that I was already “home”, assumed that I was the child of immigrants. (I’m not. I’m sixth generation Okie.) They simply could not conceive of why anyone would ever bother to learn another language. After all, you only need to know English because this is ‘Murica, right?

In contrast, Brazil is totally different. I have always spoken only English to my children. It is my language and it is how I choose to communicate with them. This is as true for Georgia, now 23, born in Brazil and raised in the US as it is for Jack and Melissa, ages seven and five respectively, born in Oklahoma and growing up in Brazil. We have never been subjected to scornful looks, dismissive attitudes or anything else negative because we speak English in public. Period. (Okay, there is one exception to that which I will mention later, but those involved were not Brazilians, even though it happened here.) We are greeted with curiosity – supportive curiosity. Brazilians, unlike the folks back in the States, realize that bilingualism is not only a good thing, it is an amazing gift when you are able to give it to your children. People ask us where we are from. They ask if we are visiting or if we live here and are ALWAYS pleased when they find out we not only live here in Brazil, but are locals, living in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais. They comment on how cute it is to see our small children speaking English and then be able to turn around and speak Portuguese. Jack and Melissa are fluent for their ages in both languages and separate them with ease. English is for Daddy and Portuguese is for Mamãe. They also speak without “foreign accents” in both languages. My small fries own both languages, which is how it should be.

Okay, so what was that exception? Georgia’s grandparents were immigrants from Portugal who arrived in Brazil in the late 1940s and 1950s. They lived in a neighborhood in São Paulo with many other Portuguese immigrants, including close relatives – brothers, cousins, nephews and nieces, also all Portuguese. Being more insular than Brazilians, they were none too happy that a foreign (i.e., non-Portuguese) interloper had somehow managed to penetrate the sanctity of their family and, consequently, would complain that they couldn’t understand what I was saying when I spoke to Georgia. They wanted me to speak only Portuguese with her in their presence. My response was, well, not very acceptable, at least to them. I would simply inform them that I would speak to my child in my own language.

That somewhat less than civil answer is also what I expect anyone else to give, no matter who they are and no matter where they are. A person’s language is part of that person’s identity. To be expected to not speak your language is to be expected to deny a very important part of who you are. My ex-wife’s family never understood that, just as many people back in the good old USA also do not understand that. Their attitude was very similar to the attitudes of the xenophobes back home who feel insecure when faced with another language, or with anything else with which they are unfamiliar. In short, they are uncomfortable with the “other”.  It is not an attitude that I frequently encounter in Brazil.

As a middle- and high Spanish teacher in Oklahoma, I often had students who complained about people speaking Spanish in the grocery store. “They’re talking about us, making fun of us!” was a refrain that I heard more than once – far more than once. “No,” I would tell those students. “I’ve listened to them. They’re complaining about the prices, wondering if the bread is fresh, talking about what happened at work. In short, they’re talking about the same boring things you and I talk about at the grocery store.” And I would then shake my head because, no matter how much or how often I reassured them, those students weren’t willing to accept what I said. After all, their attitudes had come from a lifetime of reinforcement in their homes from their parents, grandparents, siblings and from society in general. “The other” is, by definition, suspect.

To finalize, one of the greatest disservices that we, as a nation, commit to both ourselves and to everyone else is our unhealthy attitude in regard to the rest of the world, as exemplified by our refusal as a society to learn other languages. That refusal reflects the arrogance for which we are known throughout the world, be it as obnoxious tourists or as Marines attempting to inject the world with a little democracy.  By that refusal, we are telling the world that we are better than everyone else and, therefore, the rest of the world needs to accommodate us wherever we are and whatever we are doing. We, obviously, have no need to accommodate them. That is what “American exceptionalism” means to the rest of the world.

POSTSCRIPT: Check out this link. It beautifully illustrates the above. You can’t make this stuff up.

http://www.occupydemocrats.com/watch-tea-partier-warns-learning-other-languages-is-jihadist-socialism/

Otra Voz Canta / Desaparecidos

The following video, also posted at the end of my blog entry "On Torture: No me pongas la capucha", really sums up everything I have written and expresses it far better than I ever could. In it, Daniel Viglietti sings "Otra voz canta" and Mario Benedetti recites his poem "Desaparecidos". Even if you don't speak Spanish, listen to the words and watch the images. You will understand.

On Torture

On Torture: No me pongas la capucha.

Photo taken by William Shelton in Guatemala City, July 1988

No te suplico. Te advierto: no me pongas la capucha.

     – Mario Benedetti

Knowing where to start is somewhat difficult. Do I begin with the recent release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Report on CIA Torture? Or do I go back further and, if so, how much further? How do I tie everything that is floating around in my head and consciousness together into one coherent thread. I’m not sure. Maybe I should simply state what is on my mind.

When the United States invaded Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, photographs of prisoners taken by or turned over to American forces began to circulate almost immediately. Invariably, those prisoners were hooded and bound. The photos were  uncomfortably familiar to me. I had seen them before – often. Since then, the similarities between what I was already well aware of and what was now happening, endorsed and carried out by the US government, have become all too apparent.

We have been shocked – or not – by the release of the report on the use of torture by the US military and the CIA in the so-called war on terror. The report details many, many instances of “enhanced interrogation techniques” or “alternative methods”.  The current presidents of Chile, Brazil and Uruguay – Michele Bachelet, Dilma Rousseff and José Mujica, respectively – can all give personal and intimate testimony about this. They experienced it first hand: Bachelet for one year, Rousseff for three years and Mujica for 13, often at the hands of agents trained by the United States. They call those “techniques” by their correct name: torture. If you want to know what was done to them, just read the Senate Report. It’s all there.

There is a constant immediately apparent in the Senate report, information reported in the US press about Afghanistan, Iraq and the “War on Terror” and the experiences of prisoners throughout the Americas and elsewhere: hoods. Invariably, prisoners have been hooded and bound when taken and transported so they could neither see nor move. They are completely defenseless, totally at the mercy of their captors, be they South American agents of repression in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s or representatives of the US and their proxies today. The remaining “techniques” are also the same.

As a young woman – kidnaped by Chile’s military, tortured and then expelled from the country alone at age 16 – stated in testimony reported by the Centro de Estudios Miguel Enriquez in 2013:

“They always taped our eyes shut, blindfolded us and then covered our heads with a hood. They would laugh at us, offer us food and then give us orange peels. They kept us awake at night so we would lose all notion of time.”

I have left out the more graphic details of the abuse she was subjected to, largely out of respect for her and all of the other victims who suffered similar fates in myriad other prisons scattered about this hemisphere and elsewhere, including at the CIA’s so-called black sites and US military facilities.

Many of these Latin American torturers and their superiors were trained by the US military and / or CIA agents masquerading as US AID officials. One of the better known examples of the latter was Dan Mitrione, captured and executed by Uruguay’s Tupamaros guerrillas in 1970.  Mitrione advocated using "the precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect,” according to William Blum in his work cited below. A large number of known torturers and advocates attended the US Army’s School of the Americas either in Panama or at Fort Benning, Georgia after that school was moved there in 1984. Among its more notorious graduates are Argentina’s Generals Viola, Videla and Galtieri, Bolivia’s General Banzer, numerous underlings of Chile’s General Pinochet, El Salvador’s Roberto D'Aubuisson who planned and ordered the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980. There are countless others from too many countries to name here, but least one graduate, Argentina’s Colonel Mario Davico, went on to advise El Salvador’s military during the 1980s about what was cynically called the "Argentine Method". That “method”, used during Argentina’s “dirty war” from about 1974 to 1983 included arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial executions and ways to dispose of victims’ bodies.  Hoods were omnipresent. There are still over 30,000 Argentines missing from that “war”, which was nothing more than state terrorism.

To give you an idea of how extensive the US’s involvement in the promulgation of torture has been, you will find a table reproduced below. It documents the training of both the military and police by the US in countries which have been identified as  practicing torture by Amnesty International.  Please note that this table includes neither El Salvador during Ronald Reagan’s administration nor Cuba prior to 1959. It also only covers a period of 29 years, ending 35 years ago. In short, it is extremely out of date – and yet it is also extremely telling...

Countries with US Training using Torture  – 1946 to 1975, Identified by Amnesty International

Source: The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, Chomsky N, Herman ES, Spokesman (1979), ISBN 0-89608-090-0, pg 361.

So why am I delving into this “old news” in response to the Senate Report? If you have been paying attention the last several decades, you already know this is just a repeat of the past. Our use and sponsorship of torture abroad is long and ignoble. We have done this before and, unless we react and make ourselves heard, we will do it again and again and again. As Americans, we have short memories. We forget because, well, it’s just a whole lot easier to do so if we want to keep on selling ourselves as the New Jerusalem, the shining city on the hill, a country that always takes the high road. Unfortunately for us, we are the only ones buying this deception. The rest of this world knows. Today it is the Middle East. Yesterday, it was Latin America and Southeast Asia, and over one hundred years ago, it was the Philippines during the Moro Rebellion after a glorious little war with Spain fought only to expand our empire. And tomorrow, who knows. At some point, if we continue being momentarily shocked at this country’s transgression du jour, only to forget as soon as it is convenient for us to do so, the chickens will come home to roost.

As Mario Benedetti says in his poem "No me pongas la capucha", cited above, “I am not begging you; I am warning you: Do not cover my head with a hood.”

Suggested Bibliography:

Blum, William. Killing Hope. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2008. Updated edition.

Langguth, A.J. Hidden Terrors. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978.

Brown, Cynthia, ed. With Friends Like These: The Americas Watch Report on Human Rights and U.S. Policy in Latin America. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985.

CONADEP (Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared). Nunca Más: A Report by Argentina’s National Commission on the Disappeared. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986.

Feitlowitz, Marguerite. A Lexicon of Terror: Argentina and the Legacies of Torture, Revised and Updated. London: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Brazil Archdiocese of São Paulo, author, Joan Dassin, ed. and contributor. Torture in Brazil: A Shocking Report on the Pervasive Use of Torture by Brazilian Military Governments. Austin: Univerity of Texas Press. 1998.

Human Rights Watch. Guatemala: Getting Away with Murder. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990

Further information about the School of the Americas, recently rebaptized as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, is available at the following website:

School of the Americas Watch: Click here.

The following link from School of the Americas Watch website makes available training manuals advocating the use of torture, extortion, blackmail and the targeting of civilian populations that were used at and by the School of the Americas. :  Click here.

The following video, in which Daniel Viglietti sings "Otra voz canta" and Mario Benedetti recites his poem "Desaparecidos" expresses far better than I can everything written above. Even if you don't speak the language, listen to the words and watch the images. You will understand.

Thanksgiving 2014 - Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil

I’ve been ambivalent about Thanksgiving for several decades, given its origins and my own personal history. After all, we know that the myth it is built upon - arising from that supposed first celebration shared by Pilgrims and Natives way back when - consciously denies what came afterwards: wars of genocide, centuries of lies and abuse, an eternity of broken promises and treaties, and a deep, blood-red stain on our country’s soul. This year, however, I’ve had to rethink my posture. No, I haven’t been wrong all of these years. That’s not the issue. It is my son, Jack, aged seven.

Jack, my little man, is my mirror. He is, in so many ways, who I was so very many years ago. He makes me look back at when I, too, was more innocent and did not understand the “subtleties” that history throws at us. He, like me, loves his country and he, like me, lives far, far away from our homeland. Unlike me, it was not his choice but, in spite of his tender age, he remembers where he is from and identifies with the United States. Yes, my son is thoroughly American.

A few days ago, he called me up at work to wish me a “Happy Thanksgiving”. It was his initiative. I don’t about talk this holiday at home. He’d been reading about it on the internet and knew it was on a Thursday in November. He just missed it by a week, which is pretty good, considering that no one is pushing this holiday here. Many Brazilians know it exists, and that’s about as far as it goes, especially considering that it is not a holiday here and has nothing to do with this country. When he called me, I thanked him, explaining that Thanksgiving is on the fourth Thursday of November. He quickly found a calendar, counted the weeks off and excitedly shouted, “It’s on the 27th! Next week!”

So, here I am. How do I proceed? Do I give the lowdown about how the holiday is wrong, how it should be a national day of atonement, or do I give in to the myth? Identity is a tricky thing and, as much as I love Brazil, I am, first and foremost, an American. It’s in my DNA – almost fifteen generations, not counting my Cherokee ancestors who met the rest of my family at the beach, so to speak. The last five generations have been in Oklahoma. I was raised on the myth. I believed in it when I was his age and now Jack wants to know about and celebrate this holiday – which inevitably leads to the next question: how do I teach my son the history of the land where he was born? How do I teach him about who he is and where he is from? How do I guarantee that he will be able to transit comfortably and knowledgeably between the culture of his homeland and that of his mother’s country, where he is being raised? How can I make sure that he will be comfortable in his skin as both an American and a Brazilian?

The question of his Brazilian identity will take care of itself. He lives here, goes to school here, celebrates its holidays, studies its history at school, speaks its language, which he does everywhere, including at home with his mother. Jack –  for better or worse (and I think it is for better), like it or not (and I do like it) – is also Brazilian. It is the American side of the question that is more difficult. I am the only American he sees, other than his sister Melissa, who is almost five. Everything I say about Jack’s identity also applies to her.

My relationship with my country has been difficult, mostly probably because I was raised on the myth, the promise of equality inherent in its founding documents. I drank deeply from the well as a child and believed what I was taught. The Constitution was, for me, the most sacred of documents. (In fact, it still is, but more on that later.) Its founding fathers were the prophets of a new age where people were free and where those free people would protect and extend that freedom to others. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Patrick Henry, and all of the others were my heroes, my role models. My ancestors  served on the Continental Line and, during the Second World War, my fathers’ generation defended what those earlier heroes had established. They had all fought for freedom and won. Soon, however, I got old enough to see the cracks in our foundations. My hometown’s schools were segregated. I saw the Freedom Riders being attacked, their buses burned on the evening news. I learned about slavery in school but later found out that version had been sanitized. The Indian Wars, well, they just weren’t even really taught, but Dee Brown would change that when he wrote Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. John Kennedy was assassinated, and then his brother Robert and Martin Luther King. There were riots. Vietnam kept rolling on and on and on, seemingly for no good reason. My Lai was uncovered and the Pentagon Papers were published. The lies began mounting and, yet, somehow, I was still naive enough to dress up in Air Force blue, but that lasted for only 361 days, two hours and 27 minutes. The dream had seemingly died and I began fighting back – against the war, against racism, against those violations of the American dream that I had been weaned on. The years passed. We fought more wars, all of which felt like reruns of Vietnam. (They just changed the jungle for the desert.) I left the country, returned, left again, returned again and then left again, this time more or less permanently, but knowing that the United States has a hold on me that I cannot shake.

And now, my son wants to celebrate Thanksgiving... What do I tell him? The truth? Whose truth? Which truth?

If I look deeply into my own heart, I know I must teach him how to decide whose truth to believe. I must teach him to find his own truth – not mine, not the official truth but his own truth. How do I do that? Well, maybe I have to start with what I know: I still deeply love our country. It is home. Its original promise, though unfulfilled, still rings true in my heart. Those early beliefs of mine – enshrined in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the writings of our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) – are what inspired me and made me fight back. Those principles guided me then – and they still do. Our country was founded to establish freedom with justice. We have strayed, failed, fallen down, but somehow keep getting back up and moving forward. Often it seems that we take one step backward for every two steps forward, but we still are moving ever so slowly in the right direction. With all of its problems, we have progressed in the 238 years since declaring our independence and the 391 years since that supposed mythical first Thanksgiving in Plymouth. Do we have a long way to go? Absolutely. Recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and elsewhere show us that, but we have also come a long way.

And so that is where I must start with Jack: with the myth, because there is, in fact, a kernel of truth in it. He is only seven, so I will start with that kernel, with that same promise I believed in as a child. It is my obligation to teach him the truth as I understand it but it is also my obligation to give him the tools and the information he needs so he can discern his own truth in the future. I must, however, give him these things in a way that will not overwhelm him. He is young. We have time to get where we need, but to get there, we must take that first step.

Tomorrow, for the first time in my adult life, there will be a real Thanksgiving in my house. When we sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, one of the things I will be most thankful for is my son Jack, who made me realize that it is time for this celebration to finally take place.

Dilma and the Doctors

Last night, we scored another victory. The Federal Chamber of Deputies voted 430 to 9 against proposed constitutional amendment PEC 37 that would have gutted the Public Ministry’s ability to independently investigate crimes and wrongdoing by public officials. While I do not believe for a second that all of those “no” votes were sincere, I do give credit to the people in the streets for this. Having won another round, let us turn to the subject at hand: health care.

During her speech to the nation last Friday evening, Pres. Dilma Rousseff offered a series of platitudes, made some vague promises and mentioned a few ideas for action that she would undertake in response to those protesting throughout the country. One, a plebiscite to elect a constitutional convention to deal with political reform has already been largely set aside. Another,  her proposal to import physicians to help counter inadequacies in the public health sector, is being greeted with a large degree of skepticism. (Plans previously announced in Congress talk about bringing in up to 6,000 doctors from Cuba and other countries.)

The public’s response to this is perhaps best summed up by an internet meme that goes something like this, “Where are all of these new doctors going to treat their patients? In stadiums?” Another photo making the rounds shows Dr. Alex Araujo’s office in rural Minas Gerais (see accompanying photo). It is in a space which also serves as the local school’s library and kitchen. You can readily see cracks in the walls, a two-burner cook stove with a small gas tank next to it, numerous plastic pails, buckets and other types of containers, a storage shelf in the corner that seems to double as a book case, an extremely small wooden table behind which Dr. Araujo is sitting, and a chair in which we see a patient. There is also an open window that appears to have no glass in it.

A large part of the skepticism greeting Pres. Rousseff’s initiative to improve the country’s public health system (SUS – Unified Health System) arises from its crumbling infrastructure and the corruption within it which (like with many other public services) further diminishes its already inadequate resources. In other words, we need to improve what we already have on the ground before we bring more doctors into the system. If we don’t, where are they going to work?

Don’t get me wrong. I really like SUS. We don’t have anything like it in the United States. With all of its failings and all of its problems, even the poorest in this country are treated free of charge. They will be attended to – if there is a clinic within a reasonable distance and if it is staffed, of course. (We won’t even ask that it be adequately staffed at this point. That’s an altogether different question.) Here, for instance, you won’t be driven into bankruptcy if you develop cancer. We cannot say the same thing back home.  One of the reasons my family and I came back to Brazil was the availability of good medical care at an affordable price. I’ve already stated elsewhere that my wife and children benefit from private health insurance and, for a variety of reasons, I rely on SUS. I have had no complaints, but my situation is not the norm. I want to see SUS benefitting everyone in this country because most of the population does not have the means to pay for private health care.

Let’s take a look at a few numbers. According to its own statistics, 80% of Brazil’s population depends on SUS. That means SUS is the only option available for almost 160 million of Brazil’s 196 million people.  (Remember that over 72% of Brazilians make US$605 / month or less – mostly much less. It is their only option because private health insurance is out of their reach. Without SUS, they would have no access to health care at all.) Roughly 130 million people have access to SAMU (Mobile Emergency Service), which means they can take advantage of services analogous to EMS (Emergency Medical Services) in the United States. That population is essentially concentrated in urban areas, which also means that people in rural areas are not as well served, if they are served at all. In a similar fashion, the bulk of SUS’s six thousand hospitals are located in urban areas, as well as their 45,000 clinics. There are, however, a couple of problems. First, the rural population is largely left out of the loop and, secondly, what infrastructure there is, as stated earlier, is poorly maintained and understaffed. SUS has an extremely difficult time attracting doctors, particularly young doctors at the beginning of their careers, to rural areas. When you also consider the facilities, or rather, the lack of facilities awaiting them, coupled with extremely low pay, it is a small wonder there are any doctors willing to work in SUS in the first place.

For an example of a rural facility, all you have to do is reread my description of Dr. Araujo’s clinic above or just look at the accompanying photograph. Facilities in urban areas are hardly any better. The news media has been having a field day of late showing legions of broken down ambulances that have been scrapped due to little or no maintenance, warehouses filled with defunct hospital furniture and equipment. They are also reporting on under staffing. News stories abound, telling drastic tales of massive waits in grossly understaffed emergency rooms, about sick and injured patients who have to wait for hours on end to be tended to, insufficient beds, people being given IVs that are suspended from nails pounded into walls while they sit on wooden benches or, if they are lucky, metal folding chairs, patients stuck in rickety wheel chairs because the stretcher they should be lying on simply doesn’t exist – and, from time to time, patients dying while they wait. All of this makes for sensational journalism – and that sells, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the nations’ journalists don’t have to look far to find something to report on.

And the doctors? What of the doctors? How do you attract good doctors when the average pay in SUS is US$884 per month.  (Average salaries per state range from $329 to $1,883. Those on the lower end of the scale are often in rural areas.)  How do you attract doctors to horribly under served rural areas when, in addition to the paltry salaries we have already mentioned, the working conditions are on par with – or even worse – than those Dr. Araujo faces day in and day out? Nevertheless, all of the doctors I have met in Brazil are qualified, highly trained professionals. Let me repeat that: they are qualified, highly trained professionals who, at least in the public sphere, are also used to working under adverse conditions. When the fancy equipment breaks down in US hospitals, our doctors often don’t know what to do until a replacement unit is found. SUS’s doctors don’t have that luxury. They often don’t even have the equipment. They have to practice medicine based on their knowledge, training and experience. And, yet, they are still there, practicing medicine. Brazil has been blessed with many dedicated doctors for whom their profession is a calling. Those are the doctors who have attended me. Dr. Araujo, whom I do not know, is a shining representative his profession in this country.

How are doctors reacting to President Rousseff’s proposal? Not well would be an understatement. Here in Juiz de Fora, SUS’s doctors will be joining their colleagues on July 3 in a twenty-four hour strike across the country to protest what many see as a slap in their face. (Emergencies will be treated. Optional procedures will not be performed.)  Dilma spoke of bringing in “médicos de qualidade”, which can be translated as either “quality doctors” or "qualified doctors”. Either way, those here are both – and SUS’s doctors are outraged. They are asking the same thing the rest of us are: where are these imported doctors going to work if our infrastructure is inadequate? What they want are investments to improve the hospitals and clinics, to provide adequate equipment and to maintain that equipment once they get it, money for medications that patients need, etcetera, ad infinitum. For them, importing doctors can wait. Without structural improvements, bringing more in will not make much of a difference.

In the meantime, construction on pharaonic and overpriced facilities for both the upcoming World Cup and Olympics is continuing – and we are still in the streets.

Dr. Alex Araujo's clinic in rural Minas Gerais.