FARAI CHIDEYA, host:
This is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya.
On today's Roundtable, President Bush says the U.S. will no longer, quote, “stay the course” in Iraq, and should you hire a shrink for your baby?
Joining us from our New York bureau is E.R. Shipp, professor in journalism, Hofstra University School of Communication, and John McWhorter, Manhattan Institute senior fellow in public policy. Plus in Nashville, Tennessee, at Spotland Productions, Jeff Obafemi Carr. He is host of the radio show Freestyle.
Now welcome everybody, and let me go straight ahead to the White House. Two weeks shy of Election Day, the White House is changing its language and perspective on Iraq. The phrase stay the course is out. I'm not sure what's in, but this is what White House Press Secretary Tony Snow had to say.
Mr. TONY SNOW (White House Press Secretary): The president is determined not to leave Iraq short of victory. But he also understands that it's important to capture the dynamism of the efforts that have been ongoing to try to make Iraq more secure and therefore enhance the clarification with a more - a greater precision.
CHIDEYA: Jeff, what was that?
Mr. JEFF OBAFEMI CARR (Host, Freestyle): (Unintelligible) there's a reversal of fortune, it was a change of mind. It was a change of terminology, and that's rare in this administration. It's rare in all Bush administrations, whether it's read my lips or stay the course. There tends to be a development of a certain phrase that's a catchall phrase, spreading freedom.
We hear these words that are going to become a part of the lexicon of the political philosophy of the Bush administration, and we see this change. It's almost momentous in the sense. And it's kind of convenient that it's coming a couple of weeks before the elections when that is a huge issue. Iraq being here, where problems in Iraq had been placed squarely on this debate table for the American public to embrace as an issue.
I don't know if it means anything. I think it's just a smoke and mirrors. I don't think it's going to mean a solid change in policy, although we also have heard that now we're going to try to get out of Iraq in 18 months.
So I think time will tell whether this is just going to be more rhetoric or is this is just a way to keep from - keeping - having people incensed that we are staying the course when apparently the American public wants us to leave.
CHIDEYA: Well, E.R., just to get back to what Tony Snow said. You know, he was a broadcaster for Fox News. You're a professor in journalism. I wasn't very clear on that clip. Were you clear?
Professor E.R. SHIPP (Professor of Journalism, Hofstra University): Nor did I quite understand what he was saying in terms of the actual words he used. I understood what he was doing in terms of strategy.
CHIDEYA: What was he doing?
Prof. SHIPP: He was trying to send a message out to those people who are gullible enough to believe that the United States has a real strategy. That we shouldn't remember what they've been saying in saying stay the course. And we should start thinking that they now have a real plan because they now think the Iraqis are going to be able to take over.
But this is all - this is not going to happen. This - there was an interesting analysis in The New York Times. Let me read a little bit of it.
Given the rise in sectarian killings, a Sunni-based insurgency that appears to be as potent as ever and an Iraqi security establishment that continues to have difficulties deploying sufficient numbers of motivated and proficient forces in Baghdad, General Casey, he is the commander in chief over there, General Casey's target seems to be an increasingly heroic assumption.
The Iraqis have not even been able to come up with 2,800 good soldiers to work in the Baghdad area. So whatever Tony Snow's words were and whatever their goals are in terms of the elections, the reality is Iraq is not capable of taking over.
CHIDEYA: Yes. So this - another story is saying, you know, 12 to 18 months, the Iraqis will be able to take full control of their own country.
Prof. SHIPP: Ain't happening.
CHIDEYA: And, John, what do you think about that? And also is this moving from stay the course to stray the course?
Mr. JOHN MCWHORTER (Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute): Well, obviously. Yeah, I mean whatever Tony Snow says and however he happens to put it, I think we have to see what he is actually referring to. And the key thing about Iraq is that really there's no such thing as Iraq the way there is such a thing such Poland or even in the United States.
And the fighters that we're training to supposedly will be part of the Iraqi army are people whose deep-seeded loyalty is not to something called Iraq with a flag, but to their clan. It's much more local, and that's not something you can fix by, you know, putting pretty words together.
And like, for example, crucial little insight. This Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdist Army is a fantastic army as these things go. They've got the discipline. Everybody is scared of them. They blow things up. And the fact is that those people, those conscripts are just these poor, raggedy, uneducated, unemployed people. Just the kinds who you would expect throughout world history would make a lousy army. The reason they are so good is because they are part of a clan. It's brothers and sisters and cousins and things like that.
Whereas, on the other hand, under the official Iraqi army in many places, including this highly-contested Anbar province, often only one out of three people show up. And so in terms of staying the course…
CHIDEYA: Well, John, you know, just to point out, I mean there's a lot of reasons people might not want to sign up for the Iraqi army. Three hundred people died just during the month of Ramadan, which is a holy month. So a lot of people would consider this one of those tough jobs that you might not want to get.
Mr. MCWHORTER: Oh, sure. But people might also feel the same why about 21 of the militias where people get killed, too. So I'm just saying that there is a local kind of loyalty, that people are willing to die protecting their brother or their sister. But as we've often heard, they often don't want to go somewhere else and just defend Iraq, because to them that's not a realistic concept.
That is what we're up against, and, you know, 12 months, 18 months that sounds nice. What he is basically saying is the year or a year and change. And he is just tossing that out there. I don't see what their actual plan is to cut through the very sectarian, clannish orientation that this supposed army has.
CHIDEYA: Well, let me ask you this, John. If there is so much sectarianism, and there is, how can we leave in 12 to 18 months? Won't that just cause the civil war that even some army officials have hinted could happen?
Mr. MCWHORTER: You know, the saddest thing, Farai, is that yes it would. If we left, those people will be at each other's throats. Moqtada al-Sadr's militia has lately been fighting another also Shiite militia. So we have this fragmentation. The fact is would our staying be any better? And how comfortable are we at this point sending our own, really children and generally children of the working class and below, to fight this. So I think we're in a really tough situation and…
Prof. SHIPP: And General Casey is even suggesting they're going to send even more…
Mr. MCWHORTER: More.
Prof. SHIPP: …soldiers to the region. I would say let's leave. Let them figure it out. We can be on the borders to maybe protect other countries who are our allies.
Mr. MCWHORTER: And that means leave a civil war, and that's unfortunately what we did. I think we're almost stuck with it at this point.
Mr. CARR: And in some ways we caused that, you know.
Mr. MCWHORTER: Yeah.
Mr. CARR: That there was at least more stability. You know when you have - you know there's a problem when you have Iraqis who are saying that at least under Saddam Hussein we felt safe and secure. And if you stayed out of politics, you had order and safety around you. And I think that makes a statement that now there's been a lot of anarchy caused by the United States.
They've sort of pulled out - there's a double-edged sword. You pull out and say we'll just let them fight over what's left. And at the same time you want them to fight over goals that you're setting, like developing a way to share the wealth of oil profits among every religious and ethnic group. I mean, I'd love to see a proposal like that in America where you share the profit for major corporations among all religious and ethnic groups. We don't do that here. So give that as a goal, and then just take off.
CHIDEYA: In L.A., we can go to Beverly Hills High and - go to Beverly Hills High and make them share the oil pumps in the backyard with Crenshaw High.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CHIDEYA: Not going to happen.
Mr. CARR: You can have a civil war in California. Right?
(Soundbite of laughter)
CHIDEYA: Probably. Probably will be at some point. Actually, let me move on to another topic that is related to how we deal with the war on terror, you know, just in general. Now there has been a whole question in the United States about how we deal legally with detainees, and now governments around the world are saying hey, you know, we're treating detainees no worse than you are. Jordan is one of those nations. Is that really the worst possible example for us to set, E.R.?
Prof. SHIPP: Well, it is an example that we have set. And we have to deal with that because of the confusion coming out of the Bush administration on what the policy will be, should be and is when it comes to detainees at Guantanamo and how we outsource prisoners to other countries where we know they will be probably be tortured - well, other countries are saying, well, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If the United States sets the standard, we will follow that standard.
Now, there's some cynicism in that, too, because the U.N. official who is making those comments wants to make a real point. He wants the United States to become more, I guess, committed to the Geneva Conventions, and committed to the whole notion of what the United Nations stands for when it comes to detainees. So there's a whole cynicism thing going on, but you can also see why other countries are saying if the United States can do it, we can do it, too.
Mr. MCWHORTER: You know that's also, though, it's an incomplete story this point. Kind of like, you know, the rumor that Osama bin Laden had been caught and then we didn't hear anything. In this case, everything that E.R. says is true, but we have to wonder because officially, it's only Jordan that we're talking about at this point. It's not a whole chorus of countries. And unless we know exactly what kind of torture we're talking about in Jordan, it's hard to say.
It's not as if we've heard this from, say, Syria or Pakistan where it's quite clear the sorts of things that they will do. And the general supposition has been that these are more overtly destructive, hideous things than anything that even the Bush administration - who has been ridiculously cagey about this, and it scares me, too - has ever been. I mean, torture - you know, read about what happened in Algeria with, you know, the French torturing people in the ‘50s. We're talking about degree here. So I'd just be interested to know, other than Jordan, who else would be trying to use what we did as an excuse?
CHIDEYA: Well, one thing in this report that stuck out to me was that the U.N. envoy, he's actually - his title is Special Investigator on Torture. Now, that's a title - Manfred Nowak.
Prof. SHIPP: How does one qualify for that job, I wonder?
CHIDEYA: Yeah, yeah. How does one qualify not to take that job? That's what I would be asking myself.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. CARR: Now that's not one I would take.
CHIDEYA: But, you know, he was saying that he tried to go to Russia and interview detainees and he couldn't see them. And, you know, he couldn't go to Guantanamo and interview detainees. So it's not even just a question of, you know, what actually is happening. But it's also, is there transparency? Is there openness?
Mr. CARR: And the answer is no. You know.
Mr. MCWHORTER: I don't think there's much transparency or openness. And it's very interesting, because it's not as if he hasn't been invited to Russia. It's not as if Nowak has not been invited to Guantanamo. He's been invited to Guantanamo and Russia with a condition: well, you can come and visit. Please inspect the facility. Just don't - you can't talk to any of the detainees.
Now, inviting somebody to visit a facility but refusing him access to the detainees is like inviting a food critic to review your restaurant without letting him sample the food, then ask him for a golden review. And I think that's what Nowak is saying here. How do we expect the world to react? Sure.
We see it in Jordan. We don't hear it in Pakistan yet. We don't hear it in Syria yet, but we're hearing the grumblings. When you hear stories of Pakistani young men who were part of the detainees, or one of the detainees at Guantanamo who were cleared, and basically, came home a different person.
They were shadows of the people that they were, and now are becoming folk legends in their communities that are inspiring people to go out and fight, because the only thing this person had other than a different personality that was diminished was a letter saying that you're no longer considered a terrorist. You're cleared. But no explanation and no apology for what they went through in those facilities. So I think that those kind of things began to fuel movements that will be anti-U.S.
Mr. CARR: Yeah.
CHIDEYA: Yeah. E.R., let me move you on to a different topic: therapists treating infants. Now, the field of mental health goes, you know, over all sorts of things from severe mental illness to, you know, baby blues and - all sorts of things. But now, there's been a lot of study of how mothers treat children if they themselves, for example, are depressed. But now, therapists want to treat the babies. Is that backwards or is this progress?
Prof. SHIPP: I don't know what this is, Farai. When we were children - and that wasn't all that long ago. We're not talking about once upon a time way back when. You had elders in the community who knew how to help mothers raise their babies. They had seen certain things. They could work with the mothers and the infants. Maybe the answer is to go back to something like that rather than going to therapists. That, to me, reminds me of something that I came across a few years back where some neighbors of mine were taking their cats to psychiatrist - cat psychiatrist.
And the cats were being given stuff like Prozac and stuff, and it's like come on. What are we doing here?
CHIDEYA: And I bet that they were charged a ton of money for that, too.
Prof. SHIPP: Yeah. So what are we doing here? Let's go back to the basics.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. CARR: You know, I think that - it's interesting, as that's the kind of story that I think it can sound a little froufrou. It sounds like some sort of, you know, Upper West Side conceit. But the fact is that we might be making advances in how parents might often unintentionally communicate things to their small children.
And to the extent of this is therapy, it's really about interactions between the parents and the babies, rather than going goo-goo at the baby in laying the baby back on a couch. There might be something to it, because, you know, very early in life, you can really, really F, dot, dot, K up a child without knowing it. And maybe we can learn things about that that even the grand old elders may not have known. Just a thought.
CHIDEYA: Well, you know, I mean, and I think that is definitely worth talking about. But these sessions are like $85 to $250 per, and some people are just going to be totally priced out to them. I think it's going be…
Prof. SHIPP: They don't need to be in it in the first place.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. CARR: That's kind of the - yeah, that's kind of an interesting thing. They're always - there's this notion of its easier to build a child than it is to fix an adult. And I think that you can lean that way in the social sciences, too. And something E.R. referenced was very important.
You know, in many African countries, there's the notion of when a child is born, you pair them with the grandparents or the great grandparents and the elders. One just coming from heaven, one getting closer to there. And there's some connection there.
And I remember when I had my daughter. I asked my sister - this poor, sweet, loving woman that she is - to watch my daughter for a couple of hours. I kind of came back to get some keys I left at the house ten minutes later, my sister and my daughter were gone. And I said what happened? And I went to my mom's house, and my sister was there because the baby started crying. She didn't know what to do. And she ran to my mom's house and she - you know, my mom. My mom had the baby and was calm.
And there was nothing wrong with the baby. So in that instance, there's something about that maternal wisdom that allows that connection. Whereas my sister at that time, bless her soul, she may have taken that child to a psychologist if my mom hadn't been around.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CHIDEYA: Well, and dropped another 250 bucks.
Mr. CARR: Another 250. CHIDEYA: We'll have to leave it right there. We've been talking to Jeff Obafemi Carr, host of the radio show Freestyle, John McWhorter of the Manhattan Institute and E.R. Shipp of Hofstra University School of Communication. Thank you all so much.
Prof. SHIPP: Thanks.
Mr. MCWHORTER: Thank you.
Mr. CARR: Thank you.
CHIDEYA: And as always, if you'd like to comment on any of the topics you've heard on our Roundtable, you can call us at (202) 408-3330. That's (202) 408-3330. Or you can send an e-mail, just log on to npr.org and click on Contact Us. And please be sure to tell us where you're writing from and how to pronounce your name.
Next on News & Notes, the original Chicano, Chicano - a new film about folk legend Lalo Guerrero, and for the first time, a reporter from the black press heads to Iraq.
(Soundbite of music)
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