Pro Patria

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns fell silent on the Western Front and, at least in France, the Great War ended.

Veterans Day, first commemorated in the United States the year after the armistice and made a federal holiday in 1938, was originally called Armistice Day. Last year on this date, I marked the occasion by posting what may have been the most popular poem of that war, "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae. This year, I offer a poem by Owen Seaman entitled "Pro Patria."

The title is based on a line from the Roman poet Horace: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. (It is sweet and proper to die for one's country.)

Pro Patria

England, in this great fight to which you go
Because, where Honour calls you, go you must,
Be glad, whatever comes, at least to know
You have your quarrel just.

Peace was your care; before the nations' bar
Her cause you pleaded and her ends you sought;
But not for her sake, being what you are,
Could you be bribed and bought.

Others may spurn the pledge of land to land,
May with the brute sword stain a gallant past;
But by the seal to which you set your hand,
Thank God, you still stand fast!

Forth, then, to front that peril of the deep
With smiling lips and in your eyes the light,
Steadfast and confident, of those who keep
Their storied scutcheon bright.

And we, whose burden is to watch and wait--
High-hearted ever, strong in faith and prayer,
We ask what offering we may consecrate,
What humble service share.

To steel our souls against the lust of ease;
To find our welfare in the common good;
To hold together, merging all degrees
In one wide brotherhood;

--To teach that he who saves himself is lost;
To bear in silence though our hearts may bleed;
To spend ourselves, and never count the cost,
For others' greater need;--

To go our quiet ways, subdued and sane;
To hush all vulgar clamour of the street;
With level calm to face alike the strain
Of triumph or defeat;--

This be our part, for so we serve you best,
So best confirm their prowess and their pride,
Your warrior sons, to whom in this high test
Our fortunes we confide.

Seaman did not fight in World War I. The poem thus is written from the perspective of one "whose burden [!] is to watch and wait." This, perhaps, is the only way one could write a poem that glorifies World War I the way "Pro Patria" does.

Wilfred Owen, a better poet than Seaman, also wrote a poem based on the line from Horace. But because Owen fought--and died--in the war, his poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est," conveys something very different.

The contrast between these two World War I poems demonstrates the wisdom of Erasmus, who wrote, "Dulce bellum inexpertis."

A Petro-Political Cycle?

Ernest Wilson has an interesting piece here on what he calls the "petro-political cycle." He writes, "At the top of the petro-political cycle"--precisely where we seem to be at present--"third world suppliers can both raise the prices they charge for their petroleum, and also try to alter some of the basic rules of the game." Furthermore, "we should expect to see more political assertiveness from exporting countries." As the comments on his post indicate, his timing was impeccable given Bolivia's nationalization of its oil and gas industry on Monday, one day after Wilson's post.

Easter 1916

Ninety years ago today, Ireland's Easter Rising began. For almost a week, starting on the Monday after Easter, militant Irish republicans occupied several key buildings in Dublin and proclaimed the existence of an independent Irish Republic. Poorly organized and outgunned, the Irish revolutionaries were quickly defeated by the British. The leaders of the movement were executed or imprisoned.

In spite of the military failure of the Easter Rising, Britain's harsh reprisals stirred Irish support for independence and created an atmosphere in which it was possible for Eamon de Valera and Michael Collins to organize the War of Independence, which began in 1919.

William Butler Yeats eulogized the martyrs of the Easter Rising with a poem entitled "Easter 1916," which follows.

Easter 1916

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Petro-Imperialism

Kevin Phillips, the former Republican strategist who helped Richard Nixon win the presidency in 1968, is not happy with the Bush Administration's energy policy. In fact, part of his critique in his newest book, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, echoes the critique offered by Michael Klare in Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum. Phillips writes (p. 78):

Old-fashioned colonialists, regal and unembarrassed, took physical control of territories, sent in ostrich-plumed governors, minted coins, and printed local postage stamps on which kings or queens gazed proudly over scenes of natives cutting cocoa pods or harvesting tea. By contrast, petro-imperialism--the key aspect of which is the U.S. military’s transformation into a global oil-protection force--puts up a democratic facade, emphasizes freedom of the seas (or pipeline routes), and seeks to secure, protect, drill, and ship oil, not administer everyday affairs. Still, the way in which the United States has begun to organize its national security and military posture around oil is hardly new in spirit, albeit unprecedented in scope.

Yesterday's radical critique has become today's conventional wisdom. Even President Bush has now acknowledged (in the State of the Union address) the dangers of being "addicted to oil."

In Flanders Fields

Veterans' Day. . . . Armistice Day. . . . Remembrance Day.

By whatever name it goes from country to country, today is an appropriate time to post what was almost certainly the most popular poem to come out of the First World War. Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian doctor who served the British Empire in both the Boer War and World War I, published "In Flanders Fields" in December 1915. The poem memorializes those who died fighting in the Second Battle of Ypres of April 1915, a battle in which Germany used chlorine gas with deadly effect.

Soon after it appeared, the poem was used on military recruiting posters and in war bond campaigns. Later, after it had become apparent just how costly the Great War had been, "In Flanders Fields" would be read as an anti-war anthem.

McCrae himself died before the war was over, on January 28, 1918. As with so many other casualties of the war, it was disease, not gas or gunshot or shrapnel, that killed him. Dr. McCrae died from complications of pneumonia and meningitis.

In Flanders Fields
John McCrae

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

King Fahd and King Crude

King Fahd has died. He was the fifth member of Saudi Arabia's Al Saud family to sit on the throne since the country's unification in 1932 under King Abdul Aziz al Saud. His brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, has succeeded Fahd as expected.

In spite of the fact that Abdullah has effectively ruled Saudi Arabia in King Fahd's place since 1995 when Fahd suffered a stroke, oil traders were unnerved by the news of Fahd's death. Crude oil futures hit a record $62.30 a barrel in trading today before settling at $61.55.

Saudi Arabia has the world's largest proven oil reserves--over 260 billion barrels--and, with production at 10.5-11.0 million barrels per day, is the world's top producer. Roughly 80 percent of the Kingdom's revenues come from oil. In spite of its incredible oil wealth, however, Saudi Arabia is, politically, one of the eighteen states that the human rights organization Freedom House considers "the worst of the worst." It also has a 30 percent unemployment rate, serious problems with corruption, and a large population of fundamentalist Muslims. It is a volatile mix, which accounts for the unease that oil traders feel even in the face of a long-expected and (so far) orderly political transition.

Here's a little something to think about the next time you fill the tank of your SUV: without the Saudis, those of us in the United States could easily be paying over $5.00 per gallon. Our nation's economic health is dependent on the stability of a medieval monarchy. Thank goodness the energy bill Congress just passed will reduce our dependence on imported oil. (Not really. We'll go from 58 percent imported oil today to 68 percent imported oil in 2025.)

"Hooked on Oil"

Candor is not President Bush's strong suit, but let's give him credit where credit is due. In an interview aired on Danish television Thursday night, Bush explained his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol by noting America's dependence on petroleum. "We're hooked on oil from the Middle East, which is a national security problem and an economic security problem," he said.

The oil-security nexus is something that Dan Caldwell and I deal with in our forthcoming book, Seeking Security in an Insecure World. Although the dependence of the United States on oil imports from the Middle East is no secret, it is highly unusual for President Bush--or any member of his administration--to draw attention to it. Even more unusual (and perhaps even unprecedented) was Bush's characterization of our petroleum dependence as "a national security problem." He's absolutely right about that.

Bush's Energy Policy

With the Senate currently debating the Bush Administration's energy policy, it's worth noting the obvious: The policy consists of little more than generating windfall profits for oil producers. Consider Tom Friedman's comment today in the New York Times:

With gasoline prices soaring, and the biggest beneficiaries being the very Arab dictatorships who are tacitly sponsoring the terrorists killing Americans in Iraq, it is blindingly obvious that our country needs a comprehensive strategy for reducing our energy consumption and developing alternative fuel systems. The president has utterly failed in this regard.

Oil is not the only resource that is becoming scarce in the United States. Rationality is in short supply.

If This Is a Man

Roughly 1.5 million men, women, and children died at Auschwitz; somewhere between seven and ten thousand were alive in the camp when the Red Army liberated it on January 27, 1945. One of those who survived, thanks to his training as a chemist and his utility to his captors, was an Italian Jew named Primo Levi. After making his way home to Turin, Levi began to write about his experiences. Over time, he became one of Italy's most celebrated poets and novelists.

The following poem--"If This Is a Man"--is perhaps Levi's most profound and anguished literary response to his experience of the Holocaust. It challenges the reader--or the hearer--to acknowledge the comfort of her circumstances and then to consider whether another in radically different circumstances can even be considered a man or a woman. It poses a problem--in a form that is at one and the same time both historical ("reflect on the fact that this has happened") and yet almost unimaginable--that forces us to think about the nature of our common humanity. It forces us to acknowledge the necessity of empathy while also confronting the limits of our capacity to empathize. It is, in short, a poem that challenges us to think seriously about our commitment to humanity. And then, in the end, with language based on the shema (see Deuteronomy 6), it challenges us to remember.

Here, then, is my translation from the Italian of Primo Levi's "If This Is a Man":

You who live safe
In your warm houses;
You who find on returning in the evening
Hot food and friendly faces:

Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a bit of bread
Who dies because of a yes and because of a no

Consider if this is a woman,
Without hair and without name
Without enough strength to remember
Vacant eyes and cold womb
Like a frog in the winter:

Reflect on the fact that this has happened:
These words I commend to you:
Inscribe them on your heart
When staying at home and going out,

Going to bed and rising up;
Repeat them to your children:
Or may your house fall down,
Illness bar your way,
Your loved ones turn away from you.

Tomorrow evening at 7:30 in CCB 140, I will give a brief talk about Primo Levi, this poem, and the challenges it poses to our ideas about humanity. All are welcome.

Oil and the GWOT

Bill Maher made the point pretty effectively a couple of years ago with his book entitled When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden: What the Government Should Be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism. (How is it that comedians have become our best policy analysts?) Today, Thomas Friedman writes in the New York Times about the role that an energy policy must play in the "global war on terrorism." Here's the opening paragraph:

Of all the shortsighted policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, none have been worse than their opposition to energy conservation and a gasoline tax. If we had imposed a new gasoline tax after 9/11, demand would have been dampened and gas today would probably still be $2 a gallon. But instead of the extra dollar going to Saudi Arabia - where it ends up with mullahs who build madrasas that preach intolerance - that dollar would have gone to our own Treasury to pay down our own deficit and finance our own schools. In fact, the Bush energy policy should be called No Mullah Left Behind.

Friedman, it appears, is pulling no punches since his return from a book-writing sabbatical. The strong language could have been even stronger. I filled up this morning ($2.41/gal. for 87 octane) while listening to the news that oil futures have topped $53 per barrel. (When I wrote about petroleum just over a week ago, the price of oil had just gone over $50 per barrel for the first time ever.)

Read the column and let me know what you think.

Black Gold

The price of a barrel of oil topped $50 today for the first time ever on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil for November delivery closed at $49.90 a barrel, a record-high closing price. In response, Saudi Arabia announced plans to increase production, but production throughout the OPEC states is already nearing capacity. There is, in other words, little spare capacity to bring into production.

Given this news, a few facts about oil--and oil consumption--may be useful.

• The United States imports approximately 12 million barrels of oil per day of which roughly 2.5 million barrels come from the Persian Gulf. Among OECD countries, Japan is second in oil imports with approximately 5.5 million barrels imported per day. Almost four-fifths of Japan's oil imports come from the Persian Gulf.
• U.S. crude oil production is currently just over five million barrels per day.
• The three top-selling vehicles in the United States (selling a combined 979,485 units in the first half of 2004) are pickup trucks. The best-seller for twenty-two years in a row--the Ford F-150--gets 17 MPG city and 20 MPG highway in its most fuel-efficient configuration. The Chevrolet Silverado and Dodge Ram pickups that follow right behind in the rankings get virtually the same gasoline mileage.

Our penchant for pickups (along with SUVs and other gas-guzzlers) continues to make a number of countries very wealthy. (See which ones here.)