“The Politics of Truth – A Diplomat’s Memoir” by Joseph Wilson (2004)

This book has another, much longer, subtitle, “Inside the Lies That Put the White House on Trial and Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity”. It is a solid contribution to my project of understanding the history I lived through. I was born the same year as the author, who died in 2019.

The US Foreign Service hired Wilson because he was fluent in French, and possibly because he was “handy”, having worked as a carpenter. They initially assigned him to administer aid in Niger, which suffered from drought. 

Wilson was gregarious, in the best sense, forming friendships readily. He grew to love Africa, and wished Americans understood it better.

Wilson’s diplomatic career spanned service in six different sub-Saharan countries, two of which he served as ambassador. He later worked in Iraq as leading US government representative during the Iraqi conquest of Kuwait, risking his life to get Americans safely away before the first Iraq war (Desert Storm) exploded in 1991. He retired from the Foreign Service in 1998. 

Given his breadth of experience and his political visibility after retirement, a memoir was certainly to be expected. But Wilson is one of those men best known for the person he married. He was “Mr. Valerie Plame”. Why did the administration of President George W Bush “blow the cover” of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative (spy) whose specialty was weapons of mass destruction (WMD)? I reviewed Ms. Plame’s memoir at the link below.

https://amgreader.wordpress.com/?s=plame

Long story… Bush wanted to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein. He told the American people that Hussein had WMDs, and we went to war (Operation Iraqi Freedom) in 2003. THE WEAPONS WERE NEVER FOUND. Wilson was very public about the fact that President Bush knew they didn’t exist. Bush allowed Plame to be “outed” as a way to discredit Wilson, an unethical and destructive action.

Wilson was convinced that action short of war (diplomacy, sanctions, airspace interdictions, UN pressure, etc) could have led to regime change in Iraq without invasion and occupation. After all, two major “revolutions” of immense global importance had taken place in the preceding decade. The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 and South Africa ended apartheid and embraced democracy in 1994. During each of these radical changes, war was avoided. 

Wilson was not a pacifist. He said he was opposed to “stupid war”. He approved of Desert Storm because it was conducted by an international coalition, supported by the American public and had a clear, limited goal – to get Iraq out of Kuwait. Operation Iraqi Freedom was preemptive (against an unconfirmed threat), unilateral and without a clear goal. Only once in the book does he use the “Q-word”, quagmire.

Contemporary note… Wilson points out that a major red flag in the run-up to the second Iraq War (Operation Iraqi Freedom) was lack of an occupation PLAN. Sound familiar? 

Wilson would be furious about our current struggles with the Covid pandemic and the recent insurrection. Certainly he would not be silent. 

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“Empty Planet – The Shock of Global Population Decline” by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson

Published 2019 by Crown Publishing, 240 pages plus footnotes and index.

This book (found at my public library) took me entirely by surprise, and caused me to look on climate change (and certain other social problems) differently, and with somewhat more optimism.

The authors discuss a future drop in human population, NOT (as has often been predicted) due to climate related calamity, but due to changes in human reproductive behavior. These changes comprise the “demographic transition”, defined in Chapter One, entitled “A Brief History of Population”. For eons, the human race simply struggled to survive. Following the retreat of the last Ice Age, agriculture allowed population to increase through a series of stages, beginning with high birth rate coupled with high death rate, moving through periods of imbalance and ending (in “developed” societies) with low birth rate, long life and low death rate. Bricker and Ibbitson believe the entire global population will arrive at the latter pattern within the next two or three generations. Hence, human population with stabilize relatively soon, and then continue to fall slowly.

Having grown up reading The Population Bomb and The Limits to Growth, I was startled by this book and read it very carefully. I’ve asked the opinion of friends and even my favorite demographer (a relative), and I eagerly await their responses.

Actually, I heard the warning call of this change a few years ago. In 2015, China reversed its “one child policy”. I was VERY surprised, and failed to recognize the significance of the change. Come to think of it, 25 years ago I heard a Russian woman described as a “hero mother” because she had TWO children. I didn’t understand what was behind this.

What do demographers measure, in addition to absolute population? Birth rate is crucial. How many babies does each woman have? “Replacement” is pegged at 2.1, to allow for the fact that not all children survive to become parents. At this point, it all starts to feel personal. I had two babies. So did my parents. But their parents had a total of 10 surviving children! What changed? American families left the farm. (The post World War II baby boom, in case you are wondering, was an aberration.)

Bricker and Ibbitson attribute falling birth rates to the education and subsequent increased employment of women, and to urbanization. They consider these changes unlikely to be reversed.

I think Empty Planet went to press just before the flareup of immigration as a “hot button” topic in the US. It would help if people on both sides of the issue would settle down and read this book! Immigrants and refugees are not identical. Most people, most of the time, prefer to live where they were born.

What do Bricker and Ibbitson project for the future? Both are Canadian, and their other collaborative publication (The Big Shift, 2013) deals with Canadian politics and culture. They expect the future big winners (nations able to maintain their populations and to innovate) to be Canada, the African states and (maybe) the United States. “WHAT?!” you squawk. Better read the book!

At some point, an entirely new concept is introduced – the post national state. I’m still trying to get a grip on it.

“Renewable – One Woman’s Search for Simplicity, Faithfulness, and Hope” by Eileen Flanagan

I’m surprised I’ve never met or even heard of Eileen Flanagan, because we move in circles that overlap. I said the same about Judy Wicks, author of Good Morning, Beautiful Business (see my blog entry of April 8, 2015). Flanagan is a decade or so younger than Wicks and I. Wicks and Flanagan both reside in Philadelphia.

Renewable begins with Flanagan’s recent act of chaining herself to the White House fence during a climate change protest. Then she circles back to recount how she came to that moment.

A major factor in her personal and spiritual growth was her Peace Corps service. She joined in 1984 and was sent to Botswana, a country known to me only through the writing of Alexander McCall Smith, who created the delightful No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series, set in Botswana. Flanagan’s reflections on Botswana are enhanced by her analysis of the comparative impacts of colonialism on Africa and Ireland, her ancestral home.

Upon her return from the Peace Corps, Flanagan went to graduate school at Yale to earn a Master’s degree in African studies. Then she faced the complications of seeking simplicity while raising children in urban America. Familiar territory!

Interestingly, one of Flanagan’s companions in the White House protest described above was civil rights activist Julian Bond, who died this week.

“The Handsome Man’s Delux Cafe: No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series” by Alexander McCall Smith

Everybody loves Alexander McCall Smith! I started by reading The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency, stayed with that series for a while, and then branched out. I think I’ve read at least one book from each of his five series. Sometimes I’ve listened to his novels in the car. Perfect for long trips!

Is there anything new in The Handsome Man’s Deluxe Cafe? Not really… just the pleasure of familiar characters in new situations.

Parts of The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency series were made into a BBC series for television. The quality was wonderful! How did someone find so many talented character actors? Too bad only six episodes were produced. However, 27 episodes for radio were broadcast by BBC Radio 4. I hope to track them down.

I feel lucky to have McCall Smith to give me an insider’s view of Africa. I don’t know whether I will ever travel to Africa, but if I do, Botswana will be on my list of destinations.

Having pondered McCall Smith’s extensive oeuvre, I’ve decided to read the Isabel Dalhousie series in its proper order. With that in my Kindle, I will be ready for anything – travel delays, doctors’ offices, you name it. If you feel stressed, read McCall Smith. He will take you “away” and warm your heart.

A African novel, an American novel…

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu, 2007.

Public debate surrounding immigration is even more heated now than it was in 2007 when this book was published. Mengestu personalizes the immigration “issue”. The narrator is from Ethiopia, and his best friends are from Kenya and Congo. They share a history of violent dislocation.

Stephanos, the narrator, owns a struggling store in a struggling Washington DC neighborhood. A woman moves in and renovates a large, once elegant house, and change imposes itself on the community. Stephanos and the woman are mutually attracted, but somehow keep “missing” each other. Loneliness is the theme of this book.

This is a well written book. I feel like I got to know some people I’m might otherwise not have encountered.

The book seems to also have another title, Children of the Revolution. I found this out from Amazon.com, when I looked to see what else Mengestu wrote. A second book, How to Read the Air, was published in 2010. I hope he keeps writing.