Month: April 2003

THE COLIN POWELL INTERNET WHOPPER

The following story is making the rounds of the Internet. I’ve received three copies of it recently from right-wing acquaintances who cite it as demonstrating the unassailable virtue of the United States and the weakness of European (especially French) arguments against the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Here’s the common Internet version of the story:

“When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building by George Bush. He answered by saying, ‘Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.’ It became very quiet in the room.”

The story–and its widespread dissemination on the Internet–is a perfect case of the Bushite hawks’ unabashed disregard for the truth. First, they get their facts wrong. Then they interpret what facts they do claim to have in ways that miss the point.

It turns out that Powell didn’t say this at a conference in England, and it wasn’t the Archbishop of Canterbury who asked the question. The question was asked by the former Archbishop of Canterbury (true, a small quibble) at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2003, where the U.S. was forced to defend itself against strong criticism of its Iraq strategy from almost every other nation there. The former archbishop’s question actually had to do, not with “empire building,” but with U.S. plans to use “hard power” (warfare) instead of “soft power” (diplomacy) in Iraq. Powell’s actual answer was long and thoughtful, citing instances of when the U.S. had used “hard power” (World War II) and when it had used “soft power” (the Marshall Plan). In fact, at one point, Powell did say, “We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years, and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home . . . to live our own lives in peace.” Powell received some applause for his remarks. The room did not become “very quiet,” as if the Europeans were shamed into silence by the unquestionable truth of his remarks.

Powell seems to have grown fond of his statement that Americans go to war only for high-minded purposes and ask only for “enough ground to bury” our wartime dead before they go home “to live in peace.” He has repeated it in several other venues, including on MTV.

The problem is, he’s telling a lie. In truth, the United States has always demanded and received much more than mere burial plots in the lands on which it fights its wars. We fought a war with Spain in 1898, and ended up with military bases in Cuba and the Philippines. Oh, yes, we also got Puerto Rico wholesale and have since used it for target practice–hardly a burial plot. We “liberated” the Germans and the Japanese in World War II, and–what a surprise!–ended up with military bases in Okinawa, Ramstein and all over the rest of Germany. We fought in Turkey and ended up with military bases there. We “freed” Italy and saved Spain and have bases there. We like to think we saved England and so have bases there. We fought for South Korea and have bases there. We invaded Afghanistan–and does anybody think we won’t keep a base or two like Bagram there in the future? And just in the last few days, of course, Bush administration officials have said that we expect to maintain at least four military bases in Iraq for the foreseeable future.

Sorry, Mr. Powell, you’re spreading lies. In almost every country where we’ve fought, we’ve demanded not just a place to bury our dead soldiers, but also a place to keep our live ammunition and to house the military forces to use it.

I like Colin Powell. He’s one of the few grown-ups in the Bush Administration. But the next time he says that the U.S. wants only “just enough land to bury its dead,” the audience should indeed grow quiet. The alternative is to laugh him out of the room.

MISSING JACK

I miss Jack Buck. There’s been a void to this 2003 baseball season that I’ve finally managed to identify. You can listen to a St. Louis Cardinals game on the radio without Buck’s voice telling you the tale . . . but without that voice, well, it’s going to take some getting used to.

The Hall of Fame play-by-play man died last June 18th after a long illness. He hadn’t been in the broadcast booth with partner Mike Shannon since the end of the 2001 season, so his passing wasn’t as dramatic for radio listeners as it might have been had he taken ill during the baseball season. Even with the outpouring of emotion throughout Cardinal Nation — more than 10,000 of Buck’s friends attended a memorial service at Busch Stadium — the heartache of Buck’s passing was swallowed by the tragic death of Cardinal pitcher Darryl Kile only four days later. (As the fates would have it, Kile pitched the Cardinals into first place merely hours before Buck’s last breath . . . in a game against the Angels.)

While Kile’s passing at the vibrant age of 33 would impact the team and its fans throughout the rest of the 2002 season, Buck’s spirit remained aloft, his memory often bringing a smile through a season dampened by tears. But with the dawn of he 2003 season, his absence has grown profound, even more so than Kile’s vacated spot in the Cards’ rotation.

Measured strictly in baseball terms, this shouldn’t be a surprise. The cold, hard truth is that starting pitchers come and go like the wind. In eight years under Tony LaRussa, the Cardinals have had only three pitchers last as long as three years in the starting rotation (Donovan Osborne, Andy Benes, and Matt Morris). Cardinal Nation will grimace for years at the mention of Kile’s death, but with a new season, his loss is somehow mixed in with the annual roster transition of a big league baseball team.

Not so with the loss of Jack Buck. If pitchers are like the wind, Buck was like those two redbirds perched on the bat across every Cardinal uniform since the days of Rogers Hornsby. A regular narrator of Cardinal baseball since 1954, Buck managed to become an integral, undendiable

part of this storied franchise’s history. Alongside fellow Hall of Famer Harry Caray, Buck saw Stan Musial pick up his 3,000th hit. He described St. Louis’ miraculous run to the pennant in 1964, capped by the Cards’ first world championship in 18 years. His voice was behind Bob Gibson’s 17 strikeouts in Game 1 of the 1968 World Series; Lou Brock’s 105th stolen base in ‘74; Ozzie’s homer (“Go crazy folks!”) in the ‘85 playoffs; and Mark McGwire’s 70 home runs in 1998. If Jack Buck himself wasn’t Cardinal history, the fact is that Cardinal history occurred through Jack Buck . . . and from his voice into our hearts.

Old standby Mike Shannon remains in the booth, now carrying the torch left behind by his partner of 30 years. Wayne Hagin, for 10 years the voice of the Colorado Rockies, has succeeded Buck at Shannon’s side. Hagin calls a decent game, and he’s clearly a knowledgeable broadcaster. (Though his asides on a decade of Colorado baseball history during the Cards’ series in Denver earlier this month were disconcerting at best.) But just as your favorite restaurant will never match your mom’s beef stew, Hagin’s voice cannot bring with it the memories, the tangible connection to Cardinal baseball we lost when Jack Buck died.

My paternal grandfather patterned his summer days around Cardinal broadcasts. When television came along, he still preferred his favorite baseball team described over the radio, his own mind drawing a picture of Musial’s swing, Schoendienst’s pivot. Having lost my grandfather before I was old enough to listen with him, I always felt Jack Buck’s voice somehow connected us. That perhaps Willie McGee dancing around the

bases might sound familiar to my grandfather’s recollections of Enos Slaughter doing the same . . . as long as McGee were described by Jack Buck.

Cardinal baseball plays on, just as Buck would have it. And I’m still listening. Who knows? Perhaps the Voice of the Cardinals is still broadcasting, just from a different venue, a little higher up. And perhaps my grandfather is in fact listening in. In which case I know exactly how he’d describe Mr. Albert Pujols, St. Louis’ current legend-in-the-making. Three words: “That’s a winner!”

Bringing Home the Green

Green Eyeshade Awards honor local journalists.

The Memphis Flyer and its sister publication, Memphis magazine, were winners at the 2003 Green Eyeshade Awards, held April 5th in Atlanta. Hosted by the Atlanta chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, this competition honors the best work of writers and photographers in 11 Southern states.

This year’s winners included:

Marilyn Sadler: first place, feature writing, “Meeting Halfway,” Memphis magazine.

Vance Lauderdale: first place, humorous commentary, “Ask Vance,” Memphis magazine.

Vern Evans: first place, photography, “Return to Shiloh,” Memphis magazine.

Jackson Baker: third place, non-deadline reporting, “Meltdown in Nashville,” The Memphis Flyer.

Chris Herrington: third place, sports commentary, “The Second Time Around,” “Split Personality,” and “Silver Lining,” The Memphis Flyer.

Other local finalists included The Commercial Appeal‘s Geoff Calkins, second place for sports commentary; and David Williams, third place for sports reporting.