Finding Hope in Today's 'Candy Bombers'
Having gone on for far too long about the perils of extrapolating from historical similarities, what strikes me most about the history recounted in The Candy Bombers are the overwhelming dissimilarities between 1948 and 2008. Not so much on the international scene as simply in the realm of leadership, if that's not too quaint a term to use here. The John McLoys, the Lucius Clays, the James Forrestals--where have they gone? In place of them, we have who? Sandy Berger? Paul Bremer? Today's smarmy foreign policy elites, for all of their moral posturing and inflated self-regard, don't exactly rise to the level of their predecessors. To put down The Candy Bombers is to feel orphaned.
But Andrei's vibrant chronicle unfolds on two levels, transporting us easily from the White House to the cockpits at Tempelhof. There, at the micro-level, I was encouraged about the present and for a simple reason: We no longer have Harry Trumans among us, but we do have Hal Halvorsens. I have seen them--winning over sheiks three times their age, calling in medevacs, and there in the ruins, dispensing candy to children. Hence, my own take away from Andrei's book: so long as we have candy bombers, there is hope.
This is pure fetishizing. First of Truman, who was not a popular or particularly good president (and by definition you can't be a good president if the people who lived under your administration didn't like you) and then of soldiers in general. Yes, our soldiers deserve our respect and gratitude but don't pretend that any acts of heroism, generosity or charisma will change the fact that our adventure in Iraq has been revealed as an immoral debacle.
June 6, 2008 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
uhh...
Abe Lincoln anyone?
June 6, 2008 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe the general rule is that you don't give candy to the children.
The act undermines the status of the village elder or sheik (and the children's parents) and makes it less likely that these adults (and they frequently carry guns) will cooperate with you.
Dissing people whom you hope to make your allies is hardly ever a good thing.
June 6, 2008 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
To bomb, shoot, destroy and kill and then give candy...
Too much double-bind.
June 8, 2008 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink