Period 1: Turmoil in the Middle East, Day 18 - Class Recap

One of the promotional images for the film Promises that we are watching in class. Found on the official website, here.
Dear class,

It looks like the mammoth "Turmoil in the Middle East" unit will finally be concluding on Monday! Taking a look at the amount of tape left on the Promises VHS, I would say we probably have about 30 minutes or so to go. I really appreciated the focus on everything today in class. I think some of you were perhaps getting tired, because I saw a few heads going down, but overall, thank you.

Essential Questions: In what ways are cultures and countries interconnected? How can the Middle East be stabilized?

SOUNDTRACK: "SWEET CHILD O' MINE" BY GUNS N' ROSES. Lyrics here. Chosen because we are continuing to watch a film about Israeli and Palestinian children.

AGENDA 5/7/09:
PASS BACK WORK/TURN IN PAPERS
NEWS BRIEF
INTERNALIZING THE DEBATE
PROMISES, PART II

HOMEWORK: TURN IN LATE WORK BY TOMORROW FOR PROGRESS REPORTS. READ BLOG RECAP!

Whew, I don't know if I have ever typed that much in all caps. I feel like I just yelled everything at you! I wrote the agenda today that way to make a little fun of my supposedly bad handwriting on the board. Sorry, but I won't be doing that with any frequency. Seriously, most of the time, it should be fairly legible. If it isn't, please let me know! :-)

Anyway, as I said in class, I need to have your progress report grades in on Friday (tomorrow). Thus, I would like anything that you haven't turned in brought to me ASAP.

Pass Back Work/Turn in Papers: At the start of class, I went over the essential questions, soundtrack, and agenda, and then passed back your notes on the speeches (which again, I found really interesting and liked what everyone had to say!). You got five points of credit for that if I saw it for both days. I also passed back your skills packets, because I needed to have you do something else for me. However, we started by doing the customary...

News Brief: I actually don't think there was that much to talk about here. Abe mentioned a new swine flu death. I noted that there are now KGW.com - 45 swine flu cases confirmed in Oregon. Yep.

Anyway, the real meat of this section was brought in by Jazmyne, who had this article to talk about: CNN.com - Obama: Afghanistan, Pakistan, U.S. working to defeat extremists. Here is what is currently going on with the situation, as the two countries try to defeat the Taliban: CNN.com - Pakistan to scrap peace deal, launch offensive, source says. Okay. There was a lot that I said in class that I want to be able to back up, so here goes.

1). I mentioned that the U.S. provides a lot of aid to Pakistan (in order to help it fight the Taliban and other Islamic extremists in the country), and that last summer a report came out about some of the wasteful spending. Specifically, I mentioned a fleet of cars that Pakistan bought with U.S. money. Here is a great article talking all about that: WashingtonPost.com - U.S. Funding to Pakistan Plagued With Problems, GAO Report Says. A relevant quote:

In one example, the report cited monthly payments averaging $19,000 per vehicle for 20 passenger vehicles used by the Pakistani navy that appeared to contain "duplicative charges," the GAO said. The Pentagon often did not document its basis for evaluating claims and did not check Pakistan's currency conversions, which could have led to overbilling, the report said.

Look, this is not to say that all the aid the United States gives to Pakistan is being spent terribly. I tend to disagree when people make the argument that all the money being put forth to a particular purpose must be not worthy because of individual specific cases of inefficiencies, where money is spent badly. That is the same sort of argument that some people use to say that schools should get less funding, because they waste a lot of money on administrators, or other individual aspects. It just makes no sense in the grand scheme of things.

In fact, check out this current article from just this last Monday: CNN.com - Legislation would triple U.S. non-military aid to Pakistan. Currently, we provide 500 million dollars a year to Pakistan. This bill would up that to $1.5 million. Again, a HUGE reason why paying attention to the Middle East is important. These are our tax dollars! We need to know what is going on, in order to be well informed about why our money goes where it does!

2). Furthermore, I talked about the relationship between Al Qaeda (Osama bin Laden's terrorist group) and Iraq before 9/11. Basically, there was no relationship, and the U.S. government actually has come out and said so: CNN.com - Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda not linked, Pentagon says. A quote:

The assessment of the al Qaeda connection and the insistence that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction were two primary elements in the Bush administration's arguments in favor of going to war with Iraq.

The Pentagon's report also contradicts then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who said in September 2002 that the CIA provided "bulletproof" evidence demonstrating "that there are, in fact, al Qaeda in Iraq."

Bad times. You can start to see why many people were really angry (and still are) about the U.S. involvement in Iraq. I mentioned that then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama had come out against invading Iraq in 2002, as it was happening. This was one of his trump cards over Hillary Clinton in last years primaries and general election. That speech can be found here: BarackObama.com - Remarks of Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama Against Going to War with Iraq.

3). I noted that the U.S. had helped Saddam Hussein and Iraq fight Iran in the 1980s; in which "weapons of mass destruction" were used. That would take forever (there are entire college courses devoted to just this stuff) to adequately source, but as always, Wikipedia has a great start with collecting information: Wikipedia - Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The same Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense in 2002, that I quoted in the CNN article above was the Donald Rumsfeld in this picture, shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in 1983: GWU.edu - National Security Archives. Incredibly interesting website there!

4). Finally, (I know, I know, I'm sorry, but I really get in to this sort of stuff), I noted that the United States provided all sorts of aid to the fighters in Afghanistan against Russia in the 1980s. The U.S. covert operation for this was called Operation Cyclone. A lot of these same people are now fighting against the U.S. Karma, as Abe put it.

Whew! Okay. Thanks for getting that conversation started Jazmyne! Lauren, you are up for next class. Any current news article about anything outside the United States.

Internalizing the Debate: At this point, I asked you to open up your skills packets again, because I actually needed you to answer the questions in the debate part, rather than just copy down what we came up together on the board. We spent about 5 minutes doing this, and then everyone turned them back in. Thanks! Now I can give you credit for doing that! :-)

Promises, Part II: There is a whole bunch that I will say about this film when we are done, but I think I will hold off for now. Next class, we will finish this up, do some reflections on goal setting, give me some feedback about the class, and probably move on to the next unit. Woo hoo!
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My teacher at Lewis and Clark, Paul Copley, will be watching class on Monday, so be prepared for that! He taught for 30 years at Sunset, so he is a pretty amazing guy. Also, Mrs. DeFrance's birthday is Monday! Get her something, if you want! :-)

The Office is on tonight at 9:00 on NBC. The season is almost over! I am sad. Other than that, thanks for checking up on everything! Stay in touch and keep working hard! Have a great, restful weekend!