Why Brown Won

Published anonymously to avoid the charge of treason, “Common Sense,” a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine became an instant success in January 1776, selling 120,000 copies in its first three months and half a million in its first year. The mantra of Paine’s work, which was structured much like a Quaker preacher’s sermon with sprinklings of Biblical verse, was an incendiary argument for the abject rejection of British rule. Paine’s words galvanized an incensed colonial population, uniting attitude with action. “Common Sense” called for independence of thought and self-rule and that’s exactly what the colonies got.

Two hundred and thirty-four years later there has been a new calling for common sense and again the people, from the very state where thought morphed into action and resulted in revolution, have spoken. Perhaps it’s fitting that Republican Scott Brown has been elected to the United States Senate from Massachusetts, a state known as much for liberal leanings and fortunately once again, for common sense as well.  But the message that Scott Brown touted in his campaign for the special election of the late Ted Kennedy’s vaunted seat, was pretty obvious – “We can do better.” “Yes we can.” Sound familiar?

Two issues were at the crux of Scott Brown’s huge upset over Martha Coakley, healthcare and terrorism. The democratic candidate fell in line and backed the ridiculous policies of the Obama administration regarding the grossly mishandled Christmas day underwear bomber, policies that resulted in a lawyered-up terrorist and forever lost intelligence, all at the expense of American’s liberties, and paid for by them. Common sense came to light as the Massachusetts electorate said, “Wait a minute – that’s doesn’t make any sense.”  Scott Brown as in turns out is for waterboarding on extreme case terrorist subjects and doesn’t consider the method of interrogation to be torture. Abdulmutallab is hardly an extreme case, however that being clear, read his Miranda rights and excused from interrogation after just 50 minutes of light questioning - an action green-lighted by the Obama administration, supported by Coakley, and rejected by voters in the Bay State. Scott Brown capitalized on that part of common sense, but what really sent the people over the top was the debate on health care.

Massachusetts has its own health care plan and the anger welled up for the commonwealth’s voters at  Harry Reid’s hastily put together plan, full of secretive negotiations and backroom deals – the cornhusker kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, deals funded by taxing the health care benefits of people and employers who already had plans of their own.  Senate democrats insisted that only “Cadillac” plans would be taxed, but regardless of the automobile associated with the tax, Massachusetts voters saw the plan as having very little to do with common sense and spoke with their votes.

For their part, the Obama administration quickly threw Coakley under the bus. How could the State’s Attorney General lose after having such a huge lead? Surely it must be because she was a terrible candidate and having nothing to do with president’s policies.  In fact, according to team Obama, Scott Brown’s win was a re-affirmation of the Obama victory in 2008. Robert Gibbs on Scott Brown’s win as said to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday: “More people voted to express support for Barack Obama than to oppose him.” No kidding – he really did say that. A loss is not a loss after all – it’s a win for Barack Obama. 

Chris Wallace: It wasn’t the same thing that swept Barack Obama into office. Scott Brown explicitly campaigned against the Obama agenda. His approval rating among that electorate was 61%. Their enthusiasm for Republican policies among that electorate was 40%.

Chris Wallace: But your not suggesting that this was a mandate for Barack Obama?

Robert Gibbs: No. Of course not. But I’m also not suggesting that what you said a minute ago meets the truth test either.

Chris Wallace: You don’t think that when they voted for Scott Brown they were voting against Obama’s policies?

Robert Gibbs: That’s not what they told pollsters. No.

Robert Gibbs on Scott Brown’s win: That may be what he campaigned on but that’s not what the voters in Massachusetts said in the Washington Post poll… They did a poll of voters who participated in why they voted. Right. More people voted express their support for Barack Obama than to oppose him.

Common sense prevailed with the electorate of Massachusetts on Tuesday but was vacant from the White House and now President Obama has embarked on a new urgent populism that will never work. The reason it won’t work has to do with the President himself and his own ideology – common sense will see right through it.

FDNY Helping Hand - The Earthquake Excerpt from "Falcon On The Tower"

JUNE 14, 2008

BAGRAM, AFGHANISTAN

Kicking up Afghan dust, the combat vehicle bounced along an unpaved perimeter road of the airfield, the Hindu Kush jutting up in the distance. The mountains were particularly spectacular, a phenomenon created by the massive amounts of fine dust stirred up and now airborne from the quake. The afternoon sun illuminated the magnificent peaks and the dusty, light orange veil, surreal against a foreground of tactical airplanes, helicopters, and tanks; nature’s art, a vivid painting masking the human tragedy that lay on its slopes and in its valleys.

Normally buzzing like an active beehive, Bagram was standing down for twenty-four hours as its own damage assessments were made following the catastrophic earthquake. The combat vehicle, a jeep, was Bryan’s ticket to a Black Hawk helicopter, the crew performing preflight checks on the north end of the field. An old acquaintance was in the back of the jeep, and his escort to a devastated North West Frontier.

“Captain Craig, ets good ta see ya sahr.”

“And great to be seen, Sergeant Major MacLean,”

“Hop in sahr, aye understand we’re goin’ ta the frontier again.”

“Yes, we are,” he said, happy to be teamed with the SAS man again after so many years.

Not as concerned with secrecy this time into Pakistan, they jumped off the UH-60 Black Hawk Medevac helicopter, the pilot managing to find flat ground a quarter of a mile from the village. The flight then continued on with three CIA investigators to the militant encampment destroyed by the Predators. The flight back to Pakistan had been uneventful, and the destruction caused by the earthquake hardly evident from the air; but once on the ground, Bryan and the Sergeant Major, medical kits in hand, could see the extent of the damage. They were certain the Kalash village that was their destination, would be in shambles, along with dozens of other villages.

The first of the shocked Kalash survivors welcomed the two Westerners with tears in their eyes, their village unrecognizable. Bryan began asking for Shamema, but no one had an answer.

“Da ya know which way to go sahr?” the Sergeant Major asked as Bryan surveyed the rubble that was a village teaming with activity.

“First we’ll do our best to find Shamema, if she’s here, maybe help out some, then shove off to the lake,” Bryan said. If Shamema were unhurt, she’d be there with other first responders.

“Which way’s the lake, sahr?” Wolf MacLean asked.

Bryan looked at the GPS. “I’ve got the lat and long, so we can use the handheld,” Bryan said. He looked up and followed a track of people over a low ridgeline, some carrying injured on wooden litters. “But I imagine we can also simply get in line with those people.”

As they walked through what appeared to be the center of the Kalash village, Bryan saw the remnants of a sign sitting atop a pile of rocks, partially covered by corrugated tin. ”Hold on a sec Wolf, I need to check for something here,” Bryan said, as he set the medical bag down. Carefully stepping onto part of the razed structure’s roof, he began searching through the piled up debris.

DUSTING OFF THE BOOK, he opened it. Difficult as it was to believe, it escaped damage, all pages intact, none torn. The leather bound cover avoided even the slightest bruising, front and back remarkably unscathed. As if by miracle, the nineteenth century registry seemed to be the one inanimate object untouched by a massive earthquake that destroyed almost everything else man-made.

“I’ll be damned,” Bryan commented.

“What’s that there, sahr?”

“Some history, Sergeant Major – just some history,” Bryan said, as he balanced himself on top of the loose pile of rocks and wood.

From his new vantage point he surveyed the slopes of the hills down to a tight valley. They were very close to the epicenter of the earthquake. Confirmed as an eight on the Richter scale, it shook the region to the very core, toppling hillsides, rock avalanches razing villages. Officials predicted at least one hundred thousand dead, and more than two million homeless across the North West Frontier of Pakistan and Kashmir. It was complete turmoil and utter chaos, made worse for a land isolated by lack of proximity.  

First responders were just now arriving, not quite two days after the first major tremor, much quicker than previous events. Bryan wanted to stay and help, and he would for a time. However, his primary mission was not earthquake rescue. He had to get back to Dubai, but wanted to do what he could here first. These people needed help, and their dead Mehtar had helped him. It simply was the right thing to do. First, get the old book and its contents if possible; the answers to some questions might be inside.

It came suddenly and with surprise, although the people living in the mountains had warnings of sorts, living with earthquakes, knowing them to be a recurring event. But seismologists couldn’t predict exactly when the natural disasters would occur. So instead, the people went about their daily lives as normal, oblivious to the imminent danger. In retrospect, it struck Bryan that the event was a metaphor, the victims’ apathy similar to the denial of many where he came from, an ignorant bliss in the face of their own imminent dangers, albeit man-made circumstances. Bryan cast off the notion of worry however, “If you worry about it, then terror and fear win. But be very prepared however, and live everyday to the fullest, without fear,” he reasoned. “But most of all - be prepared.”

Regardless of the difficulty to predict the earth’s shifting faults, the Pakistani government nevertheless failed to adequately prepare for the inevitable, or quite possibly, “Humanity had failed, not just one government, but all governments collectively failed these people before the disaster, and the many other disasters that preceded this one,” Bryan privately suggested. So the earth punished them once again, as it had done twice only three years before, and twelve times before that, over an equal number of centuries. It was a certainty to return and kill again, and it did, resulting in a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions, an historical cataclysm.

The North West Frontier was still licking wounds from the quakes of 2005. Large seismic events that also left more than one hundred thousand dead, scores of villages destroyed and millions homeless. Structures not reduced to rubble then, had been severely fractured, finally taken down by the new earthquake and its aftershocks. Bryan was seated on a pile of that debris as he perused the valuable book he’d just recovered from the rubble of a stone house.

 Trying to preserve the artifact as much as possible, he delicately cut along the edge of the inside back cover with a penknife. The fine opening was just wide enough to carefully remove the contents, meticulously placed there many years ago, a kind of time capsule. There was a square piece of tin, which he hastily looked over, and behind it, a single sheet of paper folded twice into quarters. The metal square was somewhat familiar; almost identical to one he’d seen before, so instead he focused his attention on the old piece of paper, unfolding it. It was a drawing in pen and ink - a falcon.

“Well that’s interesting,” he said to himself, somewhat disappointed. “This is all that’s in here? It seems to pose only more questions,” he thought, as he put the contents in his vest pocket. Picking up the knapsack of medical supplies that he’d brought, he stood up just as another intense aftershock began to rumble.

Deep within the earth’s interior, its crust floated on a superheated mantle, but not as one large piece, but rather as ten major pieces, tectonic plates broken apart, in direct conflict with one another. The Hindu Kush-Kashmir quake was the result of such a conflict, a collision that had been going on for fifty million years.

Carrying the entirety of the Indian subcontinent, the India tectonic plate was crashing into the more massive Eurasian plate, initially at a speed of sixteen centimeters per year, now reduced to a third of that, yet still in motion. As the two giants met, great    forces   thrust   the   earth   upward in a “mountain generating” process the Greeks defined as orogeny. 

 The Himalaya orogen gave Asia an immense mountain range stretching from the plains of Afghanistan to the northeastern border of China and India. In geologic time it was a young topographic relief, still reaching higher, creating the world’s tallest water tower, and supplying fresh water for one fifth of the earth’s population.

With the lofty geologic upheaval came growing pains, natural stressor releases in the form of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. In recent years the movement of the Indian plate was responsible for more than the just the large quakes three years before, but also the huge Indonesian interplate earthquake the year before that as it ever so slowly slips under the Burma plate. And each major earthquake was followed by hundreds of secondary quakes and aftershocks, such as the six point two magnitude that was occurring at that very moment.

“Goddamn it,” he said as he helplessly watched the ground give way beneath him. His footing completely disturbed, he lost balance, dropping the book and bag of medical supplies. He watched helplessly as the valuable items disappeared under a pile of rocks and debris.

Luckily unhurt, he looked up to see the side of a steep hill nearest him, only a hundred meters away, begin to break up, and turn into a deadly rockslide. Bulldozing through the remnants of the north side of the village, it pulverized temporary shelters, survivors and rescuers. Screams from the injured, perhaps a dozen or so, some young, most not, could be heard as Bryan picked himself up, aided by the SAS commando.

Grabbing the dropped items, they hurriedly made their way with others to the rescue area, running across broken land as fast as they could to render help. It was an unconscious, involuntary reaction. Most people just did it.

“Hurry, people are buried. We need to get them out, quick – help us,” a man screamed in English at them as they ran hard uphill to the pileup of trees, rocks, earth, and people.

They began pulling away boulders, boards, and whatever was in the way. Rescue was priority number one, and as he pried away debris, he could see a hand, a mangled arm, and then a face. It was a woman; she was alive. They pulled her to freedom and to life; now for the next person, and so on. Amazingly, all survived. They were the lucky ones, lucky that others were there to help, or else their fate would have been sealed, like so many others before.

Moving away from the steep hillside slopes of the village, they joined an endless procession of survivors, many badly injured and being carried. Over the next fifteen hours they trudged along en masse, solemn, across a small, narrow valley, over a ridgeline and down to a glacial lake, arriving mid morning. The banks provided the flattest and best area for rescue helicopters conducting relief flights out of the earthquake zone to hospitals in Rawalpindi and Peshawar. The steep cliffs of the surrounding terrain were also far enough away from the mobile hospital so as not to pose an immediate threat to relief workers when an avalanche did occur.

In the center of four tents for triage were Shamema, three English volunteers, and an American from the International Rescue Corps, administering emergency medical assistance to the critically injured. They were surrounded by dozens of hurt and homeless, thousands more were on their way. 

Shamema looked up, brushing her light brown hair to the side, smiling at Bryan, her bright blue eyes registering deep feelings of gratitude for his being there, and maybe something more. He handed her the medical kit as he spoke, “Morphine, antiseptics, antibiotics, and a few odds and ends.”

“Thank you, thank you so much,” she answered, putting her hand on his face. He looked tired, she thought. She wanted to help him too.

“Just a start and probably won’t last you an hour,” he said, noting the medical emergency camp was already being overwhelmed.

“Yes, but at least a start,” she said, her eyes sparkling with hope.

She was a beautiful person, both inside and out, he believed.

Another rumble from an aftershock stopped them in mid conversation. Several people strolling near the lakeshore were knocked to the ground. In the distance, a gigantic ice sheet that was part of a cirque, previously cracked and dislodged from numerous tremors finally gave way and began a slide into the dark lake, the displacement creating a five-foot wall of water. The wave, and smaller ones, moved in all directions towards the banks. The panicked ran haphazardly in all directions, frightened for their lives. But as swiftly as the shockwave arrived, it dissipated, sparing more from being hurt. All breathed a sigh of relief.

Bryan calmly resumed, “Shamema, I spoke with officials in Islamabad, there’s a Chinook helicopter on the way here with more emergency equipment. I’m hoping there’ll be several flights coming here - unfortunately their resources are stretched thin.”

“Clean towels – can you please ask them to send more clean towels - and bandages?” Anything clean was at a premium.

“We’ll call on SATCOM for you, and whatever else you need,” he said, putting his arm around her small shoulders.

“Thank you again. I’ll make a list for what we need, but I must attend to them first,” she said pointing to the crowd outside the tent. “What are they bringing now?” Shamema asked, as she motioned for a man holding a child in his arms to come towards her.

Bryan stepped aside, shocked at the condition of the new patient, whose tattered clothes were covered in dried blood.

“Well besides medicines, antibiotics, I believe generators, lights, and water purification equipment. Two teams have dropped in just to the east of here – they’ve got fiber optic probes and thermal imaging cameras. Maybe they’ll find more survivors,” he said, hoping for more rescue, and less recovery, but time was running out.

“I pray that we can do more for them,” she said.

“We’ll do everything we can,” he said, as he rubbed dust stirred by the last aftershock from his eyes.

He looked at the man with the child as Shamema helped the two. A young boy; perhaps only three or four years old - badly injured and near death, eyes partially opened, mouth gaping. He was in dire need. Even the boy’s father looked as though he too needed immediate medical attention, clothing torn, soiled with dried blood and dirt. Shamema took the boy from his father; the man’s face registering complete hopelessness and loss, his wife and daughter dead, the boy was all he had. Shamema laid the unconscious youngster on a cot.

“He’s a high fever, and absolutely dehydrated - I can barely feel a pulse,” she said checking his vital signs. “What’s his name?” She asked the father in a Dardic dialect of the region.

“Latif,” the man said brushing away tears. He began speaking very rapidly to Shamema; she held his hand to calm him.

“His home and village are destroyed, most people are dead. He found his son this morning. The boy was underneath his mother, she protected him as a wall collapsed on top of them - all of his family was lost, his brothers, sisters, wife and daughter,” she said, translating for Bryan’s sake. Another relief worker approached them to render assistance, he could see the boy was critical and wouldn’t last long.

“Wa’da we got ere?” He asked with a heavy Brooklyn accent.

“His name’s Latif,” Bryan said looking at the boy’s near lifeless face, his pupils partially covered by his eyelids.

“Okay little buddy, wha ’da we got? Unconscious – dehydrated – pulse, but slight.  Let’s get ya goin, we need some fluids in this litta fella, stat,” the New Yorker said as he looked for a place on the boy’s small body to insert an IV. “He’s got nowheres on ‘is uppa body that’s any good. How’s a’bout’s your leg Latif, ya tough little guy,” he said.

Bryan watched as the American went to work. He was obviously experienced in rapid treatment, as he expertly felt the boy’s legs for a good spot to place the needle. The man’s hands were big and strong, surprising for a doctor, Bryan thought. In fact, the man himself was powerfully built, like a football player, Bryan concluded.

“There we go, right ere. Tell ‘is old man ta start prayin ta Allah,” the American said as he finally found the right spot. “Come on now kid – show me what ya got – live,” he said, squeezing the bag of saline solution to encourage the flow.

Latif’s father, a pathetic site, stood close by sobbing, hungry hands clenched near a heavy heart. He feared the worst, and for good reason, for these survivors the worst was generally the result. The unfortunate man believed his son was already lost, soon to be in a grave with the rest of his family. Then to the father’s astonishment, unexpectedly the lifeless face began to show color, and his eyes, big, dark eyes, opened wide, suddenly full of life.

Shamema was cleaning dirt off the boy’s face when cries of discomfort bellowed from his tiny mouth, cries of being alive again. Tears of overwhelming joy streamed from his father’s face. The Muslim Pashtun from North West Frontier embraced the American, thanking him over and over in Pashto and English. “Sta na shukria – tahnk you, sta na shukria – tahnk you,” he said gripping the American’s hand with both of his.

“Doctor, the name’s Bryan Craig,” he said, introducing himself to the fellow American.

“Hey, there - how ya doin – Angelo, John Angelo, and sorry pal, but I’m no doc,” he said, as he carefully examined the boy for broken bones and other maladies.

“What kind of medical training do you have then?” Bryan asked curiously.

“Firefighter – ladda twenty four, F D N Y,” he said proudly. Now it was beginning to make some sense, Bryan thought, including the man’s size and apparent physical strength.

“What brought you here, helping these folks – you know, as a volunteer?” Bryan asked, somewhat surprised.

“What brought me ere? Because they need help - yeah, that’s why I’m ere – anyway, I was a medic in the Army too – so I jumped on a plane ta help out. Tol’ my wife I’d be back when I got back. Arrived just a couple of hours ago,” the firefighter said.

“These people will be very thankful, I’m sure of it,” Bryan said looking out at the endless advance from the devastated land.

“I go where people need help, simple as that,” John added, as he too looked out at the hoards. Bryan felt pride in meeting a man with such unselfish qualities. A true humanitarian and citizen of the world, he exemplified the best of mankind as a whole, Bryan thought.

“We thank God that all of you have come to help us,” Shamema said, as she continued to care for Latif. “We would lose many thousands more without you.”

“Yeah, at least we can give em somethin they can hold onto, ya know? That man there,” the firefighter said nodding toward the Pakistani man standing by his son’s cot. “He’s gonna remember I saved his son - an American saved his only son. He’ll never forget that. That’s how to win their hearts and minds,” he emphasized. “Ya see, the best approach is to take the high road, if ya know what I mean.”

The high road, what a curious a phrase, Bryan thought.

“I wouldn’t doubt you’re correct on that one,” Bryan said, seeing the irony of a New York firefighter, one who had no doubt lost so much to Islamic terrorists; friends, perhaps a brother or father, yet here in Pakistan helping the helpless. Helping Muslims. No, helping people.

“Captain Craig, sahr, just spoke tae Lieutenant Thomas – ‘e says tha’s on the way ere, ten minutes tae pick ye up,” the British SAS man said as he entered the tent.

“Thanks Sergeant Major. Well, I should get ready to shove off then,” Bryan said, turning to Shamema. “I’ll be taking this.” Bryan held up the book.  “But, I’ll make sure that it gets back to you safe and sound Shamema,” he promised.

She silently nodded her head and smiled.

Bryan stepped outside the tent as the first Chinook was landing nearby, throwing up dust as the pilot searched for a level place to set down. The firefighter and Shamema were rushing the boy and IV to the helicopter; he wasn’t out of the woods just yet, the next few hours would be critical. The emergency flight would take the boy, and as many injured as the helicopter could safely carry, to the Holy Family Hospital in Rawalpindi, a facility with experience in caring for earthquake victims.

As the helicopter flew south and out of site, Bryan faintly heard a jet engine somewhere nearby. Looking up, he tried to follow the sound to its source, finally spotting the aircraft high up in the sky over the lake. It was an F-16 dispatched by the Pakistani Air Force for a quick reconnaissance of new damage caused by the latest aftershocks.

“Hmmm, a falcon,“ Bryan said to himself, thinking it coincidental, reminding him of the contents in his jacket pocket. He felt for the items, the piece of paper and the tin square, removing them. Studying the drawing again, he admired the artist’s quick sketch, and thought it remarkably accurate. He looked at the tin, a family portrait, and he could clearly see Afzal for the first time. Younger than Amir Kahn at the time of the time of the tintype, maybe in his late teens, Afzal looked remarkably similar. Like twins! He felt something rough on the back of the tintype. He turned it over and found writing, etched into the metal. He read it. Bryan then pulled the old book out, opening it to the back, suddenly realizing that there was more there. The book had a false back, hiding more pages. He ripped the cloth away. “There’s writing here,” he said out loud to no one. There were more pages, old pages of handwriting. Letters, a journal!