Finalist: The Boston Globe, by Juliette Kayyem

Over 130 women have died in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and yet they were not in combat. This paradox — women fight in wars but are not assigned to fighting in wars due to the Pentagon's exclusionary policy — is at the center of a long-simmering debate that has avoided much of the Lady Gaga-ness surrounding repeal of the military's ban on homosexuals. But if 2011 was the year of ending the "don't ask, don't tell" prohibition, 2012 begins with hints about a significant policy transformation regarding women in combat.

 

Ladies, get your guns. And grenades. And possibly your gut-slitting knives. Military bureaucracy can be slow, and conservative, and even unwieldy, but it can't defend the paradox too much longer.

 

To understand how women can fight, but still not be in combat, is all about definition. For decades, the Pentagon has been opening up roles for women to serve on combat aircraft, ships, and, as of 2010, even submarines. But, the prohibition against "direct ground combat," known as DGC, has never changed.

 

Pentagon policy uses phrases like "collocation" and "primary mission" to help explain the present panoply of rules governing women. It can be confusing to most civilians. More women are being brought closer to the combat line, without violating the DGC rule. The Marine Corps has created, for example, Female Engagement Teams to be assigned with, but not to, combat Marine Expeditionary Units because of a growing recognition that in many countries, male Marines ought not to engage civilian women. So, women are there with the very forces that are waging combat; they are in combat, but not "in combat." Get it?

 

Neither, often, does the military. Defense Department definitions prohibit women who are placed "well forward on the battlefield"; Army policy omits that phrase and instead adds that women will not be assigned to any forces that are "repelling the enemy."

 

Even forgiving the paternalism in all these rules, none of these definitions makes much sense when applied to modern warfare. As the Service Women's Action Network, an organization committed to repealing the ban, notes: "Iraq and Afghanistan exemplify asymmetric battlegrounds, where the potential for engagement in direct ground combat is ever present."

 

As the Pentagon faces the harsh realities of budget cuts and war, it is reviewing the utilization of all the skills of all its troops. Earlier in 2011, the Military Leadership Diversity Commission recommended ending the ban, noting that the rule creates a structural barrier that prohibits women from tactical field experience, which is the traditional route to becoming a flag or general officer. Only 24 of the Army's 403 general officers (6 percent) are female, for example, though women represent roughly 15 percent of the force.

 

In response, Congress demanded that the service secretaries review all policies regarding female members. That report was due on April 15, 2011. The Pentagon asked for an extension through October. It missed that deadline, too.

 

The delay is not unusual, but reflects the magnitude of the potential change ahead. Publicly, senior military and civilian leaders are expressing frustration with a policy that adheres to notions of physical aptitude or troop cohesion that were used to exclude African-Americans and gays in the past.

 

New Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno has said that initial Pentagon attempts to clarify the policy do not represent the "things that our women are doing in combat." According to sources, first drafts held firm to the exclusionary policy, but that was before Oriderno had been elevated to his role.

 

Last week, departing Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli focused on the anachronism of the combat exclusion in an interview with the Washington Post. Chiarelli clearly wanted his final public statements in uniform to be remembered. Simply put: in a "nonlinear battlefield there are no safe jobs."

 

Army leadership is important here because the Army is the largest combat force. The internal debate at the Pentagon is about finding a unified approach without alienating too many of the troops. And it is being done in the midst of growing concerns about sexual assaults against female soldiers.

 

Unlike with the ban on the homosexuals, the female combat exclusion is not a statutory prohibition; Defense Secretary Leon Panetta can change policy on his own. The Marines are said to be reluctant to change the policy, just as they were with "don't ask, don't tell."

 

The Pentagon is in its own internal war as it struggles to make its policy reflect the reality of warfare. The integration of African-Americans into the military is not too grand of an analogy for the challenges that the Pentagon will have to overcome. After that transformation, the military survived and became a model vehicle for blacks to break their proverbial glass ceiling.

 

The lives of over 130 women suggest that theirs is broken already.

The Marines have always been an elite club. Their marketing slogan — "the few, the proud" — flaunts a philosophy of exclusion and domination. Their mandate — "every Marine is a rifleman" — is a reminder to civilian leaders that their primary purpose is to fight. They are not nation-builders.

 

The Corps is smaller and leaner than the other service branches, and is often the most resistant to change. It was a vocal holdout on ending the "don't ask, don't tell" policy last year. With fewer than 10 percent women, they are also the most male of all the services. So the historic announcement this week that the Marine Corps will open up its infantry officer school at Quantico, Va., as well as some ground battalions, to female Marines was nothing short of a revolution 236 years in the making. Marines and progressive are not two words that are often used together.

 

Last Monday night, in a surprise message sent to troops, General James F. Amos, the Marine commandant, described the changes. Women will now enter its infantry officer course, the grueling classes at Quantico which test an officer's capabilities under stress and physical exhaustion. Graduation from Quantico is a big prize. Women will now formally qualify to be assigned to combat roles, the next big hurdle. In addition, about 40 women already in the Marines will be assigned to artillery, tank, assault amphibian, combat engineer, combat assault, and low-altitude air defense battalions. None of these are direct combat troops, but they are exceptionally close to the action.

 

From the perspective of changing the combat exclusion rules for women, the announcement is like the slow peeling off of a Band-Aid. The course of history, and the reality of war, are headed towards full inclusion of women into combat roles. The Pentagon's liberalization of some of the combat rules earlier this year — and the promise of further reviews as evidenced in the changes this week — were an acknowledgment that antiquated and inconsistent combat regulations are becoming more difficult to defend in modern warfare. There is no battle front anymore. Every soldier is a riflewoman.

 

These new procedures are admittedly coming a little late given that 225,000 women have already served in Iraq and Afghanistan. But last week's announcement is, at its core, a move to change military culture. While Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has put a necessary focus on fighting the prevalence of sexual assault in its ranks, it is simply not enough to ban bad behavior in order to achieve full integration.

 

But the Marines? And, to be honest, Commandant Amos? Last we heard from him, he was testifying before Congress against ending the prohibition on gays serving in the military, suggesting that the military was no place for social engineering. Amos was reflecting his troops; in polling of the military, the Marines were the most resistant to the "don't ask, don't tell" repeal.

 

Marines have never been aggressive about change. When President Harry Truman desegregated the military in 1948, all-black Marines units persisted. It took the Marines until 1952 for full integration of combat troops.

 

This slow-roll towards the inevitable is not without its skeptics who worry that the Marines will rely on the performance of a few women, who may fail, to judge female inclusion rules for everyone. That's possible, but once doors are opened, it's awfully hard to close them again. Women who join the Marines are the few and the proud as well. And it is worth remembering that Shannon Faulkner, the young woman who forced gender integration at South Carolina's The Citadel, only lasted one week at the grueling military school that fought admitting female students until the Supreme Court forced its doors open. Now, the Citadel is about 7 percent female.

 

This announcement may not be giving women full equal status, but its significance is clear: the Marines are taking the Pentagon's calls for continuing reassessments of gender roles seriously. They may also just recognize that the rules have outlived reality. Even Amos admitted, "I'm very bullish on women." Not exactly the most sensitive turn of phrase but, come to think of it, pretty on point.

President Obama's commencement address to the graduating class at Barnard College on Monday had no throwaway lines. It was for and about women; choosing a women's college for a highly touted presidential graduation speech was a signal that Democrats will use every opportunity to make gender, and gender rights, a political issue this fall.

 

And after invoking the usual platitudes, Obama included an eye-opening line: "Until a girl can imagine herself, can picture herself as a computer programmer, or a combatant commander, she won't become one." The president fully understands that the rules excluding women from combat pretty much rule out the possibility that she can ever aspire to be a combatant commander. This was Obama's way of signaling that he will change those rules if he's reelected.

 

Until now, Obama has been relatively quiet on issues of women and combat. This latest evolution is just as welcome as his change of heart on gay marriage. It is not only the right policy to end combat-exclusion rules, but there are also political points to be gained by urging women to Be All That You Can't Be.

 

First, a short detour for the civilian readers. A combatant command is a unit that the Defense Department sets up to align the missions of the different services in times of both war and peace. A command includes at least two military services, and they are generally organized on a geographic basis, such as Central Command for the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. Each command is run by a combatant commander, who must be a four-star general or admiral. These are serious jobs; the chain of command runs directly from the commanders, to the secretary of defense, to the president.

 

There are only two women who are now four-star generals: Army General Ann Dunwoody and Air Force General Janet Wolfenbarger, and neither is a combatant commander. Dunwoody is a logistics genius, and Wolfenbarger runs research, development, and testing programs for the Air Force. They are specialists, but not in combat. Most generals achieve elevated rank through combat jobs.

 

Changes announced earlier this year are intended to allow for women to be formally authorized for some combat activities that they are already performing. The changes are slow, but coming. Just this week, female soldiers began to move into previous all-male units; nine brigades started testing the inclusion of women before the policy goes Army-wide.

 

This is all known to Obama. And it is also known to Congress, which is permitted by the Constitution to authorize rules and regulations for the armed forces. It is this authority that allowed Congress to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in late 2010.

 

So, let the war begin. For Democrats, advocating for women's equal rights in the military is less complicated than contending with the reproductive and health issues that have drawn most of the gender focus this election season. Since most Americans have no interaction with the military, which constitutes less than 1 percent of the population, the issue is largely theoretical and therefore much safer for politicians. Few Americans actually know a woman who wants to be in combat; by saying that such women should be allowed to follow their dreams, Obama isn't alienating anyone except those who still claim that women aren't up to the job. The exclusion of women is hard to defend without resorting to stereotypes about physical abilities or unit cohesion.

 

And that's exactly where the administration wants the debate to head; let the Republicans question women’s abilities at their peril. Many female members of the House and Senate already embrace the goal of gender equality in the armed services. By this summer, there could be a legislative movement to formalize the Pentagon's efforts to expand women's roles, and maybe force the military to pick up the pace. By reminding women that there are still systemic barriers to their advancement, the Democrats can keep gender part of the national dialogue — and dare Republicans to stop them.

 

There are no throwaway lines, only the expectation that this is going to be a campaign for the votes of women like those smiling Barnard graduates. Most likely, none of them hopes to be a combatant commander. But it's good policy and politics to remind them that they couldn't anyway.

Simultaneously, two very different stories are unfolding about women in the military, speaking to the best and worst about our force's capacity to reform and repulse. As the Pentagon allows more women to train for roles that had been previously closed under the antiquated combat exclusion rules, the unfolding rape scandal at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas shows that some men still view assault as sport. The mixed narratives, some argue, suggest what can happen when the sexes merge, when the stresses of war mix with physical proximity. Even General Edward Rice, the head of Air Force personnel, hinted that separation in basic training might be the best solution.

 

This notion — that sexual abuse is somehow tied to the the emergence of women in closer proximity to combat — is a complete ruse. Women in combat are not a cause of sexual assault, but they could be the cure.

 

The Lackland incident is shocking in its scope and in the relative lack of public attention it received. An internal Air Force investigation proves that 31 women have recently been victimized at the training centers there, mostly by male instructors. No new inclusion efforts have gone into effect at Lackland.

 

Sex-abuse scandals, such as the 1991 Tailhook incident, have plagued the military since well before women took on, if not by law but in practice, more combat roles in Afghanistan and Iraq. Data released last week shows nearly 20,000 "violent sexual offenses" within the ranks last year alone, and thousands more unacknowledged. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has required new and basic "zero tolerance" policies that ensure that allegations of sexual crimes are reviewed by seasoned officers, and not the victim's (and often the perpetrator's) immediate commander.

 

There is no dearth of ways to address the military's sexual assault problem, including changes to rules that prohibit uniformed personnel from seeking civil remedies against the military as a way to hold a third party (the Pentagon) responsible. Less radical would be the establishment of civilian oversight of training and reporting on sexual harassment. Another proposal would require the Pentagon to maintain a central registry of offenders' names.

 

What is not a solution is the notion that segregation of the sexes in training or combat will stem assaults. It's unrealistic, panders to stereotypes, and discriminates against women. Worst of all, it may contribute to the violence. The problem of sexual assaults is the product of a system that has thrived on the premise that women are not of equal status, a premise reflected in the combat exclusion rules themselves.

 

Those rules make no sense in modern-day warfare. On the battlefield, such rules are not enforced, and women often fight alongside men. It's quite possible that such integration has contributed to an increase in sexual assaults in the past few years, but the challenges and stresses facing the military in a period of sustained war can't be discounted; suicides and substance abuse are also on the rise. This all then leads some women to wonder whether joining the military is a good career move, making the kinds of numbers necessary for true integration impossible.

 

Instead of proposing a new form of exclusionary rules, the Pentagon should realize that these two narratives — women as warrior and women as victim — inevitably come together. While sexual assault occurs in all professions, it will surely be less prevalent in a system where women have equal footing, a strong numerical presence, and well-earned leadership roles. Women in combat will then be normal and the question of proximity will be moot.

 

Every service is opening its doors just a little bit more this summer and fall. This is progress. But 250,000 military jobs are still closed to women, and so long as they are, men and women will view each other suspiciously, over a divide that should not hold.

It has come to this. Four military women, each having served in Afghanistan or Iraq, have sued the Pentagon over its combat exclusion rules. The plaintiffs come from the Rosa Parks school of activism: They only want what they deserve. Each one either faced the enemy, won the Purple Heart, or been injured by IEDs on the streets of Baghdad or Kabul. Their legal complaint takes on the confusing rules that prohibit them from "combat," and yet, because of the nature of warfare today, allow them to fight. The fact that the military doesn't give them credit for fighting limits their chances for promotion and the opportunity to learn new skills. The combat rules fool no one, least of all these plaintiffs. Women are at war.

 

But enough about them. The Pentagon has no one else to blame but itself for the lawsuit. Secretary Leon Panetta, the named defendant, will now have to answer their claims. Defendants have a tendency to miss the big picture while under legal assault; he might opt to fight this on procedural and constitutional grounds. But there is only one way for the Pentagon to actually win this war, a war of their own making against the women who constitute 14 percent of the 1.4 million active military personnel, including 280,000 women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Defense Department can finally end the exclusion rules and make the case moot.

 

In 1994, the Pentagon adopted the rules that exist today. This means women are barred from the infantry, armored divisions, and special operations. Because of women's roles in the post-9/11 wars, the Pentagon budged a little earlier this year when it opened a handful of new positions to women. In doing so, it actually ignored recommendations by an external review committee to drop the ban altogether.

 

The combat exclusion rules are an operational disaster. Because of the ban, women are "attached" to combat units, but not "assigned" to them; that distinction is lost in the fog of warfare, as the injuries sustained by the plaintiffs show. To satisfy the exclusion rules, commanders often go through ridiculous gyrations: They "reset" the women soldiers by temporarily bringing them back from their missions to make it look like they are in supporting roles. The rules are antiquated, condescending, and unworthy of this administration.

 

Right now, meetings are being arranged by government lawyers in the Pentagon, the White House, and the Justice Department to discuss how to deal with the case. There is a battle within the government about the gender exclusion; the forces of caution have won to date. If they advance, the Pentagon will probably fall back on two arguments. First, it will go after the plaintiffs' claims that they've suffered real harms to their careers. The argument's a loser. The plaintiffs are all-American gun-toting ladies who have committed themselves to a lifestyle most of us can't imagine — except that the Pentagon won't acknowledge it.

 

Second, the defense lawyers will cloak the combat rules in a separation-of-powers argument that courts shouldn’t mess with the warriors. It has some merit, but would still require Panetta to show that the gender exclusion satisfies an "important" governmental interest. And that would probably oblige Panetta to fall back on outmoded notions that placing women in the ranks undermines troop readiness and cohesion. It's the kind of operational argument that non-military lawyers will hear, and nod, and then — once the generals are out of the room — say "Can you believe these guys want us to argue this?"

 

The Pentagon is ending two wars while facing a budget crunch. But bringing gender equality to combat is not a big-ticket item. And change is never a linear narrative. If history is any indication, many pioneering women won't meet the physical requirements or will choose to drop out, as cadet Shannon Faulkner did in 1995 after the Supreme Court forced The Citadel to end its all-male tradition. But The Citadel is now 10 percent women. For the Pentagon, working through an inevitable change on its own terms is far preferable to going to trial — and, quite possibly, losing.

 

The Pentagon should have rules that reflect the society it defends — a society that has already abandoned gender discrimination as public policy.

 

Let it go.

There are Tiger Moms and Helicopter Moms and French Moms, and all sorts of labels to measure our adequacies as parents. But these moms have nothing on those who sacrifice in pursuit of a much-higher ideology. Now, thanks to Representative Michele Bachmann's attempts to root out the Muslim Brotherhood's "deep penetration" into the US government, the nation has been introduced to a new phenomenon: the Manchurian Mom.

 

According to the new wave of anti-Muslim accusations, America's enemy takes the form of a woman in national security who marries a man outside her faith as a decoy to her real intentions, acquires political positions and access to policy makers through her assimilation, and subverts the nation's interests while still propagating.

 

Who said women can't have it all?

 

It is simply not enough to mock the Bachmann crusade against the "civilizational jihad" festering in federal government. Much more than the recent and desperate accusations that President Obama needs to be "more American," the charges against those in government — appointees, civil servants, and advisers — are far more dangerous. They are intended not so much to root out the enemy in our midst, but to raise suspicions against Americans simply by demanding the hunt.

 

In five separate letters to the Departments of State, Justice, Homeland Security, and Defense, as well as the director of National Intelligence, Bachmann's congressional allies detail their objections about Islam's influence on America's policy. These policies include the relatively benign outreach efforts with Muslim organizations and apologies for the Koran burnings in Afghanistan. But it really isn't policies that the Bachmann cabal is worried about. It's the people.

 

Laced throughout the letters are vague statements about the personnel who work in counter-terrorism and national security, people who have devoted their lives to protecting the nation but whose background (Arabs and Muslims) or tangential relations (a friend of a friend, a long-lost cousin) make them suspect.

If this all could be ignored, then the joke is on Bachmann. But it can't. Bachmann's co-signers include three members on the Select Committee on Intelligence and two on the Judiciary Committee.

 

In government, such a request for the kind of information the letters demand — Joe McCarthy would be proud — will require each agency to track the strange claims and interview personnel. It will distract from a focus on the nation's security. But that's the point. It is the search that matters.

 

And in one instance, there is no need to search very hard. The letter to the State Department specifically names Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff for Secretary Hillary Clinton. Her ties to Clinton appear, according to the race-baiting Center for Security Policy that Bachmann cites, to have influenced the State Department to take "actions recently that have been enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests." These actions, one can suspect, consist of allowing the newly democratic Egyptians to elect the Muslim Brotherhood into power.

 

But what is most nefarious about the attacks is the notion that Abedin has been groomed by some Muslim master to move with the top tiers of the political establishment. Her marriage and pregnancy with Anthony Weiner, the former congressman and a Jewish-American, is merely a front that gives her access to promote the Islamic cause. The utterly perverse statement treats the talented Abedin as an escort in the name of jihad. The fact that the attacks focus on her access to power being made easier through her marriage to Weiner also caters to anti-Semitic stereotypes (shared by both Christian and Islamic radicals) that Jews run America.

 

These new tactics go beyond Islam as a religion. They are intended to make Muslims or Arabs in government who are often far less senior than Abedin, or those in policy positions who seek a better relationship with the Islamic world, feel like outsiders. It will most surely affect the desire of those who can contribute language and cultural skills to ever work in government.

 

I am of Arab Christian descent. I worked for over a decade in national security as a political appointee in state and federal government, married a Jewish lawyer, and have three children. I am either exceptionally lucky or a Manchurian Mom. True, given our times, the professional and personal can often merge; with so many family members born in Lebanon, my security clearance reviews were onerous. But it seemed a small nuisance for the benefit of serving the nation.

 

Like so many in government now, my narrative seems typically American. And, I suspect, that is exactly the problem.

On the first anniversary of the devastating tornado that touched ground here, the nation focused on this small city of 50,000 and its stories of resiliency and resourcefulness. Joplin is a folk tale of middle American community values and strong religious sentiment. It's "Little House on the Prairie," in the eyes of cable news. But there is something condescending about that portrayal, as if Joplin's comeback were an inevitable consequence of good people just being good.

 

Much has been said about how well Joplin has recovered, but less about how that recovery occurred. Joplin isn't just a story of hope winning over pessimism. What makes Joplin a truly American story is that its transformation is a triumph of local ingenuity, starting with that most democratic of events: a public meeting.

 

The city was reeling. Just a few weeks earlier, two tornadoes converged on the outskirts of the city, forming a gigantic force of destruction. A tragedy can always be told by the numbers. In Joplin's case they were overwhelming. Winds of 200 miles per hour; 161 people killed; 1,000 people injured; 7,500 homes destroyed; 530 businesses closed; 3 million cubic yards of debris. Tornadoes have no method; walking the path of destruction, one feels that the tornado's only aim was to strike where it would hurt the most — the high school, Mercy Hospital, Cunningham Park. Luckily, since it struck on a Sunday, schools were empty, and nearly 200,000 commuters were home in the suburbs.

 

There is another number, almost as relevant: over 1,000 little yellow sticky notes. At the public meeting, over 300 citizens representing a cross-section of this old mining town began to list the things that had to get done. Basic priorities, like removing debris and laying down new pavement, combined with visions of what Joplin could become as it rebuilt. All the ideas, even the silly ones, were recorded on those little notes.

 

This effort was eventually led by Jane Cage. She is the middle-aged owner of a local business called Heartland Technology. She moved here with her husband and couldn't bring herself to leave after his death in 1985. She is a celebrity now, Joplin's Citizen of the Year. She is unassuming and kind, and believes the tornado was an opportunity to think differently about city planning in a place that needs more diversified and affordable housing, more business sectors, and better public spaces. She loves Joplin, but isn't nostalgic either. "This is an opportunity that we never asked for, but can't afford to waste," she told me.

 

Cage formed the Citizens Advisory Recovery Team, an organization that is best described as a makeshift development group without the developers. The idea was to take all the enthusiasm, all the random ideas, all the visions of a new Joplin, and make them a part of the city's future. The sticky notes formed the backbone of the team's proposals in housing, education, and business development. Team leaders begged for input, standing outside the local college, bookstores, and community events to persuade more people to get involved. They had only one goal: No one would feel left out.

 

The process was like a election campaign without politics or smoke-filled rooms. Everyone was welcome, so much so that when the city voted to approve the recovery plan, not a single resident quibbled over the details. And it may help explain why, on Tuesday's anniversary, when Joplin's residents converged for a Walk of Unity, the march was celebratory — almost like a block party.

 

The S-shaped path of the tornado made the walk complicated: 17th Street to Texas Avenue, then left to 20th Street and Connecticut, then south on Wisconsin Street, past Pearl and Bird, to Cunningham Park. There is nothing especially prominent about 20th Street — it was chosen by the wind, just an unlucky address. The wind largely spared 19th Street, where most houses still stand, next to a block where many do not — either abandoned, or vanished, or covered in blue and green construction materials.

 

People here use euphemisms to describe their plight: A doctor tells me of his "upstairs project," as if losing his entire second floor was a purposeful expansion of his master bedroom. In this Republican county — "I think I know the two people who voted for the president here," a lawyer remarks — people are grateful that Obama came on Monday night to speak at the high school graduation. The original high school does not really exist; it is now a grotesquely contorted structure surrounded by debris and construction trucks.

 

Students shifted to a temporary facility after Superintendent C.J. Huff made good on his promise to get the kids back to school by summer's end. Classes are now in a mall flanked by two of the greatest distractions to any teenager: a cineplex and a massive food court.

 

The walk was filled with a festive attitude, with games, balloons, and even face-paint. Residents stopped to have their pictures taken with stars of the Weather Channel's "Tornado Chasers" show. They cheered the FEMA workers in yellow vests who, by all accounts, delivered on their promise of support, logistics, and money to the 10,746 individuals and businesses that registered for disaster assistance. There were tears and prayers, but also beers.

 

The beers continued at Cage's home later that night. Her neighbors, including an appellate judge and a local lawyer, were joined by FEMA leaders. David Wallace arrived late. He had just been chosen to serve as the master developer to help guide Joplin through its sticky-notes-inspired plan.

 

The former mayor of Sugar Land, Texas, Wallace believes in what people here call the "Joplin effect," the sense that Joplin has benefitted from so much good will because people like to help those who help themselves. He, too, is putting skin in this game; his compensation will be based on his ability to lure private investment into public works here.

 

Wallace's success will be judged on the second, third, and fourth anniversary. For Cage, though, the solidarity she felt during the day was the culmination of a year when democracy, in the form of little sticky notes, took hold. Despite everything, she believes she just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

 

Just like those living on 19th Street when the tornado passed.

THIS MORNING, a congressional committee will meet in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., to examine our capacity to handle an oil spill in the Caribbean. It is an important event, acknowledging a new reality: Expanding offshore drilling is not exclusively a US pastime. Like so many other North American enterprises, drilling has international appeal.

 

Perfora, nene, perfora. (In English: drill, baby, drill.)

 

Cuba is now set to begin tapping the ocean, and the need for rigorous engagement with Havana has never been more immediate. It should not wait for some hoped-for Cuban Spring or for the Castro brothers to die. There is simply no mañana.

 

Just a few days ago, a large Scarabeo 9 offshore drilling unit, the most powerful rig in the world, arrived off the shores of Havana. Recent seismic data has confirmed potential oil wells near Cuba's shores. The rig will hold 200 people, and has the capacity to manage two different drilling operations at the same time. It will operate 16 miles off the coast of Cuba, about 80 miles south of Key West, driving down into 5,300 feet of water to a depth of 20,000 feet below the sea floor.

 

As another Florida attraction might put it, it's a small world, and when it comes to drilling we're all in it together. The rig is Norwegian-designed, Chinese-built, Italian-owned, and flagged in the Bahamas. The Spanish energy company Repsol signed the first contract with the Cuban government to begin exploration. Repsol has joint partnership with companies from Norway and India. Additional drilling lease agreements exist between Cuba and Venezuela, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Angola; negotiations with China are ongoing.

 

Since most rigs begin drilling soon after they arrive, US government officials believe the Cuban platform will begin running "shortly." There is no reason to be paranoid about Repsol's plans; drilling happens all the time. A spill might not even harm Florida, as currents and barrier reefs serve as good protection. But when drilling happens in the ocean between neighbors, direct talks are generally the norm. In 1980, for example, the United States and Mexico negotiated an agreement for oil exploration and spill response known as the Mexus Plan.

 

Cuba raises unique concerns because we continue to refuse normal diplomatic relations with the country still run by the Castro brothers. So today's hearing will highlight lawmakers and scientists' best efforts to work around these prohibitions. Federal, state, and local agencies are taking this seriously. Because of prohibitions on direct talks with Cuba, the United States has met in five-party discussions with the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, and Mexico under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization.

 

There are essential efforts. And there is no evidence that Repsol, a responsible company with a solid safety record, is shying away from its duties. Presumably, with the Cuban government's approval, it even allowed the Coast Guard to review the drilling unit before it entered Cuba's exclusive economic zone. That review had to take place off the coast of Trinidad.

 

But in this little foray around the globe, it is important to remember that the most valuable lesson from oil spill responses is that every effort should be made to prevent one from ever happening.

 

Congress should support an exception to our Cuban non-engagement policy for off-shore drilling. We should want, with all our neighbors, an agreement on rigorous safety standards, regulatory oversight, and containment strategies. Unfortunately, some of the proposals in Congress seek to punish any company in contract with Cuba, an effort that smacks more of Cold War politics than real-world economics.

 

The domestic politics here, though, are all whacky. The liberal groups that want a new Cuba policy tend to be the same that oppose drilling. And conservative groups that favor drilling are intent on punishing the Castros. But Cuba will drill no matter what we do, for the same reasons that we drill. Meanwhile, the Bahamas hope to sign their first lease by the end of 2012. Jamaica is soon behind that.

 

Maybe, by then, we will come to understand that the oceans do not belong to the Castro brothers, nor to those who continue to oppose them.

ARROW, Alaska — At midnight, in the northernmost location in the United States, this town packed in ice seems unwelcoming. It is silent and cold. Frozen whale bones line the road. There is no connectivity to the outside world. In order to ward off polar bears, mace spray hangs from the door of the Distant Early Warning (DEW) facility.

 

The DEWline, a "man camp" because that is who is there, is primarily used to monitor the Russians, but also sleeps visitors looking for a place to stay. Nearly 300 miles above the Arctic Circle, there are no vacancies for the foreseeable future. It may be minus 35 degrees this Tuesday, but Barrow is hot.

 

This 3,500-person Alaskan town is changing. It has become a magnet for explorers and environmentalists, businessmen and rescuers, scientists and engineers, all of whom are coming here because the Arctic is melting and there is oil in the once-frozen ocean.

 

The United States Geological Service estimates there are about 25 billion barrels of oil in the Arctic; it could net a federal tax haul of $200 billion. Isolated Barrow, a place that has no road access in or out, will serve as the primary land location for all exploration activity. It is ground zero at the top of the world.

 

In February, Shell Oil received approval from the Department of Interior to begin preliminary offshore oil exploration. While some licenses and court actions are still pending, Shell has satisfied the government's major oil spill response concerns. It is now moving two oil rigs north through the Bering Strait.

 

The rig Discoverer, or Disco, passed by Hawaii on Monday and is en route to Alaska; it will sit in the Arctic's Chukchi Sea. The rig Kulluk will drill 400 miles to the east, in the ocean's Beaufort Sea. Shell hopes to find oil and build a route to the Trans-Alaska pipeline, which will carry the liquid gold to the mainland. Conoco Phillips and Statoil are also awaiting permits.

 

And so they come here. Alaska Airlines changed the aircraft from Anchorage, replacing a small commuter plane with a 120-seater. Pepe's, the local Mexican restaurant, expanded its menu and is anticipating a busy summer. Shell will have from July 1 to Oct. 31 to get the rigs in, test the sea beds, and then get out before the Arctic freezes over again. So new infrastructure and camps are being built quickly to accommodate more men, from rig workers to Coast Guard personnel.

 

Assuming Shell finds oil this summer, it will be the polar version of the California gold rush. More people means more permanent housing, a bigger police presence, a new runway at the already stretched airport where two guys still throw luggage from the cargo bay into the airport lobby, an expanded Coast Guard facility, greater fiber-optic capacity. And maybe, hopefully, a road to somewhere, perhaps Fairbanks.

 

While local leadership, mostly Native Alaskans, will admit that money and upgrades are in the offing, they are also worried about overwhelming a community that knows only whaling. The whales have been their prey, and drilling may steer the animals away. Greenpeace wants to protect whales for entirely different reasons, and is planning protests and will try to disrupt the rigs as they travel north.

 

And then there is the oil itself. Geologists here explain that cold oil is thick and "highly viscous," meaning it can be easily captured. But the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident and the 2010 BP Gulf oil spill are still cautionary tales. Shell executives in Anchorage detailed their plans for Arctic capping and containment systems should anything go awry.

 

They are not messing around, but they don't have many options. Nothing moves fast in the Arctic, so Shell will launch an additional 19 ships that do ice-breaking, as well as response and recovery, to support the two rigs. The Coast Guard is moving a number of helicopters, cutters, and buoy boats as well.

 

But all movement is slow; you simply cannot surge to Barrow. As Coast Guard Rear Admiral Tom Ostebo, who is responsible for Alaska shores, told me, "The logistics are so hard, that you have to get it right at the front end. So we are moving stuff up now." The drilling is not what worries him the most; it's having so much maritime activity and so many men, maybe a thousand, out in a freezing ocean. Arctic water has a "functional consciousness" rate of about two minutes, meaning anyone who lands in it is in imminent peril.

 

For this whale-hunting town, the Interior Department approval has launched a chain reaction of events that will make the summer of 2012 historic in Arctic history. Something still could stand in the way, maybe a bad environmental review or a lawsuit. But, as Barrow's temperature rises to minus 15 degrees at lunchtime and the streets fill with residents and the newly arrived, it's hard to see how the momentum will stop.

 

The people who live here have a saying that is repeated throughout town in these days of anticipation. "The whales give themselves when they wish to be taken."

 

The same may be true for Barrow itself.