Congress is once again facing off with BushCo with the usual results. This time it’s John Conyers’, on whom I think we can generally count to take a morally and legally sound stance, Chair of the House Committee on the Judiciary who is seeking testimony from Whitehouse officials.
He has asked David Addington, dick Cheney’s chief of staff, to testify before his committee about the level of involvement of the vice-president’s office in decisions about interrogation methods at Guantanamo Bay.
For the full story, see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/29/dickcheney.usa. In the process, please note that we had to go to a paper from the United Kingdom in order to read about this. Sort of adds weight to yesterday’s blog doesn’t it!?
Of course, dick’s response is the same old chestnut that his entire office is immune to Congressional investigation on the grounds that being a hybrid between the executive branch and the legislative due to his responsibilities to the president and in the Senate, he has a privilege akin to the “executive privilege” enjoyed by the presidency.
It’s all so typical of slippery regimes and so reminiscent of the Nixon Administration that it makes the bile boil for any American capable of objective analysis. This Whitehouse has been the most secretive since Nixon, too, and to me secrecy in government is about as welcome as a dagger in the back, which is what the people get every time.
Where are all the Republicans who spent millions of our tax dollars trying to pin the tail on Bill Clinton’s donkey before he finally blew it – so to speak – with Monica Lewinsky while their “leaders” are putting it – not to an intern – but to the all of us? This administration is the most openly vile and criminally active bunch ever to infest the Whitehouse, and the country is so divided along partisan lines that the little dick can pull this kind of shenanigan without fear of being burned in effigy on the Capital steps.
It’s disgusting and gets more so every day this bunch continues to hold unquestioned sway over this country. If 70% of Americans are fed up with this administration, why do they look on so silently while BushCo continues to spit on the constitution?
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
THE DEATH OF THE NEWSPAPER
“Most Top Papers Post Declines” reads a headline in today’s Business Section. It’s just a two paragraph story in a side bar, but I think it is one of the most significant stories in today’s paper.
I’m just old enough to remember when newspapers were the primary source of national and international information – a time before television became the primary pap merchant.. The paper’s arrival each morning brought a window to a world that was otherwise far too distant to be noticed. Even we kids eagerly tore into the paper every day seeking words of wisdom from the likes of Fletcher Knebel and Donald Kaul. But those days are long gone. Shoot, Al Capp’s “Li’l Abner” and Walt Kelly‘s “Pogo” brought us more biting analysis of the nature of politics than the editorial pages of today have to offer.
Today’s right or left wing diatribes don’t compare. Even Kaul has become more of a chronicler, albeit with a biting edge, than an analyst. Today’s columnists seem to me more inclined to foist (No, I don’t mean hoist. Think about it!) one or the other’s party line up the pole and ask us to salute than they are to question the veracity or value of those positions.
Today’s newspapers in general do not indulge in deep investigative reporting. The primary cause of this is that the number of significant owners has dropped from about 150 to five or six, and the tendency is for them to be supportive of one political party or the other and to follow the party line of that party rather than question its motives.
Newspapers have always been considered either leaning left or right, but today they are little more than mouthpieces for one or the other. Time was when mainstream newspapers saw it as their moral duty to investigate and report the facts behind the headlines, but today it seems as if their duty is seen to be maintaining civic calm by not looking very deeply into anything behind the scenes and spending most of their time asking why Britney is in the asylum again.
The only two papers the article says are holding their own are the Wall Street Journal and Today. It stands to reason.
After all, the journal is the primary source of the economic news that keeps our financial engine chugging. It has always been seen as right leaning, but now that it is under the control of Rupert Murdoch, may become known as just another propaganda peddling lightweight like FOX news. (Though I hope not.)
Today remains a best seller because it has sewn up the hotel market and is read by every business traveler too busy to bother with depth.
Americans by and large seem willing to accept opinion as fact, and newspapers by and large seem willing to print pap instead of investigating the motivations behind the headlines. We have seen the kind of rewards investigative reporting brings even here in Springfield when we watched Tony Messenger leave town after having forced the issue on the governor’s email mess. Whether or not it fits with the official line, Messenger had to leave because he became persona non grata for being the kind of person newspapers all over the country have come to fear – an investigative reporter.
Newspapers used to exist not only to bring us the news, but to rock the boat. Now the few surviving journalists must keep a low profile or be thrown overboard. Even when a story emerges that points out a flaw in the system – like the recent NY Times article on the high level authorization of torture – there doesn’t seem to be enough follow-up to force a change. It is a sad state of affairs and has a lot to do with why our nation is in an equally sad state from top to bottom.
Journalism has abdicated its responsibilities, and we all pay the price for it.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
I’m just old enough to remember when newspapers were the primary source of national and international information – a time before television became the primary pap merchant.. The paper’s arrival each morning brought a window to a world that was otherwise far too distant to be noticed. Even we kids eagerly tore into the paper every day seeking words of wisdom from the likes of Fletcher Knebel and Donald Kaul. But those days are long gone. Shoot, Al Capp’s “Li’l Abner” and Walt Kelly‘s “Pogo” brought us more biting analysis of the nature of politics than the editorial pages of today have to offer.
Today’s right or left wing diatribes don’t compare. Even Kaul has become more of a chronicler, albeit with a biting edge, than an analyst. Today’s columnists seem to me more inclined to foist (No, I don’t mean hoist. Think about it!) one or the other’s party line up the pole and ask us to salute than they are to question the veracity or value of those positions.
Today’s newspapers in general do not indulge in deep investigative reporting. The primary cause of this is that the number of significant owners has dropped from about 150 to five or six, and the tendency is for them to be supportive of one political party or the other and to follow the party line of that party rather than question its motives.
Newspapers have always been considered either leaning left or right, but today they are little more than mouthpieces for one or the other. Time was when mainstream newspapers saw it as their moral duty to investigate and report the facts behind the headlines, but today it seems as if their duty is seen to be maintaining civic calm by not looking very deeply into anything behind the scenes and spending most of their time asking why Britney is in the asylum again.
The only two papers the article says are holding their own are the Wall Street Journal and Today. It stands to reason.
After all, the journal is the primary source of the economic news that keeps our financial engine chugging. It has always been seen as right leaning, but now that it is under the control of Rupert Murdoch, may become known as just another propaganda peddling lightweight like FOX news. (Though I hope not.)
Today remains a best seller because it has sewn up the hotel market and is read by every business traveler too busy to bother with depth.
Americans by and large seem willing to accept opinion as fact, and newspapers by and large seem willing to print pap instead of investigating the motivations behind the headlines. We have seen the kind of rewards investigative reporting brings even here in Springfield when we watched Tony Messenger leave town after having forced the issue on the governor’s email mess. Whether or not it fits with the official line, Messenger had to leave because he became persona non grata for being the kind of person newspapers all over the country have come to fear – an investigative reporter.
Newspapers used to exist not only to bring us the news, but to rock the boat. Now the few surviving journalists must keep a low profile or be thrown overboard. Even when a story emerges that points out a flaw in the system – like the recent NY Times article on the high level authorization of torture – there doesn’t seem to be enough follow-up to force a change. It is a sad state of affairs and has a lot to do with why our nation is in an equally sad state from top to bottom.
Journalism has abdicated its responsibilities, and we all pay the price for it.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
Monday, April 28, 2008
Use Your Voice
We have an ex-in-law/friend who wound up in prison. He reads my blog faithfully and this week-end sent me a paper he asked me to post for him. Here it is:
***********************************************************************
THOUGHTS FROM A CAGED MIND
As I sat in my prison cell and read these articles (http://branney@blogspot.com), I wanted to communicate my thoughts. I long to have a voice. See I am different than you. You have it and very few use it. Stand up and use your voice.
This country was founded on grit and determination. Criminals and ideigent scum were our forefathers; not all but a large part were. They stood and used their voices. I do not advocate militant means to an end, although if enough disgruntled Ameri”cans” came together things would change.
We have had so many con men and clowns running this “great” country that the masses are beat down and feel they cannot do anything to change what is happening. Satnd up and use yoru voice.
You hear that call to a “grass roots effort”. What does this really mean?
To me it means coming together with a like mind to challenge or to come together as a whole to change what is going on. Stand up and use your voice.
On any given day, turn your television on and you could find come famous person begging you to send money to another country to feed their starving children and families. What about this country? What bout our starving children and families?
If something does not change, what will your children or families have for their futures? Every day the powers-that-be grow stronger. “They” right now know that the Ameri-“cant’s” are locked in their self-made pens and are wearing their muzzles. Stand up and use your voice.
Corporate fat cats run this country. They pul the leversx of their puppets. Speak out! Stop buying their fuel. Learn the difference between what is needed and what is wanted. Buy only what is needed. You have all the control and are too blind to use it. Stand up and use your voice.
I am not an angry inmate with an ax to grind on our government. I am a failed armed robber and a recovering drug addict. I have done eighteen years in prison and have many more to do. But I am also a lover of the Ameri”can” way of life. I believe that no matter how ludicrous it seems, America can once again be a wonderful, beautiful place to live. Stand up and use your voice.
You cannot sit on the ocuch and complain if you are not willing to help effect change. It seems as though we have come to a point in history where people now want others to fight their battles for them.
Americans are going away to fight and coming home not as men but as boys with deep issues to resolve. They must learn to live with not only the terrible atrocities they witnessed, but the ones they created or participated in. They are being forced to beg for support once they are back on American soil. Support for limbs that were lost or mental issues that need to be dealt with. Stand up and use your voice.
Senior citizens who have worked their whole lives are forced to choose between life-saving medicines and basic necessities such as food and utilities. Stand up and use your voice.
These examples could go on and on. There are so many things that deserve our immediate attention. Vote people. Use your voice. There are many like-minded people out there. I swear, wouldn’t it be nice to say to yourself, “Hey, I helped make that happen?”
You can make it happen. You can make it real.
McCain? Obama? Clinton? Do you really want to face the next presidential term saying, “I didn’t vote.”? Personally, I would vote for Hillary. The good, the bad, the ugly? Make a choice and use your vote.
I had a sign up where I work as a prison staff barber. It said, “Clinton for President”. I wanted a voice. My boss ordered me to take it down. You see, I don’t have a voice, so please stand up and use yours. Help bring about a much needed change.
Minds are like parachutes. They only work when open. – Unknown Source
Perform random acts of kindness – Unknown Source
********************************************************************
Jim doesn’t have the freedom you and I have to express ourselves. He made some choices early in his life that have cost him not only his liberty, but his right to make his views known. You and I do have those rights, and I know that you agree with him when he says that we are making a big mistake if we don’t exercise them.
I’m sure that those rights can only be truly appreciated when they are taken away, so I know that Jim deeply appreciates the extent of his loss. In my view, the present administration has done its all to imperil our rights, too, so I’ll add my urging to Jim’s prodding. Let us each use our voice to the maximum possible effect in reinstating and protecting those rights.
Yours in Peace – BR
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
***********************************************************************
THOUGHTS FROM A CAGED MIND
As I sat in my prison cell and read these articles (http://branney@blogspot.com), I wanted to communicate my thoughts. I long to have a voice. See I am different than you. You have it and very few use it. Stand up and use your voice.
This country was founded on grit and determination. Criminals and ideigent scum were our forefathers; not all but a large part were. They stood and used their voices. I do not advocate militant means to an end, although if enough disgruntled Ameri”cans” came together things would change.
We have had so many con men and clowns running this “great” country that the masses are beat down and feel they cannot do anything to change what is happening. Satnd up and use yoru voice.
You hear that call to a “grass roots effort”. What does this really mean?
To me it means coming together with a like mind to challenge or to come together as a whole to change what is going on. Stand up and use your voice.
On any given day, turn your television on and you could find come famous person begging you to send money to another country to feed their starving children and families. What about this country? What bout our starving children and families?
If something does not change, what will your children or families have for their futures? Every day the powers-that-be grow stronger. “They” right now know that the Ameri-“cant’s” are locked in their self-made pens and are wearing their muzzles. Stand up and use your voice.
Corporate fat cats run this country. They pul the leversx of their puppets. Speak out! Stop buying their fuel. Learn the difference between what is needed and what is wanted. Buy only what is needed. You have all the control and are too blind to use it. Stand up and use your voice.
I am not an angry inmate with an ax to grind on our government. I am a failed armed robber and a recovering drug addict. I have done eighteen years in prison and have many more to do. But I am also a lover of the Ameri”can” way of life. I believe that no matter how ludicrous it seems, America can once again be a wonderful, beautiful place to live. Stand up and use your voice.
You cannot sit on the ocuch and complain if you are not willing to help effect change. It seems as though we have come to a point in history where people now want others to fight their battles for them.
Americans are going away to fight and coming home not as men but as boys with deep issues to resolve. They must learn to live with not only the terrible atrocities they witnessed, but the ones they created or participated in. They are being forced to beg for support once they are back on American soil. Support for limbs that were lost or mental issues that need to be dealt with. Stand up and use your voice.
Senior citizens who have worked their whole lives are forced to choose between life-saving medicines and basic necessities such as food and utilities. Stand up and use your voice.
These examples could go on and on. There are so many things that deserve our immediate attention. Vote people. Use your voice. There are many like-minded people out there. I swear, wouldn’t it be nice to say to yourself, “Hey, I helped make that happen?”
You can make it happen. You can make it real.
McCain? Obama? Clinton? Do you really want to face the next presidential term saying, “I didn’t vote.”? Personally, I would vote for Hillary. The good, the bad, the ugly? Make a choice and use your vote.
I had a sign up where I work as a prison staff barber. It said, “Clinton for President”. I wanted a voice. My boss ordered me to take it down. You see, I don’t have a voice, so please stand up and use yours. Help bring about a much needed change.
Minds are like parachutes. They only work when open. – Unknown Source
Perform random acts of kindness – Unknown Source
********************************************************************
Jim doesn’t have the freedom you and I have to express ourselves. He made some choices early in his life that have cost him not only his liberty, but his right to make his views known. You and I do have those rights, and I know that you agree with him when he says that we are making a big mistake if we don’t exercise them.
I’m sure that those rights can only be truly appreciated when they are taken away, so I know that Jim deeply appreciates the extent of his loss. In my view, the present administration has done its all to imperil our rights, too, so I’ll add my urging to Jim’s prodding. Let us each use our voice to the maximum possible effect in reinstating and protecting those rights.
Yours in Peace – BR
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
Friday, April 25, 2008
Bush's Officers
From the American Progressive Action newsletter comes this report:
MILITARY -- BUSH TAPS GEN. PETRAEUS FOR CENTCOM COMMANDER:
Yesterday, President Bush nominated Army General David Petraeus, commander of multinational forces in Iraq (MNF-I), to lead Central Command (Centcom), the post responsible for U.S. military operations stretching from Kazakhstan, through the Middle East, and to the Horn of Africa. Petraeus's number two in Iraq, Lt. Gen Ray Odierno, will take over command of MNF-I, thus elevating the status of the two men "most closely associated with President Bush's current strategy in Iraq." Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked yesterday if the promotions indicate that the United States will "stay the course" in Iraq. "Staying that course is not a bad idea," Gates said, citing "the security gains that had been achieved under General Petraeus's command." Petraeus replaces Adm. William Fallon, who resigned last month over disagreements with the Bush administration's Iraq-centric strategy for the region. But Petraeus's new position will force him to answer a question he has previously refused to address: Does fighting in Iraq make the United States safer? "The big question of this appointment, therefore, is whether Petraeus's views will change as a result of wider responsibilities."
News reports last night characterized Patraeus as the best choice as the position requires a well seasoned veteran, and he has more experience than anyone else in the military. They went further to say that the position was not suitable for anyone but a top General.
They failed, however, to mention that all the well seasoned Generals left long ago along with a lot of other fine officers of conscience.
2005
www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=28817
Bunnatine ("Bunny") Greenhouse, the top official at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in charge of awarding government contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, was demoted. For years, Greenhouse received stellar evaluations from superiors -- until she raised objections about secret, no-bid contracts awarded to Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR)
Anthony Zinni: A soldier and diplomat for 40 years, Zinni served from 1997 to 2000 as commander-in-chief of the United States Central Command in the Middle East. The retired Marine Corps general was then called back to service by the Bush administration to assume one of the highest diplomatic posts, special envoy to the Middle East (from November 2002 to March 2003), but his disagreement with Bush's plans to go to war and public comments that foretold of a prolonged and problematical aftermath to such a war led to his ouster. "In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption," said Zinni. Failed to be reappointed, March 2003.
Eric Shinseki: After General Shinseki, the Army's chief of staff, told Congress that the occupation of Iraq could require "several hundred thousand troops," he was derided by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Then, wrote the Houston Chronicle, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "took the unusual step of announcing that Gen. Eric Shinseki would be leaving when his term as Army chief of staff end[ed]." Retired, June 2003.
Karen Kwiatkowski: A Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force who served in the Department of Defense's Near East and South Asia (NESA) Bureau in the year before the invasion of Iraq, she wrote in her letter of resignation:
"…[W]hile working from May 2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Near East South Asia and Special Plans (USDP/NESA and SP) in the Pentagon, I observed the environment in which decisions about post-war Iraq were made… What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of ‘intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Hussein occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense."
Retired, July 2003.
Charles "Jack" Pritchard: A retired U.S. Army colonel and a 28-year veteran of the military, the State Department, and the National Security Council, who served as the State Department's senior expert on North Korea and as the special envoy for negotiations with that country, resigned (according to the Los Angeles Times) because the "administration's refusal to engage directly with the country made it almost impossible to stop Pyongyang from going ahead with its plans to build, test and deploy nuclear weapons." Resigned, August 2003.
Major (then Captain) John Carr and Major Robert Preston: Air Force prosecutors, they quit their posts in 2004 rather than take part in trials under the military commission system President Bush created in 2001 which they considered "rigged against alleged terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." Requested and granted reassignment, 2004.
Captain Carrie Wolf: A U.S. Air Force officer, she also asked to leave the Office of Military Commissions due to concerns that the Bush-created commissions for trying prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were unjust. Requested and granted reassignment, 2004.
Colonel Douglas Macgregor: He retired from the U.S. Army and stated: "I love the army and I was sorry to leave it. But I saw no possibility of fundamentally positive reform and reorgani[z]ation of the force for the current strategic environment or the future… It's a very sycophantic culture. The biggest problem we have inside the… Department of Defense at the senior level, but also within the officer corps -- is that there are no arguments. Arguments are [seen as] a sign of dissent. Dissent equates to disloyalty." Retired, June 2004.
2006 (www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/41/1/)
The list is impressive. In a New York Times op-ed column, retired Major Gen. Paul Eaton, who helped revive the Iraqi army, described Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically" and called for his resignation. Retired Lt. Gen. William Odom, former director of the National Security Agency and now a Yale professor, said in a speech covered by the Providence Journal that America's invasion of Iraq might be the worst strategic mistake in American history.
Publicizing his book, "The Battle for Peace," in a recent "Meet the Press" appearance, retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, a four-star former commander of the Central Command, describes administration behavior that ranged from "true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility" to "lying, incompetence and corruption." Another Marine, retired Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, has written in Time magazine that the Iraq war was unnecessary. Finally, Lt. Gen. Bernard Trainor and Michael Gordon have written a history of the invasion of Iraq, Cobra II, which describes a willfully self-deluding planning process.
Now, on CNN, Maj. Gen. John Batiste also called for Rumsfeld's resignation; the Washington Post reported that Batiste, commander of the First Infantry Division in Iraq during 2004-2005, turned down a third star and a tour in Iraq as the second-ranking U.S. military officer there. He retired rather than continue to work for Rumsfeld.
2007 (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20070923-9999-1n23generals.html)
Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton: “The ethos is: Give your advice to those in a position to make changes, not the media,” said Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, now retired. “But this administration is immune to good advice.”
Eaton has two sons serving in Afghanistan and Iraq; his father, an Air Force pilot, was shot down and killed over Laos in 1969. He said his frustration began festering in 2003, when he was assigned to build the Iraqi army from scratch. His internal requests for more equipment and properly trained instructors went unheeded, he said.
While on active duty, Eaton did not criticize his civilian bosses – almost to a man, the generals agree active-duty officers have no business doing that. But he was candid in media interviews. Building an Iraqi army, he warned, would take years, and the effort might never succeed.
(General Eaton was superior to General Patraeus in 2004 when Patraeus was assigned to replace him Undoubtedly his dissatisfaction was apparent to BushCo even though he was not speaking out publicly at the time because after that his rise through the ranks stopped. He retired in 2006.)
For retired Brig. Gen. John Johns, . . .who retired in 1978, agonized over whether to go public with a paper calling the impending (Iraq) war “one of the great blunders of history.”
He sent it to retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni and to Pete McCloskey, the moderate-Republican former congressman from California who had opposed the Vietnam War. “At that time, they did not want to go public,” Johns said.
General John P. Abizaid retired from his position as head of the U.S. Central Command when he opposed the idea of bringing more troops to Iraq. He characterized the Iraq war as guerilla warfare and wanted to fight it accordingly. This didn’t fit with BushCo’s image of the war, so he had to go. He was succeeded by Admiral William Fallon, the first naval officer ever to serve in the position.
2008 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Fallon)
Admiral William Fallon resigned after saying that no attack on Iran would happen on his watch, so now General Patraeus is being assigned ot fill his shoes. As a Bush yes-man, he will fit right in and ought to enjoy his power until a savvier president shoves him out.
So there you have it. The glorious record of our self-proclaimed “war president”. His proficiency as a military leader has matched everything else he has done from failing as an oil executive to leading the nation in executions as governor of Texas. Doesn’t it just make you want to stand up and salute?!
I don’t know what Roger Ebert would do, but I’ll give it one finger up.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
MILITARY -- BUSH TAPS GEN. PETRAEUS FOR CENTCOM COMMANDER:
Yesterday, President Bush nominated Army General David Petraeus, commander of multinational forces in Iraq (MNF-I), to lead Central Command (Centcom), the post responsible for U.S. military operations stretching from Kazakhstan, through the Middle East, and to the Horn of Africa. Petraeus's number two in Iraq, Lt. Gen Ray Odierno, will take over command of MNF-I, thus elevating the status of the two men "most closely associated with President Bush's current strategy in Iraq." Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked yesterday if the promotions indicate that the United States will "stay the course" in Iraq. "Staying that course is not a bad idea," Gates said, citing "the security gains that had been achieved under General Petraeus's command." Petraeus replaces Adm. William Fallon, who resigned last month over disagreements with the Bush administration's Iraq-centric strategy for the region. But Petraeus's new position will force him to answer a question he has previously refused to address: Does fighting in Iraq make the United States safer? "The big question of this appointment, therefore, is whether Petraeus's views will change as a result of wider responsibilities."
News reports last night characterized Patraeus as the best choice as the position requires a well seasoned veteran, and he has more experience than anyone else in the military. They went further to say that the position was not suitable for anyone but a top General.
They failed, however, to mention that all the well seasoned Generals left long ago along with a lot of other fine officers of conscience.
2005
www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=28817
Bunnatine ("Bunny") Greenhouse, the top official at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in charge of awarding government contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, was demoted. For years, Greenhouse received stellar evaluations from superiors -- until she raised objections about secret, no-bid contracts awarded to Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR)
Anthony Zinni: A soldier and diplomat for 40 years, Zinni served from 1997 to 2000 as commander-in-chief of the United States Central Command in the Middle East. The retired Marine Corps general was then called back to service by the Bush administration to assume one of the highest diplomatic posts, special envoy to the Middle East (from November 2002 to March 2003), but his disagreement with Bush's plans to go to war and public comments that foretold of a prolonged and problematical aftermath to such a war led to his ouster. "In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption," said Zinni. Failed to be reappointed, March 2003.
Eric Shinseki: After General Shinseki, the Army's chief of staff, told Congress that the occupation of Iraq could require "several hundred thousand troops," he was derided by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Then, wrote the Houston Chronicle, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "took the unusual step of announcing that Gen. Eric Shinseki would be leaving when his term as Army chief of staff end[ed]." Retired, June 2003.
Karen Kwiatkowski: A Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force who served in the Department of Defense's Near East and South Asia (NESA) Bureau in the year before the invasion of Iraq, she wrote in her letter of resignation:
"…[W]hile working from May 2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Near East South Asia and Special Plans (USDP/NESA and SP) in the Pentagon, I observed the environment in which decisions about post-war Iraq were made… What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of ‘intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Hussein occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense."
Retired, July 2003.
Charles "Jack" Pritchard: A retired U.S. Army colonel and a 28-year veteran of the military, the State Department, and the National Security Council, who served as the State Department's senior expert on North Korea and as the special envoy for negotiations with that country, resigned (according to the Los Angeles Times) because the "administration's refusal to engage directly with the country made it almost impossible to stop Pyongyang from going ahead with its plans to build, test and deploy nuclear weapons." Resigned, August 2003.
Major (then Captain) John Carr and Major Robert Preston: Air Force prosecutors, they quit their posts in 2004 rather than take part in trials under the military commission system President Bush created in 2001 which they considered "rigged against alleged terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." Requested and granted reassignment, 2004.
Captain Carrie Wolf: A U.S. Air Force officer, she also asked to leave the Office of Military Commissions due to concerns that the Bush-created commissions for trying prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were unjust. Requested and granted reassignment, 2004.
Colonel Douglas Macgregor: He retired from the U.S. Army and stated: "I love the army and I was sorry to leave it. But I saw no possibility of fundamentally positive reform and reorgani[z]ation of the force for the current strategic environment or the future… It's a very sycophantic culture. The biggest problem we have inside the… Department of Defense at the senior level, but also within the officer corps -- is that there are no arguments. Arguments are [seen as] a sign of dissent. Dissent equates to disloyalty." Retired, June 2004.
2006 (www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/41/1/)
The list is impressive. In a New York Times op-ed column, retired Major Gen. Paul Eaton, who helped revive the Iraqi army, described Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically" and called for his resignation. Retired Lt. Gen. William Odom, former director of the National Security Agency and now a Yale professor, said in a speech covered by the Providence Journal that America's invasion of Iraq might be the worst strategic mistake in American history.
Publicizing his book, "The Battle for Peace," in a recent "Meet the Press" appearance, retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, a four-star former commander of the Central Command, describes administration behavior that ranged from "true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility" to "lying, incompetence and corruption." Another Marine, retired Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, has written in Time magazine that the Iraq war was unnecessary. Finally, Lt. Gen. Bernard Trainor and Michael Gordon have written a history of the invasion of Iraq, Cobra II, which describes a willfully self-deluding planning process.
Now, on CNN, Maj. Gen. John Batiste also called for Rumsfeld's resignation; the Washington Post reported that Batiste, commander of the First Infantry Division in Iraq during 2004-2005, turned down a third star and a tour in Iraq as the second-ranking U.S. military officer there. He retired rather than continue to work for Rumsfeld.
2007 (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20070923-9999-1n23generals.html)
Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton: “The ethos is: Give your advice to those in a position to make changes, not the media,” said Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, now retired. “But this administration is immune to good advice.”
Eaton has two sons serving in Afghanistan and Iraq; his father, an Air Force pilot, was shot down and killed over Laos in 1969. He said his frustration began festering in 2003, when he was assigned to build the Iraqi army from scratch. His internal requests for more equipment and properly trained instructors went unheeded, he said.
While on active duty, Eaton did not criticize his civilian bosses – almost to a man, the generals agree active-duty officers have no business doing that. But he was candid in media interviews. Building an Iraqi army, he warned, would take years, and the effort might never succeed.
(General Eaton was superior to General Patraeus in 2004 when Patraeus was assigned to replace him Undoubtedly his dissatisfaction was apparent to BushCo even though he was not speaking out publicly at the time because after that his rise through the ranks stopped. He retired in 2006.)
For retired Brig. Gen. John Johns, . . .who retired in 1978, agonized over whether to go public with a paper calling the impending (Iraq) war “one of the great blunders of history.”
He sent it to retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni and to Pete McCloskey, the moderate-Republican former congressman from California who had opposed the Vietnam War. “At that time, they did not want to go public,” Johns said.
General John P. Abizaid retired from his position as head of the U.S. Central Command when he opposed the idea of bringing more troops to Iraq. He characterized the Iraq war as guerilla warfare and wanted to fight it accordingly. This didn’t fit with BushCo’s image of the war, so he had to go. He was succeeded by Admiral William Fallon, the first naval officer ever to serve in the position.
2008 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Fallon)
Admiral William Fallon resigned after saying that no attack on Iran would happen on his watch, so now General Patraeus is being assigned ot fill his shoes. As a Bush yes-man, he will fit right in and ought to enjoy his power until a savvier president shoves him out.
So there you have it. The glorious record of our self-proclaimed “war president”. His proficiency as a military leader has matched everything else he has done from failing as an oil executive to leading the nation in executions as governor of Texas. Doesn’t it just make you want to stand up and salute?!
I don’t know what Roger Ebert would do, but I’ll give it one finger up.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The Lawyer is a Ass
I don’t ordinarily comment on state level matters, but today I reached my limit on the Jetton/Wood confrontation that is causing so much havoc. The juvenile attitude of Ron Jetton has filled my barf bag to overflowing.
(For those not from Missouri, a little background: About a year ago a law was passed to the effect that landowners could declare their area a village and so by-pass environmental and zoning laws enforced by the country where their land was located. Obviously, this was a piece of legislative idiocy, and the day after it passed a very wealthy landowner in the Ozark hills near Table Rock Lake declared his land a village. A State Representative from the area accused the Speaker of the House, Ron Jetton, of engineering the law and slipping it through at the last minute as an amendment to another law that was guaranteed passage.)
Back in the’70s when the Nixon Administration launched all kinds of regional planning efforts, this area went bonkers with protestations about land owner’s rights and big brother intervention, but the value of those planning and regulatory efforts has been well proven in the intervening 35 years.
When I read in this morning’s paper that a CAFO hog farmer is applying for village status so that he can duck state and county monitoring of his waste management – or more likely his failure to manage waste – I hit the ceiling. This is exactly the kind of outcome we all expected the first day we heard about the passage of the law to enable Robert Plaster to decide the environmental rules for his own little kingdom in Stone County.
This area is in need of far more regulation of environmental utilization not less. The Ozarks is one of the world’s most blessed regions of woods and waters. They are definitely our most precious shared resources, and any degradation or potential degradation of those resources should be of concern to each and every Ozarker.
Not only should every building in the region be subject to zoning regulations, but CAFO operations should be required to harvest waste rather than allow it to run off. They could be major contributors to regional methane production rather than major polluters. Not only should CAFO farmers be subject to restrictions on environmental degradation, but every farmer should be barred from allowing livestock to have direct access to flowing waterways. Not only should individual dwellings throughout our counties be subject to zoning restrictions regarding waste management, but our codes should require more effective management methods than traditional septic systems which collectively are one of the most powerful polluters of our waterways.
The fight between Jetton and Wood about who did what to whom is an eighth grade level spat that’s really just between Jetton and his ego. He has probably put together a smoke screen designed to block his actions from view, and he has enough confidence in it to stand his ground against Wood’s accusation that he ramrodded the act behind Congress’ back.
Even if Jetton didn’t do that, the upshot of all this is that more than a year from the passage of that heinous law nothing at all has been done to correct it, and the entire state is going to suffer while Jetton pouts. The only winner in all this is the CAFO farmer who has a state law to point at while he “legally” breaks a ton of other laws that would otherwise apply to his “village”.
In my opinion that “village” is nothing more than the same pile of pig**** that Jetton’s position amounts to, and both of them stink.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
(For those not from Missouri, a little background: About a year ago a law was passed to the effect that landowners could declare their area a village and so by-pass environmental and zoning laws enforced by the country where their land was located. Obviously, this was a piece of legislative idiocy, and the day after it passed a very wealthy landowner in the Ozark hills near Table Rock Lake declared his land a village. A State Representative from the area accused the Speaker of the House, Ron Jetton, of engineering the law and slipping it through at the last minute as an amendment to another law that was guaranteed passage.)
Back in the’70s when the Nixon Administration launched all kinds of regional planning efforts, this area went bonkers with protestations about land owner’s rights and big brother intervention, but the value of those planning and regulatory efforts has been well proven in the intervening 35 years.
When I read in this morning’s paper that a CAFO hog farmer is applying for village status so that he can duck state and county monitoring of his waste management – or more likely his failure to manage waste – I hit the ceiling. This is exactly the kind of outcome we all expected the first day we heard about the passage of the law to enable Robert Plaster to decide the environmental rules for his own little kingdom in Stone County.
This area is in need of far more regulation of environmental utilization not less. The Ozarks is one of the world’s most blessed regions of woods and waters. They are definitely our most precious shared resources, and any degradation or potential degradation of those resources should be of concern to each and every Ozarker.
Not only should every building in the region be subject to zoning regulations, but CAFO operations should be required to harvest waste rather than allow it to run off. They could be major contributors to regional methane production rather than major polluters. Not only should CAFO farmers be subject to restrictions on environmental degradation, but every farmer should be barred from allowing livestock to have direct access to flowing waterways. Not only should individual dwellings throughout our counties be subject to zoning restrictions regarding waste management, but our codes should require more effective management methods than traditional septic systems which collectively are one of the most powerful polluters of our waterways.
The fight between Jetton and Wood about who did what to whom is an eighth grade level spat that’s really just between Jetton and his ego. He has probably put together a smoke screen designed to block his actions from view, and he has enough confidence in it to stand his ground against Wood’s accusation that he ramrodded the act behind Congress’ back.
Even if Jetton didn’t do that, the upshot of all this is that more than a year from the passage of that heinous law nothing at all has been done to correct it, and the entire state is going to suffer while Jetton pouts. The only winner in all this is the CAFO farmer who has a state law to point at while he “legally” breaks a ton of other laws that would otherwise apply to his “village”.
In my opinion that “village” is nothing more than the same pile of pig**** that Jetton’s position amounts to, and both of them stink.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
EARTHDAY
Today is Earthday. I don’t remember when that became a day of significance in this country, but it wasn’t all that long ago.
When a culture does its level best to sever any relationship at all to nature, it is very hard to get its people to do an about face. But the fact is that no matter how many glass faced buildings they build; no matter how few of its citizens realize that their food comes from the ground or the animals that live off the earth and its waters; no matter how well their conditioned air protects them from having to go outside, and; no matter how entertaining their little black boxes are the world still exists outside their little hermetically sealed sphere and they are under its power.
Western culture has done its best to “conquer” nature. The end result is that western culture has darn near conquered itself and the rest of the world with it. The small minded notion that we could dump our pollutants into the rivers and hence the sea was an “out of sight out of mind” construct.
If the universe operated justly and Dante’s system of direct punishment in accord with one’s actions, Americans would all be dying with gullets stuffed full of everything from hydrocarbons to raw sewage. Instead, we who have most heavily raped the planet are the most protected from the devastations of our actions.
It’s the third world who must live with raw sewers running through what should be their yards, while we pour our sewage into the oceans. It’s the Africans who must starve while we burn corn in our cars. It’s the Marshall Islanders who must drown as their homes disappear into the sea while we build another coal fired power plant in Springfield. It’s the Iraqis who must suffer while we play out our political games in Washington, D.C.
The western world, and particularly America, has long functioned with the wages of war as a central factor driving the economy. We have long been accustomed to being told who the enemy is and getting in line to sacrifice our lives to keep them from upsetting our economic applecart.
It is high time that we identified a new enemy; some enemy other than the citizens of another nations. Patriotism, after all, is nothing more than being convinced that ours is the best country on earth just because we were born there.
Mother Earth has a marvelous way of maintaining herself in spite of gargantuan efforts to destroy her. She has survived many bouts of global warming. Fifty five million years ago (Yes, Virginia, the earth is more than 6,000 years old.) 95% of all life forms on earth were destroyed by a massive series of volcanic eruptions in Siberia that covered an area the size of Texas more than one mile deep in viscous, molten lava. The upshot was that the earth was little more than one big desert with tropical zones at its poles. It was those temperate poles that saved life on the planet.
Given that it was able to survive that mess, I suppose it will survive us too, but unless we change our ways, chances are it will survive only by destroying us.
Hmmm. Do you suppose we ought to stop and think about that?
Maybe it is time that we recognized that everyone is a citizen of EARTH. Maybe it is time that we declared ourselves the enemy and seriously began to clean up our act.
What do you suppose that YOU could do about that?
I hope I’ll see you today at the Lake Springfield clean-up. Or maybe at Mama Jean’s Natural Food Store where I’ll be playing for an hour before going out to the lake. Or maybe on my way out there, I’ll see you on the corner protesting the new power plant. Or maybe some other time we’ll meet at a city council meeting where we’ll try and get them to pass an ordinance against the use of plastic bags in stores. Or maybe we’ll pass one another at the recycling center. Or maybe . . . .??
It’s up to us.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
When a culture does its level best to sever any relationship at all to nature, it is very hard to get its people to do an about face. But the fact is that no matter how many glass faced buildings they build; no matter how few of its citizens realize that their food comes from the ground or the animals that live off the earth and its waters; no matter how well their conditioned air protects them from having to go outside, and; no matter how entertaining their little black boxes are the world still exists outside their little hermetically sealed sphere and they are under its power.
Western culture has done its best to “conquer” nature. The end result is that western culture has darn near conquered itself and the rest of the world with it. The small minded notion that we could dump our pollutants into the rivers and hence the sea was an “out of sight out of mind” construct.
If the universe operated justly and Dante’s system of direct punishment in accord with one’s actions, Americans would all be dying with gullets stuffed full of everything from hydrocarbons to raw sewage. Instead, we who have most heavily raped the planet are the most protected from the devastations of our actions.
It’s the third world who must live with raw sewers running through what should be their yards, while we pour our sewage into the oceans. It’s the Africans who must starve while we burn corn in our cars. It’s the Marshall Islanders who must drown as their homes disappear into the sea while we build another coal fired power plant in Springfield. It’s the Iraqis who must suffer while we play out our political games in Washington, D.C.
The western world, and particularly America, has long functioned with the wages of war as a central factor driving the economy. We have long been accustomed to being told who the enemy is and getting in line to sacrifice our lives to keep them from upsetting our economic applecart.
It is high time that we identified a new enemy; some enemy other than the citizens of another nations. Patriotism, after all, is nothing more than being convinced that ours is the best country on earth just because we were born there.
Mother Earth has a marvelous way of maintaining herself in spite of gargantuan efforts to destroy her. She has survived many bouts of global warming. Fifty five million years ago (Yes, Virginia, the earth is more than 6,000 years old.) 95% of all life forms on earth were destroyed by a massive series of volcanic eruptions in Siberia that covered an area the size of Texas more than one mile deep in viscous, molten lava. The upshot was that the earth was little more than one big desert with tropical zones at its poles. It was those temperate poles that saved life on the planet.
Given that it was able to survive that mess, I suppose it will survive us too, but unless we change our ways, chances are it will survive only by destroying us.
Hmmm. Do you suppose we ought to stop and think about that?
Maybe it is time that we recognized that everyone is a citizen of EARTH. Maybe it is time that we declared ourselves the enemy and seriously began to clean up our act.
What do you suppose that YOU could do about that?
I hope I’ll see you today at the Lake Springfield clean-up. Or maybe at Mama Jean’s Natural Food Store where I’ll be playing for an hour before going out to the lake. Or maybe on my way out there, I’ll see you on the corner protesting the new power plant. Or maybe some other time we’ll meet at a city council meeting where we’ll try and get them to pass an ordinance against the use of plastic bags in stores. Or maybe we’ll pass one another at the recycling center. Or maybe . . . .??
It’s up to us.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
Friday, April 18, 2008
A Responsible Way Out of Iraq
It’s about time somebody up with a sensible and well constructed way for us to get out of Iraq. Using a quote from General Patraeus. “There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq.”, March, 2007 as a starting point, the following group of people has published a document titled, “A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq.”
DARCY BURNER candidate for U.S. House, Washington
DONNA EDWARDS candidate for U.S. House, Maryland
ERIC MASSA candidate for U.S. House, New York
CHELLIE PINGREE candidate for U.S. House, Maine
TOM PERRIELLO candidate for U.S. House, Virginia
JARED POLIS candidate for U.S. House, Colorado
GEORGE FEARING candidate for U.S. House, Washington
LARRY BYRNES candidate for U.S. House, Florida
STEVE HARRISON candidate for U.S. House, New York
SAM BENNETT candidate for U.S. House, Pennsylvania
MAJOR GENERAL PAUL EATON (U.S. ARMY RET.) former Security Transition Commanding General, Iraq
DR. LAWRENCE KORB former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration
BRIGADIER GENERAL JOHN JOHNS (U.S. ARMY RET.) specialist in counterinsurgency and nation-building
CAPT. LARRY SEAQUIST (U.S. NAVY RET.) former commander of the U.S.S. Iowa and former Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Defense for Policy Planning
As I know all of my regular readers agree, the military option as exercised by BushCo has been a complete failure. Others (neocons) contend that the problem is simply that W has handled the war improperly. They continue to push their agenda of American hegemony in the Middle East and, by extension through control of oil supplies, throughout the rest of the world.
The big, bottom line problem with that bunch, W included, is their foundational assumption that the U.S. has the best answers to the issues that face the world in the future, and the nice thing about the reasonable approach taken in the Responsible Way paper is that they don’t make that same assumption. In fact, they call for deep involvement with the international community in working out diplomatic and rebuilding solutions to Iraq’s dilemma.
This paper is long on ideas for what should happen, and a bit short on implementation plans, but at least it is a compendium of thought that is going in the right direction. Sadly, it is written by a group of retired military officers and yet-to-be-elected candidates for public office. It should have been created and published by a group of sitting Senators and Representatives along with a cadre of active military brass, but, of course, those folks have to put their jobs before their country.
I am proud to say that this paper does reflect a great many of the ideas I put forth in many of my blogs and especially in one called
They go farther than just talking about how to approach troop withdrawal, too. Topics touched on include the restoration of constitutional checks and balances, restructuring the state department and rebuilding the military.
In the later area, I didn’t think their recommendations went quite far enough. They talk about how to strengthen the military within the current structure, but as long term readers know, I am a staunch advocate of an American draft. My draft would not be limited to military service, but would require draftees to choose the area of service they would donate two years to whether that be military or some form of civilian service like medical, senior care, school assistance, peace corps, civil conservation corps or roads and construction.
I think the value that would come from that kind of service would be immeasurable and would include a more informed and “plugged in” society, so I think the paper has missed a valuable step in its march toward sanity, but it is definitely going in the right direction. Please take a moment to look at it.
Here is a link to the entire paper: http://burner.3cdn.net/20f4382dfab715f445_qvm6ibjk6.pdf
If your time is limited, this link will get you to a nice executive summary of the paper:
http://www.responsibleplan.com/plan
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
DARCY BURNER candidate for U.S. House, Washington
DONNA EDWARDS candidate for U.S. House, Maryland
ERIC MASSA candidate for U.S. House, New York
CHELLIE PINGREE candidate for U.S. House, Maine
TOM PERRIELLO candidate for U.S. House, Virginia
JARED POLIS candidate for U.S. House, Colorado
GEORGE FEARING candidate for U.S. House, Washington
LARRY BYRNES candidate for U.S. House, Florida
STEVE HARRISON candidate for U.S. House, New York
SAM BENNETT candidate for U.S. House, Pennsylvania
MAJOR GENERAL PAUL EATON (U.S. ARMY RET.) former Security Transition Commanding General, Iraq
DR. LAWRENCE KORB former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration
BRIGADIER GENERAL JOHN JOHNS (U.S. ARMY RET.) specialist in counterinsurgency and nation-building
CAPT. LARRY SEAQUIST (U.S. NAVY RET.) former commander of the U.S.S. Iowa and former Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Defense for Policy Planning
As I know all of my regular readers agree, the military option as exercised by BushCo has been a complete failure. Others (neocons) contend that the problem is simply that W has handled the war improperly. They continue to push their agenda of American hegemony in the Middle East and, by extension through control of oil supplies, throughout the rest of the world.
The big, bottom line problem with that bunch, W included, is their foundational assumption that the U.S. has the best answers to the issues that face the world in the future, and the nice thing about the reasonable approach taken in the Responsible Way paper is that they don’t make that same assumption. In fact, they call for deep involvement with the international community in working out diplomatic and rebuilding solutions to Iraq’s dilemma.
This paper is long on ideas for what should happen, and a bit short on implementation plans, but at least it is a compendium of thought that is going in the right direction. Sadly, it is written by a group of retired military officers and yet-to-be-elected candidates for public office. It should have been created and published by a group of sitting Senators and Representatives along with a cadre of active military brass, but, of course, those folks have to put their jobs before their country.
I am proud to say that this paper does reflect a great many of the ideas I put forth in many of my blogs and especially in one called
A Speech for Mr. Bushthat won a contest on Helium, a site where writers judge each others’ work. It is gratifying to see that there are people whose voices might count who are espousing the same kinds of ideas that you and I hold dear. I just hope they can get somewhere with it.
They go farther than just talking about how to approach troop withdrawal, too. Topics touched on include the restoration of constitutional checks and balances, restructuring the state department and rebuilding the military.
In the later area, I didn’t think their recommendations went quite far enough. They talk about how to strengthen the military within the current structure, but as long term readers know, I am a staunch advocate of an American draft. My draft would not be limited to military service, but would require draftees to choose the area of service they would donate two years to whether that be military or some form of civilian service like medical, senior care, school assistance, peace corps, civil conservation corps or roads and construction.
I think the value that would come from that kind of service would be immeasurable and would include a more informed and “plugged in” society, so I think the paper has missed a valuable step in its march toward sanity, but it is definitely going in the right direction. Please take a moment to look at it.
Here is a link to the entire paper: http://burner.3cdn.net/20f4382dfab715f445_qvm6ibjk6.pdf
If your time is limited, this link will get you to a nice executive summary of the paper:
http://www.responsibleplan.com/plan
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
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