Afghanistan War

29 Americans Killed In Afghanistan This Year, And 30 Killed In America By Firearms Every Day!

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It is depressing to know that 29 Americans have died in Afghanistan this year, as our troop involvement winds down, and with a total of over 2,300 killed over the 13 years of the Afghanistan War.

But 29 Americans killed in a war zone over six months, while disturbing, is nothing when compared to the reality that on the average day in America, 30 people of all ages, many of them children and teenagers, are murdered by firearms.

This means about 900 victims per month, or 11,000 per year, and that is only the deaths, not the injuries suffered by other victims.

We are the most violent society in the civilized world of Western Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and it could be said the true war is here at home, not in Afghanistan!

74 school shootings have occurred since the Sandy Hook Massacre in December 2012, and yet no action of any kind, totally unconscionable!

We are witnessing mass murder before our eyes, and we are desensitized totally, a disgraceful situation!

Senator John McCain: The Warmonger And Total Hypocrite!

Ronald 5 Comments

Senator John McCain is off on a new tear, attacking President Barack Obama over the freeing of Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdhal!

Four months ago, McCain was attacking Obama for failing to resolve the captivity of Bowe Bergdhal in Taliban hands for nearly five years, declaring that America NEVER leaves its soldiers behind, and negotiates to accomplish their freedom.

Senator McCain is, once again, being a total hypocrite, and he has well displayed that he is a warmonger, ready to send troops into every nation in the world that has revolution or turmoil, including Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Ukraine among others!

There is no military conflict that McCain seems to think America should and can avoid, despite the war weariness of the American people after 13 years of war in Afghanistan and almost nine years of war in Iraq, creaing the massive number of war veterans that now need physical and psychological care!

We can thank divine grace for the fact that John McCain was NOT elected President, and also that we were not cursed by a Vice President Sarah Palin, who continues to poison the political atmosphere with her stupid, inane, and divisive rhetoric! Additionally, with the advanced age of McCain, we would have to live with the nightmare possibility of a President Palin!

McCain should be condemned for his double standard, saying one view out of one side of his mouth, and another opposing view out of the other side of his mouth! Hopefully, he will NOT run for reelection to the Senate in 2016!

The Endless Payments For Wars Since The Civil War To The Present, And The Long Term Future!

Ronald 7 Comments

It is so easy for leaders of governments to send their military forces into war, not fully realizing that the long range economic effect goes on way beyond their lifetime and for the next century and more!

Here we are, 149 years after the end of the Civil War, and we are paying a small pension to the daughter of a Civil War veteran who married a young woman in his old age, and the daughter from that marriage is now 84 years old!

While the last World War I veteran died in 2011, there are still 4,038 widows, sons and daughters who get a veterans’ pension or other payments from that war service.

Not many are aware that spouses, parents, and children of deceased veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan received $6.7 billion in 2013, based on financial need, any disabilities, and whether the veteran’s death wsas tied to military service.

And this does not include the costs of the war itself, or the care of the veterans. The final bill for Iraq and Afghanistan is estimated to be $4 trillion to $6 trillion dollars over the next century!

This is a commitment that must be met, but it is something which should sober leaders, and clearly has affected Barack Obama, who is doing his best to avoid future conflict, a mark of a true statesman! For that effort alone, he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize he won prematurely in 2009!

The Veterans Administration Scandal And The GOP Lack Of Concern For Veterans

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So finally, there is a “real” scandal under President Obama regarding the Veterans Administration failure to provide appropriate medical care for veterans, with the example particularly in Phoenix, Arizona of 40 veterans dying for lack of follow through on appointments.

This is reprehensible and must be fully investigated, but it is part of the reality of the bureaucracy of the VA, which has been a problem for a long time, and was fully vetted as a reality under the administration of George W. Bush.

Since Barack Obama became President, we have seen a fifty percent increase in funding, and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki has worked to try to push the bureaucracy to action, with little success.

So along comes the hypocritical Republican Party, which has voted against extra funding for the agency, and has set their sights on Shinseki, who angered George W. Bush and Dick Cheney back in 2003, when as a four star general, he spoke up against the planned Iraq War strategy of Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, who felt we did not need hundreds of thousands of troops to win over Saddam Hussein and any aftermath of doing so.

Shinseki was correct, but was dismissed from the military by the Bush Administration, and now the Republicans are trying to make Shinseki the scapegoat for the VA Scandal.

If we had not engaged in two failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we would not have the overwhelming numbers of veterans who now need medical help, and yet see the GOP fight against increased funding for the agency.

The Republican Party is no friend of veterans, only the friend of the defense industries which make trillions off of war, including Dick Cheney, who became extremely wealthy off of stock and former leadership in Halliburton, one of the most corrupt corporations on the planet!

Shinseki and Obama are being made political victims of the the hypocrisy of the Republican Party, which has demonstrated total lack of concern for veterans by their actions!

Alison Lundergan Grimes Is One Tough Lady: Mitch McConnell On Defense In Kentucky!

Ronald 2 Comments

Kentucky Democratic Senate nominee Alison Lundergan Grimes came out swinging against Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell immediately after they both won their Senate primaries on Tuesday!

The statement that Grimes is an “empty dress” was belied by Grimes’ strong statement of victory, where she made it clear that McConnell’s shameful record of ignoring the needs of Kentucky citizens would be exposed in a combative, aggressive campaign that would be non stop for the next five and a half months!

McConnell has worked against increase in the minimum wage; against extension of unemployment compensation; against even a minimal background checks bill on guns; against basic protections for workers and coal miners in his state; against any action on climate change; against additional support of the needs of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars; against jobs bills, claiming it is not his role to create jobs for Kentuckians; against immigration reform; Against the interests of women at work and in their private lives; against any cooperation with Barack Obama on any subject or topic; and is, overall, a very mean spirited, nasty man!

It is time for Kentucky to retire McConnell, whose public opinion rating is lower than Obama’s rating, even in a state that Obama massively lost to John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012!

The End Of A Hateful Man: The Reverend Fred Phelps Of The Westboro Baptist Church Is Dead!

Ronald 7 Comments

The world is a better place with the death of the Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas.

Phelps died at age 84, and left behind a legacy of total hatred, as he became controversial for his small group of followers, mostly family, picketing at funerals of Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans, approved by the Supreme Court in 2011 with some restrictions, as freedom of speech.

Phelps and his followers were not protesting the wars America engaged in, but rather the fact that gays and lesbians were permitted to exist, as he and his flock condemned homosexuality, and said gays and lesbians were doomed to hell.

Phelps failed to attract outside supporters, and even some of his own family repudiated him over the years, but he never gave up his fanatical hatred and poisonous rhetoric.

There is the temptation to say “goodbye and good riddance,'” but more than wishing that ill thought on anyone who has died, is the hope that we will never again see the likes of anyone who calls himself “religious”, abuse that term by wishing harm and promoting hate toward anyone, whether for their race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

The ultimate victory over Fred Phelps and his ilk is the fact that 18 states and Washington, DC back gay marriage rights, that eight other states have had federal judges move in that direction—Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma Tennessee, Kentucky, and Utah, and that five other states—Missouri, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Wisconsin, as of this writing, recognize civil unions, a step toward eventual acceptance of gay marriage. So soon, it is likely, after appeal, that 26 states will be allowing gay marriage, and five others are also moving in that direction.

And ultimately, it seems highly likely that cases on gay marriage in the federal courts will lead to a Supreme Court decision, with a likely minimum 5-4 vote, including Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion in the crucial gay rights case, Lawrence V. Texas, in 2003, and then no state will be able to deny anyone the right to marry a person of either gender, another great advancement in human rights!

Eleven Years Since Greatest Blunder In Modern American History: The Iraq War!

Ronald 3 Comments

Eleven years ago today, America went to war in Iraq on the false premise that there were weapons of mass destruction there, which did not exist!

It is clear that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld KNEW that fact, but they convinced Colin Powell to speak before the United Nations on a lie that he was not privy to, took advantage of his far greater stature than any of them had!

The Iraq War led to 4,400 American dead, and over 30,000 wounded, with many losing limbs or part of their skull, and many having mental and emotional trauma which continues today!

It led to the longest war in American history, except for the Afghanistan War, which was put on the back burner, and still goes on today, making both wars total failures, but another 2,000 killed in that war.

It did not create a stable Iraq, but killed at least many hundreds of thousands in Iraq, if not a million or more.

We spent a lot of treasure, helping to double the national debt under the Bush-Cheney regime.

We allowed ourselves to engage in war with Iraq, when Iran was the much bigger threat, and remains so in 2014.

We also gave the excuse for Vladamir Putin of Russia to invade and take over Crimea, as allowed under international law, because, after all, we had claimed the right to invade a sovereign nation in a war of choice, a preemptive war, making us no better than past aggressors, who attacked without a direct provocation.

Many feel that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld are international outlaws, and it is clear that if it were possible to arrest them, they could be tried on human rights abuse at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, the Netherlands!

Of course, that will not happen in reality, but this is not something that should be overlooked as an example of what happens when the wrong people are put into power, particularly with the reality that George W. Bush did not win the popular vote in the Presidential Election of 2000, but won the court case that was decided on party line vote in the Supreme Court, a majority which had been picked by Republican Presidents!

History will not judge the Bush Presidency well, and no matter what the Republican Party of 2014 does to sweep the past under the rug, the truth will win out, and it will not be pretty!

Shameful National Figures On Single Mothers In Poverty, And Veterans Who Are Homeless!

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Many conservatives love to claim that America is an “exceptional” nation, ignoring the facts that demonstrate just how backward we are, as compared to many European nations and Japan.

For instance, one third of single mothers are in poverty, doing minimum wage jobs that cannot support their children in an adequate fashion. The effect on their children of poverty is not easily measurable, but cannot be dismissed as insignificant. It promotes a sense of inferiority and depression in children at a very young age, and impairs their physical and mental health.

Also, veterans of our wars are horribly mistreated after their military service, with about 60,000 homeless on any single night, and double that total being homeless over a year’s time. Many are victims of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or are connected to substance abuse (alcohol and drugs). Forty percent are African American or Hispanic. Veterans who are homeless range from World War II, through the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, the Iraq War, and the Afghanistan War, and many are younger veterans, who did their duty for their country, but are now being ignored and dismissed as having any claim on government services in return for their sacrifices.

Not only is this unconscionable and unethical, but it is also a danger to the nation, when people trained in firearms develop a feeling of hopelessness, which can lead to bloodshed and violence against fellow Americans out of desperation and mental illness.

If we continue to mistreat our veterans, as well as make victims of single mothers and their children, we are losing our long term future of peace and tranquility, and the pursuit of the elusive “American Dream!”

Bush, Cheney, And The Iraq War: A Total Waste!

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The news that radical elements connected to Al Qaeda have seized and “liberated” Fallujah and Ramadi, two cities that so many of our Marines and other soldiers died for during the Iraq War, and that Iraq is back to the civil war that emerged after Saddam Hussein was overthrown, is enough to make one sick and disgusted, and to condemn the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, which took us into a war that was not ours to fight, and cost the loss of over 4,000 lives and over 30,000 wounded, many seriously!

This event, the return to instability of Iraq, in the midst of the Syrian Civil War, and the unrest in Lebanon, demonstrates that America has lost yet another war, after Vietnam, and is losing in Afghanistan.

Who benefits from this is the oil industry, and the defense industries, which enrich themselves on the corpses of dead Americans, as well as dead Iraqis and others in the Middle East.

It is clear that America cannot control what happens in the Middle East, and that the neoconservatives, who advocated engagement in Iraq, are the true traitors to the cause of what is best for America, and there is blood on their hands with the latest results of the failed war in Iraq!

And Dick Cheney is one of the biggest culprits, having enriched himself in the process, through his connections with Halliburton.

But now, thankfully, his disgraceful daughter, Liz Cheney, trying to be elected to the Senate from Wyoming, connected to the Tea Party Movement, and willing to throw her lesbian sister Mary Cheney under the bus, in her egotistical quest to become the female Dick Cheney, has bowed out of the race, well aware that she would be lucky to gain 25 percent of the vote in a primary against sitting Republican Senator Mike Enzi.

Good riddance to her and the theory of a Cheney dynasty, but so much damage has been done by Dick Cheney, who should be held accountable legally for his wrongdoings, but most certainly will avoid it, due to his massive connections to powerful interests!

Paul Ryan Calls For Military Pension Cuts: Unbelievable!

Ronald 2 Comments

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, the Vice Presidential running mate of Mitt Romney in 2012, seemed to be on the road to understanding what compromise was all about, when he made a budget deal with Senator Patty Murray of Washington, a sign of progress against the Tea Party Movement, which opposed it in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, but was unable to stop it.

But no sooner than Ryan doing something sensible, now he is saying that military pensions must be cut, rather than say that the defense industries need to take cuts in government buying of unnecessary weapons, all highly inflated, as the defense industries are constantly getting billions of dollars that could be called “waste, fraud and abuse”, but have the Republicans in Congress In their “hip pocket.”

So veterans who have sacrificed for the nation now must expect benefit cuts, an outrageous, disgraceful concept!

This must be bitterly opposed by all progressives, who appreciate the labors and sacrifices of our veterans, of any period in our history, from World War II to Korea to Vietnam to the Persian Gulf War to Iraq and Afghanistan!