Afghanistan

The Ugly Month Of August This Year And In History

Ronald Leave a comment

August is known as the month of the usually greatest heat, and this month is no exception, with the tremendous drought affecting the western half of the nation, especially California.

August is also the month of disastrous hurricanes, as with Andrew in 1992 and Katrina in 2005, as examples.

August is also the month of many wars and provocations, as with:

The British burning of the US Capitol and the White House during the War of 1812.

The outbreak of the First World War in Europe in 1914.

The signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact which led to the beginning of the Second World War in 1939.

The dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, ending World War II in Asia in 1945.

The falsely reported Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, which led to the escalation of the war in Vietnam under Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

The invasion of Kuwait by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in 1990, leading to the Persian Gulf War and the introduction of American troops on a permanent basis in a number of Muslim countries over the next quarter century, provoking a greater level of Islamic terrorism against America and Western Europe.

This August, we have seen racial tensions and division grow over recent killings by law enforcement authorities in St. Louis, Missouri and elsewhere, making us aware that the election of Barack Obama has NOT lessened the race issue in America, and has made us aware of the militarization of the police forces, with equipment returned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And we have become fully aware, finally realizing the threat from ISIL (ISIS), after the death of journalist James Foley, and it forecasts an escalation of involvement in the Middle East, adding to the fuel already created by the Gaza War between Israel and the Hamas Palestinian terrorist group which controls the Gaza Strip.

So again, August keeps its horrible reputation as a month full of tragedy and disaster, although clearly, every month has its share of these, but August does seem to have more than its fair share!

200th Anniversary Of British Attack On Washington DC During War Of 1812!

Ronald 2 Comments

Today is the 200th Anniversary of the British attack on Washington DC during the War of 1812, one of the three times that our homeland has been directly attacked!

The second was the Japanese attack on the US naval base on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, and the third was the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, leading to the war in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda, and the full development of the War on Terror!

The attack on the nation’s capital led to the burning of the White House and the US Capitol, and the fleeing of Congress to Baltimore, and the saving of the George Washington portrait in the White House by servants of President James Madison. The Library of Congress lost its 3,000 volume collection, and later bought the Thomas Jefferson private collection to replace it.

This was a low moment in the War of 1812, but thankfully, the British left DC after 26 hours, and within months, a truce and peace treaty (Treaty of Ghent) was signed, and the war was over. Also, fortunately, a heavy summer thunderstorm helped to put out the fire in the Capital and the White House, and therefore, less damage was done than might have been otherwise!

The thought that our government center had been attacked was hard to accept, and since the terrorists on September 11 intended to attack the Capitol and/or the White House, and only were stopped by the courageous passengers of United Airlines Flight 93, who brought down a plane in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, that horrible situation was prevented, but the attack on the Pentagon, right over the DC line in Virginia was a strong enough warning of the threats that still existed then, and still do today with the growing danger of ISIL (ISIS)!

USMC Lance Corporal Kyle Carpenter A True American Hero!

Ronald Leave a comment

USMC Lance Corporal Kyle Carpenter is a true American hero, saving the life of a fellow Marine by placing himself between that Marine and a grenade in Afghanistan in 2010.

For that heroism, which led to severe injuries to his face and body, and 40 surgeries so far, Carpenter received the Medal of Honor from President Obama in a White House ceremony last week.

Carpenter is in the best tradition of service of our military, and we can hope for a good life and happiness for this very decent young man, only 24, one of the youngest ever to receive the Medal of Honor!

The Immigrant Children Of El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala And The History Of Children Escaping Persecution And Death!

Ronald 1 Comment

Nativism in its most incendiary way is rearing its ugly head in regards to the mass migration of women and children, some of them babies, but all under adult age, who are fleeing persecution, bloodshed, and potential death in the unstable nations of Central America, some of the most violent nations on earth.

This is specifically the case of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, with about 90,000 expected to flee their nations, walking on foot, going through tough terrain, many drowning or being overcome by the elements otherwise, but all wanting a better, more secure existence in America.

But the hysteria has grown, that somehow, these women and children are involved in drug smuggling, or are future terrorists over the next generation, or other such ridiculous, hard hearted views of their plight.

One must not forget, however, that this kind of nativism is nothing new in America!

It was visited upon Jews, Italians, Irish, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, and migrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries over the long haul of American history!

This nation refused to open its borders to Jews wishing to escape Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, and very small numbers of children were ever allowed in, and many died in the Holocaust!

Nativism was also utilized against Vietnamese escaping the collapse of South Vietnam forty years ago, with many “Boat People” dying in the South China Sea or the Pacific Ocean, but others making it to America, of all ages.

Cubans escaping Fidel Castro, including many children in the Mariel Boat Lift in 1980, were seen as dangerous and should not be admitted, but eventually were, since they could not be returned to Cuba.

The attempts to bring some Iraqis and Afghans of Muslim religion to this country has been a long battle as well.

But we have a tendency to forget we are a nation of immigrants, and particularly in times of political, social, and economic turmoil, we are the last best hope of mankind to offer asylum!

So now, IF the families of these children from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala can be reunited, then they may be returned to their host nations, but that should only be if their lives are not in danger, as to return them to certain death is unconscionable!

But IF the families cannot be reunited, sad as that may be, we have no realistic choice but to house, feed, and educate them, and give them the possibility of the “American Dream”!

If we simply reject these children and young mothers, we are losing the whole purpose of the American experiment, as expressed by the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We cannot turn our back on these children and condemn them to death, particularly in a nation which claims to support life itself as a goal!

Republican “Chicken Hawks” And The Reality Of The Stress Of Military Service!

Ronald 13 Comments

Very few members of Congress or the executive branch have served in the military, so they have no real understanding of the stress of military service, and how it can affect one’s reaction to combat conditions.

But it is Republican “chicken hawks”, and conservative talk show hosts who spout their mouth without any facts, all just to make more money and promote more hate, who have been in the lead in condemning Bowe Bergdahl.

So we have Dick Cheney and many others in the GOP, who avoided service, and talk show hosts who never considered volunteering for military service, who are now being shown up, with the revelation that Bergdahl was tortured, beaten, put in a cage, and has gone through hell in captivity with the Taliban, after wandering off the military base in Afghanistan, without a weapon or any real way to keep contact with the base.

It is clear that Bergdahl had a mental and emotional breakdown, and this can happen to anyone under stress. And now, as a result of captivity for five years, and horrible mistreatment, he has been victimized enough already, but leave it to the hypocrites to do more to destroy whatever peace of mind and sanity he might have left, at the young age of 28!

Any decent human being should denounce the Republicans and conservative talk show hosts on radio and Fox News Channel, as they have demontrated no common decency or concern, but simply have this compelling need to destroy a soldier who volunteered, and obviously, has suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

We should pray that this young man be given a chance to come back into American society, and his parents stop being sent death threats, and the exaggerated accounts by fellow soldiers should be taken “with a grain of salt”, as they are NOT the judge of another person’s mental stability! There is already much evidence from the New York Times that much of what fellow soldiers say is far from accurate in reality!

The Persecution Of Bowe Bergdahl By The Right Wing: Poisoning America,With Purpose Of Destroying Barack Obama!

Ronald Leave a comment

The case of Bowe Bergdahl is shocking in the intensity of the right wing attack on this soldier, who may have gone AWOL in Afghanistan, and was held captive by the Taliban for nearly five years.

The furious reaction to his release, in exchange for five top Taliban leaders who were at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center has led to death threats against his mother and father, and the decision to cancel the welcome home party planned in his small home town in Idaho later this month.

Meanwhile, Bergdahl remains in the hospital in Germany, and faces an impossible sitation when he returns to the United States.

He will be dogged by critics, threatened with assassination, and will have the worst case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that any soldier has ever had, and it would not be surprising that he might become a statistic, one of 22 former soldiers who commit suicide every day!

If Bergdahl has committed acts that he should be held accountable for, so be it, but the right wing has built up such a furor, including Oliver North, who participated in a similar action dealing with an enemy in the Iran Contra affair under Ronald Reagan, but now is a total hypocrite, not unusual for the right wing!

Face the facts, that the real purpose of this furor is to move to impeach President Obama, and the racists and fascists are out there with their knives looking to assassinate him, figuratively, and really, literally, if they had the chance!

We live in very dangerous times, and it is scary what is going on, and being encouraged by media unwilling to stand up to the right wing, including CNN and the major networks, minus MSNBC, the only channel that has any guts at all!

John McCain, Lindsey Graham, And NEOCON Hawks: Total Lunatics!

Ronald 4 Comments

Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina seem ready to have America involved in another major war in Ukraine, as if we do not have enough loss of treasure and life in Iraq and Afghanistan already!

Thank goodness that McCain was not elected President in 2008, and with moron Sarah Palin by his side, a heartbeat away, as we would have been engaged with troops on the ground in Libya, Syria, and Iran, along with staying in Iraq and Afghanistan, under a man who thinks war solves issues, and that America has no limits on military spending!

Lindsey Graham is always at McCain’s side, ready to bomb and attack, while very willing to cut spending for the poor and the elderly, and it makes one wonder how he sleeps at night!

But this is the Neocons at work, destroying our budget and our unity, in their mad dash to impose America’s will, as if this is the Cold War all over again!

The fact is that they refuse to understand that Crimea is to Russia what Mexico is to us, a boundary line that we will defend at all costs. If Mexico became unreliable and a threat to America, we would intervene as Vladamir Putin has in Crimea.

It is not an issue of endorsement of Putin and Russia, but rather an issue of Crimea being their “back yard”, and there is no way that Russia will allow an unfriendly Crimea, where a majority are Russian ethnically, to be hostile to Russian interests.

This is nothing new in history, and considering the numerous examples of US intervention since World War II. some of them justified and many NOT justified, who are we to dictate to other nations on the safety of their borders?

So it is a question of reality, not morals and ethics!

Robert Gates’ Criticism Of Joe Biden On Distrusting Military Is A Plus!

Ronald Leave a comment

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made news with his memoir, in which he makes some strong criticism of President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

And yet, he is positive overall on Obama, and thinks both Biden and Clinton would probably make good Presidents.

Most interesting is his criticism of Biden, that he has been critical of military leadership, and that he has, according to Gates, never been right in the past 40 years on any national security matter. And yet he would make a good President, so figure that!

To say that Biden has been wrong for the past 40 years makes us think that, supposedly, every President since Nixon has been right on national security and defense matters. And to say that Biden has NEVER been right is totally preposterous! And what is the record on Presidents since JFK?

Was Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and particularly Bush II, REALLY right all of the time? Give me a break!

When one thinks back, the military leadership misled John F. Kennedy on the Bay of Pigs.

The military leadership misled Lyndon B. Johnson on Vietnam.

The military leadership was wrong on Vietnam under Nixon, as well.

In the brief tenure of Gerald Ford, thank goodness no major flub by the military leadership.

The military leadership misled Jimmy Carter on the Iranian hostage military rescue attempt.

The military leadership misled Ronald Reagan on dealing with “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan, and in dealing with Iraq’s leader Saddam Hussein.

The military leadership misled George H. W. Bush on Somalian intervention.

The military leadership misled Bill Clinton on dealing with Al Qaeda.

The military leadership misled George W. Bush on Afghanistan and Iraq.

So if Barack Obama was skeptical and IS skeptical about the military leadership in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, that was good!

And if Joe Biden had, and has, a healthy dose of skepticism about the military leadership, that is VERY GOOD!

And that means Joe Biden would be an excellent successor to Barack Obama, because he questions, has doubts, does not worship the military leadership!

That is the kind of President we have now, and need, in the future!

Thank goodness for who we have in our top two positions in our national government, men with a dose of skepticism, with the reminder that we have a civilian government, not one run by the military, and that is what has kept us free, and will continue to do so!

Proper Move For Obama, Mrs. Obama, And Biden To Boycott Sochi Winter Olympics!

Ronald 1 Comment

It is the proper moral and strategic move for President Obama, Michelle Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden to boycott personal attendance at the Sochi, Russia Winter Olympics in February.

The move of the Russian authorities to deny basic rights to their gay population is an outrage which endangers gays individually and in families, and it is the new civil rights movement, and the United Stares rightfully must do everything required to take the proper stand on this violation of human rights.

The abuse of gays and lesbians goes on in many nations, but America must not sit on the sidelines, as it did for a long time on the issue of race, and as it did on the issue of anti semitism, which led to the Holocaust of World War II.

Just as we must speak up on the rights of women, labor, the elderly, children, and the poor, we must not allow any government or religion to think they can win the day as we ignore their violations of basic human rights.

If we only had the ability to decide not to compete in the Olympics as a protest, but Obama has decided that it would penalize athletes, both straight and gay, if we did what Jimmy Carter did regarding the Moscow Olympics in 1980, which was boycotted by the US over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

So instead, the official delegation to the Sochi Olympics will include well known gay athletes as the response to the abuses of human rights by Vladamir Putin. And if it worsens the relationship between Russia and the United States, so be it, as Russia is backing the mass slaughter in Syria, another outrage that we must oppose vehemently and with vigor!

Let us hope that gay athletes win a lot of the medals at the Sochi Winter Olympics, as that would be the ultimate triumph!

The Boston Marathon Terrorist Attack: Another Assault On Our Freedom!

Ronald 30 Comments

The shocking terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon yesterday will transform American life in ways we cannot yet imagine, another assault on our freedom as Americans.

Until now, America has lived in a bubble, figuring that we would never face what Israel, Great Britain, India, Iraq and Afghanistan have faced, as we have been fortunate in stopping terrorist attacks on our homeland in the years since September 11.

It now means that at every sporting event and major public gathering, there will be a need for more security, some of it infuriating in nature, because of the evil forces among us who wish us harm.

We should not, however, rush to conclusions as to the source, as it could be Islamic terrorism, but could also be militia group related, reminding ourselves of the Oklahoma City terrorist attack of 1995, on nearly the same date as this one!

So in order to fight terrorism, sadly, we are forced to give up a lot of our freedom, an alarming development with no easy solution or alternative!