Monday, December 29, 2008

 

IS IT TOO EARLY?

Since we are going to have a new president in less than a month, and since even the “stay the course” president has signed an agreement to be out of urban Iraq in six months and the rest in another year, is it too soon to be planning on just how the heck we get out of Afghanistan? What is our exit strategy there?

We have spent one trillion dollars we did not have on the unnecessary misadventure in Iraq. We borrowed most of that from people who do not particularly like us, because the people who started that misbegotten war did not have the courage to tax their consenting friends to pay for it. Instead the republicans blew the money, and they left the debt for their war for all of us.

Some economists say that the rapidly rising national debt is a major reason for the current recession. That may or may not be true, but it is certainly true that the added one trillion dollar debt is making it difficult for us to afford the deficit expenditures deemed necessary for the stimulus to break out of the economic dumps.

Some are warning that very soon our dedicated funds, the military, plus interest on the national debt will leave practically no funding for other government services at present tax levels.

So, again we raise the question: “Is it too soon to be planning on how we exit Afghanistan, and cut our foreign expenditures?” During the campaign, Mr. Obama spoke quite frequently about the need to move troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, and he spoke also of the need to bring them home.

Does Mr. Obama have a plan? Let us hope so. There are indications that he does indeed have a plan. From what we can make out, its essence seems to be as follows:

(1) Put a stronger military force into Afghanistan to help pacify the area. (2) Organize and give logistical support to supportive tribal militias in the outlying regions. (3) Clean up the corruption in the Karzai government. (4) Prepare to negotiate with the more malleable Taliban leaders, if they give up notions of harboring terrorists. (5) Go after Bin Laden wherever he is and get him.

These would seem to be the logical steps in any plan, and from what has leaked out of the Obama and the military camps it is the kind of plan now being discussed. By now, we hope the plan is past the preliminary stage.

We will not have a normal life in America until we are at some level of peace in the world. We cannot hope to eradicate every nesting place for terrorists in the world. Nor can we occupy all the countries we think might be harboring terrorists.

We can nevertheless use our technology to strike at those terrorist planning and training camps wherever they exist. It is time for our military leadership to think in 21st century strategies. Massive military movements and military occupations require too much from our treasure and our people.

It is an era for good intelligence, quick strikes, and police actions – not for wars. We should stop using the term “war” for all our struggles.

We should stop getting involved with entangling alliances that call for foreign disputes to become America’s military problems. We need no longer have troops stationed in harm’s way all over the world, protecting nations who should pay to protect themselves.

No, it is not too soon to be planning to bring our troops home from hostile eastern lands.


Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate

Monday, December 22, 2008

 

THE UNLIKELY STATESMAN

George W. Bush, a most unlikely statesman, may well have shown himself to be just that entering the final month of his presidency.

No, we are not pointing toward his revision of standards for protection of the natural environment, nor are we discussing his allowing drilling in the neighborhood of national historic monuments.

Certainly we are not influenced by his efforts to polish a rough and ugly legacy through historic revisionism. All of the administration’s team spokespersons have been out on the networks this past week telling us what a great man G. W. will prove to be when historians gather fifty years from now to evaluate his presidency.

These spokespersons, including speeches and interviews by the president himself, offer new twists on the same old tired clichés about why we had to go to war in Iraq. They were not valid then, and they still are not valid.

So what, pray tell, has George W. Bush done that may prove him to be at least a momentary statesman at the close of his days in power. Only the president could do something about the impending economic catastrophe in the automobile industry, and Mr. Bush stepped up to the plate.

The democratic controlled Congress failed to get the legislation passed to do the job. It failed in the Senate because an obstructionist republican minority refused to waive the filibuster rule in order for an ordinary majority vote to pass it, rather invoke than the rule of 60 for cloture.

Minority Leader McConnell of Kentucky and Senators Corker and Shelby, of Tennessee and Alabama respectively, led the republican opposition to the bill for bridge loans to the car companies. All represent states which have given large subsidies to lure Japanese car companies to locate assembly plants within their borders. In their selfish desire to foster their own foreign-owned businesses and jobs, they seemed quite willing to let the American car companies go under and take with them millions of jobs from other states.

Other republicans joined with these senators, finding this an opportunity to strike a death blow to organized labor. The UAW has been one of the last bastions of labor strength, and it has normally supported democratic candidates.

Republicans made unusual demands for breaking existing contracts, and they called for rollback of union wages and benefits obtained over the years. While it seems likely there will need to be more sacrifices by labor, as well as by management and stockholders, these upfront immediate demands were irrational.

These senators put themselves in an unusual position of trying to negotiate with the union, directly themselves under the threat of killing the companies. This is unacceptable procedure, setting a bad unworkable precedent, and of questionable ethics.

After the republican imposed gridlock in the Senate, it was necessary for Mr. Bush to ride to the rescue, albeit a temporary one, for this major sector of our economy. In so doing, it is just as he said, avoiding a disastrous blow to an economy already in trouble. This will carry the companies until a more studied approach may be taken by a new president and a new congress.

We must give Mr. Bush credit for stepping out in opposition to the ranks of his erstwhile friendly republican senatorial corps and doing that which was necessary and right for the nation. The shame of his party’s senatorial delegation has given Mr. Bush the opportunity to be a statesman.

We applaud his actions.

Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

 

This Thing about Christmas

This writer finds himself reluctantly drawn into this thing we have going again about “Christmas.” Unfortunately, for too many this has become an emotional controversy about nomenclature, “Holiday” versus “Christmas,” for naming the season.

While many of us think that this is a tempest in a teapot, a totally unnecessary controversy worked up by people who like to create such, it may be different for some.

There are those persons who are very religious Christians, and who are quite sensitive to all things which might denigrate their Christian celebration of homage. Then there are those persons who are overly sensitive to any invasion of the secular by anything religious, including Christmas, which tends to cross into their own world of business and government. Of course, there are those of Hebrew or other faiths and ancestry who may prefer the generic greetings, so as to include their own religious observances of the season.

Then it seems that there is a segment of the broadly defined “Christian” community, namely the right wing republicans, who are fanning the flames of controversy for the political fallout in their favor. They make allegations of persecution and discrimination against Christians, citing some feared threat of banning “Christmas” from our lives.

Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, along with far too many fundamentalist ministers, share the credit for politicizing “Christmas.”

The so-called controversy now has most of us somewhat sensitive to Christmas expressions of greeting. The girl at the speaker in the drive through at McDonald’s cheerily said “Happy Holidays,” and something about it was bothersome to this writer. Probably it was the “political correctness” that gave it an aura of artificiality.

In selecting and mailing Christmas cards from an assorted box, one finds oneself sensitive to and noticing those that say “Season’s Greetings” and those that say, “Merry Christmas.” There is some sensitivity to political correctness in all of us, and it may even be a bit embarrassing to find it in ourselves. So the fact is that some people are getting cards in the mail this year which will say “Season’s Greeting” with a religious postage stamp. How’s that for fence straddling?

After becoming sensitive enough to notice the difference, it is best if one just goes ahead and selects these at random anyway, choosing to ignore the issue. That is what we have always done for years and years, before somebody started the controversy.

As a college student, this writer had the good fortune to work part-time at a dry goods store in Wilburton owned by the Goldberg family. Sam Goldberg, although Jewish, was always exuberant about Christmas. His booming voice greeting customers, “Merry Christmas,” could be heard all over the store. He had the spirit of the season.

Incidentally, Sam Goldberg was one of the best bosses ever. He was warm and kind to people, and a consummate worker for civic good. He was “a man for all seasons” in the true sense of the expression. He knew how to bridge differences to make them less significant.

Would that we could all emulate Mr. Goldberg in not only tolerating differences, but enjoying the seasons for celebration of all among us.

Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

 

JUSTICE?

Justice is an interesting concept. Most of us would prefer mercy to justice for ourselves. However, most of us think that others, particularly strangers who are different from us, should have justice tempered with little mercy. Mercy tempering thoughts about justice, or lack thereof, seem ironically to be more related to one’s politics than to one’s religion.

Our republican friends in the legislative halls of the nation, and some of our democrat friends as well, seem to find it necessary to put on a show of being tough on crime. Apparently, they think that pleases us.

First, we now tend to make everything a crime, whether this is children’s curious behavior in school, youthful experimentation with the wiles of the world, or adult errors and simple mistakes in judgment. Anything wrong tends to become a crime, often of magnified proportions.

Mandatory sentencing, three strikes legislation, and no probation clauses have all meant well, but may result in individual injustices when applied. “No tolerance” rules in schools have similar effects, with applications sometimes seeming idiotic. One writer said nearly 100 years ago, “Justice not tempered by mercy is cold, and has no place in school discipline.” Have we really progressed so far as to make that principle obsolete?

This discussion is not, of course, about serious, violent crimes, although the harsh justice of guilt by association, rather than commission, is often very troubling. Just being present when a criminal act was performed by another person is not the same as committing the act.

If all the hardnosed, uncompromising prosecuting attorneys are added to the mix above, and then all the harsh, unyielding judges are inserted, the result is a justice system that is not only overly burdensome to taxpayers but also potentially hazardous to citizens living their daily lives. Who among us would want to find ourselves deep into such a system as a result of some momentary lapse of judgment, error committed for lack of knowledge or understanding, or violation of some personal conduct rule codified by a misguided legislature?

It is interesting that few voices were raised this past week in defense of football hero O. J. Simpson. It became quite obvious that this trial was all about the perceived miscarriage of justice in Los Angeles 13 years earlier. Legal experts, one after another, have said that there was nothing in the offense in Las Vegas warranting such harsh prosecution or such severe sentencing.

O. J. Simpson is no longer seen as a hero, or even as a tragic, sympathy evoking figure. He has few public friends or supporters. Instead, most see him as a double murderer who got away with it.

Unfortunately since the earlier trial and acquittal verdict, there has been a definite racial dichotomy in opinions on O. J.’s guilt or innocence. Almost all whites think he was guilty while most blacks think he was not guilty, or at least the guilt was unproven. The predominantly black jury was unanimous in its verdict.

Having watched more of the O. J. trial than 95% of the population, this writer came to the same conclusion as the trial jury, i.e. the prosecution did not prove its case that O. J. Simpson was guilty. While he may or may not have done the crime, there were too many flaws in the prosecution’s case for this observer to reach a guilty conclusion without a doubt.

Yet many notable and highly qualified public figures, such as Argus Hamilton and Jay Leno, have pronounced such a guilty conclusion over and over. Probably 99% of white Americans believe it to be so. It is as if his legal verdict had been “guilty, but no punishment.”

The Las Vegas case was about a sports figure gathering a few strong-arm types and going into hotel room, shouting and threatening, to get his missing memorabilia back. With or without his knowledge, a couple of his group had unneeded weapons. He took some gear not his own, but made immediate efforts to return that.

While the judge admonished the jury and the press that this case stood alone, and that the past should have nothing to do with present case considerations, it became obvious that neither the jury nor the judge herself followed that directive.

Yes, indeed, several mistakes were made, and several laws violated by this defendant. O. J. deserved prosecution and punishment in accordance with the total situation of this case. Instead, it is recognized that his justice this time was colored by the commonly perceived lack of it in the previous case.

At times there is something not quite right about justice.

Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate

Friday, December 05, 2008

 

PEARL HARBOR DAY

Day of Infamy

On wings as hawks they came,
As dawn broke forth that holy day,
That lives in infamy and shame,
That years have failed to wash away.
For immortality and for fame,
They came as birds of prey;
Laden with fire and flame,
Over the hills and across the bay.
Their mission then to kill and maim.

In peace below the sleeping giant lay,
Exposed to treachery's deadly aim,
In this most infamous foul play.
To some came honor and acclaim,
Amidst the horror of that melee.
To the victims give laud and fame;
But none to betrayers in the fray.

On occasion of the 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor
December 7, 1991 ------ Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard

“A day which will live in infamy,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt dramatically stated as we listened anxiously on the radio, and then watched later on Movietone News in the theatre. He was asking Congress to declare war on the Empire of Japan, two days after what he described as the “cowardly” and “dastardly” attack on Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.

Those of us living at that time remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news that Sunday afternoon. Quickly we became glued to our radios.

Our utter repugnance for the Japanese then is difficult to describe now. Despicably they actually had two diplomatic envoys of peace in Washington for a Monday audience with Cordell Hull, our Secretary of State. We then understood quickly that was simply a smokescreen for their treacherous plotting of the sneak attack.

Some of us will not buy a Japanese car to this very day, nor would we buy anything else made there if given a choice. The modern stereotype of the sweet, peaceful, lotus-flower Japanese has had difficulty taking hold on some World War II veterans and families. Some of us remember all too well Pearl Harbor, the sieges of Bataan and Corregidor, the Bataan death march of the captives, and the cruel barbarism of Japanese treatment of American prisoners – several of whom were relatives or brothers of our close friends.

The world was already under the dark sinister pall from a Germany dominated by and loyally subservient to a man so evil that we have seen in his hometown on the sidewalk in front of his boyhood home a crude stone marker with an inscription attesting to evil this man wreaked on the earth, documenting the millions of deaths, and calling forth “never again.” What a terrible legacy!

The German and the Japanese people were not exempt from all responsibility for the conduct of the governments and officials. Neither are we immune from some responsibility for the conduct of our government and its officials.

During those ensuing years of 1942, 1943, 1944, and until 1945, the world was engulfed in the fire of war. It touched every family. Some of us served, some of us lost family members in that war, and others sacrificed. But we never looked back. We never questioned. We knew what we had to do. Our nation’s honor and our honor were at stake. The security of the United States and the world hung in the uneasy balance.

Never again have we had a war in which the issues and reasons were so clear.

They said that the Korean War was about containing communism in Asia. They said the Viet Nam War was about containing communism in Asia. That issue was not personal with us. We felt limited in the level of sacrifice we were willing to make, and that did not include the lives of our family members. The urgency of our national interest was not that clear to us.

Some of who have been through all these wars feel offended when others around declare that our troops in Iraq are protecting our lives and liberty. We were not attacked by Iraq or even threatened. We are not “fighting them in the streets of Baghdad to keep from fighting them here.” Iraq did not attack us on 9/11. A gang of terrorist Arab thugs, who may also have been religious fanatics, attacked us.

But our troops are overseas doing their duty in accordance with orders from their commander-in-chief, whom they must presume knows what actions are necessary in our national interest. For this, we honor them.

Some among us may have been considered as unpatriotic because we did not support an undeclared pre-emptive attack on another nation based upon twisted interpretation of bad intelligence information. The hawkish have tried to make some of us feel unpatriotic for lack of zeal for the war.

Some of all ages blindly follow, of course, but a few of us who have been through other real wars for the survival of our nation are still very stubborn about what we know and what we feel. Naturally there are those among us who have tried to exploit patriotism for political purposes.

It seems to this one old veteran that Pearl Harbor Day is a good time to remember these things.

Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate

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