Category Archives: George W. Bush

A Sad Episode Of “60 Minutes.”

Posted on by

When I was in journalism school a long time ago, CBS was rightfully used as an example of great journalism. Such industry giants as Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Robert Trout, Harry Reasoner, Eric Sevareid, Roger Mudd, Charles Kuralt, Mike Wallace, Robert Pierpoint, Howard K. Smith, Douglas Edwards, Ed Bradley, and Daniel Schorr were part of the world’s premier news organization. They were idolized for their impartiality and determination to get at the truth.

Since those halcyon days, CBS News has sunk to such lows that journalism schools may now use its 60 Minutes report on Benghazi as an example of what not to do.

Lara Logan’s story was fraught with holes, inconsistencies and outright lies. Apparently Logan and the 60 Minutes crew were determined to break a sensational story that would expose some sort of cover-up by the Obama administration. Certainly, the story was sensational. It was also false.

In filing the report, CBS News broke some of the most basic rules that are taught to would-be reporters in Journalism 101. There were so many red flags, it’s astounding that an editor, any editor, would agree to air the report, let alone make it the lead story on the telecast. First, the “source” (independent contractor Dylan Davies) asked to be given an asumed name (Morgan Jones) for protection, yet he agreed to appear on camera making it easy to identify him. Second, Davies admitted to the reporter(s) that he had lied to his employers when asked if he had reached the US consulate during the attack. Third, it was known that Davies had also shopped a manuscript of his tale to a book publisher.

To most experienced reporters any one of these issues would place the source’s credibility in question.

Finally, and more important, Davies’ testimony was in direct contradiction with what was already known about the events in Benghazi. It not only contradicted accounts by the State Department, the Department of Defense and the Obama administration. It contradicted reports from independent groups empaneled to investigate the matter. This should have caused CBS News to seek further corraboration. At very least, it should have caused the network to do much more investigation before running with the story. But it seems, CBS News and 60 Minutes were more intent on exposing or, more accurately, creating a scandal.

The only scandal they created centered on their failure to accurately present the news.

Yet the most astonishing aspect of this sorry mess is that CBS News chairman, Jeff Fager, stood by the story after serious questions were raised. Indeed, he used the fact that Davies had previously lied (not once, but twice) as evidence of his credibility!

Not until CBS News became aware that Davies had told a different story during his testimony to the FBI, did Fager and CBS News start to question Davies’ credibility. Seriously, CBS? No one in your news organization thought to check out your source? No one thought to read the volumes of testimony on the events at Benghazi? No one thought to ask the administration, the State Department or others for a rebuttal? The editor of my college newspaper would have fired me for less.

Of course, CBS News did pull the story from its website several days after it aired. And it apparently arranged for Lara Logan to apologize for the story during her appearance on CBS This Morning. It also has stated that it will correct the story on an upcoming 60 Minutes. That may undo some of the political damage from the story. But it won’t undo the damage done to the proud reputation of CBS News.

All of this is painfully ironic when you consider the network’s actions following Dan Rather’s report on the favoritism shown to George W. Bush during his service in the Air National Guard. If you remember, Rather presented documents showing that Bush had gone AWOL and never served the remainder of his enlistment. When the veracity of those documents was questioned, CBS News hung Rather out to dry. Three producers were fired and Rather left the network shortly afterward with his career in tatters. Yet, since that time, it has been determined that the documents could have been authentic, and that Bush likely was AWOL.

Maybe this time, instead of punishing the reporter(s), the network should fire Fager and the editor(s) who failed to question the Benghazi story. Maybe it should commit to raising its news standards. Maybe it should ask itself, “What would Edward R. Murrow do?”

UPDATE: Lara Logan gave a “correction” at the end of a “60 Minutes” telecast in which she admitted to errors. Given the fact, that her apology was at the very end of the program and lasted only 90 seconds, there’s only one word that adequately characterizes the “correction”: LAME!

Logan did not explain why the network chose to give so much credibility and air time to an admitted liar who was looking to cash in by selling his story to a book publisher. She failed to explain why CBS did so little investigation. And she did not explain why CBS chose to give the “correction” so little time and attention.

Prelude To 9/11.

Posted on by

Understandably, 9/11 is a very sensitive subject. It was the only attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor. The people who died in the attacks are still being mourned, and those who gave their lives trying to save the victims are legitimately American heroes. Additionally, there are still many questions about how the attacks happened and why they were not stopped.

To be clear, I’m not a “Truther”…never have been. I believe it’s nonsense to think that the attacks of 9/11 were engineered and carried out by our own government. Not only would it be difficult to hire people to commit such heinous acts, it would be impossible for anyone with any knowledge of such treason to remain silent. However, I do believe there is abundant evidence that the Bush administration willfully ignored numerous and dire warnings of an impending al Qaeda attack prior to 9/11.

Why would the administration do such a thing?

You’ll have to draw your own conclusions. But I suspect that it was a matter of convenience for Bush, Richard “The Dick” Cheney and the rest of their neocon Project for a New American Century (PNAC) crowd to allow them to display our military might in order to force our economic will on the world. In their defense, I doubt that they could have imagined that an attack from a few extremist Muslims could result in so many casualties. After all, only a year earlier, Bush dismissed Clinton’s attempt to destroy Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda training camp as “sending a million dollar cruise missile to blow up a camel tent.”

Nevertheless, even a relatively minor attack on US soil would give the Bush neocons an opportunity to unleash our military to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. It would provide a showcase for our “Shock and Awe” weapons. The spectacle would serve as a warning to potential opponents and “encourage” other governments to accept our corporate demands. And, by “liberating” Iraq or, more precisely, Iraqi oil, I believe the neocons assumed they would be able to accomplish their goal of establishing a US military presence in the region to counterbalance the influence of Iran and protect our access to all Middle East oil reserves.

Pretty crazy, huh?

But when you look at the events leading up to the al Qaeda attack, it’s the Bush/Cheney neocons that look crazy. (And that’s being polite!)

National Security Council Counter-terrorism Chief, Richard Clarke, has testified that he tried to get the attention of Bush officials to warn them of an imminent attack by al Qaeda as early as January of 2001. Almost immediately after the administration had assumed office, he asked for a cabinet-level meeting with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Cheney and Colin Powell. But Rice ignored him until September 4. In the meantime, according to Clarke, he and CIA Director George Tenet were running around with their “hair on fire” in order to get the administration’s attention. Clarke recalled Tenet saying, “I feel it coming. This is going to be the big one.”

Additionally, Bush was handed a Presidential Brief on August 6, 2001 that was headlined “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.” But, according to those close to the situation, Bush dismissed the brief by telling the CIA briefer, “Alright, you’ve covered your ass now.” Further, there is evidence that the administration was warned of an impending strike as many as 40 times! But officials in the administration, particularly Rice, not only ignored the threat, according to Clarke and others, they seemed disinterested.

Immediately following 9/11, Rice, Cheney and Bush claimed that there were no credible warnings prior to the strikes. They accepted no responsibility. Instead, they blamed the intelligence community for not communicating effectively. They claimed that, had they known in advance, they would have done everything in their power to save the country.

They then set about planning an invasion of Iraq which had absolutely no role in 9/11.

To this day, Bush, Cheney, Rice and the rest of the neocons have never been forced to answer for their treachery. Instead of being impeached, Bush was re-elected. Instead, of being charged with war crimes; with invading Iraq under false pretenses; with authorizing torture; with causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands, Bush and his posse have ridden off into the sunset. A presidential library has been erected in Bush’s honor. Rice has been awarded a cushy position at Stanford University and given the honor of helping to select the college football teams that will participate in the championship playoffs. And Cheney walks around with someone else’s heart beating in his chest, still trying to justify the invasion of Iraq and still pushing the PNAC.

These people have not only escaped justice. They have proven that there is no justice.

Smallest Government In 47 Years.

Posted on by

It’s fashionable for Teapublicans to demand a smaller, limited government. To support their cause, they quote the 10th Amendment which says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

What Teapublicans neglect to consider is the preamble to the Constitution which reads, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

“Promote the general Welfare” gives the federal government a lot of latitude with which to create agencies such as the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor, the Federal Drug Administration, the US Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and all of the other regulatory agencies that conservatives hate so much.

And, yes, as confirmed by the US Supreme Court, the Constitution even allows for the creation and implementation of “Obamacare.”

Moreover, in recent years, it’s not just liberals and Democrats who have expanded the federal government to a size that Teapublicans now find so intolerable. Republicans were responsible for much of that growth. In reality, what most likely rankles Teapublicans is that a Democrat… a black Democrat at that…is now in control of those departments and agencies.

But it may surprise Teapublicans that President Obama, that so-called “big government-loving, over-regulating, over-spending socialist,” has significantly reduced the size of the federal government! According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of federal employees is at a 47-year low. To be exact, before the government shutdown, there were 2,723,000 federal employees. The number hasn’t been that low since 1966. And that number of employees must now serve 118.13 million more people.

Imagine that! Under President Obama, the size of government has shrunk to lower levels than under George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush and even the idol of all government haters…Ronald Reagan!

The Cost Of “Wanting To Kick Some Ass.”

Posted on by

Our role in the Iraq War may be over, but the costs are still mounting up. According to a study by a Harvard researcher, the financial cost to the US has surpassed $4 trillion, and if the cost of care for wounded warriors is included, the overall cost could grow to as much as $6 trillion!

Yet that cost pales in comparison to the human cost. The US lost 4,486 soldiers in Iraq. Our allies lost an additional 318. And, according to a new report by Johns Hopkins University, an estimated 500,000 Iraqis died, including 200,000 who died from disease because of failed infrastructure and the fact that they couldn’t get to hospitals or doctors in order to receive treatment.

What makes these numbers even worse is that Bush’s neocon nincompoops used visions of mushroom clouds to sell this unnecessary war of choice. They claimed that the invasion would only last “a matter of days, not weeks,” that it would “pay for itself” and the Iraqis would “welcome us as liberators.” Most disturbing, an official who was inside the Bush administration said that the real reason we went to war in Iraq was that Afghanistan had been “too easy,” and after 9/11, “we wanted to kick some ass.”

The invasion of Iraq also conveniently fit Richard “The Dick” Cheney’s Plan for a New American Century which called for using our position as the world’s lone superpower to force our economic will on the world. He also called for the transformation of America’s defenses by establishing a firm military foothold in the Middle East, but warned that the process would likely be a long one, “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”

9/11 was just such an event.

Given the opportunity, Cheney and his fellow neocons took charge and began planning the invasion of Iraq immediately following 9/11. It made no difference that Iraq had absolutely no role in the attacks. This knowledge should weigh heavily on the conscience of every American. It should cause us to reconsider the process with which we make decisions to go to war. Such decisions should never be opportunistic. They should be the result of a careful, reasoned and agonizing debate. They should be viewed as an absolute last resort.

“Wanting to kick some ass” as a justification to go to war rightfully ranks those in the Bush administration right alongside Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi as bullies, despots and war criminals.

Despite being at war for most of our history, it seems Americans still don’t understand the consequences of war. Maybe that’s because the last war to be fought on US soil was the Civil War. For nearly 150 years, Americans have largely viewed war as something that happens to someone else. Moreover, our most recent wars have been fought by a tiny percentage of Americans.

It’s incredibly easy for people who have no real stake in combat to be war hawks…or, more accurately, chicken hawks. They want to fight…but on someone else’s land with someone else’s children. As demonstrated by the large number of deaths and the widespread destruction in Iraq, war has consequences – terrible, tragic, deadly consequences. War is rarely noble and honorable. War is ugly and bloody. Some people do extraordinarily brave things. But just as many commit awful, regrettable acts that stay with them for a lifetime.

Until we understand that, we can only dream of living in a world at peace.

Who’s Really Responsible For Our National Debt?

Posted on by

It’s popular for the Republican Party to blame our $16.7 trillion debt on President Obama. Certainly, like all presidents, he has some responsibility for it. But a much larger share of the responsibility goes to President Reagan, President George H.W. Bush and, most especially, President George W. Bush.

You see, the increase in spending in 2009 following the economic collapse of 2008 should rightfully be attributed to the Bush administration. That’s because the 2009 deficit was the result of a spending bill, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), authorized by Congress in October of 2008 and signed by President Bush months before Obama took office. In fact, spending in the first year of any administration is always the result of the previous administration. Properly credit 2009 spending to Republicans, and you’ll discover that President Obama has been responsible for the lowest spending increases since Eisenhower. Similarly, he is responsible for the most rapid cuts to our deficit in more than 50 years!

While it’s true that the debt has increased 18.5 percent since Obama became president, as discussed, he should not be held responsible for most of that increase. Even so, it’s still less than the 20.7 percent increase in national debt that accrued during George W. Bush’s second term. And it’s only marginally greater than the 13 percent increase during Bush Sr’s term, and the 11.3 percent increase during Reagan’s first term.

A better measure of Obama’s spending comes courtesy of Rick Ungar, a contributor to Forbes Magazine (hardly a bastion of liberalism). According to Ungar, in President Obama’s first term, overall government spending grew just 1.4 percent as compared to 7.3 percent in George W. Bush’s first term and 8.1 percent in Bush’s second term!

So why do Republicans continue to place the blame on Obama? First, it’s a matter of political convenience to portray Obama as a “tax and spend” liberal. Second, the narrative is relatively believable since government spending skyrocketed during the first year of the Obama administration. Third, the media has done a very poor job of countering Republican misinformation.

In order to truly understand the federal debt, you have to look at the history of US borrowing.

Following the Revolutionary War, the US debt stood at roughly 35 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It again reached that level following the Civil War. In both instances, the debt was brought down by a combination of increased revenues and spending restraint. During WW I, the US debt again rose to approximately 35 percent of GDP. Before it could be paid down, our economy collapsed leading to the Great Depression. That was quickly followed by WWII. The two events caused the debt to soar to more than 117 percent of GDP. But, through a combination of post-war prosperity and income tax rates of up to 91 percent during the Eisenhower administration, the debt was again brought under control.

By the end of the Carter administration, the national debt had been reduced to 32.5 percent of GDP.

President Reagan’s expansive military spending during the Cold War once again caused the debt to soar, reaching more than 66.1 percent GDP. Under Clinton, it was reduced to 56.4 percent of GDP. Then, under George W. Bush, two wars (one of which was a war of choice) and lax government oversight led to the Great Recession – the worst economic calamity in nearly 80 years. At the same time, a Republican-led Congress cut taxes (and, therefore, revenue), particularly for the wealthy.

President Obama inherited a debt of more than 84 percent of GDP, along with a worldwide economic collapse, double-digit unemployment, spiraling health care costs, two wars estimated to have cost more than $6 trillion, a Congress that refused to rescind the Bush tax cuts, and a uniquely obstructionist Republican Party.

All of this was roughly the equivalent of combining the costs of World War II and the Great Depression without the primary mechanism needed to reduce the debt – taxes!

President Obama was left with few choices. He had to stimulate the economy through loans and tax cuts in order to put people back to work. This led to reduced revenue. He had to wind down the war of choice in Iraq as quickly as possible. He needed to stabilize the war in Afghanistan that had been allowed to languish under Bush at a cost of $1 million per soldier per year. Moreover, since few Americans had been asked to sacrifice for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, unlike World War II, they felt no need to pay for the wars through increased taxes. Indeed, even though federal income taxes were at a 50-year low, extremists funded by billionaires created the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party.

All of this led to the growth of our debt, which now equals nearly 102 percent of GDP.

Certainly, this debt is of great concern. But it’s not the short-term crisis Teapublicans would have you believe. (It’s the equivalent of a family earning $100,000/year holding a $102,000 mortgage.) And, without modest tax increases, there are few ways to reduce the debt.

One is to grow the economy, and according to most economists, including Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, the economy is on the verge of significant, sustained growth if the nitwits in Congress would just get out of the way and stop dragging us from one self-inflicted crisis to another.

Two is to make cuts without adding to unemployment. (For example, we squander tens of billions each year on weapons systems that our military doesn’t even want, but Congress refuses to defund them because doing so would cost jobs.) And, once the economy shows sustained growth, programs such as food stamps can be cut – especially if we raise the minimum wage to reduce the large number of working poor who have little choice but to rely on government assistance.

In summary, contrary to what Teapublicans would have you believe, our national debt is not Obama’s debt. It’s the result of decades of wars, tax cuts, regulatory indifference, a struggling worldwide economy, out-of-control health care costs, greedy corporations that off-shore both jobs and profits, and a dysfunctional Congress that not only fails to help the economy. It makes decisions that are actually preventing economic recovery!

As a matter of fact, the Tea Party seems determined to force our nation into default. And, like the debt, they would have you believe that it’s all Obama’s fault.

Ronald Reagan: Solar Assassin.

Posted on by

When President Obama recently ordered the White House to be fitted with solar panels, he was following the precedent set by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. After the OPEC cartel’s decision to limit oil production in order to drive up oil prices, Carter had recommended a series of measures designed to conserve energy and limit US dependence on oil imports. An aggressive plan to develop solar energy was one of those measures. To promote his plans, Carter ordered the installation of solar panels on the White House.

But when Ronald Reagan defeated Carter in 1980, one of his first actions was to order the panels, which he called “a joke”, removed. He also set about reversing all of Carter’s other energy-saving measures.

As a result of Reagan’s short-sighted decisions, the development of solar energy in the US was set back decades. While European nations and China continued the development of solar and other alternative energies, the US redirected all of its subsidies and resources toward oil exploration and ensuring access to foreign oil.

One could argue that Reagan’s decision culminated in a series of oil wars intended to protect the supply of oil from the Middle East. The US fought Desert Storm in order to secure Kuwait’s oil wells and keep them out of Iraqi hands. Despite the Bush Administration’s statements to the contrary, oil was at the heart of Operation Iraqi Freedom. That fact was made clear when then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and his assistants stated that the invasion of Iraq would pay for itself (it didn’t) through profits from Iraqi oil reserves. And since American oil interests had long sought an oil pipeline across Afghanistan in order to deliver Balkan oil onto the world markets, oil was likely part of the equation that led to the invasion of Afghanistan.

Imagine what might have happened if the trillions of dollars used to pursue war had been invested in alternative energy that would free us from oil imports. Imagine where we might be had the Carter administration’s energy conservation initiatives been followed to their conclusion.

In all likelihood, we would not have sent our troops into endless wars. We would have greatly decreased our dependence on oil, especially oil imports from the Middle East. We would not have an enormous federal debt. And, perhaps most important, we would have contributed far less to carbon emissions which have led to climate change.

The Bush Legacy Of War.

Posted on by

Whatever your position on military action in Syria, your decision has likely been influenced by the Iraq War.

In 2003, the Bush administration told the US and the world that the invasion of Iraq was necessary in order to overthrow a sadistic leader; a leader who had used chemical weapons against Iran (with our blessings) and had even used chemical weapons against his own people (we drew no red line then). We were told that there was a growing mushroom cloud over Iraq and that, if we failed to act, that mushroom cloud would likely appear over the US. We were told that the invasion of Iraq would take a matter of days or weeks and that it would pay for itself through the profits from Iraqi oil.

We now know that the Bush administration lied. Even General Colin Powell who made the case before the UN admits that he was given faulty information and misled.

Now many of the same people behind the invasion of Iraq are calling for war with Syria’s Assad. John (the Warhawk) McCain was the first to weigh in, along with his partner in war Lindsey Graham. Former Bush Secretary of Offense, Donald Rumsfeld has also made his opinion known. So has Richard (The Dick) Cheney. They tell us that the reputation of the United States is at stake; that if we fail to strike, our enemies will walk all over us.

Really?

Do our enemies not already know that we spend more on our war machine than the next seven nations combined? And most of those are allies. None are actual enemies. Given that fact, it’s hard to imagine that a failure to strike against Assad in Syria will cause our enemies to start assembling their forces off our shores.

Today, our real enemies are small rogue nations and terrorist groups angered by all of our previous missteps, mostly in the Middle East, as the world’s self-proclaimed police force. Some of these enemies are the very people who are trying to defeat Assad. They will not be threatened by any strike against Assad. However, Syria’s allies, Russia and Iran might be.

The consequences of a rushed and ill-considered strike could be devastating. It could provoke Russia and Iran. It could destabilize Syria, much like Iraq. And it could embroil the entire region.

If the Obama administration is determined to send a message to Assad, it is going about it the right way in asking for a vote by Congress. (A strike against another government is, after all, an act of war and only Congress has the power to declare war.) Unlike Bush, the Obama administration should encourage that vote by presenting what we actually know about Assad’s use of chemical weapons. Not just what we think or want to believe.

Once Congress has voted, the US should take a well-substantiated case to the UN. After all, the ban of the use of chemical weapons is the result of an international treaty. We should not go it alone. We should not be rushed into action. We should not be pushed by the warmongers from a few countries in the region. And we should all recognize that, after Bush’s misadventures in Iraq, much of the rest of the world is understandably skeptical.

If the UN does approve military action against Assad, there should be a real coalition. Not some “coalition of the willing” as Bush claimed in Iraq. Any nation that votes for action should be willing to participate. And they should be willing to help pay for it.

Saber Rattling In Congress.

Posted on by

Following reports of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, some in Congress are demanding that President Obama intervene. Even though the use of chemical weapons have not yet been confirmed, some are calling the president “weak” for his failure to respond.

Such knee jerk reactions by the war hawks already have been responsible for far too many wars and far too many deaths.

In 1964, the war hawks used false reports of a North Vietnamese attack on US naval ships to ramp up the war leading to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands. In 1983, the Reagan administration not only turned a blind eye to Iraqi use of chemical weapons against Iran, there are indications the US actually supplied the weapons. And, in 2003, the Bush/Cheney war hawks were in such a hurry to invade Iraq, they used false information to convince Congress to vote for a war that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands Iraqis and 4,486 US soldiers.

One would think that, after such obvious and lethal mistakes, our congressional war hawks and media would be much more reluctant to engage in saber rattling. After all, there are far more questions in Syria than answers. Were chemical weapons actually used? Who used them? What are the goals of those opposing Assad? What will happen to Syria if Assad is defeated, especially since it has been reported that the opposition includes factions of al Qaeda? Will the opposition welcome our military assistance? Will the new Syria become an ally?

What will Russia, a long-time ally of Assad’s, do if we choose to intervene in Syria? What will be the impact on the already flammable Middle East since Syria shares a border with Israel?

Given all of these questions, exactly how is the US to respond? Do we provide more sophisticated arms to the rebels, including al Qaeda? Do we create a no-fly zone that may lead to a far more serious confrontation with Russia, and may not even accomplish the goal of overthrowing Assad? Do we bomb military targets in Syria that will almost certainly antagonize Russia? Do we insert US troops on the ground in what could be a more lethal and lengthy war than Iraq?

According to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, about 60 percent of US citizens interviewed oppose intervention in Syria.  It would seem that ordinary Americans have far more common sense than their saber-rattling congressional representatives.

GOP In A Hurry To Make Enemies.

Posted on by

A number of conservatives are calling for President Obama to call the removal of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi a military coup. Doing so would automatically trigger an end to foreign aid to Egypt and its military.

The fact that the Obama administration is approaching the situation in Egypt cautiously has left conservatives frustrated. They call the president weak. They say he is sending a message of weakness to all the world; that America is now afraid to take a stand; that our enemies will see this weakness as an opportunity to assert themselves and harm American interests.

Bull feces!

President Obama has been anything but weak when it comes to foreign policy. Not only did he order the killing of bin Laden, he put together a group of allies to end the reign of Muammar Khaddafi in Libya. He also has been relentless in his desire to end terrorism. By contrast, let’s look at the results of American threats and bullying by conservative presidents.

When Reagan deployed a large number of troops to Beirut in the eighties, terrorists detonated two truck bombs killing 299 US and French soldiers, leading to the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers from the country. In other words, the tough talkin’ TV cowboy turned tail and ran.

President George H.W. Bush sent mixed signals to Iraq leading to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the ensuing Desert Storm. That, in turn, resulted in our maintaining US bases in Saudi Arabia which infuriated extremist Muslims, leading to the creation of al Qaeda.

President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan following 9/11 and trumped up a phony reason to invade Iraq. More than 10 years later, the war in Afghanistan still rages and Iraq has been turned into an ally of Iran.

All of that cowboy machismo turned out so well that conservatives now want President Obama to follow the same approach in Egypt? To what end? If we immediately cut off aid to Egypt’s military, not only might we lose an ally that has made peace with Israel. We might turn the Egyptian army against us. Acting rashly might further destabilize the Middle East and weaken US influence throughout the region.

So, please, President Obama, take your time. Think over the consequences before you act. Then make the decision that best serves Egyptians as well as Americans. That would be a refreshing change from the foreign policy of conservatives.

The New American Royalty?

Posted on by

Last week, Liz Cheney announced that she is running for US Senate from the State of Wyoming. If elected, she will likely walk the same dark path as her father, former Vice-President Richard “The Dick” Cheney. Liz has long been her father’s most outspoken defender and apologist. Like her father, virtually every word that escapes her mouth oozes with hatefulness and contempt for others.

At the same time, some Republicans are clamoring for Jeb Bush to run for President of the United States. If he does run, and wins, he will be the third Bush to be president. In addition, his grandfather Prescott Bush was a US Senator.

On the other side, the presumed presidential nominee of the Democratic Party is Hillary Clinton. Although I very much like Hillary and I think she would be a wonderful president, I’m troubled that she already spent eight years in the White House. Wouldn’t it be better if another popular candidate, especially a woman, stepped forward?

Is this the future of our nation? Are we so enamored with celebrity that we vote for the name instead of the person? Are we more interested in genetics than ideas? Were the last Bush and the last Cheney such great leaders we can’t wait to have another set in power?Politicians are not like software. As we learned from “W”, the succeeding generation is not necessarily version 2.0, 1.5 or even 1.0.

Nepotism is banned in most successful organizations, why not in government?

If this trend continues, how long before we simply proclaim a royal family or families and do away with elections altogether? Then we, too, could breathlessly await the birth of a new monarch.

I may not be an expert on history, but I seem to recall that we fought a war to get away from royalty.