Category Archives: War

On Religion, Politics, Terrorism And War.

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Following World War II, the Korea War and Vietnam, when our soldiers returned home, they tried to resume their previous lives as quickly as possible. Despite their often heroic acts, many declined recognition. Many refused to talk about their experiences…not even with friends, neighbors and families. In part, it was because they did not want to relive old memories. And, in part, it was out of a sense of modesty, knowing that many others had done the same things…many of whom were not able to return home.

During the fifties, sixties and seventies, there were a spate of war movies celebrating our military accomplishments with actors such as John Wayne and Audie Murphy, an actual war hero. There were also movies, television shows and cartoons such as Beetle Bailey, Sergeant Bilko, Gomer Pyle and M.A.S.H. that poked fun at the military. There was no outrage at these comedies. No media-driven attacks on the actors and creators. Yet in today’s “Thank you for your service” culture which pays minimal tribute to service members without true understanding or compassion for what they’ve endured, the same things would spark outrage. For an example, you need look no further than the largest-grossing movie of the year, American Sniper. Those who have pointed out the inaccuracies and the propagandist tone of the movie have been pilloried in the media. And those who have dared to crack jokes about it have been vilified.

Why the difference?

The difference certainly does not lie in the number of casualties suffered in the wars. Far more servicemen and women died in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. It’s not a difference in the level of hardships faced. Soldiers and their families face hardships in every war. I believe the difference is that, prior to the Gulf War, the Afghan War and the Iraq War, most of our nation’s seemingly endless series of wars were fought by citizen soldiers. Those who either truly feared for our nation’s future or were conscripted to serve. For them, war was not a profession. It was, instead, an interruption…a gut-wrenching, life-changing, potentially fatal interference with their lives. It was hell.

They did not aspire to see how many kills they could record. They did not live for the adrenalin rush. Few wrote books about their exploits, and most who did wrote them years later in an attempt to come to grips with the demons implanted in their minds as a result of their service. They simply wanted to survive; to do their jobs and come home to their families.

The truth is, those who have launched vicious attacks in the media and on social media against those who have criticized American Sniper, the CIA torture program, the unjustified and unnecessary invasion of Iraq, the wasteful military-industrial complex, and the media-driven paranoia of those who pray and look differently are no less terrorists than the delusional zealots who detonate a suicide vest in the middle of a crowd of peace-loving civilians. Those who try to shout down the critics of war and threaten people of other faiths are themselves resorting to a form of terrorism. They may not be as violent, but they share goals similar to those of the jihadists who behead non-combatants. They want to frighten those with whom they disagree to change their beliefs and/or their behavior.

As Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wisely noted, terroristic acts such as those committed by zealots in Paris, Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Israel and the US were not acts of religion. They were acts of politics. Such murders do not represent the true faiths of Islam, Judaism or Christianity. Indeed, they are contrary to the teachings of all faiths. Acts of terrorism done in the name of any religion are merely the acts of political bullies who refuse to accept or coexist with anyone who seems different from them…anyone who prays differently; who dresses differently; who speaks a different language; who has a different skin color; or who even has a conflicting view of a war movie.

Some Context On The Terrorism In France.

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For the last few days, US media have been fixated on the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo. Without question, murdering satirists and innocents over ideology is a horrible, despicable act. But would the story have so dominated the news media if the terrorists were not Muslim? The treatment of similar stories by news media suggests otherwise.

For example, 12 people were killed in the initial attack on Charlie Hebdo. That is only marginally more than the average number of innocent children in the United States killed by guns every day. Where are the sensational stories about that? Since 9/11, there have been at least 8 attacks in the US by right wing terrorists. Most of these garnered no media attention. And what about news of the terrorist bombing attempt of the NAACP office in Colorado Springs? Where are the stories about that? Have you seen any news stories about the FBI manhunt for the individual responsible?

Moreover, right wing media pundits continue to call for Muslim leaders to denounce Islamic terrorism and Muslim extremists. Did you know that leading Muslim organizations in the US and Europe immediately made statements publically condemning the Paris attacks? They did. But have you seen any headlines to that effect? Have you heard any broadcast news anchors read the statements? Have you seen any interviews with those Muslim leaders?

No, such stories do not further the conservative narrative of our corporate-owned media. They do not instill fear in our public. They do not pander to our still mostly white Christian population. They do not serve to help divide us by religion and race. They do not make it easier to dehumanize those who are different. They do not serve the agenda of those in Washington (I’m thinking of you, Lindsay Graham and John McCain) who want to send more of our troops into battle in Iraq, Syria and, ultimately, Iran.

The attack on Charlie Hebdo wasn’t merely the outgrowth of religious differences. It was the outgrowth of an extreme ideology created, in part, by extremist textbooks given to Pakistani schools with the intent of rallying young Muslims to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It was the outgrowth of extremist teachings and the funding for terrorist organizations from Saudi Arabia, our supposed ally. It was the outgrowth of the Bush administration’s unwarranted invasion of Iraq. It was the outgrowth of the Bush administration’s torture program.

All of this is not to excuse the Parisian terrorist attacks. But if we’re ever going to be successful in preventing such attacks, we must understand the events and attitudes that lead to them. We must understand that the devout followers of any ideology can commit terrorist acts. Peace begins with understanding. That is why the context is necessary. It’s long past time for our media to provide that context to their sensational news; to tell the whole story; to give us the truth…not just the facts.

Why US Must Prosecute Its Architects Of Torture.

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When President Obama took office, he and Attorney General Eric Holder declined to prosecute crimes committed by the Bush administration…the fraudulent case for the Iraq War, the illegal detention and treatment of the prisoners at Gitmo, and the failure of government agencies to regulate the gambling addiction of Wall Street. The feeling was that the nation needed to heal…that, in the midst of two wars and an economic calamity, the prosecution of crimes would only make the festering wounds worse. As a result, Bush administration officials were given a pass for war crimes and Wall Street bankers were given a “stay-out-of-jail” card for massive financial fraud.

It’s time for Obama and the Department of Justice to revisit that decision.

The Senate report on the Bush-led torture program chronicles the depravity of our extraordinary renditions and enhanced interrogations. It shows that, under the Bush administration, our nation sank to new lows, placing us among the world’s worst actors. Instead of claiming the high ground in our war on terror, in many ways we joined the so-called “Axis of Evil” as decried by former President Bush himself.

We cannot ever again claim to be the “beacon of hope” or that “shining city upon the hill” as described by Ronald Reagan if we refuse to seek justice against those who committed war crimes in our name. That means an open, and very public, trial of Bush, Cheney, former CIA Director Michael Hayden, former Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, former NSA Director Condoleezza Rice and anyone else within the Bush administration who authorized and ordered torture. We should demand that Richard “The Dick” Cheney repay his share of the reported $39.5 billion in profits made by Halliburton from the Iraq War. We should also reclaim the $81 million paid to the two psychologists who recommended the various forms of torture and, if they refuse to repay their “consulting” fees, we should arraign them on criminal charges.

“But what about the political divisiveness such actions would create?” you may ask.

That ship sailed long ago. It left port on the day of Obama’s inauguration when Mitch McConnell and his Teapublican cronies plotted to make Obama a one-term president by obstructing his nominations and every aspect of his agenda. It gained speed when Senate Teapublicans used the filibuster a record number of times and the GOP House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act more than 50 times. And it sped out of sight when the GOP House voted to sue the sitting president of the United States.

Despite the president’s best efforts, there has been no healing of the wounds opened by the Bush administration. And there can be no healing of the US reputation unless those who chose to torture prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the UN treaty against torture are held accountable. Moreover, without a proper accounting, our own citizens and troops will be more vulnerable to torture in conflicts around the world. Does that mean a former president, vice-president, CIA director and assistant attorney general should go to prison? If we were to follow the precedent established by the Nuremburg trials of former Nazi leaders, the answer could very well be yes.

We cannot be a true democracy unless every crime is prosecuted fairly and equally under the law, and unless everyone is held accountable for criminal actions.

An Informed Voting Public?

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Our Founding Fathers created a democracy based on informed voters carefully selecting a representative government. The reality is that, after nearly 240 years, we have neither an informed public nor a representative government. The most recent election is a case in point.

After six years of Teapublican obstruction, the approval rating of Congress was lower than the approval of cockroaches. So what did our “informed” voters do? They re-elected the vast majority of the incumbents and gave extra seats to members of the party that was responsible for the obstruction. Our national political pundits explained this phenomenon as the result of a low voter turnout and massive spending of “dark money” to elect candidates who would repay their benefactors with fewer regulations and more tax cuts. I explained that it was the result of the failure of the Democratic Party to promote its record of pulling our economy out of perhaps the biggest hole in history, making affordable health care available to most Americans, improving our nation’s standing throughout the world, expanding consumer protections and attempting to expand civil rights to all segments of our population.

There’s a better explanation.

This past Sunday, Fareed Zakaria, on his CNN show Global Public Square, featured an Ipsos MORI international study that measured the political ignorance in 14 western nations. The study asked respondents from those nations about various issues ranging from unemployment to immigration. While Italy ranked number one as the least informed citizenry, voters in the US ranked a close second. For example, when asked about unemployment in the US, our respondents guessed that the figure was 32 percent when the real number is less than 6 percent nationwide. When asked about the number of recent immigrants in our country, Americans guessed that they make up 32 percent of our population, when the real number is about 13 percent. Asked about the number of Muslims in our country, Americans guessed that Muslims comprise 15 percent of our population, when the real figure is 1 percent.

The large number of poorly informed voters explains why voters continue to vote against their own self-interests; why poor people vote for officials who give large tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations; why they vote for officials who refuse to raise the minimum wage; why women vote for officials who refuse to demand equal pay for equal work; why the retired and near-retired vote for representatives who want to eliminate Social Security and Medicare.

Of course, we also have to ask ourselves why so many Americans are so poorly informed. The answer can be summed up in two words: schools and media.

Many of our schools no longer teach civics. As a result, many of our young people have never read the Constitution. They don’t even know how our government works. In addition, many of our nation’s textbooks are edited and approved by Texas conservatives so that they more resemble Christian and military propaganda than American history or science. For instance, we are still teaching children that Christopher Columbus discovered America when historians agree that he didn’t. And many of our schools are forced to teach “creationism” as an alternative to evolution, even though evolution is a fact as established as the theory of gravity.

Further, our so-called news media have placed an emphasis on entertainment and sensationalism to drive ratings at the expense of real news and information. As a result, we all know about the latest murder trial or the marital status of celebrities. But we don’t know the beliefs and agendas of the candidates on our ballots. Neither do we know world events that will ultimately affect us. We don’t even know that the US has been fighting wars for all but 13 years of our nation’s history. And we don’t know that our own actions led to most of them. Worse yet, we don’t know that our nation is no longer a democracy. Numerous political scientists and economists have proven that, by definition, it has become an oligarchy. (Of course, our poorly educated public likely doesn’t even know what an oligarchy is.)

The point of all this is to say that, if you don’t like our government, it’s not entirely the fault of those who were elected. It’s not necessarily the fault of one political party or our political system. The fault is our own, because we voted the scoundrels into office without ever bothering to ask what they will do. We’re only interested in which tribe they belong to – red or blue.

The Real Threat From Ebola.

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Fox Noise Channel and other right wing media pundits have cranked up the scare-o-meter, and it has nothing to do with Halloween. In fact, it has more to do with the upcoming mid-term elections. They want us to believe that we’re all going to die from Ebola-carrying terrorists from ISIS, aka ISIL. And, of course, they’d like you to believe that it’s all Obama’s fault.

Never mind that the only things that ISIS and Ebola, thus far, have in common is that they both originated halfway around the world and that President Obama has ordered the US military to help combat them. Aside from that, they’re worlds apart. ISIS is in Syria and Iraq in the Middle East. Ebola is infecting Liberia and Sierra Leone in Africa.

Infectious disease experts continue to reassure us that Ebola is not easily communicable; that protective garb, alcohol, soap and access to health care can stop it in its tracks; that other viruses, such as some types of influenza pose a far greater threat. However, the experts have pointed out that other countries like Canada and the United Kingdom are far better-equipped to deal with the spread of Ebola. Why? Because they have universal health care.

Some say that, if Ebola was able to gain a foothold in the US, it’s likely that the approximately 40 million Americans who still lack affordable access to health care would ignore the early symptoms, afraid to spend the money to seek medical care. The same is true for another 20 million or so who have low-paying jobs and insurance with high deductibles and large co-payments and can’t afford to lose time at work.

And where do most of these people work?

In restaurants where they prepare and serve your food. In retail stores where they take your payments and dispense change and/or receipts. In schools where they are surrounded by children.

I trust the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) when they say that they will stop Ebola in its tracks. But, in the unlikely event that they are wrong (and the scaremongers at Fox are right), we will have the best case yet for what the president and Democrats really wanted instead of Obamacare…nationalized health care.

Destroying Our Country To “Save” It.

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Former Congressman Ron Paul has long been the darling of the so-called Tea Party “Patriots.” Like all of his ilk, he waves the flag and spouts quotes from the Founding Fathers in an attempt to claim the high ground of patriotism. Yet, Paul recently told the National Journal ” that he was “real pleased…and a bit surprised” when he learned there is a growing number of Americans who favor secession.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, 24 percent of Americans polled between Aug. 23 and Sept. 16 of this year said they support the idea of their state breaking away from the country. And a majority (53 percent) of those who identify with the Tea Party favor secession. Interestingly, many of these people live in states that receive more from the federal government than they pay in taxes. They call themselves “true patriots.” They tend to run around waving a copy of the Constitution in one hand and the Bible in the other. Yet they’ve read neither.

In other words, Paul and his followers are so in love with our country they want to destroy it. They are so enamored by the Founders they want to divide the nation they created.

The truth is, like the Koch brothers who have funded the Tea Party movement from its inception following the election of the nation’s first black president, Paul and his followers claim to favor small government. But what they really want is no government. Indeed, Charles Koch has said, “government should be like a night watchman whose only responsibility is to protect private property rights and to preserve the laws of supply and demand.”

In other words, like all Tea Party parasites, Koch and Paul are of the “I’ve got mine, you can’t have yours” frame of mind. They don’t want to contribute to helping others climb out of poverty. They don’t want to contribute to the nation’s infrastructure. They don’t want to pay taxes. They don’t want to conserve resources or be stewards of our environment.

To support their positions, they quote the Articles of Confederation, which were so imperfect that they provided no way of repaying the loans needed to win the Revolutionary War; no provisions for a standing army, a federal bank or a federal currency. It was because of these flaws that the Founders convened the Constitutional Convention, creating a structure for our government with only a few absolutes (the Bill of Rights) and guidelines that have allowed our nation to grow and prosper for more than 200 years. It is a nation that is so resilient that it has survived attacks from abroad and within. It has survived more than 200 years of perpetual wars, including a bloody civil war. It has survived the Great Depression and the Great Recession. It has survived the slavery of Africans, the genocide of Native Americans and the greed of corporate “Robber Barons”… calamities that have destroyed many other nations.

In fact, the only thing likely to destroy our nation is the growth of political groups such as the Tea Party led by people like Ron Paul, Ted Cruz, Steve King, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Rand Paul who are promoted by Fox News and financed by the Koch brothers.

Obama Again Forced To Clean Up One Of Bush’s Messes.

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It has taken most of 5 years for President Obama to clean up the economic mess left by the Bush administration…an economic disaster that former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke labeled as worse than the 1929 crash that led to the Great Depression.

Now the Obama administration is determined to clean up the mess created by the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq…a country that posed no real threat to the US. ISIS, aka ISIL and IS, began as al-Qaeda in Iraq in the vacuum created by the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. When Paul Bremer decided to “de-Ba’athify” Iraq following the invasion, Saddam’s former military officers were left with no jobs, no income and no future. The situation was further complicated when the US military following the directions of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld left the Iraqi ammo dumps unguarded allowing the guerilla fighters to turn artillery shells into IEDs that kept US forces bogged down in Iraq for more than 9 years.

The Ba’athists and former Iraqi military officers became further alienated by the new Iraqi leadership who gave power to Shiites and marginalized Sunnis.

So here we go again. Round three in Iraq.

Only this time, we are doing it right. Although the Obama administration has been criticized for not committing ground troops, that is because they are being careful not to make the war on ISIS seem like another Christian crusade against the Muslim world. Instead, we have put together a coalition that includes the Arab nations of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Jordan and the Kurdish Peshmerga.

It’s not perfect. No war is. But it’s unlikely to be another disaster on the scale of what Bush-Cheney gave us.

Many Problems, One Cause.

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Every single day, I receive emails and letters from dozens of organizations seeking help: The Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, Oceana, Greenpeace, Walk Free, UNICEF, Care, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Mercy Corps, No Kid Hungry, Food and Water Watch, Organic Consumers Association, ACLU, Everytown for Gun Safety…the list goes on and on.

While each of these organizations are focused on meeting separate and specific needs, they all have one thing in common. The problems they have been created to solve are all caused by greed…the greed of large corporations, the greed of politicians, the greed for power and profits.

For example, 80 percent of all antibiotics are used by factory farms to ensure they don’t lose their investment in poultry, hogs and beef cattle. Our rivers and oceans are polluted by the run-off of chemicals from corporate farms. Bee colonies are being destroyed by the makers of pesticides. Our beaches and oceans are polluted by off-shore oil drilling. Our fresh water aquifers are polluted from the fracking of oil and gas companies. Our forests are being denuded by large lumber companies. Entire mountains have been decapitated by coal companies. Our reefs are being destroyed by cruise ships and large corporate fishing factories. Natural grain crops are being replaced by genetically modified “Frankenfoods” created by chemical companies. Our air is polluted by factories and carbon-burning power plants. Our streets are filled with people carrying guns pushed by the NRA and gun manufacturers. Our skyrocketing poverty is caused by greedy corporations paying below-subsistence wages. Our governments run deficits as the result of corporate giveaways and tax write-offs. All of these things are enabled by a Congress with politicians elected by large sums of money from billionaires hoping to avoid taxes and corporations hoping to avoid regulation. And the issues are under-reported by corporate media conglomerates that are more intent on advertising revenue than telling the truth.

The result of our runaway corporate society is a planet in dire trouble. Hundreds of species of animals and plants are plummeting toward extinction. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are causing new, untreatable infections. Pollutants in our air, water and food are causing chronic diseases such as asthma, autism, and birth deformities. Oil profits and weapons exports have led to a perpetual state of war. Increased gun sales and weakened laws have led to unsafe streets and mass shootings. And carbon pollution is changing our weather, melting our ice caps and increasing our sea levels.

There is only one way to solve our growing collection of problems. We must elect politicians who understand the cause of our problems; who are not financed by corporations and billionaires; who are more interested in solving problems than getting elected.

How can you tell the difference between one politician versus another? Look at their lists of donors and endorsements. (If their websites don’t list the donors, call their campaign office and ask.) Look at the disclaimers at the end of the commercials. If the ads aren’t paid for by the candidate’s campaign committee or political party, vote for the opponent. Or failing all of that, vote for the candidate who slings the least mud.

The Real Israeli-Palestinian War.

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Since the murder of 3 Israeli teenagers and the revenge killings of more than 2,000 Palestinians, Israel and Hamas have been engaged in a propaganda war. And it appears that Hamas is winning. The disproportionate Israeli attacks on Gaza, including air strikes on hospitals, schools and UN facilities, polls have caused the popularity of Hamas to soar. As recently as March, 58 percent of Gazans disapproved of Hamas. But since the conflict, the approval ratings of Hamas have skyrocketed. 94 percent of Palestinians now approve of the way Hamas conducted the war and 53 percent now believe that military conflict is the best way to achieve a Palestinian state.

This can only be made worse by the Israeli announcement that it is annexing another 1,000 acres of the occupied West Bank.

Despite polls showing that the majority of Israelis favor peace negotiations and a two-state solution, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems determined to provoke Hamas into a prolonged conflict. Israel points to the rockets being fired from Gaza, yet Israel controls everything that goes in and out of Gaza. As a result, Gazans have great difficulty gaining access to building materials and food. There are pronounced shortages of virtually everything.

So if rockets and other arms are being smuggled into the strip, it’s as much Israel’s fault as it is Gaza’s.

Even with the rockets and small arms, Hamas can have little effect on Israel. But thanks, in part, to the $3 billion a year in military aid from the US, Israel can wipe Gaza from the face of the Earth. Indeed, the UN estimates that it will take 20 years or more for Palestinians to rebuild Gaza neighborhoods providing, of course, Israel will allow concrete to cross the border. Yet, despite its military superiority, this is a war that Israel cannot win.

To understand why, one has to examine the region’s history. Even before World War II, Great Britain made the decision to help displaced Jews return to their “promised land.” To implement the plan, Britain drew up arbitrary borders which displaced thousands of Palestinians. In other words, Jewish refugees created Palestinian refugees. By 1948, there were already more than 700,000 Palestinian refugees crowded into Gaza, the West Bank and surrounding nations. With the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, Arab nations chose to fight back on behalf of the Palestinians. There has been almost constant fighting ever since.

After Israel won the 1967 war, it occupied Gaza and the West Bank. It filled the West Bank with Israeli settlements. Contrary to previous agreements, it claimed all of Jerusalem as its capital. It has placed a highly restrictive blockade on Gaza. It has refused to negotiate a peaceful solution since Hamas won control of the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006. And it called for its special ally, the US, to block Palestinian membership in the UN.

Those are the facts. How you interpret them and which side you take is largely the result of the propaganda war.

What Good Are Geneva Conventions If We Refuse To Enforce Them?

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By signing the Geneva Convention on torture, the US agreed that it would never resort to torturing prisoners, and that it would prosecute or extradite anyone who did. So why has the Obama administration refused to press charges of war crimes against George W. Bush, Richard “The Dick” Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, et al?

The Senate Intelligence Committee has now documented torture during the Bush administration and President Obama has confirmed the findings. If that’s not enough evidence to generate indictments, Bush officials have confessed to their crimes in their published memoirs and on television. Not only have they admitted knowledge of “extraordinary renditions,” aka torture. They have bragged about their “extreme interrogation techniques” and stated that they would not hesitate to use them again.

In other words, they are self-confessed war criminals.

So why hasn’t the Obama administration pressed charges according to the Geneva Conventions? Why have they not extradited the perpetrators to countries that will? Aren’t we supposed to be a nation of laws? Don’t we brag about our commitment to human rights? Don’t we accuse and prosecute the officials of other nations for war crimes?

If we can’t live up to our own rhetoric and promises; if we can’t abide by the treaties we sign, what good are they?