My last couple of posts have related to the impending decision President Obama HAS to make regarding our involvement in Afganistan. This is going to be a very difficult decision and, of course, the only thing we can count on as Americans is that FROM THE START the Republicans will be deriding the decision – no matter what it is. That is the part in all this that BUGS me the most. The Republicans should SHUT THEIR MOUTHS and get behind whatever Obama, Gates, and the military generals come up with as a solution to the problem CREATED BY INCOMPETENT REPUBLICAN DECISIONS! And the worst offender in the 7 years we were in Afganistan during the Bush years was none other than the leading critic of whatever President Obama is going to decide (criticism aimed before the decision is even made) – we’re talking about the one and only (thank heaven) DICK CHENEY!

This man is unbelievable. First off, he continues to travel around to any venue which will listen to him proclaiming that the Bush administration “kept us safe,” and that the Obama administration is “weak” and endangering the safety of America. I’ve stated many times what I believe is the just solution to the Dick Cheney problem – and I’ll revisit that proposal before I finish this post, but first lets have a discussion of the REAL issue here. The truth is that Bush/Cheney DID NOT KEEP US SAFE! The evidence is OVERWHELMING that they should have stopped the 9/11 attacks before they happened. So his claims that they “kept us safe,” despite the worst attack on American soil in our history happening on BUSH/CHENEY’S “watch,” shows the lack of integrity and/or ability to own up to mistakes from this war profiteering thug. This is bad enough, but it gets worse!

As I’ve mentioned in the previous few posts on this site, I’m reading “Descent into Chaos” by Ahmed Rashid – a distinguished Pakistani journalist who’s been right in the middle of the Afganistan fiasco – which lays out in painstaking detail the FAILURES of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld RIGHT FROM THE OUTSET of the Afganistan invasion. These people had NO IDEA what they were doing/getting into and, after viewing the past 8 years, one has to wonder what their original intentions were. Supposedly, we went into Afganistan to “get” Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network – toppling the Taliban “government” of Afganistan in the process. Neither the Taliban nor al Qaeda were able to put up much of a fight, and the capturing or killing of bin Laden should have happened. Clearly, at the point in time of our invasion of Afganistan, the US – under the direction of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld had their eye on Iraq – actually planning this from the time the World Trade Center was crumbling into a pile of bodies and whatever the building had been constructed from. Capturing bin Laden WAS NOT A PRIORITY for the Bush administration. These “neocons” had been conspiring on how to topple Saddam Hussein for years before Bush was voted into the White House by a 5 to 4 decision of our Supreme Court (a decision which will go down in history as a MAJOR BLACK MARK against our highest court) and the 9/11 attacks were just the “trigger” they needed – although they had to make it look as if Afganistan was a priority first.

I could write for seemingly endless pages about the incompetence of Bush/Cheney, but the arrogance of Cheney to go around the country CONTINUING HIS EFFORT TO UNDERMINE OBAMA is unbelievable to me. HE’S EVEN ENLISTED HIS DAUGHTER TO THE “CAUSE.” Personally, I don’t understand why the so-called “liberal media” even gives these people a platform anymore. No one in the media seems to have the energy to RESEARCH Afganistan so that these lies can be called out for what they are. I have no idea what Obama’s going to do (I’m feeling he’ll follow General Mcchrystal’s advice) and whether or not I will agree with his choice. However, this decision is going to be REALLY IMPORTANT to us as a nation, and just as all of us who didn’t support Bush in 2000 got behind him in the effort to capture or kill bin Laden, so should EVERYONE get behind Obama in his attempt to regain control in Afganistan from the Taliban and ultimately FINISH THE JOB of capturing or killing bin Laden and neutralizing Al Qaeda that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld abandoned.

Let me just point out a FEW reasons why Cheney has NO CREDIBILITY in this decision or fight AT ALL: for one, he led the “charge” to pull our “assets” out of Afganistan and into Iraq WHEN WE COULD HAVE FINISHED OFF BOTH THE TALIBAN AND BIN LADEN! There were at least two occasions that I’ve read about (in more than one publication) where bin Laden was “cornered” and the American military – through the incompetent leadership of Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense), and Tommy Franks the “General in Charge – refused to put American troops into Afganistan to FINISH THE JOB! According to Rashid, the Taliban were ready to surrender and Franks refused to send in the necessary troops while Rumsfeld gave the Pakistani’s permission to airlift out their ISI (Pakistan’s answer to the CIA and well known supporters of the Taliban and al Qaeda) – and, of course, in the process they took the leaders of the Taliban along with the leaders of Al Qaeda and thousands of their fighters. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld BLEW IT! And that’s just for starters. They essentially ceded leadership in Afganistan to the CIA, who in turn undermined the Afgan government that we helped set up by throwing millions upon millions of dollars at the warlords in Afganistan who were a big part of the problem – thus insuring there would be no effective central government.

Yes, it continues to get worse. For some strange reason the Bush/Cheney administration “threw” over 10 BILLION dollars to Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani dictator who had been, and continued supporting both the Taliban and al Qaeda. Musharraf played Bush for such a “sucker” that it reminds me, as a sixth grade school teacher, of 11 year old students manipulating adults and getting away with it. The more they get away with, the more they “push their luck.” And, the Pakistani’s came to wonder “how stupid” are these Americans? Bush/Cheney kept giving the Pakistani’s money, the Pakistani’s kept funneling a percentage of that money to the very people we were fighting, and Bush continued to compliment Musharraf as a “trustworthy partner.” When you read Rashid’s book you almost feel embarrassment to be an American and have leaders who are so gullible. Here’s the rub for me, despite their failures, despite the utter stupidity of their actions, despite the obvious resurgence of both the Taliban and Al Qaeda under their watch, you’ve got the architect of this failure going around criticizing the person who’s trying valiantly to correct the many blunders.

You’ve also got people in the media who refuse to take the time to understand what the situation REALLY IS, and they give the Cheney’s and others a platform to continue their attempt at undermining Obama without the slightest challenge. It’s almost as if ignorance is truly “bliss” in America. Of course, part of the Cheney’s agenda is to somehow create the misconception that the Republicans really were effective in their SEVEN years prosecuting the war in Afganistan – which is a JOKE. (unfortunately a very bad joke) To top all of the military malfeasance off is the fact that during the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld invasion of Afganistan they also allowed the opium problem to escalate. In fact, they virtually nurtured it to the point where opium production today is exponentially greater than it was prior to 9/11 and well over 3/4 of the world’s heroin comes from the poppy fields of Afganistan. Both Cheney and Rumsfeld participated in decisions which essentially allowed this to happen, not only resulting in a dramatic increase in the world drug trade, but helping the Taliban to regain strength as they used drug profits to finance their insurgency. UNBELIEVABLE when you really think about it.

And Cheney was right at the front in supporting the dictator of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, who was – just like Musharraf in Pakistan – gleaning as much money from the American administration as possible while governing in a way that would turn the stomach of most Amercians if they even had a clue. In supporting Karimov – so that we could maintain a base in his country and so that we could “render” captured “combatants” to a “black hole” prison in his country where they would be tortured out of the sight of civilized people – we were giving money and aid to a dictator who was as adroit at killing his own people as the dictator we “threw out” of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. In one instance, it was reported that as many as 1500 Uzbeks were slaughtered during a demonstration against Karimov’s policies. Additionally, much of the drug smuggling from Afganistan went through Uzbekistan and Karimov also allowed both the Taliban and al Qaeda to train their fighters on “underground” bases inside his country.

As I read this book on the disaster which was the Bush/Cheney policy in Afganistan (I’m getting close to 30 books now on the folly of the Bush administration in Iraq, Afganistan, and at home in America) I just get more disgusted. They not only allowed al Qaeda to get away, initially, to reconstitute itself – partially with our funds which were originally intended for Pakistan, but the US also allowed their incompetent decisionmaking to undermine the prospects for democracy in Afganistan and Central Asia. If you’re interested in this topic, please read Rashid’s book – it’s an eye opener! Since President Obama moved into the White House I have stated on many occasions that my one MAJOR area of disagreement with him is his policy of “looking forward and not backward” regarding the Bush/Cheney administration. He says he doesn’t “want the distraction” while there is so much to do. Well, with the likes of Dick Cheney running around trying to undermine one decision he makes after another, the distraction is there whether he likes it or not.

And, worse than that, as I’ve stated many times – we are now considered around the world as a nation which tortures. We are considered to be a nation that is OK with our leaders committing war crimes (and, believe me, the more I read about what was done in our name, the worse it gets). By looking the other way, President Obama is potentially leaving this mark as a permanent mark against the United States. We were once considered the world leaders in the fight for human rights. As I read more and more about the Bush/Cheney administration, I’m seeing that they had a basic disregard for human rights (accept their own and the people in their inner circle). They supported countries who were beyond abusive in human rights violations and committed NUMEROUS violations which amounted to WAR CRIMES themselves as long as those countries would pretend to be our allies in EXCHANGE FOR OUR MONEY. And, now we have the main architect of the WAR CRIMES strutting around this nation as if he’s some kind of foriegn policy expert – when his decisions have been FAILURE UPON FAILURE. Dick Cheney should be in jail, not on TV criticizing President Obama’s attempt to fix his FOLLY in Afganistan!

As I’ve mentioned in my last couple of posts I’ve been reading “Descent into Chaos” by Ahmed Rashid which, I believe, is must reading for anyone who wants to better understand what President Obama is “up against” as he decides on how to extricate our forces from Afganistan while ACTUALLY finding and bringing to justice Osama bin Laden. Everytime I start thinking about this I start getting angry. Not only did the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld administration SCREW THIS UP MAJORLY, but the Republicans of today would have you believe they are innocent bystanders as they criticize WHATEVER President Obama chooses to do regarding this mess.

I heard an announcement today that Obama will send no more troops to Afganistan unless the US feels that the Afgan government is worth defending (or words to that effect). And that’s legitimate. The government of Hamid Karzai is corrupt, it’s knee deep in the drug trade from Afganistan which “feeds” the herion addicts in America, and Karzai is full of distrust and contempt for Americans. Obviously, none of that is good. But, looking closer at what has happened since 9/11 gives a much better picture of why the situation is as it exists today – and it’s close to an IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION!

The truth is that the Bush administration had no idea what they were doing when they invaded Afganistan. As everyone now knows, Bush and his fellow “neocons” had their sights set on Iraq from the moment the World Trade Center was falling to the ground. In fact, they had their sights set on Iraq several years prior to that – the terrorist attack on our soil just gave them the excuse they were looking for. In the process of getting us entrenched into Iraq and totally destabilizing the middle east, Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld got us entrenched in Afganistan and totally destabilized Central Asia. It’s almost as if they were trying to do this. However, I don’t for a minute think they were trying to do this on purpose – at least I hope not – although nothing surprises me anymore, I just think they were a bunch of political fanatics who managed to scam their way into the most powerful position in the world and they unleashed their ignorance on all the rest of us. (which really should give all Americans pause regarding listening to the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, and the other people who are attempting to undermine our present President due to the color of his skin)

Karzai was actually a true patriot when it was time to overthrow the Taliban from Afganistan and he actually put his life on the line, according to Rashid (who knows him personally), during the American attack which was coordinated with the Afganistan Northern Alliance through the American CIA – the Northern Alliance were the Afgans who were opposed to the Taliban at the time of our invasion. True to form for Rumsfeld, the Defense Secretary at the time – and maybe the worst Defense Secretary in our history – he virtually refused to commit enough American troops to “do the job,” which supposedly was to capture or kill bin Laden and destroy Al Qaeda. UNQUESTIONABLY the opportunity was there for success, but the Americans failed to provide the necessary troop strength and, even though he should have been captured, bin Laden was allowed to escape (twice).

Worse than that, not only did bin Laden (and most of the Taliban) escape, but when a government was set up in Afganistan to replace the fallen Taliban, the United States not only failed to support it but even undermined it. Instead of supplying Karzai the money and support he needed to set up a centralized government (which, in reading this book, I believe he would have done had we supported him), the United States funneled it’s support money – or at least most of it – to the warlords in the countryside which virtually insured the continued fragmentation of the country and diminished support for Karzai. The result of this policy was that – and here I’m inferring, because so far in the book I’m reading it doesn’t talk about Karzai’s corruption – Karzai had to find ways to keep himself in power without the full support of the US, which included raising money through the drug trade. We became just the latest country to abandon the Afgan people. In fact, we were essentially abandoning them for the second time, because after the Soviets were pushed out in 1988, we abandoned them at that time as well.

The makeup of Afganistan is quite complex as I’m finding from reading this book, and true to form the Bush administration attempted to carry out this “invasion” with virtually no knowledge of the people they were dealing with (just like Iraq). Bush/Cheney relied on the CIA which was following a policy of buying off the warlords – always thinking in the short term. Additionally, both Al Qaeda and the Taliban had found refuge in Pakistan in what’s called the “Federally administered Tribal Areas,” or, essentially, no man’s land. These areas were without any formal government and since 9/11 Pakistan’s government on several occasions has decided to make “treaties” with Al Qaeda and the Taliban in an attempt to keep them from creating problems “at home,” which NEVER WORKS. From the days they escaped the American invasion Al Qaeda has been regrouping to the point where today they are probably stronger and more of a threat than they were on 9/11.

What irks me the most in this, is that the Bush administration continued to support Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani dictator, thinking it was “convenient.” From 9/11 until he left office President Bush funneled approximately TEN BILLION DOLLARS to Musharraf because he felt it was keeping Pakistan as an ally to America. What was really happening was that Musharraf and the Pakistan ISI (their version of our CIA) continued to support the Taliban and ignore Al Qaeda. As the saying goes they played Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld FOR ALL THEY WERE WORTH. Just the stupidity of the American government undermined our position as much as anything. Of course, while all this is going on – the Taliban is moving back into Afganistan, Al Qaeda is rebuilding itself – Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld SCREWED UP IRAQ just as bad. It’s like Osama bin Laden couldn’t have orchestrated his wishes any better. Our leaders fell for EVERY ONE OF HIS TRICKS. And, we’re still falling for them – because one of bin Laden’s stated goals is to keep the US fighting in Iraq and Afganistan until we have bankrupted our nation just as the Russians did in the eighties. The ironies in Afganistan go on and on, and they started with the Reagan administration; essentially, we’ve been supporting and arming our own enemies – through Musharraf and other so-called “allies” since the 1980’s in a land which we totally DON’T understand.

Which gets me back to the point where I’m really getting sick of Republicans who created this MESS acting like it’s all Obama’s fault. I have no idea what decision President Obama will make regarding Afganistan, but I can tell you that THIS IS VERY SERIOUS. For anyone who believes that Al Qaeda is no longer a threat, in my mind they are kidding themselves. And, anyone who thinks Bush/Cheney “kept us safe” is kidding themselves even more. But to listen to them (Republicans and neocons), it’s almost as if they are rooting for another attack, because they are so set on the “failure” of the Obama administration. Can you imagine what the reaction from the Republicans would have been when Bush was contemplating the response to 9/11 if the Democrats would have been rooting for his failure? If they had blamed Bush for the terrorist attacks? (which, as it turns out, they could legitimately have done) President Obama needs to have the support of the American people as he goes forward in determining how to proceed in Afganistan.

I will be the first to say that we should be out of Iraq “sooner rather than later.” But Afganistan, I’m not so sure. It may be too late to gain the confidence of the Afgan people who were ready in 2001 for America to “nation build.” However, the reality is that the Taliban are moving back in and if we leave they will regain control within probably a year from when we pull out. Additionally, Al Qaeda is right across the border in Pakistan and attempting to destabilize the Pakistani government, apparently in an attempt to get their hands on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal (which is significant due mostly to Republican – Reagan and GW Bush – negligence as well, but that’s another story for another day), and due to the Bush policies the people of Central Asia are pretty much just shaking their heads at the stupidity and lack of will from America. As much as I wish we weren’t in Afganistan, I’m not too sure that we should pull out. In fact, I believe if I was in Obama’s shoes, I would be figuring out how to get to bin Laden and I’d be letting the Pakistani government know that WE ARE COMING AFTER HIM AND HIS “NETWORK.” The more I look at and try to understand this situation I just have to shake my head at how stupid the Americans under Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld (all three of these people are pretty much a joke to the Afgans and Pakistanis) acted as they prosecuted their “war on terror.” It really makes me wonder: Was Bush/Cheney’s real motive in the war on terror endless profits for their private contractor buddies? It seems like it’s either that or the guys are REALLY DUMB. Unfortunately, we’re all paying for their stupidity or greed, whatever it was, and it’s time to get behind Obama as he tries to solve this terrible problem!

My thoughts tonight are centered on Barack Obama’s pending decision regarding Afganistan. This will be a very difficult decision and a crucial one regarding his Presidency. It is just one more “thing” that George W Bush TOTALLY SCREWED UP and left for Obama to “clean up,” just like Iraq, the economy, the Justice Department, the environment, and our position as leader of the “free” world. To listen to Republicans you would think that Obama is the one who created this mess and that when they left office everything was A-OK and we were all “safe.”

In fact, just the other day I happened upon Fox “News” (I’m sure if you’re reading this you understand the quotes are because Fox is nothing more than the major propoganda wing of the Republican party – NO WAY a news outlet) and Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol were announcing the “startup” of an organization called “Keeping America Safe.” As astonishing as it might seem, their first “add” or spot was centered on how Barack Obama is not keeping America safe and it implied that the neocons under GW Bush and Liz Cheney’s DEPLORABLE father did keep us safe. This is typical Republican dihonesty, denial, and disillusionment! Kristol was one of the major proponents along with Cheney’s father DICK for invading Iraq and, therefore, allowing Osama bin Laden TO GO FREE! For some reason they would STILL HAVE US BELIEVE that it was Sadam Hussein who attacked America on 9/11 – and, unfortunately there are enough Americans who are either uninformed enough or STUPID enough to believe them and keep the Repubicans as part of the national discussion, and Fox on the air. As one person the other day put it, if you watch Fox “news” you wouldn’t believe that the gravest danger to the United States is al Qaeda in Pakistan along with Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, but instead it would be Acorn! THESE PEOPLE ARE UNBELIEVABLE!

Another example of how they just REFUSE TO OWN UP TO REALITY relates to my last posting regarding Rush Limbaugh, the de-facto head of the Republican party and a “water carrier” on the public airwaves for the neocons. It was recently announced that Limbaugh, along with the owner of the St. Louis Blues hockey team – Dave Checketts – was involved in a bid to purchase the St Louis Rams of the National Football league. Now, if you have any idea about professional sports in America, that is one place where race does not play a factor in who’s on the teams (with the exception possibly of the coaching staffs and owners, although even that – well the coaching staffs – appears to be changing). In fact, in the NFL approximately 70% of the players are African Americans. Limbaugh, of course, has a long history of racist rheotric on his talk radio show and, at one time, he had the opportunity to be a part of the ESPN Sunday night broadcast but lasted only one week because neither the players nor the audience could tolerate his racist remarks. By one account, it took less than 10 minutes for him to make a comment that caused him to be fired after the first night on the job. His comment related to Donavan McNabb and implied that McNabb got special treatment as a quarterback due to the fact he was Black (not the exact quote, but my summation of it). The truth, of course – as with many of Limbaugh’s ridiculous comments when he’s on the air – was almost the opposite. The road to stardom for McNabb and other Black quarterbacks was much more difficult specifically because of the racial stereotypes that existed in this country for many many years – stereotypes similar to Limbaugh’s, which, when he said it, were being overcome and were no longer passe`.

The good news: today it was announced that Rush Limbaugh was dropped from the team of investors attempting to purchase the Rams due to the fact that National Football league owners were making it clear they would not accept a proposal from any group which he was a part of. Both the commisioner of the league and the players association along with an increasing number of owners (some very conservative people in their own rights) came out saying that someone with the history of divisiveness along racial lines (or any othe lines as well) such as Limbaugh has no place in professional sports because profesional sports are all about bringing different peoples together. Of course Limbaugh reacted in the typical fashion you would expect from him and almost paralleling the reaction of the Republicans who were voted out of office in 2008.

IT WAS NOT HIS FAULT! RUSH LIMBAUGH IS THE VICTIM OF THE “VAST LIBERAL CONSPIRACY.” Honestly, he reminds me of the sixth grade student that I have who lies about what school he went to in the fifth grade while I’m holding the records in my hand. Nothing is ever his fault, everyone’s out to get him (if you’re confused whether or not that last statement is about Limbaugh or the student, the reality is that it could be about either one). Limbaugh actually said, “This is not about me, this is about the Liberals trying to end conservatism in America. This is about the future of America.” Talk about your self serving, arrogant statement shrouded in TOTAL DENIAL! I’m sure you could talk face to face with Limbaugh and he’d vigorously defend that he’s not a racist. He’s a wonderful example of the guy who can’t see the forest for the trees.

The irony of Limbaugh’s statements today are that he was a part of the concerted Republican propoganda campaign which began about the time his talk radio show started up to end liberalism in America. And, they almost succeeded. In fact, today anyone in national politics who’s a liberal refers to themselves as a progressive. They’ve virtually abandoned the term liberal because of Limbaugh and Republicans like him. Remember, their goal was the PERMANENT REPUBLICAN MAJORITY. They were attempting to gain control of the media, the congress, the White House, the Surpreme Court, the Justice Department and therefore control of every facet of our government. AND THEY ALMOST SUCCEEDED. Only the folly of George W Bush/Dick Cheney stopped them. They only needed one more term in the White House to have a strangle hold on the Supreme Court that would have lasted through most of my daughter’s lifetime and a large part of my granddaughter (this is still possible due to the ages of the “conservative” judges on the court – which is one reason I keep writing – America can’t fall for these thugs again or disaster is still possible). Remember, these guys had developed voting machines that could be easily hacked and which have been proven to change the vote from Democrat to Republican in more than one election. There’s ample evidence that I’ve seen showing the possibility that neither of GW Bush’s terms were legitimate because of the voting machine irregularity which never became common knowledge or was fully investigated.

This gets me to President Obama’s agonizing decision regarding Afganistan (if you truly want to understand why this is such a difficult and important decision read “Descent into Chaos” by Ahmed Rashid, a noteworthy Pakistani reporter and expert on both Pakistan and Afganistan). The invasion of Afganistan should have been over in less than a year. Our purpose for going in there was to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on America and to remove the Taliban from power in Afganistan because they were complicit in al Qaeda’s everyday existence. Al Qaeda had their training camps in the rugged mountains of Afganisan and with the support of the Taliban and the Pakistani’s they were training and equipping “terrorists” who were causing havoc all over the world. To make a long story short, we (America and it’s allies) had bin Laden trapped more than once and let him get away. In fact, that we let him get away is suspicious enough to me that I’ve often wondered why there’s never been a formal investigation into the why. However, that’s a story for another day.

The United States essentially destabilized Afganistan by routing the Taliban and then abandoned any semblence of responsibility (that had any chance for success) as they diverted their assets and their military focus into Iraq (of course, they later did essentially the same thing in Iraq). We all know what a disaster Iraq has been, and I’m anxiously looking forward to the day when President Obama actually brings our troops home and allows the Iraqi’s to solve their own problems in their own way. I can vitually guarantee you that the way they go about this will not be something that we in America would approve of. But, if anything has been learned in the 6+ years we’ve been sacrificing our troops in Iraq (for what at some point in time will be regarded as a mistake of MONUMENTAL proportions – possibly worse than we can imagine – and, I really hope on wrong on this) is that we DO NOT UNDERSTAND THEM, and our leaders were ignorant about the ethnic divisions in that country which still exist to this day. (many people claim the “surge” was successful in Iraq, but I believe it’s just putting off the inevitable – with a cost of almost 1500 American lives to this point)

With our troops and our focus in Iraq we put Hamad Karzai into power in Afganistan and then gave him NO SUPPORT. In fact, the CIA actually funded the warlords who were in control of the various ethnic regions of the countryside making it impossible for Karzai to set up an effective central government. The United States offered far too little in the form of economic aid, and didn’t come through on what was offered – as did virtually every other country which promised to help Karzai set up an effective government. Everything the Untited States, under Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld did led to the resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda. In fact, the way the Bush administration was going about this “war” led the Pakistani’s and the Afgans to view the Americans as the terrorists. If you try to view this from the standpoint of villagers in the middle of nowhere who are illiterate and poor and easily victimized by organizations like the Taliban who are armed to the teeth and ruthless, a drone strike that kills 15 of your family and/or neighbors looks little different than a suicide bomber who does the same thing. The Pakistani’s were taking money by the billions from the Bush administration and funneling portions of it to the Taliban and just observing how stupid the American government was and how easily they were decieved as they were doing this. What a TERRIBLE IRONY – The Taliban were/are funded mainly by the Pakistani’s (and U.S. dollars).

The end result of this is that the Taliban are back in Afganistan in force, the Karzai government is still in office but basically hamstrung and relying on things like the drug trade to provide the income they need to function (because we wouldn’t provide it). Al Qaeda is alive and well in Pakistan with the support of the government we’ve been unsuccessfully trying to buy off with our money (they take the money, but they allow al Qaeda virtual freedom in the Northwest Provinces). Pakistan still has something like 100 nuclear warheads and this is the most dangerous challenge to America in the world. Al Qaeda is being supported not only by Pakistan, but by Saudi Arabia and other countries that we’ve continued to do business with because of our reliance on oil and at some point in time we have to face up to the reality of the situation or face some terrible consequences. THERE ARE NO EASY ANSWERS HERE.

The point is that the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Krisol et al neocons got us in this place and now they are busily trying to take advantage of the ignorance of the American people regarding what’s going on over there to continue their CONSTANT EFFORT TO UNDERMINE THE PRESIDENCY OF BARACK OBAMA! Can you imagine what they’d be saying if the Democrats were doing this when they were in power? I would welcome a legitimate discusion of the issues involved. There actually are Republicans who could contribute to whatever decision Obama ultimately makes and it would be great to have a sense of unity as we, as Americans, try to extricate ourselves from this HORRIBLY PRECARIOUS position we were left in by Bush/Cheney. It is worst than ironic in my mind that the very people who created this fiasco are the ones starting a “Keep America Safe” organization – WHEN THEY’VE PROVEN THAT, GIVEN POWER, THEY DO EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE. We are as unsafe as we’ve been in my lifetime (and I was born in the late fourties)! Most Americans believe Iraq was Bush/Cheney’s major blunder, but history will prove that it was Afganistan/Pakistan!

Tonight I had the misfortune of turning the TV on to a station that was playing an interview that someone (I never figured out who – although the station was NBC) had with Rush Limbaugh. I forced myself to listen to this, and the person giving the interview gave Limbaugh the opportunity to respond to some of the more direct criticisms of him. The guy is such a liar, he doesn’t think twice about lying. In fact, while I listened to him, I was reminded of the school counselor who told me that students who lie all the time must “figure this out” by the time they’re 14 years old or lying becomes part of their character. Some of Limbaugh’s lies tonight were obvious to me without going to any lengths of research – and I wouldn’t do that anyway. But, he tried to give the persona of someone who welcomed all the criticism – kind of like Bush’s “bring it on” when he was encouraging the insurgency in Iraq. As Bush should have respected the phrase “Be careful what you wish for,” I believe so should Limbaugh.

Now, it’s true, the man is filthy rich. So, he is probably immune from anything other than the criticism he gets. although his place in history is not one that I would envy – no matter how much money he has. One of the topics the interviewer brought up was the recent “stirrings” in the Republican party that Limbaugh is destroying the party. When you watch the guy, you see someone who’s trying as hard as he can to remain calm, while his body language is spewing anger at the thought that anyone could deem him in a negative light should they be a Republican. And, his demeanor while responding to the “charges” is quite childish. He was making facial expressions that I would expect from my sixth grade students when they are caught doing something wrong and choose to try lying their way out of trouble. On the one hand Limbaugh disdains the idea that he’s the leader of the Republican party and then, in almost the very next breath, he points out that if the party wants to return to “power” they will listen to him.

He calls anyone in the party who would disagree with him a moderate or liberal Republican and says that there is no hope for people with that “bent.” One of his comments was that the only way for the Republican party to regain power was through “conservative” policies. Of course, his “conservative” philosophy is just as elusive to understand as “victory” was in Iraq all those years when he was a water carrier for George W Bush. There appears, at least to me, to be no doubt that the fascist tendencies of the Bush administration were the connecting points to Limbaugh. I’m only guessing here, but I believe his favorite politician in America would be Dick Cheney – there was nothing in the part of the interview that I saw which would confirm this directly, but it’s just my intuition after watching the two of them for the past many years.

And, both tonight and in another recent “blurb” that I saw of Limbaugh, he continues to make references to God. As if he’s a Christian. Tonight, he said, “Thankyou Lord for my enemies.” It appeared this was his way of impressing people that it doesn’t bother him to have enemies. Also, I’m guessing he’s implying that his enemies are helping to make him even richer financially. And, it’s not my place to judge him spiritually, just suffice it to say that he must go to a far different church than I do. Last Sunday, for example, I listened to a sermon on how Christians are called to be compassionate toward the poor, the sick, and the weak. Based on what I’ve seen from Limbaugh, he’s almost the opposite. Regarding the sick, I recently heard him say that Americans should have the same health care as dogs – if they can pay for it, fine, otherwise forget it – as far as medical treatment of any kind. That didn’t seem like a compassionate statement to me. However, as a member of the “Christian Left,” his lack of compassion actually does qualify him to be the leader of the Republican party as it’s presently constituted, in my view.

There was no extended discussion of how Republican politicians seem to feel like they have to run their thoughts by Rush before making them public, but the hint of that seemed to bring a smug look of pride from Limbaugh. The really dicey part of the interview, at least from my point of view, was the discussion of President Obama. This was where Limbaugh was very liberal with his “fish stories.” For one thing, he said he thought it was a great thing that an African American was elected President – well, he didn’t say that in those words, but he answered yes to a question which asked that. Then, almost under his breath, he added “but not for very long.” He made non-sensical comments about Obama’s policies that really meant that the idea of a Black President succeeding would lead to the failure of our great nation (apparently for no other reason than he’s Black). He, in a very clumsy manor, tried to find a way to say that he wasn’t rooting against America by hoping President Obama failed. What he actually said was “If President Obama succeeds, the country will fail.” The absurdity of some of his comments were such that I, as I’ve been for many years, was left wondering how this thug gets any credibility whatsoever, ANYWHERE.

Let’s just look at that last statemen of his from a rational, logical point of view. What could he possibly be implying that if President Obama succeeds, America fails. Well, President Obama is trying to extract us from two entrenched political and militarial nightmares that were caused by the very people Limbaugh still believes should be running the show – how can anyone root for Obama to fail in this endeavor (well, I guess if Obama’s success would only exacerbate someone’s own failure, then an UNBELIEVABLY SELFISH person would root for him to fail – despite what that would mean for our prized troops that that person is so much “in support” of). Worse than that, Obama is trying to close GITMO, the house of horrors where America gained the moniker of torturers – torture that was authorized by the very people Limbaugh supports – and torture that he, himself, has come out in favor of (here again, Obama’s success only heightens Limbaugh’s and Bush’s failures). Obama is trying to “right the ship” in an economy that the very people that Limbaugh supported nearly (and may still have) ruined. The fallout from the Bush economic crisis could last for years to come – it was nearly another Great Depression – only headed off by Obama’s quick action to “stimulate” the economy (I say this, even though I personally believe the stimulus was too small) – I guess if you’re making hundred’s of millions and everyone else having a job makes you look bad, you root for the President’s failure – again, HOW SELFISH CAN SOME PEOPLE GET? Obama is trying to bring confidence into the justice department, the agency that Limbaugh’s heroes totally politicized, so that the American people believe they are going to be fairly treated by the government when it comes to the laws of this land (I guess if your desire is for Republicans to be elected NO MATTER HOW IT HAPPENS, and you expect the justice department to do their part to insure this, then you would root against success here as well).

In fact, Limbaugh should be thankful that Obama is so fair minded. Although I haven’t given up hope that the torture policies of the Bush administration along with the illegal wiretapping and the lying us into war will all be investigated by our justice department at some juncture – Limbaugh should be thankful that President Obama is “looking forward and not backward.” He should also be thankful that Obama has an extreme belief in freedom of speech, because some of Limbaugh’s own rhetoric is, in my view, WAY OVER THE LINE. There are laws against sedition (encouraging the destruction and/or overthrow of our elected government) and some of the inciteful language used on the public airwaves by Limbaugh (and some of his associates) is borderline treasonous. Which reminds me, when Limbaugh claims to be independent from the Republican party (which he did tonight) – how does he explain that he’s been spouting the so-called “talking points” – along with all the other Republican “puppets” – for the past 20+ years. I’ll give him credit for being the first “puppet,” it’s just that all that money has made him see himself as something way more than what he really is (believing his own lies again).

And, I’ll end with, I believe all his “vitriole” is coming back at him. In the last few days I’ve witnessed something that virtually restores my hope that America is going to get through this difficult time of people like Limbaugh rooting for our failure. It was reported last week that Limbaugh, along with some partners, was attempting to purchase the St Louis Rams NFL (National Football League) team. The thought of that, I’ve been an NFL fan for my entire lifetime, made me shudder (I remember Leroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsh). I’m in a fantasy football league, and to a man, everyone in the league said they’d boycott St Louis players the day Limbaugh became the owner. Much to my surprise and admiration, in the past two days, the NFL players association has written a letter to the league taking the position that they want nothing to do with Limbaugh. His long history of insensitive racist comments caused them to point out they are a league that seeks unity among people and Limbaugh’s divisive, racist nature has no place in the NFL. I hope the NFL listens. Additionally, based on the interview questions tonight, it’s fairly obvious that there are those in the Republican party who are evidently “jumping ship” from Limbaugh. One of the interviewer’s questions was framed with the statement that many Republicans feel he’s ruining their party. As stated above, his response was that they are liberals and they are the ones ruining the party. The reality: the Republican party is imploding and it will continue to do so until it repudiates racists like Rush Limbaugh.

I’m a sixth grade teacher, obviously, not a professional journalist – but I really enjoy writing. As I’ve stated several times on this site, it’s therapeutic for me. I’ve been monitoring the politics of America for over 40 years (actually, my BA is Political Science), and after about 4 or 5 years of Bush/Cheney I just couldn’t take my own silence anymore. The only way I was able to get out the frustration was to start this site, kind of as a personal journal. What I discovered was that, even in the middle of cyberspace, there are no truly personal journals. Somehow, people find you. I’ve had as many as 200 visitors to my site in one day. I realize by the accounts of most websites that is minscule, would put them out of business. But, when your expectation is ZERO, then any visitor is a surprise. That being said, I believe it is the constant traffic to this site (which seems to be slowly increasing) that helps to motivate me to keep writing.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney are gone (but not forgotten – at least in my mind) and President Obama is the first President I’ve been solidly behind during a campaign in my voting lifetime (although I have my issues with his Presidency as well). I was just as excited when Robert Kennedy was attempting to unseat President Johnson amidst the Viet Nam fiasco in 1968, only to be TERRIBLY disappointed by his assasination. Since that day only President Carter has enamored me enough to become a supporter – albeit, after his election. I must admit that I didn’t expect a peanut grower from Georgia to be such a powerful figure in the fight for equal rights among African Americans, women, etc. He was a good and honest man, which seems to be a liability in our culture. I approved of President Clinton and Vice President Gore’s attempts to streamline government and to balance the federal budget – I was just never able to accept President Clinton’s behavior. In my mind, when all is said and done, I believe it will be President Clinton’s behavior which led to the Presidency of George W Bush. And, I’m still not certain what it will take to overcome the damage done to this nation by the Bush/Cheney administration.

It was apparent that the dialogue in this country was becoming toxic, at least from the “right,” during Clinton’s years. The constant attacks in the media and all the “investigations” in Congress once the Republicans gained a majority were obscene. Unfortunately, Clinton had his affair with Monica Lewinsky which overshadowed the toxic behavior of the Republicans – at least in the eyes of the media (my take, of course). During the Bush/Cheney years which followed the Republicans dismantled as much of our government structure as they could while, at the same time, keeping up the propoganda campaign which was designed to make the word “liberal” a “dirty word.” Well, I believe they were successful, because in about the midterm of Bush’s administration you started to hear the word “progressive” instead of liberal. The truth is that all these words have pretty much lost their meaning. I mean, anyone from my era, if they’re honest, would have a hard time connecting the word “conservative” with the present day Republican party.

Conservative used to mean traditional values, “pay as you go” regarding finances, and honest Christian values. I can’t see any of that in the present Republican party. In fact, when I watch and listen to the leaders, it is a rare occasion when I hear something that is honest or genuine. And, just the fact that “liberals” have caved into the idea that it’s a bad word, speaks for itself (are there truly any liberals left out there?) The word “liberal” has traditionally been associated with the Democratic party, but – I for one – am struggling to call the Democratic party “liberal” as I’m watching the present debates over health care, global warming, energy, etc. With a 60 member caucus, it seems like if Democrats really were liberal, we would all have the “option” of a national health care insurance policy, energy efficiency would be encouraged by the government through incentives, and we’d be listening to the overwhelming number of scientists warning us about the impending warming crisis.

Instead, what we’ve had to deal with in the past 8+ years are “conservatives” who want to “drill, drill, drill; who pushed us into Iraq – the most UNWISE decision (maybe) in the history of this great land – I believe for their oil, who allowed terrorists to attack us and then didn’t catch them when they could have (instead choosing to go for Iraq’s oil), who believed in and authorized torture, who listened to our phone calls without warrants and read our emails, who virtually allowed our economy to be stolen by the very rich – at the expense of our 401k’s and retirement accounts, and who now – after being resoundedly rejected at the polls – are still yelling the LOUDEST and the LONGEST in an attempt to undermine the Obama administration’s every move. And, the “liberals” in the Democratic caucus seem unmoved by the urgency many Americans are feeling toward resolving the problems those very Republicans created.

Since the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency the dialogue in America has become even more toxic. That, in itself, should explain who’s in control of what the Republcans refer to as the “liberal media bias.” This “liberal media” covers virtually every sick demonstration led by racist white supremicists who can’t stand the idea that our commander in chief is not a “white” man, while failing to inform the citizenry of the details of proposed public policy (is there anyone out there who really understands what “public option” means?). They are OPENLY trying to undermine the Obama administration – THEY’VE SAID THIS PUBLICLY! Rush Limbaugh, the leader of the present day Republicans, said, “I hope Obama fails!” He’s repeated this over and over. The guy is a long time proven racist (he even lost a job on Monday night football because he couldn’t keep his racist thoughts to himself for even one week) and now you can hear him “pine” that there is nothing left for “White males” in America. Jim DeMint, a sitting senator from South Carolina, openly called for President Obama’s “waterloo” on the senate floor when talking about the reason for defeating the health care reform that our nation needs so desparately. I even saw and heard him call a group of people patriots during a demonstration in Washington when the person standing right in front of him held a sign that read, “The zoo has an African lion, the White House has a lying African.” In other words, these “conservatives” are willing to sacrifice the interests of millions of Americans to satisfy their own racist disgust with having a Black person elected President of this nation. Obviously, to them, if President Obama succeeds, THIS COULD HAPPEN AGAIN! More white people might figure out that a person’s skin color really doesn’t have anything to do with the content of his/her character or his/her intellectual capability.

What generated my thoughts for today was that yesterday President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace prize – one of the most prestigious honors a person can receive worldwide. It was not only a total surprise to most Americans, but also to President Obama. I heard his acceptance speech – he said he was “humbled” to receive the award, and he said he didn’t feel he was deserving to receive an award based on who the previous recipients are. Of course, I knew that immediately this would become a negative issue with Republicans. I haven’t even tried to find examples of the “right wing” response, but I can guarantee you it will be negative. Speculation: They’re (the Europeans) trying to influence Obama, or what has he done to deserve this, or maybe the traditional Republican complaint – why didn’t Reagan get this award? All I can be certain of is that their response will be negative, JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE THAT COMES FROM THEIR MOUTHS. Even the article I read that informed me he had won the prize, in the NY times, pointed out in it’s subtitle this was a “potential political liability.”

Only in today’s America could winning a Nobel Peace prize be considered a “potential political liability.” This is like the attempt to gain the Olympics for Chicago. Republicans were chearing that our nation lost a bid for something that would be a huge benefit, simply because they don’t want our Black President to succeed at ANYTHING! This has gotten to the point of being absurd – and I don’t understand why that, in itself, isn’t the driving force behind our national dialogue. HOW DID WE GET TO THE POINT WHERE IT’S NOT SHAMEFUL TO “ROOT” FOR THE FAILURE OF OUR NATION? I really don’t get this. The part that bothers me the most is that there are millions of Americans who, for whatever reason, choose to be uninformed on the issues of the day – and, while I fully understand the need for two vibrant political parties to make our nation fuction in a healthy way, this present day Republican party – with leaders like Limbaugh, Beck, Boehner, McConnell, DeMint, Hannity, Savage, O’Reilly, Rove, Cheney, Bush, etc. – has GOT TO GO! Rooting for the failure of our nation should not be acceptable, no matter who’s doing it!

I was sitting in church the other day listening to the importance of caring for others – being reminded that Christ cared for the sick, the poor, the hungry – that he said “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me.” And he also said the same thing substituting the word “to” for “for” – causing me to attempt to apply what I learned in church to the reality we, as Americans, are facing during these tumultuous times. It became painfully obvious to me that the Republicans have virtually “stolen” the debate, by making one preposterous statement after another, statements which are so “out there” that they end up being what is focused on, instead of an adult discussion of some very critical issues relating to our future as a nation. Despite the FACT the Republican party’s “base” is the “Christian Right” – I fail to see a connection with what the Republicans are saying and what I hear in church or read in my Bible. Let me give you some examples.

Health care is a great place to start (although, I’m not sure it’s the most important – despite all the claims to the contrary):

There are several questions that I don’t even understand why there’s any debate at all. In fact, as I sit here writing, I guess some of the questions I have explain why the other questions seem to be so prominent to the discussion. For example:

When there are reportedly 45 million Americans without health care, 45,000 dying annually because of the lack of care, and we have a system which is twice as expensive as (better) systems in other developed nations where EVERYONE is insured, WHY IS THERE SUCH A DEBATE OVER THE SO-CALLED “PUBLIC OPTION?”

In fact: Why is there NO DEBATE over a single payer system similar to the VA which is, reportedly, the most effective AND cost efficient health care system in this nation?

Here’s a good question: Why has the health care industry invested almost $400 MILLION DOLLARS TO DEFEAT HEALTH CARE REFORM? (does that give you an idea of how much profit they make?) In my mind, that question – in itself – should be the basis for the most intense debate in this nation. Like, WHERE IS ALL THAT MONEY GOING? (maybe, the question should be where is it coming from?) Well, I believe we all know where MOST of that money is going – it’s going into the “coffers” of our elected representatives in the House of Representatives and the Senate! Most famously, one area where we have a bit of bipartisanship is in the Senate Finance Committee, which seems to be the place the final health care bill is coming from. It is a commonly known FACT that both the Republican and Democratic members of that committee have been PROSTITUTED by the health care industry. HOW MANY PEOPLE REALLY THINK THESE SENATORS CAN TAKE MILLIONS IN CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THESE COMPANIES AND THEN VOTE AGAINST THEIR WISHES? I might be dumb, but you’d have to be stupid to think these people are going to serve the interest of the general public under the present system.

Here’s another good question: Why are our Senators and Representatives getting away with this public prostitution with seemingly no recourse for us, the public? It is apparent that there is NO SHAME in Washington DC. I’m approaching retirement age, I’ve been an active observer of our political scene for close to 45 years. It is beginning to feel as if there is no stopping the corrupt nature of our nation’s Capital. IT KEEPS GETTING WORSE! There is a sense of “populist rage” in the nation that is not getting through to these Congress people because, I believe, it’s too fragmented. There’s the gun lobby angry for their own reasons – and they don’t trust the “liberals” who are angry for their own reasons – who don’t trust the “militia movement” – people angry about illegal immigration and who are angry for that reason – who don’t trust a growing class of “intellectuals” who are getting angrier by the minute as their unemployment figures soar (while their jobs are shipped overseas) – and I could go on. There’s no cohesiveness to this anger (oh yes, as much as I hate to mention this – there’s all the racists out there who can’t stand the idea of a person of color in the “White House”) and the people in Washington seem to fully understand this and they’re going to continue “laughing all the way to the bank.”

Speaking of laughing all the way to the bank, here’s another question: Why are people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, etc. allowed to continuously make seditious, racist, anti-American comments over the public airwaves? Is it legal to encourage the overthrow of our elected government? (Sedition) Why are sponsors continuing to support these people? Are there really enough Americans who think like them to support these sponsors? Or, is it just a reality that people like me don’t know who the sponsors are so that they can’t boycott them? The other day I heard both Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck CHEARING the fact that the United States didn’t get the Olympic games in 2016 – despite the FACT that securing a commitment for the games would have been a tremendous boost to the economy and prestige of the United States and the city of Chicago. Do these people HATE Blacks enough to wish TOTAL FAILURE on this nation so that they might be able to defeat President Obama in 2012? I really don’t get that one. Just imagine the outcry if Democrats (or Independents like me) would have been rooting for the FAILURE of our nation under President Bush.

Well, now that I think about it – it almost seems like that is exactly what Bush/Cheney were trying to do – that is to totally undermine the very institutions of our government that has been the longest lasting “self government” in the history of the world? I’m still not sure what their alternative would be – accept that Karl Rove was always lobbying for the so-called “Permanent Republican majority.” I realize they were trying to control both houses of Congress, the White House, and the Courts (and Justice Department) – so, I guess there could be quite a discussion as to what their ultimate goal was. In fact, maybe that is why they’re so angry with President Obama. They realize they were so close to achieving that goal – only to be undermined by the incompetence of Bush/Cheney. I’m guessing that maybe they think that if they can regain the White House in 2012, they can still manage to achieve their “permanent majority” – and, of course – I CERTAINLY HOPE NOT!

I could go on and on with these questions that are puzzling at best. I’m trying very hard not to join in on the attacks on President Obama, although, I’ve got questions for him as well. Like, When are we REALLY bringing the troops home from Iraq? And, are you serious when you say that we’re leaving 50-75,000 “non-combat” troops there after the so-called (modified) deadline? What is a non-combat troop in Iraq? (Remember, we were going to be out of Iraq in 16 months – that was a CLEAR CAMPAIGN PROMISE – and there was never any mention [that I heard] of any 50,000 + non-combat troops remaining)

Here’s another one while I’m at it: Has Obama ended the Bush wiretapping policy? No one’s asking this and since President Obama is defending the Bush policy in court, I have a sneaking suspicion that our phone calls and emails are still being “data-mined.”

I’m almost ready to end with this question (and if you’ve spent much time around here, it will be redundant – but I believe it’s the most important question of them all) What are these Republicans going to do if they win the White House in 2012 regarding all the illegal activity that President Obama has “looked away from?” I believe I can answer that one – they will start up right where Bush/Cheney left off! There’s already rumblings of the like. If there are no prosecutions for war crimes (torture) the Republicans will continue the policy. They are unashamed in their support of torture and Obama’s refusal to hold them accountable will simply tell the next Republican President that it’s OK, as far as Democrats are concerned. They might whine about it publically, but they won’t do anything about it legally. What about these two occupations? Well, if we continue them, what kind of message are we sending EVERYONE? The voters started DEMANDING an end of the Iraq fiasco in 2006, and here we are in 2009 – almost 2010 – and the troops are still there with no end in sight. IT’S GETTING VERY FRUSTRATING TO BE AN ACTIVE PROGRESSIVE VOTER.

Here’s almost the last question: How many years are we going to spend mired in Afganistan before we decide to pull out? Or, how about this, we know that al Qaeda is in Pakistan so WHY ARE WE GIVING PAKISTAN BILLIONS IN AID? Why didn’t we go in there and just get al Qaeda? After all, they are the ones who attacked us on 9/11. Are we going to wait until they get control of Pakistan’s nuclear warheads before we finally finish the job of September 2001? Why did President Bush call off the search for bin Laden? (did you ever spend a few minutes pondering that one?) I’m (really) almost done: Are we going to have to go into COMPLETE national bankruptcy before we stop all this vitriole and start making decisions that are in the interest of the middle class people of this nation and not the corporations who “OWN” our politicians and their other “puppets” (Limbaugh, Beck, et al)? Are we, the voters, so powerless that we just have to continue to watch the plundering of our great nation by the aforementioned corporations and the politicians who do their bidding? I voted for Obama and I hope he succeeds, so I almost hate to ask my final question: Is the “Change we can believe in” really MORE OF THE SAME?

My last post was another attempt by me to encourage President Obama to do the right thing and allow a full investigation of the Bush administration. I’m not necessarily looking to see President Bush or Dick Cheney (well, not so much for Dick) face criminal charges (although, I understand that it is possible – they’ve admitted to criminal activity right on national TV), what I really want to happen is for the American people to have a full understanding of what was done in their name under Bush/Cheney et al. I believe that there are millions of Americans who have no idea what horrible things were committed under the Bush regime. And, if they are Fox “news” viewers, they are probably still believing that Bush/Cheney actually did “keep us safe” – despite the undeniable evidence that 3000 Americans perished under their watch – and the mounting evidence (the more I read about it from MULTIPLE sources) that they should have prevented 9/11. THEY WERE ESSENTIALLY “SLEEPING AT THE SWITCH!”

As a public school teacher I feel the obligation to REALLY prepare my students to be productive American citizens. I won’t get into my thoughts on what Bush (yes, with Kennedy’s unsuspecting help) has done to public education in this country via “no child left behind,” other than to say trying to accomplish the impossible has raised the stress level with many teachers and consumed their time leading to many being turned off by government (realistically, I’m talking about my small circle of friends). Leave it for tonight that I personally know of several teachers who don’t want to even know what’s REALLY going on in our society. They don’t want to talk about issues like torture, illegal wiretapping, lying us into war, etc. because they are too busy with their careers and THEIR FAMILIES. They have the idealistic view of our government and they just can’t bring themselves to believe, for instance, that our government would commit heinous torture – or, if they did, there must have been a good reason for it – like “they’re keeping us safe.” They have no idea how UNSAFE we’re getting as the result of eight years of authoritarian, mean spirited, selfish, illegal rule by the Bush administration which was condoned TOTALLY by the Republican party. I’m pointing this out because I see teachers (my peer group) as typical members of the middle class who are just trusting that our government will keep “rolling along” as it has for the past 200+ years. Anything but free and fair elections is hard to imagine. Many of us didn’t care for the Republicans under Bush, but we waited patiently for the elections to do something about it.

Well, it’s this same Republican party who are presently in a total state of self-denial, as if what they were doing during the Bush years was in our country’s best interests and that their return to power is more important than anything else going on in the world today. They have publically committed themselves to make sure that President Obama FAILS! – I’ve been paying close attention to American politics for 45 years, I’ve studied American history and the history of American politics, and I can’t remember EVER another time in the history of this great nation where one political party has had the agenda of working for the failure of a sitting President. THINK ABOUT THAT ONE! What kind of person buys into that kind of thinking? The sad reality is that President Obama is working tirelessly (and, believe me, I don’t agree with him even close to 100% – but I DO WANT HIM TO SUCCEED) to undo the HORRIBLE MESS left behind by Bush/Cheney et al. I won’t go into the details of what these Republicans have done to all of us, because, if you’re reading this post you probably are aware of the disaster they left as they “hightailed it” out of Washington on January 20th, but I can say with complete certainty in my heart that the problem Republican leaders have with Obama is the color of his skin!

So far, the only high ranking political leader who has the guts to call it what it is – is Jimmy Carter. The rest of our leaders in Washington (and now I’m speaking about the Democrats) seem to be totally spineless. Believe me, these guys aren’t so stupid that they don’t “get” this. It almost seems to me that the Democrats in Washington are as afraid of Rush Limbaugh as the Republicans. Personally, if I was in that position, I’d cherish the opportunity to call him the racist that he is right to his face. Things have been getting uglier and uglier in Washington, and today it got even worse. I heard reports from three separate sources about an article posted to a website, I believe it’s called “NewsMax.com” which is a subsidiary of the Washingto Times, suggesting that the military overturn our duly elected government with a “bloodless coup.” Now, I was unable to actually read the article because, evidently upon hearing that the true “liberal media” had latched on to it, the website pulled the posting off their site and claimed that the author who has been writing articles for them since 1999 is a non-affiliated “blogger” – ALL OF THESE RIGHT WINGERS ARE TERRIBLE LIARS. However, thanks to the miracle of copying and pasting – at least three news outlets got a copy of this right wing whacko’s seditious thoughts.

I listened to the article being read three times, so I remember a fair amount of it. The guy was suggesting that the military is getting ready to take over our government to “end Obama’s socialist administration.” They evidently are going to form an interim military regime which will solve all the problems in Iraq and Afganistan that Obama created and presumably save our economy and create all the jobs that George W Bush’s policies lost! IT’S GETTING MORE FAR FETCHED OUT THERE ALL THE TIME! In a bit, I’ll tell you why I’m not so surprised by this, but I have a lot of questions as to what this guy and the “military” he’s talking about would have in mind. The first thing I wondered was “Are they going to take over until the next scheduled election?” If so, what would they do if another of the hated “liberals” was elected again? (I have to tell them, that as far as I’m concerned President Obama is far from a liberal – of course, they wouldn’t notice that because the man is Black) Maybe the plan is to get all those Programmable voting machines they used in 2004 in enough polling places to guarantee that a “liberal” couldn’t win – you know, to insure that we would have someone of the competence level of a GW Bush, or Dick Cheney. Or, are they going to take the same “path” that George W Bush’s buddie Pervez Musharraf took in Pakistan – that is, one of the countries they are now so worried about and don’t want to admit has become EXTREMELY DANGEROUS BECAUSE OF THEM! Well, Musharraf simply ended democracy in Pakistan and declared himself President for whatever term he deemed appropriate. I wonder if the whacko who wrote the article thought that one through all the way. I guess he just figures that all us “liberals” will simply sit, smoke our pot, and keep watching TV and be happy that the military has overthrown the government that we elected – so we can feel safe.

Crap like this is exactly why I’ve been pushing for President Obama to do the right thing and initiate the investigations of the previous President and his associates. It’s more his associates that would not want this to happen because so many of them stepped over the legal line while serving in Bush’s administration. Personally, for starters, I’d like a total accounting of how Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and I believe Douglas Feith each made in excess of 100 million dollars in Iraq while our sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, were giving their lives and limbs to the incompetent prosecution of a dishonest, illegal war and occupation. Additionally, I’d like the rest of the world to know that the United States REALLY DOESN’T TORTURE and that anyone who authorizes it or commits it will face a full investigation and criminal liability where appropriate. I could go on, but here’s what’s happening and why this is so important. The words this guy today posted on the public airwaves (cyberspace) are NOT LEGAL! Guys like him feel that they can do anything. If Bush/Cheney can openly admit to war crinmes without consequences, it shouldn’t surprise anyone guys like this feel there’s no limit on what they can get away with. Suggesting or encouraging the overthrow of our elected government is called sedition – it’s ILLEGAL, it’s TREASONOUS. When are the people who are charged with enforcing our laws, going to ENFORCE OUR LAWS? My thoughts are that if torture is tolerated and our legal system (including the President and Attorney General) “look the other way” because they don’t want to deal with the distraction – WHAT MESSAGE IS BEING SENT? I’ve been saying this for months now – THE DISTRACTION IS NOT GOING AWAY just because we don’t face up to these racist thugs.

In fact, the distraction is going to get larger and larger. These people are like sixth graders who lie about everything and are constantly “pushing boundaries.” They will continue to push boundaries until someone tells them to stop. And, in this instance, they won’t stop until they are legally FORCED TO DO SO! I understand that President Obama would like to just focus on the agenda in Washington as he tries valiantly to reverse the effects of close to 30 years of supply side economics, on top of the most pathetic foreign policy in the history of our country. However, Obama doesn’t need to lead the charge, HE JUST NEEDS TO GET OUT OF THE WAY! The article written today is just the most overt of what has been a progressively seditious theme from the extreme right of the Republican party. Worse than the fact it is the far right is the FACT that the elected leaders of the Republicans ARE NOT REPUDIATING any of the seditious or racist rhetoric that is a daily occurence now in the anti-Obama movement. (in fact, they’re encouraging it)

These people are referring to President Obama as a fascist, among other misguided names. I’ve defined fascist on this website enough times in the past that I’m not going to do it again – you can Google it if you’re not familiar with the term – but every time they call Obama a fascist they are showing both their ignorance and their pathological willingness to lie. Again, I’ll let you look it up, but in our political realm the closest people we have to fascists in America are Dick Cheney, Karl Rove (remember the “permanent Republican majority” plan? and the “loyalty pledges” to be part of the justice department?), and I’ll throw in Rush Limbaugh simply because he’s the defacto head of the Republican party and he REALLY FITS THE DEFINITION WELL. It’s beyond absurd to call Obama a fascist (I guess it would be more appropriate to say it’s ignorance to call him that), but this guy today gave the meaning of absurd a boost! Come on, the guy’s going to “save our democracy” by encouraging a military coup de tat!? MAYBE HE WANTS TO RENAME OUR COUNTRY CHILE! This would be good Saturday Night live stuff, if it wasn’t so dangerous, and if there weren’t so many “nut-jobs” running around our country longing for a place in infamy. THAT IS WHY IT’S TIME TO CALL A STOP TO ALL THIS STUFF THROUGH THE AVAILABLE LEGAL CHANNELS!

I’m going to finish my thoughts tonight by reminding you that this isn’t something new. It’s been going on, mostly in a more discreet manner than this guy’s article, since our first Black President stepped into the White House (actually, it was also going on during the Clinton years, it just wasn’t as open – despite Timothy McVeigh). Let me remind you, there is a hired militia roaming this country by the (now) name of XE (Zee), formerly and more famously known as Blackwater. This is a right wing militia which is owned and operated by a former Navy Seal, Eric Prince, who inherited a fortune from his father and has turned it into an army that could probably defeat a majority of countries in this world. The guy is on a crusade to kill Muslims (he was hired for many no-bid contracts in Iraq, Afganistan, and the US – remember Hurrican Katrina? – by GW Bush) and there were reports in the late nineties that he conspired with some of the top “right wing religious leaders” in our country at the time to do exactly what today’s whacko suggested. Then there’s Chuck Norris (of Walker Texas Ranger fame) who’s going around the country suggesting that Texas succeed from the Union and, at one point, I heard him say there were thousands of “cells” in the country waiting for the right “moment” to take over our government – a bit more discreet version of today’s article – with a little less notoriety. I won’t bore you with more details, but if you’ve been paying attention at all, you know what I’m talking about here.

White Supremist organizations have increased 400% since President Obama was elected. The racist rhetoric seems to be flowing freely and our national leadership seems willing to wait until something tragic happens before they do anything about it. NRA members have been stockpiling weapons at an alarming rate – they’ve convinced themselves that President Obama is going to take their guns away. What are these people going to do if there’s a military takeover? Would they celebrate because we no longer have a Black President? or would the fact that our entire Democracy was being threatened from within bother them? Would they actually prefer a military dictatorship to having an intelligent, hardworking, compassionate President who happens to be Black? I know people like Limbaugh, Beck, Boehner, Hannity, O’Reilly, McCain, Palin, McConnell, Cantor – and I could go on – like to claim that they’re not racists. Well, also tonight there was a poll on one of the sites like Facebook or MySpace (I don’t go there) suggesting that President Obama be killed and then listed several different methods and/or reasons. Apparently, the respondents were supposed to select the correct reason – I guess they were trying to figure out the most popular reason why this should happen. GIVE ME A BREAK! When in our history has this kind of stuff been OK? You won’t see any of the aforementioned condemming any of these disgusting examples of hate. These Republicans and their fringe element are showing themselves as seditious, mean spirited, racists – there’s no other explanation! The way to stop this, in my view, starts with the full investigation of the Bush administration which will enlighten the public to the TRUE NATURE of the Republican party and the evidence needs to be followed wherever it leads.

Today I read an article in the Wall Street Journal which indicated that the so-called “neo-conservatives” are, essentially, “smelling blood.” They think a “comeback” is underway. Their logic is that because of the “happenings” in North Korea, Russia, and Iran the American public is going to be vulnerable to their lies again. I really hope they’re wrong, but this is why I wrote a letter to President Obama tonight (of course, I fully understand none of his surrogates will ever give him the letter, but it made me feel better writing it) explaining to him why I won’t send any more money for his agenda depite the fact that I support much of it. While I certainly hope that the incredible failures of the Bush neo-cons is still fresh in the minds of enough Americans to keep them at bay for at least the next few years, I have no doubt that they will keep trying to come back like a bad dream and, at some point, succeed – largely because of the failure of President Obama and the Democratic Congress to hold Bush/Cheney et al to ANY accountability for the damage they’ve done to this great nation.

We’ve all been witnessing the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and others going along as if nothing wrong had happened under the “watch” of their cronies. They started to blame the economic meltdown on President Obama months before he actually took office. How many of the “liberal news media” called that for the absurdity that it was? Yes, you’re correct, VIRTUALLY NONE OF THEM. And, they’ve been hammering ever since on their “Fox News” – which is nothing more than a Republican party water carriers network – that EVERYTHING President Obama has done is socialist, communist, fascist, or a combination of those absurd statements. We’ve had to listen to both Dick Cheney and George W Bush defend their indefensible positions on foreign policy claiming that President Obama is not keeping us safe. THAT IS ABSURD AS WELL! Lately, their push – these are the people who claimed Obama was not a citizen, he’s a Muslim, he wants death squads – is that he’s trying to brainwash America’s school children because a couple schools had their students (during Black History month) sing songs that referred to our first African American President. OK, you know what’s coming: THAT’S ABSURD AS WELL!

Before I get to my point, these Republicans are such overt racists – I can’t believe there’s not more of a discussion on that on the public airwaves as well. I know that Obama doesn’t want to be involved in that discussion, and I understand why, but the rest of us have to quit beating around the bush on this stuff. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity – all these guys are spewing their racist hate speech on our national airwaves – none of these guys can handle the thought that America could elect a Black President. I’m sure what’s going on in their minds is something like, “What’s next? maybe a Latina.” These people are disgusting and I have no idea how they can manage to stay on the public airwaves (I keep wondering, WHO SPONSORS THEM – I have to make sure I’m not buying their products). Well, actually, I do have an idea. The Republican party thinks just like they do – what’s left of it – and they have the money to keep these guys spewing the hate for them indefinitely – UNLESS PROGRESSIVES STAND UP AND STOP THEM. The “leaders” of our nation can look the other way on this stuff, but I’m not going to. And, based on this article I read today, there’s a lot of “neo-cons” in America who feel there’s enough White resentment to get them back into power – and in the near future.

Recently I’ve written a couple posts talking about the incompetence of the Bush administration in prosecuting the “War” in Afganistan. They had no idea going in what they were doing, who they were dealing with, and how to succeed. In fact, the more I read about their “doings” in Afganistan, I wonder if they ever had an idea of what success was. Most of us always were under the impression that we went into Afganistan to “get” Osama bin Laden and to wipe out his Al Qaeda terrorist network. However, everything that was done in that endeavor, would indicate otherwise. The United States had two opportunities to capture or kill bin Laden, first at Tora Bora – General Tommy Franks refused to bring in American ground troops to “seal the deal,” and in Kunduz when Al Qaeda and the Taliban were completely surrounded – along with a few hundred members of the Pakistan ISI (their version of our CIA) – again, Franks refused to bring in the troops (when the Taliban were ready for an organized surrender) and, unbelievably, the Bush administration allowed an airlift to get the ISI out and, in the process, they took all the Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders with them – estimates of over 1000 escaped – yes!, I’ll say it again – UNBELIEVABLE! Al Qaeda and the Taliban have now reconstituted themselves to be stronger than when we originally entered Afganistan – BECAUSE BUSH/CHENEY/RUMSFELD IGNORED THEM – and now, unbelievably, they are claiming that President Obama is showing weakness by reconsidering our mission there! The Bible says that satan is the “father of lies,” but I don’t know how he can outdo these neo-cons!

I believe it’s true that we are less safe than we were prior to 9/11. However, the reason is because of the actions of the Bush administration since then. Not only have they allowed terrorism to flourish in Pakistan (which has somewhere around 100 nuclear warheads) – THEY HELPED TO FINANCE IT! (Well, actually, it was all Americans, because it was our tax dollars that Bush was giving to Pervez Musharraf – a known supporter of both the Taliban and Al Qaeda). It was Bush/Cheney who were “played,” not only by Musharraf, but by the Afgan warlords who received the money that should have gone to the Karzai Government and instead virtually guaranteed that Afganistan would not be rebuilt and would not have a strong central government. The more I read about what Bush/Cheney were doing the more I consider them IDIOTS! I realize that Cheney and Rumsfeld and Feith and many of their friends profited handsomely from the Iraq and Afganistan fiasco’s, so for them they probably feel these adventures were worthwhile – but for President Obama and the rest of us – well, the MESS remains, as does the terrorist threat that Bush was supposedly saving us from. I actually believe that they (the neo-cons) WANT to see another terrorist attack so they can blame it on Obama and try to get back into power – AND CONTINUE THE PILFERING OF OUR TREASURY! (stop and think who got the $700 billion bailout – for one example – not to mention the billions pilfered out of Iraq/Afganisan by Bush/Cheney’s contractor buddies through no-bid contracts – to the detrement of our troops or the 1.7 TRILLION dollar tax cut for the people who needed it the least!)

I recently stated that I’m thinking about discontinuing my writing (it does make me feel better, but now there’s almost 100 people a day after I post my thoughts – and I don’t want to be piling on President Obama – because I support MOST of what he’s trying to accomplish), but after reading the article about the neo-cons feeling empowered again (remember, they have a HUGE pot of money to spend spreading their lies) I felt compelled to give President Obama my “main message” again! Before I do, a quick comment about the Republican lies. As a sixth grade teacher I spend a lot of time talking to counselors because I’m in a school where many of the students are extremely needy, and I need to try to understand how to help them. One of the things I’ve learned over the years from the counselors is that when a young person is lying continually you have about until they’re 14 years old before the lying becomes part of their character. What happens then is that they start believing their own lies and it becomes pathological. Well, it’s obvious to me (I checked a few websites of the Republican water carriers lately) that people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage (I’ve only recently discoverey this one – he might be the worst of the bunch) are pathological liars – it appears to me that they actually believe their own lies as the words come out of their mouths! THESE ARE EASILY PROVABLE LIES! They just keep doing it over and over again. And, Republicans in Congress are not much better! (I’m not calling the Democrats saints, because they’re not – and many of them are proving to be in the same class as Republicans as they rationalize voting against the will of the American people on health care) Someone HAS TO CALL A HALT TO THIS – and I believe that someone has to be President Obama!

How should he do this? you ask. Well, as I’ve stated on this site many times – IT WAS A HORRIBLE DECISION when President Obama decided to “Look forward and not backward.” Tonight, I wrote him a three page letter explaining why that was such a bad choice. If President Obama would allow (actually, by rights he shouldn’t be able to stop this – but he has) a thorough investigation of the Bush administration, this would accomplish two important things for starters. First, it would totally change the debate in America. Believe me, the neo-cons would stop talking about getting back into power, and they’d start talking about how horrible it is to investigate a previous administration. YOU’D NEVER HEAR THE END OF THIS ON FOX. Which would allow the rest of us to have a civil debate on the importance of including a “robust” public option in the health care legislation, along with Ron Wyden’s “free choice” proposal which would allow ALL AMERICANS the “choice” of signing up for the public option if it was the better choice (remember, Obama’s plan only gives the public option choice to those without insurance from their employer). Secondly, an investigation of the Bush administration would get out into the open ALL THE THINGS they did IN OUR NAME!

As far as I’m concerned President Obama doesn’t have the right to block this. He says he doesn’t want to have the “distraction” while trying to pass the health care bill, but WE STILL HAVE THE DISTRACTION. THE REPUBLICANS ARE GOING TO BE A DISTRACTION ON EVERYTHING no matter what Obama does. The American people not only deserve to have this information made public, IT IS ESSENTIAL! The fact that President Obama announced to the world that “we don’t torture” has NO MEANING to these neo-cons. The only way we can be somewhat sure that it won’t happen again, is to hold the ones who authorized it in the first place accountable. Here’s some of what I wrote to Obama: “Both President Bush and Vice President Cheney admitted ON NATIONAL TV that they authorized waterboarding – I saw it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears. The same goes for the FACT that both President Obama and Attorney General Holder said on national TV that waterboarding is torture. Combine this with the FACT that President Obama PROMISED in the campaign that NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW and that if there is evidence of a crime, there will be an investigation coupled with both the Geneva Conventions and American law calling waterboading torture and I don’t see how either President Obama or Attorney General Holder can justify “looking forward.” I pointed out in my letter that President Obama seems to be supporting Richard Nixon’s claim that “if the President does it, it must be legal.” I’m old enough to know that MILLIONS OF AMERICANS went to a lot of trouble to prove that saying false.

As I said in my letter to the President, following that logic – there would never be another crime in the United States – because every prosecution HAS TO LOOK BACKWARD! The CRIME ALWAYS HAPPENS PRIOR TO THE INVESTIGATION! Is President Obama’s logic going to become precedent in this nation. After all, he’s the top protector of the constitution in the land. He put his hand on the Bible of Abraham Lincoln when he took the oath to uphold the constitution. I understand that if an investigation goes forward it will probably get VERY UGLY. There was not only torture but also illegal wiretapping (en masse), the outing of a CIA agent, both lying us into war and massive misappropriation of funds in prosecuting BOTH wars, politicizing the Justice Department, members of the Bush administration first perjuring themselves before Congress and then refusing to honor subpoenas, and probably more than any of us can imagine. Trillions was pilfered from our economy – money going from the hard working people of this nation to the wealthiest – who didn’t need it. I’m not the only one who suspects that many in the Bush administration – probably including Bush himself – were trying to destroy our government – by bankrupting it! I believe the only way to make these neo-cons go away is to fully investigate the Bush administration! If President Obama fails to do this, there will be a day when he will deeply regret that decision – and we’ll all, that is those of us who believe in the America that came out of the New Deal, pay dearly for his mistake.

I can remember George W Bush, in the midst of virtually the lowest polling numbers ever, saying that history will be the judge of his Presidency. And, once he was out of office, one of the first things he did was start attempting to rewrite history. However, I believe as more and more information becomes public, he will go down in history as one of the worst – and most incompetent – Presidents in our history. To go along with this, President Bush was POORLY SERVED by both Dick Cheney and his Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Both Bush and Cheney have received a lot of deserved criticism for their poor decision making, but Rumsfeld has managed to slip into virtual obscurity since being fired right after the 2006 Democratic victories in the midterm elections. Rumsfeld was a convenient and appropriate scapegoat for Bush (he couldn’t really “fire” Dick Cheney) but, by this time in the Bush/Cheney administration, the damage had been done.

Bush tried to salvage as much as he could with the so-called “surge” which, despite attempts to proclaim it a success, has only put off the inevitable in Iraq. And, while we’re waiting for our Iraq nightmare to end, the reality of Afganistan/Pakistan is looming as the real challenge facing the Obama administration. Many Americans (including me) would like to see all of our troops come home, ASAP. I believe President Obama is needlessly dragging his feet in Iraq – remember, he “promised” to have the troops home in 16 months. He’s been in office almost 10 months and the troop levels are still at pre-surge numbers, and I’ve seen little indication that our soldiers are coming home. There is no way, at this point, for them to get home even close to the 16 month “deadline,” and I believe President Obama is planning to leave an unacceptable level of what he calls “non-combat” troops on the ground in Iraq as long as the Iraqi’s will put up with them. To complicate matters, the Generals who devised the surge in Iraq (Patreaus, Odierno, McCrystal) want to repeat the “strategy” in Afganistan which would require at least an additional 40,000 American troops there.

Here’s the “rub” for President Obama. I believe a strong case can be made that our troops are still needed in Afganistan. I’m presently reading “Descent into Chaos” by Ahmed Rashid (a Pakistani author with “inside” connections to the Afhans and Pakistani’s) and the consequences of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld incompetence in Afganistan are alarming. Not only did the Bush/Cheney administration “blow it” on 9/11 by ignoring one warning after another and by pitting one agency against another in there first few months in office so that they “DIDN’T KEEP US SAFE,” but their prosecution of the invasion of Afganistan was incredibly poorly thought out. THEY HAD NO CLUE WHAT THEY WERE DOING, or who they were dealing with. The result of their actions in Afganistan was almost like pouring fuel onto a fire, in regard to eliminating the threat to the United States which is Al Qaeda.

What most of us Americans don’t know is that the US tried to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda with as few troops as possible. In fact, they essentially sent in the CIA and a few hundred Army Special forces (along with a small number of NATO forces and superior air power) who worked with some of the Afgan militias to push the Taliban out of power and Al Qaeda out of Afganistan. They had an opportunity to essentially wipe out Al Qaeda and get Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, but General Tommy Franks refused to send in American troops to “finish the job.” THIS WAS UNBELIEVABLE in it’s own right. But they screwed up another opportunity as well when the Taliban and Al Qaeda were surrounded in Kunduz and ready to quit, according to Rashid, “Gen. Tommy Franks could easily have put the US troops waiting in Uzbekistan on the ground in Kunduz to accept an orderly Taliban surrender. The absence of US troops ……. led to the deaths of thousands of Taliban prisoners by the hands of the Northern Alliance and to the escape of the Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders.” But, worse than this, while they had thousands of Taliban soldiers and Al Qaeda leaders boxed in at Kunduz – along with members of Pakistan’s ISI – the Bush administration did a “favor” for Pakistan’s leader Pervez Musharraf by allowing a huge airlift removing the ISI and maybe a thousand Taliban and Al Qaeda from Kunduz – probably including Osama bin Laden.

Of the thousnds of Taliban who perished “at the hands of the Northern Alliance,” they were put in box cars – jammed in so that there wasn’t enough oxygen – and carted to another site in Afganistan with huge numbers of them suffocating en transit. These dead Taliban were buried in mass graves in an attempt to cover up the travesty. This was a direct result of President Bush doing Pervez Musharraf a “favor.” Not only did bin Laden “get away,” but these mass murders of Taliban undermined our credibility with the Afgan population. President Bush’s support of Musharraf showed his lack of understanding regarding his enemy. Musharraf was supporting the Taliban and Al Qaeda who were training the insurgents fighting in Kashmir – Pakistan’s number one priority. Bush pretty much got “played” by both the Pakistani’s and the Afgan warlords who the American CIA tried to “buy” in order to gain control in Afganistan. What they didn’t seem to understand was that their very actions always produced the opposite result from what was intended. Yes, they pushed the Taliban out of Afganistan into Pakistan, but, in the process, Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld made decisions that might have given them short term “gain,” but are now problems which are far more serious than when we originally “went in.”

By adapting a policy of buying off the various warlords in Afganistan the Bush administration virtually cut off the “legs” of the Karzai government that they put into power. Hamad Karzai was a patriot in the battle to get the Taliban out of Afganistan, but the lack of American support once he was in “power” combined with the billions distributed to the warlords in different remote parts of the country led to a dysfunctional government and ever increasing corruption and graft. As I’m reading Rashid’s book, it becomes very clear that we in America have no clue what life is like in Central Asia. But, the people there, at the time, were open to “nation building” by the United States – they’ve been at war forever. Getting sidetracked in Iraq not only has been a total disaster for the US foreign policy since then, but abandoning Afganistan has allowed a much more dangerous situation to emerge today – and like the economy President Bush left in ruins for Obama, Afganistan/Pakistan is a BIG PROBLEM.

In America after 9/11, we were as united as I can remember, when President Bush said we were going in and we were going to get Osama bin Laden. He said, any country who “harbors terrorists” does so at their own peril. However, we’ve known since 2002 that bin Laden is in Pakistan along with the Taliban leaders who retreated to Pakistan (it was the Pakistan ISI which was funding them in the first place), and we are painfully aware that Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal which bin Laden would love to get his hands on. Yet, President Bush not only ignored this (I’m sure you’ve heard Bush’s famous answer to a question regarding bin Laden after the Iraq invasion, “I don’t know where he is, I don’t spend that much time on him”), but he gave Pervez Musharraf over 10 billion dollars in aid after 9/11. At the end of the Clinton Presidency Pakistan was sanctioned by the US and its allies for “harboring terrorists.” They were funding the Taliban who, in conjunction with Al Qaeda, (as mentioned above) were training Pakistani rebels fighting India in Kashmir – another seemingly unending conflict – and, another very DANGEROUS “hot spot” in the region. Musharraf played Bush for a complete sucker not only to get the sanctions removed, but to get the billions in aid, using the funds he received from the US to support the very enemy we were supposedly fighting (shouldn’t Bush have known about Pakistan’s support of the Taliban? Did they ignore everything the Clinton administration told them?). While Bush/Cheney/Rumsfelf (and the rest of us in America) were focused on Iraq, the Taliban and Al Qaeda reconstituted themselves to be an even bigger threat today than they were on 9/11 – all of this in Pakistan, and with money from us. I even remember Bush being asked at a news conference about Al Qaeda being in Pakistan and why weren’t we going in after them – he said, “Pakistan is a sovereign nation, we don’t invade sovereign nations!” (this, after us invading Iraq – a sovereign nation – FOR NO GOOD REASON – did he forget that it was Al Qaeda who attacked us on 9/11?)

So, now President Obama faces a very tough decision. Afganistan is noted as the graveyard of invading troops. Do we stay and increase our presence? Or, do we pull our troops out? Obviously, what we’ve been doing and what we are doing is NOT WORKING. General McCrystal’s assessment, where he calls for more troops (kind of like the surge in Iraq) acknowleges the reality that we can’t win the way we’re going (I’m still not sure what “winning” would look like). President Obama has already put over 20,000 troops in Afganistan above the amount there when he took office. His next move is going to be met with opposition, NO MATTER WHAT HE DECIDES! Bush has left President Obama in almost a no-win situation (although we all – Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike – need him to make the “right” decision, whatever he does) When history looks back at the policy there of the Bush/Cheney and especially Rumsfeld administration, people are going to be incredulous. It’s almost like we were in cahoots with the enemy. The refusal to defeat Al Qaeda at Tora Bora, allowing the airlift out of Kunduz, refusing to go into Pakistan after Osama bin Laden, pulling resources out of Afganistan so that we could invade Iraq, undermining the very “government” we “installed” in Afganistan by funding various “warlords” around the country who formed their own militias, all these “gaffs” have made Afganistan/Pakistan the most difficult problem that President Obama faces. While everyone knows that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld committed war crimes, history will show their policy in Afganistan was a criminal failure of a huge magintude for the rest of the world. George W Bush will never be able to rewrite history to hide his failures in prosecuting the war against Al Qaeda! (I will never understand why President Obama has allowed Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld to avoid investigation over all of this)

Let me start off tonight by saying that I really admire President Obama and how he’s trying to stay above the partisan “fray” that is going on all around him. As I’ve stated many times on this site, I’m very frustrated by his continual “reaching out” to Republicans while they’re “stabbing him in the back,” but in a perfect world, he’s doing the right thing. In my mind, stabbing people in the back is what Republicans do, they seem to have no conscience. They’re all about “me” and hate the idea of “we.” The idea of bipartisanship is a good one, I’m just not sure the present circumstances would be the time to “go for it.” Just the same, there is no question in my mind that we have an intelligent, compassionate, hardworking GOOD man in the White House. I was sitting in Church the other day and it dawned on me that President Obama is acting more like a Christian than any of our recent Presidents except Jimmy Carter (I said that for the benefit of all the right wing Christians who hate Obama and supported Bush) I recently had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine who has been a life long Republican. He said, “I’m re-thinking a lot of what I believe in.” Here’s why he’s re-thinking all these things. He’s unemployed and he has a lot of time to think about what he’s been “for” and he’s been able to see what the “core” or “base” of the Republican party is ACTUALLY “FOR.”

My friend has been without a job for 10 months now and he understands that without the unemployment benefits (which he never supported before, just like most Republicans) he would have already lost his home. Both him and his wife are without medical or dental insurance because that was a casualty of him losing his job. He recently had a bad tooth that needed a root canal, but due to lack of funds he had to go to a “free clinic” and have the tooth pulled. Additionally, this past week his wife needed prescription medicine for a bad migraine and had to settle for extra strength Excedrin instead – if you’ve ever had a bad migraine, you know what a bad choice that is. We talked about his “pro-life” feelings and some of what I find to be curious positions by “pro-lifers.” (just so you know, I’m not “pro abortion” – I believe life begins at conception – I just find some of the other beliefs of “pro-lifers” to be curious at best, as stated previously).

I asked him, “Why should you or anyone else (including an expecting Mom) be denied access to a doctor just because you’re out of a job?” He couldn’t answer that one – in fact, he agreed with me that he (or she) shouldn’t. I pointed out that by denying millions of people access to doctors when illnesses are in their minor stages, emergency rooms get bombarded with advanced diseases which, often times, end up in hospitals with very expensive treatments that are never going to get paid for – except by those with health insurance. I asked, “Wouldn’t it make more sense if everyone paid a percentage of their income for a truly “universal health care system?” and he agreed. I guess being unemployed and without insurance for a year or so at the age of 50 will get your attention. I also asked him, “Why should a pregnant woman without money be denied pre-natal health care?” (I actually witnessed a pregnant woman kicked out of a small hospital because her baby wasn’t due for at least 12 hours based on the frequency of her contractions – she had to hitch a ride to a hospital in the next town – I took her – to find a hospital that would willingly deliver her baby) Or, “What about the care of the mother and the baby after it’s born? Should the Mom have to have insurance so that the Baby can have health care?” (I recently heard Rush Limbaugh make the case for a system similar to what dogs get – if you (the dog owner) can pay for the service then you (the dog) get the treatment – otherwise, forget it) To each of these questions my friend answered something like “yah, I see what you mean.”

And, then I pointed out that at some point he’s going to have a job again, BUT THERE WILL STILL BE OTHERS WHO DON’T! I asked him, “Do you think you’ll still feel this way once you are gainfully employed again and don’t have to worry about all this stuff?” Well, he’s coming around, and I can only hope that he carries his newfound sense of compassion forward once he’s not “one of them.” (meaning an unemployed worker – I worry because he’s a regular “Fox viewer”) I really do think there are many more Republicans who are re-thinking their previous positions, or maybe some of them hadn’t bought into the radical fringe nature of today’s party in the first place – like Colin Powell. It’s just that not any of them, that I’ve seen, have been willing to step forward and call this latest version of “conservatism” what it really is – which is fanatical obstructionism (Limbaugh style). The present day Republican party has no agenda ACCEPT DEFEATING President Barack Obama. I really hope THEY fail (I guess that’s the same thing they’re saying about Obama, but I hope you can see the difference – I didn’t want President Bush to fail, I just wanted him to do things differently – I proposed alternatives, as did many Democrats – and, if you remember, Democrats – to my frustration – went along with a lot of Bush’s policies – it wasn’t TOTAL OBSTRUCTIONISM! – I’m sure, with their mentality, they thought the Dems were stupid for going along with them, at the time)

Let me give you a quick refresher course on what Republicans have done for us over the past 30 years (most of which we would only know about by “digging” for the truth – because the truth is NOT READILY AVAILABLE in the so-called “liberal media”). For starters, they are responsible for about 90% of the HUGE FEDERAL DEFICIT! Even the deficits that will acrue during the Obama years will be largely the resulf of the economic MESS Obama inherited. Now, for one, if Obama’s economic “team” isn’t able to, at a minimum, cut the deficit in half during his term in office, I will be very disappointed – and, I’m actually hoping for much better than cutting it in half, but you have to remember, Obama inherited an annual debt of almost TWO TRILLION DOLLARS/YEAR! (and can you imagine where the deficit would be headed if McCain/Palin had won the election and were still cutting taxes for the rich?) He also inherited two entrenched occupations which are costing American taxpayers something like 15 BILLION DOLLARS PER MONTH (of which, about 3 billion PER MONTH is still going to the private contractor BUDDIES of Bush/Cheney – like Halliburton, Blackwater (Xe), Parsons, Bechtel, KBR, and others as the result of theri no-bid contracts)! Obama inherited a Justice Department that had been undermined and politicized, a military that is stretched to the limit, a banking system nearing collapse, and an unemployment problem that has only been surpassed by the Great Depression in recent American histroy. Additionally, the health care system, despite what Republicans will tell you, is leading us all toward national bankruptcy by providing health insurance companies nearly a TRILLION dollars per year in profits, while our nation is mired WITH the 34TH BEST SYSTEM in the world, even though we spend twice what any other civilized nation spends, per capita, for health care – Republicans have been supporting this system as long as I can remember. (our infant mortality rate is just a notch BELOW – that’s worse than – CUBA’S!). All of this came mostly as a result of the administration of GW Bush, but also GHW Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon. (Plus, Obama has to solve these problems with a Congress which has come to depend on and bow down to “K” Street – the mega lobbyist companies virtually set up by the “Contract for (on) American” Congress – circa 1994 -which came in during Clinton’s years and was led by Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay and the Republican party)

Well, let’s look a little deeper into the problems these Republicans created – and, for the sake of brevity, I’ll just focus on Iraq and Afganistan. These are occupations that OBAMA INHERITED! GW Bush, as we all know now, lied us into the Iraq conflict – WHICH TOOK AMERICA’S “EYES OFF THE BALL” so to speak regarding Afganistan. We are now really paying a price for that because Afganistan/Pakistan has evolved into the extremely difficult problem that George W Bush should have dealt with post 9/11 – and that he virtually abandoned. I’m presently reading “Descent into Chaos” by Ahmed Rashid – a Pakistani journalist who was actually present in many of the strategy meetings prior to the Bush/Cheney response to 9/11 in Afganistan – which gives more insight into the incredible INCOMPETENCE of the Bush administration as GW was creating this HUGE MESS for his successor. Not only was the response to 9/11 in Afganistan incompetent, but as Rashid points out so well in his book, 9/11 SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED in the first place! Bush/Cheney had MULTIPLE WARNINGS of an imminent attack – and THEY DID NOTHING to stop them! All their claims of “keeping us safe” are COMPLETE B#@* S@#!* – Getting back to Iraq, supposedly Bush/Cheney et al felt that Saddam Hussein needed to be “toppled” because he was such a cruel man (I’m not denying Hussein to be a cruel man – but, sometime check out some of the other Iraqi leaders). The part that really bothers me about this is that these very “neo-cons” were the ones who armed Hussein during the Reagan years in an attempt to keep the Iraq-Iran war going, and to prevent Iran from defeating Hussein and Iraq. There are published pictures of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Hussein after finalizing some weapons deal (which included the nerve gasses he used on “his own people”).

So, we abandon our search for Al Qaeda to take out Saddam Hussein. Here’s what’s really interesting (and disgusting). The United States, also under Reagan (which included a BUNCH of Bush’s cronies) armed both Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the insurgency against the Russian occupation of Afganistan in the eighties (this hastened Russia’s finacial meltdown – hint, hint – endless war in Afganistan). After Russia left Afganistan the US abandoned it and allowed the Taliban to take over. Eventually, the Taliban became entwined with Al Qaeda and supported by the ISI (ie Pakistani Intelligence Agency – similar to our CIA) and Saudi Arabia (our supposed ally). During the nineties Al Qaeda attacked several US targets and the Clinton administration put sanctions on Pakistan for supporting them. And, then, during the first part of Bush’s administration (right after 9/11), the sanctions which had been put on Pakistan were lifted – along with giving them close to a billion dollars in aid – allowing Perves Musharraf, the Pakistani dictator, to increase support to the Taliban who he had been propping up all along with the help of other Arab nations. In fact, after 9/11 Musharraf made an agreement to support the Bush administration, yet continued to fund the Taliban and arm them after the US invaded Afganistan. The really ironic thing here is that it was the US which was supplying the money for Pakistan to do this (you’re right, they were using our money to arm the people we were fighting!). In the years after the US invaded Iraq, both the Taliban and Al Qaeda were “holed up” in Pakistan, being essentially reconstituted to the point that they are VERY DANGEROUS AGAIN – with much of their funding coming from the US (Bush) through Musharraf (they also sell lots of herion to American drug addicts). I’m sure the people over there take the US for being idiots based on the actions of our last President. The reality of the situation that Obama inherited is that Afganistan/Pakistan is a potential “flashpoint” for MAJOR WORLD CONFLICT!

So, now I’m busy trying to get people like my friend to understand that the mess that WE ARE ALL IN (Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and everyone else) was CREATED by the Republicans he’s voted for! You have to do some research to UNDERSTAND THE TOTALITY OF THEIR INCOMPETENCE! Bush/Cheney SCREWED UP EVERYTHING THEY DID! From the wars to Katrina to the economy – EVERYTHING! (that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who researches George W Bush’s accomplishments prior to taking office – I’m just not sure how he snuck this incompetence over on millions of Americans [including the Supreme Court]- WATCH OUT FOR SARAH PALIN!) Therefore, while President Obama is trying to “fix” the health care system, he also must make an agonizing decision on the future of our involvement in Afganistan along with other MAJOR decisions (like Iraq, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, unemployment, etc.). It would be nice if Republicans would support him on this as Democrats supported Bush during the original invasion. I’m not sure I’m personally going to agree with what President Obama does myself – BUT I’M REALLY SICK OF THE REPUBLICAN “NO” MACHINE! – a responsible dialog would be nice. I really want our troops to come home myself, but I “get” that our Generals don’t want to abandon another country like they did in Viet Nam. I also “get” that Afganistan is a totally different situation than Iraq. What I hate is that there isn’t even a public dialog on this at all, let alone a front page dialog (where I believe it belongs), on these occupations and OUR TROOPS ARE STILL DYING AND GETTING WOUNDED AND COMING HOME WITH PTSD AND FACING A DISINTERESTED POPULATION! That is why I can’t seem to stop talking about President Obama’s challenges. THEY ARE HUGE! And, obviously (if you’ve read many of my posts) I haven’t agreed with him all the way – BUT HE’S STILL POTENTIALLY A GREAT PRESIDENT – and, we’d all be better off if these Republicans would stop saying NO to everything, and throw in a good positive idea once in a while!