St. Joseph Newsleader • www.thenewsleaders.com
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Our View
No matter what happens in Iraq, no more troops on the ground
It is estimated the United States will have spent more than $2 trillion in the long conflict in Iraq, including the costs of interest and the ongoing costs for many years of medical and psychological care for the courageous Americans who fought that war. That astronomical sum of money is shocking enough, but when one considers more than 4,000 American soldiers died in that war and thousands more were wounded physically and psychologically, the human cost is not only shocking but terribly tragic. It has now been proven that Iraq’s tyrannical leader, Saddam Hussein, did not have the weapons of mass destruction we were told he had. That was the pretext for getting into that war during the George W. Bush presidency. It was a false pretext. One could argue that, weapons of mass destruction or not, America’s involvement precipitated the fall and eventual capture and execution of that brutal dictator, Hussein. At least that was a good outcome. American soldiers honorably completed the mission they were assigned, with many serving multiple tours of duty. When troops were withdrawn in 2011 under President Barack Obama, there was a calm of sorts, with Iraq’s leader, Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, promising to share power with Sunni factions. However, Maliki has not done that. He has done just the opposite by weeding out Sunni personnel in the military and the government, thus angering Sunnis and giving momentum to the coalition of radical forces that took over the northern and western regions of Iraq and are now poised to attack the capital city, Baghdad. Horrific stories and photos are surfacing about mass executions by the insurgents, who are al-Qaeda inspired groups of bloodthirsty thugs operating in both Syria and Iraq. It’s an ugly, desperate, explosive situation that could spill over and further destabilize the entire Middle East, giving other rogue killers (most of them Islamic fanatics) aid and comfort to keep attacking and weakening fragile democracies and touch-and-go coalitions in that area. Obama has wisely ruled out the use of any onground troops in Iraq. Air strikes against the insurgents remain a possibility. The USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier and two support ships have moved into the Persian Gulf. There is talk of the United States and Iran working together in an effort to de-fuse the dangerous situation. Meantime, people are blaming Bush for getting us into that war. Others are blaming Obama for supposedly not keeping his eye on the ball. At this point, those blame games are pointless and unproductive, to say the least. What’s needed most is intensive 11th-hour diplomacy, which has to involve as many other nations as possible. Anything else, including military strikes, will just be adding fuel to the flames. This country cannot continue to police and to babysit unstable, dangerous countries. The United States cannot afford to act in isolation, but we should insist not one more American military man or woman dies or is wounded in Iraq again. Those soldiers have paid their dues, honorably. Let’s not make them – or any newer American soldiers – do it all over again. This depressing Iraqi mess is a frightening rock-and-a-hard-place dilemma, and we can only hope cooler heads will prevail. But, no matter what, let’s not rush in again. No more troops on the ground. Enough is enough.
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Friday, June 20, 2014
Opinion Like Humpty Dumpty, Cantor takes a big fall My oh my, how the mighty fall. One of the worst obstructionists in congressional history, Rep. Eric Cantor, has tumbled like Humpty Dumpty, and all the Tea Party horses and all of its men cannot put Cantor together again. To many people, including myself, Cantor’s political demise was a plus. The smug, often arrogant obstructionist got exactly what he deserved. What’s even better – a case of perfect bad karma – is he was trounced by a fellow Tea Party ultra-right-winger, David Brat, the very type of candidate Cantor has long trumpeted. Cantor’s fall is yet another example of how the Republican Party these days resembles a dragon eating its own tail or the mythical Saturn devouring its own children. You’d think by now they would have learned their lessons, but they keep stumbling over themselves and stepping in their own doo-doo. Republicans began their opportunistic flirting with radical elements of the so-called Tea Party six years ago. When Tea Party factions formed, some of its members had understandable reasons for their grievances, such as anger over the taxpayer bailouts of big banks. However, it didn’t take long for those Tea Party factions to be co-opted largely by ultra-right-wing types, some of whom included apocalyptic paranoiacs; gun-rights fanatics; anti-science naysayers; misogynists; despisers of government programs; rich contributors and smear-ad funders like the Koch brothers, Ayn Rand disciples and – most of all – Obama-haters. From the get-go, otherwise decent and reasonable Republicans began flirting with Tea Party types because the support
Dennis Dalman Editor from those ultra-rightists helped them win elections. That’s before the bullying began in the form of primary campaigns, when the word “primary” morphed into a verb. Example: “If you don’t take stands that are more right wing, I’m going to primary you.” Some of these primary challenges to reasonable, effective Republican incumbents worked; many did not. Still, even the threat of being “primaried” struck fear into the hearts of so many traditional Republicans who once knew how to legislate, to compromise, to lead. That climate of fear and intimidation caused many a Republican to waver, wobble and lurch further and further to the right – far from the mainstream attitudes of most Americans. Lest we forget, the same thing happened to the Democrats during the 1960s and 1970s when they leaned too far to the left. In the U.S. Senate and in the House of Representatives especially, the antiObama, anti-Democrat obstructionist tactics began. A cabal of ultra-rightwingers in the Republican caucus, led by Cantor and John Boehner, stymied any and all legislative proposals. They put the kibosh on everything from infrastructure projects to gun-safety policies, from a federal minimum wage and immigration reform to executive appointments and a limited military strike against the Syrian regime. They
voted 40 times in a futile effort to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act. Then, using their most despicable tactic of all, they succeeded, under Tea Party demagogue Ted Cruz, in shutting down the government for weeks. Most of the proposals Republicans obstructed were popular in public polls (including minimum wage and reasonable gun controls), and some proposals they abhorred, like the Affordable Health Care Act, were even based on Republican ideas to begin with, including RomneyCare. But that didn’t matter. Bitter and enraged they’d lost the White House to Obama not once but twice, their primary goal was – and still is – to obstruct anything and everything the president proposes. Instead of repudiating Tea Party radicals along with their crazy ideas and their bully tactics, too many Republicans got sucked right into its vortex. Many have paid the price for that foolishness, and many more will pay the piper as the Tea Party keeps wielding its arm-twisting tactics in Congress and in the town halls back home. The divisions within the Republican Party are once again apparent after Cantor’s defeat, all but guaranteeing a vicious tug of war between rational Republicans and extremist Tea Party types once the presidential campaign begins and all but guaranteeing they will lose the White House once again, in which case, they’ll have nobody to blame but themselves. As long as otherwise rational Republicans court these radicals and kooks, they will keep wrecking their own party, alienating more Americans and losing more elections.
Some things just puzzle me There are some things that puzzle me. Here are a few of them. Iraq is heating up again. Obviously that war hasn’t ended. Just because we decided to leave, that in no way deterred the militant radicals from continuing to pursue their goal. Now we must decide whether to go in and assist them again or to leave them on their own. To abandon Iraq seems to me to be an insult to the thousands of Americans who gave their lives in that war. By the same token I, along with many others probably, believe we have given enough. We spent billions in dollars, thousands in lives, and years in time and for what? It’s a real puzzler. It is probable Afghanistan will face a similar future when we leave there. It appears the leaders of these countries do not have either the resolve or the ability to defend themselves. Should we care? Is it our fight? And if we just abandon them what is next? Will these radicals just get stronger and once again threaten us on our soil? I think these are fair questions. It’s puzzling. Did you hear about this? It seems the IRS has lost all the e-mails from Lois Lerner to the White House, the Justice Department and to anyone else
Ron Scarbro Guest Writer who may be inconvenient to the IRS. A period of two years’ worth of e-mails is missing. It kind of reminds me of the secret Nixon tapes with the erased 18-minute gap. By the way, it didn’t work then and it’s not going to work now. These people must think we are really stupid. Oh, and when someone pleads for protection under the Fifth Amendment, what they are saying to me is if they answered the questions asked of them, they would be admitting to crimes. Is that what this is? It sure is puzzling. To date nothing has been resolved concerning Benghazi. The Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton must think if they just delay this, it will blow away. Wrong. This will blow away when the truth is told and not a minute sooner. Four Americans were killed by an organized group of terrorists and requests for security and protection were ignored or just turned down. Does that
puzzle you? We trade five terrorist killers for what may well turn out to be a deserter. All the while a legitimate Marine sergeant, suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, sits in a Mexican jail because he took a wrong turn at the border. If, as the Administration insists, we never leave our troops behind at any cost, why is nothing being done for Sgt. Tahmooresi? Is Mexico asking for something in trade? How about the thousands of children being abandoned at our border by who knows whom. What if we trade them? Oh wait, my mistake. Those children are being abandoned by their parents so we can take care of them. They don’t apparently want them back. We can feed them, educate them, medicate them and then what? Do they go home then? Isn’t that puzzling? This sure is. At a time when we all need to be particularly aware, more and more states are legalizing the recreational use of marijuana. Bad timing, wouldn’t you say? Wow man, totally. I guess I am not supposed to know everything the government does, but it sure makes me wonder. Some things just puzzle me.