A What-If Decade

So many of the TV talk shows this week have concentrated not on the year 2009 but this decade which will be dragged to an end this coming year. Several of the guests on Morning Joe today were speculating on whether we are in the worst decade in American history primarily because of 9/11, but also the economic crises and the seemingly endless Middle East wars on terrorism, extremist Islam, or however else the 'enemy' can be described. I'm not sure the decade of the 1860s can be written as being the worst, what with the Civil war and the deaths of over 650,000 Americans, the present decade is arguably a close second at least.
In my most cynical mood, I can see 9/11 as hideous as it was with the slaughter of 3000 innocent citizens the thing that made the George W. Bush presidency, labeling him a wartime president who therefore deserved a second term. All presidencies are somewhat accidental, defined by events over which the office holder often has no control.
Imagine how President Obama and his team must feel this very day as more information unfolds about the young Nigerian who attempted to blow up the American flight on Christmas day. Now as it appears that he was part of a well defined plot with backing and training by Al Queda. Mr. Obama, his administraton and the Democratic Party would have self destructed had that young radical been able to explode his device when the president had described the event as a lone happenstance with no connection to any Islamic group.
If that chemical mixture had worked there would have been no time for the president to play catch up. As the experts have said now for two days, the dots were clearly there but our apparently ill prepared intelligence apparatus took too long in connecting them. It was only yesterday that the president went before the microphones to say that our intelligence system had failed.
Think what a position the American leader would face had young Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab been able to correctly manipulate the stuff he'd hidden in his diaper.

Pearl Harbor Memories

It's a cold and gloomy day in Fredericksburg and the weather reminds me of December 7, 1941 in the Chicago area, but I'll come back to that in a minute or so. Today a large crowd was seated on Austin Street in front of the newly remodeled George H. W. Bush Gallery, a part of the Nimitz Museum of the Pacific War, to witness the rededication ceremony of that greatly expanded facility. Ex-President and Mrs. Bush, Gov. Perry and many other dignitaries were on hand to hear the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps speak and to listen to music provided by the Marine Corps Band. The present director of the Nimitz museum, General Hagee, is the most recently retired Commandant of the Marine Corps. Even with the cold the audience was most enthusiastic and when President Bush asked if there were any Pearl Harbor survivors present it was impressive to see much more than a handful of elderly veterans stand to be recognized. I was twelve and have vivid memories of Pearl Harbor Sunday, as well as the rest of World War II. I can remember our teacher at school the next day bringing a radio to class so that we could hear President Roosevelt address the joint session of Congress and ask that, because of a day that would live in infamy, there be a declaration of war.

But it's the weather now and then that refreshes my memory. That weekend for me meant a boy scout campout and was actually about 13 or 15 degrees colder than here and now. Our troop had left on Friday evening and spent through late Sunday afternoon in an open shelter in a Forest Preserve area south of the city. As I recall, most of our activity was trying to stay warm in the unheated shelters where we camped and making sure the food we cooked could be kept hot enough. Scouts were not allowed to bring radios to campouts, so as I walked into the living room to greet my parents on that Sunday evening I had no idea what had happened in our world that. I can remember my father saying, 'Sit down, there's some really big news you need to know."

We Can't Take Our Eye Off Of this War

Elizabeth Warren, Harvard professor and currently Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, writes today in the Huffington Post about another war facing not just President Obama, but all of us, what Warren calls America without a Middle Class.

She asks if we can imagine an America without a strong middle class, and if so, would it still be America as we know it?

Dr. Warren then details the sobering facts...one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families cannot make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure, and one in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy each month. She goes on to discuss the $5 tillion lost from pension funds and savings. Ten million families may be forced to live on the streets.

This crisis didn't suddenly appear, it has been growing for at least a generation. Middle class jobs have been moving overseas for many years and the plain fact is that most of these jobs are not coming back as America has declined as a manufacturing economy and has become a technological and service society.


China is rising. A billion people overseas are joining a new middle class. Our solution is to work with this new middle class, not deny or resist it. It is here and growing. We have always excelled in innovation and development, and new ways of thinking and producing are the demands facing our future. We have simply got to continue to be the best in technology and science.

This has tremendous implications for education in preparing our young people for the future.

What the Speech Didn't Do

I largely agree with Tom Friedman's article in the today's New York Times when he says that he cannot agree with President Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

I don't think that the President answered the questions of what success in Afghanistan will look like, when and if this war ever ends, as well as how we will pay for it as we face an insurmountable national debt which will be made even worse at the cost of one million dollars for each additonal soldier each year we keep in action in the Middle East. Mr. Obama targets the summer of 2011 as a possible time American troops could withdraw from Afghanistan. This has to be made with the full knowledge that military plans can never be guaranteed that far in advance.

I say this with nothing but respect and appreciation for Mr. Obama as he sits in the oval office and alone holds the weight of the awesome problems facing this country as well as the responsibility of America as a world leader. We can only imagine the pressure of the responsibility he feels. He says he is convinced that the safety of the United States is threatened by Taliban presence in the region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He says this based on months of investigation and discussion with his military and civilian advisers. I believe in his honesty and sincerity. I question that he can do what he proposes.

For many of us the actions of Bush/Cheney and associates were disgraceful based on lies and distortions and only further tarnished by the revelations about the poor treatment given our wounded veterans from Iraq, and the insult of the policy to not show pictures of coffins being returned to Dover, Delaware. It was good that Mr. Obama reported his visits to the wounded at Walter Reed Hospital and his show of respect at the Dover ceremonies.

The President said something about 43, I think that was the number, other countries who are supporting our action in Afghanistan. The reports are however that the US bears at least 70% of the cost of this war. If this situation is as grave as a threat to world peace as the President believes, and if he has restored greatly our respect around the world, then why not call on more of the world and the United Nations to confront what is claimed to be such a danger to international stability?

A Blend of Hope and Skepticism

I'm going to listen to our President tonight with as open a mind as I will be able to muster , but I must admit there is a dose of skepticism lurking within me nurtured by the fear that he has been sold a bill of political goods by those who advise him.

Bob Herbert in the New York Times today talked of his skepticism about the Obama plan to send tens of thousands of American troops into Afghanistan. I share Herbert's skepticism. This war has gone on for nine years and has been a failure. Barack Obama ran as a candidate who had opposed the Bush/Cheney preemptive war in Iraq based on deliberate lies and distortions and who at that time agreed with those critics who said that terrorism would flourish because of precipitous military action on the part of the United States. True Bush was faced with his feeling that he had to make some response to the horror of 9/11 and not appear helpless and unwilling to act. Cheney and Rumsfeld saw the chance to influence the then President to take bold action, even though Iraq had nothing to do with the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

President Obama will supposedly tell the nation of his reasoning and will explain his specific goals, his 'end game,' and how he will get us out of this complex mess that affects a number of Middle East nations. I hope while he's at it he can explain his definition of what success over there is. What is it we are attempting to do, really, and how will we know when it has been done? When the last American troops are brought home in a few years what will be left to be seen in that region of the world, and how will what is left be different from what we see there now?



Many honest and thoughtful people were drawn to accept the idea of going into Iraq because of the Bush/Cheney insistance that Saddam Hussein not only had weapons of mass destruction but supported the terrorists. People whom I respect like Tom Friedman and Hillary Clinton and scores of others bought into what the White House pushed, while Saudi Arabia was as much more a danger to us than Iraq, just as Pakistan today is a greater threat to the world than Afghanistan.

I voted for President Obama and would like very much to support him for a second term of office. I can understand the fear anyone in his position would feel about being charged as weak and ineffectual when the country faces great danger. The generals must have made a strong case to cause Obama to plan to send the reported thirty plus thousands of troops into this war. We face other pressing problems too, and he must continue to press for the centerpiece of his program, healthcare, and now the crisis of unemployment. I'm afraid that the mistake of this projected Afghanistan action may further dilute his ability to deal with these urgent needs.

God help the President, God help the nation, and God help us all.

White House Compassion Needed

Today's New York Times has a sad news article about the family of an American soldier who died by suicide in Iraq in June of this year. He is one of 133 Army suicides which have taken place through October of this year and may well surpass last year's total of 140. So far this year there have been 42 Marine deaths also by suicide. The article points out that most-self inflicted deaths take place on military posts in the US, but since 2001 there have been 184 suicides by the American military in Iraq.

Suicide is always a tragedy which causes deep pain, confusion, inner conflict and guilt for the survivors. The addded tragedy reported in this article is the fact that though this family received death benefits due at the death of their son, and a folded flag as well as his eligibilty to be buried in a military cemetary, they did not receive a letter from President Obama expressing his sympathy on the loss of their soldier son. When they called the White House to inquire about a letter from the President they were told by a protocol officer that at least since the time of the Clinton Administration presidents have not witten to the families when the death was a suicide. The implication of this policy may very well be based on the notion that suicide is not an honorable way for a soldier to die and therefore the President doesn't offer the his or the nation's sympathy for this kind of death.

My belief is that this is at the very least a callous and unfeeling slap at a family who are grieving the loss of another victim of tragic death. Certainly suicide is the result of intense mental suffering and turmoil, and for whatever internal psychological conflicts cause it, families are left to deal with the loss of a loved one. Why wouldn't a President as Commander in Chief offer his condolences as he does for all other active duty military deaths, whether by military action, accident, 'friendly fire,' or sickness? Why should judgment be inflicted on the families of suicides? Certainly no other judgments are made about the cause of service member deaths - has no soldier ever died because of careless or reckless behavior, intoxication, or other unknown circumstance? Those questions are never raised apparently.

We make much of the fact that we have a volunteer military. These people have chosen to go into the service and have been willing to be sent into combat, to place themselves in harm's way if ordered.

We have no way to know why this young soldier killed himself and his parents are left to deal with their own grief. Though they received all of the other benefits accorded families, the flag, taps at his buriel and apparently the usual financial assistance given families, but they wondered why not the comfort of a presidential letter of condolence.

I think presidents have a duty to represent the people of this country in continuing the tradition of writing to all families who lose a loved one in the service, whether or not a given person is a victim of the hoplessness and depression which has led them to kill themselves. Why further punish their survivors?

OCTOBER DAZE

As I encounter my usual news and opinion sources, papers, televison programs, comments from friends and associates it seems clear that the dominant theme for this fall is impatience, especially impatience with the gestation of this nine month old presidency of Mr. Obama. There was an almost universal air of excitement when he and his family watched the inaugaration parade and we saw them enter their new home together.

Certainly by now the President should have solved the issue of a failing world economy, how many world crises? - Iraq, Iran, Afganistan, Pakistan, North Korea- the campaign promise of a much-needed reform of the health care system with the attendant issue of a public option in health insurance, plus, how many other things? Oh yes, America's standing in world opinion, though the latest reports indicate we are back to number one.
It's only the Rightists on our shores who publically admit they keep hoping our President will fail in every way.

We often hear the old political science class wisdom that some people make good candidates and run well, and others can govern well when they are installed in office, but many can only do one or the other. Was Barack Obama simply an attractive and inspiring candidate, but now a weak leader? One recurring criticism about the stalled health care plan is that he simply threw this to the warring Congress and is sitting back waiting for them to solve the conlicted positions on things like single payer and the public option. That's depending on a solution from an Institution that is rated far lower than his ratings with the public.

Some of this may be style and personality, Obama is professorish even to the slight stammer and hesitancy in answering a question or introducing a subject. We wish that he would bang his fist once in a way and grab lapels like Lyndon Johnson.

But we know the issues and they are huge and complicated and have been around for eight or ten years. In Afganistan alone, the counter-insurgency plan of General McChrystal is generally agreed may take ten years of our involvement to see settled. The news today is that very likely Obama won't be able to close the prison at Guantanamo by the January promised deadline he made during the campaign.

With the exception of the swine flu epidemic, all of these other issues were waitng on his desk when he first reported for work. No one else or group have come up with clear alternative solutions.

I think it's better to pull for the President at this point than to wish him ill, that is wishing it for the whole country.

Still, Mr. President, couldn't you flash a little more fire? We're all waiting.