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April, 2003 |
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April 30, 2003 - The other day a woman came to see me to discuss the prospects of divorcing her husband. Divorce is not always the answer to a troubled marriage so I asked some questions about the relationship. “It is his irresponsibility”, she told me, “He just won’t face facts. The other day he came home and announced that he was ‘tired’ of being the one of the working poor and he wanted to cut down to a part-time job. She was incensed since his reduced income would not cover their monthly bills. They had been maintaining their lifestyle with credit cards and had gotten deeply in a hole. She had always been able to handle it, she said, before. When one card was maxed out she simply applied for a new one and kept the ball rolling. Now the debt had grown so large that they could not handle it any more. She had just been turned down for a new Visa. She simply couldn’t handle him wanting to cut their income in the time of crisis. I sent them to a good bankruptcy lawyer...click here for entire article April 29, 2003 - America is fighting a war with the Moslem world. If you doubt that then you understand neither the history nor the nature of the two trunks growing from the Jewish religious root. There are two active campaigns in this war, both not yet completed, and both far from that state when America can proclaim victory. Nor is it a war that can be won in a matter of weeks, or months, or even years if it can be won at all. President Bush unknowingly spoke the truth in his impolitic proclamation of a Crusade. The War on Terrorism has become a war between Christianity and Islam and the War in Afghanistan and the Second Iraqi War are just the opening episodes of a long running drama..click here for entire article April 25, 2003 - David Joseph is 18 years old, a bit older than Elian Gonzales. Like Elian Gonzales he tried to come to the United States on a leaky boat. Like Elian Gonzales his boat did not make it, but unlike Elian he made it to shore under his own power. If , like Elian, he had been Cuban he would have been admitted under the “dry foot” rule. But David is not Cuban, he is Haitian. Still, David tried to do things right. He applied for asylum and asked the Immigration Judge to be released on bond while his application was processed. The judge considered David’s circumstances and ordered that he be released on bond. The Immigration and Naturalization Service appealed that ruling and David was detained until the appeal was heard. The Appeals Board held for the young man and affirmed the Immigration Judge’s order releasing him on bond. The INS then referred the matter to the Justice Department and David was held until that review was completed. Last Friday David had been in detention for six months. His application for asylum is still pending..click here for entire article| April 23, 2003 - Politics and Basketball have much in common. Basketball coaches and Politician make their livings by distracting the public from the everyday mundane aspects of life. Its just that basketball coaches in the 21st century make a lot more money than do politicians or even Presidents by doing it. A basketball coach landing a job in a major collegiate program becomes an instant millionaire. A fellow becomes President only after he has become a millionaire or at least become great friends with several of them. An ex-basketball coach looks forward to a comfortable retirement if he has been successful. An ex-President can look forward to access to the big bucks, whether it comes in the form of million dollar speaking fees and gifts from other millionaires like Ronnie Reagan or publisher’s advances for unwritten books like the most recent ex-President. Is it any wonder that Presidents adopt policies that tend to favor society’s biggest winners while making sure that the rest of the people are distracted by events from the reality of what those policies will mean in their every day lives..click here for entire article| April 22, 2003 - The pundits are reporting that all the President’s Men are planning on capitalizing the image of a winner in the Iraqi campaign to push the Bush tax cut through Congress. The University of Illinois lost its successful basketball coach to a Kansas deal that will pay Bill Self a reported $1.4M per year, a good third of it tax sheltered deferred income. On the surface these two facts seem to have little to do with the other, but bear with me just a moment..click here for entire article April 22, 2003 - America is a nation of epigrams, simplistic phrases that we use to explain the complex ideas by which we organize our society and our government. Some of them have their roots in sports. Baseball gave us, “Nice guys finish last” and, “It Ain’t over ‘til its over”. Political speeches gave us, “Government of the People, by the People, and for the People”, and “Ask not what your country can do for you”. One of the most important, “The rule of law and not of men”, has origins lost in the mists of antiquity but it has been found in the “Book of Lord Shang” written by Gongsan Yang in the 4th Century B.C.E...click here for entire article April 18, 2003 - I admit it. I was surprised that the Iraqi armed services were so easily overcome. I expected the Allied body count to be far greater than the 157 that it has been. My expectations were based upon the information originating in my government and disseminated by government design through the media to which I have access. In the run-up to the Second Iraqi War my government painted a picture of an implacable foe with a dedicated and well trained military force armed with fearsome weapons. Part of that picture was designed to justify the resort to war that we knew had been inevitable since the President made his January, 2002 declaration of the Axis of Evil. Part of it was designed to minimize the political consequences flowing from the impact of the death and injury to America’s youth. Our expectations were formed by the information we were provided...click here for entire article April 17, 2003 - As the Second Iraqi War winds down American Policy in the Mid-East is taking on more and more of a Through the Looking Glass quality. Arch villains Usama and Saddam either grow or shrink in menacing stature depending upon which bottle from which the Administration has imbibed that day. Word and evidence are construed to mean what ever Rumsfeld and Powell, the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of the Administration, choose that they will mean that day. The absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction proves the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The UN Security Counsel was relegated to the position of the Queen of Hearts jury when it was asked to give its verdict now and have the trial later while the Queen shouted, “Off with their heads!” and all the time invoking The Rule of Law. “Who cares for you”, said Alice, “You’re nothing but a pack of cards.” Sure enough her prediction came true as someone in Central Command gave Saddam and his hierarchy over to a full deck of 55 ranked from the Ace of Spades right down to the Joker...click here for entire article April 14, 2003 - On this morning’s Vince and Tommy Show live from Qatar the featured opening video showed American troops and Iraqi firemen manning the hoses while they extinguished a fire burning at a pipeline valve in the southern oil fields. General Brooks took pains to explain that the clip showed Coalition Forces working to assist Iraqi’s in rebuilding their country. Later in the show the clip was rerun, this time to illustrate General Brooks’ comments about getting the oil fields up and running. The evident cooperation was inspiring but it did raise a question. Since the Iraqi firemen and service personnel are putting out the fires and, according to General Brooks only one fire is burning at a well in the northern oil fields, just what work is left for Halliburton to do for its $7 Billion no-bid Pentagon contract for emergency oil field services?...click here for entire article April 12, 2003 - Abraham the Patriarch of Judaism, Islam and Christianity, father of Isaac and Ishmael, was born in Ur of the Chaldees in that cradle of civilizations we call modern Iraq. It was here that Hammurabi decreed mankind’s first code of laws. Until this week it was here, in Baghdad that the National Museum of Iraq held the world’s most extensive collection of artifacts recovered in the archeological study of Mesopotamia. The collection was a priceless treasure, priceless in money but even more priceless to the process of learning of our common cultural heritage. That collection is gone today, swallowed by the maw of the marauding mob, looted from the display cases and storage vaults of the museum. It is not just a loss to the people of Iraq of a national treasure. It is a loss to the people of the world of the common treasure of scholarship and knowledge, a crime against each one of us. The looting of the museum strikes a equal blow to both the vanquished people and their conquerors at once. It is ironic that it should be perpetrated in the birthplace of law itself. Most grievously it took place in the presence of the conquering American military that did little to stop the rapine but stood by and watched the history of mankind be carried away...click here for entire article. April 11, 2003 - When Louis XVI contemplated the collapse of his government in 1792 the king is said to have predicted that chaos would follow with this well remembered epigram. Indeed the prediction came true as the rule of the monarchy was replaced with the rule of the mob and the Terror presided over by Madame Guillotine. The words uttered in 18th Century Paris would be as apt had they not been heard then but saved until April 2003 and spoken first in Baghdad. We have seen the flood of anarchy that follows the deposition of a tyrant on our television screens, first in Basra and then in the Iraqi Capitol and then in Kirkut and Mosel. Statues have fallen as the population encouraged and assisted by the coalition forces cleansed their public squares of the symbols of the Ba’athist regime. While coalition forces stood by the celebration in the name of freedom gave way to riot in the name of license. Government buildings and the homes of Iraqi Aristocrats were looted and sacked. Even the hospitals have been sacked of medicines and medical supplies. The license to appropriate property has spread to shops and private property as imposed order gave way to anarchy while coalition soldiers watched. Asked about the chaos and the implied criticism that the US army was merely watching General Brooks replied that the coalition was not there to impose its will on the population and suggested that order and security would be the responsibility of the Iraqi population...click here for entire article. April 10, 2003 - As one by one the symbols of Saddam Hussein's all persuasive authority are toppled it is tempting to wax euphoric at what appears to be the latest triumph of American and British arms. But that euphoria is tempered somewhat by the split screen images of a statue coming down west of the Tigris and the eruption of a vicious ambush attack upon a marine column east of the same river. It was a disquieting conjuncture of scenes of exuberant victory and popular uprising with scenes of continuing combat; a sobering reminder that the battle is not yet over and the last casualties of the Iraqi campaign have not yet been counted...click here for entire article.
April 4, 2003 - The acknowledged allied body count stands at 110 tonight not counting the 18 Kurds and their companions that we killed today. Baghdad is invested and its airport, though not quite secure, is landing military flights. American tank columns race through the capitol city to impress the enemy. The cost of the exercise was one dead tank commander, one dead tank and several wounded. They tell us that the escape routes to Tikrit, Damascus or Amman have been plugged by special operations units; that the quarry is trapped in his den...click here for entire article. April 4, 2003 - Tom Delay knows a thing or two about conducting a campaign to rid the world of implacable enemies. I'll wager that he knows a thing or two about using chemical agents to defeat the foe. Of course he fought against nothing more dangerous to him than Texas sized termites and fire ants. Now I certainly do not mean to diminish the challenge to humanity that fire ants pose (I have visited Texas and became too intimately acquainted with the formidable critters) but Majority Leader Delay's long service in the war against Texas bugs is hardly the equivalent of the distinguished military career of retired General Wesley Clark. Certainly the vertically challenged Rep. Delay might well have come up with a better choice of derisive epithets than to refer to General Clark as a "blow-dried Napoleon"...click here for entire article. April 4, 2003 - The Administration
leaks an intelligence appreciation that suggests that the Saddam appearances
were all taped before George Bush jumped the gun on his own ultimatum
and sent the cruise missiles to decapitate the Iraqi despot. CENTCOM
says it doesn’t know one way or the other whether anyone at all
is controlling the Iraqi army. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
says that he doesn’t have definitive intelligence reports that
indicate whether Saddam is alive or dead. Does it make a difference?...click
here for entire article.
April 2, 2003 - In the aftermath of the eruption of criticism of the Secretary of Defense from anonymous ranking officers both the Secretary himself and the Joint Chiefs, who signed off on what Rumsfeld is calling the “Tommy Franks Plan” are waging a spirited defense even as the troops in the field resume the offensive ending the pause that wasn’t. General Myers has called the criticism from the corps of retired officers almost treasonous though it is hard to see how complaining about inadequate force levels puts one soldier in peril. It seems that the fellow in the tench with the AK-47 is doing that....click here for entire article April 1, 2003 - General William Wallace let the cat out of the bag last week when he said that “this isn’t the enemy we war gamed against.” His comment, widely reported and just as widely contradicted, was just the iceberg tip of the struggle between the uniformed services and the Defense Department political bosses. Members of his staff privately support their boss but have expressed doubts about the effect of his candor on the rest of his career. It is hazardous to the career health of a military man to openly express criticism of your political superiors – even when events demonstrate the accuracy of your comments. Calling the balls and strikes the way you see them is not the best way to get along with your civilian bosses....click here for entire article |
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