Afghanistan: America's Longest War... and counting

Andrew Bacevich: Permanent War Now the Norm

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04092010/profile2.html

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal. The war in Afghanistan has claimed more than one thousand American lives and in the last two years alone the lives of more than four thousand Afghan civilians. It's costing American taxpayers over three-and-a-half billion dollars every month—a total of some $264 billion so far. But for all that, in the words of one policy analyst quoted by the New York Times this week, "there are no better angels about to descend on Afghanistan."

The news from that torturous battleground continues to dismay, discourage and enrage. America's designated driver there, Hamid Karzai, is proving increasingly unstable behind the wheel. The United States put Karzai in power and our soldiers have been fighting and dying on his behalf ever since. Despite widespread corrupton in his government. Now he's making threats against the western coalition that is shedding blood and treasure on his behalf.

Even more disturbing,for the moment, are the civilian deaths from nighttime raids andaerial bombings by American and other NATO troops. Just this week, we learned of an apparent cover-up following a Special Forces raid in February that killed five civilians, including three women, two of whom were pregnant. It's believed bullets were gouged from the women's bodies to conceal evidence of American involvement.

This slaughter of innocents has led the pro-American "Economist" magazine to question whether ourentire effort in Afghanistan" has been nothing but a meaningless exercise of misguided violence."

With me is a man with first-hand experience of war. Andrew Bacevich served 23 years, some of them in Vietnam, before retiring from the Army. He's now professor of history and international relations at Boston University. Just this week he was at a US Army War College symposium on the highly pertinent question, "How do we know when a war is over?" His book, "The Limits of Power," was a best-seller and his latest, "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War," comes out this summer. Andrew Bacevich, welcome back to the Journal.

ANDREW BACEVICH: Thank you very much.

BILL MOYERS: These civilian casualties that we've been hearing about, they're inevitable in war, right?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Sure they are. But I think that what's particularly important about the incidents that we're reading about is that they really call into question U.S. strategy. I mean, when General McChrystal conceived of this counterinsurgency approach in Afghanistan, one of the, sort of the core principles is that we would act in ways that would demonstrate our benign intentions. We're supposed to be protecting the population. And when it turns out that U.S. forces are killing non-combatants, and there are repeated incidents that have occurred, I think it calls into question the sincerity, the seriousness of the strategy. Or it calls into question the extent to which McChrystal is actually in control of the forces that he commands.

There doesn't seem to be any noticeable change, and any noticeable reduction in the frequency with which these incidents are occurring. So, I mean, were I an Afghan, I think I would not place a whole heck of a lot of credibility on the claims that, you know, "We're here to help."

BILL MOYERS: That nighttime incident in February that I referred to, you know, one woman killed was a pregnant mother of 10 children. Another was a pregnant mother of 6 children. And our people peddled the story at the time that they had been stabbed to death by family members on an otherwise festive occasion. Was that a lie, do you think, a deliberate lie?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Based on the reports that we read in "The New York Times," yes, it was a deliberate lie. I mean, I think one of the hidden issues here, and it's one that really needs to be brought to the surface, is we have two kinds of forces operating in Afghanistan. We have conventional forces.

BILL MOYERS: The Marines and infantry.

ANDREW BACEVICH: Right. And they are accompanied by reporters. We get at least some amount of information about what these forces are doing and how they're doing it. But in a sense, we have a second army. And the second army are the units that comprise Special Operations forces. They exist in secrecy. They operate in secrecy. Clearly there was a violation of some kind in that incident in February that killed the pregnant women.

The question is, are they being held accountable? Who's being fired? Who's being disciplined? What actions are being taken to ensure that incidents like that will not occur again? And again, this secrecy, the fact that they operate behind this black curtain, I think, makes it more difficult for that kind of accountability to be asserted.

BILL MOYERS: To whom are they responsible behind that black curtain?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, presumably they're responsible to General McChrystal, who is the senior US and NATO commander in Afghanistan. And McChrystal himself comes out of the Special Operations community. That's his entire background is in Special Operations. And you might wonder whether or not that gives him a better understanding of Special Operations to enable him to use that capability more precisely. Or you might wonder if it makes him too sympathetic to Special Operations. They're his guys, so give them a break.

BILL MOYERS: General McChrystal himself has said that we've shot - and this is his words not mine—an amazing number of people over there who did not seem to be a threat to his troops.

ANDREW BACEVICH: I think that is—that's clearly the case. When McChrystal was put in command last year, and devised his counterinsurgency strategy, the essential core principle of that strategy is that we will protect the population. We will protect the people. And the contradiction is that ever since President Obama gave McChrystal the go-ahead to implement that strategy, we have nonetheless continued to have this series of incidents in which we're not only not protecting the population. But indeed we're killing non-combatants.

BILL MOYERS: Given what's happening in the killing of these innocent people, is the very term, "military victory in Afghanistan," an oxymoron?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Oh, this is—yes. And I think one of the most interesting and indeed perplexing things that's happened in the past three, four years is that in many respects, the officer corps itself has given up on the idea of military victory. We could find any number of quotations from General Petraeus, the central command commander, and General McChrystal, the immediate commander in Afghanistan, in which they say that there is no military solution in Afghanistan, that we will not win a military victory, that the only solution to be gained, if there is one, is through bringing to success this project of armed nation-building.

And the reason that's interesting, at least to a military historian of my generation, of the Vietnam generation, is that after Vietnam, this humiliation that we had experienced, the collective purpose of the officer corps, in a sense, was to demonstrate that war worked. To demonstrate that war could be purposeful.

That out of that collision, on the battlefield, would come decision, would come victory. And that soldiers could claim purposefulness for their profession by saying to both the political leadership and to the American people, "This is what we can do. We can, in certain situations, solve very difficult problems by giving you military victory."

Well, here in the year 2010, nobody in the officer corps believes in military victory. And in that sense, the officer corps has, I think, unwittingly really forfeited its claim to providing a unique and important service to American society. I mean, why, if indeed the purpose of the exercise in Afghanistan is to, I mean, to put it crudely, drag this country into the modern world, why put a four-star general in charge of that? Why not—why not put a successful mayor of a big city? Why not put a legion of social reformers? Because the war in Afghanistan is not a war as the American military traditionally conceives of war.

BILL MOYERS: Well, President Obama was in Afghanistan not too long ago, as you know. And he attempted to state the purpose of our war there to our troops.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Our broad mission is clear. We are going to disrupt and dismantle, defeat and destroy al Qaeda and its extremist allies. That is our mission. And to accomplish that goal, our objectives here in Afghanistan are also clear. We're going to deny al Qaeda safe haven. We're going to reverse the Taliban's momentum. We're going to strengthen the capacity of Afghan security forces and the Afghan government so that they can begin taking responsibility and gain confidence of the Afghan people.

BILL MOYERS: That sounds to me like a traditional, classical military assignment, to find the enemy and defeat him.

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, but there's also then the reference to sort of building the capacity of the Afghan government. And that's where, of course, the president, he'd just come from this meeting with President Karzai. Basically, as we understand from press reports, the president sort of administered a tongue-lashing to Karzai to tell him to get his act together. Which then was followed by Karzai issuing his own tongue-lashing, calling into question whether or not he actually was committed to supporting the United States in its efforts in Afghanistan. And again, this kind of does bring us back, in a way, to Vietnam, where we found ourselves harnessed to allies, partners that turned out to be either incompetent or corrupt. Or simply did not share our understanding of what needed to be done for that country.

BILL MOYERS: What does it say to you as a soldier that our political leaders, time and again, send men and women to fight for, on behalf of corrupt guys like Karzai?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, we don't learn from history. And there is this persistent, and I think almost inexplicable belief that the use of military force in some godforsaken country on the far side of the planet will not only yield some kind of purposeful result, but by extension, will produce significant benefits for the United States. I mean, one of the obvious things about the Afghanistan war that is so striking and yet so frequently overlooked is that we're now in the ninth year of this war.

It is the longest war in American history. And it is a war for which there is no end in sight. And to my mind, it is a war that is utterly devoid of strategic purpose. And the fact that that gets so little attention from our political leaders, from the press or from our fellow citizens, I think is simply appalling, especially when you consider the amount of money we're spending over there and the lives that are being lost whether American or Afghan.

BILL MOYERS: But President Obama says, our purpose is to prevent the Taliban from creating another rogue state from which the jihadists can attack the United States, as happened on 9/11. Isn't that a strategic purpose?

ANDREW BACEVICH: I mean, if we could wave a magic wand tomorrow and achieve in Afghanistan all the purposes that General McChrystal would like us to achieve, would the Jihadist threat be substantially reduced as a consequence? And does anybody think that somehow, Jihadism is centered or headquartered in Afghanistan? When you think about it for three seconds, you say, "Well, of course, it's not. It is a transnational movement."

BILL MOYERS: They can come from Yemen. They can come from—

ANDREW BACEVICH: They can come from Brooklyn. So the notion that somehow, because the 9/11 attacks were concocted in this place, as indeed they were, the notion that therefore, the transformation of Afghanistan will provide some guarantee that there won't be another 9/11 is patently absurd. Quite frankly, the notion that we can prevent another 9/11 by invading and occupying and transforming countries is absurd.

BILL MOYERS: In this context, then, what do we do about what is a real threat, from people who want to kill us, the Jihadists. What do we do about that?

ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, we need to assess the threat realistically. Osama bin Laden is not Adolf Hitler. Al-Qaeda is not Nazi Germany. Al-Qaeda poses a threat. It does not pose an existential threat. We should view Al-Qaeda as the equivalent of an international criminal conspiracy. Sort of a mafia that in some way or another draws its energy or legitimacy from a distorted understanding of a particular religious tradition.

And as with any other international criminal conspiracy, the proper response is a police effort. I mean, a ruthless, sustained, international police effort to identify the thugs, root out the networks and destroy it. Something that would take a long period of time and would no more succeed fully in eliminating the threat than the NYPD is able to fully eliminate criminality in New York City.

BILL MOYERS: You participated this week in a symposium at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on the subject, "How will we know when a war ends?" So, the boots are on the ground there. The troops are there, committed, at least through 2011. What do we do?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I have to say, and I mean, I'm sure this sounds too simplistic. It would be way too simplistic for people in Washington. But if you want to get out of a war, you get out of a war. I mean, you call General McChrystal and say, "Your mission has changed. And your mission is to organize an orderly extrication of US forces."

You know, if it were me, I'd say, "General McChrystal, call me back in two weeks and tell me what the plan is and how long it's going to take." But war termination for us has come to be very difficult, because of our inability to understand the war that we undertake.

We are now close to a decade into what the Pentagon now calls, "The Long War." And it is a war in which one-half of one percent of the American people bear the burden. And the other 99.5 percent basically go on about their daily life, as if the war did not exist.

I mean, the great paradox of the Long War, is that it seems the Long War consists of a series of campaigns with Iraq and Afghanistan being the two most important, although one could add Pakistan and Yemen to the list, in which there seems to be no way to wind down the campaign.

Or to claim from the campaign some positive benefit that allows us to say that the end date of the long war is any closer. And we do find ourselves in this circumstance where permanent war now seems to have become the norm. And we don't know what to do about that.

BILL MOYERS: There's something else that President Obama said when he was in Afghanistan. Take a look at this:
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The United States of America does not quit once it starts on something. You don't quit, the American Armed Services does not quit, we keep at it, we persevere, and together with our partners we will prevail. I am absolutely confident of that.

BILL MOYERS: How do you read that?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I think the president has, he's placed down this enormous bet. A bet involves 100 thousand American soldiers.

And the deterioration of circumstances, for example, if Karzai turns out to be an unreliable ally, even that will make it extraordinarily difficult for the president to now say, "Well, I've changed my mind. I'm going to take that, I'm going to take that bet off the table." So in that sense, the rhetoric is not at all surprising, I think. And of course, it's historically incorrect. We quit after the Mogadishu firefight in Somalia. I think that it probably was prudent to quit. That doesn't make Somalia a great place today. We quit in Vietnam, having paid an enormous cost, to try to maintain the viability of South Vietnam. So there are times actually when it makes sense to quit.

BILL MOYERS: Should we quit in Afghanistan?

ANDREW BACEVICH: I think so. I mean again, I believe that ultimately, a sound foreign policy should be informed by an enlightened understanding of one's own interests. That's what we pay people like President Obama big money to do, to advance our collective interests, what's good for this country, this people. And the perpetuation of the war in Afghanistan is not good for this country and for our people.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Because we are squandering our treasure. We are losing lives for no purpose. And ultimately, the perpetuation of this unnecessary war does, I think, serve to exacerbate the problems within the Islamic world, rather than reducing those problems.

BILL MOYERS: Andrew Bacevich, thank you for joining me on the Journal. And we'll continue this conversation on our website at PBS.org.

Obama Beats the Drum on Iran - Where's the change?

It's ironic and hypocritical that the USA fires off missiles as a regular part of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq for years, killing hundreds and thousands of innocent women and children and then raises a political stink about Iran test firing unarmed missiles within their own territory. The irony and the hypocrisy hardly ends there. The USA must look to its own non-compliance as a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Scott Ritter was one of the more out-spoken UN weapons inspectors in Iraq who campaigned to continue weapons inspections in order to end the murderous sanctions and avoid war. He was also very vocal about denying the Bush/Cheney claim of WMDs in Iraq.
Go to Mr Ritter's article in the Guardian entitled,
"Keeping Iran Honest; Iran's secret nuclear plant will spark a new round of IAEA inspections and lead to a period of even greater transparency."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/25/iran-secret-nuclear-plant-inspections

Then watch his interview on Democracy Now!
">script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.democracynow.org/embed_show_v1/300/2009/9/29/segment/2">

Armey's Incestuous Lobby Firms

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Question of Torture

Rice, Ashcroft Approved Torture in July 2002

More details have been revealed on high-level Bush administration involvement in authorizing torture. According to a timeline in the newly declassified Senate Intelligence Committee report, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top White House officials approved torture methods, including waterboarding, as early as 2002. Attorney General Eric Holder has described waterboarding as illegal, while President Obama now says he won’t rule out prosecuting top Bush officials who approved illegal acts. Rice’s backing came in July 2002, when she gave a green light for the interrogation of suspected al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah. One year later, the list of officials voicing approval grew to Vice President Dick Cheney, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and National Security Council legal adviser John Bellinger.

Torture Memos Released

Rethinking Afghanistan - part one

http://rethinkafghanistan.com/troop_trailer.php

This is the first of three installments of a very good film by Robert Greenwald and the Brave New Foundation. This documentary focuses on the financial burden of the undeclared and illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rampant criminal war profiteering.I It side-steps the cost in civilian lives, the destruction of societies and immorality and wickedness of these barbarous conflicts.

Noam Chomsky on Democracy Now!

Regarding the GOP and Bipartisanship

To quote George Carlin…

"F*@K ‘em!"

For more than 8 years the Grand Old Putzes have been sticking it to us. They lost. They’re out of the White House and in the minority in both Houses. Let them go lick their wounds and plot their seamy revenge.

It was a gentlemanly gesture of magnanimity on Obama’s part to promote bipartisanship and attempt to work with the other side of the aisle. Very mature and wise. Now, it’s time to sit their pudgy asses on the back bench (to use a British term) and let them play mumbly-peg with their pages.

The GOP never gave the same consideration to the Dems. In fact, once the GOPs were in power they banished Dems from participation in a series of procedural power grabs.

Enough ‘Mister Good-guy-winner’. That move to put GOPs in the cabinet sickens me. It’s tantamount to putting the fox in charge of the henhouse; relying on the fox’s better nature to leave the hens alone.

I have an idea! Let’s put Karl Rove in the cabinet and just wash our hands of ever getting the US back on a democratic course.

Naw, let’s not and say we didn’t.

Tell all those money-grubbing, power-grabbing neo-cons and their slimy sycophantic associates to take a flying leap through a rolling loophole.

We Interrupt this Interview...

...to bring an important message:
The Bush/Cheney era is over. The wanna-be king and his 'Richelieu' are gone. Long live the Republic!

A Not-So-Modest To-Do List for Obama's First Term

Here's a not-so-modest list of actions that should be taken by Obama in his first term in order to right the ship of state and return the United States to the path of a true democratic republic – of the people, by the people and for the people. This is by no means complete or comprehensive; nor are the items listed by priority or expediency.

1. End the illegal war in Iraq and remove all US personnel and contractors other than those necessary for manning and securing the US embassy at levels consistent with other embassies in the Middle-east.

2. End the illegal war in Afghanistan and remove all US personnel and contractors other than those necessary for manning and securing the US embassy at levels consistent with other embassies in the Western Asia.

3. Begin formal process for the providing war reparations to the people (not the governments) of Iraq and Afghanistan through NGOs. (e.g. Red Cross/Red Crescent, CARE, Doctors Without Borders, etc)

4. Arrange a series of formal meetings between the high-level US State Department officials and high-level Iranian officials.

5. Bring the US into full compliance with the IAEA and the non-proliferation treaty.

6. Fund and promote alternative energy sources, comprehensive energy and resource management policies and ‘Green’ product development.

7. Bring the US into reasonable accord with the international community regarding war, human rights, economic policy, etc and assume a temporary non-voting seat on the UN Security Council.

8. Withdraw unconditional support for State of Israel. France, the oldest ally of the United States does not have that permanent status. American foreign policy is NOT Israeli foreign policy and vice versa.

9. End the bloat at the Pentagon; keep our armed forces strong but keep them at home. (Homeland Security... get it?) Reduce the Pentagon budget by at least 50% over the next four years.

10. End the Federal Reserve's strangle hold on the economic lives of the US people. Make the Federal Reserve directly accountable to Congress by placing it within the Treasury Department. Limit each term of the Federal Reserve Board Chairman to 4 years with a limit of two consecutive terms.

11. Amend the fractional reserve system and return to the gold and silver standard.

12. Remove corporate entities from Constitutional protection as individuals. Corporate entities are NOT individuals any more than any organization (e.g. the Catholic Church, the Lions Club, the Republican Party, etc) is an individual but rather a formal association of individuals comprising a group. If an entity does not develop from a human fetus then the entity is not, CANNOT be a citizen and therefore is NOT entitled to the rights of citizenship.

13. Stop all of this blather about the Free Market as if it's Holy Writ. Regulation of industry, business enterprises and corporations are as necessary as regulation of government and therefore in a democratic society must be primarily for the benefit of the people.

14. Let failing commercial enterprises fail but provide workers a safety net. The bosses responsible for the failure of the enterprise are guaranteed ‘Golden Parachutes’ why shouldn’t the workers who toiled and gave their sweat, blood and life-force as wage-slaves be afforded the same guarantee?

15. Social services must come before service to commercial enterprises including the military-industrial complex (i.e. the Pentocracy).

16. Dismantle the Patriot Act brick by brick and restore the constitutional rights of citizens and residents.

17. Abrogate the Imperial presidency and restore the Constitutional balance of power.

18. End signing statements and restrict the power and number of presidential orders per term.

19. Declassify all documents related to the events of 9/11.

20. Declassify all documents related to the Torture Programs, Rendition and Black Sites.

21. Declassify all documents related to the illegal wire-taping of US citizens.

22. Repeal and renege on the order of amnesty to those companies which participated in any illegal wire-taping.

23. Establish a bi-partisan commission to re-investigate the 9/11 attacks.

24. Establish bi-partisan commissions to investigate the possible War Crimes committed by members of the Bush/Cheney administrations.

25. Establish bi-partisan commissions to investigate the possible crimes committed by members of the Bush/Cheney administrations against the Constitution and civic law.

26. Name independent prosecutors with full subpoena powers for each of the aforementioned commissions cited on this list.

27. Last but not least, repeal the National Security Act of 1947 and the subsequent mis-named security acts and dismantle the Security State for the sake of the republic, the people and the world.

Phun Presidential Phacts: not-so-trivial trivia

Here's a little brain-teaser the answer to which will make any Liberal or Progressive suffer gastro-intestinitis and probably make many Libertarians and old-school Conservatives blanch.

On Hardball - in case you missed it - Chris Matthews brought forth this little bar-bet fodder:

"When was the last time the Republican party won the White House without Nixon or a Bush on the ticket?"

For the answer go to:

http://votersthink.org/?p=664

Get your Pepto ready...

Is there anyone in this country that hasn't yet gotten the idea that the USA is very flawed as an example of a truly Democratic Republic? This nation is governed by the business elite through their appointed lackeys - and Bush I & II and Nixon are only three on a long list of Oval Office stooges.

Should Obama win (knock wood), he will be castigated by the Righteous Right for simply out-spending poor Sen McCain in a further attempt to undermine the legitimacy of his presidency.

(They will of course fail to mention that Bush II set the bar that Obama bested because that would negate their point and rob Bill-O and Rash Limberger of an opportunity to riff and rant)

The Right will be (gulp) right. It takes a bloody fortune to gain occupancy of the White House. Is another metric necessary to convince Americans that we are governed by the elite? You have got to be super rich or make lots of back-room deals with those who have the money to burn because they have even vaster amounts to make should their candidate win.

Is it any wonder that social programs get such short shrift?

How IS the Weather underground, anyway?

I just watched the documentary 'The Weather Underground' - good stuff. That time was part of my political awakening - anti-Nixon/anti-war leaflet passing, anti-war rallies, the 'good old days' of political activism.

I distinctly remember attending a rally in Lincoln Park in Chicago when I was bewildered and taken aback by the change in temperment of the whole 'Movement' (as it was called then) when the 'peace sign' turned into the Power to the People salute.

What disturbed me then and still disturbs me today is that the sign of peace was replaced by the clenched fist and a call for violent action.

Back to our story...

The Weathermen split from the already radicalized Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to be even more radical and preach the violent over-throw of the US government. They started vandalizing and aggressively challenging and provoking violent police reaction, the Days of Rage and other bad moves.

Amateur, wanna-be revolutionaries going up against the police and the National Guard in a head-to-billy-club match-up? What were they thinking...?

What I distinctly remember is that later, it was revealed that FBI agents had infiltrated the SDS and the Weather faction and had actually promoted and instigated the radical change from peaceful to violent action. The FBI went so far as to supply explosives and other stuff from the revolutionary starter-set. (This is well-documented, so before I get challenged on this, I ask that you do your own research. Thanks)

No excuses for the actions of the Weathermen but when Palin and McCain start bringing up domestic terrorist-has-beens, someone in the media and the public should make comment that the FBI (and probably the CIA) were actively working with the Bill Ayers and company as co-conspirators and terrorists during the Weather faction's most violent days.

Hope is a man called 'Ralph'

If Obama can avoid the stumble at the finish-line - a Dem tradition - he should name Ralph Nader to his Cabinet.
For an entertaining and informative video, go to
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=KR-V6bl41zU

Ralph gabs with the folks at Google. Level-headed, clear-eyed observations of the American political scene.

Phony Debates and Rightful Entitlements

God, I hate these phony ‘debates’. I detest mentally and typographically bracketing the term with inverted commas. These are NOT debates. These are loosely structured opportunities for political stumping in a disingenuous setting meant to elicit intellectual formality and in the case of the ‘town-hall’ format a hint of democratic involvement by the people. Calling these sound-bite cavalcades ‘debates’ is like calling an under-done pork chop a pig; a lifeless, half-baked slice of the real thing served up for consumption.

The one point that seemed to hover like shrouded doom over the sound-stage of the most recent exchange of talking points was the matter of ‘entitlements’ and social programs. We all know (or should know by now) with rueful certainty that whenever politicians start to sound off about tax cuts and spending cuts, they mean one thing – social programs and ‘entitlements’ are going to get the ax. The programs might not be eliminated altogether; that would be political suicide. All that needs to be done is to severely limit the amount of funding to the programs and they become moribund. (The vaunted ‘No Child Left Behind’ programs springs to mind along with George Carlin’s bit where he states “No child left behind; it used to be the ‘Head-start Program’. Looks like we’re losing ground.” Or words to that effect – my apologies to George. RIP)

On the other hand – the dirty one - Pentagon ‘defense’ contracts to GE, Lockheed and the others scarffing the slop at the trough needn’t worry about the volume of swill flowing from the public coffers. They’ll most assuredly get theirs for keeping our nation safe for pork-barrels, boondoggles and ear-marks and save from peaceful initiative and diplomatic negotiation.

Of course, as private citizens, we know we’re going to get ours, too – right in the neck. Moreover, we know that whoever gets picked in November for on-the-job training in the Oval Office will choose to look beyond the pitiable effects of program cuts on individuals losing health benefits or income assistance and will focus, instead on reports on voter demographics for guidance on which programs get the short end.

This is maddening. Big John Madden-type maddening because it’s so ‘boom-bam; run the ball up the middle’ simple. That such simplicity, such obvious, self-evident nodules of truth must be pointed out, declared and clarified to an educated, adult public sets my head to shaking and my mind to boogling.

There is a perfectly good reason the term 'entitlements' is used when discussing Medi-care, Medicaid, Social Security and the other pitiful scraps that Washington deems to toss our way.

Need I say it? I guess I do - They are called 'entitlements' because we, the people who are taxed and who then provide them to ourselves for our own benefit, are ENTITLED to them.

Furthermore, not only are we entitled to the sorry dog-ends we currently snatch and scurry back to our stool in the corner with but much, much more. Consider this: a tenth of the current bail-out/sellout package would pay for universal health care for every American. Why aren't we getting it?

That is not a rhetorical question. We deserve an answer that satisfies us.

The USA is the only modern industrial nation that does NOT have universal health care. All the other industrial nations, including the Republic of China on Taiwan, have manageable, affordable health care for every citizen. Many countries, like Taiwan, even include resident aliens in the health care programs.

Where is the political will of the people, the working men and women of America? We should all be demanding that our money – OUR MONEY – be used to provide free universal health care for each and every man, woman and child. We should demand that the USA should take its place amongst the other industrialized nations, France, Germany, Canada, Great Britain by legislating and funding a universal health care system that benefits all Americans.

Speaking of which, McCain and other Republicrats like to boast about the American worker being the most industrious, hardest-working, workers in the world. Politicians like to polish the apple when talking to the cogs in the wheels of industry. (That's the way politicians operate; they butter you up before they stick you in the roaster.)

Do you ever wonder why the Western Europeans don’t much bother to match that boast about 'hard-working Americans'? It's simple. Western Europeans have, on average, 4 weeks of paid vacation annually. They also get sick days, maternity days for both parents, personal days, public and religious holidays OFF - mostly with pay. Yet, despite the fact that European workers may not match American workers in productivity or the number of hours clocked each week, Europeans have universal health care, tuition-free university education, free trade-schooling and a list of public entitlements that goes on and on. Now, Europe is no utopia, but the E.U. is seriously kicking America’s butt economically. (There’s no reason to think that the recent on-going serial catastrophes on Wall Street will change that, either.) Whatever social entitlement programs are prevalent in Europe and Asia, they have not disabled their economies. No question.

We're sold the tale that America is the richest, most powerful, most productive, most enterprising nation on earth. Yet Americans don't provide themselves universal health care or publically funded tertiary education programs. For years, as shown time and again in reputable polls, the majority of Americans want universal health care as well as other social entitlement programs yet the representatives chosen to service the will of the people choose to serve the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical companies and the other profit-driven health-care corporations. This is an unacceptable disconnect of public need, public will and public policy.

What gives?

Not the trickle-down Reaganite policies that have destroyed the social services programs that had been put into place by the New Deal and LBJ's Great Society, programs that assisted many citizens who needed and were entitled to assistance, that's for certain. Those ‘Chicago-boy’, neo-liberal economic theories championed by Milton Freidman have failed - quite often miserably.

Here is the lesson learned about ‘Trickle-down Economic’: The rapacious, anti-social greed of the super-rich allows only the slimmest stream of offal to trickle down to those at the very nadir of the withered teat of neo-liberal economic policies.

As woefully evidenced in Latin America, Africa and Indonesia, the policies of ‘Freidmanites’ more often than not send infant mortality rates higher, life expectancy lower and the majority of the population into horrifically abject levels of poverty and destitution while aggrandizing the ruling oligarchy and enriching the corporate elite.

With the on-going collapse of the investment banking system of high-stakes, high-risk gambling with massive, crushing debt, we are witnessing the neo-liberal policies which the IMF, the World Bank and the US State Department, in collusion with multi-national corporations, have ruthlessly forced upon the Third World with dire consequences come home to roost.

The Chicago Boys of Pinoche’s Chile have invaded the Beltway, folks. They have begun to demand that the American people give up the few still existing social programs that haven’t already been ransacked or discarded by Reagan, Clinton and the Bush Dynasty. McCain and Obama are both talking about cutting taxes and eliminating programs. As stated before, social entitlement programs are always at the top of the neo-con and neo-liberal hit-lists.

How has it come to this?: that the only time the Congress and the White House will support socialist economic policies is to benefit the largest of corporate entities? The American people have been bamboozled and betrayed by their representatives and agents in government service.

Our voices must be raised in unison to demand to know why we are draining the life’s blood from the American work-force and pumping billions into failed banking enterprises brought low by rampant, insatiable greed. We must demand that our government of the people, by the people and for the people steward, safe-guard and protect the health of the American people. We must demand that we get what is rightfully coming to us as citizens of a modern democratic republic – social entitlements.

Let’s see how deftly Obama and McCain can ‘sound-bite’ their way out of that demand in a one-minute rebuttal.

An '-ism' by Any Other Name

I learned a valuable lesson this past weekend about the sensitivity some have for certain words.

Now, as an English teacher and a writer of several different genres, I pride myself on recognizing words which are emotionally charged. One must know the tools of one's trade, as it were, though writing editorials is most certainly more an avocation than profession for me.

After hearing the First Big 'Debate' of this never-ending election season, I chose to respond by pointing out an error by McCain in the exchange of sound bites; an error that clearly illustrated that McCain is out of touch.

(The article The First Big 'Debate' of '08 can be read here at Lexis, Nexus, Solar Plexus.)

I had also submitted the piece to OpEdNews.com. It will most likely not be posted at that site because, even though I was 'strongly advised' not to use a certain word, I went ahead and submitted the article to the editors at OpEdNews with the questionable word unexpunged.

Subsequently, I got a notice from OpEdNews that, unlike the other 22 articles I've posted at that most excellent of sites, ‘The Big ‘Debate’ of ‘08’ was not acceptable; it did not meet their standards. The email rejection letter included some boilerplate blather about suggested guide-lines for editing, grammar, collocation, etc; a softly worded chastisement.

Okay, cool, I sometimes miss things. Nobody’s perfect.

It was the 'PS - NOTE' added above the signature of my rejection email, however, that zeroed in on what I must consider the actual stumbling block for my piece being accepted. It was not poor grammar or fractured syntax or serious failings in style that barred my article from the cyber-soapbox (although, this scribbler has been guilty of the aforementioned infractions). It was the use of that certain objectionable, inflammatory term which I dare not state here, my wrist having been ever-so-gently slapped by my anonymous editor at OpEdNews.

(I can give you a hint though, I suppose, as I imagine you are dying to know what word in this post-Carlin (RIP), gangsta-rap world might induce an editor to reach for the ‘reject’ stamp. It’s a seven-letter word that begins with the terminal letter of the English alphabet, includes the letters, I, O and N and ends in the suffix denoting a system of belief, government, organization, philosophy, etc; 'I-S-M', -ism.)

You can imagine my chagrin. I had been warned before I completed the submission process that the word was offensive and might lead to the rejection of the article. I felt the word was properly used and, in context, did not constitute ‘hate’ speech, so I naively ignored the caveat.

The thoughtful post-script that nudged me back onto the high road of Political Correctness was accompanied by a bit of friendly advice suggesting that perhaps I didn't quite understand the words or the concepts I was attempting to use.

I must commend the effort on the part of the anonymous, hard-working editor to steer me back to the straight and narrow. I must make my commendation and declare my appreciation for his/her taking the time for the sake of good independent journalism here at this blog because the signature of the rejection email advised that it was unmonitored. Any response in defense of my use of an apparently indefensible word would not be received or read by anyone at OpEdNews.

So, here goes…

Dear Anonymous OpEdNews Editor,

My deepest appreciation and very special thanks goes to you, my guardian PC angel.

Kiss-kiss, hug, hug! Good things…

PS NOTE: I would like to say that I do truly consider supportable the notion that a nation and a theory of political governance are two separate concepts and therefore contend that both concepts cannot be encompassed by a single lexical item. The map is not the territory, so to speak.