Monday Musings: July 26, 2010

“I think that’s a decision we’ll make in February or March,” Gingrich said on “Fox News Sunday” of a presidential run. “This is a very hard family decision because it’s such a deep commitment and it is so absorbing.” Newt Gingrich

Oh, promise me that you’ll consult one of your families, Newt. I’ll even try to help you decide which one - the wife with breast cancer that you were cheating on, or …. these things can become confusing, even for a ‘practicing’ Roman Catholic.

For Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont and former DNC Chair, to come out supporting Gingrich, saying that he would add ‘intellectual’ depth to a Republican primary is rather like saying Mengele added dimension to the Nazi medical program.

What is Howard Dean smoking?

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What has Reno, Nevada got to show for $1 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan?

As of 10:06 a.m., Sunday, May 30th, the United States will have spent $1 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Perhaps it’s a sad sort of poetic justic that this milestone should come as we all celebrate those family members and friends who’ve served our country. But, it couldn’t be a better time to take stock - getting a reality check might be a better way of thinking of it - about our continuing involvement in two wars, despite having elected a president who campaigned as an anti-war president.

Congress goes on vacation, having allowed for a third time this year to allow extended unemployment benefits to lapse. It’s just too expensive.

The long fought health care reform package, estimated at a 10 year cost of $1 trillion has been deemed by opponents as too expensive for America.

A billing pending in Congress will add another $37 billion to this year’s spending.

Representative John Conyers had this to say about what war spending has really cost:

“What could we have purchased with this $1 trillion?

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Messages from Afghanistan ... different viewpoints

One of my loyal readers is a military man, and sees the issue from a ‘military perspective’. Fair enough. But, it also seems as though that’ military perspective’ varies, and cannot be expressed so simply.

Indeed, even some of our military are deeply concerned about the efficacy of Obama’s new Afghan strategy, as are Afghan people themselves, in addition to such experts on the region as Col. Andrew Bacevich and Robert Baer of the CIA.

Listen in:

Deja vu all over again: Obama to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan

It disappoints me that he keeps invoking September 11 and Al Qaeda, all the while ignoring that they arose in Saudi Arabia. I believe he knows better and that makes these remarks all the more suspect. He tries to mitigate the impact by suggesting that NATO and ‘our friends’ support this.

They may support it in theory, but I’ll be surprised to see them send a significant number of troops to join the 30,000.

It is true that the inexcuseable dithering of the Bush administration has put Obama in this damned if you do, and damned if you don’t situation.

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Monday Musings: November 30, 2009

Are you waiting as breathlessly as I am to hear what Obama has to say on Tuesday, when he lets us in on the bold new plan to win the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan? The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is certainly all ears, having released a report outlining how the thing was irretrievably lost while that pack of jackasses (AKA the Bush administration) let it go to the back burner while they played oil games in Iraq.

Our adventure in Afghanistan is doomed. There are few real experts on the region that haven’t declared it so. But, I fear, the generals have Obama’s ear and the voices of reason are being drowned out.

It’s now costing us $1 million dollars per soldier to fight that war over there. And, we can’t afford to reform the broken health care insurance system.

My ass.

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Robert Baer and Matthew Hoh on Afghanistan

It’s depressing. I really believe that Obama has been suckered in by the military-industrial complex and it’s Dick Cheney’s, generals, the CIA and all their hangers on … he’s gonna send in more troops. More guys to die and be sacrificed for Halliburton.

Here’s what former CIA Field Operative, Robert Baer has to say for Brave New Films:

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Afghanistan: Quite simply 'there is no good reason'

On the way to work this morning, I was listening to the Diane Rehm’s show on NPR. I feel so sorry for folks who either don’t live where there is an NPR affiliate station, or have let the wingnut media convince them that it’s some kind of liberal media conspiracy.

But I digress.

She had Amb. Richard Haass, president, Council on Foreign Relations among her guests and the message I heard was simply that none, I repeat ‘None’, of the ‘arguments of why we should be fighting an intractable war in Afghanistan hold water.

Al Queda can, and do, craft terrorists plans anywhere and everywhere. Close Afghanistan to them, and like cockroaches in the dark, they slip away to Tunisia, Somalia, to Pakistan or for that matter Denver, Colorado.

To think that Afghanistan under the CIA’s crooked puppet regime of Hamid Karzai will ever become a stable, democratic society is pure wishful thinking bordering on the delusional.

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Obama needs a lesson in Foghorn-style Ass Whuppin'

As a fan of economist, Paul Krugman, I get his blog posts on my Kindle, and lately he’s been referring back to some posts earlier this year (which I read), wherein he suggested more aggressive economic policies to remedy the financial crisis we’d found ourselves in. He wasn’t alone in this.

On a different tack, I’ve heard the same thing about healthcare reform. Please, Mr. President … bipartisanship is a hopeless dream. Be aggressive and shoot for the moon. But, this is ‘No drama, Obama’ we’re talking about, and it could foretell the trap he may find himself in after it’s too late to get out.

It’s the soft, soft, softly incremental approach that the more progressive Dems have been bitching about. They seemed to complain unfairly about the slowness of Obama’s approach, but I think what they were really touching on was this apparent timidity.

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Monday Musings: November 2, 2009

The Sunday morning news show circuit got my attention yesterday, with Jon Krakauer ( one of my all time favorite writers) stating the obvious: McChrystal is a liar. Not only did he allow a Silver Star to be written up for the late Pat Tillman (the Silver Star isn’t given for friendly fire incidents), but then lied about it further during Congressional testimony ( John McCain’s dour face was priceless) concerning the friendly-fire event.

Is this the guy Obama should trust?

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Friday Fish Wrap: October 30, 2009

Well, today is, of course, Nevada Day. Right next to Halloween. How perfect is that? If there was ever a state that deserved to have Halloween as it’s state holiday it’s Nevada … the only state with an Extraterrestial Highway.

I’m so proud to live here. Sigh. I’m finishing a perfect martini.

It’s been a BIG week here in Reno. We started out with a videographer from the Vice President’s office, as in Joe Biden, at the office where I work. Yes, indeedy, we are one of those stimulus projects. New jobs, green, all that happy stuff. Actually, it was pretty cool.

Then, on Friday, the day I chose to not be in the office, Channel 8 shows up with Ed Pearce ( my old friend from the Civil Air Patrol/Fossett Search days) to film a Nevada stimulus success story.  Thanks, Ed and Brent. I get a phone call from my leader: “should we go home and change? We’re in Halloween costumes.”

“Hell no”, this is Nevada. (“Ne-vah-duh”) People expect this sort of thing.

And, I’m a PR specialist?

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