Ready To Do What It Takes? Not Hardly

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Folks, I am going to tell y’all a secret, something that will shock and amaze you. It’ll rock your world and possibly cause you to question everything you thought you knew. In fact, if you’re not sitting down while reading this, maybe you should.

Sometimes I actually agree with Robert M. Levy.

I know, I know, it surprises me too when I look across the page at my staunchly Republican fellow Pilot columnist, read the piece next to mine, and go, “Hmmm, he may have something there.”

Oh, it doesn’t happen all the time — in fact, probably not most of the time. But I agree, for example, that we shouldn’t be undercutting the president’s nuclear deal with Iran, even as we disagree on how bad it is. Bob seems to think it’s terrible; I find it merely mediocre. But we both agree that the alternative of no deal at all is worse.

I also agree, to a point, with his assertion in last week’s column that there’s a power vacuum in the Middle East that’s making it easier for ISIS to commit atrocity after atrocity, and creating a refugee crisis of a size and urgency not seen since World War II.

The question I’d like to address in response however, is why. Bob seems to blame President Obama. I don’t think that tells the whole story. And no, I’m not blaming George Dubbya Bush, either — at least not entirely. I think the problem is bigger and wider than any one president or party.

Bob’s column recalls the spectacle of “American and Allied forces liberating Paris” and of the days when “America became the liberator of the free world as kisses were exchanged in Times Square.”

So far, so good. But remember what it took for us to do all that. The attack on Pearl Harbor shocked America almost overnight onto a war footing. As civilians lined up to sign up, our homeland standard of living changed drastically. Auto plants switched from making cars to making tanks and other war machines. New tires became nearly impossible to get. Kids collected scrap metal. Gas and foodstuffs were rationed. Buying war bonds became a patriotic duty.

And then, when the last German and Japanese soldiers had laid down their arms, we poured hundreds of billions of dollars into rebuilding their countries, because we knew that impoverished and broken countries were ripe pickings for the Soviets.

Can you imagine something like that happening now, in response to ISIS? Dear Lord, when the president endorsed a voluntary national public service program, he was accused of trying to create a new SS. His wife endorsed healthy eating and exercise, and suddenly right-wing pundits were screaming about “tyranny” and declaring it a sacred American right to raise a generation of roly-poly little couch potatoes.

We can’t even conduct a military training exercise in the Southwest without a pack of loonies — some of them in the U.S. Congress — taking to the airwaves and Internet to declare that it’s an invasion of the U.S. by its own Army. Oh, and support for “foreign aid”? Fuhgeddaboutit.

You want a World War II level response to ISIS butchery? You’re going to need a World War II level of citizen participation, sacrifice, and yes, money. And We the People haven’t been ready to do that for a long, long time.

It didn’t begin with the Obama administration. It didn’t even really begin with the George Dubbya Bush reign of error, although we did see quite a bit of the same unwillingness to even ask the people for sacrifice. Even after 9/11, Dubbya suggested we should just go about our lives, go shopping even. In the run-up to Dubbya’s Wacky Iraqi Adventure, we were assured, falsely, that “Iraq will pay for its own reconstruction” (Paul Wolfowitz), and that it was doubtful that the war would last six months (Donald Rumsfeld).

But, no, it didn’t start with them. It took years of short, easy-to-win conflicts against laughably weak opponents like Panama and Grenada to lull us into the feeling that the projection of American power and leadership is something that can be done on the cheap, something we could watch from our La-Z-Boy recliners before flipping over to watch “Jeopardy.”So the next time someone compares ISIS to the Nazis and demands that “American leadership” be used to defeat it, take a moment to think about what it took last time and ask them: Will you, personally, make the kind of sacrifices Americans had to make to defeat that enemy? Are you willing to pull together, even under a president you didn’t vote for, to make that happen? If not, then maybe in the words of the old saying, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Different Bush, Same Mistakes

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Recently, the man they call JEB! faced off against a 19-year-old college student. It didn’t go well for him.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush was at a town hall meeting in Nevada the other day when he was confronted by political science major Ivy Ziedrich, of the University of Nevada at Reno. Ms. Ziedrich reacted to a statement from JEB! claiming that ISIS was created by Barack Obama “retreating” from Iraq.

“We had an agreement that the president could have signed,” Bush had stated, “that would have kept 10,000 troops, less than we have in Korea, that could have created the stability that would have allowed for Iraq to progress.”

Actually, Ms. Ziedrich argued, the problem goes back farther, to the time when the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority decided to disband the Iraqi military, a time “when 30,000 individuals who were part of the Iraqi military were forced out — they had no employment, they had no income, and they were left with access to all of the same arms and weapons.”

She wound up by concluding, “Your brother created ISIS.”

It was a scene reminiscent of the time Joe the Plumber, the belligerent bullet-headed dude-bro from Ohio, became a hero to the rubes and ignoramii by getting in candidate Barack Obama’s face and claiming Obama’s policies would make his taxes go up. The difference between Ivy Zierdich and Joe the Plumber is that Ziedrich actually knows what she’s talking about.

Disbanding the Iraqi forces and leaving thousands of armed and angry young men with nothing to do but form insurgent groups is now regarded by most historians as the second biggest blunder of Dubbya’s Wacky Iraqi Adventure (the first being starting the bloody thing in the first place).

The most compelling evidence that that decision led to disaster is that no one, including Dubbya himself, will now admit to being the one who made it. Colin Powell, who said it was a mistake, denied ever being consulted, as did Gen. Peter Pace, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Condoleezza Rice claims it was a complete surprise. Dubbya told biographer Robert Draper, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen,” adding, “I can’t remember; I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy. What happened?’”

Stirring leadership, that.

So how did this become an issue now? Probably as a result of JEB!’s first, but almost certainly not last, gaffe of his campaign-that-is-not-yet-a-campaign-except-everyone-totally-knows-it’s-a-campaign. Asked by Fox News if “knowing what we know now,” would he have decided to go to war with Iraq, JEB! said he would — “and so would Hillary Clinton.”

On this last part, he may be right, even though Clinton at least admits her vote was a mistake.

Sadly, the Fox reporter did not follow up with the obvious questions like, “Would you also have put an entirely unqualified campaign donor in charge of FEMA, and then watched as he massively bungled the relief effort after a major hurricane before telling him he was doing a ‘heckuva job’? Would you have ignored a daily briefing titled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.’ 36 days before the late Mr. bin Laden did just that?”

JEB! later began furiously backpedaling, claiming he thought the question was “knowing what we knew THEN, would you have gone into Iraq?” Only problem with that defense is that those of us who knew what we knew THEN thought it was a terrible idea. And guess what? We were right.

Finally, JEB! threw in the towel, sulkily declaring that “knowing what we know now, I would not have engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq.” In other words, JEB! was retroactively for war in Iraq before he was retroactively against it. There’s that Bush leadership again.

Oh, and as for that claim that we had an “agreement that would have kept 10,000 troops in Iraq”? Politifact rates that as “mostly false,” adding:

“Obama inherited a timeline to exit Iraq from George W. Bush and followed it, but there was no agreement to leave a large force behind. The Obama White House considered 10,000 troops for a short time but ruled it out, suggesting a much smaller force. Negotiations with Iraq broke down, however, and there was no agreement that met conditions Washington wanted.”

Those conditions included immunity for American troops from prosecution in Iraqi courts.

So let’s review: JEB! said he’d make the same mistake his brother did, then said he wouldn’t, then lied to try to shift the blame for the current disastrous aftermath of the Iraq War away from the president who started it in the first place.

Doggone these liberals! When are they going to stop blaming George Dubbya Bush for the things he actually did?

In Which I Try To Bring Left And Right Together

Outrage Should Cut Both Ways | The Pilot: Southern Pines, NC

I agree that the seizure of the phone records of The Associated Press by the Department of Justice is outrageous.

I also agree that it's outrageous for the IRS to have singled out tea party groups for extra scrutiny regarding their petitions to get tax-exempt status as "social welfare," rather than "political" organizations.

But these scandals give all of us, on the left and the right and the big squishy middle, an unprecedented opportunity to work together. Let's start with the DOJ seizure of AP's phone information.

They're being typically close-mouthed about it at the time of this writing, but it appears that the information was gathered pursuant to investigatory powers that were greatly expanded as a major part of the 2001 Patriot Act, including the infamous "National Security Letters," which allow the government to legally demand information without judicial oversight or the knowledge of the person being investigated.

And, while the DOJ won't say what investigation the phone records were pertinent to, we do know they've been investigating who leaked information to AP about a CIA operation against a terrorist cell in Yemen, a leak which the DOJ claims threatened national security.

I hate to say "I told you so," but I can't help but mention how ironic it is that I was once called a traitor for writing columns against the act, by the same sort of people who claim to be outraged now.

I said at the time, "Do you want to turn that kind of power over to Hillary Clinton?" (Because back then, it looked like Clinton was a lock for the Dem nomination.) The right wing response? "YOU WANT US TO GET ATTACKED AGAIN!!! 9/11 WAS CAUSED BY YOU LIBERALS!!!!! AAAAAAAHHH!!!!"

But let's not dwell on the past. It's time to pull together.

As for the IRS: It was absolutely wrong for the IRS to give extra scrutiny to tea party groups to see if they were involved in partisan political activity inconsistent with their nonprofit status. I mean, of course they were. All you had to do was look at their signs and listen to their rhetoric. But it was unfair to single them out.

But does anyone remember the outrage over Bush-era IRS auditing of the NAACP? Remember the outrage over Bush-era IRS audits of Greenpeace? Remember the outrage when All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena was threatened with losing its tax exempt status for speaking out against the Iraq War before the 2004 election (while other churches in Ohio were openly campaigning for Republican candidates)?
Yeah, me neither. Because none of that outrage ever happened, even though the actual outrages did. 

But again, let's not dwell on the past.

So here's the plan. Even though there's no evidence that the extra scrutiny of the tea party groups was ordered by the White House, I am, for the sake of amity and bipartisanship, willing to join in the Republican call that the president apologize for it in addition to merely condemning it.

You folks on the right need to see if you can get ahold of Dubbya and get him to put down his paint brush long enough to retroactively do the same in regard to progressive groups that got the same treatment.

Going forward, I'm calling on the IRS to carefully scrutinize all organizations claiming tax exempt status under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, to see if they're actually partisan political rather than social welfare organizations. I expect my friends on the right to demand the same.

It should be noted, however, that conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofits like Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS spent more than $263 million during the 2012 campaign, while liberal counterparts like MoveOn.org spent "only" $35 million, according to a study performed by the Center for Responsive Politics and reported in the Washington Post. So it may look to the right as if they're being singled out again. But it's just the numbers. You do more than seven times the spending, you'll get more than seven times the investigations. I'm sure you won't mind.

As for the scandal over the phone records, I'm calling on the president and the Democrats in Congress to repeal the Patriot Act, or any provision of any law that allows the FBI to demand phone and other records they claim are "relevant to an investigation of terrorism or clandestine intelligence activity," without any judicial oversight.
I'm sure all of my friends on the right agree (now) that that kind of power shouldn't be given to anyone, even in investigations of national security leaks. If it is given, it's going to be used, because if it isn't, and something terrible happens, we know who'll get blamed, tarred and feathered. So best not to let the government have the option.

At long last, let us work together. I'm looking forward to it.

Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:

President Bush had become extremely unpopular, and politically he was sort of a millstone around our necks in both ‘06 and ‘08. We now have the opportunity to be on offense, offer our own ideas and we will win some.

A millstone? How DARE he say that about the Dear Leader? Does McConnell suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome? Is he a snob who hates common sense? Doesn't this mean McConnell hates America and loves terrorism?

Or is the leader of Senate Republicans just an unprincipled hack who'll lick Dubbya's boots when things are going well, but who'll say he never liked the guy when the Republicans are out of power?

And while we're asking questions, why do you think the people who are so snarky about Obama followers thinking he's a "messiah" have developed amnesia about the six years of servile groveling the Right did before the altar of George Dubbya Bush? Why do you think they've forgotten Rudy Giuliani's gushing speech where he claimed to have said, as he watched the Twin Towers fall, "Thank God George Bush is President?" Is it hypocrisy, or is it, as I've suggested, some sort of brain damage?