Monday, October 12, 2009
The Ninth Year of Afghanistan War
After eight years of war is it time to change sides?
Last week America's fighting involvement in Afghanistan began its ninth year. This is longer than the USA was involved in World War I and II.
As we learned in Iraq, men bent on killing American soldiers can be persuaded to change sides. It took about three hundred dollars a month, per Sunni, to get the Sunni Iraqi to switch to our side. This could be one way the US could use to get out of Afghanistan.
The reason this approach might work in Afghanistan is the fact that the Taliban is not a monolith. They have no supreme commander or war lord leading their fight. The Taliban groups are many. They have different motives and agree only on one thing: ridding their country of foreigners.
The Taliban have shown they can switch sides with little difficulty. They did it with the Soviets until they wore them out. They want to be on the winning side, so war lords or scattered groups switch back and forth, going with the one they think has the best chance of winning. "Changing sides is the Afghanistan way of war", writes Fotini Christia and Michael Semple in the July-August, 2009, issue of Foreign Affairs
Last August the people of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (President Hamid Karzai's government) held a presidential election. Two months later, both leading candidates claim to have won. The UN observers have documented fraud and corruption during and since the voting.
Democracy, elections, our four freedoms are completely foreign to the Karzai brothers. President Karzai's brother is well-known to be involved in corruption and the opium racket. American ideals cannot be pre-packaged for use anywhere, nor can they be force fed; they must be born out of the hearts of those seeking such ideals more than life itself.
The US did not go to Afghanistan to introduce democracy. I doubt the idea of killing so many civilians or staying this long was in the plans. Just one object: get ben Laden. The ill-conceived over-the-top US air raids on October 7, 2001, was only to capture or kill ben Laden, the mastermind behind the al Qaeda hi-jacked airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Sept. 11, 2001.
The 9-ll attack was not a cause for war, though wars have begun with less provocation. One general is reported as saying, "bomb them back to the stone age." The knee-jerk reaction of the US president, vice president and congress was not one of our nation's greatest hours. Those in charge let revenge bubble to the top. An old sage reminds us: When hunting a particular rat, you don't need a large caliber weapon like an elephant gun.
Someone needs the inspiration of original thinking if this unnecessary war is to cease. Win over enough of the Taliban and together put an end to the al Qaeda in their Pakistan hide-away. Bring the troops home and turn loose the CIA to get ben Laden with as few civilian deaths as possible. This is the way criminal mass murderers are brought to justice, not with massive military force.
If the US could make friends with the Taliban (get out the money clip and force a smile), together we just might defeat al Qaedia, our original purpose. As a friend, the Taliban might institute a more just and favorable government. (Granted, this could be called wishful thinking.)
During the Korean War, had General Douglas MacArthur crossed the Yalu River into China as he said he was going to, the US would have really had a long-lasting war. Because President Harry Truman fired him, we averted such a catastrophe. MacArthur was a hero at the time. But the president was smarter. Wisely our Constitution keeps the final say on war in civilian hands.
President Obama must handle his generals as Truman did. Gen. Stanley McChrystal thinks adding 40 to 60,000 more troops will give us more time. More time for what? More time to see more innocent people die? More time for America and NATO soldiers killed? More time to undermine the new American president's desire for a peaceful world?
Changing sides is the Afghanistan way of war. Entering the ninth year of war, giving a look at the wisdom of the locals might be a good thing. The decision is with the president and congress, not the generals.
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Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Not Enough Thinking Goin' On
THINKING A PARAMOUNT NECESSITY, Just not enough of it goin' on these days. Thinking can make the blood pressure rise. But it is good for all of us.
Former CIA analyst and distinguished scholar, Chalmers Johnson, has recently completed a trilogy on the economic and military overreach of the United States. The title of the third book is "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic."
The first two books, "Blowback" and "The Sorrows of Empire," argues that American clandestine and military activity overseas has led to a direct disaster here in the United States. Unintended, but harmful to the country's future.
Johnson used "Nemesis" for the title of the latest book because "Nemesis was the ancient Greek god of revenge, the punisher of hubris and arrogance in human beings."
If you recall your Greek mythology you know that she (Nemesis) is the one that led Narcissus to the pond and showed him his reflection, whereupon he jumped in and drowned.
This title to Johnson means she's present in our county right now, "just waiting to carry out her divine mission."
He continues his C-SPAN interview by stressing the subtitle, "The Last Days of the American Republic," "is not just hype to sell books. ...I'm here concerned with a very real, concrete problem in political analysis, namely that the political system of the United States today, history tells us, is one of the most unstable combinations there is --- domestic democracy and foreign empire. A nation can be one of the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but can't be both."
As illustrative of this thought, look at the former British Empire, upon which the sun never sat. After the defeat of the tyrannical German Nazi empire, it became evident that their world of money-making colonies were waking up. They found their voice and began seeking to keep their riches at home and to rule themselves.
Across the colonies of Africa and India, Britain's crown jewel of a colony, the masses would no longer be subjected to foreign masters. "They wanted their country back," to use a phrase now constantly misused in TAT sessions (Teabagger Astro-Turfers). (Same simplistic thought as the odd saying we will be hearing again in a couple of months: "Put Jesus back in Christmas." For the uninformed, Jesus never left.)
The Germans lost most of their colonies after World War I. But the Dutch in Indonesia, the French in Vietnam, Spain in Cuba and the Philippines, and the British (everywhere) were slow to see the writing on the wall. None of these empires prepared their colonies how to rule themselves. Blame the empires, not the former colonies that continue to have dictators, revenge and war.
Kenya had one government official of lower rank when Britain fled. The French Foreign Legion had to be defeated on the battle field to leave Indo-China. Unfortunately, the US government sided with the Dutch, French and British during those years of transition. After Ho Chi minh defeated the French, pictures of Harry Truman were in their victory parades in Hanoi. They liked the USA in 1954.
These empire builders learned that to retain their colonies and economic paradises, they would have to become more imperial than democratic. They would have to dictate more and more to their far-flung money-makers. Democracy and dictators don't go good together.
For further reference look up the 1953 American-led covert ousting of Iran's freely elected Mossadegh and putting the Shah back on the throne which brought 25 years of terror for the Iranians.
America is in danger of becoming less democratic and more imperialistic with such an attitude as "we always know best." It is evident this did not begin with the 2008 presidential election. It has been building steam since the 1950s, from Iran to Guatemala and back again. We tried to save Korea by force from the Communist. Half a century later our Armed Forces are still there, as they are in 737 military bases on every continent.
Our government began placing military bases all over the world. Very few nations have ask us to leave. The "chosen" countries liked the income from Uncle Sam. These overseas bases, over the last half century have cost the tax payers umpteen trillions of dollars; while not adding not a single good thing to our overseas image.
To maintain an empire requires the making of munitions, machines, equipment and a lot of 18-year olds. The cost of today's huge military-industrial-congress complex is not known. A smattering of the government budget is known, but the complete totals will never be known.
We need to re-read President George Washington's farewell address. He said that the great enemy of the republic was a standing army. (This is read at the opening of the first session of every Congress. Doesn't seem to have made an impression on the politicians.)
The three powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of our government are meant to keep a check on each other. Oversight is impossible with an imperial presidency. President Dwight Eisenhower, with very undiplomatic language, gave the same message as George Washington. Lack of oversight has led to our present economic woes.
A friend at church urged me to continue writing these pieces. He confessed my writing sometimes causes his blood pressure to go up, but it makes him think. That is all I wish to accomplish, make us think more and more often.
Former CIA analyst and distinguished scholar, Chalmers Johnson, has recently completed a trilogy on the economic and military overreach of the United States. The title of the third book is "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic."
The first two books, "Blowback" and "The Sorrows of Empire," argues that American clandestine and military activity overseas has led to a direct disaster here in the United States. Unintended, but harmful to the country's future.
Johnson used "Nemesis" for the title of the latest book because "Nemesis was the ancient Greek god of revenge, the punisher of hubris and arrogance in human beings."
If you recall your Greek mythology you know that she (Nemesis) is the one that led Narcissus to the pond and showed him his reflection, whereupon he jumped in and drowned.
This title to Johnson means she's present in our county right now, "just waiting to carry out her divine mission."
He continues his C-SPAN interview by stressing the subtitle, "The Last Days of the American Republic," "is not just hype to sell books. ...I'm here concerned with a very real, concrete problem in political analysis, namely that the political system of the United States today, history tells us, is one of the most unstable combinations there is --- domestic democracy and foreign empire. A nation can be one of the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but can't be both."
As illustrative of this thought, look at the former British Empire, upon which the sun never sat. After the defeat of the tyrannical German Nazi empire, it became evident that their world of money-making colonies were waking up. They found their voice and began seeking to keep their riches at home and to rule themselves.
Across the colonies of Africa and India, Britain's crown jewel of a colony, the masses would no longer be subjected to foreign masters. "They wanted their country back," to use a phrase now constantly misused in TAT sessions (Teabagger Astro-Turfers). (Same simplistic thought as the odd saying we will be hearing again in a couple of months: "Put Jesus back in Christmas." For the uninformed, Jesus never left.)
The Germans lost most of their colonies after World War I. But the Dutch in Indonesia, the French in Vietnam, Spain in Cuba and the Philippines, and the British (everywhere) were slow to see the writing on the wall. None of these empires prepared their colonies how to rule themselves. Blame the empires, not the former colonies that continue to have dictators, revenge and war.
Kenya had one government official of lower rank when Britain fled. The French Foreign Legion had to be defeated on the battle field to leave Indo-China. Unfortunately, the US government sided with the Dutch, French and British during those years of transition. After Ho Chi minh defeated the French, pictures of Harry Truman were in their victory parades in Hanoi. They liked the USA in 1954.
These empire builders learned that to retain their colonies and economic paradises, they would have to become more imperial than democratic. They would have to dictate more and more to their far-flung money-makers. Democracy and dictators don't go good together.
For further reference look up the 1953 American-led covert ousting of Iran's freely elected Mossadegh and putting the Shah back on the throne which brought 25 years of terror for the Iranians.
America is in danger of becoming less democratic and more imperialistic with such an attitude as "we always know best." It is evident this did not begin with the 2008 presidential election. It has been building steam since the 1950s, from Iran to Guatemala and back again. We tried to save Korea by force from the Communist. Half a century later our Armed Forces are still there, as they are in 737 military bases on every continent.
Our government began placing military bases all over the world. Very few nations have ask us to leave. The "chosen" countries liked the income from Uncle Sam. These overseas bases, over the last half century have cost the tax payers umpteen trillions of dollars; while not adding not a single good thing to our overseas image.
To maintain an empire requires the making of munitions, machines, equipment and a lot of 18-year olds. The cost of today's huge military-industrial-congress complex is not known. A smattering of the government budget is known, but the complete totals will never be known.
We need to re-read President George Washington's farewell address. He said that the great enemy of the republic was a standing army. (This is read at the opening of the first session of every Congress. Doesn't seem to have made an impression on the politicians.)
The three powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of our government are meant to keep a check on each other. Oversight is impossible with an imperial presidency. President Dwight Eisenhower, with very undiplomatic language, gave the same message as George Washington. Lack of oversight has led to our present economic woes.
A friend at church urged me to continue writing these pieces. He confessed my writing sometimes causes his blood pressure to go up, but it makes him think. That is all I wish to accomplish, make us think more and more often.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thinking in short supply
There are always difficulties when a new man/woman comes on the job. It is only natural that he would use his personal talents and traits as he shares his own vision in his own way. His skills and manner may be different from his predecessor. And there are always those who are "put off" from the new guy's ways. This is nowhere more true than in the delicate choosing of a new pastor in those Protestant churches who "call" their new shepherd.
Two years ago D. James Kennedy, the founding pastor of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and known throughout the country as the preacher of the television worship program, The Coral Ridge Hour, died. He founded the church in 1960. Today it sits on a multi-million dollar campus with well over 2,000 members in attendance.
Kennedy, according to the Miami Herald, was also a co-founder of the Christian lobby known as the Moral Majority and declared he wanted to "reclaim America for Christ.''
Last March, after two years of searching for a shepherd for the flock, 91 percent of the voting members chose Tullian Tchividjian, the grandson of evangelist Billy Graham.
Pastor Tchivdijan -- his full name is William Graham Tullian Tchividjian -- was named after Tertullian, a Christian theologian of the second and third centuries.
That high an acceptance vote is a welcome sight for a pastor beginning a new pastorate. But the majority is nothing but the majority, nothing more (see today's Democrats in House and Senate for an example). Sometimes the smaller the dissent, the more power the dissenters are able to engender, especially when the famous founding pastor's daughter, Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy, is among those objecting to the Pastor Tchivdijan.
Mrs. Cassidy, along with a few hundred, was upset, according to Religious News Service, that Tchividjian, unlike her father, shunned a clerical robe and the fact he had chosen not to focus on political issues from the pulpit. He also insisted on an invitation at the close of the service for those wishing to join. One of his first actions irked some longtime members when he unplugged the TV program. (Just a wild guess: Mrs. Cassidy may not have known how to pronounce his rather different name.)
My thought was anyone as closely related to the best known and loved evangelist of the 20th century, and already an experienced pastor, would be welcome in many a pulpit.
After going through channels, the dissenting minority was given a chance to air their objections to the 2,000 plus membership. On Sunday, September 20, the complaint to oust preacher Tchividjian was defeated with a 69 to 31 percent vote.
Billy Graham's grandson is wise to stay out of political debate when at the sacred desk. His worshippers will have many varied slants on politics, but a good pastor does not take sides. His job is to share the lessons of the scriptures and history that will make for a better society and church.
Had it been me, I would have disagreed on doing away with the robe in the pulpit. I often wore a deep navy blue mandarin gown, made by a gifted local tailor in Taiwan. In those days, the 1950s, you would see many men in the mandarin chang'pao, as the robe is called. It was not an unusual site. (It might have been unusual-looking on me, but no one said anything –- to me. Their fun over Sunday dinner was probably over my spoken Chinese, or missed inflection (every word has one or more tones in addition). Mandarin with a Texas accent was rare in Pingtung County.)
What is the reason for sharing these far out stories, events or opinions week after week? I received one answer from a friend at church who urged me to continue writing them. He confessed my writing sometimes causes his blood pressure to go up, but it makes him think. We need to be able to discern the petty from the serious; the difference in being smart and being intelligent; having knowledge without wisdom.
We are blessed in this country with a freedom to share our different perspectives. All of us are a part of those we have met along the way. We are usually unaware of God's hand in sending someone across our path --- at home, in church, in work or school, who caused us to think; made us aim higher.
-----------------------------------------
Two years ago D. James Kennedy, the founding pastor of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and known throughout the country as the preacher of the television worship program, The Coral Ridge Hour, died. He founded the church in 1960. Today it sits on a multi-million dollar campus with well over 2,000 members in attendance.
Kennedy, according to the Miami Herald, was also a co-founder of the Christian lobby known as the Moral Majority and declared he wanted to "reclaim America for Christ.''
Last March, after two years of searching for a shepherd for the flock, 91 percent of the voting members chose Tullian Tchividjian, the grandson of evangelist Billy Graham.
Pastor Tchivdijan -- his full name is William Graham Tullian Tchividjian -- was named after Tertullian, a Christian theologian of the second and third centuries.
That high an acceptance vote is a welcome sight for a pastor beginning a new pastorate. But the majority is nothing but the majority, nothing more (see today's Democrats in House and Senate for an example). Sometimes the smaller the dissent, the more power the dissenters are able to engender, especially when the famous founding pastor's daughter, Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy, is among those objecting to the Pastor Tchivdijan.
Mrs. Cassidy, along with a few hundred, was upset, according to Religious News Service, that Tchividjian, unlike her father, shunned a clerical robe and the fact he had chosen not to focus on political issues from the pulpit. He also insisted on an invitation at the close of the service for those wishing to join. One of his first actions irked some longtime members when he unplugged the TV program. (Just a wild guess: Mrs. Cassidy may not have known how to pronounce his rather different name.)
My thought was anyone as closely related to the best known and loved evangelist of the 20th century, and already an experienced pastor, would be welcome in many a pulpit.
After going through channels, the dissenting minority was given a chance to air their objections to the 2,000 plus membership. On Sunday, September 20, the complaint to oust preacher Tchividjian was defeated with a 69 to 31 percent vote.
Billy Graham's grandson is wise to stay out of political debate when at the sacred desk. His worshippers will have many varied slants on politics, but a good pastor does not take sides. His job is to share the lessons of the scriptures and history that will make for a better society and church.
Had it been me, I would have disagreed on doing away with the robe in the pulpit. I often wore a deep navy blue mandarin gown, made by a gifted local tailor in Taiwan. In those days, the 1950s, you would see many men in the mandarin chang'pao, as the robe is called. It was not an unusual site. (It might have been unusual-looking on me, but no one said anything –- to me. Their fun over Sunday dinner was probably over my spoken Chinese, or missed inflection (every word has one or more tones in addition). Mandarin with a Texas accent was rare in Pingtung County.)
What is the reason for sharing these far out stories, events or opinions week after week? I received one answer from a friend at church who urged me to continue writing them. He confessed my writing sometimes causes his blood pressure to go up, but it makes him think. We need to be able to discern the petty from the serious; the difference in being smart and being intelligent; having knowledge without wisdom.
We are blessed in this country with a freedom to share our different perspectives. All of us are a part of those we have met along the way. We are usually unaware of God's hand in sending someone across our path --- at home, in church, in work or school, who caused us to think; made us aim higher.
-----------------------------------------
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Immigration Perspective
"Give me your tired, your poor... "
Looking out from the southern tip of Manhattan I could make out the Statue of Liberty. That was as close as I got to this amazing gift from the French to the people of America. I have read about it and the memorable quote of Emma Lazarus:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Most school children today know that sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was commissioned to design a sculpture to commemorate the centennial of the American Declaration of Independence. Friendship between the people of France and of the United States was greater in those days.
The Statue of Liberty that has welcomed immigrants in the harbor of New York City for 123 years is still a beacon of hope to the world's down-trodden. This in spite of recent anti-immigration events and disparaging remarks about our foreign friends. Such attitudes should be a concern for us as a nation proclaiming democracy, freedom and hope.
For example, such remarks as: "No more 'wretched refuse'." "The door might be golden but the insides are a mess: 'no vacancy'." "There is no room in this inn anymore." "Country's full, go to Canada." "Welfare checks don't go that far."
The question comes that if the Statue of Liberty, and all it represents, freedom, hope welcome to the foreigner, why are so many Americans no longer welcoming immigrants, who have helped build this country?
The West Coast has no Statue of Liberty. We once had laws that kept Asians out for a very long time. Unfortunately, today if your suntan is bit too brown, you are not welcomed with open arms. No great poems of hopes and dreams have ever been posted on the Rio Grande, El Paso, Nogales, or Tijuana.
This attitude against immigrants is in direct opposition to the closing words of the Emma Lazarus sonnet, "The New Colossus," which is on the Statue of Liberty.
Emma Lazarus' "The New Colossus" speaks of a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is imprisoned lightening, and her name Mother of Exiles. The last 35 words of the poem are those memorialized on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Emma was one of the most successful Jewish American authors in our history. Besides novels and poetry, she wrote strong essays protesting the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe during the 1880s and 1890s.
She had to deal with not only being a woman writer, but add to that the unequal treatment toward Jews. She was not a Zionist but wanted Jews to unite and create a homeland in Palestine.
Emma was born in 1849 into a wealthy family who traced their ancestry in America to before the Revolutionary War. They were Sephardic Jews. (These are descendants of Jews of Spain, Portugal and North Africa. Not always appreciated by the Jews of Eastern Europe and Germany.)
She had a strong classical education. Her talent for writing was noticed early and her father encouraged her efforts.
In a letter to a friend Emma wrote, "My own curiosity and interest are insatiable."
Emma Lazarus was a complex person, having wealth yet understanding and speaking out for the dispossessed, the less fortunate, and degrading life so many were forced to live.
During Emma's lifetime and immediately following, 1840s to 1930, the United States took about 60 percent of the world's immigrants. They were frequently exploited and often blamed for lowering wages and living standards; at the same time being accused of favoring formation of fairer labor laws.
Rather than blame today's foreigner, get the Immigration and Naturalization Department and the Border Patrol to use the laws we have. And make Congress find a way pay for it more realistically.
The century-long image of the United States being where people are free to begin a new life is unlike any in world history. Let's learn how to keep that image without ghettos, xenophobic spirit or another "white flight" away from reality.
EMMA LAZARUS, poet
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Friday, September 11, 2009
ELMER KELTON
The man who turned western stories into literature has died. Elmer Kelton, died at 83, Aug. 22, 2009. For more than 50 years the American west, and particularly Texas was portrayed in his 40 novels, short stories and articles.
He grew up on a ranch near Crane, Texas, where his father, R.W. "Buck" Kelton worked for 36 years. His college education was interrupted a couple of years by World War II (there he met his bride Ann of Austria), but he earned a University of Texas degree in journalism in 1948.
His life was writing. He was writer and editor for 15 years for the San Angelo Standard-Times (before it was called that) and five years as editor of Sheep and Goat Raiser Magazine. He was associate editor of Livestock Weekly 22 years. And with all that work, he produced so many good books that he was seven times honored with the Silver Spur award for western writing.
Four of his books won the Western Heritage Award. They were: "The Time It Never Rained," "The Good Old Boys," "The Man Who Rode Midnight," and the captions and text for "The Art of Howard Terpning."
The one time I had the opportunity to visit with him, he told me about a request from Sweden or Norway for some of his short stories about the American West. He sent them and as far as he knew they were translated and published.
It was some years later that he wrote them, wondering if they wanted some more for translation. They were very gracious, but told Mr. Kelton, his stories were just not bloody enough.
No, he wrote about the real west and the real men we call cowboys. He was not into creating a Gary Cooper or John Wayne type of story.
Eduardo Galeano, one of Latin America's most distinguished writers ("Memory of Fire," "Open Veins of Latin America," and "Mirrors.") wrote about the epic of the Wild West being "the invention of imigrants from Eastern Europe with a keen eye for business." Men like the four Warner brothers, Louis B. Mayer and Adolph Zukor cooked up the most "successful universal myth of the twentieth century."
I am sure that Elmer Kelton would agree with that. His stories told of real ranches and human cowboys and their problems with family, weather and making a living. One real cowboy, Tommy Lee Jones, brought one of Kelton's books to the screen, "The Good Old Boys."
Another honor by his equal with a story, Larry McMurtry Center for Arts and Humanities at Midwestern State University granted him a lifetime Achievement award. He was "doctored" twice, once by Hardin-Simmons University and the other by Texas Tech
All those good things do not count for much until you see that this man of letters and a real rancher and cowboy, was also a real person with everybody. He looked down on no one and was the same humorous, engaging self with peasant or prince, peon or us below-average writers. FOR HIS BOOKS: www.elmerkelton.net
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Time to leave Afghanistan
A week or so ago the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan presidential election went relatively peacefully. The Taliban had threatened to attack those who voted. The threat stills hangs over the heads of voters and their ink-stained fingers. When an occupying army stands around while the locals vote, something is just not right.
A word of civility came from leading contenders for the crown saying they will not incite street protests if one of them should lose (but did they ever call each other names). President Hamid Karzai is expected to win re-election. This is just the manner of the beast. Incumbents have more power enabling them to stay in power. Karzai's record is thin as far as doing much good for the country. He dresses well in his flowing robes and perky Karakul hat.
Hamid Karzai is an ethnic Pashtun who supported the Mujahideen, (as did the United State did with millions of dollars), in their fight against the Soviet Red Army invasion of 1979.
After the Soviets left Afghanistan, Karzai worked with the emerging Taliban-inspired government. While in exile in Pakistan, his father Zahir Shan, the king of Afghanistan, was assassinated. He swore revenge against the Taliban.
As Darrell Royal, former UT football coach, would say, "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Karzai was chosen by Western governments to lead a transitional government in the capital of Kabul. (Note: Western governments set him in this position.) Many still call him mayor of Kabul rather than leader of the country. His influence is limited mostly to his own tribesmen and officials of the Bush and Obama administrations.
There were others in Afghanistan who felt they could be the president and threw their hats into the ring. They are not as well-known outside the country, but as the humorist Jonathan Winters said, "If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it." And a number of guys (no women, please) ran for the office.
So the politician with two first names (or last names), Abdullah Abdullah, entered the race for president and now both claim to have won.
Since Al Quida is not in Afghanistan or Pakistan, why are we there in such force? Fighting the Taliban, who retreat into Pakistan for R and R. Taliban solders are Afghanistan peasants, but not allowed to vote. The Taliban has never invaded another country and has no intention to do so. They only want their country back, even if they would make it a hell on earth for women and children.
Taliban is not a threat to the Americas. Get the war hawks out of the White House and congress and the munitions makers and bring our soldiers home.
President Obama needs to do that as soon as possible. It is a lie like the one during Vietnam War. It does not concern us. So we didn't get bin Laden. He is nothing anymore. Bring the men and women home as George Will suggested. And bring home the contractors back too. I hear there are more contractors than American soldiers there now. Mercenaries.
_____________________________________
A word of civility came from leading contenders for the crown saying they will not incite street protests if one of them should lose (but did they ever call each other names). President Hamid Karzai is expected to win re-election. This is just the manner of the beast. Incumbents have more power enabling them to stay in power. Karzai's record is thin as far as doing much good for the country. He dresses well in his flowing robes and perky Karakul hat.
Hamid Karzai is an ethnic Pashtun who supported the Mujahideen, (as did the United State did with millions of dollars), in their fight against the Soviet Red Army invasion of 1979.
After the Soviets left Afghanistan, Karzai worked with the emerging Taliban-inspired government. While in exile in Pakistan, his father Zahir Shan, the king of Afghanistan, was assassinated. He swore revenge against the Taliban.
As Darrell Royal, former UT football coach, would say, "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Karzai was chosen by Western governments to lead a transitional government in the capital of Kabul. (Note: Western governments set him in this position.) Many still call him mayor of Kabul rather than leader of the country. His influence is limited mostly to his own tribesmen and officials of the Bush and Obama administrations.
There were others in Afghanistan who felt they could be the president and threw their hats into the ring. They are not as well-known outside the country, but as the humorist Jonathan Winters said, "If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it." And a number of guys (no women, please) ran for the office.
So the politician with two first names (or last names), Abdullah Abdullah, entered the race for president and now both claim to have won.
Since Al Quida is not in Afghanistan or Pakistan, why are we there in such force? Fighting the Taliban, who retreat into Pakistan for R and R. Taliban solders are Afghanistan peasants, but not allowed to vote. The Taliban has never invaded another country and has no intention to do so. They only want their country back, even if they would make it a hell on earth for women and children.
Taliban is not a threat to the Americas. Get the war hawks out of the White House and congress and the munitions makers and bring our soldiers home.
President Obama needs to do that as soon as possible. It is a lie like the one during Vietnam War. It does not concern us. So we didn't get bin Laden. He is nothing anymore. Bring the men and women home as George Will suggested. And bring home the contractors back too. I hear there are more contractors than American soldiers there now. Mercenaries.
_____________________________________
Sins Of The Fathers...
Appeared Fri., Sept. 11, 2009 in the San Angelo Standard-Times and the Brownwood Bulletin, two of the best West Texas dailies.
The weeks of ranting and raving that President Barack Obama was going to pollute the minds of our school children with socialist ideas; push his health care plan; found a youth corps like Hitler; make kids wear Mussolini brown shirt-type uniforms; proved to be only the willingly uninformed "unwashed masses," as the great sports writer Blackie Sherrod would write in the old Fort Worth Press, and proved the ranting slander and raving rumors to be only that.
I read of a Broadway show critic who grew weary of going to the theater and was fed up writing about the same old musicals and dreadful dramas. So he decided he would just read publicity packets about a show and write some glowing words about it without taking in production.
He always got his stories in early. For a while it went well. Then one night a theater caught fire in the middle of the second act and pandemonium erupted out into the streets. The next morning's paper printed how much he enjoyed the third act that night. Some proof reader probably lost his job as well as the critic.
You can be sure your sins will find you out! I don't care much for picking around in the Bible to prove a point, but this last phrase of the King James Bible, Numbers 32:23, is so clear and to the point, I had to throw it into the mix. (Read on, there is a point to this use of scripture.) This phrase of a verse is pretty final. Not that "your sins might find you out," or "some of your sins will find you out," but the ancient writer wants you to be sure you realize your sins will find you out! Tack on the word in the Ten Commandments that says the sins of the fathers can be visited on the sons for generations.
I am sure those who take the Holy Bible to be without error will understand this phrase immediately. Most ultra-conservatives and fundamentalists Christians admit to the inerrancy of scripture. I don't share that viewpoint, though the spiritual message throughout the Bible is one I appreciate, value and believe.
I was at the grocery store right after the president's talk and I asked the lady behind me at the checkout counter what she thought of the speech. She said she was a teacher and it was not shown in San Angelo schools. She was looking forward to seeing it though. I could tell she was not in favor of the frantic decision not to allow students to view it live.
The overwhelming vehement opposition to our president giving a speech to our school kids was a most unexpected phenomenon to me. I don't know much about how the Methodists, Presbyterians or Roman Catholics reacted to the proposed speech, but I have been flabbergasted (a real word and sick feeling) at the response of all kinds of Baptist in our land.
"Unhinged Southern Baptists, Republicans Slam Obama's School Speech," is an essay by Robert Parham, executive editor of EthicsDaily.com and executive director of its parent organization, the Baptist Center for Ethics. His closing words in the essay have been in my mind for years.
Editor Parham has much more access to the smears, accusations and the like from Baptists across the nation than I have. I do know there is an uncanny lack of appreciation among too many "active" Baptists. At one church, back when we went to mid-week suppers, I was told by someone-old-enough-to-know-better that Obama was born overseas and was a Muslim to boot.
I am glad I am from West Texas and not the north Texas county known as Oklahoma. They have two senators in Washington who are nearly as determined as Senator Snake-in-the-Grass (that is what a friend of mine called the senior senator from Iowa), to see our president fail. Plus an Oklahoma state senator who compared Obama to Saddam Hussein or the emperor of North Korea. Obama starting a cult of personality.
I don't know if any of these senators are Baptists or not, but Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern said Obama's speech would be "more about indoctrination of students than education." Her husband just happens to be Steve Kern, pastor of the Olivet Baptist Church, somewhere in Oklahoma. He agreed with his wife.
Go online and read the many respected Christian groups who do not like having a black president.
Now to the subject that has been in my mind and heart for more than a generation. Robert Parham is the first to write about "my dreaded idea." It is this: when back in the 1950s our courts ordered desegregation in our schools, the race was on for the whites and their children to flee to the suburbs. That was to keep the white children from black children in public schools. Private schools or academies sprang up all over the country, many were begun by white churches. That is the legacy of private schools today.
It should make reasonable people look at history and look at the hatred toward a black president (remember there was no gripes when Reagan or George H.W. Bush did the very same thing). Are the sins of the fleeing whites being visited upon their sons?
Many on the street and in congress opposed civil rights after the court decision to give blacks equal opportunities to study. The south turned Republican in those days and is not over it yet. Parents opposing civil rights, 100 years after blacks were supposed to have them, has continued opposition to blacks from generation to generation.
Robert Parham closed his essay with this question: "Is that what this unhinged moment is really about—racism from generation to generation?"
The weeks of ranting and raving that President Barack Obama was going to pollute the minds of our school children with socialist ideas; push his health care plan; found a youth corps like Hitler; make kids wear Mussolini brown shirt-type uniforms; proved to be only the willingly uninformed "unwashed masses," as the great sports writer Blackie Sherrod would write in the old Fort Worth Press, and proved the ranting slander and raving rumors to be only that.
I read of a Broadway show critic who grew weary of going to the theater and was fed up writing about the same old musicals and dreadful dramas. So he decided he would just read publicity packets about a show and write some glowing words about it without taking in production.
He always got his stories in early. For a while it went well. Then one night a theater caught fire in the middle of the second act and pandemonium erupted out into the streets. The next morning's paper printed how much he enjoyed the third act that night. Some proof reader probably lost his job as well as the critic.
You can be sure your sins will find you out! I don't care much for picking around in the Bible to prove a point, but this last phrase of the King James Bible, Numbers 32:23, is so clear and to the point, I had to throw it into the mix. (Read on, there is a point to this use of scripture.) This phrase of a verse is pretty final. Not that "your sins might find you out," or "some of your sins will find you out," but the ancient writer wants you to be sure you realize your sins will find you out! Tack on the word in the Ten Commandments that says the sins of the fathers can be visited on the sons for generations.
I am sure those who take the Holy Bible to be without error will understand this phrase immediately. Most ultra-conservatives and fundamentalists Christians admit to the inerrancy of scripture. I don't share that viewpoint, though the spiritual message throughout the Bible is one I appreciate, value and believe.
I was at the grocery store right after the president's talk and I asked the lady behind me at the checkout counter what she thought of the speech. She said she was a teacher and it was not shown in San Angelo schools. She was looking forward to seeing it though. I could tell she was not in favor of the frantic decision not to allow students to view it live.
The overwhelming vehement opposition to our president giving a speech to our school kids was a most unexpected phenomenon to me. I don't know much about how the Methodists, Presbyterians or Roman Catholics reacted to the proposed speech, but I have been flabbergasted (a real word and sick feeling) at the response of all kinds of Baptist in our land.
"Unhinged Southern Baptists, Republicans Slam Obama's School Speech," is an essay by Robert Parham, executive editor of EthicsDaily.com and executive director of its parent organization, the Baptist Center for Ethics. His closing words in the essay have been in my mind for years.
Editor Parham has much more access to the smears, accusations and the like from Baptists across the nation than I have. I do know there is an uncanny lack of appreciation among too many "active" Baptists. At one church, back when we went to mid-week suppers, I was told by someone-old-enough-to-know-better that Obama was born overseas and was a Muslim to boot.
I am glad I am from West Texas and not the north Texas county known as Oklahoma. They have two senators in Washington who are nearly as determined as Senator Snake-in-the-Grass (that is what a friend of mine called the senior senator from Iowa), to see our president fail. Plus an Oklahoma state senator who compared Obama to Saddam Hussein or the emperor of North Korea. Obama starting a cult of personality.
I don't know if any of these senators are Baptists or not, but Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern said Obama's speech would be "more about indoctrination of students than education." Her husband just happens to be Steve Kern, pastor of the Olivet Baptist Church, somewhere in Oklahoma. He agreed with his wife.
Go online and read the many respected Christian groups who do not like having a black president.
Now to the subject that has been in my mind and heart for more than a generation. Robert Parham is the first to write about "my dreaded idea." It is this: when back in the 1950s our courts ordered desegregation in our schools, the race was on for the whites and their children to flee to the suburbs. That was to keep the white children from black children in public schools. Private schools or academies sprang up all over the country, many were begun by white churches. That is the legacy of private schools today.
It should make reasonable people look at history and look at the hatred toward a black president (remember there was no gripes when Reagan or George H.W. Bush did the very same thing). Are the sins of the fleeing whites being visited upon their sons?
Many on the street and in congress opposed civil rights after the court decision to give blacks equal opportunities to study. The south turned Republican in those days and is not over it yet. Parents opposing civil rights, 100 years after blacks were supposed to have them, has continued opposition to blacks from generation to generation.
Robert Parham closed his essay with this question: "Is that what this unhinged moment is really about—racism from generation to generation?"
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