Size matters

Dear editor:

It’s a sad old story that someone has to explain to the country, and especially me.

We are now in the presidential campaign time frame and every candidate, both Democrat and Republican, is spending a huge amount of time and millions and millions of dollars on two states that combined represent just one-tenth of one percent of the nation’s population. Iowa in the government’s 2006 estimate has a population of 2,982,085 or 0.996% of the country’s total. New Hampshire according to the same estimate has 1,235,786 or 0.413%.

It makes no sense that the major political parties use these two states to determine the outcome of the presidential nominee process for the rest of the country. Any candidate that comes in worse than third in any of these contests is considered damaged merchandise and is not “electable” by the parties. That is ignoring the opinion of the rest of the country, 295,180,613 or 98.591% of America’s total. Something is wrong here.

On top of that, the political parties are punishing any state (large or small) that has the audacity to schedule a caucus or primary prior to the two tiny early states. Something is definitely wrong here, just like the old time, smoke filled backroom power brokers who used to decide.

No one wants to give an unfair advantage to any large or small state to determine the candidates on the party tickets, but something has to change. Is it time to bring forth a national primary day? Seems to me that is the only solution for a fair and equitable choosing. It’s too late this time, but it must change before 2012, which I figure will see candidates running the day after the new president is sworn in on January 9, 2008.

Goooood Morning Pakistan

Dear editor:

During the Vietnam War the United States expanded the fighting and bombing to Cambodia. The government kept it a secret from the American public, the Congress and the Media, and hid the financing for this illegal action from everyone. Nothing had been legally authorized, and the executive branch of our government pulled a curtain over their actions until that cover was blown and the bombing stopped.

Hidden actions such as this are not happening today thanks to our hard working media following the war, but with American Special Forces “advising and training” Pakistani forces it leads one to wonder how many additional countries President Bush intends to spread his war to, without specific permission from Congress. Yes, it may be necessary to fight Al-Queda there now, but who authorized the President to do so? There are now 50 such advisors in Pakistan and it looks like we are going to add another 50. Isn’t this how Vietnam started? It’s called slowly drowning.

And by the way, wouldn’t this all (Iraq and Pakistan) not have been necessary if the President had put a full continuous push with enough forces into searching out Osama ben Laden in Afghanistan? Instead he chose to pull back, leave the fight to Afghani troops, and once again repeated the mistake and sent not enough troops into Iraq. Now he talks about the war on terror and how we can’t ignore Pakistan. Doesn’t he realize that it was all from his bad judgment and personal bias against Iraq and its leader? Doesn’t he see the blunders that VP Cheney and Sect. of Defense Rumsfeld pulled to get an inexperienced, unqualified man to follow? Where does it all end? When will he admit responsibility for almost 3,900 American troop deaths and over 25,000 wounded? And that’s just in Iraq. It’s time for him to be held accountable, and not just a mea-culpa.

Executive Fire

The “electrical fire” at the Executive Office Building across the street from the White House was a shocker today. Two important events were effected by the fire: 1) VP Cheney was able to get rid of tons of incriminating evidence, and: 2) President Bush’s book was burned, and he hadn’t even finished coloring it yet.

Freedom of religion and Voltaire

Dear editor:

A number of centuries ago Voltaire said it best. To quote him: “If there were only one religion in England one would have to be afraid of despotism. It there were two they would cut each other’s throats. But there are thirty, and they live happily in peace.” What an insight that even makes sense today. If you take a careful look you will understand why our founding fathers made a point of leaving religion out of our government.

In Afghanistan the despotic Taliban government insisted that everyone follow their form of religion or suffer the consequences. No other religions are allowed to exist in their form of theocracy.

In Iraq Sunni and Shiite are at each other’s throats, killing because of differences in their two religions that share a common base. A civil war is a constant danger.

But in the United States there are a multitude of religious beliefs, related and unrelated. We live in somewhat of a religious peace.

Someone ought to bring these points out to the Southern Baptist Conference and other evangelical groups that feel the need to convert everyone to their way of thinking and prayer, and even go so far as to demand that a candidate for president follow their lead. Talk about despotism.

Thank you Voltaire for your foresight that still holds true today. Now if we could only get some groups to read and understand your writings.

Democracy, Not Theocracy

Reading, or re-reading the Constitution of the United States is an activity and learning experience that many in this country need to take up before the next presidential election. The reason for this is quite simple. They don’t know what they are talking about.

The fight over religion and the personal beliefs of the candidates, as a requirement to hold the highest office in the land, just doesn’t belong according to our founding fathers. They knew what they were talking about when the document was written over two hundred years ago. Look at their clear and concise words:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Very simple and straight forward. Nowhere does it mention a religious requirement for eligibility, nor does it talk about what his or her faith and beliefs should or must be. To be eligible requires only three things: 1) Natural born; 2) Thirty-five years of age attained; and 3) Residency in the U.S. for the past fourteen years. Simple and straightforward.

It is a shame that right-wing, religiously fanatical and evangelical religious groups want to ignore this document and come up with their own requirements for holding the office of President of the United States. This is a democracy, not the theocracy they want to change it into.

Communicable Loss of Memory

Amnesia seems to be a communicable disease in the current administration and everyone seems to be afflicted with it.

When Alberto Gonzales was Attorney General and testified before congress he quite often answered questions with “I have no recollection of such a discussion” or “I don’t remember being in such a meeting.”

Now with the CIA admitting that they advised the White House back in August of the fact that they knew that Iran had discontinued their nuclear weapon program back in 2003, the president has a loss of memory. Dana Perino, his Press Secretary, said that the president “had no recollection of being told that.” How sad. How pitiful. How familiar. How convenient. I guess it’s just a bug that’s going around Washington.

Deja-vu (All over again?)

In August President Bush received a briefing by Mike O’Connell, the director of national intelligence, that there was new information available regarding a nuclear-armed Iran. But, being the “war president” that he claims to be, two months later he warned that such a dangerous country as Iran might lead to World War Three. It was a stark warning for America and the world even though he knew that there were fresh indications that Iran had actually halted its nuclear weapons program. He now says that he was waiting for further information on the situation and really didn’t know the extent of the “new information.”

It seems that in a situation of such tremendous import that a “war president” would either ask questions at the time (last August) or at least hold off any further accusations against Iran as he did in the fall, especially with so many lives at stake. But he didn’t, and instead beat the fear of war drums as he did in the past with Iraq. It’s a sales job that sounds familiar to thinking Americans, and each of should be insulted that either he thinks we are that stupid, or maybe he is.

Remember the warnings of “weapons of mass destruction,” yellow cake materials from Niger, chemical warfare machines on the back of trailer trucks? It all turned out to be phony and embarrassed our ambassador to the United Nations (Colin Powell) and our country to the rest of the world. U. S. claims that these mobile weapons labs were based on 100 reports from a single source, whom U.S. officials never interviewed in person. Bush’s pronouncements of not wanting to wait for an atomic cloud was salesmanship that was as bad as an elixir of youth sold on the back of a Conestoga wagon. But this salesmanship cost our country the lives of over 3,800 service people (and counting) and a trillion dollars (and counting.)

In 2005, a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) said that Iran was “determined” to acquire nuclear weapons. This report was accurate, but sorely dated.

Bush now says that “our policy remains the same” regardless of the new intelligence. Look Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. What’s to say they couldn’t start another covert nuclear weapons program.” I guess the president isn’t interested in updated intelligence and wants us to be afraid of everything in sight. The same prognostication could be said about many countries in the world, and even an individual with a computer and knowledge of how to search for such information on the subject.

European nations, our allies so to speak, are struggling to understand why the United States chose to issue the intelligence report just two days after the six powers involved in negotiating with Iran had decided, at the behest of the U.S., to press ahead with a new Security Council resolution. Timing is everything.

Let’s not make the same Iraq mistake again. We don’t need another Bush/Cheney war killing more Americans and putting us further into debt that our great-grandchildren and their descendants will still struggle to pay off.

Friend or Foe?

According to Maj. Gen. Richard Cone, the U.S. is about to begin providing M-16 rifles to the Afghans, and is poised to deliver about 10,000 a month, up to 60,000. And he said there is an ongoing effort to obtain helicopters for the Afghanistan forces, including plans for an additional 34 in the near future.

Now the big question is: How long will it be before those very same weapons are used against us? Not possible? Take a look at Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Hamas, etc, etc, etc. We will never learn it seems. Why does today's "friend" turn out to be tomorrow's "foe?"