Tag Archives: Vietnam War

Torture returns to the political debate arena

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It’s back. Torture has made its return as an issue being discussed by presidential candidates.

Donald J. Trump has dredged it from the has-been issue pile, saying something about how he would order the waterboarding of bad guys in order to get information from them.

Don’t do it, says someone who knows a thing or three about torture.

I prefer to stand with the expert on these things. That would be U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who lost the presidency in the 2008 campaign to fellow Sen. Barack Obama.

What’s a bit ironic, of course, is that McCain and Trump would be at loggerheads over this issue. Why the irony? You’ll recall that one of Trump’s initial insults was tossed in McCain’s direction when he said that the senator is a war hero only because he got captured by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War and that he (Trump) preferred people “who weren’t captured, OK?”

Here they are again. McCain has long opposed the use of waterboarding as an “enhanced interrogation” technique. He calls it torture, which he believes breaks faith with American principles.

What does McCain now about torture? More than most Americans ever will know, and certainly far more than Donald Trump knows about it.

McCain’s five-plus years as a captive after being shot down during the Vietnam War included many years of torture: beatings, solitary confinement and the communists’ various versions of “enhanced interrogation.”

When the senior senator from Arizona calls a particular act a form of torture, well, I am inclined to believe him.

I am doing so in this particular exchange.

He’s right as well to suggest that the information gleaned from waterboarding has been sketchy at best and has not provided nearly as much actionable intelligence as has been suggested.

Sen. McCain isn’t speaking as some soft-pedaling, squishy, politically correct liberal. He speaks as someone who’s been straight to hell and back.

 

GOP fretting like crazy over Trump, Cruz

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The drama being played out in the inner circles of the Republican Party national network is among the most fascinating things I’ve ever seen.

Two men have emerged as co-favorites for the GOP presidential nomination — and the party brass is none too happy about either of them.

Donald J. Trump has managed to insult his way to the top of the still-large GOP heap; U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas antagonized his Senate colleagues to the point that it’s no generally understood that, well, no one on Capitol Hill likes, or even respects, the junior senator.

Republican statesmen, such as Robert Dole, say a Cruz nomination would bring “cataclysmic” losses to the party; it could cost Republicans control of the Senate and bring Democrats within striking distance of getting control of the House.

Aw, but today’s firebrands label the likes of former Sen. Dole as “has been,” “loser,” “RINO.”

That’s their view. It’s not mine.

Trump is now calling himself a conservative. His prior public statements about such things as abortion and universal health care betray his claim, according to so-called “true conservatives.”

But there he is. Looking down from atop the GOP heap. He’s going after Cruz’s eligibility to run for president. He’s feuding with a broadcast journalist. He’s managed to insult Iowa voters, Hispanics, Muslims, our allies abroad, every working politician in Washington, D.C., women, reporters and editors . . . and others I can’t even think of at the moment.

Hey, it’s all OK with those who think Trump is “fresh.”

Wow!

As for Ted Cruz, well, he took his senatorial oath in January 2013 and began hunting for every open microphone he could find. He had his presidential ambitions planned out even before winning a contest in his first political election . . . ever!

He’s trampled over Senate colleagues, broken long-established Senate rules of decorum by calling the body ‘s majority leader a liar. He questioned whether decorated Vietnam War veterans, such as Secretary of State John Kerry and former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, had a true appreciation for the military; and this came from someone who never donned a military uniform!

The Republican Party has a problem, all right.

What will the GOP do? How will it deny either of these men its presidential nomination?

Given that so few of us have ever seen such intraparty angst, I’m afraid the Grand Old Party is on its own.

Good luck, ladies and gents.

 

So very wrong about Campaign ’16 . . . so far

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I’ve said it more times than I can remember, which is that I’m wrong far more frequently than I am right.

My political prognostication skill has been exposed for what it is: shaky . . . at best.

Thus, I am prepared to acknowledge how wrong I’ve been about the current campaign for the presidency. My wrongness tracks along both parties’ trails.

First, the Republicans.

Donald J. Trump’s candidacy has withstood the candidate’s own serious shortcomings as a presidential aspirant, let alone his actual ability to govern.

Never in a zillion years did I think he’d still be in this campaign — let alone leading the GOP gaggle of candidates — after the countless insults he has hurled along the way.

Sen. John McCain’s valor during the Vietnam War doesn’t make him a hero? The ridiculous back/forth with broadcast journalist Megyn Kelly during the first presidential debate? His assertion that he’ll build a wall along our southern border and force Mexico to pay for it? His revealing Sen. Lindsey Graham’s cell phone number? His proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States? His assertion that he witnessed “thousands of Muslims cheering” the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11?

OK, I’ve left some of ’em out.

Despite all that, this guy continues to lead the pack.

Anger among GOP voters? That’s what is moving this man forward? If that is the case, then the Republican Party “base” is lost its sanity.

During President Obama’s State of the Union speech, I tried to imagine Donald Trump standing at that lectern offering high-minded, soaring rhetoric designed to lay the groundwork for how he intends to govern. Imagine him as well standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol next January offering his inaugural speech to the nation as its 45th president.

All I hear coming from this guy are blustering, blistering insults.

Is that really what we want in the next president of the United States? Our head of state? Our commander in chief?

Now for the Democrats.

I once thought Hillary Rodham Clinton’s nomination was a shoo-in. She had it locked up. Nothing, or no one, would derail the Hillary Express on its way to the nomination and to the White House.

Then came Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist with a campaign theme that has resonated with his party’s base. Break up the big banks, de-fang the Wall Street power brokers, spread the wealth around, lift up everyone’s wages and reduce the income gap between the very rich and the rest of the country.

Republicans have made a lot of hay over Benghazi, which has become a form of political shorthand that means: Clinton lied about what she knew about the attack on the U.S. consulate in that Libyan city. There’s a congressional select committee that’s still looking for something to torpedo Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, Sanders — the independent U.S. senator from Vermont — is drawing huge, enthusiastic crowds. He’s ahead by a good bit in New Hampshire, the site of the nation’s first primary vote and is now virtually tied with Clinton in Iowa, which is about to kick off the voting with its caucuses.

Do I believe Hillary Clinton will be denied the nomination? No. But it sure ain’t the coronation I thought it would be when this campaign began.

Let me add, too, that I do not believe Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. I have some faith — although it’s been hammered — that the Republican Party brass comprises reasonable, intelligent and sane men and women who understand the consequences of nominating someone whose main skill lies in his ability to insult anyone who disagrees with him.

I don’t like acknowledging how wrong I have been.

Still, I feel better now for saying so out loud.

 

What? Discrepancies in Trump’s background?

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Karma can be a bitch.

Donald J. Trump’s account of his years at a military academy is now being challenged.

The Republican presidential candidate has portrayed his years at the academy as sufficient preparation for making him commander in chief. Now come reports that Trump’s years in the New York military school weren’t nearly as rosy as he has portrayed them.

Trump had received medical and student deferments that kept him from serving in the military during the Vietnam War. Trump, though, has portrayed his enrollment at New York Military Academy as being the next best thing to serving in the military.

Some former classmates now say that Trump wasn’t nearly as attentive to the students under his command as he should have been . . .  and as he has portrayed himself as being.

Turnabout is fair play, yes? Trump and others have asked questions about Barack H. Obama’s past. His academic records at Columbia University; his birth records.

Now the proverbial shoe is on the proverbial other foot.

How will Trump answer these questions?

Others and I are waiting.

 

Time to get back into the game

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That was a nice break from the presidential political campaign.

It’s now over.

High Plains Blogger has been pretty quiet for the past few weeks on the goings-on related to the Democratic and Republican campaigns for the White House. The intent was to stay quiet during the Christmas holiday. I had given thought to maintaining the moratorium through New Years Day. I admit it: I can’t do it.

So, I’ll be getting back in the game.

* * *

The Iowa caucuses are coming up, followed quickly by the New Hampshire primary.

Donald J. Trump continues to lead the GOP pack, although for the life of me I remain baffled to the max as to what’s going on with Republican voters. I keep hearing and reading things about how Trump has changed the rules of the campaign. How he’s rewriting the playbook.

The more offensive he is toward his primary foes, the better it goes for the guy. I thought he was toast at the very beginning when he denigrated Sen. John McCain’s heroic service during the Vietnam War. Good grief, the list of insults has grown beyond my ability to remember them all.

But … by golly he remains at the top of the heap.

The Democrats? It’s still Hillary Clinton’s contest to lose (although I’ve never quite understood that phrase; I’ll just use it anyway, because it’s what pundits keep saying).

I’m going to be watching and waiting for Trump to say the one thing that sends his campaign into the crapper. It might not be a single utterance, though, that dooms his weird campaign. It might be an accumulation of things that will dawn on GOP primary voters when they finally get the chance to cast actual ballots.

They’ll need to ask: Is this the guy we really and truly want to nominate to become the 45th president of the United States of America?

If it’s going to be Trump, well, as Hillary Clinton herself as said: Fasten your seatbelts.

 

 

President declares victory … over whom, what?

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It’s being reported tonight that President Obama today declared victory as he and his family took off out west on their family Christmas vacation.

I get that he’s anxious to finish his final full year as president on a high note. I question, though, whether there’s a victory yet to declare.

The president held his annual end-of-year press conference touting a few key victories: the Iran nuclear deal, the continuing enrollment of the Affordable Care Act, the recent budget deal worked out by Congress, re-establishing ties with Cuba, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and some other things.

They’ve all produced good signs of progress. But victory?

Not yet.

There’s still that ongoing fight with the Islamic State. He pledged yet again that the United States is hitting ISIL “harder than ever” and vowed to ramp up the pounding that U.S. and allied nations are delivering to the terrorist monsters. That fight is far from over. Indeed, it might never end. It won’t end by the time the current president leaves office and likely won’t end by the time the next one departs the White House.

It all reminds me of the time the late U.S. Sen. George Aiken, R-Vt., once declared that it would be in the best interest of the country to “declare victory” in Vietnam and just go home.

Well, at least don’t have to “go home.” Still, there’s much more work to do before the 44th president hands the White House keys over the 45th.

Enjoy the time with your family, Mr. President. Come on back, though, and get to work.

Oh … and Merry Christmas to you as well.

 

Obama fails to channel LBJ

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Claire McCaskill calls herself a “friend and supporter” of Barack Obama.

But the Democratic U.S. senator from Missouri has issued a candid assessment of the job her fellow Democrat has done as president of the United States.

The president’s major failing, according to McCaskill? He did not learn how to work with Congress.

The Hill reports on McCaskill’s remarks about Obama: “But one of the president’s shortcomings is that sometimes he sees the world through his eyes and doesn’t do, I think, enough work on being empathetic about how other people view things.”

McCaskill blisters president

In truth, McCaskill might be a bit behind the curve when critiquing the job the president has done.

I don’t think he’d mind my saying this, but a now-retired college administrator told me much the same thing during the president’s first term in office.

Former Amarillo College President Paul Matney and I were having lunch one day when Matney lamented the president’s testy relationship with congressional leaders. Matney wished that the president would employ the skill that the late President Lyndon Johnson used to great effect.

Johnson, of course, rose from the Senate to the executive branch of government, as Obama has done. LBJ served as vice president from 1961 until Nov. 22, 1963. Then he became president in the wake of tragedy.

When LBJ moved into the Oval Office, he harnessed all his legislative skill to shepherd landmark legislation through Congress. He was a master of working not just with fellow Democrats, but with Republicans.

Matney bemoaned that President Obama had not developed that kind of bipartisan rapport and it cost him dearly.

McCaskill now — near the end of Barack Obama’s presidency — echoes much of what Paul Matney said years ago. LBJ’s legacy, which was tainted for many years after he left office in 1969 by the Vietnam War, is beginning to look better all the time.

He understood that he needed the legislative branch to make government work, that he couldn’t do it all alone.

As Sen. McCaskill has noted, Barack Obama hasn’t seemed to have learned that lesson.

 

Get back into the game, Jerry Patterson

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The Texas Railroad Commission is a misnamed panel that does important work for the state.

It no longer regulates railroads. It does regulate the Texas energy industry.

So it is with some anticipation that I read today that Railroad Commissioner David Porter won’t seek re-election next year to the three-member panel.

Patterson may run for RRC.

His decision is spurring some activity among Texas Republicans. One of them happens to be someone I happen to respect and admire very much.

He is Jerry “The Gun Guy” Patterson, the former Texas land commissioner and a one-time state senator from the Houston area.

Patterson is a proud Marine and Vietnam War veteran. He also has delightful self-deprecating sense of humor; he once told me he graduated in the “top 75 percent of my class at Texas A&M.”

Patterson also was the author during the 1995 Texas Legislature of the state’s concealed-handgun-carry law. I opposed the law at the time, but my view on it has “evolved” over time. I am not an active supporter of the concealed-carry law; I just don’t oppose it.

Patterson did a great job running the General Land Office. He helped he GLO provide low-interest home loans for Texas military veterans.

I cannot speak to any expertise he might have on oil and gas issues. I do, though, respect him greatly as a dedicated public servant — and I hope he decides to get back in the game.

 

Thanksgiving brings back a special memory

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Most of my Thanksgiving celebrations have been of a fairly standard variety.

Turkey and all the sides. Fellowship with family. Lots of laughs. Sometimes even some pro football watching on TV.

But I’ve got a special Thanksgiving memory I’d like to share here.

It occurred in 1989. Twenty-six years ago I had the honor of attending — along with about 20 other journalists from all over the country — a three-week journey through Southeast Asia. Our trip took us — in order — Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and back to Vietnam. Our delegation represented the National Conference of Editorial Writers, which has been renamed and reorganized into the Association of Opinion Journalists.

It was a marvelous experience at many levels. Just going so far from home in itself was a treat. For several of us on that trip, it gave us a chance to return to Vietnam, where we had served during that terrible war and to see a country no longer shrouded by that conflict.

But along the way, we ventured to Cambodia. In 1989, the country was just beginning to recover from decades of war. Phnom Penh, the capital city, was in shambles. Vietnamese forces had just evacuated the country after liberating Cambodia from the heinous rule of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The city’s infrastructure was decimated.

We spent several days in Cambodia, laying eyes on a notorious killing field and seeing up close a former prison where the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed their countrymen.

But then the Cambodia portion of the trip ended. It happened to be Thanksgiving Day when we boarded our vans and headed east, back to Ho Chi Minh City (which the locals still refer to as Saigon).

We traveled all day along a terrible road. We crossed the rapidly flowing Mekong River aboard a “ferry” that in reality was little more than a glorified raft.

After a grueling day of travel back to Saigon, we settled into our hotel, the Majestic. Then we were informed by the hotel staff that they had prepared a special meal for us.

They wanted to make us feel a bit more “at home” by serving us a Thanksgiving-style meal in the hotel’s main dining room.

We all sat down to dinner that evening and enjoyed a serving of what one of my dear friends refers to this day as “road kill duck”; we also enjoyed some fresh peas and mashed potatoes.

The meal was just OK.

What made it so very special, though, was the hospitality displayed by our Vietnamese hosts, who were delighted to treat us to a meal that enabled their American visitors commemorate a uniquely American holiday.

A day that began with some trepidation as we looked forward to a long, tiring and potentially harrowing trip back from a nation still bleeding from the wounds of war ended with warmth and good wishes — in a place so far from home.

 

Huey to ‘land’ at Panhandle War Memorial

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Ernie Houdashell is the master of the deal.

The Randall County judge was chief of staff to state Rep. John Smithee and before that worked for U.S. Rep. Beau Boulter. His job description in both of his prior lives was to make things happen for the seasoned politicians.

He also is a proud veteran of the Vietnam War.

Houdashell has just scored another coup to honor those who served as he did during two tours in ‘Nam. A Vietnam War-vintage Huey helicopter has been towed from Arizona to the Texas Panhandle.

Eventually, the old bird is going to get gussied up, painted, detailed out and put on display at the Texas Panhandle War Memorial. Houdashell has worked for years to bring a Huey here, to show it off and to have it serve as part of an eternal display to honor those who served in Vietnam.

I’m proud of Houdashell for showing the persistence needed to bring another display to the War Memorial, which is slated to grow into a truly spectacular exhibit for visitors and those who live here.

Fundraising has begun on a 12,500-square foot education center that will be built at the War Memorial, next to the Randall County Annex at the corner of South Georgia Street and Interstate 27. The center will serve as an interactive exhibit to educate visitors on all the nation’s conflicts.

The memorial already contains stone tablets describing the conflicts dating back to the Spanish-American War; the tablets also contain the names of those Panhandle residents who died in service during those conflicts.

Houdashell developed his interest in aviation the hard way. He served in the Army and on his second tour in Vietnam served on a flight crew aboard a Huey. He remains a licensed pilot. Indeed, a few years ago, he negotiated for the delivery of an F-100 Super Sabre fighter jet that had seen service during the Vietnam War; the F-100 is not on display at a corner of the War Memorial property.

The county judge isn’t certain when the Huey will be ready for display. It was simply enough for him to negotiate for its delivery to the Panhandle.

As a fellow Vietnam veteran, I will await eagerly the day when the Huey is delivered to the Panhandle War Memorial, where it can enhance what has become a wonderful tribute to those who have defended our nation.

Thank you, judge, for your hard work.