Tag Archives: Iraq War

national news, political news

Sen. Cotton clams up on Trump

Tom-Cotton

Tom Cotton is a combative freshman Republican U.S. senator from Arkansas who’s proven to be unafraid to speak his mind on just about anything … or anyone.

But when he was asked to make the case for Donald Trump’s election as the next president of the United States, Sen. Cotton turned strangely quiet.

It’s up to Trump, he said, to make his own case.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/tom-cotton-donald-trump-225071

What gives? This is the young man — an Iraq War veteran — who recently called Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid all kinds of names while condemning his leadership in the upper legislative chamber.

This looks to me like another case of Republican officials finding it hard to articulate why they support the presumptive presidential nominee of their own party.

Cotton’s  demurring on that today exemplifies the concern that Trump should be feeling as his nomination draws near.

The way I see it, candidates need vocal and articulate surrogates to speak for them. Whether they’re running for president or county commissioner, candidates depend on the good will of others to push them forward.

Trump keeps trashing not only the Democrats who, naturally, are going oppose him but also Republicans who are reluctant to chime in with words of encouragement.

What did Trump say recently? Line up behind me or just “be quiet.”

Cotton has endorsed Trump. He’s being “quiet,” though, on explaining his reasons for the endorsement.

local news, political news

Non-endorsements pile up for Trump

Here’s what Mac Thornberry, a dedicated “establishment Republican” member of Congress said about whether he plans to “endorse” GOP nominee-to-be Donald J. Trump.

“If you endorse somebody, it’s like a stamp of approval and embracing them,” Thornberry said earlier this month, according to the (Wichita Falls) Times-Record News. “I’m not comfortable doing that with him based on a number of reasons.” A spokesman clarified to the Tribune that Thornberry would not vote for Clinton but has not committed to voting for Trump.

There you have it.

The Republican congressman whose 13th Congressional District stretches from Dalhart in the farthest northwest corner of Texas all the way to the northern Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, isn’t (yet) going to endorse his party’s presidential nominee.

As the Texas Tribune has reported, the GOP delegation from Texas is far less united in its view of Trump than the Democratic delegation is about their party’s presumed presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/15/texas-congressional-delegation-endorsements/

I am struck by Thornberry’s non-endorsement. It speaks oh, so very loudly to me.

He’s my congressman. I’ve voted for him a few times over the years, depending on the quality of his primary or general election opponents.

He’s generally quite careful and circumspect about political matters when he’s asked to comment publicly.

“Based on a number of reasons,” Thornberry said he is uncomfortable endorsing his party’s presidential nominee. What would they be? Trade policy? Statements that a woman should be punished for getting an abortion? The lengthy string of tasteless insults? His accusing President Bush of deliberate deception in taking us to war in Iraq? Might it be that Trump has no record at all of public service or any commitment to public service through his many business ventures?

You know, it looks for all the world to me as though Mac Thornberry is going to have a hard time even voting for his party’s presidential nominee, let alone endorsing him.

That’s just me talking, of course. Whatever the congressman decides, he’ll act on it in private.

I’ll just add one more point. If Mac Thornberry — who is as loyal a Republican as you’ll find — cannot endorse Trump, then the GOP’s top candidate for 2016 is facing serious trouble down the road.

media news, military news

A vet opens fire … and that’s relevant to what?

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gunman

A headline appeared in the Houston Chronicle that said a gunman has been identified as a “military vet.”

Is it just me, or is there a bit of generalizing here that resembles what happened to veterans of another era?

Someone tell me that’s not happening.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/houston/article/Witness-says-Memorial-shooter-made-7953256.php?t=942f77db9c&cmpid=fb-premium

Returning service personnel are coming home from war in Afghanistan and, earlier, from Iraq. Many of them suffer from post traumatic stress disorder, the ailment once known as “shell shock.”

A gunman opened fire in Houston, killing at least one person, injuring others and then was killed by a police SWAT officer.

Here’s my concern.

I hope we don’t see news reports that seem to equate someone’s military service to a crime they might commit.

You might recall how it was often reported during the 1970s and 1980s when people committed violent crimes and the headlines often would say something like: “Vietnam vet goes berserk” or “Vietnam veteran suspected of killing children.”

Do you get where I’m coming from? There seemed to be some correlation made immediately that connected the perpetrator’s terrible deed to his service in Vietnam. That war, some have argued, turned returning soldiers into caricatures, even though they represented a tiny fraction of all the people who served with honor and distinction during that terrible conflict.

The vast majority of them did their duty, came home, readjusted to civilian life quickly, and became normal folks just doing whatever it is normal folks do.

I surely hope we do not paint returning veterans today with the same kind of broad brush that coated an earlier generation of warriors.

 

media news, military news

Two sources offer differing versions of same story

kyle

Two Internet websites are reporting something about an American war hero that differ in their emphasis.

One of them leans left; the other leans right. The specific subject of their analyses is an essay by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who’s challenging contentions by yet another source about the veracity of a former Navy SEAL’s account of his battlefield exploits.

Here’s the right-leaning site:

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/05/30/perry-jumps-defense-american-snipers-reputation-leftwing-media-attack/

Perry questions doubts raised about the late Chris Kyle’s medals. Kyle, who was shot to death after returning from multiple deployments to Iraq, reportedly fudged the number of Silver and Bronze stars he received for his work as a SEAL sniper.

Breitbart.com sides with Perry’s accusation that the doubts have served to smear the memory of Chris Kyle, whose military career was the subject of an acclaimed film “American Sniper.”

Here’s the left-leaning site:

http://deadstate.org/rick-perry-attacks-left-wing-media-for-doing-actual-journalism-on-american-sniper-chris-kyles-lies/

Deadstate.org says the report reflects journalists doing actual journalism.

Gov. Perry, quite naturally, disputes that side of the story.

Perry said the DD-214 — the Defense Department official record of every person’s military service — is the definitive source for this information.

Here’s my take.

I don’t particularly care whether Kyle received two Silver Stars or “merely” one of them, or that he received six Bronze Stars instead of just four, or five.

The man is a hero, no matter how you slice it.

As for whether the report constitutes a “smear,” and has “libeled” a dead man, I’ll make two quick points.

One is that you cannot libel someone who’s dead. The other is that the truth has yet to be determined. If the reporters who dug up the discrepancy in Kyle’s record have done so accurately, well, you cannot libel anyone by telling the truth.

I’m not going to obsess over the number of medals for valor Kyle earned while doing his duty.

local news, military news

War Memorial plans need a push

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Bruce and Rosie Das are Gold Star parents with a singular mission.

They want to raise money to build a center that honors their son and others who have died in service to their country.

Bruce and Rosie have joined some other Amarillo-area residents on the mission. They seek to raise about $12 million to build an education center at the Texas Panhandle War Memorial, on South Georgia Street next to the Randall County Courthouse Annex.

Is there a more noble mission than to honor those who’ve paid the ultimate price for the freedom we all enjoy?

U.S. Air Force Capt. Eric Das was at the controls of an F-15 fighter jet in Iraq when he was shot down in the early weeks of the Iraq War in 2003. His parents and sister have carried on in the years since, relying heavily on their faith that has given them the strength to share openly their grief.

Now, though, they have joined with others in seeking to expand the memorial’s presentation to include an education center. It will be an interactive place, where children can learn more about the cost of freedom. It’s paid in the lives lost on battlefields around the world as the United States — the world’s most indispensable nation — has answered the call to fight tyranny and oppression.

They’re having a ceremony today at the Panhandle War Memorial.

Amarillo Mayor Paul Harpole, himself a Vietnam War combat veteran, will deliver remarks honoring the men whose names are inscribed on the stone tablets that ring the War Memorial.

I ran into Bruce Das a while back. We chatted a bit about the fundraising effort that’s ongoing to build the education center. He said “It’s progressing,” which is kind of a vague response. I trust and certainly hope — he’ll be able eventually to declare the event to be fully funded.

Today is the day we set aside to honor those who died for the rest of us. Let’s also honor the need to ensure that we never forget the sacrifice of those who died in service to the country — and the loved ones who will grieve forever.

 

national news

Grads get lecture from POTUS about ‘listening’

Condoleezza-Rice_

President Barack Obama has delivered some much-needed wisdom to recent university graduates about the need to keep their ears and their minds open to all points of view.

The president delivered a commencement address to Rutgers University graduates and lectured them about the “misguided” effort to prevent a former secretary of state from speaking to an earlier class of graduates.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-chides-rutgers-students-pressuring-203403559.html

Condoleezza Rice was supposed to speak to Rutgers grads in 2014, but she was pressured to back out of her scheduled appearance because students and faculty members disagreed with her involvement in the George W. Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Obama said it was wrong to mount that kind of pressure against Rice.

He is correct to say so.

“I don’t think it’s a secret that I disagree with many of the policies of Dr. Rice and the previous administration. But the notion that this community or this country would be better served by not hearing a former secretary of state or not hearing what she had to say — I believe that’s misguided,” Obama said. “I don’t think that’s how democracy works best, when we’re not even willing to listen to each other.”

You go, Mr. President!

Universities should be places where all points of view are welcome. Does anyone really doubt that a former secretary of state has something valuable to say to students who are about to leave academia to make their way into the world?

This notion of academic snobbery has rankled me repeatedly over the years.

I’m gratified to hear the president of the United States tell these young graduates something they needed to hear, if they might not like hearing it.

International news, military news, national news, political news

Yes, he got the Nobel Peace Prize

obama nobel

The New York Times has posted a story that bestows a dubious legacy on President Barack Obama.

He’s about to exit the presidency after serving two full terms with the country at war.

His time in office will include more time at war than FDR, Richard Nixon, LBJ or Abraham Lincoln, the Times reports.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/us/politics/obama-as-wartime-president-has-wrestled-with-protecting-nation-and-troops.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

I doubt very much that President Obama is going to tout this legacy, particularly as he starts serious planning for his presidential library.

It brings to mind something I brought up in this blog a while back, which is his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize during the first year of his presidency.

He’ll never give it back. I’m not suggesting he should, although I did write a blog that said I wouldn’t be all that upset if he did.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2015/11/11478/

The Nobel committee honored the then-brand-new president as a rebuke, or so it has been speculated, to his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush. The Nobel panel thought little of President Bush’s decision to go to war with Iraq and many analysts suggested that awarding Obama the Peace Prize was meant to stick it in Bush’s ear over the Iraq War.

The official reason was that the Nobel Prize committee felt Obama had the promise of bringing the world to a new era of peace.

It hasn’t happened.

Is it the president’s fault? Does he shoulder the burden of continuing conflict around the world? No.

We’re still killing terrorists. We’ve been fighting a virtual all-out war with the Islamic State, which emerged from the rubble of the Iraq War as that country established a Shiite Muslim government, which is anathema to the Sunni Muslims comprising the Islamic State.

It’s clear that Obama delivered on his pledge to end our active combat role in Iraq. The Afghan War rages on as well, with troops remaining in that theater well past the time the president had hoped to bring them home.

I remain a supporter of Barack Obama. I believe he did a masterful job of infusing aid to shore up an economy in free fall. I also believe he’s done well in developing alliances around the world.

This wartime presidential legacy, though, is one that shouldn’t make any of us proud … least of all the man whose time as leader of the Free World is about to end.

 

national news, political news

Bernie turns mean against Hillary

sandersclinton_040116getty

What in the world has gotten into U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders?

The kind old gentleman has turned into a grouchy curmudgeon as he seeks to forestall Hillary Clinton’s march to the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

Sanders lit into Clinton at a Brooklyn, N.Y., rally over the weekend, firing up an already-raucous crowd.

Isn’t this the fellow who said he was “tired of hearing about your damn e-mails” during an earlier Democratic debate with Clinton? Isn’t this the man who pledged to keep his campaign positive?

It ain’t happening these days, I’ll tell you.

He’s teeing off on Clinton’s acceptance of big money from “corporate special interests” which, he says, have corrupted the electoral system. He’s questioning her “judgment” in voting to approve funds for the Iraq War. He’s labeling her a tool of the super PACs that have lined up behind her candidacy.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/276624-sanders-scathing-clinton-attack-invigorates-brooklyn

I’m sure it gives Sanders a rush to hear all the cheering, whoopin’ and hollerin’ from the crowds that come to hear his message.

It also seems to smack a bit of desperation from someone who needs to win Tuesday’s New York primary if he is going to remain a serious challenger to the Clinton juggernaut.

If he doesn’t win the primary, they might start blinking the “last call” lights on Sanders’ campaign.

I’ll say this about Sanders: He’s managed to dictate the terms of the Democratic primary debate. To that end, he’s scored a sufficient victory already.

This extreme negativity, though, is unbecoming from someone who once sought to stay on the high road.

 

International news

How about that? POTUS admits to ‘worst’ error

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gadhafi11

I’m going to give President Obama some high praise for doing something one doesn’t often hear from people in high office.

He has acknowledged what he says is his “worst mistake.”

What’s more, he did it in a forum that is considered hostile territory.

The president appeared on “Fox News Sunday” this weekend and told host Chris Wallace the worst mistake of his presidency was failing to plan adequately for the fall of the late Libyan dictator/tyrant/despot Moammar Gadhafi.

When do presidents do such a thing? Did Richard Nixon ever say he erred by recording those conversations in the White House; has Jimmy Carter ever said his biggest mistake was ordering the mission to rescue the Iran hostages; did George W. Bush ever acknowledge the Iraq War was a mistake?

OK, so the president didn’t take the heat for the Libya mess by himself. He heaped some blame in British Prime Minister David Cameron for being distracted at the time of Gadhafi’s downfall.

I do give Obama credit, though, for admitting to a lack of planning as the world watched the chaos unfold in Libya. The so-called “Arab Spring” went into full bloom in Tripoli as rebels took over the government, captured the dictator — and then killed him.

It got worse, of course, as the U.S. consulate in Benghazi came under attack and four Americans died in the melee. Perhaps some adequate planning could have forestalled that event, yes?

The president’s greatest triumph? Without question, he said, it was his decision to jump-start the economy with stimulus packages upon taking office. I won’t argue with him on that. The economy was in free-fall and something needed to be done quickly.

It might be, too, that the president deserves props for telling all this to a broadcast journalist employed by a media outlet known as being patently unfriendly to politicians of Obama’s particular leaning.

I’ll give some to him for that alone.

Sure, there can be some debate on “worst mistakes” of the Obama presidency. Some might rank his failure to act on Syria crossing the “red line” when it used chemical weapons; others might rank the president’s unfortunate description of the Islamic State as the “JV team.”

The Libya coup aftermath, though, surely ranks as a critical error.

It’s just rare to hear a politician actually admit to making such a mistake.

 

national news, political news

Bernie has won the war of ideas … if not the nomination

berniesanders-61515-1434466786

So much of our national attention has been focused during this political season on the Republican Party presidential primary campaign.

After all, it features a glam king, TV personality, real estate mogul and showman who appears headed for the Republican presidential nomination.

Donald J. Trump has broken all the rules of normal decorum, good manners, class and grace.

Oh yeah! There’s a primary in the other party that’s taking place, too.

Democrats are fighting with themselves over whether to endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton or U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The dynamic there also has been somewhat unconventional, albeit not to the degree the GOP race has become.

Sanders is getting his clock cleaned in primary states. He’s been close in many states and he did win Michigan and New Hampshire’s primaries. However, Clinton is now — once again — the shoo-in for the Democratic nomination. To get there, though, she’s had to do something quite extraordinary: She’s had to change her positions on issues to where she now agrees with Sanders.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership? Clinton once favored this trade agreement; now she opposes it.

The Keystone XL pipeline? She once favored it; today she opposes it.

The Iraq War? She voted for it in 2002; she says now that she has changed her mind.

Sanders opposed all those issues from the beginning.

Clinton now has taken up the cause for wage inequality. She’s vowing to take on the big banks. She is sounding more populist than mainstream than when the campaign started.

By golly, she’s sounding like Bernie!

Has Sanders won the war of ideas in the Democratic primary? It’s sounding as though he can declare victory. He well might do that — but he won’t go home quietly.

All this change of mind/heart, of course, brings to mind the issue of Clinton’s authenticity. It has become the source of “Saturday Night Live” skits that skewer the former secretary of state, first lady and U.S. senator over the manner in which she crafts certain images to please whatever audience to which she is speaking.

Sen. Sanders has no serious hope of becoming the Democratic nominee. He does have some hope, though, that the message he’s sought to convey has become part of his opponent’s campaign.

All along, Sanders has sought to tell his party’s base that the campaign “isn’t about me.” If he believes it, then his campaign has been about his ideas.

Stand tall, Sen. Sanders! You’ve won!