THE 1% SOLUTION

At 308,000,000 souls, 1% of the US population amounts to 3,080,000, 50% again the roughly two million military personnel who have served in our senseless wars of conquest over Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001.

Even less than that, 0%, have paid a single dime to fund these trillion dollar wars which are financed by borrowed money to be paid back by future generations that have a terrible surprise awaiting them.

These two statistics should shock and outrage every decent, peace loving American for they expose the utter criminality and corruptness of the war party, which basically prosecutes their needless wars without the involvement of the American people. If all able bodied youth had to serve and if all wage earners had to pay, there could never be a war which was unnecessary as these are.

Decades or even just a few years from now, when the piper of this perversion of our war-making duty must be paid, the people won't need a very long or detailed response when they ask what went so terribly wrong in the first decade of the 21st century.

Those of us who saw through the lies and the strategy the war party used to cripple America from their lust for conquest in the Middle East will simply sigh and say, "It was the 1% solution."

SHOT NOT HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD

Kenneth Biros did a very bad thing eighteen years ago. He became over-served in a bar and later killed a woman he picked up there in a self admitted drunken rage. Normally, the absence of malice aforethought and intent, due to extreme intoxication, would have spared Biros from state sponsored murder. However, the Ohio jury may have been swayed to vote death by Biros' grotesque attempt to cover up his misdeed by cutting up the body and scattering it over two states.

Biros' two decade saga to stay alive rested on his lawsuit claiming that the usual three shot cocktail of lethal drugs was cruel and unusual. Not to be denied their killing, Ohio officials rendered Biros' suit moot when they offered to make him the first person ever to be executed by a single shot lethal injection. The US Supreme Court agreed and Mr. Biros became the pioneer for this new technique on Tuesday, December 8.

Biros' achievement was not given its due, in part, to the weekly news cycle, which focused on the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo. In his acceptance speech the President practically bragged that it is OK for America to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to kill untold thousands of innocents in our quest to control two pitiful countries in the Middle East.

For advancing the technology of state sponsored destruction of folks deemed unworthy of continued existence, Kenneth Biros may not be Time's, but he is my Person Of The Year. Had he been given a chance to acknowledge his achievement, his comments would have been shorter and much more honest than those uttered in Oslo:

"One single shot for a man, one giant leap backward for mankind".

TIGER MADE ME BUY IT

The Tiger Woods car crash, with marital prelude, heard 'round the world, should make us rethink the place in our culture of celebrity endorsements.

They would be wrong even if every celebrity endorser was a saint who never tarnished his image even a drop, much less the tsunami of shame currently engulfing the greatest golfer ever.
They are wrong because the price of the product to people struggling to make ends meet is inflated by the millions, sometimes hundreds of millions dollars paid to celebrities to smile and say "buy this and you can be like me". Other than reducing the purchasing power of people who pay these bloated salaries to bask in a tiny beam of the celebrity's glow, they add no value to the product, the purchaser or society, whatsoever.

I admired Michael Jordan for his ability to put a ball in a hoop, as meaningless as that talent was for the betterment of society, as much as I admire the similar meaningless gift Tiger possesses to put a ball in a hole. Although the payment to both for their talents seems obscene, one cannot underestimate how willingly ordinary folks will fund these obscene salaries to be entertained.

But Michael and Tiger and their legion of fellow celebrity endorsers should leave it on the court or the course or the movie screen and let the rest of us mere mortals create our own identity without having to buy theirs.

Also published in the Glen Ellyn News, December 9, 2009 and the Chicago Tribune, December 14

TIGER SANCTUARY

Imagine an accident scene.

Police arrive at 2:30 AM to find a car that just pulled out of driveway badly damaged from colliding with a fireplug and a tree. The driver, a woman, is sprawled in semi consciousness on the ground with cuts on her face more likely caused by a human hand than the steering wheel. There is no blood in the car and the air bag did not deploy. A man, the woman's husband, is at the scene with a golf club, used, the husband says, to smash out the car windows to extricate his hapless wife from the wreck he heard from the house.

It wouldn't take a police academy graduate to surmise the police would quickly take the husband in for questioning on two possible felonies; spousal assault and reckless endangerment causing a vehicle accident, while carting the wife off to the emergency room.

If Erin Nordegren (Mrs Tiger Woods) fills the role of our imagined possible felon, then it helps she is married to the soon to be billionaire golfer. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure can buy immunity from police inquiry.

Also published in the Daily Herald, December 4, 2009

KASS PASSES ON RYAN'S FATAL FLAW

In supporting former Dupage County States Attorney and Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan's gubernatorial bid, columnist John Kass glosses over the fatal flaw of Ryan's tireless efforts to put two innocent men to death for the 1983 Jeannine Nicarico murder.

In his November 29 column, Kass continues the rehabilitation of Ryan's culpability for his leading the rush to death by allowing Ryan to again apologize for the "system" failing before admitting he failed. For Ryan to assert "I acted in good faith...when I was younger" is disingenuous at best, and utterly self serving at worst. Ryan's office chose two innocent men to die for a horrific crime that needed someone to pay the highest price, and presented virtually no evidence to warrant the death sentences they eventually obtained. Ryan conveniently ignores that it took ten years and three costly trials for Cruz to finally be taken off death row and another six years to be pardoned. Ryan further ignores mention that seven DuPage County law enforcement officials; three prosecutors and four deputies, were indicted by a grand jury in December 1996 on 47 charges of conspiracy to convict Cruz despite being aware of exculpatory evidence, and that DuPage County eventually paid 3.5 million dollars to Cruz, Alejandro Hernandez and Steven Buckley for wrongful prosecution.

Kass is obsessive about pointing out every tiny wart and failing of the folks he opposes. He should do the same for those he supports.

AIN'T GONNA STUDY WAR NO MORE

I'm not going to listen to the President's speech Tuesday about the Afghan war.

I already know that he will announce sending 34,000 more soldiers, at a cost of 34 billion in borrowed dollars per year, to end the war in victory.

I already know that some of those soldiers will die; by enemy fire, by friendly fire and by their own hand, for no reason at all.

I already know that some of those soldiers will kill innocent Afghan men, women and children for no reason at all.

I already heard this same speech about escalating a senseless and failed war in Vietnam many times during the 1960's and 70's by President's Johnson and Nixon.

I already heard this same speech about escalating a senseless and failed war in Iraq many times during six years under President George W. Bush.

I already know we are going bankrupt establishing an empire of client states in the Middle East that only make anti American terrorism more attractive and America less safe.

And I already know the outcome: The war party wins again...and America loses.

Also published in the Chicago Sun Times, November 30, 2009

BEEN DOWN THIS ROAD BEFORE

The people in the war party, who think nothing of sending the idealistic and the desperate to the Middle East to die in the desert in fairy tail wars, should be required to view the Bill Moyer's Journal "Hearing History: The LBJ Tapes" which aired November 20.

It told of the escalation of the Vietnam War, mostly through the actual tapes of President Johnson and his advisors assessing the deteriorating Vietnam civil war which began spinning out of control shortly after Johnson assumed the Presidency, in November, 1963, and ending with the colossal buildup to over half a million soldiers and 58,000 dead by the time it ended twelve years later.

It was stunning to hear LBJ's gut tell him right from the getgo that the war was unwinnable due to the utterly corrupt and hated South Vietnamese government, which essentially put America on the wrong side of a civil war. Equally stunning was the 1964 GOP Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, declaring with absolute certainty, that LBJ's dithering and indecisiveness was leading America to lose the Vietnam War, and LBJ buckling to Goldwater's pressure by widening the war, setting the table for its disastrous resolution.

Watching LBJ announce his decision to escalate a war he knew we could not win and did not need to win is as heartbreaking a speech by a President we may ever see....until possibly the current President has to stand before us in the next few weeks to tell us his decision whether to escalate another lost and unnecessary war.

Let's hope the President of hope has the audacity to listen to and ponder the destruction of his predecessor forty-four years ago.

Also published in the Glen Ellyn News, November 25, 2009

ONE DOWN AND ONE TO GO

This Thanksgiving, I will give thanks that President Obama has had the good sense to delay his inevitable decision to send more canon fodder, also known as American soldiers, to bleed and die in our senseless and failed war in Afghanistan till after we celebrate turkey day.

Now, if the President can find a way to delay that decision till after Christmas, he will be giving all of us, especially those aforementioned doomed soldiers, the best Christmas present of all.

CONGRESSMAN PETER ROSKOM'S OCTOBER, 2009 REPORT CARD ON MIDDLE EAST WARS

November 14, 2009

Congressman Peter Roskam
150 S. Bloomingdale Road, Suite 200
Bloomingdale, IL 60108

Dear Congressman Roskam,

Do you ever fully contemplate the enormity of the human toll from our senseless wars in the Middle East that you support to the tune of 400 million dollars daily?

We all know, because the Defense Department cannot cover up American deaths, that as of today, 5,278 American servicemen have died in those wars.

But the Defense Department does minimize publication about the walking and non-walking injured, to deflect attention from the human toll that you folks in the war party choose to ignore.

Fortunately for those of us working to end these wars there is the Veterans for Common Sense, http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/, a nonprofit advocacy group seeking to advance the health and readjustment of returning military personnel. Here is some of their startling fact finding which you, and every Congressman who funds these futile wars, should ponder.

230 service members committed suicide in Iraq and Afghanistan through October 3, 2009.

70,772 service members in Iraq have been wounded or injured due to all causes, hostile and otherwise

13,407 service members in Afghanistan have been wounded or injured due to all causes, hostile and otherwise

Total casualties including dead, wounded or injured in both wars is approaching 90,000

454,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have sought care from the VA since coming home, representing 40% of the total veteran population

Of that 454,000 seeking help, 45 % were diagnosed with a mental health condition and 27% of those had post-traumatic stress disorder.

If you do know full well the scope of this human tragedy, you sure aren’t letting it stop you from authorizing another 400 millions of borrowed dollars daily to add to that staggering human toll.

Sadly, the march toward a hundred thousand American casualties and the millions of foreigners who are dead, injured and forced to flee their homes from the American invader, has never caused you to veer for a moment from the destructive path you so eagerly joined when you entered Congress in January, 2007.

The next time you trumpet your opposition to Big Government programs designed to aid the less privileged folks in America, like the forty-five million who don’t have health insurance, look in the mirror and ask yourself why you keep supporting Big Government criminal war.

Respectfully,

Walt Zlotow
IL Sixth District Resident

STARVE THE BEAST - OBAMA STYLE

Under Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush, conservatives opposed to any government spending, other than on militarism and protection of economic elites, implemented their policy of "starve the beast". It involved not outright closing down social programs, but instead, simply reducing or eliminating their funding, hence the term starve the beast.

Now under President Obama, we are seeing a bit of that same strategy in regard to our criminal Afghanistan war. Several months ago General Stanley McChrystal publically proclaimed we needed an immediate infusion of 40,000 to 60,000 more troops to prevent mission failure in Iraq. Instead, President Obama has embarked on a two month long "review" of the Afghan mission without a single extra soldier being sent, much to the outrage of the war party.

Every day that goes by without a decision by the President is another day of starvation for our senseless and failed and unnecessary beast we call American exceptionalism in the Middle East.

Unlike his predecessor, this President knows a real beast when he sees one.

Also published in the Chicago Tribune, November 25, 2009

TRY THEM HERE BUT DON'T KILL THEM ANYWHERE

The Obama Administration decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New Your federal court, almost within the shadow of the World Trade Center, is both fitting and just. This move is in keeping with the great American system of jurisprudence and will help blunt the stain of the previous administration's torture of the defendants and their incarceration in the American gulag at Guantanamo for six long years without access to the most basic of defendant rights. Although any trial is far off, it is not too early for humanitarian minded Americans everywhere to begin lobbying against the death penalty should the Sheikh and his cohorts be convicted. Besides being barbaric and unnecessary, the death penalty would most likely make martyrs of the perpetrators and give a boost to their terrorist recruiting efforts.

It would also set a good precedent should America regain its moral compass and prosecute the leaders in the Bush Administration who told lies, and used scare tactics, intimidation and propaganda to launch a criminal war against Iraq which caused millions of casualties and refugees. Maybe even those folks might realize the stakes for themselves and join the effort to spare the Sheikh.

AFTER TWENTY-SIX YEARS, WHAT'S ANOTHER TEN?

When serial sexual psychopath killer Brian Dugan offered to confess to the Jeannine Nicarico murder back in 1985, in return for a life sentence instead of the hangman's noose, the state was getting far better in the bargain.

Giving up a chance to engage in the barbaric practice of state sponsored homicide on Dugan would most importantly free two innocent men, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez, who had been recklessly sentenced to die in one of he worst cases of prosecutorial abuse in Illinois history. By rejecting Dugan's offer, the wheels of injustice would grind along for another ten years before Cruz and Hernandez were freed. Secondly, millions of dollars would have been saved, including the three that DuPage County had to pay the two designated executees for wrongful prosecution. Finally, closure could have been given to the Nicarico family just two years after their tragic loss instead of the current twenty-six, with another ten to go while the Dugan death watch lumbers along during the appeals process.

DuPage County States Attorney Joe Birkett and his staff no doubt engaged in proverbial if not actual "high fives" upon the death sentence verdict. If so they and the dwindling number of DuPage citizens whose bloodlust for death has not yet been tempered by the quality of mercy are the only ones who have something to celebrate in this endless saga of murder and its twisted aftermath.

GET ME MY BIG RED WAGON

The Glen Ellyn News November 5 photo of Cong. Peter Roskam grimacing under the weight of the 2,000 page health care bill not only speaks volumes about his public relations genius, but also his complete disregard of solving the health care crisis. As priceless as the Congressman's grimace is, a better picture would be Roskam staggering under the weight of the thousands of unpaid medical bills of the thousands of uninsured constituents in the Sixth District. If he did try to carry all that paper, he would need a Radio Flyer wagon.

Originally published in the Glen Ellyn News, November 11, 2009

A HARD ACT TO FOLLOW IN THE BIG EASY

Until this morning, I never heard of Anh "Joseph" Cao, US Congressman from New Orleans, but after his principled action yesterday I will never forget him.

Cao was the only one of 177 Republican Congressman to vote for the House version of health care reform that passed with but two votes to spare, one of which was Cao's.

"I listened to the countless stories of Orleans and Jefferson Parish citizens whose health care costs are exploding - if they are able to afford health care at all", was Cao's explanation for his vote, which couldn't have been better said by a Democrat.

Republican House Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia, who boasted no Republican would vote for the House bill, will sure have a hard time explaining Cao's courageous vote from the Big Easy.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN

Our path to self destruction in utterly futile wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reminds me of a nightmare version of The Wizard of Oz.

The vaunted American military machine is just a cruel illusion as President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, Defense Secretary Gates and General Petreaus skip along a body-riddled, blood soaked road of dead foreigners and Americans to find a way out of a land they don't understand and will never master.

Sadly, there will be no courage, no heart, no brain and no return home for our foolish four, only endless war which will bankrupt us as surely as it will send untold thousands to an early grave, a life of crippling injury or madness.

We continue these lost and unnecessary causes in part on the ghost of Osama bin Laden, most likely the long dead boogeyman who we conveniently pretend is alive to keep our Military Industrial Complex humming along on all cylinders as the rest of the once great American manufacturing base disappears before our eyes and our infrastructure and social safety net disintegrate.

This is one version of The Wizard of Oz that won't garner any Oscars.

Originally published in the Glen Ellyn News, November 4, 2009

A LITTLE LATE...AND A LITTLE DEEP

The October 30th, page 8 Chicago Tribune story "Lawyer details Dugan's Is mention of Nicarico", was easy to miss but hard to forget if not overlooked. It describes LaSalle County Public Defender George Mueller's July 5, 1985, encounter with Brian Dugan concerning the Melissa Ackerman murder which Dugan pleaded guilty to that November, earning himself a life sentence. Dugan offered his first confession of his guilt in the 1983 murder of Jeanine Nicarico and added that the two street punks, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez, who DuPage prosecutors had railroaded to a death sentence four months earlier, were, in fact, innocent.

The stunned rookie defendant advocate realized he needed to intervene on behalf of the two doomed men. DuPage county prosecutors were not impressed. They had two notches prepared for their prosecutorial guns and weren't about to let the truth get in their way. It took another ten years and four months of mental torture for the two men to be exonerated of the Nicarico murder and another ten years after that for Dugan to finally be indicted. Four years later, Dugan awaits the verdict of life or death as DuPage prosecutors continue their twenty-six year saga to kill someone for this horrible crime.

The article was great. Too bad it wasn't featured on page 1...twenty-four years and three months ago.

AMERICA'S GREATEST EXPORT

The October 25th twin bombings of key Iraqi government buildings that killed over 150 and wounded over 500 are just two horrific examples of what goes on every day in our client state of Iraq: bombings. In the 2,400 days since we started dropping bombs on Iraq in our made up, senseless and therefore criminal war there, thousands of bombs, small and large, have exploded, killing and maiming untold thousands of hapless and innocent Iraqis. The number of foreign invader and terrorist bombs that went off before we launched our self destructive war eighty long months ago is a big fat goose egg, nada, zero, zilch.

Every time I hear of a new Iraqi bomb detonating, with its mass of blood flowing down the street and body parts flying in all directions, I can't help but think, "from those wonderful folks who brought you shock and awe".

Also published at www.antiwar.com, November 4, 2009

IT'S PRECISELY THE TIME FOR SYMPATHY

The October 24th Chicago Tribune headline 'It is too late for sympathy' is an example of irresponsible journalism unbefitting of the Tribune's great and long history.

Instead of exploiting the sad twenty-nine year Nicarico murder saga which will go on for another ten or fifteen years should death be decided, the Trib should use this case to lead the charge to abolish the death penalty in Illinois. Did the Trib forget that DuPage prosecutors nearly succeeded in killing two innocent men for this crime when they had sufficient information to drop he prosecution entirely, much less seek state sponsored homicide?

Nothing in the long, two page underlying article mentioned explicit calls by the Nicarico family member for Dugan's death, the implication of the headline notwithstanding. Why fan the flames of capital punishment bloodlust which emanates from county prosecutors who have no shame and no remorse for their predecessors' inexcusable brush with wrongful execution in the same case. Had it occurred it would merely have been one of many in the long, sorrowful history of capital punishment.

Either the Trib shares that bloodlust or is simply trying to garner circulation. If the former, at least the headline is in keeping with your values. If the latter, then the mainstream print media is in worse shape than imagined.

Also published in Chicago Tribune, October 29, 2009

HELP WANTED...ONE MORE HERO

Three recent Chicagoland heroes deserve recognition for their refusal to sanction state sponsored homicide in high profile capital cases.

The first surfaced two years ago when this lone hero stood up against his eleven fellow jurors to deny the death penalty for Juan Luna, convicted of the horrendous murder of seven owners and employees of the Palatine Browns Chicken restaurant. One can only imagine the enormous pressure exerted on our hero to sanctify Luna's early demise, but if heroic action was easy, it would not be heroic.

Just this week two more heroes stepped up to save Luna's accomplice, James Degorski from execution for his role in the mass murder. Interestingly, both jurors were almost excluded from the sentencing jury pool by defense attorneys due to their position favoring the death penalty. Bravo to both for the courage to not only change their minds but to face down ten colleagues bent on execution for execution's sake.

One more dramatic capital case has yet to be decided. In the infamous DuPage County courtroom, where previous DuPage County prosecutors tried mightily to execute two men only fools or the morally challenged could conclude were guilty, prosecutors again seek death, this time of the real killer Brian Dugan, for the 1983 Jeanine Nicarico murder.

Reading the horrific accounts of Dugan's youthful psychotic crime spree may sicken me, but not make me aid man's insatiable appetite for killing his fellow man. While most of the civilized world and fifteen states forbid this senseless killing, DuPage prosecutors display a zeal to execute which is chilling.

Do we possibly have one more lone but brave hero in the jury box who will stand up for a more humane criminal justice system? Voting no to death does much more good to society than it ever will to the man awaiting his fate.

Also published in the Daily Herald, November 4, 2009

CONG. PETER ROSKAM'S SEPTEMBER, 2009 REPORT CARD ON MIDDLE EAST WARS

October 11, 2009

Congressman Peter Roskam
150 S. Bloomingdale Road, Suite 200
Bloomingdale, IL 60108

Dear Congressman Roskam,

September wasn’t a particularly bloody month for American soldiers in Iraq with only 10 being needlessly killed in our senseless war there, but the Afghan toll of 40 US deaths was the third highest in the 96 months of senseless war in that desolate and deadly land. How many hundreds or thousands of Afghans and Iraqis were killed and maimed we’ll never know because our war machine which you support, does not care about or count. Oh yes, the cost of these needless deaths was twelve billion dollars in borrowed money that continues to burn the American economy into meltdown.

I mention these unpleasant facts, Sir, because once again you trotted out the “bloody flag” of the September 11, 2001 terrorist bombings to rally your constituents for support of these criminal wars on the eighth anniversary of those tragic events. Specifically you said, “We must never forget the lessons of 9/11, that America must constantly stay vigilant and active in our fight against Islamic radicals.” There it is, the infamous blank check the Bush Administration wrote to wage needless war anytime, anywhere, anyplace on the basis of “Islamic radicals”. The terrorists who planned those attacks a decade ago probably said something like “We must never forget the lessons of American interference in the Middle East, that we must stay vigilant and active in our fight against American infidels”. Sound familiar, Congressman? Leaders bent on war will say anything to justify their nefarious deeds, and it has been that way since the beginning of warfare in Man’s bloody history. The operative word is “active” which is the trigger to wage war at the discretion of the attacker.

Guess what Congressman? That blank check doesn’t cut it with the directive of the Nuremburg War Crime Trials after World War II which requires much more than someone in an out-of-control war party deciding to attack countries and kill hundreds of thousands, if not a million of their citizens on some vague threat that turned out to be false. A specific terrorist threat can be stopped, as we have a number of times since the September 11, 2001attacks, with good police work and cooperation with other governments’ law enforcement agencies. That is because these are amorphous threats by individuals or groups and not those of a specific country waging war on America.

But attacking and occupying entire countries on the basis of presumed “threats” constitutes war crimes and you would be wise to re-assess your support of such murderous and criminal activities. You don’t need to worry about having to answer for your support of these crimes against humanity in the American political climate which only applies the Nuremburg directive prohibiting criminal wars to other countries. But in the dark recesses of your soul you should consider the enormity of the damage inflicted upon your fellow man with the four hundred millions of dollars daily you authorize to continue these crimes.

If you step up to the plate and be the first in the war party to demand their end and an investigation into the criminality responsible for them, you may just be the next recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Walt Zlotow
IL 6th District resident

AFGHAN DEBATE? WHAT AFGHAN DEBATE?

The debate over new policy for Afghanistan is tragically missing the best option of ending our involvement in that senseless and futile war just as we take baby steps to end our senseless and futile war in Iraq.

When President Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs announced withdrawing from Afghanistan was off the table, he signaled an overwhelming victory for the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex which has an insatiable need for endless war to promote their careers, their wealth and their lust for power.

The previous decade began with the worst event that ever befell the Complex, the collapse of Soviet Communism. The last thing they wanted was a Peace Dividend to rebuild American education and infrastructure and manufacturing base because none of that benefited career war lovers. The current decade began with the greatest event to befall the Complex, the September 11, 2001, attacks. With flames still billowing out of the hole in the ground that was once the World Trade Center, the politicians and the pundits and the career military who come alive only in warfare, had an endless excuse to attack any land in the Middle East that was weak enough for bullies in the Complex to make war against. The beauty of 911 is that we only needed to announce a threat by Islamic extremists residing in the target of choice.

First up was Afghanistan because that is where the rag tag equivalent of a street gang who committed 911 was apparently trained. We should have done the sensible thing - kill them and get out. Instead, we neither killed them nor got out, but took over the entire country which provides endless war for the Complex but endless decline to America.

While still stuck in the quicksand of Afghanistan, the Complex ginned up a totally fabricated war in Iraq, without a shred of evidence to justify it other than that infamous “threat” and the alleged presence of “Islamic extremists” that the 911 attacks made possible.

The truth most Americans are too afraid or too horrified to admit is both these wars are criminal in violation of the directives and prohibitions of the Nuremburg War Crime Trials following World War II. We led numerous German war leaders to the gallows or prison and the Far East equivalent did the same the Japanese war lords. But try to apply those standards to our own rulers and the new leadership and the media and the masses just shrug and go on with war as usual.

America needs to get out of Iraq, get out of Afghanistan, stop bombing civilians in Pakistan and cease nonsensical talk of blockading or even attacking Iran. Those in the Complex who stand the most to lose personally should look around and the shuttered car dealers, vacated factories, crumbling bridges and roads, forty-six million without health care and a second rate educational system and just get out of the way. They can consider themselves lucky that they’ve sucked away countless billions for their retirement and won’t have to face a war crime docket for their skullduggery.

MOVE OVER HOUDINI

President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize while serving as head of the American War Party embroiled in two criminal wars in the Middle East while killing countless civilians in their pursuit of phantom bad guys in Pakistan and conjouring up a new fanciful war to fight in Iran may be the greatest slight of hand trick in history.

The Great Houdini had nothing on our President and could have learned a thing or two about illusionism from The Great Obama.

Also published in the Glen Ellyn News, October 14, 2009

FIRE THE GENERAL; CANCEL THE PARADE

In April, 1951, my mother took this six year old to a gigantic parade in Chicago to honor the recently fired General Douglas MacArthur, relieved of his command over our Korean War forces by a very unpopular President Truman. How could a President be so foolish to fire such a wildly popular and successful general, I thought, just beginning my life long interest in international affairs and diplomacy. Some years later I discovered McArthur deserved to be fired for actively trying to subvert the President's Constitutional powers to set foreign policy and conduct war. MacArthur's generalship brought America thousands of needless casualties when he totally underestimated China's willingness to intervene on behalf of their neighbor North Korea as MacArthur pressed his attack to the Chinese border. Not satisfied with that defeat, MacArthur publicly pressed for confrontation with China.

Now, fifty-eight years later, another General, Stanley McChrystal, who heads up our military forces in Afghanistan, is treading MacArthur's path to a possible showdown with President Obama over his quite vocal and public lobbying for an immediate infusion of 45,000 more soldiers to avoid what he claims will be imminent mission failure. Obama was reportedly so upset over McChrystal's politicing for a wider war without his permission, he brought the General aboard Air Force One for some serious "face time" while parked in Copenhagen during the President's Olympic meeting visit.

After eight years of utterly senseless, wasteful and murderous war, in which American casualties are at a all time high and Afghan civilian casualties are too numerous and scattered to count, the last thing we need is a General trying to set policy on behalf of his real masters in the Military Industrial Complex.

I wasn't quite seven when President Truman left office, but I still miss him. I saw his famous paperweight inscribed "THE BUCK STOPS HERE" at his Key West, FL retreat, and wish some of that mantra would rub off on the current Commander In Chief. If the President fires McChrystal for insubordination over Afghan policy, a majority of Americans will applaud. And one more thing; there won't be any parades for the fired General this time.

Also published in Daily Herald, October 18, 2009

THAT'S CHUTZPAH - RESPONSE TO CHICAGO TRIBUNE EDITORIAL "A LINE IN THE SAND"

Chutzpah is defined as unmitigated gall and impudence, and it describes just about any editorial the Trib Editorial Board publishes about the Middle East. The September 26 editorial “A line in the sand” is just the latest example starting after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

In the run up to our unnecessary, senseless and therefore criminal war in Iraq, The Board swallowed whole every piece of propaganda, disinformation and downright lie the Bush Administration told them to gain their assistance in launching a war and occupation which has needlessly cost 5,742 GI and contractor deaths, a hundred thousand injured and a trillion dollars of treasure that could have been used to rebuild a crumbling American economy.

And eight years later the Board continues to the same pattern of parroting the fear tactics related to Iran’s nuclear program, peaceful or otherwise. This latest editorial reads like it was written by the Military Industrial Complex and the Israel Lobby as a call for tough sanctions if not outright military attack on Iran to counter the new approach of “negotiate first and shoot last” being offered as a reverse of previous Administration policies.

If the Board is so concerned about reducing the threat of war in the Middle East, why do they continue to ignore the fact that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and has been certified to be in compliance by the International Atomic Energy Agency? If so concerned about nuclear proliferation in the most volatile region of the world, why does the Board ignore the fact that Israel is not only AWOL from the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, it has assembled possibly over 100 nuclear weapons without a peep from America? Why didn’t the Board call out President Obama when he refused to answer reporter Helen Thomas’ question to name the nuclear powers in the Middle East at a February press conference. Why does the Board shamelessly spread the mis-interpretation of the Iran’s statement about “wiping Israel off the face of the map” when an honest interpretation is that the policies of the Israeli government toward the Palestinians cannot stand and will wither away.

If the Board would apply candor and honesty to a sensible discussion of promoting peace in the Middle East, they could no longer be accused of Chutzpah…except by those whose interests and goals lie with getting America embroiled in a third senseless war in that war-torn region.

WASTE AND THE DRIVE TOWARD EXECUTION IN DUPAGE COUNTY

A senseless and wasteful exercise in criminal justice is playing out in Dupage County as prosecutors try to make Brian Dugan roughly the 16,000th person killed by the public authority since George Kendall was executed in the Colonies on charges of spying for Spain in 1608. Dugan’s death is sought even though he has pleaded guilty to the murder of Jeannine Nicarico in 1983, a move that generally serves to mitigate sentencing to life without parole. Executing Dugan, already serving two life sentences for similar murders, serves no judicial purpose whatsoever, but will sadly, satisfy the bloodlust of the Dupage County residents who favor capital punishment and presumably enhance the political career of DuPage County States Attorney Joe Burkett whose public persona is one of boundless support for it.

Burkett plows full speed ahead trying to orchestrate Dugan’s death even though the Nicarico case represents one of the worst cases of prosecutorial abuse in American history, in which DuPage prosecutors relentless pursued the death penalty for two hapless minority men, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez, even though all credible evidence, including a willingness to confess to the Nicarico murder, pointed to Brian Dugan. While Burkett had no significant role in the Cruz-Hernandez trials that eventually exonerated both, as a Dupage County law enforcement employee since 1981, he had a ringside seat to the eleven year saga that ended in Dupage County paying 3.5 million dollars in civil damages to Cruz and Hernandez.

The inevitable result of prosecutorial obsession for the death penalty is the killing of innocent convicted defendants. Over one hundred death row inmates have been freed based on DNA evidence since that forensic resource has surfaced in the last decade. That fact should convince everyone that many of the nearly 16,000 Americans executed were innocent but died simply because they were unable to prove their innocence.

In cases like Dugan’s, where the actual killer will forever be removed from society, seeking the death sentence is not only barbaric, it is bankrupting. The New York Times reports that it costs Florida $51,000,000 more each year to keep their 388 death row inmates trodding the Green Mile to execution than it would if they were simply serving life sentences. California spends an additional $114,000,000 more each year for their 667 death row inmates while social services are cut in an essentially bankrupt state. North Carolina’s 43 executions since the death penalty was re-instituted in 1976 cost an average of $2,116,000 each. Prosecutors in all three states are undeterred, as their 1,228 current death row inmates verify.

Man killing his fellow man is easy and commonplace. Society shouldn’t add to this horrific toll by letting its prosecutors commit this most heinous act against one’s fellow man under the authority of the state. The difference between the defendant and the prosecutor in the Wheaton County Courthouse is not all that great. The only one that matters is that the former is no longer in the killing business while the latter is far from done.

Originally published in the Aurora Beacon News, October 1, 2009

SNATCHING VICTORY FROM THE JAWS OF DEFEAT

It’s time to declare defeat in our Middle East wars and bring every soldier and contractor home.

That’s right, declare defeat, not victory, and bring them all home.

Declare defeat because that is all we have achieved in our made up, unnecessary, senseless and murderous wars of conquest over Afghanistan, Iraq, and the upcoming one looming on the horizon in Iran, not to mention the innocents we kill with our cowardly drone bombers in Pakistan.

Most folks I dialogue with neither care nor understand why we are engaged in these defeats which are bankrupting our country even as they slaughter untold thousands of harmless civilians besides the American military and contractor deaths. A not-uncommon response is to nuke the whole region and be done with it. Clearly, the war party which initiates and prosecutes these endless losing wars, knows the apathy and powerlessness of our citizenry allows them to maintain the gravy train of an annual 700 billion dollar war budget as long as they wish. And they wish it to go on forever.

If Japan and Germany could come to terms with their defeats for starting unnecessary wars in the 1930’s and 1940’s and go on to become thriving and peace loving members of the world community, so can the United States. The lessons of the Nuremberg War Crime Trials after World War II were designed to discourage all nations from launching unnecessary, pre-emptive wars, and not exclude the very countries such as the US and Britain who prosecuted those trials.

America has a long history of exploiting seemingly aggressive actions by potential combatants to gin up unnecessary wars. The explosion aboard the USS Maine in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, was the catalyst for declaring unnecessary war on Spain two months later to kick Spain out of Cuba and acquire our first empire of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico in the process. Sadly, we’ve grown to love acquiring client states around the world as our recent acquisitions of Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate.

Sixty-six years after the USS Maine incident, America used a minor skirmish between North Vietnam and American naval vessels in the in the Gulf of Tonkin, to pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution on August 7, 1964, which essentially gave the green light to President Johnson to escalate the American military buildup in Vietnam to over half a million soldiers, fifty-eight thousand of which died. If we had a memorial for the two million Vietnamese we needlessly slaughtered, it would be forty times larger than the one for the US dead. The war went on years longer than necessary to allow President Nixon to apply the lipstick of victory on the pig of defeat.

Historians are virtually unanimous that both alleged aggressive acts against the US which helped precipitate those needless wars were just that: alleged, with no basis in fact.

And that brings us to the September 11, 2001 attacks. We could not have dishonored the casualties of those horrendous events more than we did by our use of those attacks to launch pre-emptive wars to take over two countries. These wars have increased rather than reduced the terrorist threat to America by validating the claims of terrorists that America’s goal is conquest and interference in the Muslim world. We had only one mission regarding terrorists based in Afghanistan: kill them and get out. Iraq deserved neither a smart bomb from the air nor a boot on the ground. But the takeover of the first land, ideal for a natural gas pipeline, and the colossal reservoir of oil in the second, was irresistible and doable once September 11 occurred.

After ninety-five months of Afghan occupation and seventy-eight months of Iraq occupation, maintained by the puppet governments we installed in both, we remain powerless to extricate ourselves under our current expansionist and war making paradigm, and powerless to stop our slide into moral and financial bankruptcy.

But when we finally come to our senses, declare defeat and begin full withdrawal, an amazing thing will happen: we will begin to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Originally published in the Naperville Sun, September 24, 2009

MR. WHIPPLE IS WATCHING

Squeeze the Mullahs?

Could the Tribune Editorial Board, in their September 6 editorial, have used a more unfortunate and demeaning phrase to discuss the West's diplomatic efforts to achieve resolution of Iran's nuclear program, peaceful or otherwise?

Maybe the Board is simply enamored with American exceptionalism which has been squeezing the Iranian people since 1953 when we assisted the Brits in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeg because he wanted to end British domination of Iranian oil wealth. The CIA, working with British spy agencies, arranged the ouster of the popular Mosaddeg and replaced him with an all powerful monarch, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the infamous Shah, who ruled for 26 years, and whose secret police, trained by our CIA, killed thousands of Iranian dissidents. Those thousands of deaths were not in vain as our villainy gave us a 40% share of Iranian oil wealth snatched from the Mosaddeg policies.

If our unnecessary and failed invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have achieved anything other than millions of casualties and refugees on their way to bankrupting America, it is that the US doesn't attack countries that have nuclear weapons. Just ask North Korea. We invade countries for frivolous reasons, then we threaten and may likely attack countries who just might believe a tiny bit of nuclear parity is the answer to our aggressiveness.

To paraphrase the wimpy guy in the commercial, "Please don't squeeze the Mullahs".

Originally published in the Chicago Tribune, September 22, 2009

WHEN THE CHEERING STOPPED

I was quite impressed at the 70,000 member march on Washington Septemer 12, to protest excessive government spending; signs depicting Obama with Hitler, Castro, Stalin; urging "bury Obamacare with Kennedy" and warning, "didn't bring my guns - this time" notwithstanding.

It did occur to me, where were these folks when the previous administration was squandering a trillion dollars on fairy tale wars, trillion dollar tax cuts for the already wealthy and enabling trillion dollar swindles of our financial markets?

Then I remembered: they were leading the cheers.

STATE TRADITION LIVES ON

Maybe there is something in the water served up in South Carolina that makes their Congressmen act so strangely while doing the Peoples' business.

South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson became an instant national ogre Wednesday night when he interrupted President Obama's health care reform speech with a very audible "You lie". An stunned gasp was heard throughout the Congressional chamber and Obama blanched in disbelief at such a rude and indefensible interruption, softly muttering "not true" in response.

One must go all the way back to May 22, 1856, for a worse example of Congressional etiquette and yes, it was another South Carolina Congressman, Preston Brooks, who was involved. Brooks entered the Senate chamber to confront Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner over an anti slavery speech Sumner gave three days earlier, and beat him into unconsciousness with his Gutta-percha wood walking cane.

Obama fared a lot better than Sumner over misbehavior by a South Carolina Congressman. It only took the President about three seconds to regain his composure and continue his oration. It took Sumner three years before he returned to the Senate.

We shouldn't be too hard on Congressman Wilson. Apparently, he was just following a state Congressional tradition.

Originally published in Glen Ellyn News, September 16, 2009

CONG. PETER ROSKAM'S AUGUST, 2009 REPORT CARD ON MIDDLE EAST WARS

September 9, 2009

Congressman Peter Roskam
150 S. Bloomingdale Road, Suite 200
Bloomingdale, IL 60108

Dear Congressman Roskam,

You sure got a bang for the 12 billion bucks you voted Congress to spend for our criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in August.

Seven GI’s were killed in Iraq and 51 in Afghanistan, the latter deaths representing the highest monthly death toll in the 95 months of this senseless and failed and endless venture. The overall American death toll there has reached 820, with fully 56% coming on your watch over our war policies.

While the seven Iraqi deaths were the lowest monthly total in the 78 months of that senseless and failed and endless venture, the grand total is now a staggering 4,343, making the overall death toll in two wars, 5,163, with 1,802 or 35 %, occurring since you took office in January, 2007.

In your short Congressional career of 30 months you have authorized nearly 400 billions of borrowed dollars to achieve these needless deaths. And on the subject of unnecessary deaths, how many of the one million Iraqi dead have occurred during your unquestioned support of the war party which apparently has not a trace of conscience for their mis-deeds?

What have you accomplished with the four billions of borrowed dollars you have already authorized in September? How about the cowardly bombing of those two hijacked fuel tanker trucks in the Kunduz Province of Afghanistan? It incinerated 130 Afghans, many of whom were innocent civilians as deserving of a peaceful and long life as your family and my family. One of the reasons I became an antiwar activist 46 years ago during the escalation of our criminal Vietnam War, is that I see myself and my family members in the faces of the common people we needlessly slaughter in far away lands. Sir, you would do well to do the same.

You should also use your influence as a Congressman to get photographs from the military of the charred hunks of flesh that were once peace loving folks who were just seeking fuel to survive in an Afghanistan wrecked by our brutal occupation. Keep those photos on your desk near the voting button and look at them long and hard before you vote to spend another dollar on these abominations brought upon us by some of the most unsavory folks I’ve observed in 58 years of following public affairs.

Respectfully yours,



Walt Zlotow