DON'T LET THEM PASS IT ON

The Bush administration’s strategy is clear to anyone who opens their eyes and ears. They plan to keep feeding our precious soldiers and treasure into the death and money pit of Iraq for the next 630 days so they can leave office in January, 2009, boasting they never wavered in the fight against terrorism.

That is an abominable crime that surpasses, in its cynicism and heartlessness, even the lies they told and the fear they spread to start their war of choice in the first place.

The surge, advertised by master propagandists to be small in scope and of short duration has morphed into a large an unending escalation. The slaughter of Iraqis and disintegration of their proud land has simply moved elsewhere, including a devastating bombing of the Iraqi Parliament in the vaunted Green Zone.

Meanwhile, American casualties are escalating along with the escalation of our immoral and criminal military enterprise. Our military is stretched to the breaking point.

Every decent, patriotic American should feel revulsion from this conduct and work to end it. Then we should demand an accounting of how such misfeasance and malfeasance in the Oval Office could occur. Those responsible should be punished as a warning to future rulers of the price for violating the sacred trust we place in them.

Don’t let them pass on resolution of their phony war to the next administration.

Originally published in Wheaton Leader, May 7, 2007
Also published in Glen Ellyn News, May 9, 2007
Also published in Glen Ellyn Sun, May 18, 2007

RIP VAN BUSH

If Rip Van Winkle fell asleep in 1965 and awoke today, 40 years later, he might think the Vietnam War was still raging. He would hear about a war in a very weak distant country that posed no threat to the US. He would hear military leaders talking about enemy body counts and how the latest US offensive has broken the back of the insurgency. He would hear political leaders saying we cannot cut and run and that America must keep word regardless of casualties and cost.

Rip Van Winkle may be fiction, but President Bush is not. And though he was a college history major, he may as well have been asleep these past forty years for all he learned from our Vietnam experience.

Originally published Chicago Tribune, May 21, 2005

BLESS THE CONGRESS

Bless the Congress today for standing up the President who has used the nation’s credit card like a blank check to fund an immoral and criminal war for the last 1,485 days.

Let the President veto the supplemental Iraq war spending bill simply because it requires what nearly 70% of Americans believe and want: the beginning of withdrawal with a deadline early next year for an end to military operations in Iraq.

That majority has learned the lessons of the Nuremburg War Crime Trials of 1945 to 1949: wars of choice against defenseless countries are war crimes and those who commit them risk the opprobrium and possible punishment by the world community.

We learned forty years ago during the made up Vietnam War that rulers who start wars will let an endless number of people on both sides die rather than admit the truth of their mistakes and outright wrongdoing.

When the President’s veto occurs, the Congress should pass the exact same bill, and if necessary keep sending that bill up for signature until the President comes down from his delusional isolation and heeds the will of the people.

Originally published in Daily Herald, May 6, 2007