Tribune editorial title change displays their war mongering desperation

The Chicago Tribune apparently wasn't satisfied with its hysterical print edition editorial title: 'Iran's nuclear taunts' (January 15) so the even more incendiary title 'Iran claims a nuclear victory over the West' was used on its website version. The Trib editorial board, already fully in bed with the war party and the Israel Lobby to help Senator Mark Kirk torpedo the Obama administration and the five power Joint Plan of Action détente with Iran, simply cannot permit diplomacy to take its peaceful course. How dare the Trib support Kirk's mischievous bill that not only will likely prevent a deal with Iran from being achieved, it essentially ties the US to supporting Israel should they launch a pre-emptive, criminal war against Iran. Aside from Trib, most major media outlets and most sensible government officials want Senator Kirk to withdraw his bill which promotes increased sanctions on Iran, besides pledging US support to Israel in their lust to eliminate a rival for hegemony in the Middle East. The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today all condemned Kirk's bill. Although the first two are normally neo conservative war hawks, Kirk's war fanaticism was apparently too much even for them. Over sixty organizations, including the sane Israel lobbying group J Street and the American Baptist Churches sent a joint letter to the Senate arguing Kirk's law "sets insurmountable demands for a comprehensive nuclear deal...and would critically endanger the possibility of a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear standoff with Iran, increasing the likelihood of...an unnecessary war." The normally pro military Senator Dianne Feinstein, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair, termed Kirk's bill "a march to war" and said she deeply believes "that a vote for this bill will cause negotiations to collapse." She took the Israel Lobby head on stating, "While I share Israel's concern, we cannot let Israel determine when and where the US goes to war. By stating the US should provide military support to Israel should it attack Iran, I fear that is exactly what this bill will do." Ten Senate committee chairs warned that "new sanctions would play into the hands of those in Iran who are most eager to see the negotiations fail." Fortunately, Illinois' senior senator Dick Durbin, has joined with a number of others in opposing Kirk's legislative march to war.

It is impossible to determine what madness has prompted the Trib editorial board to join reckless senators, led by the junior senator from Illinois, to undermine the first opportunity for détente with Iran since the 1979 hostage crisis. Possibly, the Trib, having failed to succeed in getting a victory from the first two criminal Middle East wars it supported, believes that the third time will be a charm.

Sen. Kirk's recklessness puts us at in jeopardy

Even Senator Mark Kirk, the leading saboteur of the promising five power effort (US, Britain, France, China and Russia) to achieve détente in the 35 year long isolation of Iran from the world community, outdid himself with his shocking and reckless of comment:

 

"The American people will have committed a grievous foreign precedent similar to Neville Chamberlain giving away Czechoslovakia at the beginning of World War II. The path of appeasers always leads directly to war -- it just increases the appetite of the other side. Appeasers always lead directly to war. You can give Czechoslovakia to Hitler and he wants more. If you give billions of dollars to the Iranians, you're probably leading directly to conflict."

 

What Kirk never will acknowledge is that the current five power Joint Plan of Action, scheduled to begin a six month test next week, not only represents unprecedented agreement of the five major powers involved, it includes rare agreement among State, Defense and the White House that sensible negotiations instead of sabre rattling are needed to end the crisis. Nor will Kirk address the fact that virtually everyone involved in the Iran détente process correctly posit that Kirk's Iran Nuclear Weapons Free Act of 2013 will almost certainly torpedo détente, making war much more likely. That might suit the only state sponsors of destroying the current Iranian regime, Saudi Arabia and Israel, but it will be disastrous for everyone else. 

 

When Kirk played the Hitler and Munich cards to further his obsession, he crossed the line of responsible foreign policy advocacy. Iran hasn't attacked anyone in nearly 200 years. Kirk, on the other hand, is a certified war promoter, having voted for every one of the several trillions of dollars to get hundreds of thousands killed, including 6,779 GI's in two senseless and failed Middle East wars. What really motivates Kirk is indecipherable. Is it the $1.6 million funneled into his campaign war chest by the Israel Lobby between 2002 and 2010? Is it an obsession with militarism and war that inspired him to pad his military resume when running for the Senate in 2010? Could it be that the devastating January, 2012 stroke that kept him out of the Senate for a year has diminished his ability for rational thought? Or is it something deeply buried in the dark recesses of his war loving mind? 

 

While only Kirk can answer that question, every Illinoisan who values peace should demand Senator Kirk stand down from his recklessness that puts us all in jeopardy. Tell him to go to Iraq and go to Afghanistan for awhile to sample how well his warmongering worked there. I suspect Kirk would return a chastened and better Senator...and man.

 

Gates' only 'duty' was to war party

Talk about a tempest in a teapot. The press is having a field day hyping the alleged controversial criticism from former Defense Secretary Bob Gates, in his book "Duty", of President Obama's handling of the Afghanistan war. After watching Gates' bizarre interview on CBS Sunday Morning my opinion of Obama the war leader has gone up a bit. Gates' biggest criticism is that it appeared to him that Obama thought the Afghan war was lost and he was simply looking for a way out. He goes on to fret that Obama didn't have the "passion" to bring home a US victory. That is not criticism, that is praise and the media missed it. Appointed by President Bush in 2006 to replace the disgraced Don Rumsfeld, Gates shed crocodile tears for the troops he sent into battle to die for a ignoble cause that was senseless, unnecessary and doomed to failure. President Obama retained him after becoming President to provide both continuity and cover for his plan to wind down this colossal failure. Gates never could shed his loyalty to the war party, pretending that the war was good, necessary and winnable. Obama has walked a tightrope trying to extricate the US from this disaster without causing a mutiny in the war party which would go to extreme lengths to sabotage a necessary but hasty exist. Those folks are still stewing about Obama's promised December 31, 2014, Afghan pullout, and are demanding he keep a residual force of advisers there to pretend the US still matters. Gates never second guesses his willingness to prosecute murderous, unjust war and can't comprehend that a sane president would want to end it. Gates claims he finally quit because he couldn't look at the canon fodder he was sending into to the Afghan cauldron without getting misty eyed. Thank goodness. When it comes to duty for Secretary Gates, the war party came first and the troops were a far, far distant second.

Rauner campaign not Fast & Furious; just Fib & Fortune

I won't call Illinois GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner a liar regarding his fervent denials that he'd advocated moving back Illinois' $8.25 an hour minimum wage to the federal wage of $7.25. But he's now selling Illinois voters more Whoppers than Burger King. In radio appearances, newspaper op eds and TV ads paid by his billion dollar fortune, Rauner is claiming he never advocated reducing Illinois' minimum wage; that any statements to the contrary were just flippancy, not policy positions; and that he really wants to raise Illinois' minimum wage to $10.00 an hour.

But political rookie Rauner has failed to grasp the long arm of electronic media which never forgets and never forgives a candidate's clear and unmistakable utterances.
  
     December 11, 2013; Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce candidate forum: "I will advocate
     moving the Illinois minimum wage back to the national minimum wage."

     September, 2013; Gibson City candidate forum: Rauner states he is "adamantly, adamantly
     against raising the minimum wage."

But that was 2013. In this election year of 2014, its not cool for a fabulously wealthy first time candidate to be advocating even more economic pain to the thousands of folks just trying to survive on inadequate minimum wage jobs. Besides being a prevaricator about his now certified position to roll back Illinois' minimum wage, Rauner's call for a $10.00 minimum wage is utterly hollow and phony. How so? He's tied it to having the legislature enact his entire program to make Illinois, in his mind, more economically competitive. That is typical Republican blackmail: give me what I want and I'll help the needy.

Illinois voters don't have to plow through old video of Governor Quinn when it comes to deciphering his policy positions about helping the workin' and want-to-be workin' folks who get to choose our next governor. And they will not be persuaded by a billionaire who drops million after million to create phony ads showing him pointing to an $18 watch claiming its time for a change. They're smart enough to know the $1,000 Rolex is on ice with the $1,000 bottle of champagne for the Fat Cats Victory Party planned for November 4. What Rauner hasn't grasped is that these voters are "adamantly, adamantly" against sending Fib and Fortune to a tenth luxury house in Springfield.