Sen. Duckworth, not satisfied with nuclear brinkmanship with Russia, promotes it with China

 Sen. Duckworth, not satisfied with nuclear brinkmanship with Russia, promotes it with China

My Sen. Tammy Duckworth sure didn’t learn a single lesson about criminal war and reckless foreign policy from her Iraq war service.

She parlayed that service, along with her horrific injury, to a likely lifetime congressional career, possibly even the presidency. Her claim to office is bellicose support of American exceptionalism causing havoc with many nations and worldwide disgust with American interventionism.

Not satisfied with promising NATO expansion on Russia’s borders which prompted their Ukraine invasion, she now all in for implementing an Asian version of NATO to China’s borders. I guess those 300 or so US bases already ringing China aren’t sufficient. She appeared with Alaska Republican Senator Dan Sullivan on Meet The Press to boost the case for expanding NATO all the way to China’s neighborhood. NATO’s proposed expansion to Russia’s border with Ukraine provoked a Russian invasion that has largely destroyed Ukraine as a viable nation while killing upwards of a quarter million.

She appears oblivious US Proxy War Europe has funneled over a hundred billion in US treasure to keep Ukrainians dying while neglecting the critical needs of US homeland. Does Duckworth really think Proxy War Asia will work out any better? She’s got US on track to funnel another hundred billion in military and economic aid….this time to Taiwan. Somehow the prospect of nuclear brinkmanship with the 2 other largest nuclear powers never enters her policy positions.

Senator Duckworth has spent every one of her 3,650 days in the House and Senate championing US exceptionalism that has killed hundreds of thousands. Had she joined Veterans for Peace instead of Congress, she’d have done more for the cause of peace and security for America and the world on Day 1 than she’s done every day for the past 10 years.

Illinois No. 1 in bail reform

 Illinois No. 1 in bail reform

Thanks to a 5-2 Illinois Supreme Court ruling, the Pretrial Fairness Act goes into effect this September.

It makes Illinois the first state to eliminate cash bail. Depending on the severity of the offense arrested for, defendants will walk free pending trial without paying a dime, or sit in the clink awaiting trial to protect the public.

Cash bail does not protect the public. If a serious threat gets arrested but comes up with the do-re-me, he walks. If an innocent or non-dangerous dude gets arrested but out of pocket, he’s out of circulation. That often results in loss of job and loss of parenting, both of which needlessly degrade life due to a cruel system that hurts rather than helps society.

How many crimes are committed just so the arrestee can make bail? How many crimes are committed because the arrestee lost his job and declines into criminality? Why should society squander incarceration costs to fund a debtors’ jail?

Kudos to J.B, one of America’s most decent, compassionate governors, and to his wise Democratic legislature for making Illinois among the best, if not the best, state to call home.

Banning books……no

Abortion access….yes

Compassionate outreach to LGBTQ community…..yes

End to pernicious cash bail…..yes, yes, yes.

Oppie biopic should rekindle Japanese A bombing debate

 Oppie biopic should rekindle Japanese A bombing debate

The movie ‘Oppenheimer’, based on ‘American Prometheus’ the Pulitzer Prize winning bio of J. Robert Oppenheimer, hits theaters today. Neatly bookended on the calendar between the July 16, 1945 A bomb test and the Hiroshima/Nagasaki strikes 3 weeks later, ‘Oppenheimer’ is sure to be an atomic like blockbuster.

Besides widely informing America of the epic life of possibly its most consequential American in history, it should also spur debate on the necessity for killing over a hundred thousand Japanese civilians in those 2 monstrous attacks.

The mainstream American narrative still portrays the bombings as necessary and just to end the Japanese war without an invasion projected to inflict a million US casualties.

I learned of the atomic bombings 72 years ago at age 6. For the first decade afterward I swallowed whole the US fairytale that the military and political elite were unified in dropping the bombs to prevent that costly invasion.

Few if any reputable historians buy that version today. They point to a number of top military leaders who opposed the nuclear attacks, for good reasons. Most prominent was U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall who argued not using the Bomb would strengthen America’s prestige and position in post war Asia. He even advocated for inviting the Russians to view its July 16, 1945 test. Navy Secretary and later Defense Secretary James Forrestal rightly argued the bombings would impede our post WWII relations with the Soviet Union. Fleet Admiral William Leahy, senior US military officer on active duty in WWII, called the proposed bombings “barbaric”. Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy told Truman that neither invasion nor atomic bombings were necessary. Japan would surrender if we avoided ‘Unconditional Surrender’ terminology since any surrender would amount to that without saying so. McCloy even advocated telling Japanese leaders we had the Bomb as additional incentive to quit the war.

Tho not involved in the atomic bombing decision process, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower was furious we dropped them. He recounted telling Secretary of War Harry Stimson shortly after the attacks “I voiced my grave misgivings, first on my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly, because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of “face.”

Ike, McCloy, Leahy, Forestall, Marshall and others were right; Truman and his supporters were wrong. Seventy-eight years on America is still the only country to explode nukes in anger. Current US belligerency abrogating sensible nuclear agreements, routinely threatening imagined enemies with “all military options are no the table”, spending a trillion dollars to upgrade our nuclear capability, lurching toward nuclear confrontation with both Russia and China, all bode ill the world will make another 78 years nuclear attack free.

Every American concerned about avoiding nuclear winter should view ‘Oppenheimer’ and ponder the current nuclear dilemma facing mankind.

All re

Chicago Tribune publishing defense of cluster munitions use inexcusable

 Chicago Tribune publishing defense of cluster munitions use inexcusable

I understand many Americans may support US giving cluster bombs to Ukraine in their war with Russia. They’re no doubt cheering President Biden for sending those grotesque weapons of death despoiling any ground they land in. The unexploded bomblets mostly harm little kids who pick them up out of curiosity, losing limbs and possibly life itself.

The Trib gets kudos for Stephen J. Lyons’ scathing op ed decrying US sending them to Ukraine to blow up Ukrainians for months, years, even decades after the current war ends…if ever.

That anti cluster bomb post did not need to be answered by publishing Richard Hahin’s letter opposing Lyons by stating Ukraine needs them to “regain more of their territory and win the war quicker.”

That is preposterous. Had the US supported the cease fire/peace agreement brokered by Turkey with Russia and Ukraine in April, 2022, the war would have ended 15 months ago. Instead, over $40 billions in US weapons flowed into Ukraine, keeping the war going for over 500 days now, adding a couple of hundred thousand more Ukrainians to the war’s death toll.

Hahin also ignores the fact that the US called Russia’s use of cluster bombs a ‘war crime’ early in the war. What is Biden’s justification for committing American war crimes now? Seems the US is running out of conventional weapons to supply Ukraine to keep fighting a lost cause. Apparently, sending cluster bombs into a war zone is not a war crime if that’s all one has in their munitions cabinet.

If Richard Hahin wants to support use of cluster bombs, he’s free to self-publish on social media. But the Trib should no more print a letter justifying the transfer and use of cluster bombs than they should publish a letter advocating the transfer and use of poison gas.

US, Third World jeans cultural exchange needed

 US, Third World jeans cultural exchange needed

Some years ago I noticed a teen girl with holes in the knees of her jeans. That’s odd I thought, she doesn’t look like she’s too out of pocket to get them fixed or replaced.

But those holy jeans began parading everywhere, some slit well above and below the knee.

Good grief, I realized, this is the new style to be coooool for teens and young women. Never spotted one dude with air conditioned jeans.

As a staunch libertarian, I’m OK with anything that floats your boat, or in this case, cools off your legs, as long as it doesn’t hurt others or damages society.

But a light bulb popped on in my aging brain. What would really be cool would be if these affluent young ladies would send their pristine hundred dollar jeans to some destitute girl in the Third World whose jeans are holy not from mom’s scissors, but from life crushing poverty. That desperate girl in the Third World would, in turn, send her worn out but desired pair to her US benefactor.

The poor girl in Palestine or Haiti would be thrilled beyond belief to have jeans that would actually last intact for years. The affluent girl in the world’s richest country would be thrilled beyond belief to have an authentic pair of raggedy jeans life tested where they would never dream of living.

That would surely be a cool win for the US girl....a warm win for her poor jean pal.