IT WAS THE MOVIE TRAILER AFTER ALL

Well here we are on September 12.  What did Al Qaeda do yesterday to celebrate the 9/11/2001 attack on the U.S.?  The only thing I heard was there was a bomb set off on the streets of Benghazi.  Where were the hoards of inflamed Muslims attacking U.S. embassies and consulates, skyscrapers and famous bridges in our home land, sporting events, or attacking some weak foreign government?  I didn't hear of anything - nothing, nothing.

So now we know.  The attack on Benghazi on September 12, 2012* was promoted by the inflammatory video "Innocence of Muslims" after all.  After all last year "... eight other diplomatic missions in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe were subject to protests and violent attacks in response to an inflammatory video..." This year there have been no inflammatory actions against Muslims so, surprise, no attacks.  Oh, I'm sure that there are those that wanted to attack the consulate in Benghazi as they had done once before and blew a hole in the wall.  But it took the video to inflame enough people in Libya to mount the big attack that the organizers hoped for.  This year they couldn't do it again, not in Libya, not anywhere.  Even last year, they couldn't get it up to attack our embassy in Tripoli** and could only mass an attack on a small outpost.  If that is the worst Al Qaeda can do, they are pretty weak.

What happened in Benghazi last year was really a minor event except that now in this country everything is on the political table and the damage in Benghazi was magnified for political purposes, but as attacks by Muslims radicals have been, Benghazi was a minor event, only unusual because an ambassador was killed.  At that more than 30 people survived the attack.  It is kind of humorous that there are still those politicians stuck in a time warp and can only talk about Benghazi even when the subject is Syria. Hey, fellas, the public has moved on.

A Quick Summary Of  Attacks On Diplomatic Missions***  Since the embassy burning in Tripoli in 1979, in 1983 our embassies in Beirut, Lebanon, (63 killed) and Kuwait City, Kuwait, (6 killed) were bombed when Reagan was president along with the Marine Barracks bombing (241 American deaths) plus attacks on U.S. Embassies in Jakarta (1986) and Rome (1987) by the "Red Army" and a failed attack on the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv (1990).  In 1998, U.S. Embassy's in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in which hundreds died when Clinton was president.  George W. Bush had seven attacks on U,.S. facilities including the 2002 attack on the U.S. Center in Kolkata, India, (5 killed) and the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan (12 dead), 2004 the embassy bombing in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (2 killed), Jeddah Consulate bombing (6 killed), 2006 embassy attack in Damascus,Syria (1 killed), 2007 attack on the embassy in Athens, Greece, (no deaths), 2008 attacks on the consulate in Ankara, Turkey, (3 deaths), and on the U.S. embassy in Yemen (16 dead).  Under President Obama, our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked (4 killed) along with 8 other facilities and our embassy in Ankara, Turkey, was bombed in 2013 (1 killed).

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack

** Our embassy in Tripoli was burned in 1979 when Carter was president, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_U.S._Embassy_Burning_in_Libya

*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_on_diplomatic_missions

LET ME SEE IF I'VE GOT THIS RIGHT

Colorado, which is known far and wide for gun massacres, after the Columbine High School (1999) and the Aurora movie theater (2012) disasters, got around to passing a modest gun control law earlier this year.*  Were guns outlawed?  No.  Were semi-automatic weapons outlawed.  Well, that depends. the law states that a shotgun can't contain more than 8 shells, but the current pump semi-automatic shotgun is said to hold more than this.  So one of the disputes is that gun manufacturers probably won't build a semi-automatic shotgun that holds "only" 8 shells.  What happened to the wild west days when a double barreled shotgun was the norm?  Other guns can hold up to 15 rounds, an upgrade from the Wild West when the six gun was the standard.  What would the modern age be if we haven't learned how to build guns to kill more people quicker?

Well, it turns out that the President of the State senate and a State senator from Pueblo (locally pronounced Pee-ebb-low) who voted for the gun legislation were subjected to a recall election, the first recall election ever in the state, and lost!  Where is the high crime and misdemeanor?  The bill was passed into law and signed by the governor.  It hasn't been overturned by the state Supreme Court.  It is still the law of the land in Colorado.  Please boys and girls tell me that this is a Saturday Night Live skit and that we are about to go into a commercial.  I'm waiting for someone on the religious right to say that the flooding going on in Colorado*** is God's punishment for the recalls.  I'm waiting but not holding my breath,

Then there is Missouri where both state legislatures passed a law that would have stopped Federal enforcement of gun laws more severe than state laws.**  This obviously unconstitutional law (Or is it?  The Federal Supreme Court ruled that companies are people.  A body that can do that can do anything.) was vetoed by the Governor.  So the state House promptly voted to override the veto by a vote of 109-49, and it went to the state Senate where it lost by (Are you ready for this?) one vote (22-12).  Please folks, tell me this is a Saturday Night Live skit and that we are about to go into a commercial?

Also consider that state that recently passed a law that every citizen of the state over the age of 5 must own three guns of which one must have been bought within the last year.  Anyone caught not in compliance is subject to be thrown into jail.  Actually, this is not true -- yet.  It may be even too wild for Saturday Night Live.

Aslo see "May The Saints Preserve Us" (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/08/may-saints-preserve-us.html)

* http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/11/politics/guns-debate/
** http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/12/us-usa-guns-missouri-idUSBRE98B03U20130912
*** http://www.weather.com/news/weather-severe/flash-flood-swamps-boulder-northern-colorado-20130912

IN MEMORY OF SERGEANTS KILLED IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN ON 9/11/2013

With two more sergeants (and not others) killed last week, I repeat here a short poem I wrote honoring all the sergeants killed in Iraq and Afghanistan (December 11, 2011).  I find it strange that there have been far more sergeants killed than corporals or privates (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/12/sergeants-poem.html).  Iraq and Afghanistan have been a different sort of war.

THE SERGEANTS (Poem)

Who are these sergeants, mostly men,

Dying in such numbers in far off lands?

Iraq, Afghanistan.

More than corporals,

More than privates.

Our top heavy military?

Some sergeants in their 50s.

More in their 40s.

Many in their 30s.

They must have been surprised

To be called at such ages

Into a savage war.

You might be interested in seeing: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22452.pdf or http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol23/2/23-2.pdf.  I am unable to find up to date figures.

MOST IMPRESSIVE PRESIDENT - RIGHT OR WRONG

Here I will cover only the post WW-II period.  Of course, Lyndon Johnson was impressive because he had to get the votes from the opposing party, Republicans, to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  At that time the South was the Solid South of the Democratic Party and they voted against the Acts.  Perhaps Johnson got some help because it was in the aftermath of the shocking assassination of Present Kennedy, but it was still impressive.  He also initiated the Wilderness Preservation Act of 1964.  Surprisingly he had positive cash flow in the last year of his term.  Of course, Johnson ruined his presidency by massively escalating the war in Vietnam, but that should not detract from the huge importance of the two Acts.

Richard Nixon was impressive for his landmark trip to China that led to resuming diplomatic relations,  finally disengaging our troops in Vietnam in January of 1973, forming the EPA in 1970, and getting the Clean Air Act passed in 1970.  Also it took someone like Nixon to continue that Apollo Program after the near disaster of Apollo 13 on its trip to the moon.  Nixon does not get much credit for these things because it is felt that he only did them to distract the American public from the Vietnam War.  Liberal commentator Mark Shields has called Nixon that last liberal president.  Of course Nixon is the only president to resign the presidency as a result of the so-called Watergate coverup.

Jimmy Carter was impressive for finally settling the Panama Canal issue, forming the Department of Energy, starting the deregulation of the airline (1978) and trucking industries (1980), and the massive Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 that led to more than 107 million acres being being under the protection of wilderness laws.  He lowered the annual Federal deficit to near zero, but never has a positive cash flow.  The amazing thing is that all this was done in one term as President.  The conservative nature of Carter was unpopular among members of his own party (Democrats)  Unfortunately his presidency was ruined by the Iranian hostage crisis that wasn't settled until after the presidential election and assumption of Ronald Reagan to the presidency.

I conclude the most impressive president was George W. Bush - for better or worse.  Though he ignored warnings of an attack by a group known as Al Qaeda, when it occurred on September 11, 2001, he initiated the Afghanistan War in October of 2001, to eliminate Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and to dismantle the Taliban.  I felt we had to do something for better or worse although I didn't know that the war was going to last more than a dozen years.  Though Bush's economic policies drove the U.S. into a deep recession, to his credit when he realized what had happened, he did force passage of TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) to curb the fiscal crisis.  Perhpas Bush's greatest accomplishment was to get Medicare D, a prescription drug program against his own party's  wishes (Republicans).  Likewise he managed to get the Clear Skies Act of 2003 against considerable opposition.

The amazing thing was the repeated ability of Bush's team to bully the opposing party as well as members of his own party's congressional members into voting for things they didn't believe in.  In addition to what has been mentioned above, there are the huge tax cuts for the wealthy (The biggest part of the Federal deficit today.),* and to go to war with Iraq under false pretenses, a country that was no threat to the U.S. but has a lot of oil.  I stand in awe of these accomplishments, some good and some bad.

But Bush's influence had limits.  He unfortunately failed to get approval from congress on a trade pact with Vietnam, failed to get immigration reform done,  and fortunately he failed to begin converting Social Security into an investment program from an entitlement,

* Figure from: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/budget/news/2011/06/07/9785/the-bush-tax-cuts-are-the-disaster-that-keeps-on-giving/
Also see article by conservative commentator Bruce Bartlett: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/are-the-bush-tax-cuts-the-root-of-our-fiscal-problem/

NO LEAST BAD CHOICE

I think our president is at a loss as to what to do about the use of poison gas in Syria now that the Brits have backed out from any type of military action.  Curiously the news programs don't mention why the President has changed his mind on military action in Syria.  The President definitely has backed off on his call for regime change, for now anyway.  After the Arab League sounding as it they are on board of some punishment of Assad, they have backed off.  The United Nations is not on board.  So it seems like it is just the French and now maybe us to do something about Assad's use of poison gas..

So now it appears like our president has cold feet about his "red line" over the use of poison gas and has turned the matter over to Congress.  Although Technically, poison gas is outlawed in war by the Geneva Protocol of 1925 (not signed by Syria), as if you can make war humane, it overlooks President Reagan's overlooking the poison gas used by Saddam Hussein on several occasions in the Iraq-Iran War and on his own people as well.*  In spite of a stronger prohibition by the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (also not signed by Syria), most of the world does not seem to care if poison gas is used.

So what will Congress do?  It seems like a limited attack on Syria as punishment may be approved by the Senate, but what about the House? (1)  The House seems to oppose anything the President proposes. (2) There seems to be a drift among Republicans back toward isolationism (led by Rand Paul), something missing since the Solid South of the Democratic Party joined the Republican Party as the Southern Strategy. (3) The President's own party is not keen on an attack. Therefore my guess, and it is only that, is that the House will not approve any action against Syria.  Time will tell.  If this is the case, the prohibitive actions against the use of poison gas against your own people and probably in war in general will be null and void.  As C. Northcote Parkinson once said about the League of Nations, "The buildings of the League of Nations were  finished in 1938 and so was the League of Nations." (Not an exact quote.)

Although there are non-sectarian forces fighting against Assad, the el Qaeda forces seem to be more effective.  I guess the thought is that if there is a regime change, then there will be another war between the non-sectarian forces (Free Syrian Army) and al Qaeda.  And what role will Hesbollah play in such a circumstance?

* (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran); http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/09/01/world/poison-gas-viewed-as-uniquely-horrible/#.UiUT09uF9rw

I HAVE A DREAM AND BEEN TO THE MOUNTAIN TOP

I am writing this on the 50th anniversary of what has come to be called the "I Have A Dream" 11 min.  speech by Martin Luther King* on August 28th, 1963.  I presume that all of us have heard that the "I Have A Dream" part of the speech was ad libbed in response to Mahalia Jackson's plea for him to tell them about the dream, but perhaps few of us know that he had given that part of the speech earlier in Detroit at an event called "The Great March On Detroit" (June 23, 1963) estimated at 125,000 participants which may be what Jackson was referring to.**

Another speech that greatly affected me was his "Been To The Mountain Top" speech, his last, on April 3, 1968.***  This speech was 43 min. long and also had the cadences called "somewhere I have read."  He was assassinated the next day (April 4, 1968).  I presume there will be another big event for this speech in five years.

I don't know that I have heard the full context of either of these speeches, but, what I have heard, has had a powerful effect on me.  If you wish to hear either of these speeches, the YouTube reverences are given below.

I flew to Washington, D.C. on April 4th of 1968 to go to an American Geophysical Union meeting, and was to stay in the National Hotel (not the famous one and probably defunct now), a small low-cost hotel available at special rates to Civil Servants on per diem.  It was just a few blocks from the 14th street riots, and you could see the red sky from the hotel.  As I went into the hotel, I wondered if I had always been nice to the Black doorman.  I checked in and went to my room and to bed, thinking that I wouldn't wake up in the morning.  But I did wake up and was absolutely amazed that nothing had happened to the hotel.  There were National Guard soldiers posted all around, and you couldn't get a drink anywhere.  There was a rumor that you could get a drink at the Yenching Palace in Cleveland Park (no longer exists).  My memory (perhaps faulty) is that I walked there, but it would be a long way from downtown where the meetings were held.  However I got there, the rumors were correct.  This restaurant was famous for being the place where the Cuban Missile Crisis was negotiated.  Though the riots were said to last for 5 days, I don't remember worrying about them after April 5th.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRIF4_WzU1w
** http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_speech_at_the_great_march_on_detroit
*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I've_Been_to_the_Mountaintop; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oehry1JC9Rk; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixfwGLxRJU8 entire speech.

WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT

Maybe you have seen advertisements on TV asking for $19/mo donations to the Wounded Warrior Project. This charity gets a 3 star rating from Charity Navigator mainly because they have excellent transparency.  This organization devotes only 55.0% of its funds to program expenses.  Its 8% going to administrative expenses is pretty good, but 36.8% (!) of their funds go to fund raising (e.g. all those TV ads).  I have wondered if there might be better supporting charities for our veterans.

In contrast, Charity Navigator gives 4 stars to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America which gives 85.2% of it funds to program expenses, 8.1% to administrative expenses, and only 6.5% to fund raising expenses.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) is the first and largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for new veterans, with over 200,000 Member Veterans and supporters nationwide. IAVA is a 21st Century veterans' organization dedicated to standing with the 2.4 million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan from their first day home through the rest of their lives. Founded in 2004 by an Iraq veteran, our mission is to improve the lives of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families. IAVA strives to build an empowered generation of veterans who provide sustainable leadership for our country and their local communities. We work toward this vision through programs in four key impact areas: supporting new veterans in Health, Education, Employment and building a lasting Community for vets and their families (HEEC).

The Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund even has a somewhat higher 4 star rating and devotes 94% to program activities, only 3.9% to administrative expenses, and only 2.0% to fund raising.

The Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund provides financial aid and quality of life solutions to: marines and sailors as well as members of the Army, Air Force and Coast Guard who have served in support of Marine forces, when they become injured in post 9-11 combat or training, and their families; help defray the expenses incurred during hospitalization, rehabilitation and recovery; assist with the expenses associated with the purchase of specialized equipment, adaptive vehicles and home modifications; and educate the public about the special needs of our wounded service members and their families. Our mission, since May of 2004, has remained constant: to serve those who preserve our freedom.