Three Items That Caught My Eye
By James T. Moore (03/24/07)
Surfing our daily newspaper seldom tells me much more than the lottery results, a local basketball team's loss.,crocodiles on the endangered list, McCain's fundraising blitz., vaccines to be dumped, and a Macy's or Dillard's half-page clearance sale ads.
This, of course, is an exaggeration, but not much of one. Most papers in America I presume, being in specific locales, give their readers all the parochial blather, but are grossly short on the vastly more important news: about the controversial Iraq war, this rogue administration’s assault on our freedoms, and the contradictions and cover-ups running rampant in the White House.
The three items that caught my eye deal with such things, and being a political writer, they not only got my attention, but prompted me to tell you about them.
ITEM ONE: As you may be aware, eight U.S attorneys were recently sacked by the Justice Department. The reason given was that the attorneys (prosecutors) were fired because of “lack-luster job performance.” Never mind that these men ranked in the top third of their peers for the number of prosecutions filed last year. Moreover, five of the eight men were among the top performers in winning convictions.
Smelling a rat, the Democrats contend that the firings were politically motivated, and demanded the resignation or ouster of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. This whole rhubarb is based on the implication that getting effective prosecutors “out of the way” en masse will make it easier for the administration to bypass the law in its drive to nullify the Constitution, impose less freedoms, and promote American hegemony.
ITEM TWO: In his article: Iraq: Stay Until Mission is Accomplished, Navy Lt. James T. Nichols---currently serving in Iraq, and helping to organize AppealForCourage.org,---has much to say about how wrong it would be to leave too soon. Nichols maintains that the website would send a message to Congress that they want to stay in Iraq “until the mission is complete.” He doesn’t say how much longer that might be. President Bush, standing on a battleship deck, declared Mission Accomplished. That was four ago, and we’re still “accomplishing” it.
“We will win,” said Nichols, “because we have a plan for victory, and the enemy does not.” Well, if we have a plan for victory in Iraq, Lt. Nichols must be the only officer who’s seen it. We didn’t go into in Iraq with a victory plan, and four years later we still don’t have one. Some dimwit apparently thought we didn’t need one.
ITEM THREE: In Letters to the Editor. Chris Christensen, U. S. Army (ret.) expressed a whole different view about the war in Iraq. This is essentially what he said: “I know of no community event that purports to support soldiers and their families that is not, in end, political. In the all-volunteer service, a soldier’s sacrifice boils down to two things: mission and unit. The rest is fluff. For a professional, it wouldn’t matter if the war was in Lithuania. It’s what they get paid to do. And though I admire the dedication and sacrifice, I will not agree that the sacrifice was for God and country, or that it was, in the end, worthwhile.
“The quickest way home is to get the idiots leading this army out of office as soon as possible, And I will use the names of the honored dead as examples of the folly of exporting democracy at the point of a gun. To me, that’s the only thing that gives their deaths meaning.”
These three items may not stir up the excitement of a Macy or Dillard sale, but they’re more important to the nation than designer handbags or Tummy Tuck Jeans.
James T. Moore
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