The United States of America used to pride itself on a reputation for diplomacy and integrity. The world’s largest economy, land of the capitalist dream. Immigrants would flock to America looking for their chance in life, looking to make a go of it all for their family. Then something went wrong. The global perception of the US changed, and suddenly the ethical and moral high ground was destroyed by needless bloodshed and political interference beyond the scope of their global role.
The Vietnam war - a tragedy of greed and senseless aggression. Vietnam wasn’t an American war, yet it was this involvement that started the cycle of distrust and negative feeling towards the United States and everything it stood for. And that’s not to mention the horrendous loss of life, and the destruction of lives caused by politically motivated violence. You’d think we’d learn our lesson, huh?
In 2003, George W. Bush with the support of Tony Blair sent hundreds of thousands of troops to invade Iraq on the premise of ‘illegal weapons programmes’ and ‘imminent threats’. A chip off the old block, some would say. George H. W. Bush’s invasion of 1990 failed to overthrow the regime or gain control of the wealth of oil in Iraq. His son was more fortunate.
One of the most controversial American authors of our time, Bob Miller has been a staunch campaigner against the Bush administrations of now and then, since back in 1976. A Veteran of the Vietnam war, Miller has been cast as a pariah, a renegade, and has even been taken into custody by the US Secret Service for his outspoken approach to American politics. Nevertheless Miller has continued his relentless attack on the Bush regime and everything it stands for, traveling the country to deliver his opinions on the real motives of the Bush family.
A Republican himself, Miller is no stranger to the world of political activism. Yet his controversial branding in the mainstream media has seen him cast aside as yet another extremist, unpatriotic and senseless. However, with his latest book “Kill Me If You Can, You SOB”, Miller aims to express the true horrors of the Vietnam war, without descending into the same old ‘this and that’ of the Bush dynasty and their own brand of extremism.
Without forming opinions for the reader or giving a blow by blow account of the war and the politics behind it, Miller’s latest effort is based on diary entries from his time in the war, telling the tale more graphically than could otherwise be possible of the horrors behind the wars and foreign policy of the Bush administrations.
As Miller was quoted as saying, “Bush has spent the lives of thousands of young Americans and billions of dollars for oil, not terrorists, and everyone knew it. To have participated in this needless savagery in any way is not only hypocritical, it’s blasphemous. And to blame the son, and not the father, is like blaming the puppet, not the puppeteer. Like his father Prescott Bush, George H.W. Bush’s epitaph should read, ‘Here lies incomprehensible evil.’”
Sent by Nick Carter, Vietnam war
Hillary Clinton may be the Democratic Party’s leading candidate for President, but is she leaning too far out towards the conservative right? No doubt, she is a seasoned veteran in the political arena who believes in playing her cards with deliberation and care. But for some time now, she has been increasingly courting the right agenda.
Take for instance the speech she gave in January 2005, where she spoke on the importance of sexual abstinence for teenagers. Soon after, she shared the stage with Republican leaders such as Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback, and conservative Democratic Joe Lieberman, at a Capitol Hill press conference where the leaders called for federal funding for research on the effect of electronic media such as computers and i-pods on children’s behavior development.
The conservative quarter also seems to have responded to Clinton. She has, for instance, drawn admiration from them for her stance on foreign policy. Her spar with fellow Democrat Barack Obama during a Democratic presidential debate—on whether a president should meet anti-American leaders without pre-conditions during his first year in office—has won her plaudits from established right-wingers such as the Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes, National Review’s Rich Lory, and the New York Times columnist, David Brooks.
The question is whether Clinton’s allegiance to the right will offend her Democratic voter base, with its significantly leftist bias. Well, her supporters do not seem too worried about it. However, Hillary Clinton would need to tread carefully to avoid tilting the balance too far on either side.
Source: EasyArticles.
The controversial war in Iraq started with the US-led invasion in March 2003. The main reason offered for the proposed war was that Iraq has nuclear capabilities and that the war would act as a means of disabling such capabilities – thus the war would protect the interests of the US and further afield by disarming them. Countries that were opposed to the war, such as members of the UN security council who did not back plans, suggested that such fears were not correct. Another reason given for the invasion of Iraq was that there was claims linking Iraq to al-Qaeda – so far there has been no evidence linking them together in anyway.
The invasion of Iraq was lead by a largely American force, with soldiers from Australia, Great Britain, Poland and Denmark also playing their role. In an attempt to restore peace in Iraq, the Co-coalition countries attempted to establish a democratic government. Such plans have not went as smoothly as was hoped, and on-going violence has continued despite there being troops and a democratically elected government in place.
Since the invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein fled the country in an attempt to avoid the consequences that would come as a result of being caught by the coalition troops. Despite his best attempts, Saddam was captured in December 2003 and was hanged in the same month the crimes he had committed whilst in office. His trial and subsequent hanging were all completed under the Iraq interim government.
The Iraq war has been controversial for a number of reasons:
1. The war was not legal and was completed without the backing of the United Nations. Some political commentators suggest this as a reason for wider international backlash out with the coalition countries that participated.
2. Not enough troops. The number of troops that were sent to Iraq, and that are now in Iraq, is less than half of what would be needed to allow for a swift operation which would lead to less casualties, according to a Rand report. Some objectors comment that this shows a lack of respect for human life and was done as a means of lessening the financial burden of the war.
3. Insufficient post-invasion strategy. The coalition governments did not adequately prepare an exit strategy and a means of bringing peace to Iraq according to many politicians and defence analysts.
4. Financial Burden. According to Reuters news agency, the cost of the Iraq war is close to $2 trillion.
5. Iraq’s oil supply has often been quoted as a reason for the start of the war. Such claims, if true, would be much different from the original reasons cited as the reason for the war happening in the first place.
6. Weapons of Mass Destruction have been been found in Iraq, which has made analysts increasingly sceptical as to whether they were there in the first place. If indeed they were not, then this would mean that the war was started on a false premise.
Source: EasyArticles.
Our society needs qualified leaders, right? How do we get them? Our Constitution provides for a system to elect these people to operate our government. It was meant to help us choose the very best of us to be our leaders. But those who wrote the document had no knowledge of the power of TV and other mass media to influence elections, much less the ability of the Internet to inject millions of different opinions into every political situation. These factors have brought the influence of money into political contests at every level and produced the negative phenomenon of vicious attacks from all candidates toward every other opponent.
During my early years I paid no attention to positive thinking as opposed to negative ideas. Then it became clear that nothing good can survive in a negative cloud. My living plan requires me to avoid negatives by leaving a person or group involved in bad discussions or ignoring the situation if that is possible. Sometimes there is no way to avoid negative contact. Those are the times when some kind of positive outcome must be developed. To simply accept a negative result as it is creates a foundation for more bad outcomes.
Politics and politicians have produced a culture of negativism in America. The massive amounts of wealth required to mount even an unsuccessful run for office have effectively eliminated most of the qualified candidates who might like to seek office. Now, many may say those who are running are the best contenders because they have years of experience. But, those were years spent as professional politicians and the result is constant bickering between the political parties and a Congress with a close to zero rating. The need is for new people with significant amounts of experience outside politics; only with such people can we ever hope for better government. But none of them will ever be able to run for office because they don’t have Bloomberg wealth nor the ability to mount massive fund-raising organizations.
Why is this allowed to continue?
Congress and lower legislative bodies are the only people who could control the political spending situation, if they wanted to. They don’t have any interest in any sort of restraint on the current process. They are looking after themselves and wealth for their future. That’s why they became professional politicians to start with—to profit from perks and income associated with their tenure in office. Successful politicians are able to peddle influence and favors to the extent large numbers of wealthy and powerful people are beholden to them. This provides opportunities for lucrative after politics careers as lobbyists, highly paid speakers, and top jobs in big companies that do business with the government.
Our leaders have been reduced to bickering among themselves and placing blame for all sorts of irrelevant events so that nothing very significant has been accomplished. I live in a resort area and things are so ludicrous that a major form of entertainment for weekenders and vacationers is to watch the proceedings of several local governing bodies on TV. They look like old slap-stick comedy shows. And everyone knows how ineffective Congress is; look at the ratings that sometimes are near ZERO.
These ideas would go a long way toward improving the quality of our elected leaders:
1. Limit any campaign season to nine months. It is ridiculous that we have had to endure over two years of inane bickering among so many candidates.
2. Prohibit all radio or TV political advertising of any kind.
3. Local candidates, including up to the county and city level, should be limited to $1,000.
4. State level candidates, including the Governor, should be limited to $100,000.
5. Congressional candidates and Senators should be limited to $500,000.
6. The Presidential candidates should be limited to $1,000,000.
What do I wish to accomplish with this article? My hope is that maybe someone will be encouraged to write their legislators on a continuous basis so that meaningful spending caps will eventually be enacted. Only when the average person can afford to run for office, not intending to be a career politician, can we once again have qualified leaders.
This is a positive spin on a very negative process. Let’s all try to do something about it through our elected leaders or, perhaps, the court system.
Source: EasyArticles.
Republican presidential candidate, Ron Paul’s stand on many issues deserves praise. There is his campaign against taxes; Paul stands for abolishing Income tax and doing away, completely, with the IRS and the federal reserve. Besides, he has always stood for a non-interventionist foreign policy. He opposed the war in Iraq, and has called for the total withdrawal of troops. Most important, he stands for the reducing the power of the government to control the lives of Americans.
However, perplexingly, the one crucial issue that Paul does not care to address at all is global warming. In fact, he has gone on record to say that he thinks the issue is “overblown”.
The issue of global warming and climate change is a contentious one. Most politicians talk about it but are inhibited when it comes to taking decisions, for fear of upsetting powerful stakes.
Even so—especially in this day and age—for a presidential candidate to completely reject the pressing need of tackling the issue is, quite simply, preposterous. “There are two sides of the (global warming) argument,” Paul maintains, indicating that he does not hold global warming deserves our immediate concern.
Responding to a question about the role of the federal government in controlling global warming, this is what Paul had to say, “Then you have to deal with the volcanoes, and you have to deal with China… so what are you going to do, invade China so they don’t pollute? He added, “We go to war to protect oil, so that we can buy more oil, and burn more oil. So I say our foreign policy contributes to global warming—by subsidizing a policy that is deeply flawed.”
Ron Paul is 10th-term Republican United States congressman from Lake Jackson, Texas. Paul has been described as a conservative, a constitutionalist, and a libertarian.
Source: EasyArticles.