Month: March 2009

President Obama on Sunday’s Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer reassured the nation as to his limits on commitment to the war in Afghanistan.

Having earlier announced 17,000 more troops and now an additional 4,000 to be sent over the next number of months, he made it clear that it was not an open ended commitment, and that a  point might be reached of diminishing returns, which would then lead to a reassessment of the mission.

In so stating, Obama is letting the nation know that he has no intention of making the Afghan War another Vietnam quagmire.  We can only hope that the mission will work out, but it is reassuring to know that Obama has learned from our history in Vietnam and will not continue to invest over time in Afghanistan IF the effort  is failing and seems beyond retrieval.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner went on the Sunday news shows today and the effect was to restore confidence in the future of the American economy,  after an early sense that he might not be the right person to lead the effort to revive the economy.

Basically a shy person, Geithner came across this weekend as a person who was finally communicating better the plans of the Obama Administration to restore the economy.  He made it clear that the only answer was to have an activist government that does more, rather than less, to resolve the economic mess left to the new government leaders upon taking power in January. 

Geithner said expecting the private sector to resolve the issues at hand would not work, and that whatever had to be done would be pursued by the government in the coming months.  I have always believed that this is the right, if not popular, strategy.  Even if a portion of the American population has its doubts, and even if talk radio and the opposition party disagree, this is the only alternative to avoid long range suffering for the rapidly growing number of people who are losing jobs and homes, as well as to restore the banking and auto industries.

Vice President Joe Biden has been a positive factor in the new Obama Administration, using his experience and knowledge to be a non-obtrusive adviser to the President, according to the NY Times.

Biden has adjusted well to his role, controlling his verbose nature, but also being readily available for the President’s ear and attending and participating actively in many meetings, stating his viewpoints clearly,  but also recognizing that the President has the final decision in all matters.

Biden has developed a role of support and openness, and has been close to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, therefore using his well known foreign policy expertise in a positive way through her and the President.

The key point is that Biden is NOT acting in the dominant role that Dick Cheney had under George W. Bush, and that is all to the good.  The Vice President understands his place in the administration, and he is seen as re-establishing the Vice Presidency in the kind of image it had under Walter Mondale and Al Gore.

Ever since the Obama Administration began just a little over two months ago, we have been hearing about the horrors of increasing the national debt during the economic crisis that we face.  Also, as Obama has promoted new initiatives in energy, education and health care, we hear the conservative right screaming and yelling how irresponsible we are and how Obama is promoting socialism.

One would think that the Democratic Party is primarily responsible for this $10 trillion national debt that we are now saddled with as the new administration began.  Of course, the facts tell us otherwise.  If one looks at the statistics on the growth of our debt, we discover that it is the Republican party and its hell bent defense spending and tax cuts for the wealthy over the past thirty years that is the primary villain in this regard. 

When Democrat Jimmy Carter left office at the beginning of 1981, the nation had approximately a $1 trillion national debt.  Under Ronald Reagan, it tripled to $3 trillion, most of it spent on defense and on tax cuts to the wealthy which did not trickle down to the masses, as the rich got richer and the poor got poorer.  Under the first President Bush, it became more than $4 trillion.  With the administraition of Bill Clinton, the only Democrat in the period since 1980, the debt grew due to interest constantly being added, but Clinton actually created a balanced budget a number of times and added less to the debt than any Republican, and in that regard, he joined Jimmy Carter, whose earlier increase in the national debt was miniscule when compared to the future under the GOP.

So when George W. Bush became President in 2001, the debt was more than $5 trillion.  With the realization that September 11 added to the national burden, it is still a fact that Bush, by following the Reagan tax policy, ended up doubling the national debt to over $10 trillion, including the "socialistic" intervention in the financial crisis in his last few months in office. 

So from Reagan through the second Bush administration, Republican administrations added close to EIGHT trillion dollars to the debt, while Bill Clinton presided over a little more than ONE trillion added to the growing problem, but again avoiding massive increase in spending during his time. 

So who is to be criticized on the issue of the national debt and deficit spending?  Anyone who tries to be objective will recognize that talk radio and FOX News are creating their own propaganda, at a time when the country needs social and economic reform if the American dream is to be fulfilled after years of focusing only on defense and tax cuts on the wealthy!

In the  midst of the economic crisis faced by the Obama Administration, foreign policy is, unfortunately, rearing its ugly head.

President Obama has decided to increase the commitment to the war in Afghanistan even beyond his earlier decision to introduce more troops into that forsaken country.  He has made it clear that he is out to destroy the Taliban forces that are in Afghanistan and Pakistan, something that seems impossible of accomplishment despite every good intention.  The fear is that Afghanistan might become Obama’s Vietnam as it was a major cause of the downfall of the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Additionally, North Korea is again, under Kim Jong Il, becoming belligerent, threatening to fire a missile that could, it is believed, be a threat to Alaska and the West Coast of the United States someday.   Secretary of State  Hillary Clinton has warned the North Koreans against testing this missile, but it seems to be about to happen in the near future.

Finally, our neighbor to the south, Mexico, which shares a 2,000 mile boundary with the United States, is in crisis times as the drug cartels seem to be more powerful than the central or state governments of Mexico.  Larger numbers of Mexican troops are in the major cities where the drug cartels are operating, but the drug overlords seem to control the situation and have proceeded to promote brutal torture and murder of citizens of Mexico plus police and army personnel.  The danger of the drug cartel violence spilling over the border into such areas as San Diego, Tucson, and El Paso, is growing daily, and the US government is reinforcing the borders with National Guardsmen and regular Army troops.  The problem of illegal immigration, long a reality on the Mexican border, is now complicated by this growing crisis over the obsessive American consumer demand for cocaine and other hard drugs, which promotes the drug cartel’s aggressiveness and no holds barred cruelty and large scale murder with no limits yet established.

So in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in 70 years, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Janet Napolitano and other administration leaders must come up with a strategy to deal with these emerging problems.  There are, unfortunately, no easy answers to any of these issues. 

New York State, always seen as a  leader in so many ways, desperately needs a complete change next year, when Kirsten Gillebrand must defend her appointment as the replacement for Senator Hillary Clinton, and Governor David Paterson, who became the chief executive of the state upon the resignation of Governor Eliot Spitzer due to a sex scandal, will run to defend his position.

Paterson has proved to be very uninspiring and overly controversial and now his public opinion ratings have plummeted, partially due to his poor handling of the Clinton Senate seat appointment, first seemingly flirting with the idea of Caroline Kennedy and then ultimately settling on Congresswoman Kirsten Gillebrand from upstate Albany.

Gillebrand has emerged as a big backer of the National Rifle Association, although she is now trying to separate herself from this powerful pressure group’s tentacles.  But the latest revelation about her is that she did a lot of work in the 1990s for Big Tobacco when  it was fighting the national and state governments which were pursuing law suits against all of the tobacco corporations.  We do not need or want a senator representing New York, who works with such pressure groups as the above ones which undermine the American nation with their agenda.

It is essential that both Paterson and Gillebrand have strong primary challenges, and that both be removed from office in 2010.  Paterson should be replaced by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who has vigorously pursued AIG bonuses and in so many other ways has fought for the people of his state.  Gillebrand should be replaced by someone who is NOT an NRA or Big Tobacco supporter,  and has worked all of his or her career for principle and decency in public affairs.  Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, and Congressman Steve Israel are three such possibilities.

In any case, New York State deserves a Governor in the line of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Herbert Lehman, and Mario Cuomo, and a Senator in the tradition of Robert F. Wagner,  Robert F. Kennedy, Daniel P. Moynihan, Hillary Clinton, and Charles Schumer!

A Spanish court has taken steps toward promoting prosecution and possible arrest warrants for six Bush Administration officials who devised and promoted the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as part of the policy developed toward terrorists after September 11. 

These officials include former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith,  and David Addington, chief of staff and legal adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney. 

The possibility of arrest is unlikely unless these officials travel overseas, but it should be pointed out that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested and brought to trial under the authority of this particular Spanish court, and various human rights groups are pursuing this idea for American officials who promoted waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques in the War on Terror.  Our own government has promoted the prosecution of foreign leaders who have promoted human rights violations, so it is certainly possible that there could be domestic prosecutions of Bush administration officials, and this theoretically could lead to top figures, including both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney,  facing the bar of justice for their unconstitutional actions in office.

I say take these investigations and prosecutions where they lead, and restore the United States as the promoter of human rights, and have this country be in the forefront of the reestablishment  of the basic principles of international law!

President Obama handled himself very well at his second press conference a few days ago.

He asked us to be patient and to understand that solving the economic crisis takes time, and he answered the criticism that he was slow to react to the AIG bonus issue by stating wisely that he does not believe in reacting on any issue before he has time to understand and think about it.  He also answered a question about whether race comes up at meetings, and his answer was that it has not, as it is not relevant and we have too many important issues to deal with to focus on that.

He showed total command of the questions and continues to promote confidence that he has a sense of where he is moving us.  This press gathering, along with the more recent internet press conference, are having the effect of restoring faith and hope in the future.  In that sense, he follows in the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt with his fireside chats on the radio. 

President Obama commented on the issue of legalizing marijuana so it could be taxed and help the economic situation, during the internet press conference he held on Thursday.  He joked about it and then said it would not be a good idea.

I totally agree with this judgment of President Obama.   Economics should not be a justification for legalizing a drug which has proved it can be the first step toward the use of hard drugs, including heroin and cocaine.  Legalizing marijuana would be the wrong message to send to our younger generation.

However, at the same time, medical marijuana should be allowed, and we should not be filling up our prisons with set terms for possession or use of marijuana.  So don’t legalize it, but don’t destroy many people’s lives by giving them a criminal record, and allow sick people to utilize it since it has been shown to have a positive effect on cancer patients.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia is actively working at courting the support of Christian conservatives, including evangelicals and Catholics.

Apparently, he is flirting with the idea of running for President in 2012, even though he has been out of public office since 1998, and while Speaker sowed division and conflict during the third to sixth year of the Clinton Administration.

He also displayed hypocrisy about Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky at a time when he had himself cheated on his first wife, and presented her with a divorce document while she was in the hospital, and then later cheating on his second wife and marrying for a third time.

I cannot imagine that religious conservatives could justify working with Gingrich, despite his known intelligence and articulate skills.  But then again, the GOP might find itself in desperation by 2012 and feel a need for a candidate who speaks well and has excellent debating abilities.  We shall see how far this flirtation goes.