Mountain Views News          Saturday, March 23, 2013

15

OPINION

LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

 Mountain Views News Saturday, March 16, 2013


HOWARD Hays As I See It

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CONTRIBUTORS

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STUART Tolchin..........On LIFE

“We not only know Saddam Hussein 
has weapons of mass destruction, we 
know where they are.”

- Defense Secretary Donald 
Rumsfeld – 2003

“My biggest fear ... is the chemical 
weapons in Syria falling in the hands 
of extremists and Americans need to 
lead ... Absolutely, you’ve got to get on 
the ground. There is no substitute for 
securing these weapons.”

- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) - 2013

 

 When I saw by the heading of Greg Welborn’s 
column last week that his subject was the new Pope, 
Francis I, I figured right off there’d be no need for a 
rebuttal column. 

 But, there’s always something. Greg notes that 
the former Cardinal Bergoglio “stood up against 
the Marxists of his homeland.” Okay – but the 
only controversy was whether he had “stood up” 
to the military junta of Gen. Jorge Videla during 
Argentina’s own “dirty war” of the 1970s and 80s – a 
period, as described by former Washington Post and 
Associated Press correspondent Peter Eisner, during 
which “Videla and his band of generals turned a 
battle against a small group of leftist subversives into 
a murderous campaign against teachers, doctors, 
unionists, intellectuals, Jews and, sometimes, 
activist priests.”

 Eisner describes many of the military leaders as 
being “as ardently Roman Catholic as they were anti-
communist”, and notes “survivors say that neither 
the Argentine Catholic Church nor the Vatican 
. . . raised their voices to protest the slaughter of 
innocents.” But at least he “stood up against the 
Marxists.”

 The new Pope was the big event, along with the 
spat between Sarah Palin and Karl Rove at the CPAC 
convention. Their names were often heard at that 
conservative conclave.

 One name barely heard was that of George W. 
Bush. Nor was there note taken of words spoken by 
him exactly ten years ago, on March 19, 2003: “My 
fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition 
forces are in the early stages of military operations to 
disarm Iraq.” It was “shock and awe”.

 Columns could be filled on the lingering effects 
of that war; the devastation to tens of thousands 
of American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi 
families, the trillion dollars added to our national 
debt, the transformation of a powerful regional 
adversary of the Iranian Ayatollahs into a reliable 
ally. I thought, though, of many lessons learned, and 
how long it takes to forget them.

 Nearly a hundred years ago, President Wilson 
saw the lessons of The Great War as the need for 
international engagement (a “League of Nations”), 
and to help rebuild even vanquished adversaries. 
Ten years later, the nation embraced isolationism 
and the imposition of punishing reparations on 
a devastated Germany. The lessons had to be 
tragically relearned, and later we saw the Marshall 
Plan and a United Nations.

 President Franklin Roosevelt saw the lessons 
of Black Friday as the need to reform unbridled 
financial markets, to separate commercial from 
investment banking and to protect our seniors (a 
third of whom ended up in poverty) by a program 
of Social Security. By the end of the century, those 
protections were removed, leading to a second 
financial collapse, and we see moves to turn 
the security of our seniors over to the financial 
behemoths behind the recent meltdown.

 I remember all the talk of the “lessons from 
Watergate”, and the ensuing campaign reform 
legislation. Forty years later saw the “Citizens 
United” Supreme Court decision, and now corporate 
control over our government is so entrenched that a 
measure supported by 9 in 10 Americans (according 
to a CBS News poll) like requiring universal 
background checks for gun purchases cannot find 
the 60 Senate votes necessary to move it to the floor 
for debate. (It didn’t take three months to forget 
whatever lessons were learned from the massacre 
of 20 children, ages of six and seven, and six staff 
members, at Sandy Hook Elementary.)

 

 Lessons from the Vietnam War were enunciated 
by Gen. Colin Powell in the “Powell Doctrine”, that 
before committing ourselves we must ask: Is a vital 
national security interest threatened? Do we have a 
clear, attainable objective? Have the risks and costs 
been fully and frankly analyzed? Have all other 
non-violent policy means been fully exhausted? 
Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless 
entanglement? Have the consequences of our action 
been fully considered? Is the action supported by 
the American people? Do we have genuine broad 
international support?

 Ten years ago, that doctrine was abandoned and 
the lessons forgotten.

 As for lessons from Iraq, I’d refer you to an open 
letter to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from 
Tomas Young, an Army vet from Missouri dying 
from wounds suffered in an attack in Sadr City when 
he was 22 years old (http://www.truthdig.com/dig/
item/the_last_letter_20130318):

 “I would not be writing this letter if I had been 
wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those 
forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been 
wounded there I would still be miserable because of 
my physical deterioration and imminent death, but 
I would at least have the comfort of knowing that 
my injuries were a consequence of my own decision 
to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie 
in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life 
ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds 
of thousands of human beings, including children, 
including myself, were sacrificed by you for little 
more than the greed of oil companies, for your 
alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your 
insane visions of empire.”

 I wrote a couple weeks ago of hippie-dom, but I 
was more of the anti-war crowd. My anthems were 
Buffalo Springfield’s “Stop Hey What’s That Sound” 
and Credence Clearwater’s “Bad Moon Rising”. But 
as I read Young’s letter, I thought of a recording by 
The Searchers of a Pete Seeger song about flowers 
and its repeated refrain, “When will they ever learn? 
When will they ever learn?”


IT’S NOT JUST A MOVIE

 I am troubled by my own conformity. In 
my articles I invariably end by advising you 
imagined readers to be nice to one another, 
hug your loved ones frequently and to not 
be distracted by the temporary pleasures 
and diversions of life. I proclaim that there’s 
more to life than sex, drugs, money, and rock 
and roll. Well, yesterday, I saw this really troubling movie titled 
The Identity Thief. I don’t think it was intended to be troubling, 
but it really bothered me. The movie stars someone named Jason 
Bateman who has kind of grown up on television and in the 
movies. His co-star is Melissa McCarthy who is the fat lady that 
caused all sorts of problems for me. 

 To summarize a rather unrealistic plot, Bateman is stuck in a 
job where he is unappreciated as well as under-paid. He is offered 
a job in a newly forming company at five times the salary; but 
there is a problem. Someone has obtained information enough 
about him to create phony credit cards and run up tremendous 
bills. The Police are after him because there are now outstanding 
warrants for his arrest. Now everything is in jeopardy; his job, 
his house, his freedom. He must personally apprehend the 
identity thief; bring that person back to Denver and place that 
person into the hands of the police. It’s all preposterous, but he 
must leave comfortable but dull Denver where he lives with a 
beautiful pregnant wife and beautiful kids in order to catch the 
thief who is in Winter Garden Florida, wherever and whatever 
that is. One other thing; despite the wife and the beautiful kids, 
and his obvious dependability and even before he learns about 
the identity theft, Bateman seems kind of gray and fatigued and 
troubled.

 We movie-goers observe the thief long before Bateman does. 
Although she is the co-star of the movie, she is not beautiful. She is 
an overweight kind of out-of-control fat lady. She is highly skilled 
in the technological maneuverings necessary to create false credit 
cards and false identities, but she cannot buy happiness. The place 
in which she resides (she probably stole that too) is crammed full 
of boats, jet skis, knick knacks and junk that she has obviously 
obtained illegally. Bateman finally corners her at some sleazy 
saloon and now he has to get her back to Denver - but strange 
things start happening. First of all, she reveals wonderful abilities 
like knowing how to defend herself. She hits men in the throat, 
knees them in the groin and is a talented risk-taking driver. She 
breaks out of police cars by kicking out the back windows and 
escapes being run down by a car using a wonderful move she 
learned on the internet. When she carries Bateman a half-mile 
through the forest in order to save his life, our feelings begin to 
change.

 She is filled with energy and never gives up. She is sexually 
ever-ready, but Bateman never touches her because he is true-
blue and she is still pretty gross. They get back to Denver and 
in one night she bonds with his wife and children and Bateman 
decides not turn her in BUT she decides to turn herself in and is 
sentenced to prison for three years. Bateman, his wife, and kids 
visit her regularly at the prison. THE END.

 So what troubled me? Obviously in her troubled, out of control 
life she was having a lot more fun than Bateman and his perfect 
family. She’s the only interesting thing in the movie. So my 
question is wondering whether being middle-class and following 
the rules is just for fools like me? Really, my only sins are the 
sins of inattention when I fail to do something I meant to do. 
What do you think? Is living the responsible life I lead sort of like 
living a life that we expect other people’s children to lead without 
finding the secret pleasures that might make life more interesting. 
Really, I like my life but I admit I don’t even view pornography. I 
guess my mom wouldn’t like it.

 I wonder if this is the true failure of our educational systems. 
Are we teaching restriction and conformity when it is clear that 
the young, and maybe everybody else, want freedom and self-
expression. I have been taught to avoid trouble, while maybe the 
more important lessons are how to find trouble and then get out 
of it pretty much unscathed.

 Can civilization tolerate communities wherein people do 
pretty much whatever they want without thinking about the 
consequences? Maybe that’s how many people are living already, 
as both the children of the very rich and the very poor seem to 
roam the streets, (yes they are different streets) all night without 
much supervision or parental concern.

 Is the middle class disappearing from lack of imagination? Or 
lack of interest? What is our real identity and what is the kind 
of life we want to lead? Are we our own Identity Thieves who 
have stolen our potential from ourselves? I said at the beginning 
that I really don’t know the answers but that I am troubled by the 
questions. What about you? 

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IRAQ THROUGH THE LENS 
OF HISTORY

GREG Welborn

 


At any given moment, there are 
political, social and economic 
debates in this country that 
enflame the passions of those in 
favor of and those opposed to the 
issue at hand. It is only through 
the lens of history that those 
passions are dampened, that truth 
emerges, and, if we’re lucky, that 
lessons are learned which help us 
better handle the next challenge 
or crisis. This week marks the 10- 
year anniversary of the Iraq war 
and, as the fates would have it, 
provides President Obama a crisis 
eerily reminiscent of what faced 
President Bush a decade ago.

 To understand what has 
happened and what can be 
learned, we need to honestly 
review the historical record. 
President Bush assumed the 
presidency at a time when Iraq 
had waged a brutal war against 
two neighbors – Iran and Kuwait 
-, when it had developed weapons 
of mass destruction (nerve gas), 
used those weapons against its 
own people (the Kurds), evaded 
the UN arms inspectors, and told 
the world and its own military 
leaders that it still possessed, and 
would use, those weapons. 

 Great is the number of political 
leaders and intelligence agencies 
which believed Saddam Hussein 
was an imminent threat to world 
peace and the stability of the 
region. President Clinton had 
stated that Saddam “threatens 
the safety of his people and the 
stability of the region”. Nancy 
Pelosi stated, “Saddam Hussein 
has engaged in the development 
of weapons of mass destruction”. 
Hans Blix of the U.N. reported 
that “the Iraqi regime has allegedly 
misplaced 1,000 tons of nerve 
agent”. The intelligence agencies 
of Russia, England, France, Israel, 
Germany and the U.S. all believed 
Saddam maintained his stockpiles 
of WMD. So, too, by the way 
did Saddam’s own generals. 
How could any prudent person 
conclude differently? If Bush lied, 
then so too did Clinton, Pelosi, 
and every other leader referenced 
above. 

 As to the failure of the Bush 
administration to obtain U.N. 
Security Council authorization 
to remove the threat, then we 
must also indict and crucify 
President Clinton for his 
unauthorized use of force in 
Serbia in defense of the Muslims 
facing ethnic cleansing there. 
The more important indictment, 
however, is neither against Bush 
or Clinton, but against the U.N. 
for its fecklessness in the face of 
real human suffering. What the 
U.N. did in Rwanda, in Serbia, 
and was willing to do in Iraq is 
cynical, immoral, and unworthy 
of a small town council, let alone 
a world body.

 All of which brings us to the 
reasons, justifications and results 
of the Iraq war. For those with 
honest memories, aided by the 
ample documentation from 10 
years of historical study, the 
justification for the war contained 
eight solid points, only one of 
which referenced WMDs. The 
most important points were 
freedom for the local people 
and the spread of democracy in 
the region. These have been the 
abiding principal in almost all of 
America’s wars. It’s what makes 
us great.

 Some, of course, have argued 
and still argue to this day against 
all evidence to the contrary that 
Iraq was a diversion from the real 
war on terror. Those who hold 
this line have to square themselves 
with the contradictory and much 
more believable assertions from 
those who actually waged the 
war against democratic values. 
Osama Bin Laden, himself, said 
the struggle for dominance in 
Iraq was “the most important and 
serious issue facing the world”. 
Other terrorist leaders also went 
on record telling us that victory in 
Iraq was necessary to solidifying 
Islamic rule in the region and 
carrying it into the rest of the 
world. Those fighting against us 
saw it as their world war, even if 
some of our talking heads did not.

 Fast forward, though, to this 
week’s anniversary of the war 
where we are called to give ample 
regard to the results of the war. 
Nobility of cause and courage 
in its defense are no substitutes 
for results. What did the war 
bring? In short, the answer, for 
those again who are honest, is 
overwhelming success.

 The Iraqi people no longer 
face the threat of incarceration, 
torture or indiscriminant 
death. The Iraqi people proudly 
held out their purple-stained 
thumbs to evidence the birth of 
another democracy in a region 
that has known few of them. 
Iraq’s neighbors are no longer 
threatened. The leaders of Iraq 
may not be perfect democrats in 
the American vein, but they are 
clearly not sadistic, psychotic, 
sociopathic, or even particularly 
fanatical. The worst we can say 
against them today is that they’re 
a bit corrupt. Corruption instead 
of death and dismemberment is 
probably a pretty good bargain 
at this point in the long game. 
Additionally, the U.S. willingness 
to act, and success in its actions, 
convinced Moammar Gadhafi 
to blink in his oppressive 
power game against his people. 
Thankfully, we no longer have 
to deal with his tyranny, nuclear 
threats or financial backing of 
those who bring airliners down in 
the pastures of Scotland.

 The dispassionate verdict 
of history is that the world is a 
better place because of the moral 
conviction and steadfastness of 
one American President and the 
valor and sacrifice of scores of 
thousands of American soldiers 
who answered the call to make 
their world a better place.

 But what of today? What of the 
lesson that can accrue to and 
benefit President Obama? Here 
the fates offer bitter irony. Within 
the last 48 hours, there are 
credible reports that the Syrian 
regime has used weapons of mass 
destruction against the insurgents 
there who seek freedom and 
democracy. President Obama 
has stated that, if true, it would 
represent the crossing of that 
bright line in the sand which 
mandates U.S. action. But does 
he really understand the meaning 
of his statement? 

 This is the same man who argued 
President Bush did not have 
the right to wage a pre-emptive 
war against a foreign nation 
simply because of the threat to 
use WMDs against us. This is 
the man who said there were no 
WMDs in Iraq at a time when 
there were reports that highly 
secret shipments were made from 
Iraq to Syria. He this may have to 
face the contradictions of his own 
poorly considered philosophy 
and world view. 

 Syria does not threaten the 
U.S. Unlike Iraq, or Iran or North 
Korea, it doesn’t even claim that it 
intends to threaten the U.S. It only 
wages a battle – unfathomably 
brutal as it might be – against its 
own people on its own soil. What 
would be the justification to pre-
emptively start a war if Bush was 
really wrong in doing it 10 years 
ago? What would the President 
have to admit if Syria’s WMDs 
were found to have emigrated 
from Iraq? Would he have to 
admit that Bush was right? 

 The answer is yes. To do the 
right thing today, to learn and 
apply correctly the lesson of 
history, President Obama must 
confront his own philosophical 
misunderstandings of the 
way the world really works 
and admit to his egregiously 
unfair mischaracterizations of 
President Bush’s honor, decency, 
intelligence and moral strength. I 
fear that these may be too hard for 
President Obama to do, but I pray 
he can do them. It would be the 
mark of a man who cares about 
more than just the next election, 
of a man who can admit error and 
grow, of a leader who warrants 
the supreme responsibility that 
our nation’s citizens have placed 
on his shoulders. I pray he is all 
those things.

 About the author: Gregory J. Welborn 
is a freelance writer and has spoken to 
several civic and religious organizations 
on cultural and moral issues. He lives in 
the Los Angeles area with his wife and 3 
children and is active in the community. 
He can be reached at gregwelborn@
earthlink.net.

RICH Johnson

Moving On and Out

 Well, for those of you keeping score, my 
office relocation is about 99.8% complete. 
Just a few items left at our old facility and 
already a state of disarray at our new place. 
The Versa-Tape management staff consisting 
of Rich and James, made a key management 
decision early on in the game. Since rarely do any customers come 
through our front door, we focused more on excellent customer 
service and less on a pristine office setting. James and I have really 
succeeded in achieving that goal.

 The new offices are nicer and the layout is superior to our old 
offices. And now I will be traveling 7.7 miles east from my residence 
in Sierra Madre. The old commute was approximately 4.5 miles in 
a westerly direction. And to my 180 degree change in commute 
direction, I apologize to Horace Greeley. I am now traveling east.

 I ceremonially removed the old office keys from my key ring. This 
set of 3 keys had resided on that key ring for 27 years. And it felt like 
the death of an old friend. So, when I ran across news of the death 
of a famous celebrity I thought it might be cathartic to share the 
article with you. Okay, for my own sense of well being, I kneaded 
to share this story:

The Demise of the Doughboy

 The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and 
complications of trauma due to being poked repeatedly in the belly.

 Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens 
of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. 
Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, 
the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The grave site was piled 
high with flours.

 Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described 
Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded. 
Born and bread in Minnesota, Doughboy rose quickly in show 
business. But his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not 
considered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on 
half-baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times, he lived 
to be a crusty old man and was considered a positive roll model for 
millions.

 Doughboy is survived by his wife Play Dough, three children: 
John Dough, Jane Dough and Dosey Dough. Plus they still had one 
in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly father, Pop Tart.

 The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 minutes

 I hope you are having a good week, month, year, decade, and 
millennium! Pick all of the above!


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