Follow the Yellow Brick Road

An election was had this past November. We had a choice between two candidates, or vote for neither. I felt I should vote for one of the two candidates. That candidate won. I don't really feel that I did.

Let me put it this way - one had a vice-president who, if he died or retired, you might wonder if she would become president or a replacement for Vanna White. The other came off as a traditional opportunist who was sticking to the script of a B movie. He spoke so well that you could almost feel that he believed in everything he was saying. He did, however, list names of experts in the fields who would become a part of his administration. So you didn't have to rely on him to develop approaches to problems. All he really needed was a well-informed teleprompter hopefully with some degree of consistency. He touted himself as the savior of Change.

The way it turned out the election was for all intents and purposes, as far as the victor was concerned, to merely be the conducting of a focus group. A lot of issues were discussed with minimal solutions or even attempts at any real solution. You had a choice of solutions to existing problems or those which could only be visualized - don't know who got a passing grade - we prayed that it would be the nation.

If you look at the issues which dominated the election, you will find one to be a health care program plan which was going to be a bipartisan product of the two parties. The President said that the two parties working together was the key ingredient to moving forward. What happened was that he left it to flounder between the congressional parties who acted like Sunnis and Shiites - except they weren't even that close - they made paranoid seem like a condition of brotherhood. Each stood its immovable ground based entirely on party loyalty. The people of the country are being held hostage to the elections of 2010 and 2012.

At this point, as I write this column, one of the health care bills has gotten out of committee with a Snowe job and contrary to the desires of the minority party [no one told them that they were minority and supposedly helpless]. The President apparently had decided not to get involved since it would appear that he was unable to realize that people will not willingly follow his eloquent presentations as they would have if he was the Pied Piper.

As long as he believes that two-party legislation must be the ultimate resolution, we can be assured that nothing will happen [he needs just one Republican]. Hopefully, by the time this magazine is received, you may have an answer - I won't bet on it. But, who knows - the majority party may wake up to the fact that they are the majority, and there are other procedural ways to pass legislation.

But all we hear is the endless repetitive statement that nothing can be accomplished in the Senate without 60 votes. Without the 60 there could be a filibuster - that's a debate on the merits. That would only screw up what the public learns about the issues and their senators. A real filibuster would prevent the senators from leaving on Thursday afternoons to go home for the week-end.

Unfortunately, we have been plagued with loads of public polling results. This adds another ingredient of unreality in coming up with a right answer. The result is controlled by how the questions are asked to accomplish the answer desired. Were it not for the polls, TV and cable news commentaries, our legislators would be stuck dealing with facts or in creating total fabrications to satisfy the wishes of their constituents.

Now for the key issues - Afghanistan and Pakistan, and, of course, Iraq. You could even add Iran to the regional mix. During the campaign, Afghanistan became the "necessary war" in place of Iraq.

Each of those nations brings to light a different set of facts on the ground. Iraq is fairly flat with three competing ethnic rivals who are dependent upon oil revenue allocation to sustain a degree of stability with a coalition of their parties. Afghanistan, on the other hand, is mountainous and apparently is the home of the al Quaeda and Taliban rebels, and is run in part by local warlords who are willing to change sides for money and power to be left alone in their fiefdom; stability would be just an illusion. Pakistan is a loose cannon with war lords, opposition parties and actual nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them. Of course, there is Iran, which threatens the entire region and the world community with nuclear weaponry - BOOM!!!!! - there go all game plans.

It's fascinating that the Middle East nations such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other regional nations whom we have protected over the last number of generations, have neither provided troops nor funding to the coalitions and have actually declared that our presence in Iraq is illegal while they continued to provide funding to the terrorists, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and others. The old saying applies to their relationship with our country, that with friends like them, who needs enemies.

So, how do we approach that issue? Do we have a realizable mission which is supported by our allies and the region, a strategy for success and post-conflict organization and a doable exit strategy? Are we ready to commit our assets and our forces to what may be an abyss?

This he is handling as though he was conduction a college seminar in strategy. He has corralled opinions, a report from his General in the field and broad-based discussions. He is now waiting for the results of an Afghan election - just another few weeks. While the approach of getting as much information as possible is necessary to arrive at a strategy, it has resulted in public confusion and fear.

His commander says to bring in more troops - anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000 to 80,000 - sort of a replay of the Bush surge. Others go from withdraw to status quo. Then goes the question of why we are there - destroy Taliban and al Quaeda to nation-building. Then I read that one day four of our troops were killed, and two civilians were also killed. Guess what, the great concern was - the death of two civilians - collateral damage was the primary concern. In other words - the terrorists can do whatever they damn want to do while we must pursue the civilized war under the Geneva Convention and whatever else would put us at a disadvantage or face conviction in an International Court of Criminal Justice. The more we die the better is the war - we do not need dead and injured Americans to show how good and decent we are.

As I've written before, unless the law of war and the rules of engagement are the same for all of those involved, we should withdraw all troops other than those required to train those nationals involved in the preservation of their nation and those needed as advisors. The war should be continued by us with missiles and other goodies to destroy the enemies' camps, target leadership, and whatever is "necessary" to eliminate the threat. We won the good war of WWII by seeking out and eliminating the enemy without an extensive concern for collateral damage. The minefields of WWII do not compare with the threats of IED's on highways.

There are many other issues that must also be addressed and require incremental examination and action, but, frankly, the two and a half wars, together with our troops in South Korea and Germany and NATO having to serve extended tours and duty and possibly two or three or four more tours of duty placing them in harm’s way - and for what? That answer will be a turning point to our economy and our way of life without our being beholden to any other nation.

The question is "Why?" The answer does not require a Pied Piper to follow the Yellow Brick Road.