Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw) Weekend Contributor
Forty Billion Dollars is a heck of a lot of money. It seems like an even larger number when you realize that just one defense program spent that large sum, and it has arguably been a disaster. I am talking about the highly political missile defense system program. You have probably heard about that program. It is supposed to stop any wild-eyed dictators from successfully sending any ICBM’s into our air space. It may just be an amazingly expensive pipe dream! Continue reading “Forty Billion Dollar Failure”→
North Korea remains a fascinating, if disturbing, preoccupation in the world like a country that “time forgot” out of a 1950s film. That image was on display this week when Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un visited the pride of his submarine force — a Romeo class submarine that was abandoned over 50 years ago. As someone who like to follow military history and technology, the sight of a leader on a Romeo class sub is like President Obama riding on Civil War spotter balloon as a demonstration of our continued surveillance capabilities. What is also bizarre is that, after last week giving instructions the North Korean meteorologists on how to make more accurate predictions, the Supreme Leader reportedly taught submariners “new tactics.”
Below is my column yesterday in the Chicago Tribune. It remains unclear whether Bowe Bergdahl will be charged. However, the allegations are mounting over his disappearance from his base. This column explores some interesting possible defenses and their historical context. Bergdahl returned this week to the United States, a move that will likely magnify these questions for the Administration.
The United States is mulling further intervention in Iraq as government forces flee Al Qaeda-linked insurgents and the country appears teetering on chaos. While the Administration is not ready to commit boots on the grounds, we may be moving toward a further influx of hundreds of millions or billions in military aid and even air strikes. As ISIS insurgents are seizing U.S. weaponry, the U.S. has already started to flood the country a new massive shipment of new free weapons.
Advance copies of Hillary Clinton’s new book have been distributed and the book has already created a buzz over her statements about the Iraq War, Bergdahl, and other subjects. In a statement that will be viewed as many as “too little and too late,” Clinton now says that her support for the Iraq war (and vote for the war as a Senator) was a mistake. At the time of the Iraq war, many of us opposed the vote and called on Clinton and her colleagues to hold real, substantive hearings on the war. With the exception of Russ Feingold, the members refused and eagerly jumped on the band wagon for war. After all, the war was popular and the polls were with Clinton. Then the war became unpopular, the reasons for the war exposed as untrue, and Clinton’s position began to change. She tried to offer a nuanced answer while running for President in 2008, but avoided an admission of fault or mistake on her part (as opposed to others). Now, she is coming out and offering a type of “oops, my bad.” At the same time, she has moved to separate herself from the backlash over the Bergdahl trade. With some 44 percent of Americans opposed to the trade (and only around 29 percent supporting the trade), Clinton wants no part of the scandal and insists that she was steadfastly opposed to any trade for Taliban. At the same time, Clinton has publicly stated that she and Bill also faced hard times after leaving office. It seems that when they were “dead broke” while living in the large home in New York and worried (like so many families) of how to cover tuition costs and the mortgage.
Carol Anne Bond was overjoyed to learn that her best friend, Myrlinda Haynes, had become pregnant. That joy was short-lived when she learned that the father was none other than her husband,Clifford Bond. The Philadelphia woman embarked on a course of revenge that would result in federal charges for deploying chemical weapons and a trip to the United States Supreme Court. Passed in 1998, the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act, enabled Congress to enforce the terms of an international treaty banning deployment of some chemical weapons. Taking advantage of that law, federal prosecutors charged Bond with obtaining two chemicals which together or separately could have killed her pregnant rival.
The Supreme Court has issued its ruling in one of the cases that I have been following closely. The Court ruled unanimously in Bond v. United States that Bond had standing to challenge the statute carrying out the Chemical Weapons Convention as violating the inherent powers of in this instance intruded on areas of police power reserved to the states. While it is not the type of case that pulls media coverage, it is very important and clearly the right result. We debated Bond in our Supreme Court class and came to the same result. On the merits, nine of us voted to reverse the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and four voted to affirm the lower court. On the prediction of what the “other” court would do, eight of us predicted a reversal and five predicted an affirmance. It proved not to be a close question in rejecting the arguments of the Obama Administration seeking to bar citizens from being able to challenge such statutes. It is a victory for standing and more importantly for individual rights.
The release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only American soldier held captive in Afghanistan, has been a source of celebration but also concern in Washington. While the country has long insisted that it would not negotiate with terrorists, it seems like it has been doing precisely that for years in working out a trade that ultimately led to the release of five Taliban leaders. More importantly, federal law requires notice to Congress some 30 days before a release of a detainee from Guantanamo Bay — another federal provision that the White House appears to have simply ignored in a unilateral act. I am scheduled to discuss the case on CNN on Monday morning.
We previously discussed how terribly confused Hillary Clinton appeared in discussing National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. She just could not understand why he would not have trusted the government to deal with any problems or why he would not come back to the United States. Now, Secretary of State John Kerry is offering his own brand of macho advice to the kid: “man up and come back to the United States.” Sure leaders have called for him to be tried as a traitor and either incarcerated for life or executed. Sure, he is not guaranteed to see all of the evidence used against him or even be guaranteed a federal trial as opposed to a military tribunal. However, Kerry appears ready to give him an “attaboy” on his way to solitary confinement under Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) that cut off virtually any contact with the outside world.
Mountain Home National Cemetery at Dawn (photo by Charlton Stanley)
By Charlton Stanley, Weekend Contributor
As I wrote on this blog a year ago, Memorial Day is the misunderstood “holiday.” Many people confuse Memorial Day with Veteran’s Day. Veteran’s Day began as Armistice Day, commemorating the Armistice signed at the eleventh hour, eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. In our political and military naivete, the Armistice was meant to be the end of the, “War To End All Wars.” Two decades later it started all over again. Veteran’s Day is on November 11 in the US. Veteran’s Day is meant to honor those who served in the military in both peacetime and war, both living and dead.
Memorial Day has a history predating Armistice Day by a half century. On May May 5, 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, Decoration Day was established. It was named Decoration Day because the day was set aside for the living to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. May 30 was chosen as Decoration Day because flowers would be in bloom all over the country. The tradition somehow spread to honor non-veterans as well. As a youngster, I remember churches and communities where we lived celebrating Decoration Day by placing flowers on graves in all the local cemeteries. I remember attending some of these solemn rituals as a child,. I helped out the adults by placing at least one flower on each grave. Every grave needed at least one flower. It was important to decorate the graves of those who had no relatives left, otherwise, there would be no remembrance of them. The flower was a token of remembrance, even if we didn’t know who they were. Why? Because every life needs to be remembered and honored. In 1971, Memorial Day was established by an Act of Congress. Officially, Memorial Day differs somewhat from Decoration Day as I knew it as a youngster, because it was meant by Congress to remember those who served the country in uniform and have now passed through that mysterious veil.
Now? Nothing says “honor the dead” quite like a mattress sale.
Yusef Komunyakaa, the author of the poem Facing It, was born in Bogalusa, Louisiana on April 29, 1947. He “served in the United States Army from 1969 to 1970 as a correspondent, and as managing editor of the Southern Cross during the Vietnam war, earning him a Bronze Star.” Komunyakaa began writing poetry in 1973.
Here is a video of Komunyakaa reading his poem Facing It, which is about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contributor
I was going to write this last weekend on the actual 44th anniversary of a very sad event. For some reason, I had a hard time focusing on what I wanted to say, in light of the many emotions that were going through my head. I don’t want the anniversary to go by without writing about the personal significance that day in May had on my life, and I believe on the lives of many in my generation. The Pulitzer Prize winning photograph by John Filo, included above from Wikipedia, is one that I have never forgotten. Nor should anyone forget it. Continue reading “May 4th, 1970, The Day My Generation Lost Its Innocence”→
We have discussed the almost weekly race to the bottom by Islamic extremists who use their faith to justify the most despicable and inhumane acts. However, few can match the atrocities of Boko Haram (“Western education is sinful”) — more properly known as The Congregation of the People of Tradition for Proselytism and Jihad. This Islamic movement in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Niger was founded by Mohammed Yusuf in 2002 and has made murder and church bombings its special signature of faith. However, even the piles of thousands of corpses killed in the name of Allah did not prepare the world for the latest atrocity: the kidnapping of 200 Nigerian girls and an announcement from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau that “I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah.” Reports indicate that many of the girls have been “married” to Boko Haram soldiers. Nigerians are complaining that the government (which receives enormous U.S. and foreign aid) is not working particularly hard to free the girls. President Goodluck Jonathan described the detention as “unfortunate” and “insensitive”. His wife proved more direct. Mrs. Jonathan has reportedly ordered the arrest of Naomi Mutah, a representative of the Chibok community where the girls were seized from their school. So 200 girls are abducted to be sold into slavery by a fanatical Islamic movement and the wife of the president has the woman leading protests arrested.
Japanese voters are split over changing the country’s pacifist constitution, in order to allow Japan to ease limits on the military, according to a recent poll. About 50 percent of voters want Japan to be able to exercise its right to self-defense in case of an international conflict, while almost 90 percent of lower house lawmakers back the change.
The survey was made by the Asahi newspaper and a University of Tokyo research team. It showed that half of the voters want the revising of the constitution, up from 41 percent in 2009.
Japan’s prime-minister Shinzo Abe made clear he wants to change the constitution in order to give more power to the military. The constitution has never been changed since it was drafted by the United States Occupation forces in 1947, after the World War Two.
