Very Upsetting Story from Texas

I have always tried my best to give this administration and its staff the benefit of the doubt. But I have tried to be honest about its shortcomings. Even through the Blackwater fiasco, I tried. This story that I read about today is inexcusable. I'm going to post a link to a story that I read on ABC News.com via the Drudge Report today that makes me very sad and very angry. I can honestly say that I have never felt so let down as I do by the United States Departments of State and Justice. The legacy of former A.G. Gonzalez continues and a huge problem for which the Secretary of State must answer.

This is the kind of garbage that makes it difficult for our brave men and women overseas to do their job, to earn the respect of the world, and to earn the respect of the people and nations that they are serving. Iraq is a noble cause, but it has been so messed up by the present bureacracy and administration that I am embarrassed to have voted for them. I hope the story of this young woman leaves many people in Washington unable to sleep tonight. The screams of help from this young lady should ring in every politician's and Iraq contractor's head for a long time to come.

Rape Cover-up in Iraq reported by ABC News via The Drudge Report.

I've been very critical of the media throughout the Iraq War and I think it's more than justified. I think that very much has been made of very little. And I think that very little good has been reported of the abundance that has happened. But I do think that this story needs to be told--VERY LOUD, and VERY CLEAR. A young women named Jamie Leigh Jones deserves justice. It just goes to show that brutality is not only a quality of the extremists that our brave Soldiers and Marines are fighting. It is also a quality of a few who answer to no law in Iraq. Our goal should be to protect the innocent. It should not be used to shield the guilty.

Let me be clear. This - in no way - has anything to do with any group of people as a whole. Nor does this story have any relation to tactics used by the CIA in the questioning of terrorist suspects and enemy combatants. I do hope that leftist partisans do not try to draw this into the "torture" debate. But I am afraid that Harry Reid (political hack that he is) is going to blame the President and every other member of the Bush administration for every brutal detail. What is sad is that he might even get the support and sympathy of the media to go along with him. The administration is responsible for their inability to earn justice for this young lady. Only the men who perpetrated these actions (and possibly the company) are responsible for the crime.

KBR & Halliburton executives should be screaming from the rooftops for investigations and apologizing all over themselves. I am absolutely disgusted that these companies are American and continue to remain silent. The management of these companies verges on incompetency and its stockholders should be disgusted. If they are responsible for setting this culture in their organization, then they should also be punished to the full extent of the law. I would also hope that a free market would exercise its right to sell off their shares and/or replace the management if need be.

Am I speaking before I've heard all the facts? Yep. I hope I don't have to eat my words, but I could not keep silent on this.

My thoughts and prayers are with Jamie and her family.

mR

Picture Source: ABC News.com

A Letter to Our Civil Servants and Elected Officials

The legacy of our beloved former Secretary of Defense is back again. I sometimes wonder if our public servants get elected or appointed simply because they are incapable of doing anything else.

Case-in-point: Most media organizations reported recently on the inacuracies of the Pat Tillman and Jessican Lynch stories that were fed to the media during the early stages of the Iraq War. The ultimate authority in this case was ole Rummy. Why in the world did he allow the release of a story to the media that was completely flawed and untrue? Let me rephrase: Why did he allow the release of a story to the media which was almost certain to be disproved? Didn't he learn the lessons of the past decades? After all, he was in the Nixon Administration and I'm sure he read the papers during the Clinton Presidency. Public servants are hired or elected to do what is right. If they don't like it, they need to follow another line of work.

The refusal of people to change with the times just mesmerizes me. Rummy felt until the end that he was running a war from the 1970's. He still believed that if he didn't want the information to get out, he could stop it. He believed that people in general are stupid and will believe what their government tells them. How long will it take before our top civilian commanders realize that eventually most of the dirt and truth comes out? I don't get it.

For that reason (and others) I have started writing a letter to all of those who have been elected, appointed, or are planning such. This letter is written to all political persuasions. For we are pretty much sick of all of them. If you would like input, please post a comment. Here is what I have so far...

Dear Civil Servants and Elected Officials:

Gosh, how times have changed. They really haven't changed all that much, but we're giving you the benefit of the doubt. There are a few things that your loyal subjects want to remind you. First of all, we are not subjects, we are citizens. And unlike many of you, we have standards. Our standards are simple and are based on a few key underlying principles. Regardless of anything else, we want you to tell us the truth. We want you to uphold a common sense of humanity. We want to be able to trust you to make the decisions that need to be made, regardless of difficulty, for the betterment of society and our environment, both national and international. Below are a couple of suggestions that we make to help you do your job.

1. There is a media. The media is more driven, more savvy, more obnixious, and more corrupt that it has ever been before. The story is now more important than its readers and sometimes more important than the facts. If you know this, then you will know that anything you do is subject to the scrutiny of a competitor that is just as scrupulous as you are. You are held to a higher moral standard than anyone else. If you don't like this, then you might want to rethink your career path.

2. Tell the truth. Everything that you say will be twisted and turned around regardless of what it was that was originally said. But you will always be able to explain the truth--you will never be able to explain a lie.

3. Any lie that you tell, will be read back to you by a member of the oposition party, Chris Matthews, or worst case, Bill O'Reilly. If the truth is on your side, then you will survive.

4. Get a back-bone. Stand up for what you believe in. If you made a mistake, admit it and move on. The art of the cover-up is no longer available to you. Even non-coverups will be shown to look like cover-ups by media types who are opposed to you. (Questions about non-coverups? Ask Alberto Gonzalez and Scooter Libby.)

5. Don't do anything in your private life that you don't want the world to hold against you. If you don't want pictures of you with your intern splattered all over CNN, DON'T SLEEP WITH YOUR INTERN! If you get caught, take credit for it. Have a back-bone and don't lie about it. (See #1, 2, 3, & 4.) For questions on this one, I think you know who to contact. Hint: there isn't just one.

6. Appoint only people qualified for a job to that specific job. Don't appoint your boyfriend, girlfriend, lover, or best friend to a position unless they are the best qualified person for the job. Do not appoint a horse association president to the head of FEMA unless they have coordinated rescue and rebuilding efforts for 2 million horses and their homes in a hurricane. One last note: THEY HAVE TO HAVE DONE IT SUCCESSFULLY.

7. Only accept a job if you are qualified for it. If you don't know anything about Emergency Management, don't accept a political appointment as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And if you weren't successful in a previous war, don't try to regain your reputation by screwing up another one.

8. Don't argue for the sake of arguing. Do what is right, even if you don't believe everything you hear about it. For example: If helping the environment is good for the environment, then it doesn't matter whether or not you believe in global warming. If you believe that social security needs to be improved--improve it! No one cares if it will go bankrupt in 15 or 50 years.

9. Don't stop legislation that is good for the nation simply because your name will not be on it or the competitive party will get credit for it. The heirarchy of your allegiance should be as follows: Nation, State, Party, Self. Those of you doing it any other way are traitors to your nation. Do what is best for all of us, not what will give you or your party the most credit. At what point did leaking information that is vital or even just merely important to our nation's success become an innocent bi-product of leaking information to discredit a political opponent or the opposition party. Leaking information is leaking information. When the outcome of the information is more important the the potential consequences, then it is O.K. And you will hear our praise from your jail cell. Here is another example - don't screw your soldiers in battle just to win the next election!

10. Be the bigger person. During a time when it seems like a race to the bottom, it's important to remember what is important. The glee in the voice or the light in the eye of those taking delight in our nations' defeat for the sake of political victory or "I told you so" is sickening. You may think that you are hiding it, but you are not. (Mr Schumer - we can see the sparkle in your eye even when you are giving us one of your heart felt scowls.)

I am sure that you already know this, but I just wanted to spell it out. You are not respected by the world. You are seen as little kids fighting back and forth. Our political landscape is starting to look like the silly battles in the British Parlaiment that we used to see on Sunday night television. Once a respected institution, the international view of congress has moved from respectful disagreement to a complete loss of respect for our political process. You should all be ashamed.

Worse than this, you have lost respect from your nation. It is truly a sad day when this happens. You are now no better than other nations that once looked up to us. We are no longer a bright beacon, but an embarassment to the world community. Not because of the stands we take, or our mistakes in a war, but because of the serious and juvenile division that you have created--not just in congress, but in the media, in your news conferences, and in the rediculous diatribes that you use to further your party's agenda.

Now that we have come to the end of my rediculous diatribe, I have one more thought. At present, many Americans are not dissatisfied with their particular representative, just with every other member of congress. Well, the time is coming when a majority of voting Americans will be willing to sacrifice their sitting member of congress for the betterment of the whole. I'm ready now. Let's throw them all out and start over.

mr

Update - Friday April 20, 2007

Part 2 of the Democrats: "The War is Lost" will be forthcoming in a later post. For now, something from today...

Harry Reid's gaffe on Thursday was a big one. Why is no one covering this? John McCain's "Bomb" (which is of almost no consequence) is still in the news 2 days after it first broke. CNN doesn't even reference the Reid admission directly or on it's front page, you actually have to look for it. It's fallen off the Reuters page. But note that one of the top stories on CNN.com is "Will Bush still stand by Gonzalez?" On the New York Times website you won't find it on the Politics pages, only multiple stories of the AG's brush with Senate lawmakers, Republican problems with 2006 elections, and information about Edwards $400 haircuts. You'll have to go all the way to the Washington page at the bottom below the story about Wolfowitz's questionable activities with his girlfriend.

But don't get me started on the Gonzalez fiasco. What started as a political hatchet job has turned into a viable story--not because of any evidence of a wrong doing, but of the complete inability of our nation's top law enforcement officer to run his department with any semblance of order, organization, or procedure. This is why I am sure that this administration's own worst enemy is itself. I'm sure there is more to come on this. This is just another White House appointment blunder along the lines of Dick Cheney, Hariet Myers, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld. I want to know who is making the appointment suggestions to the president. They needed to be thrown over the side of this sinking ship a long time ago. The best things to come out of this White House is Colin Powell, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito. Please, oh please, don't prove me wrong.