Editorial: "Stay the Course!"

On Tuesday, May 31st, Joe Biden took to the New York Times opinion pages to defend our country’s escalation of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Most notable is what he didn’t talk about – the continued squeezing of Rural America and the continued rise of gas prices and a lot of other goods. Also on May 31st, gas prices in Worth County went up to $4.29, a new all-time high. 

His defense seems awfully familiar – it is very much like George Bush’s “Stay the Course” mantra in Iraq that not only failed to achieve any meaningful gains, but that laid the groundwork for future terrorist organizations such as ISIS. Joe Biden does not speak for the “free world.” He can speak for himself. 

The President talks about providing Ukraine with rocket systems that he says will allow them to strike key targets on the battlefield. This is what the US and their allies have been saying all along. Even if these efforts are ultimately successful, like they were following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, what is to stop these weapons systems from being used against us? As late as 1993, Osama Bin Laden was portrayed as a freedom fighter by the New York Times.

Meanwhile, what about the millions of people here in the US who are hurting from pain at the pump? Joe Biden did not offer one thing in his NYT piece offering relief. Yes, we realize that the US does not directly control the price of oil markets and the price of gas. But the more that the US ramps up war hysteria against Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, or anyone else that the Very Important People in Washington say we are supposed to hate, oil prices go through the roof, followed by gas prices. 

Our conservative friends would argue that Joe Biden should return to the policies of Donald Trump and engage in more drilling and more fracking, increasing supply and reducing pain at the pump. Our more liberal friends would argue that we should do a whole of government approach to saturate the country with wind, solar, and electric vehicles, freeing us from dependence on Russian oil. However, Joe Biden is doing none of the above. His plan is to stick it to the Russians, expect us to pay the price, and then blame it on the Russians when inflation and gas prices keep going through the roof.

The President’s reassurances in his op-ed are all hollow. He reassures us that Ukraine has promised us that they will not hit Russian territory with the new batch of weapons he is sending them. But Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, ran on a platform of peace with Russia and on stopping the civil war in Ukraine. Instead, he has done nothing but escalate. And what is to prevent a future President from telling Ukraine they can?

The President reassures us that he does not seek a war between Russia and NATO. But what is to prevent a future president from doing so? Mitt Romney, who is a potential candidate for 2024, has been spoiling for a fight with Russia ever since 2012. 

Biden writes, “Unprovoked aggression, the bombing of maternity hospitals and centers of culture, and the forced displacement of millions of people make the war in Ukraine a profound moral issue.” True. But two wrongs do not make a right. Joe Biden’s escalatory policies risk turning our hostile relations into a shooting war, or even a nuclear war, which could get us all killed. 

And if might does not make right, as the President rightly says, then when can we expect Joe Biden to admit that he was wrong to support our war of choice in Iraq, the biggest foreign policy disaster in US history? This is not a matter of “apologizing” for the US. Admitting that one was wrong is a moral virtue in any competent philosophical or religious system.

Virgil Goode -- No Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants

Virgil Goode charges Obama and Romney with wanting to maintain the status quo, which he says would encourage more illegal immigration. Mitt Romney, on his website, opposes amnesty but would attract more legal immigrants, saying that it would help create more jobs. Obama is pushing the DREAM Act, which would address the status of immigrant children brought here at a young age. Goode would oppose any amnesty, repeal the 16th Amendment and require proof of citizenship before enrolling in public schools.

Mitt Romney -- Obama Failed to Meet Promises

Romney Once Impersonated a Police Officer

The National Memo, a national news website, reported that when he was a teenager, Mitt Romney would routinely don a cop uniform and use it to pull over his friends. The Memo reports that he had boasted about it to his friends and once even called two or three of them into his room and showed his uniform off.
The Real Romney, a book published by two Boston Globe writers, recounts that he once put a siren on top of his car and chased down two of his friends who were driving around with their dates.
In many states, including Romney’s boyhood state of Michigan, it is a crime to impersonate a police officer.
The incident by Romney brings back memories of two incidents in Worth County of teens impersonating police officers. Several years ago, as reported in the Quad River News, three Worth County teens found a cop uniform and patrolled the roads of Worth County one night flagging down cars for traffic violations and telling people that they were “helping out the Sheriff’s Department.”
We have personal memories of such a prank. Back in 1982, Joe Stark was the editor of the Times-Tribune and he drove a pea green Fiat recognizable by everyone. Joe was a hit among the teens, who called him “Smokin’ Joe,” a name that stuck as late as the early 2000’s. They would regularly stop and talk to  him, even putting egg all over his windshield Halloween Night. We were coming home from a ballgame late one night when some teens cruising around saw Joe and had a siren handy and flashed the siren for him to stop. Joe was not fooled.

Opinion: U.S. Should Steer Clear of Syria

by Sheldon Richman

 

We should be grateful that the Obama administration seems disinclined to intervene militarily in Syria. But let’s note that the administration has not kept hands off. In a variety of ways, it is already aiding the rebels. Moreover, White House spokesman Jay Carney says that all options — even military intervention — are on the table.

 

Americans should feel uneasy as long as that ominous table remains in the White House.

 

Naturally, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney never appears hesitant about going to war. He calls for “more assertive measures to end the Assad regime” in Syria. But he and his foreign-policy advisers, George W. Bush neoconservative retreads, have no idea what ending the al-Assad regime would mean. Let’s recall that Romney’s team includes some of the same people who thought Iraq would be a “cakewalk,” with the Iraqis throwing rose petals at the invading American forces. It didn’t quite work out that way. More Americans died in Iraq than died on 9/11, which, by the way, Iraq had nothing to do with. (Over a million Iraqis died, directly and indirectly, because of the war, and millions remain refugees.)

 

For now at least, the White House, through Carney, has it right:

 

The concern is that further militarization of the situation in Syria could lead to greater chaos, could make it harder to achieve the political transition that the Syrian people deserve. The nature and shape of and membership of the opposition are still something that we and our partners are assessing....

 

This is not to say that the rule of Bashar al-Assad is a matter of indifference to decent people. Far from it. He’s a brutal dictator from a minority sect. But no one can know what would follow his overthrow, especially one engineered by the U.S. government. Just to indicate how murky things are, al-Qaeda and Hamas — two groups the U.S. government is hardly fond of — support the rebels. Rebellions make for strange bedfellows. If the Taliban were to announce its opposition to al-Assad, the irony would be complete.

 

Iran, on the other hand, is al-Assad’s ally, which probably explains in large measure why the U.S. government wants al-Assad gone. Knocking him out would presumably deal a blow to Iran, and both the Obama administration and the Romney camp would like nothing more. That’s how deep the animosity toward Iran runs.

 

One can’t understand the U.S. anti-Assad stance apart from the Iranian context. The so-called talks between the Islamic Republic and the U.S. government plus five other countries over Iran’s nuclear enrichment are showing all the signs of a sham. Keep in mind that U.S. and Israeli intelligence say Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and has not even decided to do so. In fact, its leader has issued a fatwa against nuclear arms.

 

The Obama administration, pressured by Congress, which is in turn pressured by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has imposed harsh trade sanctions on the Iranian people. This economic warfare is undoubtedly taking its toll on children, the elderly, pregnant women, and the infirm.

 

So, what are the talks aimed at? They are little more than a show in which the Obama administration insists that Iran stop doing what any signer of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has the recognized prerogative to do: enrich uranium for medical and energy purposes. Iran complies with the NPT and submits to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But that’s not good enough for President Obama or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel has over 200 nuclear warheads, is not a signer of the NPT, and never submits to inspections. Moreover, any other country that acquired a nuclear arsenal the way Israel did would have been condemned by the United States.

 

The U.S. government — and most of the news media — take as an unquestionable article of faith that virtually anything that happens in the world is America’s business. Over the years, that position has brought untold death and destruction to the Middle East, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. It’s time America gave up its imperial pretensions.

 

Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation (www.fff.org) and editor of The Freeman magazine.