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Home > Opinion > Mike Luckovich > Archives > 2006 > January
January 2006
Coretta Scott King remembered
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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TV’s lie detector?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Hamas and politics
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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How Feds could nab Osama
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Bush and Katrina
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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GM, Ford run off the road
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Constant battle
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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War on terror
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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New Orleans? Sweeeet!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Prescription drug chaos
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Captain of the vice squad
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Abramoff’s money trail
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Airtime at Alito hearings
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Brad and Angelina
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Pentagon-supplied armor?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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from the conservative national review
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Abramoff Scandal It’s the Republicans, stupid.
…The GOP now craves such bipartisan cover in the Jack Abramoff scandal. Republicans trumpet every Democratic connection to Abramoff in the hope that something resonates. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), took more than $60,000 from Abramoff clients! North Dakota Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan used Abramoff’s skybox! It is true that any Washington influence peddler is going to spread cash and favors as widely as possible, and 210 members of Congress have received Abramoff-connected dollars. But this is, in its essence, a Republican scandal, and any attempt to portray it otherwise is a misdirection.
Abramoff is a Republican who worked closely with two of the country’s most prominent conservative activists, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed. Top aides to the most important Republican in Congress, Tom DeLay (R., Tex.) were party to his sleazy schemes. The only people referred to directly in Abramoff’s recent plea agreement are a Republican congressmen and two former Republican congressional aides. The GOP members can make a case that the scandal reflects more the way Washington works than the unique perfidy of their party, but even this is self-defeating, since Republicans run Washington.
Republicans must take the scandal seriously and work to clean up in its wake.
All hail the King
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Passing judgment
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Perdue and the ethics commission
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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In the cookie jar
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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the president relates to injured war vets
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“As you can possibly see, I have an injury myself—not here at the hospital, but in combat with a cedar. I eventually won. The cedar gave me a little scratch.”—After visiting with wounded veterans from the Amputee Care Center of Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas, Jan. 1, 2006
Protecting our rights
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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from today’s washington post
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Life, Wasted Let’s Stop This War Before More Heroes Are Killed
By Paul E. Schroeder
Tuesday, January 3, 2006; Page A17
Early on Aug. 3, 2005, we heard that 14 Marines had been killed in Haditha, Iraq. Our son, Lance Cpl. Edward “Augie” Schroeder II, was stationed there. At 10:45 a.m. two Marines showed up at our door. After collecting himself for what was clearly painful duty, the lieutenant colonel said, “Your son is a true American hero.”
Since then, two reactions to Augie’s death have compounded the sadness.
At times like this, people say, “He died a hero.” I know this is meant with great sincerity. We appreciate the many condolences we have received and how helpful they have been. But when heard repeatedly, the phrases “he died a hero” or “he died a patriot” or “he died for his country” rub raw.
“People think that if they say that, somehow it makes it okay that he died,” our daughter, Amanda, has said. “He was a hero before he died, not just because he went to Iraq. I was proud of him before, and being a patriot doesn’t make his death okay. I’m glad he got so much respect at his funeral, but that didn’t make it okay either.”
The words “hero” and “patriot” focus on the death, not the life. They are a flag-draped mask covering the truth that few want to acknowledge openly: Death in battle is tragic no matter what the reasons for the war. The tragedy is the life that was lost, not the manner of death. Families of dead soldiers on both sides of the battle line know this. Those without family in the war don’t appreciate the difference.
This leads to the second reaction. Since August we have witnessed growing opposition to the Iraq war, but it is often whispered, hands covering mouths, as if it is dangerous to speak too loudly. Others discuss the never-ending cycle of death in places such as Haditha in academic and sometimes clinical fashion, as in “the increasing lethality of improvised explosive devices.”
Listen to the kinds of things that most Americans don’t have to experience: The day Augie’s unit returned from Iraq to Camp Lejeune, we received a box with his notebooks, DVDs and clothes from his locker in Iraq. The day his unit returned home to waiting families, we received the second urn of ashes. This lad of promise, of easy charm and readiness to help, whose highest high was saving someone using CPR as a first aid squad volunteer, came home in one coffin and two urns. We buried him in three places that he loved, a fitting irony, I suppose, but just as rough each time.
I am outraged at what I see as the cause of his death. For nearly three years, the Bush administration has pursued a policy that makes our troops sitting ducks. While Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that our policy is to “clear, hold and build” Iraqi towns, there aren’t enough troops to do that.
In our last conversation, Augie complained that the cost in lives to clear insurgents was “less and less worth it,” because Marines have to keep coming back to clear the same places. Marine commanders in the field say the same thing. Without sufficient troops, they can’t hold the towns. Augie was killed on his fifth mission to clear Haditha.
At Augie’s grave, the lieutenant colonel knelt in front of my wife and, with tears in his eyes, handed her the folded flag. He said the only thing he could say openly: “Your son was a true American hero.” Perhaps. But I felt no glory, no honor. Doing your duty when you don’t know whether you will see the end of the day is certainly heroic. But even more, being a hero comes from respecting your parents and all others, from helping your neighbors and strangers, from loving your spouse, your children, your neighbors and your enemies, from honesty and integrity, from knowing when to fight and when to walk away, and from understanding and respecting the differences among the people of the world.
Two painful questions remain for all of us. Are the lives of Americans being killed in Iraq wasted? Are they dying in vain? President Bush says those who criticize staying the course are not honoring the dead. That is twisted logic: honor the fallen by killing another 2,000 troops in a broken policy?
I choose to honor our fallen hero by remembering who he was in life, not how he died. A picture of a smiling Augie in Iraq, sunglasses turned upside down, shows his essence — a joyous kid who could use any prop to make others feel the same way.
Though it hurts, I believe that his death — and that of the other Americans who have died in Iraq — was a waste. They were wasted in a belief that democracy would grow simply by removing a dictator — a careless misunderstanding of what democracy requires. They were wasted by not sending enough troops to do the job needed in the resulting occupation — a careless disregard for professional military counsel.
But their deaths will not be in vain if Americans stop hiding behind flag-draped hero masks and stop whispering their opposition to this war. Until then, the lives of other sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers may be wasted as well.
This is very painful to acknowledge, and I have to live with it. So does President Bush.
The writer is managing director of a trade development firm in Cleveland.
EXACTLY HOW HAS BUSH MADE AMERICA SAFER IN THE LAST FOUR YEARS?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
from americablog.blogspot.com by John in DC - 1/02/2006 11:55:00 AM
It’s one thing to give up our civil liberties in exchange for the safety of our children. It’s quite another to give them up and get little in return. Let’s examine just how much safer George Bush has made America since September 11.
Osama is still free, and Bush never even talks about him anymore.
Our military is bogged down in a war that had nothing to do with Osama or Al Qaeda UNTIL WE INVADED AND MADE IRAQ AL QAEDA’S NEW HOME.
We’ve turned Iraq into the biggest terrorist training camp in the world:
“Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of ‘professionalized’ terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director’s think tank….
“President Bush has frequently described the Iraq war as an integral part of U.S. efforts to combat terrorism. But the council’s report suggests the conflict has also helped terrorists by creating a haven for them in the chaos of war….
“Before the U.S. invasion, the CIA said Saddam Hussein had only circumstantial ties with several al Qaeda members. Osama bin Laden rejected the idea of forming an alliance with Hussein and viewed him as an enemy of the jihadist movement because the Iraqi leader rejected radical Islamic ideals and ran a secular government.”
Far too many of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, recommendations to make us safer, have still not been implemented.
The Homeland Security budget is being spent on frivolous pork:
“The District of Columbia used part of its grant to buy leather jackets and to send sanitation workers to self-improvement seminars. Newark bought air-conditioned garbage trucks. Columbus, Ohio, bought body armor for fire department dogs. These are not the priorities of a nation under threat.”
The 9/11 Commission gives Bush a grade of “D” under the category: “Maximum effort to prevent terrorists from acquiring WMD” - i.e., he gets a D for his efforts to stop terrorists from getting nuclear bombs. Here’s what the 9/11 Commissioners had to say about Bush’s efforts to stop Osama from getting a nuclear bomb and dropping it on an American city:
“Countering the greatest threat to America’s security is still not the top national security priority of the President and the Congress.”
Most of the world now hates us.
“Iraq has joined the list of conflicts — including the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate, and independence movements in Chechnya, Kashmir, Mindanao in the Philippines, and southern Thailand — that have deepened solidarity among Muslims and helped spread radical Islamic ideology.”
And let me leave you with the words of the head of Republican head of the 9/11 commission, just a few weeks ago:
“Four years after 9/11 it is scandalous that police and firefighters in large cities still cannot communicate reliably in a major crisis,” said Thomas Kean, the Republican who was chairman of the commission.
“It is scandalous that airline passengers are still not screened against all names on a terrorist watch list.
“It is scandalous that we still allocate scarce homeland security dollars on the basis of pork barrel spending, not risk….”
“While the terrorists are learning and adapting, our government is still moving at a crawl.”
Tell me again how Bush has made us safer?
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