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LET GEORGE DO IT

January 2007

Pollsters report that about 75% of the American People are against the war in Iraq and that may not be true. The election last fall, certainly a gigantic rebuke for Republicans, was decided (as in 2004) by slightly more than one half of 40% of the eligible population. That’s about 40 million out of 300 million, and no one really knows what the rest are thinking.

How can we communicate with government between elections? Does government only “hear” every two or four years? Isn’t that too long a time to wait to be heard? Sure the people have some lobby groups like Common Cause and the much maligned ACLU that try to keep things more or less Constitutional, but by and large the present mood is “Let George Do it.”

We let George “do it” for the 6 years until George, admitting his mistakes, misconceptions, misevaluations and misadventures at the cost of 3000+ servicemen, is still trying to “do it”. He went on Television and purred through 20 minutes of rationalizations in pursuit of his own happiness and success.

George brought us into this hapless war at the behest of an odd assortment of ambitious, Think Tanker individuals some of whom are odd, some brilliant, and some merely ambitious. Perle, Wolfowitz and Adelman were proponents of the overthrow of Saddam long before 911 for reasons that had more to do with the older Israeli-Palestine issue than the current War on Terror. Ahmed Chalabi, an unctuous Iraqi business man who nurtured dreams of becoming the first president of Iraq, wormed his way into government circles and extracted millions of dollars from our federal gullibles on the promise that he could feed them information about the inside workings of Hussein’s government, tell us where the WMD were hidden. And feed us did, but it was chicken feed.

We elected President Bush by contrivance with the Supreme Court, and one of the first words he uttered (caught on TV after the inauguration) were “I’m Commander in Chief”. Wow! Currently that has been toned down to “I’m the decider” misunderstood by some as “I’m on da cider”.

The problem America must wrestle with is communication; first with each other to develop ideas and consensus about things that matter; and secondly how to communicate this to our representatives who pay attention just prior to elections. Failure to communicate is normally of little consequence but currently we are in global war, in the early phases of the Third World War, WW III. We successfully invaded Afghanistan and promptly lost focus. Repeatedly disseminating spurious reasons for invasion (based on faulty information passed on by questionable characters whose sources were taken more seriously than those presented by the CIA) the Administration urged us to join in its obsession with Saddam Hussein. We acquiesced. Obsessions are satisfied by haste. Wars must be pursued by thoughtful preparation. We had time to prepare for this one and do it properly.

According to the pundits and a number of Generals, we don’t really have enough troops to squander in questionable causes, certainly not enough to fight WW III.

We may be losing Afghanistan to a resurgent Taliban. The territorial prize is Pakistan. Whoever controls Pakistan controls nuclear weapons. What would happen were the Taliban AKA Al Qaeda to possess Nuclear Weapons AKA WMD?

It is clear that this nation requires a National Service that must include a Draft. Minus another devastating attack on the US, only good leadership and congressional cooperation can get the American public to sanction this. We have instead, abysmal leadership and a public that is generally quite satisfied as long as its toys are intact.

Talking of toys, what would happen if the well heeled terrorists were able to mount some satellites of their own that could interrupt world-wide satellite communications?

Between elections public sentiment is voiced pro and con by small groups such as Cindy Sheehan and her particular antagonists. We need ideas, a larger voice, indeed a collective voices nationwide, not only during elections, to make our representatives aware that we exist and receptive.

It is time to hold additional Town Meetings to discuss matters of national import. It’s time for a series of Town Meetings, not only here but in towns, townships, boroughs, cities, villages, municipalities—nationwide. It’s time for local leaders to put this war on their agendas, time for national Town Meetings.

For some reason people are fearful of repercussions were they to put their opinions forth in public. There are lots of bright and opinionated people in this town. We need them. We heard from them publicly about the flag issue. Well WW III is a bigger flag issue. A discussion group exists in town whose bright, experienced elders must have talked about this War at one time or another, but whose collective opinions are held close to their collective chests. C’mon fellas, give it up. Come forward. Make some noise.

The great gift the founders gave us is the right (and privilege) to go public without government interference. You may get knocked down by a neighbor, or fired by your boss, but the government is obliged to protect your right. The government under Eisenhower, because citizens marched and protested, finally acted majestically to assure the right of little colored kids to go to school. Public clamor led the Government to have second thoughts about Korea and Viet Nam, and we are not the worse off for it.

If we don’t start now to find ways to communicate and be heard by our leadership we might never get a second chance. A devastating attack here could result in martial law,

Or else, we can sit back and let George do it.