SYRIA, THINKING OUT OF THE BOX

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX ON SYRIA

The awful destruction unleashed by the Bush-Cheney wars in the Middle East is now spreading westward into Europe. Hoards of migrating Syrian refugees are pictured every day in the press, streaming across Europe and away from the bombing, destruction and despair visited on their homes and communities. Bodies of dead refugees have been found in a sealed refrigerator truck abandoned along the side of the roadside, evidence of an escape to safety gone wrong. Others perish at sea, their bodies, even those of tiny, pathetic children, to wash up on the shores of Greece, Italy and Turkey. Conflicts are brewing among the leaders of wealthy European states as to who can or should take these Moslem refugees in. Unfortunately, the burden seems to have fallen on the least responsible for the original disaster...Germany and France ....nations which resisted the entreaties of Bush and his misguided warriors to invade Iraq. Here in the USA we act in the face of these problems as if we had nothing to with it. But some astute person I overheard yesterday down in Manchester, remarked that since it was George Bush who started all this mess with his Iraq invasion....he should open up his spacious ranch in the wide open spaces of Texas for these unfortunates. Well, that will not happen soon.

We can and should assign blame for this catastrophe. President Bush and Mr. Cheney began it all with their destabilizing war in Iraq which metastasized into a brutal and bloody sectarian civil war that engulfed US forces and spread like a poisonous miasma over the whole region. Then when the unrest reached the sandy desert border of Syria, President Obama and his neocon State Department holdovers from the Bush administration rubbed their hands with glee as they anticipated the fall of Assad.. These foreign policy geniuses were wrong their desire to destabilize the Assad regime. Mr Assad is not quite as brutal as Saddam, but he is a Middle East despot in an area where a strong leader is needed. While in power, he kept a tight rein on the forces of chaos within his borders. He did so until he was weakened by (his own mistakes) and the collusion of the U.S. and the other Syria-state enemies in the region. Our neocons classed Assad as an enemy of Israel and concluded (now proved to be erroneous) that ergo Assad must be our U.S. enemy too. The goal of the Obama administration, was and remains the short sighted: " regime change in Syria". As a result, the USA ( without much deep thought on the matter) sent CIA agents, their pockets stuffed with cash to "help" the Syrian insurgents. The problem they immediately encountered was: which insurgent group of radical terrorists should we support? With the USA's collusion the conflict deteriorated into a brutal stalemate. Our leaders persisted in this unfruitful course, providing more money and more guns while attempting to support and arm what they euphemistically called the "good insurgents". But with little effect, except for further entrenching the opposition to Assad ( who remains the only potential stable leader in that nation).

, It is clear, now to all, after so many blunders and missteps, that U.S. policy in the ME is woefully short on sound judgement. We have the most powerful military the world has ever seen, but we often do not fully understand when to use it, and what we are doing with it. This is a most common US foreign policy error.

But others in the region do. I read today (NY Times Sept. 5, 2015) that Mr. Putin of Russia has announced that Assad is ready to share power with moderate opposition groups. The Times suggests that Putin is prepared to more openly support the Assad Regime--the only possible route toward a stable government in Syria -- with both military hardware and advisors.

If we were wise, instead of opposing the Russian leader in his endeavor, something that the dogma ridden, hide-bound, denizens of Foggy Bottom are surely planning to do as I write this, INSTEAD, WE SHOULD JOIN PUTIN IN HIS SUPPORT OF MR. ASSAD. IT IS THE ONLY ROUTE TO HUMANELY END THE CIVIL WAR. A peace initiative supported by both the Russians and the USA and including Mr. Assad and any of the opposing groups, moderate enough to come to the peace table with him, would go a long way to ending the chaos. Once that is achieved, the new government entIty would unite around a force that would rid Syria of the REAL THREAT TO SYRIA, THE MIDDLE EAST AND EUROPE, WHICH IS ISIL and the other radical terrorist groups. Such a scenario requires, ignoring failed dogma, opening the mind to new thoughts, or simply "thinking out of the box". Such a process would stem the awful and growing tide of refugees leaving Syria, and end their awful suffering. It would eliminate the pain and costs to the European host nations for housing, feeding, and integrating these poor souls into the various nations to which they have so painfully migrated.

d The USA aspires to be the world's leader. Here is our chance to undo some of the evil we have imposed on that part of the world. Here is an opportunity to grasp the reins of leadership again. let's not let Putin get all the credit. All we have to do is abandon our old "proved to be wrong thoughts" and think of a new A better, a humane solution. THINK!

THE TRUMP PHENOMENON

TRUMP THE GENUINE ARTICLE

Everyone is talking about "The Donald". My eldest daughter, a high school teacher, who normally votes Democratic, admitted that she can't stop reading about or listening to Donald Trump interviews. "He's so entertaining and different. I can't help myself", she admitted to me the other day.

I admit to the same effects. Or is this effect some kind of "Donald" hypnotism?

What is this "Donald" paralysis that has raged across the country since August 6th? My first thought was that the reason we are so interested in Mr. Trump is that he stands way above the Republican slate of 2016 candidates. This 2016 group arrived on the scene perhaps aith expectations set too high. These candidates were touted prior to the first debate by the pundits as "the best, the smartest, most experienced field of candidates in a long time" Really? Perhaps that impression may have stood until the candidates hit the Fox News stage on August 6th. After that, their supposed "smarts", wit, charm, and plain attractiveness turned out to be simply Fox News hype. None of the candidates came up to xpectations. All their, foibles, "bumples", ignorance, and awkwardness was on display for the Nation, with one exception--Donald Trump.

Let's take a quick tour of the Republican field of candidates. The GOP has offered up a group which simply do not measure up to "presidential" stature. Among them are two freshly elected, wild-eyed Senators who will shut down the government at the drop of a pin. Another is a verified snake oil salesman from Arkansas. There is a nice Afro-American, retired surgeon, a non-politician, with a book to sell. (This latter candidate-category..the black non-political candidate..has become almost a cottage industry for Afro-Americans and is now a traditional offering of the lilly white GOP). For the female voters, the GOP is offering a past woman Fortune 500 CEO ( released by the Board for poor business judgment with a $40 million dollar golden parachute! ) This woman candidate is also bereft of experience in elected office (her only connection with politics being a Senate candidacy rejected by the voters). The GOP is also presenting several governors who have run their states into voter despair and red ink by legislating as right-wing ideologues, just to prepare themselves for these very Tea Party dominated primaries. Also running is another Bush. One would be correct to think that the nation (as well as Momma Bush) was tired of having this family name on the White House entrance door. This Bush, eschews his surname and calls himself "JEB"....for perfectly good and obvious reasons. JEB seems to be running for this office because his Pappy said he had to do it. Although he is supposed to be the "Good Bush" and was early on being preened for the Presidency, but before he could act on his father's wishes his older brother "W" sneakily slipped in ahead of him and won the 2000 nomination. "W" couldn't quite seal up the 2000 election coming up short a few electoral college votes. So JEB as Governor of Florida had to do some arm twisting on the Florida election board to actually get "W" into the big leather chair in the Oval Office.A seat JEB thought he deserved. (History has proved he was probably correct on this score. His brother managed to make an awful mess in his years in office...under the tutelage of the evil wizard Cheney) Though JEB is supposed to have been the "smart one"--he can actually converse in Spanish---he, like all the other GOP field, seems not to quite match up with his published CV. In public, he has sadly demonstrated a tendency to stumble with syntax and sound more like "W" than expected. That is, though he is claimed to be the "smart one" all of this is family-relative and compared to the average non Bush guy, he does not seem to be so sharp. As a result of these failings his cowboy-booted foot seems to be found lodged in his mouth much too frequently. Perhaps unlike his brother, he has enough self-awareness to affect his demeanor which tends, during his stump speeches, to recall the unpleasant look of a scared deer in headlights.

Then, we have the entertaining New Yorker, multibillionaire, realtor, successful businessman, entrepreneur, TV personality, and performer Donald Trump who, right now, far and away leads the pack in the opinion polls by three to four hundred percent. My first explanation of "the Donald's" popularity was that in comparison to the weak and inexperienced candidate field the American people rated Mr.Trump as top tier. In that dull group the flashy, brash, "the Donald" stood out. But with his continued phenomenal successes in the public opinion polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, and even nationally, Trump seems to be truly popular with the GOP electorate. There must be some other reason other than lackluster competition.

What is his attraction? Perhaps it is just the fact that Trump is authentic, and sincere in his patriotism and says what he actually thinks. One may not agree with his pronouncements but at least they are his own. He is not a weaselly politician. Since he is self-financed, he can say what he thinks and is confident, well informed and unafraid to state his opinions. He is forthright. He is decidedly NOT a Pinncchio, operated with strings by an unseen Gippeto. He does not have the slim smooth hand of a Koch brother stuck up his backside working his mouth. He has not been bought and sold. He is not reading a political script presented to him with his "donation" check. He does not have to run back to his donors to ask if "that was OK to say?" (unlike Scott Walker who actually had to return several times to his donor base to find out what was in his acceptable script). Walker in one instance, had to confirm with his Koch Brother handlers that he could agree with Donald Trump's idea of building a wall across the Mexican border. They must have said he could agree with Trump. But warned him that he was acting too much like a wimp and his funding might be withdrawn if he didn't "man up" to Trump.. Walker came back intending to out Trump Trump. His idea? build a 5000 mile wall along the Canadian border to match the one along the Mexican side! Walker seems to be taking lessons from his Likud mentors on this matter.

Trump on the other hand is his own man. He makes his own decisions. Why does that set him so far apart from the others? Because the American political system has been highjacked by the rich and wealthy. The New York Times reports that there are as few as "400 families" who have donated more than half of the candidate"s cash. These families can control the candidates, they control the agenda, and they are attempting to control the elections. They buy up the candidates, who then are propped up before the public to repeat the words the donors provide them with.

So Trump's popularity may be simply the fact that the American public likes the "genuine article". Trump is what he says he is. His candidacy is refreshingly open and transparent. That can not be said about the others who in order to remain viable must deal with an often secret donor base. Perhaps the American GOP voter has wisely decided that it is wiser to support an actual person, rather than the cardboard representative with mechanical moving mouth parts. That concept of freedom and honesty is very attractive to the American GOP voter and I suspect it is also attractive to others who may not always vote Republican. The Donald may become a true political phenomenon.

THE GOP "24 DAY" LIE

THE GOP "BIG LIE" REGARDING THE IRAN DEAL

This morning I watched Gov. Chris Christie, hopeful Presidential candidate, as he repeated the GOP big lie on a CNN interview regarding the Iran Nuclear agreement (Thursday September 3, 2015). Christie's mendacious words aroused me to write this short piece.

What did he say? Christie repeated a GOP falsehood repeated ad nauseum by all the GOP candidates. I call it the "24 day phony Iran rant". The Iran Nuclear Agreement signed on to by China, Russia, The UK, France and Germany includes a stipulation that Iranian nuclear facilities suspected of prohibited activities may be inspected over a period that can under some circumstances stretch out to a maximum of twenty four days. The GOP and their foreign supporters, the Likudniks, homegrown neocons, and warmongers of various stripes have all latched on to this 'twenty-four day" time span as some catastrophic weakness in the agreement. It is NOT TRUE. Nuclear scientists and the informed public all know that it would not matter if the agreement stipulated 24 days, 24 weeks, 24 months, or even 24 years! If Uranium was present--even in ultra microscopic amounts...there WOULD BE NO WAY TO HIDE IT from inspectors. Uranium decays into other elements at a very, very slow and constant rate, as it does so it gives off hIghly detectible radiation . So slow and steady is this process that it is inconceivable that its presence could not be detected. Any Uranium left behind would be easily traced for near-eternity. Uranium isotopes have a half life (the length of time it takes for one half of the atoms to decay away) of 4.5 billion years! That period of time is as long as the earth is old.

A recent, well publicized case of British nuclear detective work reveals how difficult it is to conceal radioactive elements (like Uranium). On November 1, 2006, Russian spy(?) Alexander Litvinenko met associates in a London hotel cafe where he drank tea laced with the radioactive element Polonium-210. It was a tiny amount, but enough to make Litvinenko very ill immediately and to kill him within a short time. In an eventually successful attempt to track down the assassins, the London Metropolitan Police easily found the tell-tale traces of the poison used--radioactive Polonium. They tracked it in tiny amounts all across London. The perpetrators left traces in the hotel room and bathrooms where they stayed before and after the meeting with Litvinenko. The police easily followed the nuclear laced trail in the buses and vehicles they traveled in, in the hotel cafe, on the tableware, in the used tea cup, and utensils even after these were washed and stored away. There is no hiding a radioactive element. Yet this particular Polonium isotope has a short half life...one-half of it decays away in only about 138 days! Yet the Met Police had more than sufficient opportunity to find and document its traces all over metropolitan London. Compare that with the billions of years for Uranium....which would be searched for by the IAE in the confined space of a laboratory. A mere 24 days to track down long-lived Uranium is no hindrance for the nuclear watchdogs.

Christie's practiced repetition of the phony GOP LIE signifies that he is either ignorant of the science behind the agreement, or is simply spouting what his wealthy donors want him to say. The latter is more likely. His well publicized trip to Las Vegas where he journeyed, hat in hand, to kneel before casino-mogul and billionaire Mr. Adelson is where he was presented with this mendacious script. As a candidate for President of the USA one would hope that he would be more concerned with what is best for his own nation rather than spouting the policies handed to him by Mr. Adelson.

The truth is that the Iran Nuclear Agreement renders Iran incapable of a nuclear break out...for the foreseeable future. Christie's lie about the "24 hour" window and his sycophantic adherence to his "donors script" is probably one of the main reasons the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire see him for what he is, a puppet, and not his own man. That may be the prime reason he is unable to get himself out of single digits in the polls.

But let us not just single out Governor Christie. When the other candidates spout this Big Lie..they should be taken to task for it and perhaps have their mouths washed out with brown soap...like my Momma did to me when I told a whopper. Of course my whoppers had little potential to cause catastrophic world consequences such as another Mid East War like those of these GOP culprits. ( Just see the disaster and chaos we have wrought as a result of Mr. George Bush's past military misadventures in the Middle East).

JOE, DO IT FOR BEAU

WHAT WOULD BEAU DO?

GO FOR IT JOE!

Your son, the late Beau Biden was right. We can't let the Clintons get back into the White House. Joe, we know you are devastated by your son's passing. But, thanks to Maureen Dowd, we now know what he expressed to you in his last words. His wishes have struck a chord though the Nation. You must run. Your fellow countrymen and women need your experience, your stability, your values and your common sense. Beau knew all this. Don't let his expression for the welfare of the Nation go unheeded.

Think of our choices without you. First take a look at the Republican field of candidates. The GOP has offered up a group of non-entities, freshly elected, wild-eyed Senators who will shut down the government at the drop of a pin, puppets who repeat scripts handed out to them by their big donors like the Koch brothers and Adelsons, one verified snake oil salesman, an Afro American non-politician book salesman (this has become a traditional candidate-category of the GOP) , a female former CEO with no experience in elected office (her only experience being a candidacy rejected by the voters), governors who have run their states into the ground legislating as right-wing ideologues so as to prepare themselves for the Tea Party dominated primaries. We also have another Bush. This one, eschews his surname and calls himself "JEB"....for perfectly good and obvious reasons. This Bush seems to be running because his Pappy said he had to do it. He is not so fast mentally and his foot seems to be lodged in his mouth much too frequently. His demeanor recalls the look of a scared deer in headlights, on the stump and in the debate. Then, we have the entertaining circus performer and loose-cannon Donald Trump who, right now, far and away leads the GOP pack in the opinion polls. His popularity is a good measure of what the American people really think of the GOP field. But who knows what he really stands for?

Our only other choice (beside sincere, honest, nice guy, Bernie, a Socialist-Independent from Vermont) is Mrs. Clinton, the former First Lady. Hillary, thinks the Nation owes this job to her just for sticking around with Bill. Upon exiting the White House, she was handed a safe Senate seat, foisting her self on New York where she did little but prepare for her Presidential bid. That easy election was her first and only experience as an elected official. She lost the nomination in 2008, and as consolation prize was again presented with a plum job, that of Secretary of State where she did little but rack up thousands of air miles. This candidate will not hold press conferences, does not reveal her positions on key legislation and is again enmeshed in self-inflicted scandals. She is tied to a husband who sells influence abroad and at home for large sums of money. She is such a divisive figure most pundits believe that with her "negatives" she could not win the general election. The Republicans will hammer her in 2016.

Clinton touts herself as the "most experienced candidate". But that credit would end the minute you enter the race. She can not hold a candle to your long and fruitful 45 years of government experience. Almost no one in memory has come to the job with your long years and diverse preparation. I only remind you so as to jog your memory (and those of my readers) that you served as Senator from Delaware for 36 years. Then as Chairman of the Foreign relations Committee, and, finally, as a much beloved Vice President for soon to be eight years. Who can measure up to that record? This record is what gives Clinton and her minions the shivers of fear. Her recent bluff and phony claims that she has the delegates all tied up is only an attempt to scare you off. She does not know you that well.

We suffered through eight years of Clinton and her husband's scandals, once, that was too much. If Hillary were actually to win the general election, it is questionable if she could govern effectively...challenged as she is with her own sketchy value system, the poor judgment she has clearly demonstrated in this last campaign, her husband's tangled financial arrangements, intrigues and bimbo eruptions and the divisiveness which clings to her like glue. We can not put our Nation again through another bout of Clintonism and the attendant waste of energy and effort spent on scandals and government investigations.

If you run the people will flock to YOU, Joe.

Do it for Beau...that's what he would have wanted. Your race and your presidency would be a fitting tribute to his memory.

JAPAN APOLGIZES FOR WW II, USA FOR DESTABILIZED MIDDLE EAST

U.S. NEEDS TO APOLOGIZE FOR IRAQ AND REFUGEES

It saddens me to read of the horrible plight of Middle East refugees and the costly and growing European refugee crisis. Yesterday fifty dead bodies, of men, women and children were found in a locked refrigerator truck on an Austrian roadside (Daily Mirror, UK, August 26, 2015) . This awful tragedy was apparently the end-result of some failed attempt by Syrian or Yemeni refugees to reach a safe place to live . These people were attempting to escape the end result of the destruction that the Bush and Obama administration's have wrought over the last decade in the Middle East. The present refugee crisis is the end result of our military adventures our invasions, attempts at colonization and exploitation, our penchant for regime change, misplaced support for vicious tyrants, our drone warfare, and haughty belief that we could remake the world in our own image at the end of a Colt, M-4 carbine. My deep dolor is not only for the waste of life and human suffering, but for my poor nation which seems set to continue making grievous errors because it can not or will not face its own mistakes or consign blame and punish those who led it into error.

On August 14, 2915,8 the New York Times ran a piece entitled "Japan Apologizes for World War II". Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered his regret (as have past PMs of Japan) for "inflicting immeasurable damage and suffering " on "innocent people" . During the war remembrance ceremony Abe promised the world that his nation would never again resort to "aggression" and "colonial rule". But Abe's obsequies were not the full blown apology that other Japanese leaders had offered during the 1950 and 1960. Abe's expressions of remorse were not obsequious enough for the Gray Lady of New York, who made clear that she hoped he would have been more forthright in expressing his apologies for Japan's aggression, militarism, and harsh colonial rule. Sadly the Times conveniently ignored the fact that in the very same edition, and in many earlier ones, one could read numerous reports of the tragic results of OUR OWN, USA aggression, our colonial adventures and destabilizing occupation in the heart of the Middle East under the Bush and Obama administrations. Is it just a NYT journalistic rule to limit US self-criticism? Or are we so fixated in the belief of our national purity of intention and exceptionalism, that our top journalists can ignore the elephant in the room as they point a finger of blame at the Japanese and totally ignore our own very recent transgressions? That is what is so bothersome about our situation.

Our news media are rife with reports of pitiful refugees from Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen who clog up the refugee compounds in Greece, Italy, Germany and the Baltics. These people, if lucky, land in frail craft on the rocky shores of Italy and Greece, then in pitiful streams of suffering humanity stagger in hordes along byways and country roads through Macedonia and Serbia in an attempt to reach a nation which might be humane and wealthy enough to give them succor. No one here in the USA has expressed any regrets for these massive streams of refugees, or acknowledged even an inkling of US blame. No one here has had the guts to put the cause of this tragedy at the door step of the misguided policies of Bush and Cheney...Obama and Clinton (Libya). No one here has been charged with war crimes, or even had their reputations sullied. All the culprits are still active in business and politics and continue unremorsefully continuing to make more mischief in the Middle East. No effort was made to face the facts of our monumental mistake in invading Iraq and attempting to colonize that nation, the destabilizing event which initiated the ME tragedy.

The Japanese and the Germans have faced their ugly war-history, and have made attempted to correct the evil which drove them to awful and horrible acts in the last Great War. The comparison of our crimes in the Middle East can not be equated with scope and duration of events of World War II, where millions upon millions died. But the sad truth is that a nation that can not face the truth about its misdeeds, can not change, can not correct its erroneous course. Are we consigned to repeat our mistakes, as Winston Churchill stated, because we are unable or unwilling to known our true history?

The American people deserve to hear the truth. To face up to the fact that their leaders made mistakes. Yes, our leaders probably committed war crimes. We too killed innocents. We made attempts at brutal colonization. The U.S. initiated the last major destabilizing event in the Middle East, in a major way we are now directly responsible for all those refugees streaming out of the nations George Bush vowed he would reduce to the "Stone Age" . We are and our British allies are responsible for the floating dead in the Mediterranean, and the masses pressing against the bulging chain link fences on European borders.

It is time we faced our own mud stained history like Japan and Germany.

CLINTON A FLAWED CANDIDATE

The Clinton campaign for President is faltering. Bernie Sanders is drawing huge crowds to her sewing circle sized meetings. Bernie is beating her by substantial margins in New Hampshire polls. Undeclared candidate VP Joe Biden tops her in match up polls against various Republican candidates. Recent national polls suggest that 61% of the electorate view her as untrustworthy. The poor management of her most recent email scandal and her campaign response to the revelations bring into question her judgment and her suitability for the Presidency.

In the past, as a much traveled but do nothing, Secretary of State Mrs. Clinton exhibited poor judgement when she devised a plan to use a private email and home based server. She compounded that mistake with additional judgmental errors while first ignoring then mismanaging the political fall out when this matter came to public knowledge. In addition, she is burdened with a mass of past controversies and scandals. Why pull down her Party, loose the election and drag the nation through a messy and unsuccessful candidacy? Perhaps it is time for Mrs. Clinton to step aside for another candidate, while there is still time. In this instance she can finally out-perform her husband, former President Clinton, who should have stepped down for the good of the nation from office in favor of his competent and upstanding VP, Al Gore, when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. A Nixon-like departure would have saved the nation the trauma of the Presidential impeachment and the bitterness of the ensuing years. Mrs Clinton should retire her campaign now and throw her support to another viable candidate perhaps, Joe Biden, or Elizabeth Warren before it too late.

Yesterday (August 26) the political odd couple Mary Matalin and James Carville appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to review the progress made in New Orleans in the last decade since Katrina. During the segment Carville a former Clinton political advisor was queried about Mrs. Clinton's email scandal. Carville a super loyal Clintonista snarled back a characteristic, rapid-fire defensive reply to the effect that "there are no scandals...all the scandals are manufactured by the Republicans".

Loyalty like that is commendable. But is it honest, or does it only serve the Clinton insiders, their advisors, and ignores the welfare of the nation? Whether the "scandals" are manufactured by her enemies or are ( as I believe) mostly self-generated makes no real difference in how a candidate or office holder must operate. Regardless of the source of the scandals...her need to respond, forces Mrs. Clinton to consume energy and effort on issues which take her from the business of the people or the campaign into a defense mode. Both make her a less effective leader. They are distractions from her campaign. It is almost certain given the Clinton's penchant for impropriety, sleazy self serving business deals, etc. one can be sure there will be more messy scandals were the Clintons to reenter the White House. The fact that Mrs Clinton is again mired in scandal or controversy just underscores again the awful Clinton years, when the nation and the government was too often distracted and side tracked by Clinton scandals. Real or manufactured we all had to wade through scandals like Whitewater, a suicide, numerous bimbo eruptions, rental for profit of the Lincoln bedroom, stripping valuables from the White House, and more. Then while Clinton was Secretary of State..more scandals followed her. There was the Clinton Slush Fund, Bill's speaking fees, and "pay for play" " donations" and speaking fees for access to Hillary as Secretary of State, questionable "donations" in the millions of dollars to the "Clinton Foundation" by foreign agents and ally nations, Hilary's speaking fees, Chelsea's speaking fees, claims of being bankrupt, and the general appearance of impropriety and slippery behavior, etc., etc., etc.

But let us move beyond the scandals problem to the exhibition of poor judgement by this candidate for high office. A campaign often reveals how a man or woman will manage the levers of power when they govern. Since Hillary Clinton launched her campaign she has been plagued by questions which relate to her ability to make sound decisions. The revelations concerning her private email account brought out the need for clear unvarnished explanations. She was unable to state or clarify an honest purpose for her behavior. Her first mistake was to claim that her reason for this illegality and anomalous behavior was only for "convenience". She made the bogus claim that she simply didn't want to carry two instruments. Other revelations soon followed. She exhibited poor judgement in formulating the secret plan to use a private account, and then compounded that mistake by housing her private server in the unsecured basement of her Chappaqua home. She added to those errors by clinging to her private and government emails for two years, compromising their security and status as official government documents. And adding to those woes she finally set her staff (who knows what kind of security clearance they had) to separate out her "personal emails" from the "government's emails". Finally she made the worst mistake of all by having the server wiped clean. She stalled and stonewalled until faced with an FBI investigation and court order to hand over the server. The composite of errors here all add up to monumental poor judgment. This is the same person who would like to have us believe that she is the most qualified candidate to lead a highly militarized and industrialized nation of nearly 350 million people...as she exhibits continuing judgment flaws in managing her campaign.

Democrats must face the facts...Clinton is a flawed candidate who if nominate probably can not win. If elected she would not be able to govern. Oh the Clintons will prosper in office.....the rest of us will not fare so well.

ISRAEL'S TRUE OBJECTIVES: WAR

ISRAEL OPPOSES A PROSPEROUS, PEACEFUL IRAN

The neocons Likudniks, and their unwitting GOP supporters here in the U.S.A are lobbying hard to kill the President's nuclear deal with Iran. The nation has been bombarded by news reports, adverts and TV spots, supported by those Americans who too often put the interests of some small foreign ME nation before the best interests of their own homeland. (I am thinking here of shameful Senator Schumer of New York...who made it all too obvious that his first allegiance was not to his constituents or his nation but elsewhere on this critical agreement.) The weak U.S. media and right wing radio hosts have not effectively informed the citizenry on this issue. Too often they let zealots of the right. hog the limelight, spout total fabrications and make no effort to correct the lies their guests are spreading to the public.

Mr. Netanyahu and his minions here in the USA have made it crystal clear now....they are trying to upend the Iran Nuclear Agreement and in the process are generating circumstances which can only end in WAR. They claim the agreement is "not good enough". Though even the Israeli defense establishment agrees the accord effectively ends Iran's ability to pursue bomb grade enriched uranium. The objections to the nuclear deal are purported to be based on its weaknesses. "Kerry and Obama did not press the Iranians hard enough". "The U.S. could get a better deal." "The inspections regime is not rigorous enough."

However these arguments are only a red herring, designed to obfuscate and continue to befuddle the uninformed and those poorly served by our timid and controlled mass media. The truth is that the Iran Nuclear Agreement (INA) effectively and efficiently CLOSES THE DOOR to a NUCLEAR ARMED IRAN for the foreseeable future. But sadly that excellent and desirable outcome does not satisfy the Israeli leadership and the neocons and knee-jerk Israeli supporters here in the U.S. However, the INA was not designed for and does NOT prevent Iran from achieving a non nuclear future of economic growth and potential prosperity.

THE POSSIBILITY OF A PEACEFUL AND PROSPEROUS IRAN IS WHAT ISRAEL OBJECTS TO. It is not the nuclear part of the deal, which irks the Israelis. It is the potential for PEACE and regional prosperity that does not fit well with the Likud leadership's plan for regional domination. After all, Israel has an enormous nuclear arsenal, why would it concern itself with a nation which may have rudimentary nuclear knowledge, but has no nuclear stock pile, and no nuclear weapons and will be closed out of further nuclear enrichment for at least fifteen years? Iran's nuclear "knowledge" is no threat to the world or to massively nuclear and conventionally armed Israel.

Unlike the other Arab states in the region, Iran has a well-educated, vibrant, innovative and ambitions population, which, if released from onerous sanctions, could potentially grow economically. In a better-led world such a nation may even partner effectively with the intellectual and economic dynamo in the region...Israel. But it is this---a peaceful and economically vibrant Persian nation in its midst which Israel's reactionary Likud leaders fear. They fear Iran as a state released from sanctions which may garner significant economic power. Israel's reactionary leadership sees that kind of Iran as a threat to its own dominance in the region. With such neighbors Israel might even have to stop stonewalling and honestly seek a peaceful solution with the Palestinians whose people it oppresses and whose territory it continues to occupy. For these reasons Netanyahu, and his Likud right-wingers want to maintain their absolute military hegemony AS WELL AS COMPLETE ECONOMIC DOMINANCE in the region. They prefer war to peace. Even a peaceful, disarmed Iran is seen as a threat to them. Their goal is to see Iran, another failed state, bombed back to the Stone Age...like Iraq and Syria. The USA as a true friend and ally to Israel, and in the position of peace-seeking world leader can not be led into war to satisfy Israeli desires for regional economic dominance.

We can not continue to support an Israel which thumbs its nose at our President, brazenly abandons protocol to sneak behind the President and take sides in our internal political deliberations, refuses to abide by UN resolutions, refuses to sign the nuclear non proliferation agreement, stockpiles hundreds of nuclear weapons, thumbs its nose at the entreaties for peace from the rest of the world, brutally subjugates a native population, and now when our President is seeking an agreement to advance peace and nuclear security, it seeks to lobby our government's internal deliberations with a massive effort to undermine those objectives and generate conditions which may lead to another costly and bloody war in the Middle East.



Do not let the forces of ignorance, misperception, evil, and chaos win out over peace, prosperity and security for all peoples of the Middle East--Persians, Jews and Moslems. The Iran Nuclear Deal is the first step toward a better, safer, more prosperous world.