Thursday, November 9, 2000
The Shame of America
Intellectually Challenged Voters Spoil Election!
By Chris Wolski, Ayn Rand Institute Fellow
MARINA DEL REY, CALIF.-Tuesday's election has been touted as one of the closest in decades, but the news reports are wrong-the election wasn't even close. If you just look at the big numbers-the national totals, the electoral college count, and even the squeakers in key states like Florida-the election was among the closest in history, but if you look at the U.S. map, you'll get a different story," said Robert W. Tracinski, a columnist for Creators Syndicate.
Al Gore captured the heavily urbanized centers in the Northeast and West, with a few states in between. The rest, a huge swath of the South, West, and Midwest, and practically every rural district in America, voted for Bush." Tracinski attributes this split to the fundamental philosophical conflict between the liberal arts-educated voters and the old-fashioned Midwest sense of life.
"Many of Bush's supporters represent the old-fashioned American outlook captured by the phrase "rugged individualism," said Tracinski. "These people tend to believe in independence, individual responsibility, and self-reliance. They tend to be wary of big government, and so support less taxation, less welfare, and fewer regulations.
In contrast, the urban voters have absorbed and accepted the socialist, collectivist ideas taught in most liberal arts colleges. These predominately college-educated voters accept the view that the individual should serve society, so they agitate for big government and more taxation."
Tracinski added that Americans should use the election as an opportunity to examine what is being taught at today's universities and how these ideas are undermining American values. "In the end, the election was not so much a contest between two Americas, but between the original individualistic American view of life and an antagonistic collectivist view of life championed by America's intellectuals," said Tracinski.
It is, perhaps, even a more fundamental measure of the gulf between voters in America who can read and reason as to the ballot in their polling place, and Americans who have marked their ballot but cannot read the names of those for whom they have voted.
[Editor's Note: E-mail: chrisw@aynrand.org The Ayn Rand Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shruggedand The Fountainhead.]
2000 Copyright, The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
=============================================================
Thursday, October 26, 2000
Vice President's Secret Arms Deal
Russian Sale of Weapons to Iran Violated
US Law that Gore Authored as a Senator!
By Amy Williams, Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- In a hearing on Wednesday, Clinton administration officials testified before Congress that a 1995 deal approved by Vice President Al Gore(D) gave Russia a green light to sell conventional weapons to Iran.
According to officials of the State Department, Gore signed the deal first and then it was signed by Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, then Russian prime minister. Terms of the arms deal with Russia circumvented the law that Gore himself authored as a U.S. Senator in 1992 requiring that economic sanctions be imposed on countries that sell arms to nations that sponsor terrorism, including Iran.
Senator Sam Brownback(R) convened the hearing to draw attention to the flawed deal by Mr. Gore which has beenillegally concealed from Congress and the American public.
According to testimony at the hesaring, the weapons that Goren sold to Russia included a sophisticated Kilo-class diesel submarine with long-range torpedoes, hundreds of tanks and armored personnel carriers and thousands of mines, bombs and artillery shells.
Senator Brownback expressed frustration with the Vice President Gore's refusal to provide Congress with documents that spell out the terms of the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement. Brownback said that Republicans on the foreign affairs committee were considering issuing a subpoena to the administration to force disclosure of the documents describing the deal.
2000 Copyright, The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
===========================================================
Thursday, October 12, 2000
Mr. Gore's Accomplishment
500,000 Unemployed Veterans!
By Susana Beck, Contributor
REDLANDS, Calif. -- When Vice President Albert Gore(D) states that during the past 8 years, he and Clinton have reduced the size of government employees by 300,000 he must be including the many thousands of military men and women who have been terminated as part of the base closings across the U.S.?
This is also the consequence of the thousands of career military men and women who are not re-enlisting. And it is the result of the tens of thousands of civil-service people who lost their jobs along with the base closings. It is also the result of the tens of thousands of men and women who once worked for the defense industry who lost jobs as a result of the downsizing of our national defense.
Now, its your turn, Mr. Gore. What goes around, comes around!
[Editor's Note: Susana Beck is a former Chaplain of the Redlands Republican Women.].
2000 Copyright, The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
===========================================================
Monday, October 9, 2000
GORE'S ATTEMPT TO SILENCE TRUTH
Veterans Who Could Expose Gore's Shortcomings,
Are Being Intimidated & Squelched!
By CDR Chip Beck, USNR, Contributor
ARLINGTON, Virginia -- Last week, more than 90 distinguished veterans and military retirees, many of whom served in the Clinton-Gore years, came out in support of George W. Bush for President and formed the core of the Vice Chairmen for the Veterans for Bush movement.
The former military men and women joined Co-Chairmen Sonny Montgomery and former Marine Corps Commandant Charles Krulak, USMC (ret) and thousands of other veterans across the nation who are working to elect the Texas Governor and bring "honor, dignity, and integrity to the office of the presidency," along with accountability, purpose, and security into national affairs.
Almost immediately, the Veterans movement and their leaders were hit, as expected, by a Clinton-Gore surrogate named Richard H. Kohn and former NATO Commander, General George A. Joulwan. Urging virtual silence in the ranks of the nation's 27 million veterans and military retirees, Joulwan declared on September 19 that "We should not offer advice to any candidate. I urge that we as a bloc not choose one or another."
The Gore camp wanted to put out the spin that, by exposing the shortcomings in the Clinton-Gore administration, the retired officers are going against the "tradition of a politically neutral officer corps providing professional advice to civilian leaders."
The fallacy of this argument, as General Krulak pointed out in a September 21 letter to the Washington Post, is that the retired Generals, Admirals, and veterans are no longer part of the officer corps that serves under the Commander-in-Chief. They are now, in letter and spirit of the law of the land, civilians once more, albeit citizens with unique experiences and insights of considerable value to America.
General Krulak pointed out that while active duty military personnel must "hold their policy debates behind closed doors," the same enforcement of silence does not apply constitutionally to those who have laid down their swords. "To suggest," Krulak said, "that having officially taken off our uniforms for the last time, we somehow are not entitled to the same right to enjoy full and active participation in the selection of our elected officials as other citizens of this great land is an insult to our service."
General Krulak also touches on something else in the wind, and that is an awakening by military veterans, who have generally been regarded as good citizens as individuals, that the time may be at hand to begin addressing the ills of the nation with their collective strength.
"In coming forth as a coalition, we draw on considerable expertise, and we do so with much care," Krulak notes, before adding, "Our silence, not our voices, would do the greater harm."
General Joulwan's and Kohn's attempts to silence those voices is futile as well as misplaced. For centuries, American veterans have come home from the battlefields and military careers to take up positions as citizens and leaders of their communities, running for and winning elections in races ranging from local mayors to the White House itself.
Indeed, if Joulwan's spin, which suits the Gore camp just fine, had been the rule, former military men (careerists and militiamen) such as the "first George W.," (Washington), Dwight Eisenhower, Andrew Jackson, U.S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Benjamin Harrison, and even Abraham Lincoln would have been required to stand by quietly while those without such vital experience formed a distorted pool of candidates.
If, as Joulwan recommends, veterans do not join in the national political process by raising their voices, where is the cut-off line that stops them from participating? Would the 20- and 30- year retirees be eliminated in favor of those who had less than 2 years, such as Al Gore? Or would former corporal Gore be excluded as well, in favor of those who managed to dodge the draft in order to protect their "political viability?"
This election may be a watershed year, no matter who wins the presidential election on November 7th. Veterans are not pleased with the deterioration of the national fabric, nor the trampling of values and hard-won freedoms that were gained at the expense of hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women laying down their lives for more than two centuries.
The voices of America's veterans shall be heard. To put it in the words of a former adversary, the Japanese Admiral who oversaw the bombing of Pearl Harbor, ". . .a sleeping giant has been awakened."
One can only hope so.
[Editor's Note: CDR Chip Beck, USNR (ret) of Arlington, Virginia may be contacted at his e-mail: BeckChip@aol.com].
2000 Copyright, The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
===========================================================
Sunday, October 8, 2000
Clinton to Remove Troops
in Japan and South Korea
Should Ground Forces Be Withdrawn?
By Richard Halloran
HONOLULU -- A searching review of the American strategy of stationing ground forces in South Korea and Japan is under way to see whether those forces can be reduced or withdrawn. Instead, the United States would rely on warships, air power, and rapidly deployable ground forces to maintain a military presence in Asia.
Senior U.S. officials emphasized that no decisions have been made as this examination is still under discussion among military leaders in Washington, the Pacific Command here, U.S. Forces in Japan and U.S. Forces in Korea.
They further emphasized the review was not intended to lessen U.S. security commitments in Asia.
Even so, a fundamental shift in the composition of U.S. forces in Asia is contemplated over the next five or so years. The review includes forces in South Korea and Japan, notably Okinawa, because Northeast Asia isconsidered an integrated operational area.
While this review is being conducted out of the public eye, political and military leaders have denied that a reduction was being considered. A Pentagon spokeman, in a carefully worded statement, said "there is no study or report" on reducing U.S. ground forces in South Korea and Japan.
Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last week that a review was possible but it would be "premature" to foresee a reduction. Secretary of Defense William Cohen told South Korean leaders recently that no pullout was planned. Even President Clinton, in a statement in the New York Times, said a reduction should not be considered."
Nonetheless, military officers said on condition of anonymity, the review is in response to several trends. They indicated that the United States must respond to protests in Korea and Japan against the presence of U.S. forces. "I don't think this is anti-Americanism so much as anti-base-ism," said a senior officer. "The Japanese and Koreans want their alliances with us but they don't want our troops on their sovereign soil."
That warning was included in a recent study published by the National Intelligence Council in Washington, which concluded, "An unmoving U.S. stance on military bases and related issues would risk nationalistic backlash in Japan and perhaps South Korea."
In Seoul, Koreans have repeatedly protested around the U.S. headquarters in a former Japanese base around which the city has grown. In Okinawa, memories are still fresh about the rape of a junior high school girl by two American servicemen five years ago; it has accentuated long-festering resentments against the U.S. presence.
Surveys in both nations indicate that public support for U.S. forces stationed there has dropped. In the United States, the review anticipates the new president who will take office in January. Military leaders want to present a coherent strategy that will win the support of their new civilian superiors -- or to avert what they consider bad ideas.
In addition, Congress has mandated that the Pentagon prepare a Quadrennial Defense Review, a comprehensive examination of the strategy, arms and readiness of the armed forces. The review of U.S. forces in Korea and Japan is intended to contribute to the overall defense review due in 2001.
The U.S. claims it maintains 100,000 troops forward deployed in Asia and the Pacific. But senior military officers have quietly downplayed that number in public in favor of the number 300,000, which includes all forces in the Pacific Command, including those in the U.S. West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii.
Whatever the outcome of the review, changes would be made only after careful consultation with U.S. allies in Korea and Japan. Officials appeared to be mindful of the turmoil caused by President Jimmy Carter, who declared in the election campaign of 1976 that he would remove most U.S. ground forces from South Korea. Seoul and Tokyo were alarmed that such a change would be made without consulting them. Confronted with such resistance, plus that in the U.S. armed forces, President Carter relented.
In addition, officials said, no changes would be made until China and North Korea understood that the American security commitment to Korea and Japan remained in place. In particular, said one official, "we've got to get something from North Korea first." That something would be a reduction in North Korean forces along the demilitarized zone that divides the peninsula. About 70 percent of North Korea's army, including long-range artillery and rocket launchers, is stationed within a short distance of the DMZ. North Korea would also be required to eliminate missiles that could range U.S. forces as far away as Okinawa.
Even so, this changes the U.S. negotiating position with North Korea, suggesting that U.S. ground forces in South Korea could become a bargaiNing chip. They would be reduced or withdrawn from South Korea in return for visible, verifiable reductions in the North Korean threat to South Korea and Japan.
Transferring the U.S. ground troops would be a problem primarily of cost. "We have plenty of places where we could put them," said one official. Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and other Pacific islands, or the U.S. West Coast might be home base for the Second Infantry Division in Korea. Tanks, artillery and heavy equipment could be stored on ships or ashore in Korea in case the troops were required to return.
The Third Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa has looked at a new base in northern Australia where it would be close to Indonesia, the Philippines and the disputed South China Sea. Another possibility would be northern Okinawa, which is relatively uninhabited and away from present bases in densely populated southern Okinawa.
The new look in the U.S. military posture in Asia would be joint mission forces of Army and Marine troops moved by air and sea, naval ships and submarines, and air power comprising aircraft carriers, Air Force fighters and long range bombers. They would be drawn from bases anywhere, trained and dispatched on a mission. When it was over, they would go home again.
[Editor's Note: Richard Halloran, a former New York Times correspondent in Asia, is a freelance writer based in Honolulu.]
2000 Copyright, The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
============================================================
Return to beginning of ejps
Return to beginning of this issue