But They Did It

One of the main comebacks I see when Trump or the administration is criticized or questioned by anyone is that Hillary did that too or Obama did worse or Bill Clinton did it first. Even George W. Bush gets blamed. Almost all his spokespersons bring up Obama when their policies and actions are questioned. My response to that is "so what". Is that how we are to judge the actions of others? Not by a right or wrong test, but by whether someone else did it too. 

Of course, the "everybody is doing it" excuse doesn't hold water. Millions of people are addicted to drugs but that is not a good lifestyle. Millions in Germany followed the Nazis and they killed millions of Jews. Everybody speeds on the freeways but telling that to the cop who pulled you over for speeding won't get you out of a ticket.  

I am not a Trump fan and find fault with most of his policies, methods, and with his personality. Surprise, I also didn't agree with everything Obama, Bush, both Clintons, the other Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, and Nixon have done. Obama made several mistakes and missteps during his administration. George W. Bush got us into an unnecessary war and allowed the economy to crash. Bill Clinton's personal behavior was terrible and some of his policies were disastrous. Hillary made a major mistake with the email mess, was a poor campaigner, and was less than transparent. 

It reminds me of those times during my youth when I wanted to do something or go somewhere. Often the justification was that everybody is going or all my friends can do it. My parents and yours too had the classic comeback "If all your friends jumped off a cliff would you jump too?" It wasn't a good excuse or reason many years ago in my youth and it should be even less of a reason or excuse for our politicians now. 

What the country needs now is for my Mom to return to life and set these politicians straight. It shouldn't be necessary since our politicians and government leaders are allegedly adults. I know that is hard to believe sometimes. 

The Republicans were complete obstructionists during most of the Obama administration. They were against everything he did or proposed. They even opposed things they were traditionally in favor of. Now the Democrats are threatening to do the same thing during Trump's administration. Likewise, Congress shouldn't rubber-stamp everything the president wants because he is in your party. Both are wrong. Both are putting party and petty politics above country. 

I have no easy answer for this. At least one party has to begin the healing by agreeing to some cooperation, compromises and stop the revenge. It will take leaders who want unity, not chaos and gridlock. That will only happen when politicians are punished at the ballot box for being completely uncompromising and uncooperative. 

I am not optimistic any meaningful changes will occur in the near future. I am optimistic that if the present deadlock and string of excuses continue, the electorate will eventually revolt and clean house. 

Hopefully, but they did it, will become an unacceptable excuse for all politicians regardless of their party affiliation. 

wjh

At What Cost?

Let's get this on the table right from the start. Qasem Soleimani was a bad guy, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is a bad guy, and Iran does bad stuff both in and out of their country. Let's also acknowledge that Iran is a sovereign state and Qasem Soleimani was a military and government official of that sovereign state. That is the problem.

Whether you want to admit it, there are rules in this world both in war and diplomacy. That is the only way modern civilization can survive without constant warfare.

One of those rules is that one country does not kill government officials of another country unless they are at war. Not some difference of philosophy, ideals, commerce, even armed clashes, but declared war. We are not officially at war with Iran. Therefore, we don't get to kill (assassinate) their leaders. They also don't get to assassinate our leaders. These international rules, laws, and conventions often seem ridiculous and can be hard to live with. Regardless, they are still the rules we have agreed to either through United Nations resolutions, the Geneva Convention, or various treaties and agreements. Just like in our personal lives, these rules may be hard to obey.

We don't abide by these international conventions for completely altruistic reasons. We want our diplomats, officials, and military to be able to move about foreign countries with some reasonable assurance that the local government won't detain, harm, or kill them. We aren't happy that there are foreign spies in our country under cover of being diplomats but we don't assassinate them because we have our own spies in other countries pretending to be diplomats. A whole bunch of bad actors come to the US for UN meetings. We don't gun them down in the streets of NYC. In fact, we don't even give them parking tickets.

To make the Soleimani killing even more problematic, our military hit him in Iraq, another sovereign country. I assume Soleimani was in Iraq legally, maybe even an invited guest. Our diplomats and military did not bother to inform the Iraqi government of our plans. Think about that for a moment. How would the US react if members of the Israeli military assassinated a Palestinian official while visiting our country?

We are invited guests of Iraq. There to fight ISIS, not kill foreign officials. Our troops may be evicted over this incident.

Breaking the rules of civilization emboldens others to do the same. That ultimately makes the world a more dangerous place.

On its face, the killing of Soleimani looks like a kneejerk reaction by an impetuous president with no thought of the consequences. It also seems that there was no strategic plan, just reactions. Par for the course.

Iran has already responded. There has been damage to US assets, there will probably be more. Thankfully there were no additional US casualties in Iran's initial response. Sure, we can win any conventional war with Iran. The question is can we prevail over the long haul? Iran is a huge country with over 80 million citizens. They also have a lot of weapons. We have been unable to extricate ourselves from Afghanistan for almost 20 years. A smaller, less populated, less developed, less well-armed country. Think about that.

At this point, no one knows how this will play out.

Let's hope cooler heads prevail and this turns out to be just a short blip on the world scene radar. I am not confident that will happen.

At what cost?

wjh

Winning - December 2019

Keeping track of the GOP and Trump Administration:

• Duncan Hunter (R-CA) to plead guilty to campaign finance violations and resign from Congress. 
• 12/03 - A federal appeals court ruled that Deutsche Bank must turn over Trump's financial records to Congress. 
• Georgia GOP governor Brian Kemp appoints Kelly Loeffler as US Senator over Trump's wishes and best buddy Doug Collins. 
• Trump blunders through the NATO meetings. Other leaders openly mock his behavior. 
• 12/10 - A federal judge blocks the use of military funds to build Trump's wall.
• Trump lies - as of 12/10/19 - 15,413 in 1,055 days. 14.6/day.
• 12/12 - DOD inspector general to review the $400 million border wall contract awarded to Trump donor. More swampiness. 
• Trump decides that ridiculing a 16-year-old girl is acceptable because she won an honor he wanted. He is a small pitiful human being. Be Best, bullshit.

• 12/18 - Trump was impeached on two counts. He is now in the top three of all the presidents in US history who have been impeached.

wjh