Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Transfer of some suspected terrorists to Illinois

The first action of President Obama was his announcement that Guantanamo would be closed. I was glad to hear that. Now 10 months later he advises he will spend millions renovating an unused correctional facility in Thompson, Illinois and transfer most but not all of these prisoners. This means to me that Guantanamo will still be a prison. I fail to see the merit to this decision. I call upon my Congressperson to deny funding so this idea can have a quick death.
Here is my simplistic solution. Put them on a secure plane ride back to their country of origin. Turn them over to authorities and let them decide their fate. This could be release, continued confinement or death as their laws prescribe.
To bring them to the heartland of America is just plain insane.

Jack B. Walters
3961 N. Hillwood Circle
Tucson, AZ 85750
(520) 722-2958
December 16, 2009
jackbwalters@yahoo.com

Monday, December 7, 2009

Pay for the War

This is for all of you war hawks and weepy doves. Our Nobel Peace Prize winner president has told you of the dire necessity of increasing troop levels in Afghanistan. So be it. You hawks love the smell of Napalm in the morning and you doves like to look sad and say woe is me. If perpetual war is to be the future for us then I have only one request. Change that. I have only one demand and that is we pay for it. No more adding to the debt for our children’s children to pay. This is our war. This is our time. This is our decision. If it is truly needed then we should all be willing to pay for it.
What I demand is the Congress adds a surcharge for those of us paying income tax or creates a national sales tax so that the rest can also contribute. I leave it to the experts to decide how much of an increase is required. I just demand it be large enough to pay every penny of the “surge”. Play now and someone else pay later is no longer acceptable. This is not a game. We cannot continue spending money we don’t have. The day of reckoning is now.
I know the wars would be over in a minute if your children were to be drafted. Because of the lack of courage or integrity of our elected officials that will never happen. By paying huge bonuses they are able to convince sufficient numbers to sign on or re-up. Therefore the only other way to get your attention is to make you pay for the cost. I am willing to pay my share, are you?
This will be a drag on the economy, no mistake about that, but do we really deserve to buy all these toys and gimmicks while we have boys dying in the desert so far from home. I say no.
I have sent this to my Congressperson and our two Senators which will be promptly tossed in the trash. If in the other hand they received thousands of letters they might get the message. That is all I can ever hope for.


Jack B. Walters
3961 N. Hillwood Circle
Tucson, AZ 85750
(520) 722-2958
December 7, 2009
jackbwalters@yahoo.com

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Opinion Article by Leonard Pitts (Poll as mirror)

Dear Mr. Pitts,
First I want to say that I usually look forward to reading your columns or listening to you on MSNBC. Your insights are normally well done. Where you fail is when you beat the race card thing to death. The last time I wrote was about the cop, the professor and the president. I feel compelled to respond to your latest.
You might be interested to know that I am a white man who voted for Obama. Race was just a side benefit. I liked what he said and after 8 years of the other idiot I wanted a complete change of course. You state that after all Obama is the president, Bush was also the president, I gave him no slack or respect because of the harm he did to America and the world. I never expect total agreement. That is not necessary. What is necessary is that I believe the president, no matter who he might be, makes decisions in the best interest of our future not what is expedient.
The fact that you can count me on the negative side of the poll has nothing whatever to do with his race but has everything to do with the policies he has promoted, those he hasn’t but promised during the campaign he would, the old guard he has surrounded himself with which guarantees that no substantive change can possibly take place, his love affair with Islam world wide and placing Muslims in high level government positions, his “don’t jump to conclusions about the slaughter at Fort Hood”, trying terrorists in court instead of military tribunals, trying to scatter the rest from Guantanamo to US prisons, the multi billion bail out of Wall Street, billions for the ridiculous clunker program, billions for GM and Chrysler ( Our reward for this is GM expanding production facilities in China), green jobs for solar collectors, light bulbs and windmills being produced overseas (these were promised for Americans). You get the idea.
If I were black I would overlook many things to provide support to one who had finally reached the pinnacle. What could you expect? For the rest of us who think and care we have had enough. I think we expected too much. Obama’s solutions to problems are mostly throwing money without changing the basics that have brought us to where we are today. His latest on the troop increase in Afghanistan is the worst to date. I am including a letter I wrote yesterday for your perusal.

Jack B. Walters
3961 N. Hillwood Circle
Tucson, AZ 85750
(520) 722-2958
December 3, 2009
jackbwalters@yahoo.com

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

My response to President Obama's speech

Our Security is at Stake

The above title was the theme of President Obama’s speech delivered last evening to an audience of West Point Cadets, the nation and the world. Once again we are told that is in our best interests to place over 100,000 Americans in harms way, fighting an insurgency that will just not go away. I am convinced that our best days are behind us. We will squander thousands of lives at an additional initial cost of $30 Billion. This of course doesn’t include the following year’s costs nor the continuing cost of our 140,000+ still remaining in Iraq or the cost for the 71,000 already in Afghanistan. It doesn’t matter that our national debt exceeds $12 Trillion nor that our tax and trade policies continue shipping more and more manufacturing jobs to China and elsewhere, nor that the unending give away unemployment fund is nearly consumed while they continue to consider extending for another year. To my way of thinking it might as well be forever since we continue to find ways to live a reasonable life without working for a living. Our government can just continue printing more dollars. So what if the value drops as long as the overseas suckers are willing to keep purchasing our nearly worthless bonds.
It really is easy to scare Americans, at least the Americans of today. It was just six years ago Pres. Bush, VP Cheney and Secretary of State Rice warned us of mushroom clouds and weapons of mass destruction. The Congress and the bulk of Americans bought it then and I believe still do. Half are still convinced that Hussein was behind the attack which has been proven false over and over to no avail. We lost over 3,000 in the 9/11 attack. Since then twice that many Americans have given their lives in the Middle East and perhaps as many as one million Iraqis and Afghans. Perhaps we should not consider them as people in the same class as Americans. That may be your thought but it surely is not mine.
I voted for Obama believing him to be a man of peace. I was wrong. He is no different from any of the other leaders in power since Jimmy Carter. The look on the faces of Defense Secretary Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the other over decorated brass showed me that they were proud of our President and that in the end he did just what they wanted. He just dragged it out a little longer on the pretext that he was studying all options.
The comparison with the novel 1984 is eerie in the sameness. In the book we are in continuous war with one or the other great powers. It shifts from time to time. All historical records are erased so no one knows any difference. They only know we must fight the enemy, no matter which one. Being kept in fear makes docile citizens who comply without dissent. Those who try are quickly rounded up and mysteriously disappear. All have implants so the government has no trouble finding those who are viewed as trouble makers.
How close to this we are. We have troops stationed all over the world, 60,000 in Germany, and 35,000 in Korea and a similar number on Japanese territory. In case you don’t remember we won WWII in 1945 and signed the armistice with N. Korea in 1953. While it was reasonable to occupy those countries at the time the conflict ended, it is totally unreasonable to remain today. Our excuse is security. With these troops ready and available we can initiate conflicts much easier. These numbers are totally inadequate should we face enemies in the millions as we do in Korea. To me it is all a charade. We continue to follow the dictates of the military/ industrial complex as we were warned many years ago by President Eisenhower. We cannot win the confidence of the world’s people by dropping bombs all over the place. We squander a minimum of a trillion dollars every year in our pursuit of military dominance. In the end we will destroy ourselves. There will be no white knights to come to our rescue. The world will laugh and enjoy seeing us in our misery. It doesn’t have to be this way but will come to pass if we do not change. As for Obama he has set his course. Now we wait for our next opportunity to find a savior. I don’t think it will be Governor Huckabee after we found out he commuted a 95 year sentence for the shooter in Seattle.
I watched a couple of news shows today just to get a feel. The hosts and their guests are all over the place. Trust me, it is all a sham. In the end when all the rhetoric has been spoken, Obama will get his troops and his Billions. The truth is, no one will accept the consequences of pulling out, which brings me to the end. Two years from now, ten years from now or twenty there will still be American boys dying in the desert.
I am too old to do other than write or talk with others about these issues. I will not stop.

Jack B. Walters
3961 N. Hillwood Circle
Tucson, AZ 85750
(520) 722-2958
December 2, 2009
jackbwalters@yahoo.com