The Political Conundrum!

A Washington Post news report states that the Bush administration is planning on using it’s spy technologies for domestic use. They plan to do so with or without Congressional approval. Congress is currently up in arms, rightfully so, because the Bush Administration has not provided any proof along with it’s plan that the usage is legal under current US law! Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff states that “[s]ophisticated overhead sensor data will be used for law enforcement once privacy and civil rights concerns are resolved”. However, his department also states that it will not be used for communication intercepts.

We have all ready seen the Bush Administration bypass regulatory controls when it comes to FISA and warrentless wiretapping of Americans speaking to foreign nationals abroad. The law requires 72 hour notification to the FISA court that surveillance is taking place. The Bush Administration has waited as long as 30 days to report to the FISA court that surveillance had been started!

If we can’t trust that the Executive Branch of our government will abide by the law, how can we be sure that the Department of Homeland Security, which was enacted by the Bush administration, will do so? The Office Of The Vice President has stated numerous times that it is “not an entity within the Executive Branch” and refused to allow the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) to do an on-site inspection of Vice President Cheney’s office. Somehow, they feel that Executive Order 12958 does not apply to them. In part it specifically references the right for the American people to know what their government is up to as established by the line in the order “Our democratic principles require that the American people be informed of the activities of their Government”.

The right to privacy is slowly being eroded in America by government officials that feel they are outside the law. No one in America, from the President down to the lowliest American is outside our laws. THis is a fundamental principle that the founding fathers specifically addressed in our Constitution. We have cameras being placed in the public all over the country, which no one even under the Freedom Of Information Act can gain access to in order to understand how the video is used.

In closing, is America moving towards the state that existed when Russia was our enemy? Is our government slowly becoming the ‘new’ KGB of this era? Let’s hope not. We, as a people, will have to guard against this. How can we the people do this? That is the question we must all focus on and find answers to.

This is a case that hits extremely close to home considering I’m a disabled veteran myself. According to a story ran in the Buffalo News a fellow disabled veteran named James Raymond, age 26, is being redeployed to Iraq even though he is currently classified a disabled veteran with a Service Connected rating of 10% due to loss of hearing in his left ear, and a knee injury. James at first thought it was a joke according to the story, stating “I thought it was a joke, and then I was shocked!” James is a 26 year old former US Army Specialist who was discharged in September 2004 and placed in the Inactive Ready Reserve (IRR) The US Army told him that “your name goes into a big computer in St. Louis, and unless World War III breaks out, your name is never going to be called.” Now, James is expected to report for training May 18 at Fort Benning, GA (quote from the Bufaflo News story written by Maki Becker). The Inactive Ready Reserve is a program the military has that places troops in a Reserve ‘unit’ that can be called upon for up to 8 years to return to active service.

I have no problem with the IRR program as I was in it. It’s a good program meant to augment Active Duty, National Guard, and Reserve units during a time of war. However, if a trooper has a disability rating given by the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA), then how can that trooper be considered fit for duty and to return to active service?

This is an Honorably Discharged disabled veteran who has no hearing in his left ear and a knee that required surgery, which was why he was from the US Army. Now, they are trying to call him back to active duty. This is a veteran who has all ready served his country honorably and should now be able to continue his civilian life without fear of returning to Active Duty to fight in Iraq. Has America stretched itself so thin with it’s current troop deployments that they are scraping the barrel for more troops? When is enough enough for returning veterans? When can veterans feel safe that they have done enough for this country, paid for it with injuries, and are now trying to reacclimate themselves to civilian life?

I truly hope that this is not a precursor to a National Draft being enacted. Haven’t enough troopers paid with their lives for a war that never should have taken place? According to General David H. Petraeus, who commands the Multi-National Force-Iraq, there was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to the war other than Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was not operating in Iraq, but was directing forces in Aghanistan. Al Quada and the Taliban were operating in Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan, not in Iraq.

This article truly upsets me because not only does it mean that American forces are being depleted to the point the IRR has to be dragnetted for more troops, but more so because it now means that returning veterans, even those discharged from their respective service, are not safe from being returned to the fight regardless of their level of injuries. Do not get me wrong, I’m positive (almost) that the American military will not call upon soldiers who have lost multiple limbs, however none of us are sure of what the cutoff will be for ‘too disabled to return to service’. The American public has all ready seen or read of cases where previously deployed, Honorably Discharged troopers have been returned to active service to fight again. However, this case is different. This case is about an Honoerably Discharged disabled veteran certified by the Department of Veterans Affairs to be disabled being reactivated for service in Iraq!

It’s bad enough that over 170,000 soldiers are deployed in a country that had nothing to do with the utterly reprehensable September 11, 2001 attack, where I lost my uncle, on America. (All the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon or Egypt, but none were from Iraq.) It’s even worse that the American military is involving both National Guard and Reserve units in this fight, in addition to Active Duty assets, depleting available assets for Homeland defense as well as State level national disaster response units! Now we’re sending disabled veterans from a pool of soldiers that no longer train at all? Where is this all leading? Again I ask, “When is enough enough?” What do you say to this?

One of the items that worries me these days is that American soldiers are being put in danger by the fact that our government is not working freely with the local militias, which in turn gives them space in which to hurt more soldiers.

Think of it this way, you have a group that has been fighting you tooth and nail, killing your troops, and using the local government as a shield from retaliatory strikes. Now, you need to work with this group in order to stem the tide of destruction which is plaguing the region.

How do you accomplish this mission? Realize that, due to the history between our country and the Iraqis, we have created much of the mess that our troops now find themselves in the middle of trying to fix. I may be off, and I’m certainly willing to entertain the notion, however, are we not further causing the problems because we can not tie the local government down to a commitment to either reign in the local combatants, or utilize the units we helped train to either remove them or pin them to a locality where they can do no harm?

I understand the dynamics of the war are neither simple nor short termed. However, we have a definite need to hold the local government to a commitment of non aggression. Until this is accomplished our troops are going to be in constant danger. When does enough become enough? When do we hold people responsible for their actions as government officials? When do we as a country state, in no uncertain terms, that we wish peace? The question then becomes how do we accomplish this? We must get to a point where our troops are not seen as an occupying force but one that wants true and honest change for the better and thus become seen as vehicles to that end. Will someone please show me where my thinking is wrong? Will someone please show me, in truth, where such a line of thinking can only fail? I look forward to comments on this post, and as always, for future postings.