Introductory rant

Most people would rather die than think. In fact, they do.

-Bertram Russell

As I have aged I have become less interested in making "statements" and more interested in doing things efficiently that work; that is accomplish the task desired. I am not a Democrate or a Republican. I'm (as I often tell my friends) a weird mixture of Green and Libertarian. As I survey the political landscape particularly at the federal level I see our employees at all levels seemingly without a clue about how to do just that, produce legislation to accomplish a required tasks.

A couple of examples that are well known. Most people agree (even congress persons) that something must be done about the lack of a legal immigration system. Many people even understand the problem; that is a large number of low skilled individuals who are not being gainfully employed in their home countries are coming into the United States illegally to find work to support themselves and their families. Its also understood that employers in agro-business, construction and various kinds of manufacturing and production industries take advantage of this flow of low costs labor to run their businesses at the lowest possible costs. and this is understandable. The current shift of some of this thinking into some of the better paying areas of the economy has, in my opinion, led to the rise in the noise level.

The fact is that there is absolutely no enforcement of the law prohibiting the hiring of persons who can not demonstrate their legal right to work here. There is in fact no real desire to do so. This become obvious when you realize that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents must give advanced notice to companies prior to going to their businesses to inspect employee records. Rather than address this issue or perhaps the issue of good identification for citizens, we watched our "leaders" postering and holding press conferences using language such as "amnesty" or "racist" to demonize their opponents instead of compromising to get a product that would do the job; reduce the number of illegal immigrants (without jobs, most would go home, self deport) and provide a way to identify those with a right to work here legally (citizens and legal residences). Serious enforcement of the employer sanctions would definitely solve much of the problem and such enforcement would not have to be often just draconian in order to get the message across. What we got was nothing.

The other glaring example is the exciting war in Iraq. We're well past the discussion of how we got into the current fix. Frankly, the slide into total studipity started right after 9-11 when we allowed the fight against terrorist criminals to be defined as a "war". Its not, although the armed forces may be used as part of the effort. The effort in Afganistan was one such. Note, however, we couldn't admit that what we're doing in Afganistan was a conquest, pure and simple. When you conquer a country and destroy the government you assume responsibility for those people. Everything from the schools, roads and bridges to the sewers. You also finish the job, "accomplish the mission" as the military likes to say. We didn't.

Iraq is more of the same foolishness. Of course we could defeat the Iraqi army. We're the premier military force on this planet. The only real questions were how long it would take and how much it would costs in terms of money and lives on our side. Nobody in the government was thinking about the aftermath. That should have been the main point as we're now realizing.

The general who at a congressional hearing prior to the war stated in response to an inquiry that we would need 500,000 troops to garrison Iraq, has been proven right. A great comfort to him after his forced retirement, I'm sure. Instead of a realistic view of our resposibilities after removing the government we fantasized. Instead of planning for the worst and hoping for the best; we planned for the best and got the worst, in spades. and ... It all started with the looting of the Bagdad museums. Things spiralled downhill from there. When the criminals, Sadam loyalists, jihadists and anybody else with a grudge figured out that we were either unwilling or incapable of keeping order and establishing security, things fell apart.

Now we are in a situation where our troops are being killed at a steady rate, the general population is being murdered in unimaginable numbers and the political will to continue the obviously futile enterprise is disipating daily. Again, everyone knows if we run for the exits as we inevidibly will, the country will fall apart. We will leave a situation behind much worse than the one we knocked down.

Why? No serious questions prior to the war. No serious analysis of the situation on the ground. We did get a lot of name calling, pretentious posturing and mindless flag-waving. We should demand a lot more when we're sending people off to kill and be killed in our name. We should be pretty damn sure its the right and proper thing to do and that its worth the price in "blood and treasure" on both sides. Above all we should make every effort to DO IT RIGHT!!!!

Hopefully, we have learned that our leaders have to do more than just look and act 'presidential'. They have to function effectively. Indeed, we should demand that they do. Compromise is not a dirty word. Real debate is not unpatriotic.