Mr. President: do you really think we can afford these wars? 1 in 8 Americans is living on food stamps – N Y Times

The New York Times reports today that as of now, one in eight Americans is eating with the help of food stamps and one in four American children needs food stamps to stave off hunger.

Now let me ask you my fellow American veterans, in this context, does spending billions on wars for the sake of the mega-wealthy and their investments make sense to you? Me neither.

That article, Across U.S., Food Stamp Use Soars and Stigma Fades , pretty much says it all. Bring the troops and the money home now Mr. President. This has now reached the point of the ludicrous.

Yeah, lets keep on spending billions in wars that were started for the sake of the war industry captains and the emerging market speculators and the energy cartels’ caliphs. Lets keep taking working men’s tax money and spending it on wars that ensure an armed American presence in western and central Asia for the sake of our mega-wealthy oligarchs who have more money than there are stars. Lets just keep doing it because the GOP presently tells us it is the right thing to do and the Democrat in the White House seems to go along with this insanity.

What in the hell am I missing here?

In a related article, U.S. Will Push Mortgage Firms to Reduce More Loan Payments , we learn that despite a $75 billion dollar federal bailout to the banks in order to facilitate reducing mortgage payments to overextended home owners who are "under water" relative to their mortgage payments, very few Americans have actually gotten their mortgage payments renegotiated to a lower rate. Why am I not shocked?

In yet a third lead-off article in the Times today which shows how far we have regressed down the "liberty scale" entitled Afghans Detail Detention in ‘Black Jail’ at U.S. Base , we see that we still grab people off the street (or the mountainside or the valley or the sheep pasture) and intern them without representation or access to the International Red Cross.

These are the vicious Taliban that we fear so much.

Do you think these ultra-orthodox, super-fundamentalist, barely literate Islamist, Bronze Age sheepherders hate us because we represent an existential threat to their philosophical world view? Do you think we represent theological and political dynamic tension which threatens their core value system or do you think it just might be that they fight us because we have weapons and we are in their country?

What do you think?

Pakistan is unravelling before our eyes. If this does not stop immediately, if some miracle does not happen now, within three years jihadists all over the world will have access to a sophisticated and quite hefty nuclear arsenal. That is almost a "given" now.

In this article, Pakistan’s Leader, Under Pressure, Cedes Nuclear Office we learn that the President of Pakistan has stepped out of the nuclear weapons chain of command in favor of the more "military-friendly" Prime Minister. The armed forces in Pakistan is behind this without doubt.

This is much more dangerous than a quasi-nuclear Iran. This could drag the world into world war. If India, Pakistan’s traditional enemy, over-reacts to this danger we could very well see billions of people fried on television right before our eyes. We will not be unscathed if these two sub-continental enemies trade nuclear volleys. You can be sure of that.

Do you still think it is a good idea for us to be in western Asia while the entire place is perhaps two months away from an international version of a drug induced psychotic episode? What in the name of all that is reasonable have we thrown ourselves into?

Whose idea was it to take working class American kids and get them so heavily involved in this overseas nightmare for the benefit of wealthy Americans and their portfolios that now we are going to need a train-load of dynamite to blow our way out of this boulder strewn mountain pass?

Who got us into this mess and why did he do it?  That needs to be asked….and answered.

In this article entitled Russian Train Wreck Tied to Terrorist Bomb we learn that things are going from bad to worse relative to jihadist violence for the Russians. Do you think that their behavior in Chechnya has anything to do with this? Word to the wise.

Here is a story from Fort Polk in Louisiana entitled To Prepare for War, G.I.’s Get a Dress Rehearsal . How about we have a dress rehearsal for removing our troops and our money from this black hole of despair we have thrown ourselves into?

I am sorry. I just cannot help myself. I could not pass this up.

It is true that I am involved in Democratic Party politics here in Northern Virginia and as such, I try very hard to be as even handed as I can be on partisan political issues, but this is too good to pass up. You are just going to have to forgive me for this.

In this article South Carolina Rift Highlights Debate Over G.O.P. we learn the some South Carolina politicians in the GOP in that state do not feel that Senator Lindsey Graham is conservative enough to be called a Republican!

Graham has been censured by the Charleston County GOP for his stand along with Senator Kerry last month on climate change. Forgive me for chuckling, but this is sort of along the same lines as Berkely, California declaring itself a nuclear free zone, isn’t it? Lets take a look at this for a minute.

The State of South Carolina has a county GOP arm that is fuming. This county I am sure is having a food stamp explosion and a public education funding crisis along with all the other dozens of other unresolved social issues that were left over when the Dixie-crats left the Democratic Party and became Republicans under Reagan.

The GOP of Charleston County is fuming because Lindsey Graham is not conservative enough! Hmmm!

I wonder if Francisco Franco would be conservative enough for the GOP of Charleston County South Carolina? How about Vlad Dracul or maybe Herman Goering or even William Jennings Bryan?

Maybe they need something along the lines of a South Carolina version of the German-American Bund Movement down there in Dixieland to get things rolling along righteously again? Do you think any of those world views would jive with what is necessary to be considered a conservative down there in the Jerkwater, South Carolina area? Just asking.

If Lindsey Graham is not conservative enough for Charleston County South Carolina’s GOP I suggest that they start their own party and call themselves the Sons of Perdition Party. WTF!

Do you see what happens when you let Americans get detached from living in reality? One out of eight Americans is living off food stamps and I am quite sure that Charleston County South Carolina has its share of this problem and what does the County GOP decide to do? It decides to censure Lindsey Graham.

Now my brother and sister veterans, I need to tell you. This is American civic leadership like no other!

In an Op Ed piece by Thomas Friedman called America vs. The Narrative, we read that the America we live in is not anything like the America that the Muslim world is being told exists. The chasm between the two visions of America is so wide and so frightentingly dangerously different that an American born Army doctor accepted it lock, stock and barrel as real and apparently killed people over "the narrative".

This is an excellent article for anyone who wants to know briefly why we are hated by jihadists. The answer? They simply do not know us and don’t care to know us. They have their own version of who we are and will not be swayed from it.

In another Op Ed piece by Pankaj Mishra entitled India’s Eternal Crisis we learn that Indians live with a sense of eternal crisis which simply complicates matters for us, as well for anybody else dealing with them, relative to security matters.

And finally, in a piece that perhaps only Americans can understand, the couple who illegally invaded a White House dinner and were photographed with the President, want money to tell the story of their illegal intrusion! The story is entitled White House Intruders Want Money for Their Tale and speaks to the heart and soul of who we are…at our worst.

It is your civic duty as a citizen and as a veteran to participate in governing this republic. You cannot do that responsibly unless you have an informed opinion. Get informed and stay informed….oh and one last thing….email your congressman or congresswoman this week. Say anything, but say something.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)