Ed: A Modern Crusade?

02/12/2007

Paul Munnis


This Week With George Stephanopoulos featured the Gov. of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, a GOP right wing neo-con and a new GOP presidential candidate. Actually he is more than that. He is also a Southern Baptist minister and religious fundamentalist claiming that we are in the midst of WWIII, that it’s a new Crusade and that God has sent him to lead us to victory over Islam. He is the Governor of Arkansas and like Rudi Guiliani he claims that because he had to make decisions that it qualifies him to be President of the United States.

Yup, another GOP nut wants to take over America and use our military to embed us in war. These nut cases are coming out of the woodwork like termites that infect a wood fence.

It’s time to get real on the “War on Terror.” Most terrorism is the result of fundamentalism of one type or another and although it may not present that way it is really the product of political ambition wherein people want to acquire power for control over wealth. Thus “terrorism” will always be with us and it is the reason that we hire police - to police our society and to keep us safe from these domestic nut cases. When the nut cases are foreign then we sometimes need to use our military to contain them.

We are not in WWIII although it is evident that Mr. Bush has done much to try to immerse us in such. We are in perpetual battle with power mongers and people who are social conspirators and that genre includes Mr. Bush and the neo-cons. By being a “War President” it confers an excuse to raid our national treasury, violate our laws, and usurp non-Constitutional power and we are witness to those very things.

As we look abroad just look at North Korea - there we have a leader who can only keep power by opposing America. He needs a boogeyman to rail against to justify his existence. He has bankrupted his nation and his people are starving to death and he is developing and selling nukes to obtain foreign cash reserves. That is happening after his attempts at U.S. currency forgery have failed.

Consider Iran and their leaders who use fundamentalist religion combined with anti-Americanism as their excuse for grabbing power and who are trying to wrestle control over Iranian government using nuclear blackmail and all that for personal wealth and power.

Consider Argentina where Chevez needs to use anti-Americanism as a foil for his election and for his neo-Communist ambition. He is appointing himsself the King of Argentina - another term for dictator

Consider Iraq where the hidden political agenda is oil and oil and more oil wrapped in religious sectarianism. Share power? Create a Unity Government? Cut every citizen in on the oil revenue? Allow women to share in the stash? No way.

And so the list goes on from one power-monger to another.

The solution isn’t to nuke everyone that you disagree with but rather to formulate a foreign policy that is designed to build moats against foreign power mongers and to use diplomacy to control the drawbridges. We need a method that insulates America from those who would seize control of America for personal gain. That includes politicians who would seek domestic office in order to gain control of our military and of our treasury.

I am starting to think that we need to look again at a check and balance system that assures that our military will not be misused for political power by either Congressional or Executive branches of government. Yet I know this means Constitutional change and I want careful study and debate on the effects of such change.

We need an Army. It must be a strong capable and well equipped Army that can carry out our foreign policy. Mr. Bush has worn out our Army.

We need a foreign policy that serves us well and we lack one right now. What Mr. Bush has provided is a failed foreign policy.

We need a system for containing domestic and foreign power mongers. It will include power sharing and oversight elements but the recent experience with Bush and the GOP neo-cons having total control of government leaves us both sober and introspective.

Somebody please show Mike Huckabee the door. We are engaged on a "War on Domestic Terror" and it is right at our own doorstep - its other name is: "politics."