Nation: NPR reports that the Army told “representatives from the Department of Veterans Affairs not to help disabled soldiers at Fort Drum Army base with their military disability paperwork last year.” Why? According to the report, “Army officials saw soldiers from Fort Drum getting higher disability ratings with the VA’s help than soldiers from other bases. The Army told the VA to stop helping Fort Drum soldiers describe their army injuries, and the VA did as it was told.” Reminds me of that line from “God Bless the Child”: “You can help yourself, but don’t take too much.”
World: Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf said Monday that terrorism in the UK was homegrown, not an import from his nation, The Guardian reports. Musharraf said that his country has a five-point plan that targets homegrown terrorism. It includes “curbing the propagation of extremism in mosques; restricting the publication of extremist literature; banning extremist organisations; stopping the teaching of militant Islam in schools; and bringing madrasas (religious schools) into the mainstream.”
World: Agence France-Presse (via spacewar.com) reports that Iran is warning of “serious consequences” if the United Nations passes a resolution of new sanctions for it refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
Election 2008: The Hill reports one of John Edwards senior campaign officials is hinting that the former senator is expecting a brokered convention in Denver and that he’s viewing himself as holding the key (make that needed delegates) that could sway the nomination to Clinton or Obama.
World: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is facing questions about what his country is doing with detainees in Afghanistan, The Toronto Star reports. “Harper cited national security as the reason for his government’s refusal to answer questions like: Where are they? Who has them? How many are there? How many have disappeared? How many are actually enemy combatants, and how many are civilians accused of helping the Taliban?” Hmm, sound familiar?
O P I N I O N
A coronation in Washington on Monday stole the thunder from President Bush’s final State of the Union address.Three Kennedys — Sen. Ted, Rep. Patrick and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg — vowed their fealty to the presidential campaign of Sen Barack Obama in front of an auditorium at American University filled with exuberant students.
The symbolism of the setting might have been lost on the young students. During a commencement address at American University on June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy talked about the importance of maintaining world peace.
JFK said that day, “What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.”
Pax Americana, of course, is the dark direction the neocons have tried to drag this nation toward. It is an agressive concept embraced by the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Cheney. Senator Obama, of course, rejected their plan for the war in Iraq and this setting emphasized subliminally Obama’s change from the old “new order” while taking a symbolic swipe at Sen. Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton for questioning Obama’s record on Iraq.
JFK also said that day “let us not be blind to our differences — but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved.” Again, a recurring theme in Obama’s campaign is bridging the gulf between red and blue states with thoughts of what we have in common. The Kennedys obviously wanted to highlight the parallels between Obama and JFK.
Toward the end of his speech that day in 1963, JFK said ” The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war.”
Sigh… remember what it was like to live in a world without neocons?
♣ Nation/world news tally in my local paper today: 1 3/5 pages
◊ Quit tally: As a new feature that will be updated from time to time, here is the tally of people who have quit the newsroom of my local paper in the past three months: 5
Feed me 5 Under the Radar
