Memorial Day musing...

Yeah, this will undoubtedly tick off a few folks who will first tell me I don't have the right to feel this way because I don't understand geo-politics, the big picture.

And maybe I'm just a little soft on the whole terrorism thing. Or maybe I just don't understand the political process.

Well, everyone needs a little justification to get through the day and the 25 percent of the nation that still beleives in Bush's plan for the Middle East – nation-building – and making the nation safe from terrorists need to beleive that everyone else is wrong or their own value system might take a tumble.

I did not serve in the military, but I grew up in a military family as my dad was a three-war, 26-year veteran of the Air Force.

My father never voted in an election while he was in the Air Force as he said his opinion was that folks in the armed services should be politically neutral.

I've wondered if he would have thought the same today.

Well, another point he would like to make is that it doesn't matter what a recruiter promised a person as they were signing up, it only mattered if a President and a Congress lived up to those promises.

The fate of the American military is not in the hands of their professional commanders, but is the responsibility of elected officials.

The president likes to call himself "the Decider," and has routinely criticized members of Congress who want the Iraq war over as people who want to "micro-manage" and "politicize" the conflict.

Apparently that is what Congress believes as well with the gutless and pointless deal they struck last week with The Decider over continued war funding.

The common reaction from many pundits is that the Democrats don't want to be seen as people who've cut funding from the troops a political weakness that might be exploited in future elections.

So American and innocent Iraqi lives are being put in jeopardy because some senator or representative is concerned about a smear ad back in the district.

There are many reasons to consider the cowardice of their actions. Let me give you 3,425 of them: the American dead as of May 23.

Here's 26,188 more reasons: the wounded who've come back home.

By the way, what The Decider hasn't decided to talk about is the wounded very much. More than 4,600 Iraq vets have suffered a severe head or brain injury. What is going to be the long-term costs of care for them?

The amputation rate in Iraq is nearly double that of other wars. More than 1,300 soldiers have lost a limb. What is the cost for their care?

If you want more statistics, log onto www.motherjones.com/iraq_for_dummies.

Don't these men and women, whose lives have been ended or altered forever, who have demonstrated the principles of honor and duty, shouldn't they expect the same kind of courage from members of Congress? It shouldn't be difficult for the House and Senate to show this kind of backbone because they are being backed up by a majority of the American people who sent a clear message during the last election that the war should end.

This war and now the Democrat's failure to take a stand are among the most shameful events in the history of this nation.

The blood of the dead is not longer just a stain on The Decider's hands. It is on every member of Congress who supported this "compromise."

© 2007 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

Here's a press release I received today. Interesting food for thought. I'll be curious to see how far this gets in the corporate owned press.

Bush Proposes Weakening of Federal Alternative Fuel Standards Today


Rose Garden appearance falsely portrays proposal as improving standards


In a Rose Garden appearance today, President Bush cynically portrayed his "20-in-10" alternative fuel standard as improving current federal fuel economy standards. In fact, the proposal is considerably weaker than current targets signed into law in 1992 by George Bush Sr.

“The president's policy is a retreat, not an advance. It would weaken existing federal targets for alternatives to petroleum fuel, not improve them,” said Julie Teel, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate, Air, Energy Program. “This shameful ploy proves that the president still doesn’t understand the dire consequences of global warming."

Reiterating the State of the Union address, today's speech will call for the replacement of 20% of U.S. gasoline consumption with alternative fuels by 2017 (i.e. "20-in-10”). This is much weaker than current federal targets established by the Energy Policy Act of 1992, which was developed in response to energy dependence issues raised by the first Gulf War. The 1992 law mandated the replacement of 10% of petroleum motor-fuel consumption with alternative fuels by the year 2000 and 30% by 2010. To attain this goal, the law first required a replacement of 75% of federally owned vehicles with alternative fuel vehicles by 1999. The Department of Energy was then required to determine if extension of the regulation to municipal and corporate fleets is necessary to meet the national 30% reduction target. If so, the Department is required to institute alternative fuel standards for municipal and corporate fleets.

The federal government violated the Energy Policy Act by not converting its own fleets to alternative fuel vehicles and not establishing a municipal and corporate standard when it was clear that federal action alone was insufficient. The Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth sued over these violations, winning one court order in 2002 and two more in 2006 requiring compliance with both aspects of the law.

In response, the federal government has increased the number of fuel efficient vehicles in its fleets. However, it has continued to refuse setting alternative fuel vehicle requirements for municipal and corporate fleets. Instead, on March 15, 2007, it issued a ruling which delayed the compliance date for a 30% reduction from 2010 to 2030. The rule is vigorously opposed by environmental groups and likely be challenged in court.

"The time for political games and pandering to opponents of meaningful alternative fuel requirements and greenhouse gas emissions caps is over," said Teel. Climate science shows that emissions must be reduced by 80% or more in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Reducing gasoline use is part of the solution, but to safeguard our children's future, we need rapid progress toward that goal, not a delay of twenty years."

Information on the Energy Policy Act and the Bush Administration’s refusal to implement it: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/programs/policy/energy/EPAct.html.

Information on the Bush Administration's decision to delay Energy Policy Act goals by 20 years: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/press/energy-policy-09-07-2006.html

© 2007 by Gordon Michael Dobbs