President John F. Kennedy.

Where did it all go wrong?

For as long as most Americans can remember, we have viewed our government through a cynical and jaundiced eye. We always seem ready to believe the worst about our elected officials and rarely prepared to give them proper credit for the things they stand for or against. It seems that this attitude has persisted for several reasons, not the least of which is the "culture war" that began in the 1960s and persists on a lower-profile basis today. I have been reading history, and it seems to me that the decline in American stature and national pride began with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. For evidence, go to the website Youtube.com and view Kennedy's inaugural address. Witness the ambition and boldness of Kennedy's ideas, and the challenge he lays out for "a new generation of Americans." He believed that poverty could and should be eradicated, that racial harmony was not only possible but essential, that a man should be landed on the moon within ten years. These days, we consider ourselves lucky if an elected official or sports hero or celebrity doesn't wind up in prison, and this man was laying out an agenda that was not only ambitious, but truly courageous in its scope. And it wasn't just his speeches - after all, many politicians are blessed with the gift of eloquence. Once he was elected, Kennedy began doing the exact things he had promised. He stood down Nikita Kruschev during the Cuban missile crisis, a profile in courage. He forced Governor George Wallace of Alabama to admit black students to the state university, making desegregation a fact as well as a Supreme Court decision. He refused to commit more than the absolute minimum of American advisors to Vietnam. Kennedy was a liberal in the best sense of the word, believing in a helping hand but not a handout, a step up while not stepping on others. Who has there been for us since Kennedy was brutally murdered by a coward named Oswald? Lyndon Johnson, his successor, buried us up to the neck in Vietnam and then bailed out. Richard Nixon got us in deeper yet, committed burglary, and then quit. Gerald Ford let Nixon off in return for his Presidency, further embittering America. Jimmy Carter allowed Iran to humiliate us and imprison our people. Reagan practiced the kind of conservatism that runs up massive budget defecits and impoverishes the inner cities. Bush Senior was Reagan lite, though he did show courage and forethought in driving out Saddam Hussein and refusing to go all the way to Baghdad. Bill Clinton possessed Kennedy's rhetorical gifts, but refused to control his sexual appetites, and Bush the Younger used 9/11 as an excuse to force democracy on a country that wasn't ready for it and didn't want it. Since the killings of John and Robert Kennedy, America's presidents have never approached the same level of courage and fortitude. They have either been seriously flawed or outright incompetent, and some of them (Nixon) have been crooks. While Kennedy's behavior was not always perfect, the way he inspired people and encouraged them to stand for what they believed in was the gold standard for an American president. Barack Obama has been trying to sell himself as a new Kennedy, pledging to bring back something called "hope." Lets hope he can succeed. Click here to visit the Kennedy Presidential Library's official website.

Paul Bremer, former head of Iraq's Coalition Provisional Authority. Bremer gave American contractors the right to take home all their profits tax free, with minimal oversight, thereby encouraging corruption.

Death of a Contractor: Playing Fast and Loose in Iraq

The March 8 issue of Rolling Stone magazine has an investigative article I urge you to seek out at your local newsstand or library called "Death of a Contractor." It relates the story of Ryan Manelick, who went to Iraq looking for purpose and direction in life as a contractor for Ultra Services, which provided food and supplies for American servicemen and women. He signed on to work for a man named John Dawkins, an agressive and charismatic entrepreneur who had gone broke trying to make it in America. Neither Manelick nor Dawkins were tremendous successes in life, and both had a chip on their shoulder. Before long, Manelick was sending e-mails complaining about not being paid, claiming that Dawkins was treating him badly and was an incompetent manager. Then he began dreaming up plans of leaving the company and starting his own. There was nothing in Manelick's background suggesting he was competent to do so, but it seriously annoyed Dawkins, who believed that Manelick was immature and childish. He knew that Manelick could cause problems for him by taking his contacts and dragging his name through the dirt. At the time, Dawkins had enough problems with contracts he couldn't fulfill and his bosses suspecting him of playing fast and loose with their money. Then, Charles Phillips and Kirk Von Ackermann, Dawkins' business partners, proposed splitting the company and setting up shop in opposition to Dawkins. Surprisingly, Dawkins seemed to have no objection to this. Shortly afterward, however, Von Ackermann disappeared. It seemed at first that he had been kidnapped, but no ransom demand was forthcoming. There was an investigation, but Von Ackermann was never found. Not long afterward, the Army's Criminal Investigative Division began investigating Ultra Services for fraud. It was believed at the time that John Dawkins had bribed an American officer in return for government contracts. Ryan Manelick began to be afraid at this point, believing that Dawkins had Von Ackermann killed to pay him back for blowing the whistle on Dawkins' corruption. Phillips still wanted Dawkins out of Ultra Services, but he needed someone to take over for him in the day-to-day management of the company. Ryan Manelick was tabbed for the job, and he was initially triumphant, writing gloating e-mails back home to his father about how he had stolen the company out from under Dawkins. Manelick and Phillips went to CID headquarters in Tikrit to tell investigators that they believed Dawkins had Von Ackermann killed. Dawkins arrived as they were leaving the base, and Charles Phillips spoke contemptuously to Dawkins while Ryan Manelick looked on, grinning. On Sunday, December 4th, 2003, Ryan Manelick pulled out of Camp Anaconda, a U.S. Army base forty-five miles to the north of Baghdad, after checking on some trailers that Ultra Services provided. On the way, his Hyundai was ambushed by unknown attackers. Ryan Manelick was dead on the scene. The case of Ryan Manelick's murder is still open to this day, and a cloud of suspicion hangs over John Dawkins for the killings of both Manelick and Von Ackermann. One thing that doesn't fit: Von Ackermann's Ultra Services ID badge was found in Dawkins' possession, and a scan of the badge was on Dawkins' laptop computer, dated one day after Von Ackermann had disappeared. You can draw your own conclusions about John Dawkins' guilt or innocence, but having read this article in Rolling Stone, all I can think to myself is: Aren't we supposed to be the good guys? See related article.

What's changed in 30 years? Not much.

While trying to think of an original way of approaching this weeks blog entry, I found an old book at my local library. It was in the bargain bin for sixty cents, and it was called "Sez Who? Sez Me." It is a collection of the legendary Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko's Chicago Sun-Times articles dating back to the Vietnam era. Royko was a fierce intellect, and I envy anyone who can talk so boldly about the way things ought to be and keep from losing his common touch. Anyway, an article that caught my eye was called "A Faceless Man's Plea," and it related the sad tale of Leroy Bailey, a young man who had just turned 21 years old when a Vietnamese rocket tore through the roof of his tent and mangled his face to the point where it simply didn't exist anymore. When Royko wrote about him in 1973, he was living in his brother's basement in La Grange, knitting wool hats and listening to a tape player. He wanted to be able to eat solid food again, which he had been unable to do even after three years of operations under the auspices of the Veteran's Administration. A plastic surgeon by the name of Dr. Janda believed that he could fix Leroy's face to the point that he could eat solid food, but it would take six separate operations, all of which the VA would have to pay for. According to the VA, however, they would not pay because "the treatment was for a condition other than your service-related disability." A North Vietnamese rocket exploded in his face, and now he has no face, and they claimed it was not "service related?" In the end, Leroy Bailey was able to get payment from the VA, but it's doubtful that anything would have been different without Royko's help. Royko wrote a follow-up column detailing the various levels of VA bureaucracy and buck-passing and behind-covering that anyone familiar with government agencies knows about. (When I said we needed big government, I didn't mean wasteful, slow government - just one that stretches far enough and wide enough to protect most Americans.) Now that a new Vietnam is upon us, and more American troops are being maimed than ever before, and post-traumatic stress is becoming a real problem again, what has changed? Nothing. The surgeon general of the Army has been forced to resign, and Bob Dole has been appointed to investigate the VA, but nothing has really changed since the inception of the Veteran's Administration. Fifty years of Presidents and Congresses have had a chance to do real work to overhaul the system and do right by our troops, and none of them have even taken a shot at it. And this is not just their fault. Those Presidents and Congresses were doing work that was important, just not the work of fixing the Veterans Administration. At the end of the Vietnam War, we as Americans were sick of thinking about it, sick of talking about it. We just wanted to forget the whole thing, and we refused to hold our government accountable for what happened to the kids in uniform who didn't walk away unscathed. And if we're not careful, the New Vietnam will cause us to do the same thing. We will be so relieved that it's all over with that we will forget about those who need us, and we will not demand proper treatment of our wounded Veterans. If we are truly Americans, and if we really love our troops the way we say we do, we will demand that this President and all future Presidents make overhauling the Veteran's Administration a priority, now and until the job is completed. There are too many Leroy Baileys as it is. See related article.

L to R: Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

A Different Approach to Iran

With the positioning of an American aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, and President Bush ratcheting up his accusations of Iranian complicity in the war in Iraq, the world has turned its attention to Iraq's eastern neighbor. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly refused demands from the world community, led by the United States, to shut down his nuclear program, which he claims is for peaceful purposes. It is difficult to square this claim with his recent disgraceful hosting of a Holocaust denial conference, featuring such losers as the American neo-nazi David Duke. It is an even worse sign that Ahmadinejad has claimed that Israel should be "wiped off the map." But what if these signs are not as serious as they seem? Even the most hawkish doomsayers admit that Iran is still years away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon, and if it does, how many of us really believe that President Ahmadinejad would use it on Israel or America? Suppose that Tel Aviv, or God forbid, New York went up in a mushroom cloud tomorrow, and Iran was identified as the responsible party. Wouldn't Israel and America strike back with Minuteman nuclear-tipped missles at the heart of Iran, and wipe that country off the map? Could Iran's president possibly not know this? Is it possible that he is utterly mad, and just doesn't care? I don't think so. I think he is crazy like the proverbial fox, and is using anti-Jewish prejudice and his nuclear ambitions to provoke other world leaders while rallying his people behind him. He is not Hitler - just a tinpot little Caesar like his friend Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, another worldwide provocateur who bashes America to pump up his own image. In my opinion, what needs to be done to send a message to Iran is simply this: Tell Ahmadinejad that he can have all the nuclear weapons he wants, since we probably won't be able to invade his country to stop him, and airstrikes will likely not work either. But if he gives even the slightest hint of using them, well.....in that case we will have no choice but to preemptively strike. I think it will end up like this anyway, once all the diplomatic huffing and puffing die down (if it ever does.) Iran will make the big announcement of their nuclear capabilities, and we will draw the line in the sand: use the weapon at your own peril. I'm willing to bet that in the end, President Ahmadinejad, or one of his successors, will blink first.
See related article.