Fighting Wars: In It to Win It!!!!!

Sometimes you just can't make this stuff up. What is Obama doing now? While tripping the light fantastic in Brazil, he all of a sudden decides to move against Libya while spewing excuse after excuse for what he was doing, and ready to cede American leadership to anyone else but us. His message is all over the place, with no stated goals other than to get out quickly???? It’s the policy of the country that Qaddafi must go…but that is not the mission of the air attacks…and it will be turned over to NATO, no…France, no….a coalition based in Italy, no… the Brits. What is this guy doing? He even refuses to call it a war. 'Tis a Kinetic Military Action.

In all seriousness, he is running a war in Afghanistan that he considers a “just” war with no end game. He is still bogged down in Iraq with no end game even though the press won't talk about it. And now all of a sudden he has gotten religion and has attacked Libya with no stated goals and no plan as to who is actually in charge of the operation, all the while telling the world we really don’t want to be there to support of Libyan “rebels” we know nothing about. Therein lays the danger of having an ideological academic in the White House. Only a law school professor could come up with something like this.

I don’t necessarily fault what he is doing. Unfortunately, he should have done it three weeks ago when it probably could have done some good. But the complete chaos of the operation is indefensible.

War is a serious thing. People die. Our boys die. People from the opposing side die. Civilians die. People suffer. Their property is destroyed. What I am seeing in Libya is the culmination of bad war policy started with Harry Truman in Korea, expanded by Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in Vietnam, carried on by Bush I in the first Iraq war when he refused to move into Iraq after chasing Saddam out of Kuwait, and repeated by Bush II and Obama in what is tantamount to a war of attrition in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, tin dictators like Qaddafi in Libya and Kim Jung Il in North Korea and the ayatollahs in Iran continue to wreck havoc on the world with impunity.

Here’s Mark’s rule. Get in it to win it, or don't get in it. If you are going to fight a war, go fight it to win it with no limits. I saw Qaddafi standing in his compound on a balcony addressing the nation on television. How about sending one of those smart cruise missiles in to wipe him out once and for all? He is dangerous. He will continue to do harm to people even if he is forced to leave the country. He has already killed thousands of people, and blew a plane up over Scotland. How many people have to die while he lives in plain sight?

Truman stopped Patton from marching to Moscow. We got the cold war and an expensive arms race and several hot wars to accompany the cold war killing at least 60,000 Americans. Truman fired MacArthur…we got North Korea and China killing millions of its own people. Johnson and Nixon fought a defensive war to benefit a corrupt South Vietnamese government. We got 40,000 dead American soldiers, a communist Laos, and Pol Pot in Thailand killing tens of thousands of people in his re-education camps. Jimmy Carter pussy footed with Iran…we got the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and just look at what happened from 9/11 to what is going on today. How many people have to die because of American half hearted wars. Go in and win, or don’t go in at all.

Obama is playing a dangerous game with ramifications that will affect not only the immediate future in the Mideast, but also the future of America’s leadership role in the world. After apologizing for all of America’s misdeeds, it’s amusing to watch Obama attempt to justify these actions into his ideological framework….except people are dying. I hope he knows what he is doing.

Michelle from Impanema

Okay. Let me understand this. Japan is on the verge of a nuclear meltdown just after the most devastating earthquake in its history and a tsunami that has killed tens of thousands of people. Libya, home of Qaddafi, Guadaffi, Quadafi…daffy…, the dictator who ordered a plane full of innocent people shot out of the sky over Scotland, is now terrorizing its citizens by mowing them down with bombs and machine guns from airplanes. Civil war has broken out in Bahrain, home of a massive United States military installation. It is a proxy war with Iran on one side and Saudi Arabia on the other. That's comforting. The stock market is plunging. And the price of food has just had its biggest increase since 1974…and those of us who were alive back then remember what that was like.

And where is Barack? Playing golf…filling in NCAA brackets on ESPN…giving speeches on equal pay for women…and about to take his family for a weekend in Rio. Maybe Michelle is the Girl from Ipanema!!

What is this guy doing? People are dead or dying in Japan and the Mideast under terrible circumstances. Show some respect. Show some leadership. Does the President live in the same world I live in?

Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her frustration over the disengagement of the Obama. Obama let a possible revolution in Iran wither on the vine as he turned his back on those who were marching in the streets of Tehran. Now he was going to let some more die on the streets of Tripoli…and miss an opportunity to depose a horrible dictator.

The people of Japan are experiencing tragedy beyond belief, and face the real danger of a nuclear reactor meltdown. What words of encouragement did he have for them? Maybe he couldn’t do anything about it directly…but for God’s sake, at least look concerned. True to form, Obama is an iceman, apparently void of feelings, empathy, and/or the ability at least to pretend that he has any of the above. The media made fun of Reagan, Clinton and Bush as often being “mourners in chief.” Sometime some decorum is exactly what is needed. Michelle and two little darlin’s frolicking on the beaches of Rio while the Prez takes in a fast 18 is not decorum. Now is not the time for this type of behavior.

Obama has used the White House as his family’s personal travel agency with lots and lots of expensive vacations. Only the best for his family while the country wallows in economic malaise on the verge of the long predicted stagflation. His callous disengagement is so outrageous it is beyond comprehension.

I know that Brazil is one of the BRIC nations and important to the United States as a trading partner. It is a major player on the world economic stage, and ordinarily this trip would be necessary in every sense. But to play golf all week while Japan radiates and the Mideast flagellates, then take his wife and kids to frolic on Copacabana Beach is an outrage, and an embarrassment to the United States.

Shame on Barack Obama. How much more do we have to endure?

Tressel-ized

I have written before about NCAA big time college football. What a joke. Maybe one of these days I will research some statistics as to what happens to those young men who shoot for the NFL moon and fail. How many find jobs? How many end up in jail? How many actually use their degree if they get a degree?

This past week, Ohio State coach and Youngstown hero Jim Tressel was called on the carpet for violation of NCAA rules relating to the age old question: “what did he know and when did he know it” vis-a-vis his players who exchanged championship rings and autographs for tattoos and other sundry stuff. Tressel, true to form, said he was acting to protect his kids. OK, we will go with that. But there does seem to be a trend with players who don’t want to follow the rules.

Tressel was apparently made aware of his players indiscretions last April when a Columbus lawyer emailed him that his two star players had inadvertently fallen into a Federal drug investigation aimed at the tattoo guy. The players were collateral damage to the main event. Tressel failed to notify the NCAA per rule 3.4.6.7.999.2(a)(b)Section 2345 at paragraph 254 sub-paragaph (j). More importantly, when asked about it last September by his Ohio State superiors, he denied any knowledge...and it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!

So now Coach will be sitting out the first couple of games in the fall with his suspended players. He is not allowed into the stadium so I assume he will be watching the game at the Varsity Club with the rest of the hoy ploy. Let’s not forget the $250,000.00 fine…there goes last year's Michigan win bonus. Easy come! Easy go!

And those are just the Ohio State penalties. The NCAA has yet to complete its investigation, and given that Ohio State never seems to be a favorite among the BCS set…I expect them to recommend life without parole. Maybe Obama or Kasich could give him a pardon!

Here’s the thing. I don’t blame Tressel one bit. He is a good guy, and faces pressures that are beyond the imagination of any of us. In all seriousness, the only job worse than being coach at Ohio State, Michigan or Notre Dame would be President of the United States…and then it would be a toss-up. Tressel knows, and so do we, that this “trinkets for tattoos” exchange is penny-ante stuff in the scheme of NCAA/BCS football

There's the real racket. Hundreds of millions of dollars is generated from the sweat of these kids who are playing their hearts out for a chance at the NFL gold ring that the vast majority will never achieve. Meantime, the schools give them “scholarships” in exchange for owning them for four years. Any business man will tell you that’s a hell of an exchange. The education the schools give these kids cost the schools….nothing...not one dime. And the money that is generated is almost limitless. And while the players are let into the candy store, they are told not to touch. The NCAA should be ashamed. The NFL should be ashamed. The television networks should be ashamed. The universities should be ashamed.

So if Tressel wanted to look the other way to protect these guys, or even to protect the integrity of the team for his own purposes, so be it. It’s time the NFL and the NCAA sit down and work out something so that these kids get some cash for their efforts in what is a de-facto farm system for NFL football players. There is no pretense of amateurism left in big time college football, and everybody knows it. Just as the Olympics had to rightfully redefine “amateur” status of its participants, the NCAA at the BCS level should do the same. Enough is enough!!!

In Ohio: The Times They Are a Changin'!

I have received numerous comments relating to my essay two weeks ago on the public employee unions and specifically Ohio Senate Bill 5. It is certainly one of the more emotional issues facing the citizens of Ohio, and indeed the nation, today. I don’t know about police and firemen unions. So I will confine my comments to teachers.

Let me start by saying I have had two very bad experiences with teacher unions. A friend of mine reminded of the 1981 Boardman teachers strike in which teachers actually went to jail. It was mean and nasty, and like my friend, changed my view of teachers. For those of you sports minded readers, it was Bernie Kosar’s senior year as Boardman’s quarterback, and most of the season was cancelled. The union knew how to hit when it hurt.

The second experience occurred when my wife was illegally rif’d from her job (Reduction in Force). The OEA for reasons I won’t go into now, refused to pursue the RIF. More importantly, it refused my wife the right to pursue the RIF individually, stating that the grievance belonged to the union collectively and not to her personally. There was a lot of nasty stuff going on between the union and the school board, and it was unclear if the OEA was representing the school board or its union members. When the local teachers finally wised up as to what was going on, they switched from the Ohio Education Association to the Ohio Federation of Teachers, and the OFT sued the OEA for the right to pursue the grievance on my wife’s behalf; won and filed the grievance. Unfortunately, five years had passed, and the arbiter ruled that although my wife would have won on the merits, too much time had passed between the incident and the filing of the grievance.

I have watched school boards sell teachers down the river for coaches. I have watched unions sell its members down the river for early retirement buyouts for union officers. It is a dirty business on both sides.

But I know one thing. If the tenure requirements are nixed by Ohio, school hiring and firing will become totally political, merits and performance standards be damned. Employment of teachers will be determined by three things: can they eliminate a higher paid teacher for a lesser paid teacher; what does the teacher coach; and who does the teacher know. Here is a hypothetical:

Linda has been a math teacher in the Blossom School System for 20 years. She has never called in sick. She gets good reviews from students and parents. Her class proficiency scores are above average. Her salary is $50,000.00/year. Briana is also a math teacher in the system, and has been there for two years. Her salary is $35,000.00/year. She is the cheerleading coach, and has decided to be “friends” with all of her students. Her class proficiency test scores are also above average, but not near as high as Linda’s. Briana has also been named teacher of the year because she is such a sweet little thing, flirts with all of the men, and does all that gosh darn cheerleading stuff. Blossom School System faces a money crisis. Under the existing system, Linda keeps her job and Briana is laid off because of tenure. Under the system as will exist is House Bill 5 passes, which teacher do you think the school system will let go? Do you think that’s fair?

Education is the bulwark of the American economic system. One thing I think we all can agree upon is that there have been, and there continues to be, abuses of the system on both sides. While Senate Bill 5 may address who gets to do what to whom…it doesn’t address the problems that are facing the schools and are the root of our education failures. All it does is swap one set of problems for another, and I guarantee you that you will not like this new set of problems.

At the end of the day, the problems with our schools are socio-economic and systemic. The state should address the union abuses on their own merits, addressing them one by one and imposing solutions. The teacher unions should get off of their high horses and understand that the days of shutting down education for raises and accumulated sick days are over.

As the song says: They times, they are a changin’.