A matter of uncommon decencyon September 24, 2020Few elections can be cast as resting on a single issue. But no matter whether voters support the president or the former vice president, one issue stands above the others. It is decency. Whatever one thinks about Joe Biden, he is a thoroughly decent man. Even former Defense Secretary Robert Gates who savaged Biden in […]
AMERICA IN CRISIS AND DO WE KNOW IT?on September 16, 2020At home, the California and the Pacific Northwest are overwhelmed by a once in a century forest fires. The CoronaVirus/Covid-19 Pandemic is almost certainly going to worsen as colder weather and the flu season approach. The economy is still fragile and protests and violence persist over racial injustices. And the 2020 presidential election appears to […]
Are 1914, 1939 or 2000 relevant today?on September 10, 2020This week marks nineteen years since the attacks of September 11th destroyed New York City’s Twin Towers and a portion of the Pentagon killing three thousand Americans. Despite possessing an extraordinarily complex national security organization and infrastructure with 1.5 million active duty military personnel and spent hundreds of billions of dollars on intelligence over the […]
THE UNCIVIL WARon September 1, 2020Over the past two weeks, both the Democratic and Republican presidential nominating conventions became Fort Sumpters with both parties firing broadsides at the other, opening what could be America’s most uncivil political war in history. Democrats called Donald Trump the most dangerous president in modern times; unfit for holding office; and incapable of knowing or […]
JANUARY 20th, 2021on August 27, 2020With the Democratic Nominating Convention over and Republicans having one day left, barring some extraordinary event, either incumbents Donald Trump and Mike Pence or challengers Joseph R. Biden and Kamala Harris will be the nation’s next president and vice president. Thus, it is not too early to consider how the next administration will cope with […]
What Biden must do if electedon August 19, 2020This week’s news in American will be dominated by the first time ever virtual Democratic and Republican nominating conventions that will choose Joe Biden and Donald Trump as the two presidential candidates. But fallout over last week’s electric stories about the UAE-Israeli agreement for mutual recognition and the contested Belarus re-election of Alexander Lukashenko, after […]
Guns and other events of Auguston August 13, 2020August marks the anniversary of four events that reverberated throughout the last century with tectonic consequences. The first was the start of World War I in 1914. The second was the bombing of Japan with two nuclear weapons. Third was the Tonkin Gulf incident of 1964 that cemented America’s long entrapment in the quagmire called […]
Thirty years ago Saddam invaded Kuwaiton August 6, 2020This week marks the thirtieth anniversary of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. That attack galvanized the George H.W. Bush administration to create an overwhelming international coalition to support Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm to eject Saddam Hussein from his ill-gotten gains. A retrospective look at Shield/Storm is applicable to the current National […]
From Vietnam to virus: why can’t we win?on July 29, 2020In Anatomy of Failure: Why America Loses Every War It Starts, the title was the book’s argument. Since the end of World War II, despite claiming it had the greatest military in the world, America’s record in using force was far from distinguished. Korea was at best a draw. Vietnam was an ignominious defeat. America […]
USS Bonhomme Richard: an American metaphor?on July 22, 2020As USS Bonhomme Richard, an 844 foot long, 40,000 ton amphibious assault warship, lay smoldering alongside a pier at Naval Station San Diego, the scene could be a striking metaphor for America today: a great ship in extremis. It is obvious that America is in grave trouble riven by a pandemic; an economic implosion; massive […]