CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FIVE: THE BUCK STOPS HERE

 CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FIVE: THE BUCK STOPS HERE

It’s Tuesday, November 17, 2015, and CNN and MSNBC are running their “Breaking News” about the terrorist attacks on Paris, Beirut and a Russian charter airplane flying from a resort in Egypt to Moscow. The “Breaking News” doesn’t change, so one sees and hears the same videos and talking heads that have been presented since Friday the 13^th. Brian Williams has revived his career somewhat by anchoring the “Breaking News” on MSNBC. You can watch this station, or CNN, or Fox News, once a week and you will not miss anything. News doesn’t “break” every minute, or even every hour or day. So most of what you get from these 24 hour “news” stations is “breaking opinions” from the same closed set of talking heads. Retired CIA managers are very popular, as is anyone in a military uniform, from the rank of lieutenant colonel on up.

And for some reason, these so-called news stations think that the candidates for President, especially the Republican ones, should be given air time to bloviate. Oh sure, Rudy Giuliani is wheeled out for every terrorist attack, but he’s being pushed aside by the much more strident Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump. Who cares what they think about this? And you don’t even hear what they really think about this – you get their campaign scripted statements, prepared for the 30 second sound bite. It’s foreign policy lite, or perhaps more accurately, lightweight. Please don’t let these guys, or Carson or Fiorino, or Christie, or Bush or Kasich anywhere near the White House.  No one asks Rand Paul about foreign policy on these stations, because he sounds like Bernie Sanders, opposed to war in almost all cases. Make no mistake, these news stations are all beating the war drums loudly, and there is no room for a dove in their studios.  When a reporter at a news conference with the President screams out “When are you going to get these bastards?” as his question, you know objectivity in the news is nonexistent.

Like 76% of the American public, I oppose sending troops to the Middle East. We have tried that and failed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unless we intend to annex Iraq as the 51^st State, our troops will eventually leave and the factions in Iraq will resume fighting their sectarian fights. Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds don’t like each other and we can’t make them forge a coalition government. Paul Bremer, the putative king of Iraq, anointed by George W. Bush, saw fit to disband the Iraqi Army, turning loose 250,000 officers and soldiers, many of whom sought employment with the up and coming army of ISIS. That order was issued on Bremer’s 2^nd day in Iraq. So yes, he was told to do it, but his claim that “I was just a cog in a machine”, the Eichmann defense, is not favored. Bottom line: ISIS got a huge boost from unemployed, disgruntled Iraqi soldiers who were trained to fight by none other than American “advisers”. You can look this up – it’s fact, not opinion.

This brings me to Harry S. Truman, our 33^rd President. On September 5 of this year I visited his Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri and renewed my interest in his decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan, soldiers and civilians alike, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945. A strong part of his justification was that the end of the war with Japan was not in sight, and the atomic bomb would take a lot of lives all at once, but it would save thousands of lives which would be lost in an unending war.  Historian Alonzo Hamby put it this way:

“One consideration weighed most heavily on Truman: the longer the war lasted, the more Americans killed… Truman, the old artilleryman who had seen war close-up, understood from his own experience the hopes and fears of … young combat officers dreaming of families and futures, just as he had a generation earlier. Their survival would be the ultimate vindication of his decision.”

Today no one sees an end to the war with ISIS. On the contrary, it is spreading its tentacles across northern Africa and Western Europe. Will ISIS pull off a “Pearl Harbor” somewhere in the United States? No one can rule this out. And if, God forbid, ISIS strikes on American soil, what will our response be? Will it include the use of “tactical” nuclear weapons? Hannah Arendt, a noted historian, said decades ago that the United States is most likely to use nuclear weapons in warfare, because we have already used them in WW II. You would think the horror of killing hundreds of thousands of people with one bomb would be a strong disincentive to ever using a nuclear weapon again. But apparently it works just the opposite – once a country’s leaders overcome the reluctance to use this weapon of mass destruction for the first time, the second time there is less reluctance. This is a corollary to the slippery slope syndrome. And numerous surveys of leaders in countries around the world agree that the United States is most likely to drop a nuclear bomb, despite the fact that we have seen the tragic consequences of using it.  

Has everyone seen the photos of the children running naked down the road after Hiroshima was hit by the atomic bomb (equal to 20,000 TONS of TNT), their clothing burned or melted off their bodies by the force of the bomb? President Truman must have seen them, because that was the ultimate restraint on his continuing to drop A bombs on Japan. According to a tablet entitled “The Atomic Bomb: A Chronology of Key Events” at the Truman Library and Museum, on August 10, 1945 “Truman tells his cabinet he has ordered a stop to the atomic bombings. As one cabinet member recalled: ‘He said the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible. He didn’t like the idea of killing, as he said, ‘all those kids.’’”

Can you even imagine how many kids have been killed in Syria and Iraq, and in Afghanistan? In a short war perhaps we would see front page headlines of the atrocities committed against innocent children. But in the long, unending wars we have entered since Bush I, we have become desensitized to the murder of children. “Collateral damage” is what they are called. True, some children have been radicalized into taking up arms against the Infidels at very young ages – and they are killed in uniform along with their older brothers, cousins and fathers. But most kids are in the wrong place at the wrong time, when the Western (and now Russian) bombs come raining down on them and when ISIS comes storming into their villages and cities. And we keep killing them. So the question is: Is it time to contemplate the use of so-called tactical nuclear weapons to kill thousands with one attack, in order to save the thousands of lives which will be lost in these unending wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan?  

Don’t get me wrong – I’m a pacifist, a dove. But Harry Truman got me thinking. Not that his decision to drop the A bomb – twice – was greeted as the best decision ever made by a president. Here is what a few of his many critics said:

“I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’…”  (General Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1963)

“Using atomic bombs against Japan is one of the greatest blunders of history. Both from a practical point of view… and from the point of view of our moral position. I went out of my way to prevent it but, as today’s papers show, without success.”  (Atomic scientist Leo Seilard, August 6, 1945, in letter to his wife)

“Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bomb had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.” (U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (Pacific War), 1946)

Of course, President Truman had some support for his decision as well. His Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, wrote as follows in 1947:

“My chief purpose was to end the war in victory with the least possible cost in the lives of the men in the armies which I had helped to raise….I believe that no man, in our position, and subject to our responsibilities, holding in his hands a weapon of such possibilities for accomplishing this purpose and saving those lives, could have failed to use it and afterwards looked his countrymen in the face.”

And at least one historian ended up sitting on the fence. Historian J. Samuel Walker wrote in 1997 the following:

“Was the bomb necessary? In view of the evidence now available, the answer is yes… and no. Yes, the bomb was necessary to end the war at the earliest possible moment. And yes, the bomb was necessary to save the lives of American troops, perhaps numbering in the several thousands. But no, the bomb was probably not necessary to win the war within a fairly short time without an invasion of Japan. And no, the bomb was not necessary to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of American troops."

The biggest surprise to me, given our history of dropping the A bomb, is that not one of the presidential candidates and not one of the news “journalists” has called for the use of nuclear weapons to bring the war against  ISIS to an end – NOW. Yes, a lot of countries have access to nuclear weapons these days, and some of them would not be hesitant to use them to retaliate or to win their own wars against longtime foes. (think Pakistan and India). Instead of calling for the A bomb, the most war mongering voices in our country shout for more “boots on the ground”, as though our American men and women in service were cheap fodder to feed into the war machine.

I don’t think that President Obama is likely to use any nuclear tactical weapons, whatever the provocation. And I respect him for his resolute position that we should not send thousands of American soldiers to their death in Syria and Iraq. Their lives mean something to him, and that is a great relief. On the other hand, if the new trade center in New York is destroyed, or the Pentagon, or the White House, and ISIS claims their jihadists did it, even President Obama could be motivated to stop the killing by using the weapons that kill the most people at once in a single attack. He may decide that “the buck stops here” and there will be no more terrorist attacks on his watch.  That is what makes these times so dangerous. We are on the defensive, not knowing where ISIS will strike next and fearing an assault that will take thousands of lives in one fell swoop. Next time you start to attack the current President for “not having a strategy” to destroy ISIS, stop yourself in your tracks and ask yourself: “Would I want the buck to stop at my desk?” I think not. Now more than ever is the time to unite behind the President and the generals who advise him, because they know more than any of us about the complexity of the situation. Cheer their reluctance to send our troops to slaughter in the desert. Root for the success of the talks to reach an end to the conflict in Syria. Praise their efforts to stimulate the Saudi Arabian military to join the war against ISIS. Don’t stop questioning the President about his decisions, but do so respectfully and give him your support when you clearly agree with him. We need to be united. Campaign rhetoric undermines our unity. Don’t get sucked into the vortex of negativity. Draw on that reservoir of American optimism to expect the best from our leaders. Finally, let’s conduct our discourse with civility, factual statements and humility.

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR: MOVING RIGHT ALONG

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR: MOVING RIGHT ALONG

I’m waterlogged. The Admiral has “suggested” that I swim every day. And at first I thought that was a bit excessive, but now I see the wisdom of it. The exercise is great, and the time in the water is usually relaxing while at the same time energizing. I still experience the phenomenon of having no nerve pain in my right leg while swimming. I have to pick my time to go to the pool, because sometimes it’s full of kids cannonballing everywhere. Other times there are gaggles of snowbirds clogging all the possible swim lanes. But many times I’m the only one in the pool, just swimming from one end to the other, over and over again. When I first enter the water, I think “okay, maybe five times back and forth”. But then I get started and completely lose track of the number of laps I’ve done. And I’m thinking “Well, maybe just one more” and then “okay, just one more after that”. It’s a wonderful feeling, being virtually weightless and gliding through the water under an autumn sun. Yesterday the pool water was actually warmer than the air – a first. The Admiral believes that my heart rate has returned to normal because of my regular exercise routine, which now includes a daily swim. It has been amazing in the past few weeks, going from a heart rate in the 90’s to a heart rate in the 60’s or 70’s.

I’m moving back to Slow Motion. I spent part of two days last week visiting the boat and figuring out logistics. True, I will have a trek to the hotel bathroom and shower, but getting back to boat life will be a relief after living in a room surrounded by drunks and uncontrolled kids on the weekends. I had no idea that motel living could be so noisy. And some of the loudest people are the folks hired to clean the rooms. This building is four stories, and the room cleaners are constantly shouting to one another from story to story, and even on the same floor. No one has a conversational voice amongst this group of workers – unless one’s idea of conversation is screaming near the top of one’s lungs. I almost forgot the loud hammering and power tool cacophony coming from the room above me. Lord knows what’s been going on up there for weeks. By now it should be “model” room. Fortunately, they stop work at night, when the drunken guests and their floor pounding kids take over. Suffice it to say, it will be quieter on Slow Motion. Hooray!

I haven’t read the Wright Brothers book yet, although everyone who has read it has recommended it to me. I am currently reading All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr. It’s a Pulitzer Prize winner. I was chary of taking it on, because I had seen a summary and thought “Oh God, not another gloomy World War II story.” But folks who have read it told me it’s not depressing at all. Well, sorry folks, your definition of “depressing” must be very different from mine, because I have read 300 pages so far, and this book is depressing. I didn’t expect the Nazi occupation of a French village on the water would be light and airy, especially when I knew that one of the protagonists is a young blind girl. To his credit, the author makes the life of young German boys and girls just as depressing as the life of the young French girl, even more depressing for the sensitive bird lover, Frederick. That’s enough – you’ll have to read the book yourself to learn any more. I hope and pray that the end will be uplifting somehow, but with the French girl’s father having been carted away to a “work camp” somewhere in Germany, I don’t expect that he will have a happy ending. Oops – that slipped out. Read it yourself. I have had to set it down after reading a few chapters, just to get out of the funk it puts me in. But you may want to read it from beginning to end without a break. I won’t say “Enjoy!” But don’t shy away from it. Despite its effect on me, I recommend it. The characters are very well developed, and the writing is excellent.

I’m still volunteering at the State Attorney Office. I have been given a 2008 murder case to review to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to convict. The suspect fled the area immediately after the murder. It is likely that he has returned to the country of his birth, and it is also likely that he can be found and returned to Florida, but we need to know, before going to that expense, what the realistic chance of conviction the State has. That’s always dicey, especially with no known eyewitness and with no known confession, but it’s a nice challenge for me to read all the reports and find out what evidence has been gathered and what evidence remains to be analyzed. I don’t know whether the investigators have stayed in touch with any of the witnesses, so I’ll have to find out what witnesses can still be located as well. “Cold” cases are always problematic. This isn’t “cold” in the traditional sense – the murder was solved, i.e., the alleged perpetrator was identified, immediately. But since he fled the jurisdiction, I suspect not much work has been done on the investigation, and the case gets “colder” as it sits in a file on someone’s desk for a number of years. The victim has surviving children, adult children, who are still interested in getting justice for their mother. But they aren’t picketing the State Attorney’s office demanding action. There are most likely hundreds of these murder cases throughout Florida, where there is an identified suspect who has fled the jurisdiction. Florida has a large transient population, mostly from the Caribbean islands and Central America. Building a wall across the border between Mexico and the United States will not stop their two way travels. Just as California relies on migrant workers to do most of the agricultural work and low paying restaurant and hotel jobs, Florida relies on migrant workers to work in the orange groves and on the sugar plantations, as well as to do all the menial jobs in the hospitality industry. Employers will continue to get them into the State on work visas, with or without a wall. And some of them, not a greater percentage than in the permanent population, will commit crimes, including murder. They just have faraway places to run to and hide which most American-born criminals do not have.

Enough about the putative migrant murderer. Back to moving on to the boat.  Two drawers are empty – only two more to go. And then there are the books, oh yes, the books – my personal library built up over the months. Fortunately, I have been re-gifting some of them, so we’re not at the Library of Congress level yet. But for some reason the heaviest tomes seem to stay with me. Don’t get me wrong. I have yet to read a book on an electronic device. I still like to hold a book in my hands and turn the paper pages. But some modern authors don’t know when to stop! A lot of new books are 700 or 800 pages long. Save the trees, please. Cronkite’s life is interesting, no doubt, but let’s get some better editing. And Stephen King, you’re responsible for whole forests being clear cut. As to O’Reilly and co-author, the next title in your “Killing” series should be “The Killing of Trees.” We have book shelves on the boat, so they won’t have to be stacked up on a chair, and the Admiral will hardly notice them, once they are behind the cabinet doors. That’s the difference between books and personal papers. The papers, even when boxed, always look like clutter, and clutter is the Admiral’s worst enemy. I have de-cluttered my life incredibly since the arrival of the Admiral in 2009, but I still have 10 times more clutter than he does. With each move, we each have less (except for what we stowed away in boxes in the two storage sheds in California and what we shipped to my sister, Sue.) I suspect, as does the Admiral that many of those boxes will be given away or thrown away, perhaps without even checking the contents. I know that no one else wants to sort through them, so the de-cluttering will continue. Can I have an “amen” for simplifying one’s life? Actually, that calls for an entire Hallelujah Chorus. And simplicity “shall reign forever and ever.” Amen.