Melvin Laird on Afghanistan

A transcript from “CBS NEWS’ FACE THE NATION” on Sunday August 16, 2010.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Finally today, I came to Washington in 1969 during the Nixon administration. My first beat was the Pentagon and the secretary of defense was former Republican Congressman Melvin Laird, who I came to believe, was, with the possible exception of Lyndon Johnson, the best politician I ever knew, certainly one of the wisest.

Mel and I became life-long friends. He’s well into his 80s now, but he’s sharp as ever and he’s worried. Worried about the all-volunteer Army that he helped to create. And worried about where we’re going in Afghanistan.

In a letter last week, he said the volunteer force has far exceeded his expectations, but that “we are asking much of it now and the multiple deployments and disregard for the personal and family life of our troops and their emotional well-being threaten to undermine our national security.”

Afghanistan worries him even more. He first went there in 1953 and he says: “Its culture is tribal, not nationalistic, yet we hope to build a nation there. We fought eight years and lost a thousand Americans, yet we are no closer today to stability, let alone victory.”

Laird remembers how bad intelligence and misunderstanding led us to Vietnam and he wonders now if we have made the same mistakes again. “I know something,” he says, “about misguided wars and how easy it is to get mired down in something that started with the best intentions.”

Mel Laird’s opinion is one view, and there are others. But Mel Laird has seen a lot and if he’s worried, I guess so am I. Back in a minute.

What do the Polls Say Today?

Americans want a leader of conviction. That would be a president who has a clear vision of where he wants to take the nation. George W. Bush was such a man. I disagreed with him on so many things but I did know what his views were. He was “the decider.”

Unfortunately Barack Obama is wishy-washy. The war in Afghanistan is a “war of necessity” except we will begin to withdraw in July 2011.

The question of building a Muslim mosque near the World Trade Center site was answered on Friday, August 13, 2010 by the president when he said, “Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country.” This quote was taken from President Obama’s remarks for Friday night’s iftar dinner at the White House.

However, on Saturday, August 14, 2010 White House spokesman Bill Burton released the following statement on behalf of Obama’s stance on constructing the mosque. “Just to be clear, the president is not backing off in any way from the comments he made last night. It is not his role as president to pass judgment on every local project. But it is his responsibility to stand up for the constitutional principle of religious freedom and equal treatment for all Americans. What he said last night, and reaffirmed today, is that If a church, a synagogue or a Hindu temple can be built on a site, you simply cannot deny that right to those who want to build a mosque.”

The polls indicate that 64% of the nation oppose building a mosque near the WTC.

Los Angeles Times Framework

Notice the new link. Los Angeles Times photographers to offer some fabulous photos.

“It’s the economy, Stupid”

The words of James Carville, campaign advisor to when Bill Clinton in 1992. It has always been about the economy. President Obama decided to focus on health care rather than the most pressing issue in the past two years. I want to be an optimist but the numbers are not promising. There is nothing on the horizon to indicate that this recession will be ending soon.

Maybe this is a good thing because everyone in America has been coming to grips with their credit card and car payment debt. Listen to Dave Ramsey on any morning and you realize how utterly foolish Americans have been about managing their money. Visa, Master Card and the rest of them may be hurting but perhaps Americans are starting to grow up. I include myself.

This graph tells the story of the on going unemployment picture. New claims for unemployment finally dropped below 500,000 in the week ending November 21, 2009. The weekly new claims has swayed between 427,000 and 496,000 since then. Last week claims climbed for four weeks in row to 484,000. I doubt that the Republicans can do any better than the Democrats in ending this disaster.

Click on the graph to get a better view.

Women Living Under Sharia Law

The cover of the Aug. 9 issue of Time Magazine shows a photo of Aisha, an 18-year-old Afghan woman whose nose and ears were cut off in 2009 under orders from a local Taliban commander as punishment for fleeing her husband’s home. (Jodi Bieber, Institute for Time Magaizne/AP)

There are no words that can explain this atrocity. I was happy to learn that this young woman will be treated at the Grossman Burn Center in Los Angeles. We can’t protect the entire world. We can’t even protect our own citizens from violence. It is obvious that the culture of Afghanistan is totally different from the West. What we consider evil they consider correct. Armies will not change their beliefs. I do not know how to change their views of the world.

Desperate stakes for women under Sharia

Washington Examiner Editorial

August 10, 2010

It is impossible to view Time magazine’s cover photograph of Aisha, an 18-year-old Afghan girl whose nose and ears were severed by her husband and brother-in-law on the order of a Taliban commander, without shuddering in recoil. Her “crime” was nothing more than fleeing the hellish home of in-laws who had beaten and enslaved her. That Aisha’s only recourse in the face of such abuse was to run and hide is testimony to the reality that, in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world that Sharia law prevails, women are at best second-class citizens. Sharia is the vehicle by which the most oppressive tenets of extreme Islamic religion become the civil law of any society on which it is imposed. In many such places, daily life for women and girls remains today much as it was a millennium ago — the unrelieved tedium, oppression and drudgery of chattel.

It would thus be a terrible mistake to dismiss Aisha as a nightmarish exception to the rule. As Examiner columnist Diana West noted Sunday, “similar scenarios play out beyond the wilds of the Taliban zone wherever Sharia culture flowers, an expanding zone that now includes urban centers of the Western world from Berlin to London to Atlanta to Calgary.” Mutilations like Aisha’s are far from the worst that can happen to women under Sharia law; the United Nations estimates that at least 5,000 women are murdered every year in “honor killings” by Muslim family members aggrieved by a wife or daughter thought to have disgraced her kin. As Fox News’ recent reporting has made clear, such crimes happen in America, too, and will likely become more frequent occurrences as Muslims here demand, as their co-adherents already are in Britain and on the continent, that they be allowed to live under Sharia separate from the established civil law.

Forced to Retire, Some Take Social Security Early

In an AP article “Paul Skidmore’s office is shuttered, his job gone, his 18-month job search fruitless and his unemployment benefits exhausted. So at 63, he plans to file this week for Social Security benefits, three years earlier than planned.” “Like Skidmore, 63-year-old Jan Gissel of Tustin, Calif., also was forced into retirement early. She turned to unemployment benefits when her technical support business failed and filed for Social Security last September. Together, the checks are keeping her afloat.”

I can relate to their situations. It was three months until my 65^th birthday when my employer sold out to a competitor. I received a very modest severance package and they extended my health insurance, employer paid, until my birthday. I applied for unemployment insurance. The official date for my social security would not occur until age 65 years and four months. You are allowed to apply for Social Security up to four months prior to your first benefit check. So I applied for that option. However I continued to search for a job. After all, living on Social Security alone would be a shock to most people.

Congressman John Boehner, appearing on Meet the Press, hinted about extending eligibility for Social Security to age 70. If you find yourself unemployed at age 60 or later you will not easily find employment except as a greeter at Wal-Mart.

MR. GREGORY: And so you favor raising the retirement age?

REP. BOEHNER: David, there are a lot of options about how you solve this, but I don’t want to get the cart before the horse. I think it’s important to have this conversation. It’s going to be a difficult conversation, but it’s time to have it and it’s time to come up with some solutions that are done in a bipartisan way to help address these problems.

Todd Purdum in Vanity Fair

Quoted on today’s Meet the Press

“The modern presidency–Barack Obama’s presidency–has become a job of such gargantuan size, speed, and complexity as to be all but unrecognizable to most of the previous chief executives. The sheer growth of the federal government, the paralysis of Congress, the systemic corruption brought on by lobbying, the trivialization of the `news'” by the “media have made today’s Washington a depressing and dysfunctional place. They have shaped and at times hobbled the presidency itself.”

Fareed Zakaria Returns ADL Award

(Aug. 7) — The Anti-Defamation League said it is “stunned” that Newsweek columnist and CNN host Fareed Zakaria is returning an award from the group in protest of its stance over the planned mosque near ground zero in New York City.

Zakaria returned the award, saying that the ADL’s calls for the project to be relocated compromised its mission to fight discrimination.

“I am not only saddened but stunned and somewhat speechless by your decision,” ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman said in a letter on the group’s website. “I would have expected you to reach out to me before coming to judgment.”

The planned expansion of an Islamic community center, including a mosque, a few blocks from the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has led to bitter debate. Families of the victims say the center would be an insult to the memory of the dead, while figures such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg stated that forcing its relocation would be an un-American act of intolerance.

The ADL took a more nuanced position. It said that the project’s leaders had the right to go ahead with the project as they saw fit. Still, the ADL argued that the center should be moved out of sensitivity towards the raw feelings of those affected by the World Trade Center terrorist attacks, which killed more than 2,700 people.

“We are ever mindful of the tragedy which befell our nation there, the pain we all still feel,” the ADL said last month. “We believe the City of New York would be better served if an alternative location could be found.”

Zakaria said this stance betrayed the ADL’s principles. He applauded the Islamic center as an example of moderate Islam that is compatible with American ideals.

The 46-year-old returned the Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize that the ADL awarded him in 2005, along with the $10,000 prize that went with it.

“What is at stake here is the integrity of the ADL and its fidelity to its mission,” Zakaria said in a letter to the group. “This decision will haunt the ADL for years if not decades to come.”

Still, the ADL isn’t giving up hope on Zakaria. Foxman said that the journalist would be free to renounce his position with no hard feelings.

“I am holding on to your award and check in hope that you will come to see that ADL acted appropriately and you will want to reclaim them,” said Foxman in the letter . (Aug. 7) — The Anti-Defamation League said it is “stunned” that Newsweek columnist and CNN host Fareed Zakaria is returning an award from the group in protest of its stance over the planned mosque near ground zero in New York City.

Zakaria returned the award, saying that the ADL’s calls for the project to be relocated compromised its mission to fight discrimination.

Zakaria said this stance betrayed the ADL’s principles. He applauded the Islamic center as an example of moderate Islam that is compatible with American ideals.

The 46-year-old returned the Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize that the ADL awarded him in 2005, along with the $10,000 prize that went with it.

Still, the ADL isn’t giving up hope on Zakaria. Foxman said that the journalist would be free to renounce his position with no hard feelings.

“I am holding on to your award and check in hope that you will come to see that ADL acted appropriately and you will want to reclaim them,” said Foxman in the letter .

Growth Through Global Investing

This Morningstar article is indicative of the amount that Americans are investing in the rest of the world. Clearly the United States is not a leader. Our focus must be investing at home. Wait a minute, Businessweek reports that American corporation are sitting on $1.8 trillion.

By looking at the big picture and taking advantage of opportunities abroad, investors may experience higher returns than if they were invested solely in the United States. However, holding a diversified portfolio (both in U.S. and international markets) may be the best way to protect against global market fluctuations and risk.

This is for illustrative purposes only and not indicative of any investment. An investment cannot be made directly in an index. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. All returns were calculated in U.S. dollars. Returns and principal invested in stocks are not guaranteed. International investments involve special risks such as fluctuations in currency, foreign taxation, economic and political risks, and differences in accounting and financial standards.

Source: Equities for each country are represented by Morgan Stanley Capital International Indexes and the U.S. stock market by the Standard & Poor’s 500^®, which is an unmanaged group of securities and considered to be representative of the stock market in general. Developed countries in this analysis include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States.

Article reprinted with permission from Morningstar, Inc.

How the Rich Stay Rich

HP CEO forced to resign amid harassment claims

Mark Hurd has been the CEO of Hewlett-Packard Company since Carly Fiorina left that job in 2005. He was asked to resign as a consequence of either sexual harassment charges or some other internal misbehavior.

It has been reported that Mr. Hurd will get a $12.2 million severance payment, and nearly 350,000 shares of HP stock worth about $16 million at Friday’s closing price, plus an extension of options to buy up to 775,000 HP shares. Clearly he will never have to work another day in his life. Even at 4% interest the $12.2 million will provide him with an income of $488,000 per year. At a 39% income tax rate and allowing for no deductions he will have a net $200,000 per year for living expenses.

Under current law he could also sell those $16 million in shares as needed and everything above the current price would be taxed as capital gains. That is a rate of 15%. The rest of us who earn a living by working would pay our taxes at a higher rate.

This is what the GOP wants to perpetuate. I am sure members of the GOP can justify this situation. I just do not know how they will do it.