And Another Thing

As opposed to my often long-winded posts, I thought I'd do something a bit easier to swallow. I'm tired and have been writing almost non-stop this week on a screenplay and a rewrite of a book.

The nuclear arms deal this week by President Obama & Russian President Medvedev is a nice step in the right direction. Call me cynical, but while a draw-down by 1/3 of each country's stockpiles is an impressive change, still having nearly 1500 nuclear weapons does not exactly put any fears I may have to rest. They are still around, some are still unaccounted for, and that amount is still enough to insure mutually assured destruction about eleven times over. So- it's a good start- but I'm not going to jump up and cheer.

Meanwhile, as Obama signals he aims for "peace" the various news sources in this country are hopping on the Bachman & Palin band-wagon and giving them voice as they spread lies about what Ronald Reagan (it's here that I would like to be able to insert a beatific picture) "would have done." Well, he called for a draw down by 1/3 of nuclear weapons too. And really? Let's be rational on this. He still has 1500 nuclear weapons- if some attack were to be perpetrated on US soil, I'm pretty sure (I'm no expert-but), he would have enough fire power in his arsenal to retaliate. So- cut the crap. There's no rationale to the argument, so I do not feel the need to dissect it any further. The USA still spends more than the next five countries combined on its military, we still have a great deal of nuclear weapons, that is not a "weak" position.

Could I just point out one other thing? While Obama signs this nuclear arms deal- we still have 100,000 soldiers in Iraq- a war that we should have never waged. We are currently building up our forces in Afghanistan, a country that was so horrific to invade and occupy that both Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great avoided. We cannot and will not ever win their hearts and minds. We're an occupying force- NO ONE likes foreigners taking control of their country and staying there. How would any American like it if a Chinese Division were sitting in downtown Los Angeles building hospitals and shooting up the place? They would not.

We seem to have forgotten that we're at war. It's war that has cost us over a trillion dollars. We could have insured everyone in this country and then some for that money. We could have rebuilt all of our decrepit roads, built high-speed rails, and improved our school system. We should be talking about this war- we should be talking about the bad things that happened, we should be trying to pull our troops out, we should be having SOME kind of dialogue about it. This IS another factor in why we are quickly bankrupting ourselves. Yes, the economy is in the toilet, but we need to be discussing all the various factors that brought us there so that we do not make the same mistakes again. The banks did their fair share, but going to war without raising taxes and simply running up a higher deficit and debt- you really think that has nothing to do with our fiscal situation now?