6.15.14: Redrawing Iraq

The eighty-percent majority had thought that the father-in-law, Abu Bakr, should be the successor and leader, and some thought the cousin/son-in-law, Ali, is the rightful heir.  Sectarian violence blowing up the country of Iraq right now is an argument started back in 632 AD when the prophet Muhammad died.  This is the epic struggle and everlasting source of animosity between the majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shiite Muslims - 632 was the year this line was drawn.

America's goal was to have a democratic Iraq and Shiite Nori al-Maliki would be the first president to lead this pluralistic society, but what Mr. Maliki proceeded to do was  alienate and oppress minorities - Sunnis and Kurds - through the power of central government and resentment reached a boiling point.

And an opportunity presented itself.

Inspired by Al Qaeda, Sunnis fighting Assad in Syria joined with Sunnis in Iraq joined forces and formed ISIS - The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria - with the aspiration of creating their own fundamentalist state.  As Richard Engel noted at the beginning of the program, the map is being redrawn to what it looked like 100 years ago before the French and English created the state that is now the crumbling Iraq.


source: Washington Post


Make no mistake, it is a sectarian conflict and Sunni extremists are threatening to overtake Baghdad, but what's stopping them is the mildly surprising organization of Shiite Militias, not the Iraqi central government.

In political discourse, it's become the lazy American norm to lay blame without providing any real alternatives or solutions.  Who's to blame for this latest warring in terms of how it relates to the United States and its actions - President Obama or President Bush?  The Washington Post's David Ignatius explained that we left Iraq as carelessly as we entered so the answer is at this point doesn't matter whose to blame.

Mitt Romney, who has been critical of the President's foreign policy explained that timing was essential and that Mr. Obama didn't take advantage of that.  For example, Mr. Romney said, when Assad was on his heels in Syria, the Mr. Obama didn't 'act appropriately,' and should have armed the opposition to topple the dictator.  He didn't mention that the opposition to Mr. Assad is in fact ISIS.  Where Paul Wolfowitz and the New Yorker's Dexter Filkins cleaned that up somewhat by saying that the United States needs to find the more moderate forces in Syria who are fighting both the Assad regime and ISIS and cooperate with them. Good luck finding enough of those forces.

Meanwhile, the Kurds have taken the opportunity to control the northern city of Kirkuk and fifty-six percent of Iraq's oil revenue in the hopes of creating an autonomous Kurdish homeland.  If the U.S. was smart, that's where they should put their clandestine dollars because the Kurds have set up one of the most moderate states in the region.

Mr. Gregory asked Mr. Romney what the U.S. should be fighting for in the region and he asked saying that the United States should be fighting to preserve freedom and to guard against the region becoming an active hotbed for planning terrorist attacks against the United States.  Well, the 'preserving freedom' part is a rhetorically empty statement if actually assess what's happening on the ground, but the second part of making it a launching site for terrorist attacks against the U.S. does require attention.  If you are to believe David Ignatius, it's only a matter of time, if ISIS establishes real control of land in the region, before they start directing their attacks externally.  Obviously, that is the main concern for all involved in the discussion - particularly Congressman Peter King (R-NY) and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) who carelessly used biblical language when he said that the United States would bring a 'ring of fire' upon anyone who attacked Americans.

It's this later part that requires the U.S. to act, but after losing 4,477 U.S. soldiers, spending $1,7 trillion and finding out that the reason we went their in the first place was all false, the actions that the U.S. can take are very limited.  Boots on the ground isn't, and shouldn't, even be on the table.  However, there is no doubt that ISIS can not be allowed to annex more territory.

Senator Manchin said that he was open to the possibility of using air strikes against the Sunni extremists to stop them.  It's something to be considered, but know that it sets up the U.S. as a more immediate target for retaliation, even if the airstrikes are under the guise of a coalition.  However, it is a coalition that needs to be built - an overwhelming one because moderates have to prevail, and that requires the U.S., Russia, China, Turkey, England, France, et al. have to come together to make a decision.  How far are we going to let this go?

What we noticing is that there are a growing number of hot spots where a group of people want their own little purified states - Eastern Ukraine, the Congo, Syria and Iraq.  We're not seeing a coming together of people in the world, but a survival of the most violent coming about. Isolation and extremism is devolution.

***

One Last Note:

We didn't discuss the big domestic political happening of the week - House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) losing in the primary, but to give further illustration to the theme of exclusion in this column, we'll say this.  (And by no means are these two things on the same level of comparison.)  The Tea Party victory in Virginia was stride forward in advancing their principles, and Mr. Cantor was far too caught up in his own ambition, but to dismiss someone whose general view is the same, but now doesn't match a more narrower view is very troublesome and basically heads in the same direction as oppression, no matter how passive.  We think you get the rest of the point.

More about the politics of it all later in the week.


Round Table: David Ignatius, Washington Post Columnist, Rep. Peter King (R-NY), Dexter Filkins, New Yorker Staff Writer and fmr. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz

Round Table 2: Ruth Marcus, Washington Post Columnist, Fmr. Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN),

Ken Cuccinelli, President, Senate Conservatives Fund & former Virginia Attorney General and 

Steve Schmidt, GOP Strategist & Senior Adviser to John McCain’s 2008 Presidential Campaign

6.8.14: Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl & Bringing U.S. Soldiers Home

Meet The Press has been preempted today due to the French Open Men's Final, however we have something further to say in the midst of the growing complaints about the way in which the Obama Administration handled the return of Sgt. Bergdahl.

As has been a pattern with the Obama Administration, they did the right thing, getting our U.S. soldier out of imprisonment, but didn't communicate anything well to anyone else outside of it as to avoid a number of strong publicly-aired dissents from U.S. Senators on both sides of the aisle.

If the president has the authority to make this prison exchange, which he does, and briefed a Senate Select Committee on the issue then the administration wouldn't have typically underestimated the negative reaction from Congress. The president doesn't need to take their advice, but at least he he's informed about their view and Senators are in the know.

With all that said, we haven't changed our opinion from last week's column and we still think getting back Sgt. Bergdahl was right thing to do and if that was the best deal we could get then so be it.  And for those who say that we paid too high a price for a soldier who it seems deserted his post, which some people on our cable news have noted it as a crime punishable by death.

If this price was too high, should the United States discontinued the negotiations because it doesn't 'negotiate with terrorists.' (We clearly do.) It wasn't going to be a one-for-one trade, no way.  The Taliban has seen the Israelis release hundreds of Palestinians in exchange for a single soldier.  The U.S. has offered 7 for 1 deals in the past with millions in cash thrown in.  So the U.S. walks away which leaves the Taliban with no choice but to execute him.  Is that how it should have been handled?

However, Congress is not completely off the hook; they need to dial it back because now the FBI is investigating threats on the lives of Bowe Bergdahl's parents, because of the slander going on in the news media.  This is despicable beyond the pale.

If Sgt. Bergdahl did desert, we would speculate that he had some time to reflect on that decision in the last five years.  We think it's safe to say that 'regret' came into the picture.  Never mind the promise that our U.S. military makes to every member of the armed forces - we will not leave you behind, no matter what we will come and get you.

If one of our soldiers did something wrong, then he or she should be held responsible - we have no problem with that, but the bottom line is this:  We bring everybody back home, period, hard stop.

6.8.14: Our Soldiers - Recognized and Unrecognized (Reprinted & Updated from 5.26.13)

Since Meet The Press has gone dark this week, we thought we'd write a little note on the Memorial Day holiday to remind people that this is one of our most solemn and should be recognized as such.  In the most general of terms, we honor those soldiers that have given their lives in defense of this country.  For specific indicators we've listed the number of deaths for all of the United States' major wars since its founding.

American Revolutionary War:  25,000
War of 1812:  15,000
Mexican-American War:  13,283
U.S. Civil War:  625,000
Spanish-American War:  2,446
Philippine-American War:  4,196
World War I:  116,516
World War II:  405,399
Korean War:  36,516          
Vietnam War:  58,209
The Gulf War:  294
Afghanistan:  2,031
Iraq War:  4,487

Total: 1,308,377

While keeping those numbers in mind (and those are just the major conflicts), we'd like to focus on the last two wars, one of which as we all know is still going on, and the soldier fatalities that are not being honored, the deaths unrecognized.  We conducted a quick search and came across an article on Forbes.com that reported on a study that said 22 Iraq-Afghanistan veterans commit suicide every day in this country.  Over the course of one year, that is 8,030 soldiers, more than who have died overseas.

President Obama stated this week that the United States has to take itself off of a perpetual war footing, and we would agree as it ultimately dishonors the memories of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.  For our most recent veterans, this tragic epidemic that for them even though they are not on military footing, the war is perpetual. 

We as a country need to recognize this unspeakably horrible circumstance and put what ever resources we have to work to stop this epidemic from continuing so that we can honor more of our Iraq-Afghan vets' service, instead of their memories.


June 2014 Update
Of the 2.5 million men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, 700,000 have been determined to be disabled.  Whether physically or mentally, it some way 28 percent of our veterans have been crippled by our nation's longest period of combat - more than one in four.

There should be no Congressional squabbling about increasing the budget for veteran's affairs; it is the cost and the moral duty that the United States has to bear.

Think about this: Since we wrote this column last year, there's no evidence that suicide rate for veterans has changed - still 22 a day.  That's another 8,030 lives taken by these wars.  As tragically sad as that is, we also have to realize that the United States chose this legacy.

Let that sink in for a minute.

6.1.14: General Managers and No Easy Answers

So many questions and ambiguities arose from the topics covered on today's Meet The Press that it makes answering the one question - what is the 'right' thing to do - an antique, a relic of history that only seemed at home when the discussion of the 70th anniversary of D-Day came up.

Even with regard to the resignation of Eric Shinseki as Secretary of Veterans Affairs has been met with mixed reactions, but we'll try to cut through some of the clutter and that's where we'll start.  As Paul Rieckhoff said, there needs to be a complete house cleaning and if you agree with that statement then Gen. Shinseki needed to step down.  The consolation for Mr. Rieckhoff, IAVA Founder and Executive Director and all of us really, is that the general didn't step down too soon.  The anger at the administration and the embarrassment brought to the American people reached a necessary boiling point to the degree that hopefully, now, we'll see some real reform to the V.A.

Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) used the word 'shocking' to describe what was going on at veterans' hospitals. It's the correct word, but frankly we're not shocked.  If you've ever listened to a single interview that Mr. Rieckhoff has ever given, but only believed 10 percent of what he said, you'd still know that there is definitely something wrong at the VA in terms of soldiers getting care.

We were disappointed in Rep. Kinzinger's answer that he didn't necessarily feel more funding for the VA is necessary.  He and his Republican colleagues are making a miscalculation there as is the Obama Administration.  The VA most certainly needs additional funding and instead of increasing the defense budget as Congressman Paul Ryan has outlined, put that increase toward the VA - the war that has come home.  Also, the Obama Administration has miscalculated on its budget projections based on savings from winding down two wars.  Though the sums are not equivalent, the VA's budget right now is about $160 billion, but it should be about $250 billion at least for the next five years to put everything on track - that's where much of that savings should go, and the first step was for a weak general manager to step down.

Speaking of general managers, is this 5 for 1 trade a good one?  Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in his interview characterized it as a prisoner of war exchange. However, the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were never classified as such, 'enemy combatants' instead, which is one reason for so much international outrage. And in asking the question the way we did, we seem callous to the fact that an American soldier has been in captivity for 5 years, but that's not the case nor the point.  If these people that we freed are as dangerous as government personnel say - high risk - then how do we know these top-tier Taliban won't cause harm to more Americans.  We don't because, as we know from sports, the effect of a trade isn't always felt immediately.  NBC National Security Correspondent Michael Leiter called it an exclamation point to the winding down of the war in Afghanistan. We wouldn't go that far, but it is a clear indicator, no doubt.

Mr. Gregory had a lot of questions for Secretary about the investigation as to what happened; how  Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was captured in the first place.  Representative Linzinger phrased in terms of abandoning a post, but that's speculation at this point.  Mr. Hagel prudently didn't take the bait in trying to answer any of those questions, instead focusing on the man's health and safe return.

So even not knowing how it's going to pan out, do you make that trade?  If you're the United States, yes. We get our man back and rest assured that, though politically it doesn't seem smart, those 5 men will be tracked closely.  And considering that Guantanamo itself is the larger problem that we desperately need to put in the past.  


Round Table: Chuck Todd, NBC News Political Director & Chief White House Correspondent;

Rana Forhoohar, TIME Assistant Managing Editor; Fmr. Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA;

Newt Gingrich, Fmr. Republican Presidential Candidate & House Speaker (GA)

5.18.14: Politically Damaging Our Brains

Let's start by putting one of the latter topics of today's program up front withthe Veteran's Affairs controversy where for example veterans in Phoenix have been on waiting lists for so long that 40 have died before they could receive treatment, followed by a cover-up by the administrators.

This should have been the lead topic today as this controversy should outrage all Americans. In the discussion it seemed that everyone agreed that General Eric Shinseki is a fine man and distinguished himself in the military, but despite that is ill-equipped to fix the problem.  On the surface, we like Representative Adam Kinzinger's (R-IL) idea that if there isn't a VA hospital within a designated proximity, then that veteran should be able to go to a private doctor and then bill the VA.  We would go one step further and not put any proximity restrictions on that decision.  Let veterans go to private doctors for check-ups and basic treatment but then also keep the VA hospitals well-funded to accommodate veterans in need of more advanced, intense care.

Washington politicians have made it a habit of going into wars then later cutting and running and that's not just cutting and running from the country where the conflict took place, but that includes the abandonment of the returned soldiers who fought in the conflict. 

VA accommodations and eligibility should actually be put in place for the soldier before he or she even arrives home.  The military easily determines how long they need a soldier for duty, but they can not seem to just as easily determine how long the veteran needs them.  Veteran and author Wes Moore said that these problems have been going on for a decade or so, that this is nothing new.  No, actually, these problems have been this bad for the past 40 years.

And the reason for this inadequate despicable treatment of veterans continues is because they have no big-money interest group lobbying politicians, just non-profit veterans organizations, which allows tax dollars to be wasted on subsidies and tax cuts instead of where it is very much needed.  There is no more sense of the right priorities and perspective in Washington anymore.

And case in point, is today's first guest Chairman of the Republican National Committee Reince Preibus who helps sew the seeds of unfounded claims but then backs off when confronted with a direct question.  For example, Mr. Preibus implied that former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton was responsible for over 200 girls being kidnapped in Nigeria because the group responsible, Boko Haram, wasn't placed on a terrorist watch list soon enough.   And if the group had been placed on the list sooner, would that have stopped them? 

We would agree, however, with Mr. Preibus that health is 'fair game,' as he put it, when considering someone for the presidency, but age shouldn't be a factor.  If the candidate's health history has been strong and the person is healthy now, then age is a non-factor.  But Mr. Preibus gives these kinds of interviews and always comes off as a spineless political hack because when Mr. Gregory directed asked him if Hilary Clinton had brain damage as Karl Rove said earlier in the week, his answer was, "Well, I'm not a doctor." A lame dodge.

We're not picking on Mr. Preibus because he's a Republican, but because he's part of the problem.  Just as Harry Reid saying on the floor of the Senate that the Koch brothers are un-American is counterproductive.  Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said statements like that made her uncomfortable, another way of saying that she wouldn't have said that, but she mentioned the more relevant problem of too much secret money in our political system.  You don't have to wonder why Washington's approval ratings are in the toilet when it is Washington politicians and partisan Supreme Court decisions that perpetuate secrecy.  But since it benefits Republicans more, who are in control of these decisions, then it's all right.  This is Mr. Preibus' reasoning. 

Mr. Preibus also kept mentioning this 'terrible' month Hillary Clinton just had, and if more were to come like it, he postulated that Mrs. Clinton shouldn't even run for the office.  Really, this was a bad month?  We follow all this stuff and we don't even know what he talking about!  All these 'troubles' that Mr. Preibus is referring to come from a warped political echo chamber that doesn't translate to the greater electorate in the slightest.  As Chuck Todd mentioned during the round table discussion, the Republicans' best bet for 2016 is to somehow make the conditions [read: attacks] so bad that it persuades Mrs. Clinton not to become a candidate.

If Mr. Preibus and other Republican operatives think that attacks such as this will factor in to Mrs. Clinton's decision on whether to run for president of the United States or not, then in their damaged thinking they've really underestimated her, and by extension already have lost the race.


Round Table: NBC's Chuck Todd, New York Times' Carolyn Ryan, former Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Dr. Ben Carson

A couple of after notes:

1. If today's performance was any indicator, Dr. Ben Carson is a serious political lightweight who should definitely not be taken seriously.  And by the way, the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, is NOT the worst thing to happen to this country since slavery. To equate the two in any way is shameful.

2. How bad does the Meet The Press web site suck that you can not quickly get a simple list of who appeared on this week's program.  We like to get people's names and titles correct, but in no way can we easily use the MTP site to get that information.  We subscribe to the newsletter, but it doesn't go out every week.  Unbelievable.

3. Lastly, Mr. Gregory said Meet The Press wouldn't be airing next week due to NBC's coverage of Formula One racing.  Never mind that you just discussed veterans' issues and mentioned programming next week, but didn't bother to say anything about Memorial Day and the veterans it honors.  Neglect.