My Life Be Like…

When I opened up my internet browser today the top story was about how eight marines were charged with murder of the Hathida Killings that occurred in Iraq. Since our assignment was to write about current issues, I thought that this would be fitting.

As I said above, eight marines were charged for the Hathida Killings. These killings occurred after a marine was killed by a bomb in Hathida, apparently causing those marines to massacre two dozen civilians there in response to the death of their friend. In their defense thier attorney’s said:

their clients were doing what they had been trained to do: responding to a perceived threat with legitimate force.

Now, I know that this looks like a horrible thing, that these marines killed all of those innocent civilians, but first of all, we don’t even know if the marines did indeed kill them or not, and there is also another big issue that we are forgetting here. It is nearly impossible to separate the friend from the enemy in Iraq. Because like in Vietnam, there is no set enemy, they are not wearing uniforms, carrying guns, and riding around in tanks. The enemy looks just like you and I, dressed in civilian clothes, going about thier business during the day, and killing our soldiers at night. So, in the defense of the soldiers, they were just doing their best to respond to that threat, which is so hard to do in this instancce because they did not know who they should have been responding to.

Here, take a look for yourself at this article. Included are some interesting pictures that go along with this story. It is definately worth looking at!

Sarah Writes:

The situation in Iraq is almost a mirror image to the situation that was present in Vietnam only a few decades before and yet we have not learned from our mistakes.  Unlike during World War Two when we were actually fighting an opponant, the wars in both Vietnam and Iraq are being fought against ideas.

and I could not agree with her more! I still do not understand why the president has not taken the time to learn from his mistakes. I mean think about it. Thousands of soldiers died in the war in Vietnam. And now, the war in Iraq is dragging on longer than any of us are comfortable with. The war in vietnam lasted for almost a decade, a decade longer than it should have lasted. If the Government and the United States doesn’t do soemthing about this current situation in Iraq soon, we could end up with a momentous amount of casualties and horrible consequences.

Ronald Reagan is called by some people, the greatest president of our time, so naturally our current president, George W. Bush would stive to be as good a president as Reagan was. This is why there are striking similarities between the policies of the two republican presidents. During reagan’s president he supported “trickle-down economics” dubbed by most people now as “reaganomics” where he would give income tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the nation, hoping that the extra money that they had would then cause them to invest in other things such as factories and manufacturing, giving the lowerclasses more job opertunities and other chances to earn money.

Both administrations seem to favor the wealthier classes. In fact, they don’t seem like they do, these administrations DO support the wealthier classes, making the wealth gap grow bigger and bigger each day. According to the Boston Globe:

About 1.7 million more people fell below the poverty line last year, bringing the total number of poor in the country to 34.6 million. The poverty rate edged higher than 12 percent for the first time in five years, rising to 12.1 percent from 11.7 percent. It was the first time in a decade that the number of poor people has increased for two straight years. More broadly, median household income dropped 1.1 percent between 2001 and 2002, to $42,409.

That is crazy! I thought that the whole point of trickledown economics was to benefit all of the classes, but obviously it is not working if 1.7 million people have just fallen below the poverty line!

Another similarity between the two administrations, is thier policies on defense. Both Reagan and Bush are very supportive of the war effort, and offering funding to help the armed forces. Bush is spending so much on the war in Iraq that it is almost impossible to immagine!

Since he is following in Reagan’s footsteps, Bush thinks that the economy has become much better as a direct effect of his tax cuts, but as a result of the tax cuts and the big government spending on the war money is being drained from the federal budget, therefore less revenue is coming in making teriffic deficits. The deficit has skyrocketed during the Bush administration, therefore making the economy worse on the grand scale. One example is that the housing market is slowing, which effects other things. Just yesterday I heard something on the radio that really intrigued me. Fed Ex expects great revenue losses due to this decline in the housing market, because less people will be shipping things to their new houses. It is amazing to think that all of these effects upon the economy are effected by George Bush’s tax cut program, which he infact modeled after Reagan’s economic policy.

Using Reagan’s policies as a model, Bush has added on to them. A modern example of this is Bush’s policy on the Inheritance Tax, which he is trying very hard to phase out. Some people call this tax, the “death tax” because they are forced to pay taxes on the ususally enormous sums of money that they inherit.  I can understand why Bush would think that people should not have to pay taxes for the money that they inherit, but I mean come on, again he is helping the wealthies classes in the United States, and leaving the other classes behind in their wake. Think about this for a second. Who ususally inherits money? THE WEALTHY CLASS! Many, not all, but much of the wealthy classes come from “old money” or money that is inherited from their ancestors. Now, I am not saying that Bush’s reasoning is wrong. But he should really stop for a second and think about what his new policies could mean. Becasue if he really wants to follow in the footsteps of his economic idol, reagan, the wealth gap should get ready to be rocked and rattled, and stretched beyond belief.

Recently, as I am sure you have seen in the news, the Baker Report has been released. The Baker Report is a comprehensive report that predicts what could happen in Iraq if we let the situation get worse, and then it proceeds to offer suggestions as to how we could ameliorate the situation that we have on our hands.  For the most part, the Iraq Study Group which consists of Sandra Day O’Connor, Lawrence Eagleberger, Edwin Meese III, Alan K. Simpson, Vernon Jordan Jr., Leon E. Panetta, William J. Jerry, and Charles S. Robb, talked about calling for new and improved diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the middle east in general, and also finding a way that will allow the United States to gradually pull all troops out of Iraq.

This report was especially interesting to me because not only does it deal with the situation in Iraq, but it also sheds some light on the Israeli and Palestinian conflict going on in Israel right now, which directly effects the situation in Iraq. According to the New York Times, in a summary of the Baker Report,

The United States cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict and regional instability. There must be a renewed and sustained commitment by the United States to a comprehensive Arab Israeli peace on all fronts

I agree fully with this suggestion. I mean, this conflict has been going on for much longer than the Iraq war, this has lasted for years, even decades. Solving this conflict would be the key to fixing the situation in Iraq because if this conflict could be fixed, perhaps some of the anti-jewish and anti-american feelings that various extreme religious followers have could be wiped away, causing them to turn over a new leaf, making the situation in Iraq much more easy and pleasant to deal with.

Now, there are internal problems to be fixed within Iraq in addition to the problems I talked about above. One problem that the study group touched upon was that in a way we are “babying” the iraquis too much. We should sit back and let them set up their country for themselves. There is no need for us to stay in there, metaphorically holding their hands, while they establish a new government. The Iraquis should take control of themselves and realize that they are their own responsibilities, not ours. If the Iraquis really got involved, created more army batalions, they would have their own protection, and the United States could effectively pull out their troops from the middle east.

The baker report offeres good suggestions for what to do with the situation in iraq, which is obviously not getting any better at this point. George Bush should take some initiative to listen to what the Iraq Study Group has to say within the Baker Report, becuase it could really help improve the situation we have going on right now in Iraq.

There is more to the blog world than just our little secluded learnerblogs bubble, there are millions of people out there logging on to the internet to write their thoughts and feelings about current domestic issues, and current global issues. Here are some sites that I found interesing, they are mainly political and economic blogs.

• That Political Blog
• National Review Online
• Soldier’s Point of View - My personal favorite

Happy Blogging!

You want a domestic issue that will hit home with all American students, let’s talk about the No Child Gets Left Behind act, passed by George W. Bush. This act was passed in order to promote education for every child in the United States and to ensure that everyone is educated, but is it really working? Think about this for a second, have you ever sat down to take a standardized test, like the C.A.P.T. test for example, and wondered to yourself, “why am I taking this? Is this actually helping me achieve anything?” the answer is, no it is not helping you, and you are taking that test becuase No Child Gets Left Behind requires you to.

 This act is absurdly hypocritical in many different ways. For one thing, the act gives monetary support to those schools with students who score highly on those standardized tests. But where does that leave those other schools with students with lower schools? they are left behind in the dust! Why are we wasting our time with this act, which is supposed to be benefitting us, when it is actually harming those students in need of educational and financial aid? Also, No Child Gets Left behind, is taking valuable school time away from teachers and students, because it requires schools to teach seminars to ameliorate standardized test scores. For instance, here at the high school, there are C.A.P.T. seminars offered for students that have failed the C.A.P.T. testing the first time around. These seminars take time away from actual classroom learning time, therefore imposing upon our grades in school.

 People all around the United States do not support this act becuse the way Bush runs it is not efficient

A small but growing number of school systems around the country are beginning to resist the demands of President Bush’s signature education law, saying its efforts to raise student achievement are too costly and too cumbersome.” New York Times, 1/2/04

 If we really want to help our children, the act should be abolished! because right now, it is not helping anyone, it is hurting our children.