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Walter C Uhler » Archive

Screwing Philadelphia’s Poor While Stroking Wall Street’s Elite

Below is an email I sent today to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dear Mr. Schafer: Today’s Philadelphia Inquirer contains a news article [see link below] alleging that U.S. Department of Agriculture intends to kill Philadelphia’s “Universal Feeding Program,” which provides some 121,000 students with free or reduced-priced school meals. According to the Inquirer, “the participation rate in the Philadelphia Universal Feeding sites has been nearly twice the rate as in non-Universal sites — 80 percent vs. 45 percent.” Perhaps, that explains why U.S. Senator Tom Harkin –Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry — recommended that Philadelphia’s program serve as the model for other school districts throughout the country. Instead, USDA sent a letter … Read entire article »

Filed under: Current Events

By Playing its Iraq Card, Russia Exposes McCain’s Poor National Security Judgment

John McCain is a blowhard and a fraud. Behind his strained, twinkling-eyed smile is a man set to explode, especially whenever anyone threatens to expose him. As former CIA counterterrorism expert, Michael Scheuer, put it: McCain’s “a little man with mediocre intelligence, a taste for bullying, and an appalling temper who thinks the presidency is his birthright.” At his blowhard worst, Senator McCain will tell you, as he did in June 2008, “Look, I know the area. I’ve been there. I know wars. I know how to win wars, and I know how to improve our capabilities so that we will capture Osama Bin Laden – or put it this way, bring him to justice. We will do … Read entire article »

Filed under: Bush Administration, Iraq War, Politics

Barack in Iraq

More than five years after the Bush administration’s March 2003 illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq, many of the Americans who initially were duped into supporting this worst of U. S. foreign policy blunders are finally beginning to recognize the wisdom of the cliché, “It’s always easier to start a war than end it.” That cliché has proven to be especially applicable to the current Bush administration, because it launched a war of choice without formulating a plan (called Phase IV in military parlance) about what to do after Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled. According to Army historian, Maj. Isaiah Wilson, even as late as 1 May 2004 (more than a year into the occupation) there was “no single … Read entire article »

Filed under: Bush Administration, Iraq War, Politics

Barack Obama: Don’t go “Wobbly” on Iraq!

Do you remember the assault against NAFTA leveled by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as they campaigned for votes in Ohio? Remember how one tried to outdo the other with promises to Ohio’s blue collar workers to revisit, perhaps reopen, that trade agreement, in order to make changes that would level the playing field for American workers and farmers? Well, Hillary’s rhetoric helped her to win the Buckeye State, although it rang opportunistic to many who remembered her support for NAFTA during her husband’s presidency. But, now – after defeating Hillary and after becoming the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for President – we’ve learned that Senator Obama’s rhetoric on NAFTA was just as insincere as Hillary’s. In his recent interview with … Read entire article »

Filed under: Bush Administration, Iraq War, Politics

Addressing America’s “Deeper Malignancies”

If you want to know what’s wrong with the foreign policy establishment in the United States, look no further than Condoleezza Rice’s article, “The New American Realism,” published in the July/August 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs.” Not only has the Council on Foreign Relations spread its pages wide open for an infamous interventionist — a lying and deceitful enabler of the Bush administration’s illegal, immoral unprovoked invasion of Iraq – it also readmitted Ms. Rice without requiring anything resembling a mea culpa for the crimes against humanity that have lowered her, the Bush administration and the United States to the depths of moral disrepute around the world. Why publish the words of a liar and alleged war criminal? Who takes her … Read entire article »

Filed under: Bush Administration, Foreign Policy, Iraq War

Scott McClellan’s Residual Affection for Bush (the Psychopath?)

After two weeks of great cuisine and culture in Positano and Rome, I returned to the U.S. only to learn that it’s still news in my country – the United States of Amnesia — when another insider from the Bush administration admits that President Bush eagerly sought war with Iraq. Indeed, the media are falling over themselves in order to cycle, recycle and spin Scott McClellan’s less than startling revelations about warmonger Bush (for whom McClellan retains residual affection). Nevertheless, McClellan deserves credit for his focus on the terrible downside of the “permanent campaign” mentality that afflicts politics in Washington. It goes far to explain why the Bush administration could win elections, but govern so disastrously. However, McClellan’s most banal … Read entire article »

Filed under: Bush Administration, Foreign Policy, Iraq War, Politics

Is the United States of America Addicted to War?

Mikhail Gorbachev is not a frivolous man. He was the Soviet leader who introduced the conceptual breakthrough of “mutual security” to Soviet-American relations, as well as the man who did more than any other individual to bring the Cold War to a peaceful conclusion. (See http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011231/uhler/single) In my opinion, he ranks as the greatest statesman of the twentieth century (something I was able to tell him personally, when we talked in St. Petersburg, Russia in May 2006). So, when Mr. Gorbachev says, “Every US president has to have a war,” and “I sometimes have the feeling that the United States is going to wage war against the entire world,” – as was reported by the Telegraph.co.uk on May … Read entire article »

Filed under: American History, Bush Administration, Foreign Policy, Politics