Month: March 2017

The death of Martin McGuinness this past week led me to ponder some thoughts about Ireland that I’ve had over the years.

McGuinness led a truly transformative life when it came to bringing peace to Northern Ireland.

A native of Derry (what the British call Londonderry) and a year younger than I, he became the Deputy Commander of the Provisional Irish Republican Army at the age of 21.

Unlike many IRA “Provos” he did not hide behind a mask when it came to stating the IRA’s positions during press conferences.

McGuinness would follow a path in the “troubles” that many Irish leaders, like Michael Collins, had trod before him.

He would enter into secret talks with the British, along with other IRA leaders and when the talks broke down, he would become a fugitive and guerrilla leader again. He planned and led some of the IRA’s most devastating operations and was responsible for many lives being lost.

To understand McGuinness’s life requires an understanding of Ireland and Northern Ireland’s history.

From the late eighteenth century forward, Ireland had a “Rising” about every fifty years.

They occurred both before and after the “potato famine” which the leaders and writers both then and now recognize as “ethnic cleansing” a form of genocide.

I learned much about this history while writing the biography of my great-uncle, James K. McGuire and came to appreciate the role that Americans like him and others played in bringing about the historical war for independence that the IRA and its forerunner the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) waged against the British into the early twentieth century.

Throughout those years, Irish rebels and the Irish people were subjected to every oppression and indignity that the British Empire could inflict upon them and the other colonies that they held.

It was once said that “the sun doesn’t set upon the British Empire” and it wasn’t a friendly, welcoming or warm sun.

While Ireland went from being a “Free State” and a dominion of Britain to becoming a Republic, Northern Ireland remained a part of the British Empire after Britain, again, withdrew from the commitments it had made during the end of its war with the Irish Provisional Government in 1919.

For the Catholics in Northern Ireland, discrimination was a way of life.

The Protestant dominated government created a virtual caste system in which Catholics existed one rung above slaves.

Protestants controlled all levels of government and agencies. They gave preference to Protestant citizens in all services involving housing, employment and other government functions.

When the “troubles” exploded following the massacre of Catholic protesters on what became known as “Bloody Sunday,” McGuinness was in the leadership of the Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army that became known as the “Provos.”

The “troubles” became a war between the IRA and British troops and the paramilitaries supporting each side.

For almost two decades, all sides inflicted terrible damage on each other and the people of Northern Ireland.

3,700 lives were lost and the world watched, in horror, as young men in British prisons starved themselves to death rather than submit to being treated as common criminals.

In 1998, former Senator George Mitchell, President Clinton’s envoy to Northern Ireland, managed to conclude the Good Friday Agreement bringing an end to the “troubles.”

Martin McGuinness was the chief negotiator for Sinn Fein the political party that represented the Irish Republican Army. He and Gerry Adams succeeded in persuading the IRA to decommission and dispose of its weapons.

McGuinness went on to serve in the home rule government that grew out of the Good Friday Agreement.

He served as deputy leader of Northern Ireland’s power sharing home rule government in which the Reverend Ian Paisley served as First Minister.

McGuinness’s willingness to work with Paisley was no small sacrifice, since for decades Paisley had led the Protestant Democratic Unionist Party that had been the chief oppressor of the Catholics in Northern Ireland. Together, they kept Northern Ireland from sliding back into sectarian violence and the country remains at peace today.

As someone who has followed the events in Northern Ireland closely since the start of the “troubles,” I can say candidly that I never thought I’d see the day that peace would come.

Ireland and Northern Ireland’s Catholics had been in conflict with Britain and its colonial government of Ulstermen for centuries.

I genuinely believed that peace would come to the Mid-East, a far shorter conflict, before it would come to Northern Ireland.

McGuinness’s life demonstrates that men of good will can make a positive contribution no matter what their history is.

If it could happen in Northern Ireland, it can happen in the Mid-East.

Anything is possible.

During the past decade I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think our government takes its men and women in uniform for granted.

I’ve written and published some articles about how deeply I feel about the loss of my best friend, Larry Hackett, who served honorably in the Vietnam War only to die from exposure to Agent Orange which was used by our government without any forewarning to our troops.

I’ve outlined the use of this chemical in previous posts and published articles and have made it clear that I view it as murder.

What I also found to be extremely galling was the government’s unwillingness to allow it to be held accountable in a court of law because it refused to allow itself to be sued.

It adhered to this position while courts dismissed class action claims brought by soldiers and their survivors against the chemical companies that manufactured this poison because they asserted the “government contractor” defense.

That means they only did what the government directed them to do.

I don’t recount this because I want to, but only to give this post some historical context.

In the aftermath of the Vietnam War we have been embroiled in two wars that have continued in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade and a half.

In the earliest days in those wars, troops complained that they did not have the protection they needed from road side bombs and other attacks.

They were forced to scavenge to try and outfit their Humvees with armored plating to protect those inside.

Some troops actually had to resort to writing their family members and have them send them personal protection in the form of Kevlar to wear.

When they complained about this lack of support and supply, they were told, callously, by Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld that “You go to war with the army you have not with the one that you want.”

In order to avoid the renewal of a war time draft, which existed during the Vietnam War, both regular troops and state National Guard units were deployed and redeployed numerous times.

The successive redeployments caused the incidence of Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) cases to skyrocket and the suicide rate among those who survived skyrocketed too.

Reports of inadequate health care, excessive wait times for appointments and a lack of counseling services for the mentally ill didn’t improve the situation.

All of this led me to a grim and depressing conclusion.

The United States Government has one interest only.

That is getting all that it can out of its combat troops and when that is done, they are expendable.

Over the course of the last presidential campaign, we heard a lot from Trump about the shameful treatment veterans were receiving and all of the promises he made to change that.

To date, we have heard nothing more from him on that subject.

His decision to increase the Pentagon budget by fifty-eight billion dollars does not address the Veterans Affairs and is being balanced on the backs of the poor who are being helped by programs earmarked to disappear.

This past week, Trump issued his second travel ban.

Fortunately, three Federal courts rose to the occasion and enjoined its enforcement, like the first one, until the First Amendment issues can be more fully litigated.

I am very proud of the fact that the City of Syracuse has joined with the plaintiffs in challenging these two bans.

Even more disquieting is the effect his travel bans have had on those who risked their lives to aid us in the wars in these two countries.

The plaintiff in the first lawsuit involving the first travel ban is an Iraqi citizen named Hameed Khalid Darweesh, who worked as a translator for the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul and Bagdad.

He was targeted twice by terrorists for this service.

Upon his arrival at Kennedy Airport he was detained for almost a day and was nearly returned to Iraq until legal assistance was provided.

Last week, Trump’s State Department announced it would soon run out of Special Immigrant Visas for interpreters and others who assisted our troops in Afghanistan. The American embassy in Kabul has stopped interviewing applicants leaving them at the mercy of the Taliban and the other terrorist groups that they have assisted our troops in battle.

At the end of the Vietnam War, this country admitted over 800,000 Vietnamese refugees.

Many of them, like the current refugees, aided us in the fight against the enemy our troops faced in combat.

They started businesses, formed communities and enclaves, and contributed to the economy and the evolving culture of our country.

We didn’t suffer any terrorist attacks.

These bans do not represent the best that is in us.

It leads on to wonder, if another attack on America, like the one that occurred on 9/11 happened, would anyone come to our aid?

Oscar Wilde once said that “there are two great tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want, the other is getting it.”

From 2012, after the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, Congress voted to repeal it over sixty times. It engages in this repeated fool’s errand, knowing that it lacked the votes to override President Obama’s veto.

Now, the Republican Party is in control of both houses of Congress and the White House.

As we used to say, when I was younger, it’s time to put up or shut up.

This past week, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, rolled out the Republican replacement for what they have commonly referred to as “Obamacare.”

It’s called the American Health Care Act and it provides anything but adequate health care.

While the proposal retains some of the more popular features of Obamacare, such as the continuation of coverage for children until they reach the age of 26 and the prohibition against denying coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, overall it will make health insurance more costly and less available for those who most need it and can least afford it.

“Ryancare” or “Trumpcare” as this dubious piece of legislation might come to be known guts two of the most important mechanisms that were used to implement Obamacare.

Under Obamacare the neediest individuals and families were provided subsidies to buy insurance. These subsidies are eliminated under the current proposal and what will replace them is still in dispute.

Ryan would like to replace them with “refundable tax credits” but the Tea Party members of his caucus object to them as constituting another entitlement program.

The other and more crippling change is the end of the expansion of Medicaid.

Thirty-one states took advantage of the expansion of Medicaid to make health care available to their residents. Some, like Ohio were led by Republican Governors, who’s Governor, John Kasich opposed the Affordable Care Act but believed that affording his residents health care trumped his philosophical opposition the Obamacare.

This expansion would end in 2020 when Medicaid would be converted to more limited block grants.

Under the Affordable Care Act insurers were allowed to charge senior citizens no more than three times the premium cost being offered to younger insureds.

The law would allow insurers to charge seniors five times more for premiums than younger members of the plan, drawing opposition from the AARP.

Does anyone think that it is purely coincidental that the maximum pain that will be inflicted on those who will lose coverage is being deferred until after the 2018 mid-term congressional election?

The present legislative schedule calls for a vote on the legislation almost immediately.

As a result of this timetable, the legislation will not be scored by the Congressional Budget Office. That means that members of Congress will be voting on the legislation without having any clue to how many people will lose coverage or how much it will cost taxpayers in the future.

Presently, almost twenty million people have coverage under Obamacare. Some Wall Street analysts estimate that at least ten million will lose coverage under the current proposal.

The proposal is also opposed by the American Medical Association, American Hospital Association and the insurance industry trade association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, but what would they know about providing health care?

There are two other features of the legislation that are worth mentioning.

Insurance companies will now be able to deduct the cost of their executives’ salaries without the $ 500,000-cap that existed under Obamacare.

We wouldn’t, after all, want to inflict pain on these neediest of individuals subject to the new law.

The legislation also includes a provision defunding Planned Parenthood. So, in addition to making coverage less attainable for the poor, the law will also eliminate all health care services that have been available to women before Obamacare even existed.

Another separate proposal being considered by the House Republicans is one which would allow employers to impose a thirty percent penalty on the cost of insurance premiums on those employees that refuse to participate in genetic testing as part of a “voluntary” workplace wellness program.

These are the people that thought Obamacare was a governmental “overreach.”

Paul Ryan celebrates these reductions and changes in health care as providing “Freedom.”

During the 2009 debate on Obamacare, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck all falsely claimed that the Affordable Health Care Act would spawn the existence of “death panels” that would decide who would live and who would die.

Well, this time there is a real death panel in existence.

It’s called Congress.

There is little doubt that Donald Trump and those serving in his administration are at war with the press.

Trump has said that the press is “the enemy of the people.”

Is it coincidence that he uses a characterization favored by both Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin ?

If there is one thing we know, it is that Trump has deep admiration for dictators and thugs.

Think, Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, has declared the press to be the “party of the Opposition.”

Bannon, is the former chief of Breitbart News, which he admits is a platform for the “at-right.”

This collection of neo-Nazi’s, Ku Klux Klanners and other haters, celebrated the Trump inauguration in a Washington, D.C. convention where they were led by Richard Spencer in chants of “Heil Trump’ with the right arm extended Nazi salute.

In Bannon, Trump has his own Joseph Goebbels.

Trump’s war on the press has manifested itself in various ways.

His press secretary, Sean Spicer, recently barred reporters from CNN, the New York Times and other media outlets it views as critics from a White House news conference.

Trump repeatedly accuses a wide variety of news outlets of peddling “fake news” when they report facts that are critical of him or about his campaign.

Nothing seems to set him off more than the reports of the campaigns increasingly apparent involvement with the Russian Government at the height of its hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton Campaign this past year.

In the wake of President Obama’s imposition of sanctions on the Russian Government for the hacking, Trump’s National Security Adviser designee, Michael Flynn, discussed the sanctions with a Russian official and then lied about it, apparently to the FBI and Vice-President Pence.

When Flynn was fired, it was not because he discussed the sanctions at a time when he was not allowed to, but because he lied about it to Pence and embarrassed the Vice-President.

Most recently, Trump’s Attorney General has been accused of being untruthful during his confirmation hearing, when he told Senator Al Franken that he had not had any contact with any Russian officials.

It turns out that Sessions met with the Russian Ambassador to the United States twice during the 2016 presidential campaign and one of the occasions was during the period that Russia was hacking the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

Sessions, who has finally and correctly recused himself from conducting any investigations into the issues surrounding the campaign, has decided to “clarify” his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in a written statement.

When it comes to lying to Congress, this isn’t Sessions first controversy.

In 1986 his nomination for a Federal Judgeship was rejected when it was disclosed that he had made racist comments while serving as the United States Attorney in Alabama. Sessions denied making the comments but his nomination was withdrawn after Alabama’s Senior Senator, Howell Heflin declared that there were “reasonable doubts” about whether Sessions could be “fair and impartial.”

Trump continues to have confidence in Sessions and sees no reason for Sessions to recuse himself in conducting the investigation into the Russian hacking.

It isn’t a surprise that Trump would want his hand-picked Attorney-general to conduct the investigation.

Trump denies that anyone in his campaign had anything to do with the hacking, even as the evidence mounts that his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, had numerous contacts with Russian officials throughout the campaign.

Indeed, Trump blasts the disclosures about evidence of the hacking as “fake news” while he claims to have won the popular vote only to have been cheated out of the victory because “millions” voted fraudulently for his opponent.

Trump now maintains that President Obama is behind the thousands of demonstrators who turn out to protest his policies without a shred of evidence.

Even more recently, he accused the former president of wiretapping his campaign at Trump Tower.

There are no boundaries for his madness.

Like most Trump claims, he offers no evidence to support them.

Trump continues to claim that climate change is a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese government.

He claims he inherited an economic mess despite the fact that unemployment dropped from 7.8% to 4.8% during the Obama Administration and the stock market recovered to levels greater than existed when Obama took office.

He claims that millions of people lost health coverage under the Affordable Care Act when, in fact, 20 million gained coverage and the uninsured rate has dropped to 10.9 %.

He claims that his deportation policy is directed at criminals and “bad hombres” when, in fact, thousands of undocumented immigrants with no criminal record and their children who entered the country with them, are being swept up, detained and deported.

Trump held up Sweden as an example of a terrorism target due to unrestricted immigration.

The only problem with that claim is that there have been no terrorist attacks in Sweden.

This past week, I happened to strike up a conversation with an engineer from Sweden who was working in this country. I asked him if he knew what Trump was talking about in Sweden.

He told me that he had no idea and neither did anyone that he spoke to in Sweden.

The ancient Greek dramatist, Aeschylus, declared “In war, truth is the first casualty.”

We’re six weeks into the Trump Administration and he and his appointees have massacred the truth.

It’s a shame that it’s not a war crime for which they could be held accountable.