Jim Klobuchar was a columnist with the MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE for 30 years and today writes periodically for the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR. He is the author of 20 books, the latest being "Sixty Minutes with God," and "The Miracles of Barefoot Capitalism," which he co-authored with his wife, Susan Wilkes. He also operates an adventure travel club, Jim Klobuchar's Adventures.
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April 27, 2005
Jim Klobuchar returns to an arena that will be familiar to his readers when he was a columnist for the MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE. You’ll find here a periodic mix of commentary, vignettes from daily life, some personal reflections and a fair amount of banter and haggling, appearing irregularly. It might season the day.
Connecting Dots:
Who Are The Victims,
Who Sacrifices, Who Profits?
On the trunk door of the car in front of me was a familiar summons to all trailing traffic, printed on a yellow ribbon:
“Support our Troops.”
Yes, I thought. That is an excellent idea. It’s a pity that the government in power in Washington, which propelled the troops into Iraq, doesn’t fully subscribe to it.
When are American people, both those who don’t trust or believe the Bush government and those who do, going to start connecting the dots?
“Connecting dots” has become a handy exercise energetically pursued by intelligence wonks in this country. It means something was or is inevitable given the surrounding facts, so obvious that--in the language of the Li’L Abner character of years ago--“any fool could plainly see.”
The news in the last few days gives us a fresh indictment of the sloppy management and lethal delay in the distribution of armor that is supposed to provide maximum protection for American service men and women on occupation duty.
It is now two years into the hostilities. Within a few months the conventional war had re-defined itself into sporadic attacks by insurgents, terrorists and miscellaneous guerrillas. These have been directed for nearly two years against American forces, the new Iraqi police, non-belligerents sympathetic to American aims and to the beginnings of a new Iraqi army and government.
In that time the number of Americans killed or wounded because of inadequate equipment, equipment vulnerable to remote controlled weapons, has continued to climb. The number of wounded is a figure on which the American people essentially have been left in the dark. A lot of that tardy equipment has failed to arrive in time because of pure incompetence and planning arrogance. Some of it evidently didn’t get there because money for new military hardware was being juggled with other priorities, including colossally expensive fighter planes for Buck Rogers wars of the future.
In the meantime the dispatches from Washington spelled out some of those other priorities. They told us of new legislation, some of it clearly understood, some of it largely concealed, to deliver enormous new tax cuts and escape hatches for the investment industry and corporate America. To these beneficiaries you can add Americans so rich they will be able to pass on their billions to their heirs untouched. This is a gift which, if carried out in perpetuity, is so horrendous it would create an uncrowned and expanding royalty in America.
Those are the dots.
They can be connected.
There wasn’t the time, foresight or money available to save hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American service men and women from death or wounds that will forever change the lives of many of them.
The parents of those who are gone tell us they appreciate the honors that have come to their sons and daughters.
They would appreciate more profoundly having them back, or back healthy enough to live the full lives they deserve.
Americans were told two years ago that the times are terribly perilous, and will demand sacrifices from all. In the face of that kind of language, it was not hard to nod and tell ourselves, “that is the American way.”
Who is making the sacrifices today? And for whom?
Some of the sacrifices are being made by people serving two and three times in Iraq because the Army isn’t big enough. It isn’t big enough because the planners decided to make a lightning war that would shock all potential adversaries into immediate submission. It would not require massive rescaling of armor. In addition to this, there were wars of the future to pay for, more stunning hardware to produce.
Some of the sacrifices are being made by millions of people in the lower middle class and those on the verge or below the poverty line, whose share of the tax burden is disproportionately expanding while a fair share of the tax burden is brazenly lifted from richest among us. They are also being made by children, mostly the poor ones, who have less education than they need to face the future.
No appreciable sacrifices are being made, nor asked, of those profiting from the tax scams and bureaucratic secrecy that now passes for democratic government in America.
The dots are not all that all that hard to connect. They are more or less in front of our eyes every day.
