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Iraq, the 74th Legislature & the Sheriff

by Ken Mahal, A.I.A., NSC President
Originally published on  February 8, 2007 - reprinted with permission

LET’S NOT HAVE ANOTHER VIETNAM. WE MUST WIN IN IRAQ
   I’m sure this is not the greatest thing to write about but one thing I am sure of we must not have another Vietnam around our neck for the next forty years. Every time I think of that war I think of our GI’s who came home, how they were thought of, how they were treated and how thousands of them fought that war the rest of their lives with mental illness and shame as though they were to blame for us losing it. Remember, the thinking after that war was we were wining it but there was such an uproar and things were so politicized there was no heart left to win it. We lost over 50,000 in Vietnam compared to some 3,000 so far. I know we fear that Iraq is heading in the same direction and we don’t want that to happen and it shouldn’t happen. At this point in time there is nothing we can do to take back this war. Consider the alternative of the President to add another 20,000 plus GI’s to stabilize the troubled areas in Iraq. We can pack our bags and head for home but I fear the consequences for leaving will be far worse than putting the extra boots in there to see if we secure it long enough for the Iraqis to take control so that we can leave as winners of a sort. Think of it, how would we feel if we were in the Iraqis place? Remember how some 70% of those people voted to have a government of their own and to run the country as free people. They formed their government and surely will loose all of that if we do not stick with them until they can control events for them-selves. We and they should not want a bunch of religious zealots taking over their country after the suffering they and we have gone thru. Sure there is a lot of blame to put on the President, his advisers both civilian and military and I agree with that. Many say let’s cut and run but that is not how this country got where it is. We did it the hard way by working and pulling together with all our effort into whatever it takes to win. While we have so much military strength on the ground now shouldn’t we at least give the Iraqis 18 months for one last go at it showing our trust in them taking over while we accelerate their preparedness in order to do so? Then we should leave with only a skeleton security force there in case they need a helping hand for another year or so. Maybe we need the Sea Bees of WWII to show the Iraqis how to rebuild their infrastructure. We need to come out of this a winner for both the Iraqis and ourselves and a God Bless America for doing our best in freeing another nation to govern itself as free people. We should realize by now we are fighting a new kind of war that could be the way future major wars will go. Every so often there are major shifts in world thinking on how people kill each other in world confrontations. In fact haven’t we been seeing it happen on a small scale for some 20 years without anyone doing much about it? Isn’t it likely from what we see that radical Muslims religious leaders can stir up millions around the world who seem to have nothing better to do with their lives than to be a part of the confrontations that can lead us to major wars? The Mid-easterners cannot be accused of being stupid but for some reason they seem to be easily swayed in their religious teaching by their radical religious leaders that it is an honorable thing to teach their youngest of children that it is a worthy cause to die as a martyr when killing Jews and Christians. Is this because there is a segment of these religious radicals who are hypnotists or are their countries in such dire circumstance that like Germany under Hitler these people are grasping at any straw hoping this will be a better way of life for all of them, parents and children alike? In fact while writing this article there was an hour long special about this very subject on satellite TV’s Fox network. They showed kindergarten aged kids on up being taught that it is a worthy cause to die as a martyr and even interviewed mothers who were happy to see their children being taught this martyrdom thing. This reminds us of how smart our founding fathers were when they wrote the separation of church and state in our constitution. Some of the predominantly Muslim countries are very wealthy to very poor, very religious to moderately religious having a mix of Muslim and Christian so it would be hard to pick a country that might lead to a world war in the sense that we think of that definition. Somehow these radical religious leaders need to be stopped in their tracks before they can build armies of Martyrs strong enough to start a world wide confrontation known as WWIII. We need to wake up nations of the world that the world needs to create more Capitalists nations not nations of Martyrs.

THE 74th SESSION OF THE NEVADA LEGISLATURE IS IN SESSION
   More than once we have said that our legislatures should go to Carson City, spend one day doing the special interests business, celebrate four days and come home, only kidding. At our last reading there are 1098 bill drafts waiting for action. Historically they will pass about 600 laws. Now don’t you wonder why after all these years why we still need that many more new laws? We would sooner have our legislators take time to abolish 600 existing laws that aren’t needed rather than add that many new ones. There has been a lot of talk about kindergarten for all of the kids. Not so fast for my tax dollars I don’t want the schools to spend that much more time and money teaching kids English. Now if as a part of kindergarten the kids come fluent in English I would have no objections. Every time I go into a store I hear nothing but south of the border chit chat between families and their youngsters. To me this is mostly laziness on the part of the parents who know that some day these kids need English so why aren’t they taking on that responsibility themselves? Some would say well the parents need to know English before they can teach it to their children. I say that’s OK by me. I do think the parents should become fluent in English in or-der to help both themselves and their children to assimilate into our economy. Say what you want but the better you know English the better you can understand the great information just on the computer alone and look at all of the wonderful books available in our stores and libraries that these youngsters as well as the parents miss if they do not know English, what a shame.

THE SHERIFF SAYS LET METER MAIDS CHECK THE NEIGHBORHOODS
   At a recent (Citizens’ Police Academy Alumni Association – Ed.) meeting, that our VP attended, there was a discussion about more enforcement in the neighborhoods for abandoned vehicles and the likes on our streets. His (the Sheriffs – Ed.) thinking is that Meter Maids (or Public Response — Ed.) should do that work. Well why the H--- doesn’t he do it. Do something rather than ignore it for months as his office does now. Sheriff that is the only service we might ever get from your office so at least do that much for us. We also pay taxes.

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