Tag: bush administration

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Education Globalization Reading

Latest read: Where Men Win Glory – The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

I have a cousin on his third tour of Afghanistan and an old friend from school serving in Iraq’s Green Zone.  This book is an honest look at a military tragedy and hits home for all who have loved ones serving our country overseas.
Jon Krakauer has written a sobering, powerful book Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. This is about the life of a gifted patriot.  I finished this book on Veterans Day.

Krakauer’s focus is on the friendly fire killing and dishonor by the Cheney Bush Administration and Military towards Pat’s virtue, wife, mother and family.  As Krakauer points out the military conducted SEVEN investigations into his killing.

The opening chapter quickly introduces Tillman’s death then moves to his early childhood and life playing high school football. From there Krakauer traces his steps at Arizona State University where Pat was the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year and and Academic All-American.  He was drafted by the Phoenix Cardinals and turned down a $9 million dollar offer from the St. Louis Rams to stay in Phoenix.

Tillman proved time after time that he was able to overcome challenges placed before him and his measurement was not physical, but rather his heart and soul.  That is how Tillman was raised.  This even fell to brother Kevin Tillman.  Kevin and Pat both left professional sports careers (Kevin was playing pro baseball in the minor leagues) to join the Rangers shortly after the 9/11 attacks.

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Education Globalization Reading

Latest read: The Commission

The Commission: What we didn’t know about 9/11 will get your heart racing, stomach knotted, fists pounding and blood boiling. All in no specific order. You will feel moved-to-action regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum.

Read this book and allow yourself to come back up-to-speed with the events surrounding 9/11. Learn about dirty politics played by the Bush Administration regarding staff appointments to the 9/11 Commission.
The Commission: What we did not know about 9/11Philip Shenon, the New York Times staff writer in Washington DC offers a behind the scenes look at twisted politics and power in Washington DC and NYC. The book’s focus is simple: the Commission formation and events surrounding their investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Remember the Jersey Girls? Or senior Bush Administration officials who actually fought against forming the 9/11 commission?

Throughout the book Shenon documents how Philip Zelikow, appointed 9/11 Commission Executive Director was viewed by the commission staff as a mole for the Bush White House.  Zelikow served President-elect Bush as a member of his transition team prior to being appointed Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission. Soon after the Commission’s report was published Zelikow accepted an offer from Condoleezza Rice to work in the White House.

Remember George Bush initially nominated Henry Kissinger to head the commission? Yet when victims families first met with him (including the Jersey Girls) they learned Kissinger’s personal consulting company had the Bin Ladin family as a client. The families were outrage and Kissinger resigned the following day.

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Education Globalization Reading

Latest read: The Way of the World

Ron Suskind has written a revealing novel about the Bush Administration‘s attitude towards terrorism and American politics in The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism.  Suskind won the Pulitzer for A Hope in the Unseen and sets a pretty level playing field for the Bush Administration’s War on Terrorism revealing new insight to the strategy used by Bush/Cheney to “secure” war against Iraq.
The Way of the WorldSuskind brings many issues of concern to the forefront regarding the Bush Administration’s actions in taking the country to war.  I believe Suskind has clearly documented actions by Cheney as lessons learned from Nixon’s Watergate.  Cheney served Nixon as White House Staff Assistant in 1971 and Deputy Assistant to the President from 1974–1975.

During Watergate Nixon’s inner circle kept the President “in the know” but as Vice President Cheney has acted to deliberately keep W. Bush out of the loop for political and potentially legal reasons.  Suskind details the odd relationship developed by Bush in order to protect himself.

The 2% rule.
What does a sitting President do with a 2% approval rating with African American voters in a post-Katrina America?  With midterm elections on the horizon Bush simply extended (a bit early) the voting rights act.  That was the most strategic advice the GOP could offer?  Did they want to hit….say 4%?  This proves to be an excellent example of the political extremism underway in the Bush White House to show how the story and plans for war would be developed to further a political agenda.

Knifing the baby
Immediately following 9/11 Bush became accustomed to getting his political way with America, the mainstream media and government. History has shown this leads Presidents down dark paths.  When British intelligence (MI5 & MI6) notified the US that a plan was underway by Al Qaeda to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic Bush asked British PM Tony Blair to give up the terrorists to American authorities.  Blair refused saying British Intelligence had 2,000 operatives working this case for over a year.  They were eavesdropping on their ring of terrorists and looked to grab higher players within 30 days.

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Education Globalization Reading

Latest read: The Assault on Reason

Must admit the timing at first seemed strange. I was reading Al Gore’s book The Assault on Reason when Michael Jackson died. Gore has written a book about what has gone wrong in our country. Yet I was able to watch it simply unfold right in front of me. The non-stop media coverage of Jackson’s death will not be forgotten.
Ultimately Gore’s book addresses the change in American values and repeated failures of the Bush Administration yet outlines an opportunity for our country to correct the ship.  The impact of the environment to no surprise is also a strong part of his book.  Gore sets the “mood” right from page one – where he addresses loss of conversation regarding our government’s role to launch the war in Iraq:

Not long before our nation launched the invasion of Iraq, our longest-serving senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor and said: “This Chamber is, for the most part, silent – ominously, dreadfully silent.  There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war.  There is nothing.  We stand passively mute in the United States Senate.

Gore is right on the mark when he wrote “Why do reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?”  In some ways this book is a case study in the loss of reason, the foundation of our political democracy.  He has modeled this from Thomas Paine‘s The Age of Reason written in 1793. Ultimately Gore wants to bring back core values of our democracy to our fellow countrymen.

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